Marilyn Nieves/iStockBy MEREDITH DELISO, ABC News(PIERRE, S.D.) — Nearly a week after the South Dakota attorney general was charged with three misdemeanors for fatally striking a pedestrian on a highway last year, the South Dakota governor has called on him to resign and released investigation interviews that detail the incident, and state lawmakers have begun impeachment proceedings against him. Jason Ravnsborg, 44, was charged with operating a motor vehicle while using a mobile device, lane driving violation and careless driving stemming from the Sept. 12 crash. Ravnsborg was not on…
Category: News
California commits $1.4 million to combat 'horrific' attacks on Asian Americans
ABCBy CATHERINE THORBECKE, ABC News(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — California committed $1.4 million toward helping Asian Americans report hate incidents and tracking the attacks after a slew of cases — including the murder of an 84-year-old man — has rocked the nation in recent weeks. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the larger AB85 pandemic budget bill, which includes $1.4 million earmarked for researchers at the Asian American Studies Center at the University of California Los Angeles and the Stop AAPI Hate website, into law Tuesday. California’s move to fund Asian-led community initiatives is…
Texas doctor discusses firing over alleged COVID-19 vaccine theft: 'I did what I believe was expected'
ABC NewsBy JOANNE ROSA, ABC News (HOUSTON) — Dr. Hasan Gokal defended his decision to give away COVID-19 vaccines that were on the verge of expiring even after he was fired from his job as medical director of the Harris County Public Health department in Texas over the decision. The Houston doctor said he had an open vial with 10 doses of Moderna’s vaccine that were ready to expire that day in December 2020 when, rather than wasting them, he rushed to find people who were eligible to take them.…
Biden to make 25 million masks available at community health centers, food banks
Official White House Photo by Adam SchultzBy MOLLY NAGLE, ABC News (WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 response team announced Wednesday it would make 25 million masks available to Americans at community health centers and food banks. “We will deliver more than 25 million masks across the country. These masks will be available in more than 1300 community health centers, and at 60,000 food pantries nationwide. Any American who needs a mask will be able to walk into these health centers or food pantries and pick up high quality American…
ERCOT faces class-action lawsuit, resignations in wake of Texas power outages
peterschreiber.media/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ABC News (HOUSTON) — Texas’ embattled power grid operator is facing lawsuits and resignations after more than 4 million customers lost electricity last week during a deadly winter storm. Morgan & Morgan, a Florida-based national law firm with over 700 attorneys, filed a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday against the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), alleging that the nonprofit corporation “utterly failed” to plan for the cold weather despite multiple warnings, leading to the collapse of its electrical network and resulting in widespread blackouts. “Despite receiving multiple…
Tanker trucks, National Guard dispatched to Jackson, Mississippi, water crisis
MivPiv/iStockBy BILL HUTCHINSON, ABC News (JACKSON, Miss.) — The governor of Mississippi said he’s dispatching the National Guard and more tanker trucks to the state’s capital city to help bring an end to a water crisis that emerged following severe winter storms that crippled the community’s aging infrastructure. Many residents of Jackson, a city of more than 160,000 people, have been struggling for over a week to secure enough water to handle basic needs, officials said. As he waited in line at a local high school to get water from…
Spring-like weather across much of US, possible heavy snow in Rockies and parts of West
ABC NewsBy MAX GOLEMBO, ABC News (NEW YORK) — It is starting to feel like spring from California to New York and around the rest of the country. Record high temperatures were broken on Tuesday in the San Francisco Bay area with Oakland reaching 84 degrees and Napa hitting 81. In Dallas, Texas, temperatures reached 81 degrees after being below zero last week and it was the warmest temperature in Dallas since last November. Kansas City reached 69 degrees which made it the warmest temperatures there since November. Elsewhere, Washington,…
FAA orders inspections of some Boeing 777 engines after United failure
TommyIX/iStockBy MINA KAJI, ABC News (NEW YORK) — After an engine on a United 777 failed minutes after takeoff in Denver this past weekend, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is ordering operators to conduct high-tech inspections of all Boeing 777s powered by the same Pratt and Whitney engine that failed “before further flight.” More than 100 Boeing 777s are either temporarily grounded, banned or removed from service worldwide in response to the incident. In the U.S., airlines like United will now be required to conduct a thermal acoustic image inspection…
Woman trapped for 10 hours under collapsed backyard awning in frigid weather lucky to be alive
Schiller Park Fire Department/FacebookBy JON HAWORTH, ABC News (CHICAGO) — A woman is lucky to be alive after being trapped for more than 10 hours under an awning in her own backyard when it collapsed on top of her after being weighed down by heavy ice and snow. The incident happened at approximately 12 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 22 in Schiller Park, Illinois, a suburban community in northwest Chicago, when an unnamed woman in her 50s had gone outside to shovel snow in her backyard and the awning of her…
Wreckage of TWA Flight 800 to be destroyed 25 years after crash
Alex Wong/Getty ImagesBy SAM SWEENEY, ABC News (NEW YORK) — The National Transportation Safety Board said it will destroy the remaining wreckage of TWA Flight 800 after nearly 20 years as a training tool. TWA Flight 800 grabbed the world’s attention when shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport in July 1996, the Paris-bound Boeing 747 exploded, killing all 230 onboard. The NTSB investigation became the longest, most complicated and expensive investigation in aviation history, lasting more than four years and costing $40 million. For weeks, pieces of…