There have now been 359,445 cases confirmed in Massachusetts, with Thursday's 81 deaths bringing the toll to 12,157, according to health officials. Another 266 deaths are considered probably linked to COVID-19.
The percentage of coronavirus tests coming back positive, on average, has increased to 8.6%, according to the report.
The number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 has increased to 2,271. Of that number, 417 were listed as being in intensive care units and 240 are intubated, according to DPH.
Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday said about 78,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered statewide as of Tuesday, and an estimated 20,000 people who live and work at long-term care facilities should be vaccinated at one of 50 vaccination clinics by the end of this week.
"The progress obviously in this respect shows that while it is lumpy and bumpy, which we said it would be, it's moving forward and it speaks well with what's ahead with respect to 2021," he said.
Baker also asked people to avoid New Year's Eve parties.
The Alaska Airlines terminal at Petersburg’s James A. Johnson Airport (Joe Viechnicki/KFSK)
Petersburg emergency officials reported another COVID-19 positive case Wednesday. December 30. Like the case announced the day before it appears to be travel-related but in this instance it was travel within Alaska.
Petersburg’s emergency operations center announced the latest positive test result for a Petersburg resident who returned here Wednesday after traveling elsewhere in the state. The person was tested three days before traveling and that positive result was reported shortly after that person landed in Petersburg. The person is not experiencing symptoms and will be isolating with family. Public health has started contact tracing.
Petersburg’s EOC is advising against travel. The community now has three active cases and a total of 40 since the start of the pandemic.
Alabama saw another day of four-digit increases in COVID-19 cases.
The Alabama Department of Public Health’s Dec. 31 10 a.m. numbers show the state has had 361,226 coronavirus cases since March, an increase of 4,406 from the day before. The state added 53 deaths, some dating back several weeks, to bring its total to 4,827.
ADPH reports 2,813 are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19.
The following are the latest county-by-county case numbers. The figures in parenthesis are the increases from the day before:
An interim police chief has nearly finished her work, and the city is at a crossroads. Will a department handling one of the nation’s most controversial police shootings win back the city’s trust?
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The news conference on a Friday afternoon in March was brief and opaque. The Louisville police chief said officers serving a drug warrant at an apartment had been met with gunfire. An officer had been shot and a woman had been killed, the chief said, and a man inside had been charged with trying to murder a police officer.
When a reporter asked about the bullet holes that riddled the woman’s sliding door and window, the news conference abruptly ended. But as details of the raid trickled out, they painted a much darker picture of a botched operation: The police had fired 32 shots into the apartment of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, whose boyfriend had shot and wounded one of the officers when they burst through the door, later saying he thought they were intruders. Ms. Taylor, awakened from sleep, had died in the hallway outside her bedroom.
The department’s refusal to hold anyone accountable eventually became untenable. As protests mounted, the mayor fired the police chief, the attempted murder charge against Ms. Taylor’s boyfriend was dropped, and one officer accused of wantonly firing into a neighbor’s apartment during the raid was fired, but many residents said it was not enough. Now, Yvette Gentry, a veteran officer who came out of retirement to lead the scarred department through the end of the year with a promise to mend its strained relationships with the Black and Latino communities, has only days left to leave her mark.
Yvette Gentry, a veteran officer, came out of retirement to lead the Police Department but is leaving soon and has said she is not interested in a permanent appointment.Xavier Burrell for The New York Times
The Louisville Metro Police Department remains one of America’s most troubled police forces, distrusted by many residents and now facing a crucial transition. Chief Gentry has said she is not interested in a permanent appointment, and Mayor Greg Fischer said in an interview on Wednesday that he expected to name her successor in January after a secretive search that has left some worried there may be no serious reform.
Mr. Fischer said the city hired an outside consultant to conduct a full review of the department, and he said he hoped Louisville would become an example of a city that made significant changes following a tragedy.
“We can be that city that when people look at the tough year we’ve had, they’ll say, ‘Wow, look how Louisville transformed from a really tough situation into this beacon of opportunity and beacon of equity for the country,’” Mr. Fischer said.
But restoring faith in the Police Department will not be easy. Many residents have grown frustrated by how long it has taken to address the failings that led to Ms. Taylor’s death, and to hold officers accountable. Still others have become disillusioned by protests that turned their city into a national story.
“The issues run way deeper than the case of Breonna Taylor,” said Keturah Herron, who works on criminal justice issues for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.
Chief Gentry took over the department in October with a primary mission of holding officers more accountable. When she got to work on the Breonna Taylor case, she found plenty of wrongdoing to punish: One detective had lied to get a judge’s approval for the search of Ms. Taylor’s apartment, she concluded, and the detective who killed her had fired without clearly identifying a target. On Tuesday, she moved to fire both of them.
Some officials expect her to hand down more sanctions, but any long-term changes will have to be overseen by the next police chief. A search panel unanimously recommended a candidate to the mayor, but the name has not been made public and the mayor has declined to say whether he has selected someone.
“In any type of big challenge, there’s some people that are really excited and turned on by that,” Mr. Fischer said. “I think our new police chief will be one of those people.”
Louisville was rocked by an outpouring of grief and sometimes destructive protests that followed Ms. Taylor’s death.Xavier Burrell for The New York Times
Even after Chief Gentry moved this week to fire two more officers, many in the city worry about whether Louisville officials are prepared to order top-to-bottom change in a department that has a long history of combative treatment of Black and Latino residents, and a tendency to hide those problems from public view.
“What’s the vision for 2021 in Louisville? I just feel like that doesn’t exist,” said Attica Scott, a Democratic state representative from Louisville. “If that’s how we’re ending the year, then we’re definitely not starting it out on the right foot.”
Ms. Scott was among those arrested during a protest in September in response to the announcement that no officers would be charged with killing Ms. Taylor. She said the secretive police chief search and the fact that Chief Gentry had not adopted more sweeping reforms made her skeptical that a reimagined Police Department was around the corner.
But Mr. Fischer and members of the City Council point to a long list of changes since Ms. Taylor’s death and say they show that city leaders are confronting the department’s problems head-on. The city banned the use of “no-knock” warrants that had allowed officers, with a judge’s approval, to raid someone’s home without first announcing their presence, and moved to tighten the guidelines on when the police can use force. The City Council also established a civilian review board to monitor the Police Department.
“Shame on us if we don’t start getting things right going forward,” said Barbara Sexton Smith, a member of the City Council, who said that she, too, was frustrated it had taken so long to make some changes, but that she and others were more focused than ever on improving policing in the city.
Detective Myles Cosgrove, left, who shot Ms. Taylor, and Detective Joshua Jaynes, who prepared the search warrant for the raid, were both told this week that the interim police chief was moving to fire them.Louisville Metropolitan Police Department
Still, the mayor is facing pressure from all sides. Even some residents who say the city acted too slowly after Ms. Taylor was killed also say it erred in not quelling the destructive protests that followed. During the September protests, two police officers were shot.
“To single out police and to believe they’re horrific and everyone is wrong, that’s absurd,” said Richard Scott, a retired heavy equipment salesman who has lived in Louisville for three decades and leans Republican. He said he supported the idea proposed by some activists of sending social workers instead of police officers to some situations, but worried about proposals to “defund the police” when he saw what looked like chaos in Louisville’s streets. “I was embarrassed to see the rioting and destruction, and seeing it allowed to happen,” he said.
For the Police Department, its reputation for opacity may be hard to shake, given that it extends back much further than the raid on Ms. Taylor’s home.
In 2017, an investigation by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting found that the department had secretly worked with federal immigration officers to deport immigrants who had illegally entered the country, despite city officials marketing Louisville as a “compassionate city” for undocumented residents.
Chief Gentry did not respond to a request for comment for this article, but in an interview in October, when she took over, she said that one of her primary goals was to be able to tell Ms. Taylor’s story “from start to finish” by the time she finishes her work, sometime next month.
Given the lingering impacts of Ms. Taylor’s death and the subsequent protests, it seems unlikely that the end of the story could come so quickly.
“It’s just one step forward, two steps back here in Louisville, from what I’ve experienced,” said Tija Jackson, a private investigator and former juvenile probation officer who said she was discouraged that the identities of the candidates for police chief have been kept secret.
Ms. Jackson’s son, Tae-Ahn Lea, who is Black, was pulled over in 2018 by a white Louisville police officer who accused him of making a “wide turn,” then handcuffed and searched him in what many saw as an example of racial profiling. The officer resigned, but Ms. Jackson said the episode had traumatized her son.
“They can’t fix that,” she said.
Will Wright and Austyn Gaffney reported from Louisville, and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs from New York.
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The concert giant has agreed to pay the fine to resolve charges that it intruded into the computer system of one of its competitors.
Ticketmaster has agreed to pay a $10 million fine to resolve charges that it intruded into the computer system of one of its competitors, prosecutors said on Wednesday, ending a yearslong legal battle over claims that the company illegally interfered in the business of a ticketing start-up called Songkick.
More than two years ago, Ticketmaster reached a settlement with Songkick in response to a lawsuit that accused the concert giant of abusing its market power to control the sales of tickets. In addition to settling for $110 million, Ticketmaster acquired some of Songkick’s remaining technology assets and patents for an undisclosed sum.
The court battle also involved accusations of corporate espionage that led to an investigation by federal prosecutors in New York.
Prosecutors for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York said in court documents that the computer intrusions were spearheaded by a former Songkick employee who left the start-up in 2012 and later started working for Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation. The employee was said to have disseminated Songkick’s login information to other Ticketmaster employees so they could access an app called an artist toolbox, which provided data on purchases of presale tickets through Songkick, the documents said.
The employee also was accused of sharing URLs that led to drafts of Songkick’s ticketing web pages. In response to that information, prosecutors said, a Ticketmaster executive wrote that the goal was to “choke off” their competitor and “steal back” one of Songkick’s key clients.
The details of the criminal investigation came to light in a federal court in Brooklyn, where Ticketmaster formally agreed on Wednesday to pay the fine as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office.
In a statement on Wednesday, Ticketmaster said that in 2017, it had terminated the employee who provided the login information, as well as another Ticketmaster employee, Zeeshan Zaidi, who also accessed the computer systems and faced separate charges.
“Their actions violated our corporate policies and were inconsistent with our values,” the statement said. “We are pleased that this matter is now resolved.”
Last year, Mr. Zaidi, who was formerly the head of Ticketmaster’s artist services division, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit computer intrusions and wire fraud in relation to the case. Court filings from the U.S. attorney’s office said that Mr. Zaidi accessed Songkick’s computer systems on “numerous occasions” between 2013 and 2015. Mr. Zaidi also included screenshots of Songkick’s toolbox for artists in a presentation for executives and solicited “confidential proprietary information” about Songkick from the employee who had worked there, the documents said.
A lawyer for Mr. Zaidi, who is awaiting sentencing, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The criminal charges against Ticketmaster, filed on Wednesday, include one count of computer intrusion for commercial advantage and one count of wire fraud. To comply with the deferred prosecution agreement, Ticketmaster must maintain an ethics program intended to prevent similar infractions in the future.
The $10 million fine is not a huge sum for a multibillion-dollar company, but the pandemic has already put significant financial pressure on Live Nation, which had to cancel concerts en masse and respond to a flood of demands for refunds.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -The highly infectious coronavirus variant originally discovered in Britain has been detected in California, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday, a day after the first known U.S. case was documented in Colorado.
Newsom announced his state’s first known case of the coronavirus variant B.1.1.7, identified in Southern California, at the start of an online discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic with leading infectious disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Newsom did not immediately provide further details, but Fauci said he was “not surprised,” adding that additional cases of the variant would likely surface in California and other states.
The first U.S. case of the so-called UK variant of the virus, believed by scientists to be more contagious than others previously identified but no more severe in symptoms it causes, was announced by Colorado Governor Jared Polis on Tuesday.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Polis described the patient infected in his state as a National Guard soldier in his 20s who had been assigned to help deal with a COVID outbreak at a nursing home in semi-rural Elbert County, on the outskirts of the Denver metropolitan area.
The director Colorado’s Public Health and Environment Department told reporters that a second member of the National Guard may also have contracted the UK variant, though the state was still awaiting final laboratory confirmation.
The new variant has also been detected in several European countries, as well as in Canada, Australia, India, South Korea and Japan, among others.
Although experts believe the newly approved COVID vaccines will be effective against the British variant, the emergence of a more highly transmissible strain of the virus could make a swift rollout of vaccine immunizations all the more critical.
The U.S. government on Monday began requiring all airline passengers arriving from Britain - including U.S. citizens - to test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of departure.
The government may expand coronavirus testing requirements for international air travelers beyond Britain as early as next week, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler and Grant McCool
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the first known case of the new and apparently more contagious variant of the coronavirus in the nation's most populated state. The first U.S. case was found in Colorado. Office of the Governor/AP
Office of the Governor/AP
The new highly contagious coronavirus strain from the U.K. has spread to Southern California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday.
He made the statement during an online conversation about the pandemic with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious-disease expert, but Newsom offered little additional information about the circumstances of the diagnosis.
The first case of the coronavirus variant in the U.S. was detected in Colorado on Tuesday. Experts say it spreads faster than the common strain.
Fauci said he wasn't surprised by reports of the latest case and suggested there are likely others in California and other states due to international travel.
"I don't think that Californians should feel that this is something odd. This is something that's expected," Fauci said. He added that there is "no indication that it increases the virulence" of the infection any more than the strain that has been present in the U.S. since February. Nor is there any evidence that it can evade "the protection that's afforded by the antibodies that are induced by vaccines."
British scientists identified the variant last week, and it has now spread in the U.K. and to other countries.
The soaring number of coronavirus cases in California has stretched many hospitals beyond capacity with some reporting they are out of ICU beds and ventilators, and are turning away arriving ambulances. As a result, state officials on Monday instructed hospital leaders to prepare for the possibility of implementing "crisis care" guidelines, which means rationing treatment, medicine and supplies.
A day later, the state's top health official announced an extension of lockdown restrictions for nearly half of California counties, including Los Angeles and others in the San Joaquin Valley.
Earlier on Wednesday Newsom laid out a plan to phase in in-person learning in 2021, starting with students below kindergarten age. He also allocated $2 billion in the proposed budget to help with coronavirus testing, personal protection equipment and other supplies as schools reopen.
Newsom explained the recommendation is science-based, relying on evidence indicating children are less likely to acquire the virus in school than in their communities. He also noted increased benefits from in-person instruction, particularly for the youngest students.
"As a father of four, I know firsthand what parents, educators and pediatricians continue to say: in-person is the best setting to meet not only the learning needs, but the mental health and social-emotional needs of our kids," Newsom said.
During the joint virtual news conference, Fauci acknowledged the delivery and dissemination of the coronavirus vaccines has fallen behind the expected timeline set by leaders of the federal government's Operation Warp Speed. But he remains confident that "we are going to gain momentum to be able to catch up."
"By the time we get to the early fall, we will have enough good herd immunity that we will be able to get to some semblance of normality," he said.
Fauci expects herd immunity will be achieved when 70% to 85% of the U.S. population has been vaccinated.
"I believe strongly that if we pull together as a nation, public health measures seriously and uniformly, I believe that we can crush this outbreak within this time frame," he added before signing off.
In a recent court case that played out in the Northern District of Texas, Caris Life Sciences Ltd. v. Natera Inc. (No. 3:20-CV-1046), Texas-based Caris filed suit after some of its salespeople resigned and went to work the same day for Natera—a company in a similar business. Caris argued the departing employees would be taking sensitive trade secrets to a competitor and therefore sought to enforce the departing employees’ noncompete agreements.
Gov. Jared Polis and officials announced Denver and a number of other Colorado counties will be moved to Level Red on a newly revamped version of the state"u2019s color-coded COVID-19 dial at Boettcher Mansion in Denver, Colorado on Tuesday. November 17, 2020.
Hyoung Chang | Denver Post | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — Colorado health officials said Wednesday they are investigating a potential second case of a new and potentially more infectious strain of Covid-19.
"There's still a lot we don't know about this variant," Colorado Governor Jared Polis said Wednesday, advising Coloradans to continue to abide by CDC guidelines into the new year.
The infected individual, a man in his 20s, does not have a history of traveling and is in isolation with mild symptoms, officials said Tuesday.
The confirmed case as well as the second patient are both members of the Colorado National Guard. Both individuals were supporting the Good Samaritan Society assisted living facility in Simla, about an hour and a half south of Denver.
Officials said Wednesday that there were a total of six Colorado National Guard members working at the facility.
"Both of these cases are Colorado National Guard personnel who were deployed to support staffing at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Simla," explained the state's top epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
She added that the individuals were tested on December 24th at the state lab, a routine measure for National Guard members working in close proximity of Covid-19 patients or areas prone to outbreak.
"Right now we are currently investigating two possibilities for how these individuals may have acquired their infections," Herlihy said.
"Given the detection of the variant in Colorado, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have allowed us to temporarily pause visitation for nursing homes for the time being so that that population can be vaccinated quickly," Polis said.
"Not only is the health risk felt more acutely by older Coloradans, but social isolation is a difficult and emotional piece that so many residents of nursing homes have faced," he said, adding that the measure will safeguard the state's older community.
Dr. Emily Travanty, director of the Laboratory Services Division at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said officials are currently analyzing 24 suspicious samples that may contain mutations. She explained that there was not sufficient data to link the additional 24 samples to the B.1.1.7 variant.
On a Wednesday call with reporters, Dr. Henry Walke of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the new variant appears to spread "more easily and quickly than other strains." Walke also said it does not seem to result it worse infections or an increased risk of death.
Walke said that the individual in Colorado who was infected with the new strain of the virus did not have a travel history, which "suggests this variant has been transmitted from person to person in the United States."
He added that considering how widely the variant has spread in the U.K., the arrival of it in the U.S. "was expected."
Preliminary analysis of the new variant, first identified in the U.K., suggests it may be the culprit behind Britain's recent spike in cases.
The discovery of the strain in Britain sparked border closures in European countries like Ireland, France, Belgium and Germany as well as countries outside the continent.
Last week, the British government confirmed that another infectious variant of the coronavirus identified in South Africa had also emerged in the United Kingdom. The strain from South Africa has not yet been identified in the United States.
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Malcolm encouraged that Minnesotans take advantage of the testing capacity and get tested when needed.
MDH Infectious Disease Director Kris Ehresmann also took time to discuss vaccine distribution in state.
As of Wednesday, there have been a total of 38,284 COVID-19 vaccinations administered in Minnesota, according to MDH.
According to vaccine distribution data from MDH, there have been 169,650 doses of the Pfizer vaccine allocated from the CDC and distributed to providers as of Wednesday. Additionally, there have been 127,700 doses of the Moderna vaccine allocated from the CDC and distributed to providers as of Wednesday. According to MDH, 277 provider sites have received vaccine doses, as of Wednesday.
According to Ehresmann, doses are allocated by the federal governments and are based on the state's population. She added because of this, the state is not able to request additional doses.
"There are limited numbers of doses everywhere, so we are taking what comes to us and getting it to its final destination as quickly as possible," Ehresmann said. "I just want to let you know receiving, preparing and administering vaccines takes time."
Ehresmann said vaccinations are currently happening in closed settings like hospitals and long-term care facilities.
Guidance for Phase 1B of vaccinations – which covers people who are over the age of 75 and frontline workers – will be available the week of Jan. 18, Ehresmann said.
Along with the vaccine, the state has also received other tools to fight COVID-19.
According to Dr. Ruth Lynfield, the state has received therapeutics for monoclonal antibody therapy, which is given with 10 days of symptom onset to fight the virus.
She said both hospitals and long-term care centers have received doses.
For more information regarding additional therapeutics, click here.
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In this June 30, 2020, file photo, Gov. Gavin Newsom removes his face mask before giving an update during a visit to Pittsburg, Calif.
Rich Pedroncelli | AP
California health officials have identified the state's first case of the new and more infectious strain of Covid-19 that was initially discovered in the United Kingdom, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday.
The patient was in the southern part of the state, Newsom told White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci during a live Q&A session livestreamed on Facebook.
"I don't think that the Californians should feel that this is something odd. This is something that's expected," Fauci told Newsom.
On Tuesday, Colorado health officials confirmed the nation's first case of the B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant. During a press briefing Wednesday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said the state was investigating a potential second case of the new strain.
This is a developing story. Please check back later for updates.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis helps put the state's first shipment of COVID-19 vaccine in a freezer last week at a state health department laboratory. David Zalubowski/AP
David Zalubowski/AP
Updated 3:30 p.m. ET Wednesday
Colorado health officials say they may have found a second case of a coronavirus variant which was first identified in the United Kingdom. Officials are currently conducting more genetic testing to determine if the variant is present.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced one confirmed case on Tuesday, marking the first time the variant has been officially documented in the United States.
According to the state's public health department, both the confirmed and possible cases were contracted by members of the Colorado National Guard who had been assisting at a nursing home in Simla, Colo., about 50 miles northeast of Colorado Springs.
Polis said Tuesday that the confirmed case is a man in his 20s who has not been traveling. Details of the second Guard member have not been released. Both individuals are isolating.
All the residents at the 26-person nursing home were the Guard members were working have tested positive for the coronavirus but are not believed to have contracted the variant from the U.K., Colorado Public Radio reports.
Today we discovered Colorado’s first case of the COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7, the same variant discovered in the UK.
The health and safety of Coloradans is our top priority and we will monitor this case, as well as all COVID-19 indicators, very closely. pic.twitter.com/fjyq7QhzBi
The variant, to which scientists in the U.K. alerted the public in mid-December, is believed to spread more quickly and has 17 mutations, NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff reported.
Coronavirus cases have notably increased in the U.K. over the past few weeks. On Tuesday, a record 53,275 cases were reported, according to Johns Hopkins University. In December alone, more than 768,000 cases were reported.
Just days ago the first case of the coronavirus variant outside of the U.K. was found in France.
In response to the news from the U.K., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last week that anyone coming to the U.S. from the U.K. must receive a negative coronavirus test result within 72 hours of beginning the trip.
Colorado Public Radio and Community Radio for Northern Colorado contributed to this report.
Shane Thompson, 30, pleaded guilty to cruelty to animals and ownership of a dangerous dog, both misdemeanors, on Nov. 16. The plea deal resolved three cases that arose from the allegations, as prosecutors dismissed 18 felony animal cruelty counts as well as a related witness tampering case.
On Wednesday, Boulder District Judge Thomas Mulvahill sentenced Thompson to two years of probation and 60 hours of community service.
Boulder Deputy District Attorney Jenny McClintock asked for three years of probation and Thompson’s attorney Brian Emeson asked for one, but Mulvahill ultimately stuck with the two years recommended by the probation department following a pre-sentence investigation.
“I don’t think that three years is necessary, and I don’t think one year is enough,” Mulvahill said.
In addition to mental health evaluations, anger management and required animal classes, Mulvahill said Thompson will not be allowed to own animals during his probation sentence without court approval due to his “alarming” history with animals, which includes a prior animal cruelty case in Florida.
“Before you can have another pet, you’re going to have to demonstrate you can lawfully and appropriately care for them,” Mulvahill said.
According to an arrest affidavit, Thompson’s roommates on March 14, 2019, told police they were attacked by Thompson’s pit bulls, with one of the roommates suffering a broken arm and lacerations that required surgery.
That report led to police serving a warrant at the house, where police discovered Thompson lived in a garage with three adult pit bulls, seven pit bull puppies, two boa constrictors, two chinchillas, a bearded dragon and some fish.
Police said most of the animals were underfed, had injuries and were held in cages or containers that were too small and were not cleaned in what McClintock called “deplorable conditions.”
There were feces everywhere, urine everywhere, and the smell was just unbearable,” McClintock said.
McClintock also said she was concerned by some of the statements Thompson made that she felt indicated a lack of responsibility on top of his prior criminal history.
“It’s just really concerning to the people the pattern of abuse and neglect he has shown over the past 10 years,” she said.
Emeson said Thompson does dispute some of the individual allegations in the case, which is why the case had been set for trial at one point. But Emeson said Thompson ultimately pleading guilty was an acceptance of responsibility.
“He understands this is a concerning situation, he understands people got hurt,” Emeson said. “He also recognizes he can do better by his animals.”
Thompson also told Mulvahill he was going to school for a master’s degree and was working on his financial and housing situation.
“I have tried so hard to dig out of this hole,” Thompson said. “I have been moving forward, and I will continue moving forward.”
DENVER — A Colorado National Guard member has the first reported U.S. case of a new and seemingly more contagious variant of the coronavirus that has set off alarm in Britain, while a second case is suspected in another Guard member, health officials said Wednesday.
The two were sent on Dec. 23 to work at a nursing home struggling with an outbreak of the virus in a small town outside Denver, said Dr. Rachel Herlihy, the state’s epidemiologist.
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A state laboratory detected the cases after it began looking for signs of the variant after its spread was announced in England earlier this month, she said. Staff and residents at the nursing home who have tested positive for the coronavirus are having their samples screened for signs of the variant, and so far no evidence of it has been found, Herlihy said.
The confirmed case is in a Colorado man in his 20s who hadn’t been traveling and has mild symptoms, officials said. He’s isolating at his home near Denver, and the person with the suspected case is isolating in a hotel on Colorado’s Eastern Plains, Herlihy said.
The cases have triggered a host of questions about how the variant arrived in the U.S. and added urgency to the nation’s vaccination drive.
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The new, mutated version was first identified in Britain, where infections are soaring and the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has surpassed the first peak seen last spring. The variant has also been found in several other countries.
“There is a lot we don’t know about this new COVID-19 variant, but scientists in the United Kingdom are warning the world that it is significantly more contagious,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said. “The health and safety of Coloradans is our top priority, and we will closely monitor this case, as well as all COVID-19 indicators, very closely.”
The discovery of the mutated version overseas led the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue rules on Christmas Day requiring travelers arriving from Britain to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test.
The variant is probably still rare in the U.S., but the lack of travel history in the first case means it is spreading, perhaps seeded by visitors from Britain in November or December, said scientist Trevor Bedford, who studies the spread of COVID-19 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
“Now I’m worried there will be another spring wave due to the variant,” Bedford said. “It’s a race with the vaccine, but now the virus has just gotten a little bit faster.”
Public health officials are investigating other potential cases of the variant, which was confirmed by the Colorado State Laboratory, and conducting contact tracing to determine its spread.
Scientists in Britain have found no evidence that it is more lethal or causes more severe illness, and they believe the vaccines now being dispensed will be effective against it.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reported the weekend before Christmas that the variant was moving rapidly through London and southeast England. The region was placed under strict lockdown measures, and dozens of countries banned flights from Britain. France also briefly barred trucks from Britain before allowing them back in, provided the drivers got tested for the virus.
Japan announced a ban Monday on all nonresident foreigners as a precaution.
New versions of the virus have been seen almost since it was first detected in China a year ago. It is common for viruses to undergo minor changes as they reproduce and move through a population. The fear is that mutations will become significant enough to defeat the vaccines.
South Africa has also discovered a highly contagious COVID-19 variant that is driving the country’s latest spike of cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson in Washington state contributed.
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The San Francisco 49ers have flexibility at the quarterback position this offseason. If they so choose, they could move on from Jimmy Garoppolo and clear nearly $24 million in cap space. While every team wants to have that kind of flexibility, it does brings with it some rather difficult questions about whether or not Garoppolo is the right man for the job going forward or should the Niners move in a different direction.
Kyle Shanahan said this week that he expects Garoppolo to be back in San Francisco in 2021, but that was hardly concrete as the head coach also threw in the caveat that "you can't say anything with certainty." The big knock on Garoppolo has been his durability. While he's shown the capability of helping a team reach the Super Bowl, he'll also have missed 23 games over his four-year tenure with the club. Weighing the pros and cons of Garoppolo is one of the biggest questions currently looming over the franchise as it closes out the regular season on Sunday.
While a move of this magnitude will be up to the 49ers brass, star tight end George Kittle did state the case for San Francisco to keep Garoppolo around going forward.
"At the end of the day, I play tight end here, and I just work here, but I think that I do have a little bit of a voice, and I've said multiple times that I just love playing football with Jimmy G," Kittle said on KNBR Tuesday, via NBC Sports Bay Area. "Our team is different when he's out there, and that's why it's fun to play football with him because I think we both have big-time changes to our huddles when we're both on the football field.
"I can't say enough about the leader Jimmy G is, and how his presence changes how the team is feeling, how the team is going about its business, and how the team practices every day. Jimmy G is our quarterback, and moving forward, he's our quarterback, and that's all I really have to say about it.
"I'm going to go with the guy that took us to a Super Bowl and played at a high level the entire year. That's my case for Jimmy G, and I think it's a decent one."
Dating back to 2017, the 49ers are 24-9 (including playoffs) with Garoppolo under center as the starter. When he's not, the club is 7-26, which feeds into Kittle's larger point. Prior to going down for the season, Garoppolo was 3-3 this season as the starter and completed 67.1% of his passes for 182.7 passing yards per game, seven touchdowns, and five interceptions.
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DENVER (KKTV) - The new COVID-19 variant discovered in the UK made its way to Colorado.
On Tuesday, the Office of Governor Jared Polis announced a man in his 20s is currently in isolation in Elbert County with COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7. The man does not have any travel history, according to the governor’s office. The variant has sparked concern worldwide because of signs that it may spread more easily. While there is no indication it causes more serious illness, several countries in Europe restricted travel from the UK as a result.
The Colorado state lab was the first in the country to quickly identify the variant through sophisticated analysis of testing samples, the release reads.
The currently approved vaccines are thought to be effective against this variant. As of Monday afternoon, more than 67,000 people in Colorado have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. As of Tuesday, more than 326,000 cases of COVID-19 have been identified in the Centennial State since the start of the pandemic with more than 2,000,000 tests.
An investigation is underway by state officials, including contact tracing interviews. The man is recovering and is expected to remain in isolation until he is cleared by public health officials.
“There is a lot we don’t know about this new COVID-19 variant, but scientists in the United Kingdom are warning the world that it is significantly more contagious. The health and safety of Coloradans is our top priority and we will closely monitor this case, as well as all COVID-19 indicators, very closely. We are working to prevent spread and contain the virus at all levels,” said Governor Jared Polis. “I want to thank our scientists and dedicated medical professionals for their swift work and ask Coloradans to continue our efforts to prevent disease transmission by wearing masks, standing six feet apart when gathering with others, and only interacting with members of their immediate household.”
More information on this recent discovery is expected to be released Wednesday morning by the governor’s office.
“The fact that Colorado has detected this variant first in the nation is a testament to the sophistication of Colorado’s response and the talent of CDPHE’s scientist and lab operations,” said Jill Hunsaker Ryan, executive director, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “We are currently using all the tools available to protect public health and mitigate the spread of this variant.”
WILMINGTON, Del./LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -The first known U.S. case of a highly infectious coronavirus variant was detected in Colorado on Tuesday as President-elect Joe Biden warned it could take years for most Americans to be vaccinated for the virus at current distribution rates.
Biden’s prediction of a grim winter appeared aimed at lowering public expectations that the pandemic will be over soon after he takes office on Jan. 20, while also sending a message to Congress that his administration will want to significantly increase spending to expedite vaccine distribution, expand testing and provide funding to states to help reopen schools.
Biden, a Democrat, said about 2 million people have been vaccinated, well short of the 20 million that outgoing Republican President Donald Trump had promised by the end of the year. Biden defeated Trump in a November election.
“The effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should,” Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware. At the current rate, “it’s going to take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people.”
Shortly after Biden’s remarks, Colorado’s Governor Jared Polis said his state had discovered a case of the highly infectious coronavirus variant B.1.1.7 first detected in Britain. Scientists there believe the variant is more contagious than other previously identified strains of the SAR-CoV-2 variant.
It has been detected in a number of European countries, as well as in Canada, Australia, India, South Korea and Japan, among others.
Polis said in a statement the infected patient was a man in his 20s with no recent travel history who is currently in isolation in Denver.
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“Public health officials are doing a thorough investigation” and the individual has “no close contacts identified so far,” he said, adding that the state has notified the federal government.
Biden’s goal of ensuring that 100 million vaccinations are administered by the end of his 100th day in office would mean “ramping up five to six times the current pace to 1 million shots a day,” Biden said, noting that it would require Congress to approve additional funding.
Even at such an ambitious rate, it would still take months for the majority of Americans to be vaccinated, he said, adding that the situation may not improve until “well into March.”
Biden also said he plans to invoke the Defense Production Act, which grants the president the power to expand industrial production of key materials or products for national security or other reasons, to accelerate production of vaccine materials.
Trump himself has invoked the law during the pandemic.
To reopen schools safely, Biden said Congress will need to provide funding for such things as additional transportation, so students can maintain social distancing, and improved ventilation in school buildings.
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden delivers remarks on the U.S. response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., December 29, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Congress also needs to fund more testing and help pay for protective equipment for healthcare workers, Biden added.
Trump defended his administration’s record after Biden concluded his remarks.
“It is up to the States to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the Federal Government. We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states,” he said on Twitter.
Trump, who had COVID-19 in October, has often played down the severity of the pandemic and overseen a response many health experts say was disorganized and cavalier and sometimes ignored the science behind disease transmission.
HARRIS GETS THE VACCINE
Earlier in the day, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received a COVID-19 vaccination live on television in a bid to boost confidence in the inoculation.
Harris, who is Black and Asian American, received the Moderna Inc vaccine at a medical center in predominantly Black southeast Washington. The Biden team has emphasized the importance of inoculation in non-white groups especially hard hit by the coronavirus.
Biden has vowed to make a top priority of fighting the coronavirus, which has infected more than 19 million people in the United States and killed over 334,000. He received his first injected dose last week. Two doses are required for full protection.
Dr. Atul Gawande, a member of Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, told CBS News the transition team still did not have all the information it needed to understand the vaccine distribution bottlenecks.
Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Susan Heavey, Lisa Lambert, Steve Gorman, Keith Coffman and David Brunnstrom; Writing by David Brunnstrom and Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller and Stephen Coates
CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Justice Department on Tuesday officially closed the investigation into Tamir Rice’s shooting and declared that there was insufficient evidence to charge the police officers involved in the boy’s death.
“In sum, after extensive examination of the facts in this tragic event, career Justice Department prosecutors have concluded that the evidence is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer [Timothy] Loehmann willfully violated Tamir Rice’s constitutional rights, or that Officers Loehmann or [Frank] Garmback obstructed justice,” the report said.
The report angered the boy’s mother, Samaria Rice.
“It’s a horrible feeling,” she said in an interview with cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. “It really is. It continues to show how broken the system is.”
The release comes a month after Samaria Rice and attorneys for her family sharply criticized Justice Department officials and demanded to know why they failed to convene a grand jury.
The attorneys wondered why then-Attorney General William Barr refused to listen to prosecutors who had sought the secret panel and why officials failed to notify the boy’s family about that decision.
On Tuesday, the family’s attorney, Subodh Chandra, called the process tainted.
“The Rice family has been cheated of a fair process again,” Chandra said.
Loehmann shot Tamir at Cudell Recreation Center on Nov. 22, 2014, while the boy was playing with an airsoft pellet gun. He died the next day. Loehmann was a rookie officer and had been on the department for less than eight months. He was a passenger in a car driven by a veteran training officer, Frank Garmback.
The two officers responded to a report of someone pointing a gun at people outside the recreation center. The caller told a 911 dispatcher that the gun looked fake, but that information was never relayed to the officers.
In order to prove a civil-rights violation, the government would have needed to prove that Loehmann’s actions were unreasonable and willful, the report states.
The Justice Department explanation noted that officers are permitted to use deadly force when they believe a suspect poses an “imminent threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others.”
Loehmann fired his weapon because “it appeared to him that Tamir was reaching for his gun,” the document said. To accuse Loehmann of the allegation, according to the report, prosecutors would need to show the boy was not reaching for his gun and that the officer “did not perceive that Tamir was reaching for his gun. … The evidence is insufficient for the government to prove this.”
The report also shows that prosecutors reviewed the evidence to determine whether they could prove that Loehmann and Garmback obstructed justice in their statements to law enforcement officers.
For prosecutors to file the charges, they would have needed to prove that the officers offered false statements to hinder a federal investigation.
The report stressed that the officers made several statements, including minutes after the shooting “without time to reflect, discuss or view video.
“Some of their statements are more detailed than others and with slightly different verbiage, but all of which were generally consistent, particularly on the seminal facts,” the summary states.
Loehmann was fired in 2017. He was dismissed not for his role in Tamir’s death but for lying on his application to join the department. Garmback was suspended 10 days, but an arbitrator reduced the suspension to five days. He remains on the force.
Cleveland settled a federal civil-rights lawsuit with the boy’s family for $6 million. A Cuyahoga County grand jury in 2015 declined to bring any charges.
Attempts to reach Henry Hilow, the attorney for the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, were unsuccessful.
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