Death toll tops 40 after Ida’s remnants blindside Northeast

NEW YORK (AP) — A stunned U.S. East Coast faced a rising death toll, surging rivers, tornado damage and continuing calls for rescue Thursday after the remnants of Hurricane Ida walloped the region with record-breaking rain, drowning more than 40 people in their homes and cars.

In a region that had been warned about potentially deadly flash flooding but hadn’t braced for such a blow from the no-longer-hurricane, the storm killed at least 45 people from Maryland to Connecticut on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

At least 23 people died in New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said. At least 12 people in New York City, police said, one of them in a car and 11 in flooded basement apartments that often serve as relatively affordable homes in one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets. Suburban Westchester County reported three deaths.

Officials said at least five in Pennsylvania, including one killed by a falling tree and another who drowned in his car after helping his wife to escape, according to authorities. A Connecticut state police sergeant, Brian Mohl, perished after his cruiser was swept away. Another death was reported in Maryland.

In New York City, Sophy Liu said she tried using towels and garbage bags to stop the water coming into her first-floor apartment in Queens, but the flood rose up to her chest in just a half hour. She roused her son from bed and put him in a life jacket and inflatable swimming ring.

The door stuck when she tried to open it, possibly from water pressure, she said. She called two friends who helped her jar it loose.

“I was obviously scared, but I had to be strong for my son. I had to calm him down,” she recalled Thursday as medical examiners removed three bodies from a home down the street.

In another part of Queens, water rapidly filled Deborah Torres’ first-floor apartment to her knees as her landlord frantically urged her neighbors below — who included a baby — to get out, she said. But the water rushed in so strongly that she surmised they weren’t able to open the door. The three residents died.

“I have no words,” she said. “How can something like this happen?”

Ida’s remnants maintained a soggy core, then merged with a storm front and soaked the Interstate 95 corridor, meteorologists said. Similar weather has followed hurricanes before, but experts said it was slightly exacerbated by climate change — warmer air holds more rain — and urban settings, where expansive pavement prevents water from seeping into the ground.

The National Hurricane Center had warned since Tuesday of the potential for “significant and life-threatening flash flooding” and major river flooding in the mid-Atlantic region and New England.

Still, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the storm’s strength took them by surprise.

“We did not know that between 8:50 and 9:50 p.m. last night, that the heavens would literally open up and bring Niagara Falls level of water to the streets of New York,” said Hochul, a Democrat who became governor last week after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned.

De Blasio, also a Democrat, said he’d gotten a forecast Wednesday of 3 to 6 inches (7.5 to 15 cm) of rain for the day. The city’s Central Park ended up getting 3.15 inches in just one hour, surpassing the previous one-hour high of 1.94 inches (5 cm) during Tropical Storm Henri on Aug. 21.

Wednesday’s storm ultimately dumped over 9 inches (23 cm) of rain in parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and nearly as much on New York City’s Staten Island.

In Washington, President Joe Biden assured Northeast residents that federal first responders were on the ground to help clean up.

In New York, some highways flooded, garbage bobbed in streaming streets and water cascaded into the city’s subway tunnels, trapping at least 17 trains and halting service until early morning. Videos online showed riders standing on seats in swamped cars. All riders safely evacuated, officials said.

At one Queens development, water filled the sunken patio of a basement apartment, then broke through a glass door, trapping a 48-year-old woman in 6 feet (2 meters) of water. Neighbors unsuccessfully tried for an hour to save her.

“She was screaming, ‘Help me, help me, help me!’ We all came to her aid, trying to get her out,” said the building’s assistant superintendent, Jayson Jordan, but “the thrust of the water was so strong.”

Residents said they have complained for years about flooding on another Queens street, where a woman and her 22-year-old son died in a basement apartment. Her husband and the couple’s other son were spared only because they stepped out to move a car, next-door neighbor Lisa Singh said.

“No one should have to go this way. I feel like this was 100% avoidable,” she said.

In Elizabeth, New Jersey, rain and river flooding in an apartment complex killed four people and forced 600 from their homes, Mayor J. Christian Bollwage said.

Greg Turner, who lives elsewhere in the northern New Jersey city, said his 87-year-old mother started calling 911 at 8 p.m., when the water started rising in her apartment. High water kept him and his brother from getting to her.

As midnight approached, the water reached her neck, he said. Rescuers finally cut through the floor of the apartment above and pulled her to safety.

 “She lost everything,” Turner said as he headed to a bank for money to buy his mother clothes and shoes.

In New Jersey’s Milford Borough, authorities said they found a man’s body in a car buried up to its hood in dirt and rocks.

The ferocious storm also spawned at least seven tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service. One split trees on Cape Cod, another tore off part of a high school roof in suburban Philadelphia and yet another splintered homes and toppled silos in Mullica Hill, New Jersey, south of Philadelphia.

“It just came through and ripped,” said resident Jeanine Zubrzycki, 33, who hid in her basement with her three children as their house shook and lights flickered.

“And then you could just hear people crying,” said Zubrzycki, 33, whose home was damaged but liveable.

Record flooding along the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania inundated homes, highways and commercial buildings, even as meteorologists warned that rivers likely won’t crest for a few more days. The riverside community of Manayunk remained largely under water.

The Schuyilkill reached levels not seen in over 100 years in Philadelphia, where firefighters were still getting calls about minor building collapses and people stuck in flooded cars Thursday morning. The managers of a 941-unit apartment complex near the river ordered residents to evacuate, citing “deteriorating” conditions after water rushed into the parking garage and pool areas.

In suburban Bucks County, several firefighters had to be rescued after rushing floodwaters pinned a rescue boat against a bridge pier, state emergency management director Randy Padfield said.

Others were unable to escape the floods, including Donald Bauer, who was driving home to Perkiomenville with his wife after attending their daughter’s volleyball game at DeSales University, near Allentown.

Their SUV stalled in the water and floated into a house, breaking the back windshield, said Darby Bauer, who was on the phone with his parents when the engine died. Donald Bauer helped his wife, Katherine, escape out the broken windshield and urged her to go, their son said.

She clung to a tree and watched the rising waters carry the SUV out of sight, he said. She was rescued about an hour later and hospitalized.

Donald Bauer, a 65-year-old retired school bus driver, “had one of the biggest hearts we knew,” his son said. “He was selfless down to his last act.”

Authorities used boats to rescue people in places from North Kingstown, Rhode Island, to Frederick County, Maryland, where 10 children and a driver were pulled from a school bus caught in rising waters.

On Sunday, Ida struck Louisiana as the fifth-strongest storm to ever hit the U.S. mainland, leaving 1 million people without power, maybe for weeks.

Porter reported from Elizabeth, New Jersey. AP reporters Karen Matthews in New York City; Maryclaire Dale in Mullica Hill, New Jersey; Seth Borenstein and Darlene Superville in Washington; Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut; Pat Eaton-Robb in Columbia, Connecticut; Mark Pratt in Waltham, Massachusetts; Michael Catalini and Shawn Marsh in Trenton, New Jersey; Wayne Parry in Point Pleasant, New Jersey; Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania, Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia and Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report

-Associated Press-

Amazon shuts New Jersey facility as COVID-19 cases rise among workers

Amazon.com Inc said on Sunday it had closed one of its warehouses in New Jersey out of caution until December 26, after seeing an increase in asymptomatic positive cases amongst workers.

"Through our in-house COVID-19 testing program, we detected an increase in the number of asymptomatic positive cases at our PNE5 facility in northern New Jersey and have proactively closed the site until December 26th out of an abundance of caution," an Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement to Reuters.

Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, did not specify the number of workers who contracted the disease at its PNE5 facility, which is a sorting center.

The company, however said, that its employees will be paid for the shifts that they miss because of the shutdown of the facility.

In October, Amazon said more than 19,000 of its US frontline workers contracted the coronavirus this year, or 1.44 percent of the total, a disclosure sought by labor advocates who have criticized the COVID-19 response of the company.

Some staff, elected officials and unions in recent months have said Amazon put its employees' health at risk by keeping warehouses open during the pandemic.

The company had said it would expand virus testing to 50,000 US employees per day by November through internally built capacity. 

-reuters-

Filipino couple in New Jersey die at frontlines against COVID-19

Both Alfredo and Susana Pabatao, who were married for 44 years, worked on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus — he as a transport aide at a hospital in North Bergen, New Jersey, she as an assistant nurse at a nearby nursing home.

On March 26, Alfredo Pabatao died of the virus at the hospital where he worked, Hackensack Meridian Health Palisades Medical Center. He was 68.

Four days later, Susana Pabatao, who was also infected with the virus, died in the same hospital. She was 64.

Sheryl Pabatao, one of their daughters, said her mother would probably have died the day she learned of her husband’s fate had she not been put on a breathing tube. Well before she took ill her mother had signed a health directive saying that in the event of an emergency she did not want to be resuscitated, her daughter said, but it was on file at a different hospital. 

When hospital aides found her passed out on the floor, doctors inserted the tube to keep her alive.

But Susana Pabatao resisted, trying so often to remove the tube that she had to be sedated. “She said, ‘I can’t breathe; I can’t do this anymore,’” her daughter said.

Sheryl Pabatao and her four siblings were then faced with an excruciating choice — whether to honor their mother’s directive and ask the doctors to remove the tube or to keep her alive against her wishes. They decided not to remove it.

“My dad had just passed away that morning,” she said. “We wanted her to fight. But she wanted to be with him.”

Dr. Dilip Jeste, a geriatric psychiatrist at the University of California, San Diego, said in an interview that long-term partners dying within a short time of each other is a long-observed phenomenon but one that remains poorly understood.

Given that the coronavirus is so contagious, he said, it is not surprising that more partners appear to be dying almost in tandem. But he did not rule out that a psychological or emotional component could play a role.

Sheryl Pabatao saw that component at work, she said.

Her parents had been inseparable. Both were born and grew up in the same neighborhood in Quezon City, in the Philippines. Susana Galapate came from a modest background, the daughter of a stable hand, while Alfredo was the son of a successful clothing retailer.

They fell in love and, against his family’s wishes, married in 1976. They had five children. In 2001, the couple and the three youngest emigrated to the United States, settling in Palisades Park, New Jersey. They became American citizens more than a decade ago.

After the illness struck in late March and her father died, Pabatao said, she and her siblings came to understand how much her mother wanted to be with her father.

“In the beginning, I was mad at my mom for wanting to leave us,” she said. “I thought it wasn’t fair — how could she leave five of us to be with one husband?”

Because of coronavirus restrictions in the hospital, each parent died alone, on a separate floor, the children out of reach.

“As hurtful as this is, I see it as a great love story,” Pabatao said. “They just couldn’t live without each other.”

Katharine Q. Seelye, The New York Times

Just spit and wait: First saliva-based test for new coronavirus offers advantages

A new test for the coronavirus is so simple and straightforward, almost anyone could do it: Spit a glob of saliva into a cup, close the lid and hand it over.

While not as fast to process as the speediest swab tests, saliva tests could transform the diagnosis of COVID-19. If manufactured in enough numbers and processed by enough labs across the country, they could alleviate the diagnostic shortages that have hampered containment of the pandemic and offer a less onerous way for companies to see if workers are infected.

The first saliva-based test, already being offered in parts of New Jersey, detects genetic material from the virus, just as the existing tests do, but it avoids a long swab that reaches disturbingly far up a person’s nose. For the saliva-based test, health care workers do not need to wear and discard precious gowns and masks. And early evidence suggests it is just as sensitive, if not more so, than the swabs.

Because the saliva test relies on equipment that is widely available, it also offers the hope of a nationwide rollout without encountering the supply problems that have plagued the swabs.

Starting about 2 weeks ago, New Jersey has offered the saliva test at a walk-up site in New Brunswick; drive-thru sites in Somerset and Edison; the state’s Department of Corrections; 30 long-term care facilities; and even the American Dream mall.

Experts not involved with the test praised it as a welcome solution to diagnostic shortages across the country.

“If people are going back to work, and they’re going to be tested presumably on a regular basis, we really do need to have less invasive sampling methods than the swabs,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University. “To have to do nasopharyngeal swabs twice a week? No, thanks.”

The next step would be an at-home saliva test kit that skirts even the need to go to a walk-in center, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.

Adalja noted that LabCorp, one of the nation’s largest commercial laboratories, now offers an at-home test that people can use to swab their own nose. “If we can do nasal swabs unsupervised, there’s no reason why we can’t do these tests unsupervised as well,” he said.

On April 13, the Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency-use authorization, waiving some usual requirements, to a saliva test made by a Rutgers University lab, RUCDR Infinite Biologics.

The Rutgers lab has already processed close to 90,000 tests, according to its chief executive, Andrew Brooks, and expects to ramp up eventually to 30,000 tests per day. Results are available within 72 hours, although they could be sped up to just a few hours with enough infrastructure in place. By contrast, some rapid tests that rely on swabs deliver results in minutes.

Other states are expressing interest. Working with Rutgers, Oklahoma has begun validating a version of the test, and the Rutgers researchers have fielded questions from the White House’s coronavirus task force, Indiana, Illinois, California and several large companies. In New Jersey, the test is available for between $65 and $100.

After a disastrously slow start, the United States is starting to see an increase in testing types and capacity. The National Institutes of Health on Wednesday announced a new $1.5 billion “shark tank” style program aimed at encouraging swift innovation in coronavirus testing, with a goal of new tests by the end of summer. Also Wednesday, testing manufacturer Hologic said that it had a new test that could allow labs to begin running up to 1 million additional tests per week.

The nasopharyngeal swabs that have mostly been used to test for the coronavirus are invasive and uncomfortable and may be difficult for severely ill people to tolerate. They also put health care workers at high risk of infection and require them to wear gloves, gowns and masks.

The saliva test, by contrast, doesn’t require any interaction with a health care worker. And it’s easy enough that New Jersey has also started using it at developmental centers with residents who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The saliva is immersed in a liquid that preserves it until it can be analyzed. This will be particularly important for developing tests that people can use at home and mail or drop off at a lab, or when dealing with large numbers of samples.

The Rutgers test was validated in people who were severely ill, but the saliva test often yielded a stronger signal than the swab, suggesting that it is more sensitive — yielding fewer false negatives — than the swab. It also generated no false positives in all of the samples tested.

False negatives in particular have been a problem with the nasopharyngeal swabs. (A different type of test for antibodies, which can say whether a person was exposed to the virus and has recovered, is riddled with false positives.)

In separate research, a Yale University team reported that saliva may be able to detect the virus in people who are only mildly ill, while a nasopharyngeal swab cannot.

In their study, the team compared swabs and saliva samples from patients. They needed only a few drops of saliva for their test, an advantage for people who may have trouble producing more. Thinking about a favorite meal can often do the trick, said Anne Wyllie, the Yale team’s leader.

The swabs are known to produce false negatives — perhaps in part because of errors by health care workers under stress. The saliva test appeared to be more consistent and accurate over a longer period of time, detecting infections even after the amounts of the virus have waned, than the swab.

“The nasopharyngeal swab is subject to so much more variability in how well it’s obtained,” Wyllie said. A saliva test is “definitely more reliable.”

In one case, the team found a health care worker who twice tested negative using a nasopharyngeal swab before finally testing positive on a third day. But the worker’s saliva tested positive all three days, Wyllie said. She underlined the risks of asymptomatic health care workers getting a false negative and continuing to care for patients. “You can imagine the implications,” she said.

While the Yale team did not compare saliva tests with the shorter swabs used in some tests, Wyllie said she expected that saliva tests would prove superior there as well. Most people with COVID-19 do not have runny noses, which might influence how much virus a short swab can collect, she said.

Saliva tests would also be a preferred choice for at-home tests, Adalja added. A saliva test for HIV is the only at-home test approved for an infectious disease, he said, but before the pandemic, the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority had funded two companies to develop at-home nasal swab tests for influenza.

“It’s not a high bar to repurpose home testing for the coronavirus,” he said. “It’s not something that’s out of reach.”

The New York Times

US CDC reports 661,712 coronavirus cases, 33,049 deaths

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday reported 661,712 cases of new coronavirus, an increase of 29,164 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,978 to 33,049.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on April 16, compared with its count a day earlier. 

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states. 

This, as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday launched a blistering attack on President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus crisis, accusing him of "passing the buck" to the states and favoring big business over communities hardest hit.

Cuomo, who had previously kept his criticism of Trump in check, unleashed a flurry of broadsides following a reporter's question about the president's comments suggesting New York had asked for too much aid that was never fully used.

The governor said the president should "maybe get up and go to work" instead of watching TV and accused him of favoring the airline industry and other business cronies in a recent bailout package that Cuomo said left little for the states.

Cuomo said that he had been quick to praise the president when the state was in dire need of hospital beds and ventilators and that his requests for help with those were motivated by the White House's own dire projections for the virus.

"We built more beds than we needed," Cuomo, said pointing to initial federal projections on the impact of the virus which predicted that as many as 2.2 million people could die. "Our only mistake was believing your numbers and your projections."

Cuomo, whose state is at the epicenter of the US outbreak, accounting for nearly half of the country's deaths, said the president had repeatedly refused to help states with ramping up testing because it was "too complicated."

He said he needs federal funding to significantly ramp up testing capacity and to fill a $10-$15 billion budget shortfall that is hampering the state's ability to fund such efforts on its own. He criticized the aid packages passed by Congress to date for a lack of funds to hard-hit states like New York.

"Is there any funding so I can do these things that you want us to do? 'No,'" Cuomo told a daily briefing on the coronavirus. "That is passing the buck without passing the bucks."

He spoke one day after the Trump administration outlined plans for a phased reopening, starting with the states least affected by the virus.

'ZERO, ZILCH, NADA'

"The federal government has passed three bills to address this crisis. Of those three bills the state governments have gotten precisely zero, zilch, nada in unrestricted aid," Cuomo said.

"Okay, it's up to the states, but then don't ask the states, don't give them this massive undertaking that has never been done before and then not give them any resources to do it."

In a separate briefing, Governor Phil Murphy of neighboring New Jersey said he had been in constant contact with the White House to get "the right testing infrastructure and regime in place," a prerequisite for reopening the state.

Murphy avoided Cuomo's combative rhetoric, calling his teleconference on Thursday with Trump and other White House officials "a good discussion."

On Thursday, Cuomo extended the closure of businesses and schools in his state until at least May 15, but he has started to plan on a phased reopening that would hinge on keeping hospitalizations and other key metrics on a downward trend.

Cuomo said on Friday that a total of 17,316 people were hospitalized across New York because of COVID-19, down from 17,735 a day earlier and the lowest since April 5. Intubations and admissions to intensive care units also fell, he said.

Cuomo said that about 2,000 infected people were newly admitted to hospitals on Thursday, hovering at a high level, while the state recorded an additional 630 deaths, up from 606 deaths the previous day.

New Jersey, which is second after New York in coronavirus cases and fatalities, reported 323 new deaths on Friday for a total of 3,840, and 3,250 new confirmed cases for a total of 78,467.

But the rates of increase in the spread of the virus have "dropped dramatically" over the past several weeks, Murphy said. "This is what we've been working toward, and what we must keep doing," he added.

Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) wheel a man out of the Cobble Hill Health Center nursing home in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on April 17, 2020, during an ongoing outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Lucas Jackson, Reuters

Virus scare: US plane diverted after passengers upset by sneezing

LOS ANGELES - Mounting concern over the spread of coronavirus was apparently behind a US flight being diverted at the weekend after passengers became upset over someone sneezing and coughing.

United Airlines told AFP in a statement that the flight -- headed from Eagle, Colorado, to Newark, New Jersey -- was diverted on Sunday afternoon to Denver's international airport.

The plane was allowed to continue on to New Jersey after a small group of people who raised a ruckus over fears a passenger who was sneezing and coughing may be sick with the virus were taken off the flight, local media quoted officials as saying.

The airline said the incident "was in no way a medical situation."

It told local media that the passenger who was sneezing had allergies and was evaluated and allowed to stay on the flight.

"After landing safely, the aircraft was met by law enforcement" the airline said.

jz/bgs

Agence France-Presse

Motive unclear in deadly New Jersey kosher grocery rampage - officials

NEW YORK—Investigators are not sure why 2 people launched a deadly attack at a New Jersey kosher grocery store, state officials said on Wednesday, but a federal law enforcement source said the incident did not appear to be an act of organized terrorism.

Six people, including the 2 shooters, 3 civilians and a police officer, died in a series of events that ended in a police shootout on Tuesday in Jersey City, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City.

The 4-hour gun battle at the Jewish JC Kosher Supermarket erupted after the pair shot the police officer at a nearby cemetery and then fled in a white van. It ended after police crashed an armored vehicle through the wall of the market.

"We are not in the position at this time to say definitively why the suspects stopped in front of the supermarket and began firing," New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal told a news conference.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop ordered police to be on high alert to protect Jewish neighborhoods following the attack.

The federal law enforcement source said investigators believe mental illness and drug use may have been the primary factors in the attack. He said investigators now view an anti-Semitic message posted online by one of the shooters as a secondary factor.

Officials identified the shooters as David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50. The 3 civilian victims inside the market were Mindy Ferenz, 32, Miguel Douglas, 49, and Moshe Deutsch, 24, they said.

A fourth person who was in the market when the shooters entered escaped. Officials declined to identify that person.

Police found a homemade pipe bomb in the rented van that the shooters drove to the market.

Some local media reported the initial confrontation between the suspects and police near the Jersey City cemetery, about a mile (1.6 km) from the supermarket, was linked to a previous homicide investigation. The 2 shooters also are suspects in that earlier murder, officials said.

The dead police officer, identified as Joseph Seals, a 15-year veteran of the force and father of 5, was shot at the cemetery shortly before the shootout around the grocery began.

"We are deeply shocked and saddened by the antisemitic attack in #JerseyCity yesterday," the Israeli embassy in Washington said on Twitter.

"This remains a very fluid and fast-moving investigation," said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. "Based on everything we know, there is no ongoing security concern related to the events of yesterday."

source: news.abs-cbn.com 

Six killed in New Jersey shooting

Emergency personnel are shown on the scene of a shooting that left multiple people dead on Tuesday in Jersey City, New Jersey. In a raging gun battle that by some accounts lasted in excess of an hour, six people - a Jersey City police officer, three civilians and two suspects - were killed in the Tuesday afternoon standoff and shootout across the Hudson River from Manhattan, according to published reports. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

New generation of Fil-Ams rediscovering roots in Pinoy-owned superstore

CLIFTON, New Jersey – A Filipino-owned store considered as the oldest and largest in the east coast is expanding business and has been providing job opportunities to a new generation of employees called the iGen, also known as the GenZ.

What started out as a small store in a garage in the 1970s grew into a storefront with more than 372 square meters of space in Jersey City years later.

Now, this Philippine grocery store has quadrupled into a 1,500-sqm superstore known as “Filstop” here.

The Santos family is the proud owner of Filstop that offers Filipino food and products. The store became even more famous when it was featured twice on Bizarre Foods America by host Andrew Zimmern.

Erwin Santos is among the next generation of the Santos family taking the reins in running their one-stop shop.

His latest spin is bringing in a new generation of workers, those born between 1995 and 2012.

While this generation comprises digital natives who grew up in the digital age of iPhones and iPads, Santos, also an iGen, said working at the superstore temporarily takes him away from the digital world to rediscover the analog world and his Filipino roots.

“I found this job through social media and I take pride in the culture and the community and that's why I currently work here,” said Aaron Carr of West Orange, New Jersey.

From stocking groceries and cutting chicken meat to descaling and cleaning fish, young Fil-Am employees are learning all kinds of skills.

For Japanese-American Jacob Leonard, working at Filstop is a summer job that beats flipping burgers or folding clothes at retail stores.

“I really like the fact that everyone here’s kinda young and energized. I’m getting ready for college. I’m going to my first year in college,” he said.

Santos said Filstop is a place where people can put away their smartphones and other gadgets and focus on eating, shopping and spending time with loved ones.

“I think it’s just seeing people relaxing, conversing and talking about back home or here, I think that’s been the thing that's made me the happiest,” Santos said.

For those who can’t physically make it to Filstop, they can also order online thru Filstop.com.

Filstop’s superstore officially opens on August 22.

Read more on Balitang America:

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Fil-Am hit by drunk driver in New Jersey dies, is laid to rest

WESTFIELD, New Jersey - A Filipino-American who died 2 days after a drunk driver hit his car was laid to rest in New Jersey on Monday.

Michael Sot, 20, was making sure his friends got home safe only to be hit head on by a drunk driver last Dec. 2.

The driver, 22-year-old David Lamar, crossed over the double center line and crashed into Sot’s car. The accident also injured 7 others.

Lamar survived and was charged with vehicular homicide, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.

"I want the other guy to know how he affected everyone and I want him to know how good of a kid he took out in the world. I have other fraternity brothers still in the hospital right now, unconscious, and I want him to see that too," said Sot’s best friend, Giancarlo Santo.

For many of Sot’s friends, he was not only a former star football player and an outstanding student, he was someone who put others first.

"He might be gone now, but like now, pieces of him live in every one of us and I think we just need to do our best job to carry out what things Mike would have done to people if he was here, because it’s the only way he could live on now,” Santo said. 

More than $73,000 dollars has been raised at this time through a GoFundMe page to help the Sot family and other victims of the car crash.

Another GoFundMe page called TCNJ Car Accident Recovery Fund has raised more than $120,000. The money raised will be given to each family affected by the crash.

Read more on Balitang America:

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Fil-Am college student dies of injuries from car accident

A Filipino-American college student died from his injuries two days after a car driven by an impaired driver crashed into their vehicle.

What started out to be a fun Sunday night out for 20-year-old Filipino-American Michael Sot and his friends turned tragic. 

Sot, a sophomore math major at the College of New Jersey, was the designated driver that night.

The impaired driver, 22-year-old David Lamar, crossed into the oncoming lane and struck Sot’s vehicle. 

Lamar was charged with vehicular homicide, as well as seven counts of second-degree assault by auto in connection with the 2 a.m. crash near the college campus. 

College officials said Sot had six passengers. Four of them are students who sustained injuries. 

On Tuesday night, hundreds of students held a vigil honoring Sot, saying he always wanted to do things right and keep people around him safe. It was no surprise to them that he offered to be the designated driver on the night of the crash.

In the last three days alone, a GoFundMe account set-up by a campus fraternity for the Fil-Am victim and his passengers has raised over $100,000. 

Read more on Balitang America.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

BMW sued in US over diesel emissions

NEW YORK - German luxury carmaker BMW has been sued in the United States over "defeat devices" installed in tens of thousands of vehicles in order to cheat diesel emissions tests, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Tuesday.

The case, filed in federal court in New Jersey, will become a class-action suit once it is certified by a judge.

The suit singles out the BMW X5 and 335D model diesel cars sold between 2009 and 2013. 

The attorneys at the Hagens Berman firm claim emissions from those cars were as much as 27 times higher than the standard allowed -- a fact masked by the "defeat devices" and their "manipulative software."

"At these levels, these cars aren't just dirty - they don't meet standards to be legally driven on US streets and no one would have bought these cars if BMW had told the truth," said Steve Berman, the firm's managing partner.

"BMW blatantly chose to leave its loyal customers in the dark, forcing them to unknowingly fit the bill for its degradation of the environment."

BMW is the latest automaker to face legal action over emissions violations, rival Volkswagen was found to have built "defeat devices" into more than 11 million cars worldwide in the so-called "dieselgate" scandal.

The attorneys are seeking reimbursement for their clients for their car purchases.

A week ago, German authorities raided BMW headquarters in Munich and another site in Austria in connection with a preliminary investigation into possible fraud relating to emissions cheat systems built into more than 11,000 cars.

BMW confirmed the raids and repeated the company's stance that "a correctly programmed software subroutine was mistakenly allocated to incompatible models."

In February, the German automaker admitted the software was present in some vehicles and said it would recall them for a software update as soon as one was approved by the KBA German vehicle licensing authority.

Volkswagen eventually was ordered to pay huge fines in the United States in connection with "dieselgate".

Since that scandal erupted, several automakers have been accused of using software to skirt emissions standards.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Woman dies in escalator fall at New York's World Trade Center Oculus

A 29-year-old woman died on Saturday after she fell more than 30 feet (9 meters) from an escalator at the World Trade Center Oculus, part of a new, multi-billion-dollar transportation and shopping hub in lower Manhattan.

The woman, from New Jersey, whose name was not released, was pronounced dead at an area hospital, Port Authority police spokesman Joe Pentangelo said. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owns and manages the entire World Trade center site.

Local media reports said the woman was trying to retrieve her twin sister's hat when she fell off the escalator.

Oculus, with its towering white vaulted ceiling, is the focal point of the hub built to replace a terminal that was destroyed when the Twin Towers collapsed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center site.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Woods named an assistant captain for 2017 Presidents Cup

Tiger Woods, who plans to make his PGA Tour return next week after more than a year on the sidelines, has been appointed as one of three vice-captains to U.S. skipper Steve Stricker for next year's Presidents Cup in New Jersey.

Woods will join Fred Couples and triumphant U.S. Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III as assistants for the biennial team competition against the Internationals to be played at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City from Sept. 28-Oct. 1.

"It's just a tremendous honour," Woods, who has paired up successfully with his longtime friend Stricker in the past at both the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, said in a statement on Wednesday after being formally appointed.

"We've been friends for close to 20 years now, and we've been on teams together ... so for him to have the confidence in me, to be part of the crew and help him in any way I possibly can - I'm thrilled to be his assistant."

Former world number one Woods, who got his first taste as a vice-captain during last week's Ryder Cup in Minnesota where the United States beat Europe 17-11, could still play his way on to the U.S. Presidents Cup team.

"If that happens, replacing him as a captain's assistant will be a great problem for me to have," said Stricker. "But if he doesn't, I'm honoured he accepted this role for the first time in his impressive Presidents Cup career.

"Tiger has been a great team mate and friend over the years, and I know the U.S. guys will benefit from the experience and camaraderie that only Tiger can bring."

Woods, who has not played competitive golf since the Wyndham Championship in late August 2015 while recovering from multiple back surgeries, intends to make his PGA Tour comeback at next week's Safeway Open in Napa, California.

In other Presidents Cup announcements on Wednesday, Internationals captain Nick Price appointed fellow Zimbabwean Tony Johnstone, South African Ernie Els and Australian Geoff Ogilvy as his assistants.

The United States have won the Presidents Cup nine times in its 11 editions, most recently by 15-1/2 points to 14-1/2 in South Korea last year. (Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank Pingue)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

New Jersey train crash kills 3, injures more than 100: reports

HOBOKEN, N.J. - Three people were killed and more than 100 injured, some critically, when a commuter train derailed and plowed through Hoboken station in New Jersey during the morning rush hour on Thursday, U.S. media and a transit official said.

Citing medical officials, U.S. media reports said three people were killed. Well over 100 people were hurt, many of them critically, Jennifer Nelson, a spokeswoman for train operator New Jersey Transit, told reporters at the scene. She did not confirm any fatalities.

Dramatic pictures posted by commuters showed a train carriage that appeared to have smashed right through the station concourse, collapsing a section of the roof, scattering debris and wreckage and causing devastation.

ABC News said on its website that New Jersey Transit was reporting many passengers were trapped. Fox News said the engineer, or train driver, had to be extricated from the front car.

Hoboken lies on the west bank of the Hudson River across from New York City. Its station, one of the busiest in the metropolitan area, is used by many commuters traveling into Manhattan from New Jersey and further afield.

There was no word yet on what caused the crash. Federal investigators were en route to the scene.

Linda Albelli, 62, said she was sitting in her seat in one of the rear cars when the train approached the station. She said she knew something was wrong a moment before the impact.

"I thought to myself, 'Oh my god, he's not slowing up, and this is where we're usually stop,'" Albelli said. "'We're going too fast,' and with that there was this tremendous crash."

Passengers helped each other off the train and onto the platform. They ultimately had to cross the tracks to get to safety, she said: "When we got on the platform there was nowhere to go. The ceiling had come down."

The injured sat on benches in the station while they waited for first responders, said Albelli, who lives in Closter, New Jersey. She did not know how many had been hurt.

"There was just so much, a lot of people in need of attention," she said. "There were a lot of people who were really hurt."

The train had about five or six carriages and was not full because many passengers exit at Secaucus, Albelli said.

'HARD TO BELIEVE'

New Jersey Transit employee Michael Larson talked to reporters outside the station looking shocked and with blood from one of the injured passengers on the knee of his pants.

"It's hard to believe. I have no idea what caused it," Larson said. "The whole roof was caved in."

A major transit hub, the historic green-roofed Hoboken Station is served by NJ Transit commuter trains connecting much of New Jersey with the country's largest city, as well as PATH, a more local subway-like service going into Manhattan, a local light rail service and ferry service to New York.

The train was on the Pascack Valley line, which goes through Northern Bergen County, and had originated at Spring Valley, according to media reports. NBC News said it was on track five when it struck the Hoboken terminal building.

Jaimie Weatherhead-Saul, a passenger on train, said the people sitting in front of him were badly injured.

"Once we got off we noticed people were stuck and had to come out windows. And the conductor came off and he was completely bloodied," Weatherhead-Saul said.

The Federal Railroad Administration said its investigators were en route to the scene. The National Transportation Safety Board said it would send its major incidents team to investigate.

In May 2011, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey train crashed at the same Hoboken station, injuring more than 30 people when it plowed into a bumping post at the end of the track. An NTSB investigation determined excessive speed was the main cause of the accident.

The worst passenger train crash in recent years in the United States was the crash of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia in May, 2015 that killed eight passengers and injured 186.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Mickelson makes cut despite horror start, McIlroy misses it

SPRINGFIELD, New Jersey - Phil Mickelson made a "horrific" start to the second round of the PGA Championship on Friday but recovered to make the cut with nothing to spare, while Rory McIlroy's bogey at the last saw him miss out by one stroke.

Mickelson sliced his tee shot out-of-bounds at the par-four first, his ball landing on the adjacent Shunpike Road and bouncing onto another street.

"Just a total mental block on that first hole. It was just horrific," said Mickelson, who teed up again and in the end was fortunate to salvage a triple-bogey seven after almost hitting his approach shot out-of-bounds too.

"I think in the history of the PGA Championship, that's the worst start of any player's round. I'd have to look that up."

Mickelson looked stunned as he trudged to the second tee but settled down and had only one further blemish, a bogey at the 16th, before closing with a birdie at the par-five 18th to make the cut with nothing to spare.

"I was able to fight back and be patient, start to make a birdie here or there," the British Open runner-up said after shooting a 70 for one-over 141, 10 strokes behind leaders Jimmy Walker and Robert Streb.

"I actually hit a lot of good shots and missed on a lot good opportunities in the middle of the round."

McIlroy, who played with Mickelson, messed up the final hole to miss the cut for the first time in eight starts at the PGA Championship.

"I've hit the ball really well this week and I'm walking away not playing the weekend. It's really disheartening," said the world number four.

McIlroy, who continues to struggle on the greens, also missed the cut at the U.S. Open and tied for 10th at the Masters and for fifth at the British Open.

The Northern Irishman's last major win came at the 2014 PGA Championship in Kentucky.

"I just need to figure out what to do on the greens. I need to have a long hard think about that.

"I think if you had to give anyone else in this field my tee shots this week, they would have been up near the top of the leaderboard. It just shows you how bad I was around the greens."

Mickelson agreed.

"You watch him with a driver and it's the sweetest thing you can imagine," he said. "He's just so tentative through impact (with his putter). He's just not confident. You can just tell." (Reporting by Andrew Both in Cary, North Carolina; Editing by Peter Rutherford; )

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Obama slams Trump: 'Ignorance is not a virtue'

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama on Sunday criticized the populist campaign of Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump, decrying "anti-intellectualism" and noting that "ignorance is not a virtue."

Obama did not specifically name the brash New York real estate developer during his remarks at a university graduation ceremony in New Jersey, but it was clear he was referring to the candidate who is running on a slogan of "Make America Great Again!"

The Democrat told students not to pine for an American golden age of years past, saying, "The good old days were not all that good," as he pointed out problems with racial discrimination, poverty and lack of equality for women.

"The world is more interconnected than ever before and it is becoming more connected every day. Building walls won't change things," Obama said, an apparent jab at Trump's calls for a wall along the US-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants out.

Obama noted that no wall could stop outbreaks of infectious diseases like Ebola and Zika, or help the United States remain competitive in a time of globalization.

"Suggesting that we can build an endless wall along our borders and blame our challenges on immigrants, that does not just run counter to our history as the world melting pot," Obama said.

"It contradicts the evidence that our growth and our innovation and our dynamism has always been spurred by our ability to attract strivers from every corner of the globe."

The US president also denounced politicians who hold themselves up as examples of straight-talkers but shun political correctness.

"In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue. It's not cool to not know what you're talking about," he said. "That's not challenging political correctness. That's just not knowing what you're talking about."

Obama was speaking to students at Rutgers University, about one hour from New York. He wore a red and black gown and received an honorary degree from the school.

ico/acb/bfm

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Pinoy restaurant week kicks off in NY, NJ

NEW YORK - Now on its second year, Filipino Restaurant Week is back, bigger and better with 15 popular Pinoy restaurants in New York and New Jersey participating this time.

Patterned after the New York Restaurant Week, foodies can sample a variety of Filipino cuisine at an affordable fixed price.

A three-course meal costs $25 dollars for lunch and $35 for dinner.

Filipino Restaurant Week was first launched in 2015. It shines a spotlight on Filipino restaurants as Philippine cuisine becomes more and more popular in the US mainstream.

"Last year, it was sort of an introduction to the Filipino food kasi everyone was talking about the Filipino Food as the 'in' thing, kaya lang alam ba nila kung saan sila makakakain?" Philippine Consul General Mario De Leon Jr. said. "This time, we’re really trying to look more on how to really sustain the Filipino restaurant business here."

Participating business owners say the restaurant week not only elevates the profile of Filipino cuisine, it helps feed their cash registers.

Nicole Ponseca, owner of Maharlika and Jeepney said, "We saw a bump in business, for the week, it was awesome and new faces too, gives an excuse or reason for people to come in."

Tyrone Conshue, owner of Pinoy Filipino Restaurant said, "Every time you’re mentioned, it helps, it’s gonna really bring a lot of people who were nosing us before around the county."

Filipino restaurant week’s launch at the Philippine Consulate in New York also served as a way for restaurateurs to learn from each other’s experience.

Food and travel blogger Kat Popiel said running a restaurant is a tough business in New York City.

"Also know you have a responsibility, a good responsibility, a happy responsibility to the Filipino community to spread the message of what sinigang is or what a choriburger is. It’s all part of the business. The more you can promote your menu and your way of doing food, the more you’re elevating Filipino food as a status," she said.

Ponseca added, "I'm really hopeful. I feel a camaraderie for these startups. I see a lot of women, female Filipino Entrepreneurs. I reach out to them and hopefully we can support each other because this business is very very hard."

More information about Filipino Restaurant Week and the participating restaurants and their menu can be found at www.newyorkpcg.org/frw

Read more on Balitang America.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Lizard lounging in New Jersey pupil's salad is now class pet

NEW YORK - A tiny green lizard found by a New Jersey kindergarten student in a bundle of chilled salad greens at home has wriggled its way into the hearts of an entire elementary school class, which has adopted it as a mascot.

The three-inch (7.5-cm) critter went unnoticed for a few days in the refrigerator in Princeton, New Jersey, before Sally Mabon and her daughter Faye found its limp body while unwrapping a bunch of tatsoi, an Asian leaf, science teacher Mark Eastburn of Riverside Elementary School in Princeton said on Tuesday.

Warmth restored its energy and soon the anole lizard was on its way to Riverside Elementary School, where it caught "oohs" and "aahs" like flies, and quickly became the class pet.

Less Godzilla and more Geico Gecko, the juvenile lizard has been named "Green Fruit Loop" by the children.

"It's great because the kids are studying DNA and the anole is the only reptile to have its entire DNA code sequenced," Eastburn said.

Fran McManus, spokeswoman for Whole Earth Center, the natural foods store where Mabon bought the tatsoi, told Reuters by telephone that a Florida grower believes the lizard snuggled into the greens as they were being harvested in chilly temperatures and then woke up as a stowaway in New Jersey.

The lizard lurking in the salad greens has turned out to be a valuable learning experience, Eastburn said in an email to Whole Earth.

"It underscores that food doesn't just come from the supermarket but from actual outdoor farms," the email said.

Also known as an American chameleon, the anole changes color from green to brown to blend into its surroundings, which now include a glass enclosure near the blackboard in Eastburn's classroom.

So far, the lizard has feasted on a live cricket and some fruit flies and has no appetite for tatsoi, Eastburn said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

'Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash killed in car crash

NEW YORK, United States - Nobel Prize-winning US mathematician John Nash, who inspired the film "A Beautiful Mind," was killed with his wife in a New Jersey car crash.

Nash, 86, and his 82-year-old wife Alicia were riding in a taxi on Saturday when the accident took place, State Police Sergeant Gregory Williams told AFP.

"The taxi passengers were ejected," Williams said, adding that they were both killed.

The Princeton University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) mathematician is best known for his contribution to game theory -- the study of decision-making -- which won him the Nobel economics prize in 1994.

His life story formed the basis of the Oscar-winning 2001 film "A Beautiful Mind" in which actor Russell Crowe played the genius, who struggled with mental illness.

"Stunned... my heart goes out to John & Alicia & family. An amazing partnership. Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts," Crowe said on Twitter.

Ron Howard, who won the Oscar for best director for the film, tweeted that "it was an honor telling part of their story."

Nash's life took a sharp turn in early 1959 when he began suffering from "mental disturbances" that caused him to resign his faculty position at MIT.

The schizophrenic delusions would end up affecting not only his career but also his marriage to Alicia, whom he wed in 1957.

The couple divorced in the early 1960s, but remained in contact and remarried decades later in 2001. By the time Nash received his Nobel Prize, his delusions had decreased.

"I am still making the effort and it is conceivable that with the gap period of about 25 years of partially deluded thinking providing a sort of vacation, my situation may be atypical," Nash said in an autobiographical description, written at the time of his Nobel Prize award in 1994.

"It did happen that when I had been long enough hospitalized that I would finally renounce my delusional hypothesis and revert to thinking of myself as a human of more conventional circumstances and return to mathematical research."

Earlier this month, Nash and mathematician Louis Nirenberg received Norway's prestigious Abel Prize for their contributions to the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) and its applications to geometric analysis.

Nash's 'achievements inspired generations'

"John's remarkable achievements inspired generations of mathematicians, economists and scientists who were influenced by his brilliant, groundbreaking work in game theory," Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber said in a statement Sunday.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis tweeted that "reading your work was inspirational. Meeting you, and spending time together, was an unearned bonus. Farewell John Nash Jr."

Nash was born in Bluefield, West Virginia on June 13, 1928 to John, an electrical engineer, and his wife, Virginia, a former school teacher.

He went on to study mathematics at what is now Carnegie Mellon University and received a graduate degree from Princeton, where he said he first became interested in game theory.

Nash and his wife were involved in the deadly crash at 4:30 pm (2030 GMT) on the New Jersey Turnpike near the township of Monroe, after the taxi the couple was riding in attempted to pass another vehicle, lost control and struck a guard rail and another car.

US media reported that Nash and his wife were possibly not wearing seatbelts at the time.

The taxi driver was airlifted to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

A passenger in the other car was taken to the hospital with neck and back pain, said Williams, the police sergeant.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com