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(HOUSTON) — A horrific act of domestic violence unfolded at a soccer tournament near Houston when a pregnant woman and her boyfriend were gunned down in front of witnesses allegedly by her ex-husband, who later died by apparent suicide, according to authorities.

The shooting occurred around 10:15 a.m. on Sunday at a park in Harris County, northeast of Houston.

“Heartbreaking!” is how Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez described the killings.

The pregnant woman and her boyfriend were shot in the parking lot of the park soon after they arrived to watch the woman’s son play soccer, according to sheriff’s department officials.

Witnesses told investigators that the woman’s 42-year-old ex-husband was already at the tournament watching their son play when he saw her and her boyfriend in the parking lot and went to confront them, according to a statement from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

“The ex-husband walked up to them and shot both of them multiple times with a silver revolver. The ex-husband then walked to his vehicle and drove away,” the sheriff’s office statement reads.

The boyfriend died at the scene while the woman was taken to Houston Northwest Medical Center, where she and her unborn child were both pronounced dead, according to the statement.

“There were at least 100 people out here at the soccer field at the time that the shooting occurred,” Sgt. Ben Beall of the sheriff’s office told ABC station KTRK-TV in Houston.

Beall said relatives of the pregnant woman told investigators that the suspected shooter was the victim’s ex-husband.

The sheriff’s office immediately launched a search for the ex-husband.

Around noon on Sunday, a relative of the alleged gunman called sheriff’s investigators to report the suspect contacted them by phone and was threatening to take his own life, authorities said. They directed the sheriff’s office to go to a mobile home within the city limits of Houston to check on the man.

“The deputies located a Hispanic male, believed to be the ex-husband, behind the trailer, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head,” the statement from the sheriff’s office reads.

A silver revolver matching the one used in the double homicide was found on the ground next to the man, authorities said.

The names of the victims and the alleged gunman were being withheld by authorities pending confirmation by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.

The shootings come amid skyrocketing gun violence that has swept the nation in recent months.

An ABC News investigation published on Sunday analyzed data from the Gun Violence Archive, an online site that tracks gun violence, and found that between Saturday, July 17, and Friday, July 23, at least 1,018 shooting incidents occurred nationwide — which calculates to a shooting every 10 minutes. At least 404 people were killed in the incidents and 928 wounded.

Many of the shootings involved domestic violence, the report found.

Last year marked the deadliest year for shooting-related incidents in the United States in at least two decades, according to Gun Violence Archive data with more than 43,000 gun deaths. The data suggests 2021 is on track to surpass those figures with more than 24,000 gun fatalities already reported.

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(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 summer surge as the delta variant spreads.

More than 610,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Just 57% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

COVID-19 has infected more than 194 million people worldwide and killed over 4.1 million.

Here’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:

Jul 26, 3:46 pm

US moved into ‘high’ community transmission category per CDC

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now categorizing the U.S. as having “high” community transmission, with nearly 62% of counties in the nation reporting high (43.79%) or substantial (18.17%) transmission.

New York County, which includes Manhattan, is among those now reporting substantial community transmission.

One month ago, only 8% of counties were reporting high transmission.

Louisiana, Florida, and Arkansas have the country’s highest case rate with over 300 new cases per 100,000 residents. Missouri follows closely behind with 200 new cases per 100,000 residents.

Hospitalization numbers are also rising. More than 27,300 COVID-10 patients are in hospitals across the country — a 36.8% jump in the last week.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Jul 26, 2:44 pm

Dept. of Veterans Affairs mandates vaccine

Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough announced Monday that COVID-19 vaccines will be mandatory for the department’s health care personnel.

Four VA employees, all of whom were unvaccinated, died in recent weeks, the department said. At least three of those cases were linked to the delta variant.

VA employees will have eight weeks to be fully vaccinated.

McDonough said this mandate is “the best way to keep Veterans safe, especially as the Delta variant spreads across the country.”

-ABC News’ Cindy Smith

Jul 26, 2:06 pm

Unvaccinated NYC municipal workers will have to get weekly testing

All unvaccinated New York City municipal workers will have to get weekly testing by the start of school in September, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office.

The new requirement will apply to all city workers, including police officers, firefighters and teachers. The new rule will go into effect on Sept. 13, when students are expected to return to public schools.

The New York Police Department has a 43% vaccination rate while about 55% of New York City Fire Department employees are vaccinated.

Workers in publicly run residential or congregate care facilities, like nursing homes, must present proof of vaccination even earlier, on Aug. 16.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a similar mandate on Monday. Beginning in August, state employees and health care workers must show proof of vaccination or get tested regularly.

In California, 75% of those eligible have received at least one dose.

“Everyone that can get vaccinated—should,” Newsom tweeted.

-ABC News’ Aaron Katersky

Jul 26, 11:23 am

Savannah reinstates mask mandate indoors

An indoor mask mandate has been reinstated in Savannah, Georgia, effective immediately, amid a steep rise in the daily number of COVID-19 cases, Mayor Van Johnson said.

The increase is likely due to the delta variant, relatively low vaccination rates and gatherings where people let their guard down, officials said.

“Are we effectively punishing those who did the right thing who took the vaccine?” the mayor said. “Yes, we probably are.”

To those still hesitant to get the vaccine, Johnson said, “The wait and see time is over.”

-ABC News’ Alexandra Faul

Jul 26, 10:49 am

Orlando area in ‘crisis mode’ as cases skyrocket

Orange County, Florida, which includes the city of Orlando, is in “crisis mode” as COVID-19 cases skyrocket, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said Monday.

The county is now seeing 1,000 new cases per day – which is what was recorded there during the highest peak in 2020, Demings said.

-ABC News’ Ben Stein

Jul 26, 10:35 am

US not lifting travel restrictions due to surge in delta variant cases

The White House will leave in place existing travel restrictions due to the surge in cases from the delta variant, a White House official confirmed to ABC News.

This news was first reported by Reuters Monday morning.

The official said the “reopening process is guided by the science and public health,” adding that cases of the delta variant are rising in the U.S. and globally, mostly among the unvaccinated, and “appear likely to continue [to] increase in the weeks ahead.”

-ABC News’ Justin Gomez

Jul 26, 10:00 am
Unvaccinated NYC municipal workers will have to get weekly testing

All unvaccinated New York City municipal workers will have to get weekly testing by the start of school in September, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office.

The new requirement will apply to all city workers, including police officers, firefighters and teachers. The new rule will go into effect on Sept. 13, when students are expected to return to public schools.

The New York Police Department has a 43% vaccination rate while about 55% of New York City Fire Department employees are vaccinated.

Workers in publicly run residential or congregate care facilities, like nursing homes, must present proof of vaccination even earlier, on Aug. 16.

Jul 26, 9:11 am
Symptomatic breakthrough infections rare, CDC data estimates

New data shows how rare COVID-19 breakthrough infections likely are.

With more than 156 million Americans fully vaccinated, about 153,000 symptomatic breakthrough cases are estimated to have occurred as of last week, representing approximately 0.098% of those fully vaccinated, according to an unpublished internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document obtained by ABC News. These estimates reflect only the adult population and do not include asymptomatic breakthrough infections.

But in Provincetown, on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, at least 551 COVID-19 infections, many of them breakthroughs, were confirmed after the July Fourth weekend. Of the Massachusetts residents who tested positive as a result of the Provincetown cluster, 69% reported to be fully vaccinated, according to local officials.

Most people were symptomatic. Apart from three hospitalizations, symptoms from cases associated with this cluster were known to be mild and without complication, said Alex Morse, the town manager for Provincetown.

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(SUNRISE, Fla.) — The remains of the last victim of the Surfside, Florida, condo collapse have been identified, a relative confirmed to ABC News Monday.

Estelle Hedaya, 54, was the final person to be unaccounted for. The death toll from the June 24 collapse now stands at 98.

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(LOS ANGELES) — Dry lightning is posing the threat for new fires to spark in a region already plagued by dozens of largely uncontained wildfires.

The thunderstorms could generate after moisture as the deadly monsoons in the Southwest U.S. push north to areas such as southern Oregon, where the Bootleg Fire rages on, and northern California and Nevada. Officials are concerned that the lightning strikes could generate new fires as firefighters are struggling to contain the existing blazes.

There are currently at least 89 large wildfires burning in the U.S., most of them in the West.

The Dixie Fire near the Feather River Canyon in Northern California had grown to nearly 193,000 acres by Monday morning and was 21% contained. Over the weekend, the Dixie Fire surpassed the Beckwourth Complex Fire in Doyle, California, as the state’s largest wildfire.

More than 8,300 people in Northern California are currently under evacuation orders, according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

The Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon, currently the largest in the country and the third-largest in state history, had burned through nearly 410,000 acres and was 53% contained by Monday.

The Tamarack Fire near Gardnerville, Nevada, had scorched more than 67,000 acres by Monday and was 45% contained.

The monsoon strikes expected to generate dry lightning began over the weekend, killing at least seven in Utah after a sandstorm triggered by the monsoons caused a series of car crashes.

In Arizona, a 16-year-old is missing as a result of flash flooding. The teen had called 911 to ask for help after her car was stranded in floodwater, but as first responders attempted to rescue her, she was swept from her car and washed away, officials said. Phoenix is having its wettest month on more than two years as a result of the storms

Flash flooding is expected Monday in Southern California and parts of Nevada as the monsoon storms continue.

ABC News’ Sarah Hermina and Daniel Manzo contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) —The probability of record-shattering heat waves is increasing due to climate change, according to scientists who are measuring temperature predictions in a new way.

Researchers that looked into rate of warming, rather than how much warming has occurred, found that record-shattering heat waves occur in spurts during periods of accelerated climate warming, according to a study published Monday in Nature Climate Change.

Similar events as the back-to-back heat waves that have been occurring in the Western U.S., including triple-digit temperatures in the typically cool and wet Pacific Northwest, will become the norm if climate changes continue as business as usual, Erich Fischer, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich and the author of the study, told ABC News.

Under a high-emissions scenario, record-shattering heat extremes are two to seven times more probable from 2021 to 2050 and three to 21 times more probable between 2051 and 2080, according to the scientists.

Even if human-induced global warming was stabilized by aggressive mitigation, the frequency and intensity of heat waves would still be higher, but the probability of record-shattering events would be “notably reduced,” scientists said.

The models initially found climate records decreasing until temperatures began ramping up in the 1980s with a much higher rate of warming, Fischer said. It was then that scientists began seeing a sudden number of heat records as well as a “very high speed of pace” of records shattering temperature ceilings.

“Without climate change, we should expect these records to become rarer and rarer,” Fischer said, comparing the current climate to “an athlete on steroids,” adding, “If the world record would be broken by that by the high margin, that would be very suspicious.”

While the impact of climate change on heat waves is typically quantified by historical context — or how much a current or future event compares to itself in a world with less or no climate change — the changes can be marginal when measured in such a manner, the researchers said. Any given heat wave today would be hotter and more frequent than it would have been in the past.

Instead, looking at how heat extremes surpass or “shatter” the previous heat wave record could provide better insight into the driving mechanisms behind heat extremes — and offer a crucial factor for officials to consider when planning strategies on how to deal with the new normal, the researchers said.

“The take-home message of our study is that it really is no longer enough to just look at past records or past measurements of weather…” Fischer said. “We need to prepare for something different.”

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(NEW YORK) — It was lunchtime when a gun altered Crystal Turner’s life.

“I got the call at 12, noon,” Turner recalled to ABC News. “My 29-year-old daughter Jenea and my 23-year-old son Donell were murdered together.”

Jenea Harvison and her brother, Donell McDonald, were gunned down in Columbus, Ohio, by Harvison’s estranged husband, Roy Harvison, who is now serving a life sentence for aggravated murder.

“We know there are millions of other families now who have similar stories and similar experiences,” Turner said.

Jeannie She’s family is one of them. Her father survived the 2019 mass shooting at the Virginia Beach municipal building at left 12 dead.

“Even now it feels completely surreal for something so severe to hit so close to home,” She told ABC News. “On the other hand, I’m fully aware of the pain that so many families experienced that night. This trauma sticks with people forever.”

DeAndra Dycus understands. Dycus’ son, Dre Knox, was struck by a stray bullet in Indianapolis.

“He was 13 years old. Some young men started shooting outside the home and struck my son in the back of the head. A stray bullet flew through a window and left Dre as a non-verbal quadriplegic,” Dycus said.

Dre lived but, as his mom said, his life was taken.

“We have to bathe him. We have to dress him. We have to lift him out of bed to put him in his wheelchair. We have to change diapers,” Dycus told ABC News. “I have lost who Dre was and who we hoped he was going to be.”

As the country tries to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, with its unfair burdens and incomprehensible death toll, it is sickened anew by gun violence, with its unfair burdens and ever-growing death toll.

Between 2014 and 2019, an average of 38,826 Americans were killed by guns annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 23,437 — or 60% — were suicides.

Of late, police say, the increase in shootings is mainly due to urban gangs, but there are also variants, involving mass shootings, domestic violence and suicide. Much of it, experts say, is exacerbated by the health and economic strains wrought by COVID-19 and powered by the uniquely American affinity for and access to guns.

“You can’t shoot somebody without a gun,” said New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea. “Identifying who’s carrying guns, the cops going out there and making the arrests, taking the guns off the street is great. Really what we need is the individual carrying the gun off the street.”

In Shea’s New York City, there was a 100% increase in shootings in 2020 from the year prior. Accidental shootings, domestic violence, suicide, stray bullets and mass casualty all contributed to it, but Shea said the biggest drivers of gun violence are gangs.

“Domestic, road rage, we certainly have seen those incidents. Accidental shootings, playing with a gun, and a friend shoots a friend, we’ve seen all of it with a little more frequency. But if you step back and look at the big picture, that is such a small percentage of what we see regarding gun violence,” Shea told ABC News.

“The vast majority of what we see is still gang-related,” Shea added. “It could be over turf, it could be over drug money. Oftentimes, tragically, it’s over nothing.”

There is no official count of how many Americans own guns but there are an estimated 400 million guns in the United States, the most heavily armed nation in the world. In the last quarter-century the Supreme Court has taken a broad view of the Second Amendment, which enshrines the right to bear arms.

“I certainly don’t think it was inevitable to the founders that this is where we would be, because the Second Amendment was not intended at the time to mean that people could use guns to commit acts of violence that was not in self-defense,” said Mary McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law.

Until the Supreme Court’s Heller decision in 2008 permitted near-universal gun ownership for self-defense, McCord said the Second Amendment had been interpreted only to allow people to bear arms as part of a government-regulated, politically accountable militia.

“Even in that massive change to the way we understand the Second Amendment did the Supreme Court suggest that there was a right to bear arms to commit acts of violence, that there was a right for anyone to have a firearm for any purpose whatsoever,” she said.

This story is part of the series “Gun Violence in America” by ABC News Radio. Each day this week we’re exploring a different topic, from what we mean when we say “gun violence” — it’s not just mass shootings — to what can be done about it. You can hear an extended version of each report as an episode of the ABC News Radio Specials podcast. Subscribe and listen on any of the following podcast apps:

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TuneIn

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(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 summer surge as the delta variant spreads.

More than 610,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Just 57% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

COVID-19 has infected more than 194 million people worldwide and killed over 4.1 million.

Here’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:

Jul 26, 9:11 am
Symptomatic breakthrough infections rare, CDC data estimates

New data shows how rare COVID-19 breakthrough infections likely are.

With more than 156 million Americans fully vaccinated, about 153,000 symptomatic breakthrough cases are estimated to have occurred as of last week, representing approximately 0.098% of those fully vaccinated, according to an unpublished internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document obtained by ABC News. These estimates reflect only the adult population and do not include asymptomatic breakthrough infections.

But in Provincetown, on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, at least 551 COVID-19 infections, many of them breakthroughs, were confirmed after the July Fourth weekend. Of the Massachusetts residents who tested positive as a result of the Provincetown cluster, 69% reported to be fully vaccinated, according to local officials.

Most people were symptomatic. Apart from three hospitalizations, symptoms from cases associated with this cluster were known to be mild and without complication, said Alex Morse, the town manager for Provincetown.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(SEATTLE) — Two people were arrested after a Washington state sheriff’s deputy was fatally shot in the line of duty Friday night.

After an “exhaustive search,” a 28-year-old man, Abran Raya-Leon, and a 35-year-old woman, Misty M. Raya, were arrested on unrelated felony warrants, Vancouver, Washington, police said in a press release on Saturday night.

Another man, Guillermo O. Raya, 26, is still being sought, police said.

The deputy involved in the shooting that unfolded around 7 p.m. has been identified as Clark County Sheriff’s Office Detective Sergeant Jeremy Brown.

Brown was in his vehicle conducting surveillance at 3508 NE 109th Avenue, according to police. Other units in the area on the same detail were unable to reach Brown on radio, and around the same time, a citizen reported hearing gunshots, saw a man bleeding inside a vehicle and called 911, police said.

Two men and a woman fled the area by vehicle and were pursued by police, officials said. Their vehicle crashed near Padden Parkway and Interstate 205. Police said the three then fled on foot.

Police said Guillermo O. Raya is considered armed and dangerous, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest in connection with the shooting.

“This is a difficult time for the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, law enforcement agencies in Clark County and the surrounding Clark County, Portland metro area. Clark County law enforcement appreciates the support and understanding of the community in these tough times,” the department said in a news release.

The investigation is continuing and nothing further is releasable at this time, police said.

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(DETROIT) — Nearly 140,000 customers in Michigan are without power this morning after storms hit the Detroit area Saturday night.

Poweroutage.us reports 138,990 customers in the state lack power.

Ferocious storms whipped through the Detroit metro area and led to a tornado watch for other areas including Armada, ABC News affiliate, WXYZ reported.

In the storm’s wake, trees, houses and businesses sustained major damage.

“It appears there might have been a tornado, we have to wait for officials to make that determination, Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel told WXYZ. “There’s a substantial amount of damage to businesses, houses, power lines down.”

The Detroit Police Department issued an alert for area residents, cautioning them roadways are flooded and not to drive through standing water.

The storm comes amid a tumultuous weather season in the United States as wildfires and drought ravage the West, and unprecedented rainfall and floods plague the Northeast as well as other areas of the country.

Wildfllife is also feeling the effects of the severe weather. Baby birds have been jumping out of their nests to escape the heat and falling to the ground, on the West Coast. A bear and her cubs jumped into a home’s pool to cool off from the recent scorching temperatures in the Pacific Northwest.

ABC News’ Ben Stein and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.

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(SAN FRANCISCO) — More than 100 people were forced out of their homes overnight as California’s largest wildfire continues to spread at a rapid pace.

The Dixie Fire has now expanded to more than 190,000 acres — increasing by 20,000 acres in just 24 hours — prompting new mandatory evacuations near the Feather River Canyon as firefighters struggle to increase the 21% containment. Officials are still investigating the cause.

More than 8,300 people in Northern California are currently under evacuation orders, according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

Over the weekend, the Dixie Fire surpassed the Beckwourth Complex Fire in Doyle, California, as the state’s largest wildfire. The Beckwourth Complex Fire, which was sparked by lightning on July 3, is now 98% contained after it scorched through 105,670 acres.

The Tamarack Fire near Gardnerville, Nevada, had burned through nearly 67,000 acres by Sunday morning, destroying at least 13 structures, and was just 27% contained. It sparked on July 4 in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

In Oregon, the Bootleg Fire, currently the largest in the country and the third-largest in state history, is so hot it’s creating its own weather pattern. Pyrocumulus clouds, or fire-driven thunderstorm clouds, are created as large pockets of heat and smoke from the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon rise and meet a relatively cool atmosphere.

The Medford National Weather Service has also confirmed that a tornado occurred on July 18 near the eastern side of the Bootleg Fire due to extreme fire behavior, dry fuels, and an unstable atmosphere.

The Bootleg Fire, approximately 11 miles northeast of the town of Sprague River in southern Oregon, had scorched through nearly 409,000 acres by Sunday morning and was 46% contained.

The Long Draw Fire in 2012 at 557,028 acres and the Biscuit Fire in 2002 at 500,000 acres were the top two largest fires in the state.

Nearly 90 large wildfires are burning in 13 states, with more than 2.5 million acres burned so far this year. More hot and dry conditions are expected in the West today, enhancing the fire risk for the already blaze-ridden region.

More than 3 million people in the West are under heat and fire alerts through Monday, and several states also have air quality alerts due to the wildfires.

Four states from Nevada to Montana will experience triple-digit temperatures on Sunday, while relative humidity is expected to remain at just 11%, with wind gusts up to 35 mph.

ABC News’ Jenna Harrison, Sarah Hermina, and Hope Osemwenkhae contributed to this report.

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