Former acting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Richard Besser discusses progress in getting vaccine doses to Americans, and the importance of more global vaccine distribution.
Three police officers have been injured in a possible explosion after being dispatched to a vacant home. The incident happened just after 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 27, when Patrol South officers from the Wichita Police Department in Kansas received a call and were subsequently dispatched to check on a vacant home in the McAdams neighborhood of the city, according to the Wichita Police Department (WPD). Authorities have not yet issued a formal statement on why they were called to the home, who may have made the call or what had been reported to the police but, according to the Wichita Eagle, Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay told local media that the homeowners asked authorities to check the vacant home after they saw the several windows were open leading them to think that somebody could be inside and that officers were given a key to the home so they could access it.
Icy conditions on the Yellowstone River Bridge in Billings, Montana led to a 30 vehicle pile-up that resulted in the closure of I-90 for hours on Saturday as a quick band of snow moved through Billings creating slick conditions. Meanwhile, up to 20 inches of snow fell in parts of Wyoming and Idaho and now as the system moves east, winter weather alerts stretch from Nebraska to Michigan. Flood watches currently cover a large part of the Tennessee and Ohio river valleys from Arkansas to Pennsylvania.
Few shows from the Golden Age of television have lasted as long as "Grey's Anatomy," TV's longest-running primetime medical drama, or arguably, have had as much of a cultural impact as this Shonda Rhimes creation. Seventeen seasons in and the series is still going strong, tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in unique and powerful ways through emotional storytelling and the audience's relationship with the characters. For Black History Month, "Good Morning America" gathered stars Chandra Wilson (Dr. Miranda Bailey) and Kelly McCreary (Dr. Maggie Pierce) as well as Zoanne Clark -- a doctor, writer and executive producer who has been with "Grey's Anatomy" since the pilot -- for a wide-ranging chat conducted over Zoom.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized use of a third COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S., declaring the Johnson & Johnson vaccine safe and effective in adults 18 and older. "The authorization of this vaccine expands the availability of vaccines, the best medical prevention method for COVID-19, to help us in the fight against this pandemic, which has claimed over half a million lives in the United States," Janet Woodcock, acting FDA commissioner, said in a statement. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said a day earlier that the nation now has three "highly effective" vaccines.
Day Two of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference -- considered a barometer of the Republican Party's base -- is underway in Orlando, Florida. The conference -- called "TPAC" for Trump Political Action Conference on Friday by Donald Trump Jr. -- has so far been less about traditional conservative values and more centered around loyalty to Trump, allegiance to his discredited claims of election fraud and attacks on Democrats. "The least popular in our party are the ones who want to erase Donald Trump and Donald Trump's supporters from our party," Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said.
A 23-year-old man has been charged with second-degree attempted murder after allegedly stabbing a stranger in the back in New York City's Chinatown "for no reason," prosecutors said. Salman Muflihi, of Brooklyn, allegedly pulled an 8-inch knife on the 36-year-old Asian man at about 6:20 p.m. Thursday, according to police sources. Prosecutors said they may bring additional charges if warranted.
GOP Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona was the surprise keynote speaker at a conference Friday night in Orlando, Florida, where speakers spread white nationalist rhetoric, organizers railed about the U.S. losing its "white demographic core," and some called for further engagement like the ire that drove the Capitol attack on Jan. 6. Gosar, who skipped Friday's House votes -- including the vote on the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package -- spoke Friday night at the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), where he blamed former President Donald Trump's election loss on "big business, big tech, and the swamp," and pushed anti-immigration arguments to the crowd of "Groypers," a loose coalition of mostly young alt-right extremists led by organizer Nick Fuentes. In the days leading up to the event and while marketing tickets online in part by using his Twitter account, Fuentes teased that there would be a special guest, which turned out to be Gosar.
Police have secured an arrest warrant charging Qinxuan Pan, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student, with murder for the death of a Yale graduate student earlier this month. 26-year-old Kevin Jiang was shot dead on a street in New Haven, Connecticut, according to an application for an arrest warrant filed earlier this month by an officer with the Mansfield Police Department. The New Haven Police Department confirmed to ABC News Saturday that they obtained an arrest warrant for Pan, 29, and he remains at large.
Gainesville fire division chief Keith Smith told reporters the fire department responded to a 911 call made shortly after 6 p.m. from a passerby who noticed debris from the plane on the side of the road. The victims were identified as Dan Delnoce, 44, of Gainesville, Courtney Flanders, 45, of Gainesville, and Matthew Delnoce, 39, of Ohio, Hall County Sheriff’s Office said.
The Pacific Northwest will get a bit of a break in the active weather Saturday as the latest storm to drop feet of snow moves further east. Snoqualmie Pass was shut down for a while Friday to allow for crews to do avalanche control work. Snoqualmie Pass has picked up an incredible 396 inches of snow so far this season.
Tyler Britt, a 19-year veteran of the Chandler, Arizona, Police Department, died on Jan. 11, 2021. "Officer Britt loved being a police officer and cared dearly about the community he served," the department said. Britt graduated from the Arizona Law Enforcement Academy in 2001 and spent the next seven years as a patrol officer.
Iran's Alpine ski coach, Samira Zargari, couldn't join her team for the world championships in Italy last week. The reaction on social media was swift, and many Iranians vented their fury by demanding the government change the law to give women back their right to travel internationally, along with other rights stripped away after they're married. Zargari's case, however, went viral and different hashtags about women's rights began popping up on social media, including the "right to leave the country" and "no to discrimination against women."
The House on Friday approved a massive $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, advancing President Joe Biden's top agenda item and providing more resources to schools and businesses, boost funding for vaccinations and testing, and grant financial relief to Americans across the country. Democrats passed the measure early Saturday morning in a party-line vote, with Republicans united against the bill calling for slimmer, more-targeted relief. The Senate is expected to take up the legislation next week, after the chamber's parliamentarian ruled that Democrats could not include a $15 minimum wage in the proposal over budgetary concerns.
Coronavirus vaccines were allegedly stolen and two children were wrongly administered shots in Shelby County, Tennessee, the state's top health official disclosed Friday. Lisa Piercey, Tennessee's health commissioner, said that the state has alerted the FBI about the alleged theft. The latest disclosures come on the heels of an announcement made earlier in the week that more than 2,400 vaccine doses in Shelby County had been wasted over the course of a month, and that the state was transferring control over the storage and distribution of the county's vaccine inventory to the city of Memphis.
A Tulane police officer was shot and killed outside a high school basketball game Friday evening, the New Orleans Police Department announced. At around 6:15 p.m. a person attempted to enter the George Washington Carver High School gymnasium, where the game was being held, and was refused by one of the staff members, New Orleans police told reporters Friday. "The officer heard the disturbance and attempted to intervene," NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said.
Lady Gaga's two kidnapped French bulldogs have been found safe, the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed to ABC News. The dogs were turned into the LAPD's Olympic Station, not Hollywood Division where they were taken, by a woman who found them, ABC News has learned. The dogs were unharmed and reunited with Gaga's representatives.
The husband of Rep. Mary Miller, R-Illinois, has tried to distance himself from what the FBI says is a "radical militia group" with ties to last month's Capitol siege, after his pickup truck was seen on Capitol grounds that day with a large decal promoting the group. When news of the decal promoting the "Three Percenters" militia group surfaced this week, Miller's husband, Illinois state representative Chris Miller, told the Daily Beast he "didn't know anything about [the group] until fake news" started asking questions about the decal seen on his vehicle.
A passenger is facing a $27,500 fine for allegedly hitting a Delta flight attendant in the face in October. The Federal Aviation Administration announced the proposed penalty for the passenger on Friday. The flight then returned to the gate where flight attendants asked the two passengers to get off the aircraft.
A day after President Joe Biden ordered the first military action of his presidency, an airstrike in Syria, his administration finds itself in the unlikely position of defending the move to Democratic lawmakers concerned about the legal authorities used to justify it. Thursday night's airstrike targeted a compound used by two Iranian-backed militias the U.S. believes are responsible for rocket attacks in Iraq that wounded Americans. Visiting Houston on Friday, Biden told reporters that the message he was sending to Iran with the attack in Syria was "you can't act with impunity, be careful."
An independent advisory panel of infectious disease experts, doctors and scientists voted unanimously to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, a step closer to making a third COVID-19 vaccine available to Americans. The recommendation paves the way for official emergency authorization by the FDA, allowing the vaccine to be provided to Americans while the company continues to study it. "If the FDA [authorizes] the use of this new vaccine, we would plan to roll out as quickly as Johnson & Johnson can make the vaccine," President Joe Biden said Thursday.
