![Rev. Fr. Anthony Odiong, a US-based Nigerian Louisiana Catholic priest, was arrested in Florida on Tuesday for possessing child pornography, according to law authorities. The suspect is reportedly accused of many other cases of sexual assault. The Waco, Texas, Police Department announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday that officers detained Father Anthony Odiong in Ave Maria, Florida, with assistance from the United States Marshals Service. Waco police announced in March that they had received "credible information" about a sexual assault allegedly committed by Odiong in Texas in 2012. “During the subsequent investigation, a case of possession of child pornography was uncovered,” the police said. The priest was apprehended in Florida by the Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force. The Waco Police Department said that he will be extradited to Texas. Odiong had previously served in the Archdiocese of New Orleans before being removed as priest in December of last year due to controversy over homilies in which he claimed, among other things, that the Catholic Church was being taken over by "the gays." At the time, the priest was also accused of abusive behaviour; a Louisiana lady claimed in U.S. bankruptcy court that Odiong had committed both financial and sexual abuse against her. Prior to joining the New Orleans Archdiocese, Odiong served in at least two Texas parishes. On Tuesday, Waco police stated that during their sexual assault investigation, "the presence of other survivors was revealed." “Multiple women have come forward to tell similar experiences as the sexual assault survivor who reported the initial allegation,” the police department said. “Survivors’ experiences ranged from sexual assault and indecent assault, more commonly recognised as groping, and financial abuse, with some survivors experiencing every element of Anthony Odiong’s manipulation.” The police said they “believe there may be more survivors, and we wish to speak with anyone who [has] had similar encounters” with the priest. The Archdiocese of New Orleans issued a brief news release on Tuesday noting Odiong's arrest in Florida. The archdiocese “encourages anyone with any information to contact law enforcement,” the release said.](https://chronicle.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ezgif-6-4730550ede-300x200.jpg "Is Anthony Odiong still a priest after life in prison sentence over rape?")
The same day a largely maskless mob attacked the US Capitol, the country recorded nearly 3,900 deaths from COVID-19.
Even as the US registered more coronavirus deaths in a single day than ever before – nearly 3,900 – on Wednesday, the mob attack on the US Capitol was laying bare some of the same political divisions that have hampered the fight against the pandemic.
The virus is surging in almost every state, with California particularly hard hit.
Soaring COVID-19 deaths and infections in the state are threatening to force hospitals to ration care and essentially decide who lives and who dies.
“Folks are gasping for breath. Folks look like they’re drowning when they are in bed right in front of us,” said Dr Jeffrey Chien, an emergency room physician at Santa Clara Valley regional medical center.
He urged people to do their part to help slow the spread. “I’m begging everyone to help us out because we aren’t the frontline. We’re the last line,” he said.
About 1.9 million people around the world have died of the coronavirus, more than 360,000 in the US alone, the highest national death toll on Earth by far, with also the world’s highest number of cases, at more than 21m, according to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus research center.
December was by far America’s deadliest month yet, and health experts are warning that January could be more terrible still because of family gatherings and travel over the holidays, while administration of the coronavirus vaccines approved so far for emergency use in the US has fallen far behind the federal government’s own goals.
A new, more contagious variant of the COVID-19 virus is spreading around the globe and in the US.
Few pro-Trump rioters in Washington on Wednesday were wearing face masks, despite crowding closely together first at a rally that the president addressed outside the White House and then in the corridors of Congress after they invaded the Capitol.
Trump has long downplayed the virus and scorned masks, and many of his ardent supporters have followed his example.
“The domestic terrorists overran the Capitol police, just as the virus has been allowed to overrun Americans,” said Eric Topol, the head of Scripps Research Translational Institute.
He added: “The US lost control of a Trump-incited mob and a Trump-played-down pandemic virus.”
Some of the forces contributing to the eruption of violence on Wednesday were partially foreseen by experts in global disease planning when they held a tabletop exercise in 2019, said Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, who directed the drill.
“We did consider the possibility of active disinformation and using a pandemic for political gain,” Toner said. “Real life turned out to be much worse.”
The outbreak has been especially dire in California, which reported its second-highest number of daily COVID-19 deaths, with 459. The state also registered more than a quarter-million new weekly cases.
Los Angeles county, the nation’s most populous with 10 million residents, and nearly two dozen other counties have essentially run out of intensive care unit beds.
![Rev. Fr. Anthony Odiong, a US-based Nigerian Louisiana Catholic priest, was arrested in Florida on Tuesday for possessing child pornography, according to law authorities. The suspect is reportedly accused of many other cases of sexual assault. The Waco, Texas, Police Department announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday that officers detained Father Anthony Odiong in Ave Maria, Florida, with assistance from the United States Marshals Service. Waco police announced in March that they had received "credible information" about a sexual assault allegedly committed by Odiong in Texas in 2012. “During the subsequent investigation, a case of possession of child pornography was uncovered,” the police said. The priest was apprehended in Florida by the Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force. The Waco Police Department said that he will be extradited to Texas. Odiong had previously served in the Archdiocese of New Orleans before being removed as priest in December of last year due to controversy over homilies in which he claimed, among other things, that the Catholic Church was being taken over by "the gays." At the time, the priest was also accused of abusive behaviour; a Louisiana lady claimed in U.S. bankruptcy court that Odiong had committed both financial and sexual abuse against her. Prior to joining the New Orleans Archdiocese, Odiong served in at least two Texas parishes. On Tuesday, Waco police stated that during their sexual assault investigation, "the presence of other survivors was revealed." “Multiple women have come forward to tell similar experiences as the sexual assault survivor who reported the initial allegation,” the police department said. “Survivors’ experiences ranged from sexual assault and indecent assault, more commonly recognised as groping, and financial abuse, with some survivors experiencing every element of Anthony Odiong’s manipulation.” The police said they “believe there may be more survivors, and we wish to speak with anyone who [has] had similar encounters” with the priest. The Archdiocese of New Orleans issued a brief news release on Tuesday noting Odiong's arrest in Florida. The archdiocese “encourages anyone with any information to contact law enforcement,” the release said.](https://chronicle.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ezgif-6-4730550ede-450x300.jpg "Is Anthony Odiong still a priest after life in prison sentence over rape?")
