Biden to visit New Orleans, attend prayer service after deadly New Year’s attack
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
(NEW ORLEANS) — President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are scheduled to travel on Monday to New Orleans, where they’ll attend a prayer service for families of victims and impacted community members following the New Year’s Day attack in the city.
The Biden are expected to arrive in New Orleans in the afternoon, touching down a few hours before the prayer service, which is to be hosted by the Archdiocese of New Orleans, according to the White House.
The visit comes days after a suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, an Army veteran and Houston realtor, allegedly drove a rented truck into Bourbon Street in the early hours of New Year’s Day. At least 14 people were killed and dozens were injured in the attack, which occurred over a three-block stretch of of the tourist destination in New Orleans’ bustling French Quarter.
Jabbar, a Texas resident who FBI officials said proclaimed his support for the terror group ISIS in social media posts ahead of the attack, was killed in gunfire exchanged with New Orleans police.
The 14 victims who died included a young mother teaching her son to read, a former college football player “on top of the world” living in New York City and an 18-year-old aspiring nurse.
The prayer service the Bidens are set to attend on Monday is scheduled to begin at about 6 p.m. at the Cathedral-Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France, according to the White House and the Archdiocese.
“Archbishop [Gregory Michael] Aymond continues to offer his prayers and condolences to those affected by this tragedy,” the Archdiocese said in its announcement. “He asks that all join in prayer for our community today and every day as we work to build a culture that respects the life and dignity of all people.”
A new exhibit titled “77 Minutes in Their Shoes” honors the victims of the Robb Elementary shooting. (Sarah Sudhoff)
(UVALDE, TEXAS) — When authorities were trying to identify the victims of the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, many of the children could only be identified by the shoes they were wearing that day.
“How often do you take your child to school and not pay attention to what they’re wearing that day?” Kimberly Rubio, mother of victim Alexandria “Lexi” Rubio, said to ABC News.
A new exhibit titled “77 Minutes in Their Shoes” underscores this question to raise gun violence awareness while honoring the 21 victims of the Uvalde mass shooting on May 24, 2022. The exhibit, which runs Jan. 10 to Jan. 19 at the Canopy Projects Gallery in Austin, is a collaboration between Houston artist Sarah Sudhoff and Lives Robbed, a gun violence prevention non-profit created by families of the children killed in the Uvalde mass shooting.
“I thought, ‘What are children wearing when they’re gunned down in schools? And how do we bring this to the attention of Americans?’ And so that’s kind of how the idea was born,” Rubio, who is also president of Lives Robbed, said.
The “77 Minutes” in the exhibit’s name refers to how long the gunman was in the school before police confronted him and ended the massacre.
Sudhoff, a Cuban American artist whose work often merges themes of motherhood and gender with social issues like gun violence and domestic violence, told ABC News that the exhibit was partly influenced by others showcasing the clothing women wore on the night they were sexually assaulted.
However, in this exhibit, photographs of the shoes and portraits of family members with the shoes will be on display. Thirteen of the 21 families participated in the exhibit and all photographs were shot by Sudhoff.
The photographer said she chose to print the images on sheer fabric hanging from the ceiling so that the public can experience the portraits in a more direct manner.
“These portraits are on fabric, and they are thin and you can see through them and maybe you’ll see somebody else through them,” Sudhoff said.
She added, “I intentionally did not make them rigid, I did not make them hard, I wanted you to see the public through them, I wanted them to move because these families are still evolving, they’re on an endless journey, they’re on this unfortunate, heartbreaking journey, and they’re constantly moving and shifting and morphing.”
Although “77 Minutes in Their Shoes” honors the victims of the mass shooting, Rubio said creating the exhibit still posed moments that were emotionally challenging.
“The hardest part was when we took the photos at Robb Elementary featuring the three moms [Rubio, Veronica Mata, and Gloria Cazares] and our girls’ shoes,” Rubio said. “That was difficult—to be back at Robb, to think about taking them to school that morning and the shoes they were wearing, walking into that school and never walking back out.”
The exhibit’s opening weekend also includes panels tackling topics such as gun violence prevention, legislation, art activism, and grief. Arnulfo “Arnie” Reyes, who taught at Robb Elementary School and was the sole survivor of classroom 111, is speaking on a panel titled “The Classroom After Tragedy” to talk about his former students and his recovery.
“It’s always important for me to be one of the voices that supports this and speaks on behalf of the students that are no longer here … I might have a little bit more of an impact just because I was there,” Reyes said to ABC News.
Reyes said he tries to spread awareness and support the families of the victims every opportunity he gets, and he hopes that by participating in the exhibit, that he can continue to advocate for his students and inspire change.
“I would like for people to come with an open mind to see the shoes, to see this is all they have left,” Reyes said. “Something that I said from the beginning is that I would try to do anything that I can do to not let these babies die in vain, and I hope that people join me in that journey to not let anybody else die in vain and to change things.”
Tourism Emissions Project Team, University of Queensland
(NEW YORK) — The carbon footprint from the travel industry is growing at rates never seen before, according to new research.
An increasing demand for international travel over the past decade has led to higher rates of carbon dioxide emissions every year, according to a paper published in Nature Communications on Tuesday.
Greenhouse gas emissions from international tourism are growing at a rate of 3.5% every year — about twice as fast as the overall economy, Ya-Yen Sun, an associate professor at The University of Queensland in Australia and an author of the study, told ABC News.
In the top 20 countries associated with the highest tourism emissions, tourism may be growing “too fast” — up to 5% every year — which is causing those regions to expend more energy to provide services to more visitors, Sun said.
There are also disparities in per-capita tourism emissions, with the 20 highest-emitting countries — including the United States, China and India — contributing three-quarters of the total carbon footprint, the paper found.
Modes of transportation, including air and ground travel, are particular contributors to emissions given their carbon-intensive nature, according to the paper. Slow gains in the efficiency of technology have also contributed to the rise in emission rates from global tourism, the researchers said.
While travel halted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, tourism came roaring back with a vengeance once the global health threat subsided, which has flooded the travel sector with even more rapid growth, Sun said.
Travel dropped by 60% during the pandemic, but tourism is expected to have fully recovered by the end of 2024, she added.
“We found this is something [that really needs] a lot of attention, because people just enjoy travel,” Sun said.
Carbon dioxide emissions from private planes have increased significantly in recent years, a separate paper published last month in the journal Communications Earth & Environment found.
Annual CO2 emissions from private aviation increased by 46% between 2019 and 2023, according to an analysis of flight tracker data from 18,655,789 private flights flown by 25,993 registered business jet-type private aircraft. Some individuals who regularly use private aviation may produce almost 500 times more CO2 in a year than the average individual, the paper found.
There were significant emissions peaks around certain international events, the study found. COP28 — the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Dubai — was associated with 644 private flights, which produced 4,800 metric tons of carbon dioxide, and the 2022 FIFA World Cup, also hosted in the United Arab Emirates, was associated with 1,846 private flights, producing an estimated 14,700 metric tons of CO2, the study found.
However, private aviation only accounts for about 7.9% of total aviation emissions, the paper found.
A previous study that Sun conducted in 2018 found that tourism contributes to about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That number is likely much higher today, Sun said.
“The sector has not made much progress in terms of decarbonizing itself,” she said.
Sun described the findings of the new paper out Tuesday as “quite problematic” because it showcases that emissions from tourism are growing every year,
The paper highlighted the urgent need for effective policy measures to align the tourism sector with global climate goals, the researchers said.
In order to do this, countries will need to begin to monitor tourism emissions at the national level, something that only New Zealand and Denmark are currently doing, Sun said.
It is especially important considering tourism is one of the biggest economic sectors in the world, as people require transportation, food, accommodation and shopping when they travel, Sun said. The global tourism industry was worth an estimated $10 trillion in 2023, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.
“We found this is something really in need of a lot of attention, because people just enjoy travel,” Sun said.
(LOS ANGELES) — An event celebrating the top restaurants in Los Angeles left at least 80 people sickened with norovirus due to an outbreak linked to raw oysters, LA County’s Department of Public Health confirmed to ABC News.
The outbreak stemmed from an event at the Hollywood Palladium celebrating the Los Angeles Times’ list of the 101 best restaurants on Dec. 3, according to the agency.
Norovirus is a very contagious virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea and is commonly referred to as the “stomach flu” or the “stomach bug,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It is the leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States. Other symptoms may include stomach pain, fever, headache, body aches, or dehydration. Proper handwashing, disinfecting contaminated surfaces, washing laundry in hot water, and staying home when sick are ways to prevent further spread, according to the CDC.
“At this time, over 80 attendees that consumed the oysters have reported illness,” a spokesperson with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a statement.
The oysters that were served and have since been recalled were Fanny Bay Select oysters and Fanny Bay XS oysters from Pacific Northwest Shellfish Co., according to the statement.
The pack date of the oysters was listed as Nov. 25 or later and the date of the recall notice was Dec. 13, the agency added.
Following the recall, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning on Dec. 18 to restaurants, retailers and consumers not to sell or eat the oysters in question due to potential norovirus contamination.
The warning was directed at 15 states across the country from Hawaii, California and Arizona to Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York. The FDA said the outbreak is believed to have originated in British Columbia, Canada.
Santa Monica Seafood, which supplied the oysters for the event, said in a statement to ABC News the company is “aware of the ongoing investigation into the recent food illness outbreak linked to oysters served” and is cooperating with the Public Health Department.
The retailer added that while the investigation is ongoing, “There is no evidence to suggest mishandling at any point in the supply chain, including by Santa Monica Seafood or any of the restaurants participating in the LA Times event.”
Tickets to the Los Angeles Times’ restaurant event associated with the outbreak cost eventgoers anywhere from $264 for general admission to upwards of $600 for VIP.
ABC News has reached out to the L.A. Times for a comment.
