Fears for those with medical needs after Helene as search for missing continues
A cluster of broken pieces of wood from destroyed houses rest along a damaged bridge in Lake Lure, North Carolina, Oct. 2, 2024, after the passage of Hurricane Helene. (Allison Joyce/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — At least 1,000 National Guard troops are heading into the most hard-hit areas in western North Carolina on Thursday in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene as the death toll from the storm approaches 200 with hundreds of people still unaccounted for.
“The nation has your back. We’re not leaving ‘til you’re back on your feet completely,” President Joe Biden said on Wednesday after surveying the mass destruction from the storm in North and South Carolina.
Helene is now the deadliest mainland hurricane to strike the United States since Katrina in 2005 which claimed the lives of nearly 1,400 people.
More than a million people still don’t have power and a nearly completely dark strip marks the path of Helene through the Southeast as the crisis over getting access to drinkable water is growing.
Vice President Kamala Harris met with local authorities and grieving families in Augusta, Georgia, on Wednesday.
“It is particularly devastating in terms of the loss of life that this community has experienced, the loss of normalcy,” Harris said.
Elsewhere, new video captured the moment a landslide hit a house in Newland, North Carolina, as Helene trampled the Southeast.
In Fairview, Connecticut, Philip Morgan showed ABC News the system of ropes he has had to create to rappel the terrain since the bridge to his neighborhood was wiped out.
Morgan’s brother is on a ventilator and in dire need of supplies as Philip Morgan says it is only a matter of time before his brother will need to be moved.
“[My biggest fear is] something happening to him and not being able to get out of here fast enough,” Morgan told ABC News.
Meanwhile, nearby at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, 400 nurses arrived in buses from across the country — even as far as Alaska — all to lend a helping hand in the aftermath of the sheer destruction of the storm.
“They showed up with a smile on their face. Eager to help, eager just to give us a little bit of reprieve,” said Matt Alligood, a resident nurse at Mission Hospital. “So, it’s … it’s been amazing.”
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — Abortions are now legal in North Dakota after the state Supreme Court ruled its near-total abortion ban was unconstitutionally vague.
The ruling came as part of a lawsuit filed by physicians that asked the court to strike down the ban in its entirety. A North Dakota South Central Judicial District Court judge granted that request Thursday.
At least 21 states currently have bans or restrictions in place on abortion care. Of those states, 13 states have ceased nearly all abortion services and four states prohibit abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before most women know they are pregnant.
Abortion is currently illegal in South Dakota.
Plaintiffs argued the ban was unconstitutionally vague and made it impossible to interpret the language surrounding when abortions are allowed under medical exceptions, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit.
Physicians who violate the ban could be found guilty of a class C felony, punishable with up to five years of imprisonment, a $10,000 fine or both.
The court also found pregnant women have a fundamental right to choose an abortion before viability under the state constitution.
“The North Dakota Constitution guarantees each individual, including women, the fundamental right to make medical judgments affecting his or her bodily integrity, health, and autonomy, in consultation with a chosen health care provider free from government interference,” Judge Bruce Romanick wrote in the opinion.
(NEW YORK) — Harvey Weinstein was rushed from Rikers Island, where he is being held, to Bellevue Hospital for emergency heart surgery after experiencing chest pains, his representatives told ABC News.
“Mr. Weinstein was rushed to Bellevue Hospital last night due to several medical conditions,” Weinstein representatives Craig Rothfeld and Juda Engelmayer said in a statement. “We can confirm that Mr. Weinstein had a procedure and surgery on his heart today however cannot comment any further than that.”
They continued, “As we have extensively stated before, Mr. Weinstein suffers a plethora of significant health issues that need ongoing treatment. We are grateful to the executive team at the New York City Department of Correction and Rikers Island for acting swiftly in taking him to Bellevue Hospital.”
The emergency comes as Weinstein, 72, is due in court this week in New York, where prosecutors had been presenting evidence to a grand jury as they work to secure a new indictment against Weinstein on sex crimes charges.
Weinstein has denied any wrongdoing and has said his sexual encounters with women were consensual.
Weinstein has appeared in court recently in a wheelchair and has asked to stay in custody at Rikers, where he has been undergoing medical care.
In a shocking move this April, the New York Court of Appeals, in a scathing 4-3 opinion, overturned Weinstein’s conviction on sex crimes against three women, finding the trial judge “erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes.”
The court said that testimony “served no material non-propensity purpose” and “portrayed defendant in a highly prejudicial light.”
However, the Manhattan district attorney’s office has since presented evidence to a grand jury that could return a new indictment against Weinstein over an alleged sexual assault that occurred sometime in a four-month time period between late 2005 and mid-2006 in a lower Manhattan residential building, according to a transcript of an unannounced court hearing last week.
Prosecutors also indicated during a hearing on Sept. 3 that they were aware of two other potential offenses: a sexual assault in May 2016 in a hotel in Tribeca and a potential sexual assault that occurred at the Tribeca Grand hotel.
This isn’t the first time Weinstein has been rushed to a hospital recently. In July, he was transferred to Bellevue after testing positive for COVID-19 and double pneumonia, according to his Rothfeld.
(NEW YORK) — Schools in the U.S. remain deeply divided along racial, ethnic and economic lines, even as studies show that the K-12 public school population is becoming more diverse.
More than a third of students attend schools where 75% or more of those in attendance are of a single race or ethnicity, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s most recent investigation into K-12 education.
Saba Bireda and Ary Amerikaner co-founded Brown’s Promise, an initiative to combat racial segregation and honor the legacy of nine Arkansas students who suffered because of it.
In 1954, the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision ruled that public school segregation was unconstitutional. Three years later, the NAACP attempted to enroll nine black students at Little Rock Central High School. The ensuing chaos gripped the nation, with the media dubbing the students “Little Rock Nine.”
Then-Gov. Orval Faubus prevented the students from entering the racially segregated school, using his state’s National Guard for help. President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened after weeks of failed attempts to get the students through a full day of classes safely.
Following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, students started getting bused into schools from different neighborhoods to promote integration. However, much of that has stopped in the decades since.
“Unfortunately, we have come away from our commitment to the spirit of Brown,” Bireda said. “Schools have been resegregating rapidly since the 1980s.”
At the start of that decade, expensive busing orders began to expire. With a history of housing discrimination leading many neighborhoods to be segregated by race, for millions of students, attending the public school closest to their home means it wouldn’t be racially diverse.
Despite the billions of dollars invested in desegregating public schools over the past few decades, school segregation has returned to the same level as it was in the 1960s.
New York high school student Ava Pittman begins her daily commute by taking the public bus, just like millions of other students. However, her journey through the city’s Queens borough starts long before first period — shortly after dawn breaks.
Every morning, Pittman makes the 14-mile, hour-and-a-half journey from the Far Rockaway neighborhood to Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School in Elmhurst. She travels that far because she doesn’t think the schools near her are up to par.
“Schools in certain places like Far Rockaway, the resources are minimal,” Pittman said. “It’s just the quality of education. It’s different.”
Pittman’s opportunities are unique to her location, but the commute takes up most of her day. To her, it’s worth it because of everything she gets to do in that school.
“I co-founded an affinity group called BAM, which is ‘Black at Mel’s.’ ” Pittman said. “I’m also part of a group called ‘The Education Student Advisory Council.’ My speech and debate team is the most diverse in our league, [which is] the Brooklyn Queens Forensic League.”
According to data collected by the Department of Education between 2022 and 2023, among 100,000 public schools across the country, about 83% of all Black public school students and 82% of all Latino students attended a majority non-white school. At the same time, 75% of all white public school students were enrolled in a majority-white school.
At a recent conference in Baltimore, Bireda and Amerikaner met with education leaders to discuss solutions.
“We talk a lot about the importance of full integration to the health of our democracy,” Bireda said. “Students who continually are growing up in segregated environments or not interacting with people from different backgrounds.”
Even at a young age, Pittman advocates for diversity and integration in public schools. She is a youth advocacy director at Integrate NYC, a youth-led organization dedicated to created equity in New York City schools.
According to the Civil Rights Project, New York is one of the most diverse states in the nation. Despite this, it is one of the most segregated.
In a lawsuit against the state, Integrate NYC alleges that the city’s sorting and admission process forces students of color into the most overcrowded and under-resourced schools.
“We agree with plaintiffs that achieving those educational goals is made harder by the complex system of biases and inequities deeply rooted in this country’s history, culture, and institutions — a system that we also want to change,” the New York City Department of Education said in a statement sent to ABC News. “But this lawsuit is not the answer. We are prepared to defend against these claims in court.”
Unless something is done to improve school integration, Pittman and thousands of other students across the country will have to keep fighting for their education and the opportunities that come with it.
