‘Violent rampage’: 1 pedestrian killed, several hurt in hit-and-run spree in Florida
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(TAMPA, Fla.) — One pedestrian was killed and several pedestrians and officers were hurt by a driver who allegedly drove into people in multiple intentional hit-and-runs in Tampa, Florida, Sunday night, police said.
“Tonight was a tragic night involving an extremely dangerous suspect” who was fatally shot by police, ending the “violent rampage,” Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw said at a news conference.
The incidents began just before 8:30 p.m. when officers responded to a report of a driver blocking someone’s car at a Dollar General, Bercaw said.
The two drivers argued and eventually the victim left, the chief said. Then, the victim noticed the suspect was following him to his house, and the two drivers threw items at each other, Bercaw said.
The suspect then “reversed out, hitting the victim with the car twice,” the chief said. “While this was happening, a friend of the victim was firing at the suspect in an attempt to stop this violent act.”
That first victim was listed in stable condition, the chief said.
At 8:33 p.m., the suspect drove his white Honda in circles and then struck and killed a man in an apparently intentional act, police said.
The suspect fled and then struck another pedestrian, who survived, police said.
At 8:39 p.m., the suspect was seen driving toward pedestrians on a sidewalk, police said. The driver struck another man who was hospitalized with serious head injuries but is expected to be OK, Bercaw said.
At 10:16 p.m., another call came in reporting that the driver intentionally veered into people, striking another person, Bercaw said.
Police chased the suspect and eventually stopped his car, Bercaw said.
“The suspect was getting out of the car, reaching for what [officers] believed was a weapon, and then shots were fired,” Bercaw said. “The suspect did not survive.”
Three officers were injured in that incident; none of their injuries are life-threatening, Bercaw said.
The 47-year-old suspect, whose name was not released, had an “extensive violent criminal history” and was released from prison about two years ago, the chief said.
“This was a violent night,” the chief said.
“Our thoughts are with the family of the man who was killed,” he added.
Katherine Faulders, Aaron Katersky and Peter Charalambous, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Donald Trump’s lawyers are urging the New York judge in his criminal hush money case to throw out his conviction based on unsworn allegations of “grave juror misconduct” that prosecutors have described as vague and “seemingly inaccurate.”
While Trump’s lawyers argued the claims illustrate “the manifest unfairness of these proceedings,” Judge Juan Merchan criticized Trump’s lawyers for making claims consisting “entirely of unsworn allegations” and for opposing a hearing that would allow the allegations to be vetted.
“Allegations of juror misconduct should be thoroughly investigated. However, this Court is prohibited from deciding such claims on the basis of mere hearsay and conjecture,” wrote Merchan, largely rejecting the claims unless Trump’s attorneys provide sworn statements or consent to a hearing on the matter.
Trump’s claims were included in court filings unsealed on Monday, but the specific allegations were redacted.
Defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove — who Trump last month nominated to top positions in the Department of Justice — claimed to have uncovered evidence of juror misconduct that calls into question what they call the “dubious validity of the highly suspect verdicts rendered by the jury.”
Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
Judge Merchan has yet to sentence Trump, who has been seeking to have the case dismissed on the grounds of presidential immunity following his reelection last month.
Trump’s lawyers, citing presidential immunity and other ongoing litigation, told Merchan they oppose a hearing examining their claims of juror misconduct, and instead asked the judge to weigh the claims as he considers Trump’s pending motion to throw out the case.
“This behavior is completely unacceptable, and it demonstrates without question that the verdicts in this case are as unreliable as DA Bragg’s promise to protect Manhattanites from violent crime,” the defense lawyers said, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case.
Prosecutors argued in a filing that the jury misconduct claims are vague and untested, and that Trump’s lawyers declined to include a sworn declaration. They wrote that the alleged source of the claims directly told Trump’s lawyers that their summary of the allegations “contains inaccuracies and does not contain additional information that I never shared,” and that they declined to sign a sworn affidavit.
“Defendant cannot short-circuit this process by insisting that this Court treat his unsworn and seemingly inaccurate allegations of jury misconduct as true,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutors alleged that Trump’s lawyers are avoiding the proper mechanism to evaluate the claims by inserting them into the public domain while “opposing any endeavor to properly evaluate them.”
“Defendant does not want to participate in a hearing designed to evaluate these claims. He wants instead to use these unsworn, untested claims by his attorneys to undermine public confidence in the verdict,” their filing said.
Judge Merchan largely sided with prosecutors, declining to consider the claims unless Trump’s lawyers specifically move to vacate the verdict due to allegations of juror misconduct based on sworn allegations or evaluated through a hearing, which they so far have not done. Merchan still allowed both sides to docket their filings with significant redactions.
“This Court finds that to allow the public filing of the letter without redactions and without the benefit of a hearing, would only serve to undermine the integrity of these proceedings while simultaneously placing the safety of the jurors at grave risk,” Merchan wrote.
The exchange comes as the Merchan, on Monday, rejected Trump’s request to vacate the verdict in the case based on the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision.
Trump had sought to dismiss his criminal indictment and vacate the jury verdict on the grounds that prosecutors, during the trial earlier this year, introduced evidence relating to Trump’s official acts as president that was inadmissible based on the Supreme Court’s subsequent ruling that Trump is entitled to presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken while in office.
Merchan ruled that the evidence in the case related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”
(NEW YORK) — Public health officials are continuing to monitor an outbreak of avian influenza, also known as bird flu, as it spreads across the U.S.
The strain, known as H5N1, sickened several mammals this year before infecting dozens of Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There is no evidence of person-to-person transmission of bird flu, and the risk to the general public is low, the CDC said.
But public health experts have also said it’s important to be alert during the respiratory virus season and to be aware of risks that could come from exposure to infected animals and from drinking raw milk.
Here’s the latest information on the outbreak in the United States:
What is the status of the bird flu outbreak? Avian influenza, or bird flu, is an infectious viral disease that primarily spreads among birds and is caused by infection with Avian Influenza A viruses.
These viruses typically spread among wild aquatic birds but can infect domestic poultry and other bird and animal species, according to the CDC. In the U.S., the virus infected dairy cows.
“What’s made this year’s outbreak interesting is the association with dairy cows, which is not an association that’s been seen before,” Michael Ben-Aderet, an infectious disease physician and associate director of hospital epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told ABC News.
“H5N1 has been known for many, many years. It’s not a new strain of bird flu, but we haven’t seen it cross over into dairy cows and have this association with dairy cows and dairy workers,” he continued.
As of Thursday, 58 human cases have been confirmed in seven states, according to CDC data. California has the highest number of cases with 32.
Almost all confirmed cases have had direct contact with infected cattle or infected livestock.
So far, all bird flu cases in the U.S. have been mild, and patients have all recovered after receiving antiviral medication.
“There has been another strain in Canada that caused really severe disease in a teenager who ended up in critical condition in the hospital,” Dr. Meghan Davis, an associate professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News. “So yes, these [strains] are highly related, but not quite the same.”
What are the risks associated with raw milk? In April reports emerged of bird flu fragments found in samples of pasteurized milk.
However, the fragments are inactive remnants of the virus; they cannot cause infection because the commercial milk supply undergoes pasteurization.
“The good news is that pasteurization inactivates [the virus], and so, when you do that test to look at fragments of the virus, although we find it in milk, the pasteurization process ensures that live virus is not transmitted,” Albert Ko, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, told ABC News.
However, the Food and Drug Administration has previously warned of the possible dangers associated with drinking raw, unpasteurized milk due to elevated risks of foodborne illness.
On Tuesday, all of Raw Farm’s raw whole milk and cream products that were still on store shelves in California were being voluntarily recalled by the company, following multiple detections of bird flu virus in its milk and dairy supply within the past week, according to public health officials.
The CDC said it considers exposure to raw milk without personal protective equipment a “high-risk exposure event.”
“Raw milk consumers need to be aware that even handling the product itself could be a kind of exposure,” Davis said. “So, if you’re pouring it, you spill a little milk, get that on your hands, touch your eyes. You could get the same kind of exposure as someone who works in a dairy farm.”
Are we at risk of a bird flu pandemic? Experts said the U.S. is currently not experiencing a bird flu pandemic, nor is the country presently at risk of a bird flu pandemic.
However, they said with each new human case, it offers a chance for the virus to mutate, theoretically enabling human-to-human transmission to occur at a point in the future.
“I think the warning sign is just, because there’s so much transmission in birds and there’s transmission now in our cattle, particularly we really are concerned about the possibility that there may be a mutation that enables person to person or human-to-human transmission,” Ko said.
Ben-Aderet said there is also concern as the U.S. heads into the winter respiratory virus season that the seasonal flu — which has the ability to exchange parts of its genome with other influenza viruses — could do the same with bird flu.
Health officials are taking proactive measures to prevent such a situation from occurring.
The World Health Organization announced in July that it has launched an initiative to help accelerate the development of a human bird flu vaccine using messenger RNA technology.
In October, federal health officials announced they are providing $72 million to vaccine manufacturers to help ensure available non-mRNA bird flu vaccines are ready-to-use, if needed.
There are currently no recommendations for anyone in the U.S. to be vaccinated against bird flu.
ABC News’ Youri Bendjaoud contributed to this report.
(STARR COUNTY, Texas) — Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham is offering the incoming Trump administration 1,402 acres the state purchased along the Texas-Mexico border to be used in a mass deportation operation.
In a letter to President-elect Donald Trump, Buckingham said she’s offering the land “to be used to construct deportation facilities.”
The Texas General Land Office purchased the plot of land from a farmer in October to facilitate Texas’ efforts to build a wall.
“My office is fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the United States Border Patrol to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history,” Buckingham wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday.
The move shows that despite the Democratic governors of California and Arizona, two other southern border states, pledging not to aid the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans, the incoming administration will have allies in Republican-led states.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs told ABC News Live on Monday that she would not use state police or the National Guard to help with mass deportation.
“We will not be participating in misguided efforts that harm our communities,” she said.
Trump on Monday confirmed he would declare a national emergency to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission, and pledged to get started on the mass deportations as soon as he enters office.
A spokeswoman for the Trump transition team said the president-elect will “marshal every lever of power” to launch his mass deportation plans.
“Local and state officials on the frontlines of the Harris-Biden border invasion have been suffering for four years and are eager for President Trump to return to the Oval Office. On day one, President Trump will marshal every lever of power to secure the border, protect their communities, and launch the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrant criminals in history,” Karoline Leavitt said.
In an interview with Fox News, which first reported the news of the Texas General Land Office’s offer, Buckingham reiterated she is “100% on board” with the incoming administration’s promise to deport criminals.
The plot of land is in Starr County, about 35 miles west of McAllen, Texas.
“Now it’s essentially farmland, so it’s flat, it’s easy to build on. We can very easily put a detention center on there — a holding place as we get these criminals out of our country,” she told Fox News.
