Local medical examiner's office nearly at capacity following drug overdoses

Nearly 5.6 million people worldwide -- including more than 1.6 million in the United States – have been infected with the new coronavirus, and the number of deaths from the outbreak continues to rise. While efforts to contain the COVID-19 outbreak continue, states have begun to shift their focus toward reopening their economies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking cases in the U.S. here. Live updates for Wednesday, May 27, continue below: US coronavirus cases approach 1.7M, deaths near 99K Published 12:40 a.m. EDT May 27: The number of novel coronavirus cases in the United States surged toward 1.7 million early Wednesday across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. According to a Johns Hopkins University tally, there are at least 1,681,212 confirmed U.S. cases of the virus, which have resulted in at least 98,916 deaths.  The hardest-hit states remain New York with 363,836 cases and 29,302 deaths and New Jersey with 155,764 cases and 11,194 deaths. Massachusetts, with 93,693 cases, has the third-highest number of deaths with 6,473, while Illinois has the third-highest number of cases with 113,195. Only 16 states and territories have confirmed fewer than 6,000 cases each. Five other states have now confirmed at least 52,000 novel coronavirus cases each, including: • California: 99,684 cases, resulting in 3,823 deaths • Pennsylvania: 72,778 cases, resulting in 5,163 deaths • Texas: 57,230 cases, resulting in 1,546 deaths • Michigan: 55,104 cases, resulting in 5,266 deaths • Florida: 52,255 cases, resulting in 2,259 deaths Meanwhile, Maryland, Georgia and Connecticut each has confirmed at least 41,000 cases; Virginia, Louisiana, Ohio and Indiana each has confirmed at least 32,000 cases; Colorado, North Carolina, Minnesota, Tennessee and Washington each has confirmed at least 20,000 cases, followed by Iowa with 17,703 and Arizona with 16,864; Wisconsin and Alabama each has confirmed at least 15,000 cases, followed by Rhode Island with 14,210 and Mississippi with 13,731; Nebraska and Missouri each has confirmed at least 12,000 cases, followed by South Carolina with 10,416; Kansas and Delaware each has confirmed at least 9,000 cases; Kentucky, Utah, the District of Columbia and Nevada each has confirmed at least 8,000 cases, followed by New Mexico with 7,130; Arkansas and Oklahoma each has confirmed at least 6,000 cases. Click here to see CNN’s state-by-state breakdown.

Chad. F. Wolf, the Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security came to Jacksonville on Tuesday to visit Fire Station 1. Wolf talked about the SAFER Grant, a grant created to make sure money is available for fire stations and volunteer fire stations to make sure they have enough people trained and available to serve communities.  QUICK FACTS:  SAFER Grant stands for Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response.  The goal of SAFER Grants is to enhance the local fire departments’ ability to do their jobs safely.  This a partnership between local, state, federal government to help first responders. However, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department still must apply for the SAFER Grant. JFRD Chief Keith Powers said Curry approved the application and it was submitted Tuesday morning.  “This visit symbolizes a first, to building a robust firefighting community,” Wolf said.  SAFER Grant for 2020, will not only be used to hire new JFRD firefighters, but will also be used to retain current firefighters Rightwards and those that have been laid off.

It’s uncertain if students will be back inside their classes in the fall. This week, parents in Duval County are able to pick up their students belongings that have been left inside the school since spring break.  Because of COVID-19, students have not been back in the classroom -- instead they’ve had to transition to online classes.  On Tuesday, teachers and faculty waited outside in the rain as students picked up their items.  Emily Ellis and her mother Jodi stopped by Fletcher High School.  “I needed my volunteer hours that I left in the pottery room. Trying not to lose it and then, what do you know, spring break happened and I wasn’t able to come back,” Ellis said.  For now, the future of heading back in the fall looks uncertain for teachers, parents, and students.  The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, is meeting this week to look at how to re-open schools.  It will be forming two committees.  One group will be focused on Pre-K through 12th and another focused on colleges and higher education.  The next meeting is on Friday.  While Ellis is finishing up her senior year, she said she would like to see schools open up for her younger classmates in the fall.  She wasn’t a fan of online learning.  “I struggled through this online thing. Like, there’s a reason why I go to a physical high school and so I really want schools to take it a little easy on kids who had some problems in these last few quarters,” Ellis said.  Ellis said if students do return in fall, she’s hoping there will be stricter sanitation measures in place, masks and smaller class sizes in order to stop the spread of coronavirus.  Duval County will be having pickup times throughout the week.  It’s important to check with your child’s school to find out what day and time you can pick up their items.

Four Minneapolis police officers have been fired after video surfaced of one of the officers holding his knee to a man’s neck as the man struggled to breathe one day earlier. The man, identified by attorney Benjamin Crump as George Floyd, was pronounced dead after the incident. Authorities, including the FBI, are investigating. Update 3:45 p.m. EDT May 26: In a statement posted Tuesday on Twitter, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey confirmed the officers involved in the incident had been fired. “This is the right call,” he said. A video of the incident caught by a passerby and posted online early Friday showed an officer holding his knee to George Floyd’s neck after responding to a report of a forgery in progress, according to police and attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing Floyd’s family. “We all watched the horrific death of George Floyd on video as witnesses begged the police officer to take him into the police car and get off his neck,” Crump said Tuesday in a statement. He called the actions of police “abusive, excessive and inhumane' and noted that Floyd was being detained for questioning about a non-violent charge. Authorities continue to investigate. Original report: The FBI is investigating after video surfaced early Tuesday that appeared to show a police officer holding a knee against a man’s neck as he struggled to breathe shortly before he was pronounced dead at a hospital. The 10-minute video was caught by Darnella Frazier, who was on her way to meet with friends Monday night when she saw a man on the ground near a police cruiser and began to record, The Washington Post reported. In the video, later posted on Facebook, the man on the ground can be heard shouting that he can't breathe. “Don’t kill me!” he said, according to the Post. In a news briefing early Tuesday with police Chief Medaria Arradondo, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the officer seen in the video with his knee to the man’s neck “failed in the most basic human sense,” according to KARE. 'For five minutes we watched as a white officer pressed his knee to the neck of a black man,' he said. 'For five minutes.' Police said they were called around 8 p.m. Monday to a report of a forgery in progress on the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue South. Officers who responded found a man in his 40s who was believed to have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Police said officers ordered him to step away from his car and that afterward he “physically resisted officers.” 'Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress,' police said in a statement released after the incident. 'Officers called for an ambulance. He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center by ambulance where he died a short time later.' In video of the incident, bystanders can be heard questioning officers’ treatment of the man. “He’s not even resisting arrest right now, bro,” a bystander tells one of the two responding officers in the video, according to WCCO. “You’re (expletive) stopping his breathing right now, you think that’s cool?” The video shows when the man on the ground appears to lose consciousness. “Whatever the investigation reveals, it does not change the simple truth … that he should be with us this morning,” Frey said Tuesday, according to KARE. The two officers who responded to the incident have been placed on paid administrative leave as authorities investigate, according to WCCO. Neither the officers nor the man who died were identified.

Authorities in Texas are asking for the public’s help identifying a man who set a hotel clerk on fire during an attempted robbery Sunday night in Fort Worth. Fire department spokesperson Mike Drivdahl on Tuesday called the attack, which left the clerk with minor injuries and damaged the hotel, 'an absolutely horrific crime.' “We need your help to put the suspect in custody,” he said. Video footage shared by investigators showed the suspect talking to the clerk from behind a partition around 10:15 p.m. at the Budget Host Inn on Tanacross Drive. In the video, the man can be seen squirting a clear liquid out of a bottle and through a hole in the partition, onto the clerk. Fire investigators said the man made demands and threatened to burn the clerk alive if he refused. Surveillance footage showed the man carried through with his threat and set the liquid ablaze before fleeing from the area in a white four-door vehicle. The arsonist was described as a possibly Hispanic male with long hair. In video pulled from a nearby gas station, he could be seen wearing a teal shirt and a ball cap. Before attempting to rob the hotel, fire investigators said the man covered his tee with a pink button-down T-shirt and turned his cap inside out. Anyone with information about the crime was asked to contact Lt. James Horton at 817-392-6229 or call Tarrant County Crime Stoppers to leave an anonymous tip at 817-469-TIPS.

Chief Meteorologist Mike Buresh is forecasting more wet weather.

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