(NEW YORK) — Excessive heat warnings are in effect for parts of the Pacific Northwest on Wednesday as temperatures top 100 degrees.
Portland, Oregon, hit 102 degrees, while in Redding, California, temperatures reached 106 degrees on Tuesday. Temperatures in Yakima, Washington, climbed to 107 degrees as well.
The extreme heat is keeping its hold across the state of Washington. Seattle hit a record high of 94 degrees on Tuesday, while Spokane is expected to reach triple digits on Wednesday and Thursday.
The extreme heat will persist in the region for the rest of the week, according to the National Weather Service. The record for most consecutive days where temperatures were 95 degrees and up in Portland is six days– this heat wave could break or tie that record.
Heat alerts continue to be in effect for parts of California, Nevada and Idaho as their temperatures are expected to threaten records until Saturday.
Oregon’s Department of Emergency Management opened up misting stations and overnight cooling shelters on Tuesday to help residents deal with the dangerous heat.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency on Tuesday for 25 of the state’s counties until July 31.
“With many parts of Oregon facing a high heat wave, it is critical that every level of government has the resources they need to help keep Oregonians safe and healthy,” Brown said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to take proactive steps to keep themselves and their families safe, including drinking plenty of fluids, taking advantage of cooling centers, and checking in on neighbors, friends, and loved ones.”
According to a 2021 study, heat waves in the Pacific Northwest would be “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change.
Smoke from the Oak Fire near Yosemite National Park, which has burned more than 18,000 acres, is spreading into Northern California and southern Oregon. The fire, combined with the heat wave, is causing very poor air quality in the area.
ABC News’ Julia Jacobo contributed to this report.
Sister Kelly Williams pictured with her roommates, who are also becoming nuns, in Chicago, Illinois. – ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Across the United States, young adults are becoming less religious.
A 2018 and 2019 Pew Research Center survey found that the number of Americans who identify as Christians has dropped 12% over the past decade. The group who described themselves as Catholic, in particular, has also shrunk, leaving a crisis in the Catholic sisterhood. Nuns are growing older and there is a concern that there will be fewer young people looking to join the sisterhood.
According to a recent study, less than 1% of nuns in America are under 40 and the average sister is 80 years old.
Sister Joanne Persch just turned 88. She said that many of her friends who joined her in service in the early 1950s have died. Throughout the painful pandemic and societal upheaval, she said there is still a great need for nuns in America.
“Well, I think it’s a big mistake to say that religious life is dying,” said Persch. “And I look around me in our community and I see such vibrant, such life. It’s changing and growing into something we can’t even imagine.”
In 2022, there were reportedly fewer than 42,000 nuns in America, which is a 76% decline over 50 years. At the rate sisters are disappearing, one estimate said that there will be fewer than 1,000 nuns left in the United States by 2042, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
Sister Kelly Williams is working toward becoming one of the few nuns still left in the life. She is 34 years old and started her journey nine years ago. She said people are often surprised that she is so “normal.”
“I think I’ve had people be surprised that I like to listen to music and not all of it is religious,” said Williams, who added that she and her roommates enjoy watching Netflix and Hulu together. “I don’t go to bars like I would when I was in college.”
Williams is a former college admissions counselor who lives in Chicago with four other sisters who are close to her age. She expects to take her final vows in a few years and officially become a Catholic sister with the Sisters of Mercy – one of the largest religious orders for Catholic women.
“God’s got big plans,” said Williams. “And hopefully, we follow them.”
One thing Williams said she won’t be giving up is her Facebook, Instagram or TikTok accounts. She is using social media to help spread awareness of the lifestyle of young nuns.
“I started making videos every Saturday… It’s called Saturday Sister Surprise and every Saturday I hide something in my hair and I pull it out. It has been religious items and silly items,” said Williams. “It’s something that has brought a lot of joy to people.”
She said she was drawn to the stability of the church and felt a “call” to be a part of it.
“It was a place where you could be educated, was a place where all of these things could happen for you and I think there are so many options that are available,” said Williams. “But you have to want this. This is about God’s call and responding to that.”
Williams and her roommates said that young people today are resistant to the structure of religious life and many have been put off by the scandals of the Catholic Church, which they struggle to work past themselves. They said that they pray every day for their future as a sisterhood and ask for strength that more young women will answer the call.
“The American memory is attached to the nun of yesteryear. It’s very hard for us now to kind of be breaking through those stereotypes that were established,” said Sister Jane Aseltine. “We are still fighting that battle as younger, religious women to say this is what a typical American nun looks like in today’s world.”
(ST. PAUL, Minn.) — It’s sentencing day for two former police officers convicted on federal charges stemming from George Floyd’s death.
Former Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao are scheduled to learn their fates in separate hearings on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Both Kueng, 28, and Thao, 35, were convicted by a federal jury in February along with their former police colleague Thomas Lane, 39, who received a sentence last week of 2 1/2 years in prison for violating Floyd’s civil rights.
Federal prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 6 1/2 years for Lane, which according to federal sentencing guidelines, was the maximum.
All three men were convicted of using the “color of the law,” or their positions as police officers, to deprive Floyd of his civil rights by willfully being indifferent to his serious medical needs.
Prosecutors said the three officers failed to intervene as the handcuffed, unarmed 46-year-old Black man was pinned under the knee of their senior officer, Derek Chauvin, for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020, outside a Minneapolis convenience store where Floyd was accused of using a phony $20 bill to buy cigarettes.
Thao and Kueng were also convicted of violating Floyd’s right to be free of an unreasonable seizure by willfully failing to intervene to prevent Chauvin from applying bodily injury to Floyd.
Prosecutors have requested a “substantially higher” federal sentence than Lane’s, but far less than what Chauvin received.
Chauvin was sentenced on Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson to serve 21 years in prison after pleading guilty in December to violating Floyd’s civil rights and admitting he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck even after he became unresponsive. Chauvin also pleaded guilty to depriving a then-14-year-old boy of his constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by an officer, which resulted in bodily injury to the teen, according to the Justice Department.
Magnuson also sentenced Lane and will sentence Kueng and Thao.
The federal sentencing guidelines call for 4 1/4 years to 5 1/4 years in the cases of Kueng and Thao.
“The facts of this case do not amount to second-degree murder under federal law,” Magnuson wrote in a ruling last week. “Defendants Kueng and Thao each made a tragic misdiagnosis in their assessment of Mr. Floyd.”
Magnuson noted that Kueng and Thao believed Floyd was suffering from a drug overdose and “excited delirium” — a syndrome in which a subject displays wild agitation and violent behavior that can sometimes lead to death.
Chauvin, 46, was also convicted in state court in April 2021 on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced in June 2021 by Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill to 22 1/2 years in state prison.
Chauvin will serve his sentence in federal prison concurrently with his state sentence.
Lane also pleaded guilty to state charges of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the top charge against him of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder. Lane is awaiting his sentence in state court.
Kueng and Thao are scheduled to be put on trial in state court on Oct. 24 on charges of aiding and abetting in murder and aiding and abetting in manslaughter. They have both pleaded not guilty.
(NEW YORK) — For only the third time in the 20-year history of Mega Millions, the jackpot has surpassed the massive $1 billion mark after the winning numbers were drawn on Tuesday night and no winner was declared.
The estimated jackpot Mega Millions drawing on Friday, July 29, is now an estimated $1.025 billion.
The winning numbers on Tuesday were 7-29-60-63-66. The Mega Ball was 15 and the Megaplier was 3.
The jackpot had reached an estimated $830 million ahead of Tuesday night’s drawing, making it the third-largest jackpot in the game’s history.
“Friday night’s drawing will be the thirtieth in this jackpot run, which began April 19 after the jackpot was won in Tennessee on April 15,” Mega Millions said in a statement issued early Wednesday.
Even though Friday’s prize is now estimated to be valued at over $1 billion, it still falls short of the record jackpot which was won in South Carolina on Oct. 23, 2018. The winner won $1.537 billion and it holds the world record for the largest lottery prize ever won on a single ticket.
Only four Mega Millions jackpots have been won this year; in California, Minnesota, New York and Tennessee.
Tuesday’s Mega Millions drawing had a cash value of $487.9 million, the company said in a press release. The next drawing on Friday has an estimated cash value of $602.5 million.
“We look with anticipation on the growing jackpot,” says Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, current Lead Director of the Mega Millions Consortium. “Seeing the jackpot build over a period of months and reaching the billion-dollar mark is truly breathtaking. We encourage customers to keep play in balance and enjoy the ride. Someone is going to win.”
As the numbers were being drawn at 11 p.m. ET, those who were trying to check the Mega Millions website were given an error — the site had crashed.
“With unprecedented traffic after the drawing — more than any in the history of megamillions.com — the Mega Millions website was down for more than two hours Tuesday night,” the company said in a statement.
There were a total of 6,775,330, winning tickets at all prize levels from Tuesday night’s drawing. A total of nine tickets matched the five white balls to win the Mega Millions second prize with one of those being sold in Ohio being worth $3 million because it included the optional Megaplier. The other eight Match 5 tickets were all worth $1 million with two each being sold in New Jersey and New York, plus one each in California, Florida, Illinois and Ohio.
“In the 29 drawings since the jackpot was last won in Tennessee on April 15, there have been more than 28.1 million winning tickets at all prize levels, including 42 worth $1 million or more,” the company said. “Those big prizes have been won in 17 states across the country: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.”
Lottery winners have two options: take the money as a lump sum payment or annuity payments over 29 years.
Most winners usually take the lump sum payments, but record inflation has complicated matters, experts said.
“If we believe that inflation will be here for a while, then you may want to consider taking the annuity versus taking the lump sum,” tax and estate planning attorney Kurt Panouses told ABC News’ Deirdre Bolton.
(SAN FRANCISCO) — A couple received a ticket last week for parking in a red zone after the curb was repainted while their car was parked there, according to ABC San Francisco station KGO .
Jeff and Desiree Jolly have lived in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood for years, telling KGO that they’ve parked in the spot whenever it’s available for 25 years.
The couple said they noticed a $180 parking ticket on the windshield of their Honda sedan for parking in a red zone about a week ago.
The Jollys said the parking space was not a red zone when they had parked their vehicle days earlier, adding that the city missed a small patch when it avoided painting over their tire.
“If it was warranted, I don’t have a problem with it, but this seems unfair to me,” Desiree Jolly told KGO.
A spokesperson for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency told KGO the ticket wasn’t for the newly painted red zone, but rather, a faded one.
The decision on whether to enforce the ticket or dismiss it is now in the hands of the citation clerk, as the Jollys contested the ticket, the agency told KGO.
Earlier this month, a San Francisco couple was fined more than $1,500 for parking in their own driveway. The city eventually agreed to waive the fine and the threat of a $250-per-day fee if the couple could prove that the lot had historically been used for parking, or if they build a cover for the carpad or a garage.
As for Desiree and Jeff Jolly, they told KGO they plan to move out of the country to France in the future. “We do want to leave because of all of this stuff that goes on in the city,” Jeff said.
“I’m going through chemotherapy right now, so it’s like I’m worried about other things, and now I have to worry about this,” Desiree Jolly told KGO.
(MARIPOSA COUNTY, Calif.) — A bone-dry environment combined with scorching temperatures and ample fuel — all consequences of climate change — is what allowed the Oak Fire to spread so rapidly from the moment of ignition, scientists tell ABC News.
The Oak Fire spread to more than 15,000 acres within two days of it sparking in Mariposa County near Yosemite National Park in California, destroying structures and prompting evacuations of nearby residents. After the weekend, the wildfire unfurled at a less rapid pace — accumulating to more than 18,000 acres by Tuesday afternoon.
But the conditions that allowed the fire to detonate at such swift speeds remain, and are just a spark away from wreaking more havoc on the region.
A heat wave that brought triple-digit temperatures for multiple days in succession combined with extremely low humidity contributed to extremely dry fuels, consisting of dead leaves and trees, that accumulated on the ground and allowed the Oak Fire to advance, Marshall Burke, an associate professor of Earth system science at Stanford University, told ABC News.
“Right as [the Oak Fire] started, there was a period of very, very low relative humidity levels in California,” Burke said. “And I think that really contributed to drying out fuels and making this just a combustible scenario in which fires are gonna spread quickly.”
The humidity hovered between 5% and 10% at the time the Oak Fire gained traction, according to Cal Fire. The dry fuel, leftover from a mass tree fatality event from 2012 to 2016, as well as insect damage to the remaining trees, helped take the Oak Fire from “seasonal levels” to “astronomical levels,” John Abatzoglou, a climate scientist and associate professor of the management of complex systems at the University of California at Merced, told ABC News.
In addition, the rugged terrain is making it difficult for the firefighters to access the land to create fire breaks, Kristina Dahl, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News.
When the fire began, it “grew in all directions” and unusually, without the help of a high wind event, Burke said. While fires tend to grow uphill, this Oak Fire spread both uphill and downhill, making it less predictable and harder to contain, Dahl said.
Ironically, the growth of the Oak Fire began to slow on Monday as it started to run into fire scars from previous large fires, including the Ferguson Fire, which burned in the same region in 2018, Burke said.
That slowdown is further proof that fire management, including the prescribed burns that were put out of practice for more than a century, are integral to preventing large wildfires from occurring — especially as climate change conditions continue to warm the planet and create scenarios for devastating wildfires to wreak havoc on communities and nature, Dahl said.
“This ecosystem, which really is a fire-dependent ecosystem, hasn’t been able to experience these lower-intensity burns that would have cleared out some of the smaller vegetation,” Dahl said. “So we have this buildup of fuel, and we have these drought conditions that really dry out that vegetation. So that’s enabling this fire behavior to get much more extreme.”
The current atmospheric conditions exacerbated the effects of a 22-year megadrought that is continuing to intensify in the West and is beginning to spread eastward. California saw the driest start to the calendar year in recorded history, since 1895, Abatzoglou said.
“When you combine those things, that creates this set of conditions in which really rapid growth of fires is favored,” Dahl said.
The wildfire caused California Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a state of emergency for Mariposa County.
The Oak Fire sparked as the National Park Service planned to reopen the southern entrance of Yosemite as firefighters gained traction on containing the Washburn Fire — the wildfire that had been threatening the park’s iconic grove of giant sequoia trees in the weeks prior.
Thousands of firefighters had contained 26% of the Oak Fire by Tuesday morning, according to Cal Fire. An expected increase in humidity should also help to temper the wildfire.
California had a “benign” month of fire activity in June that turned into a “scorcher” in July, Abatzoglou said. Because of the relatively low fire activity, the state had the resources to devote to the Oak Fire to get it under control as quickly as possible, he added.
Climate change is expected to make wildfires worse around California and the globe, Dahl said.
“We know that climate change is increasing the area that burns during fires. It’s increasing the length of fire season. It’s contributing to extreme drought conditions out here in the West that then cause the vegetation to dry out so that it’s really just a tinderbox out here,” Dal said. “So as climate change progresses, we anticipate fires like this one to continue to happen with greater frequency and burn larger areas.”
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
Photography by Keith Getter (all rights reserved)/Getty Images
(ST. LOUIS) — One person has died after a record amount of rain poured down on the St. Louis area overnight.
St. Louis has recorded 8.56 inches of rainfall since midnight, which surpassed the old record of 6.85 inches set almost 107 years ago on Aug. 20, 1915. In the suburbs northwest of St. Louis, St. Peters received 12.34 inches of rain.
The historic rainfall event caused widespread flash flooding across the region Tuesday morning with some areas getting more than half a foot of rain in just a few hours.
One person was found dead in a car after the water began to recede, St. Louis emergency officials said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
Heavy rain continued for St. Louis and its surrounding areas Tuesday morning as thunderstorms sit over Missouri. The rain let up into the afternoon, but more heavy rain with flooding is expected Wednesday morning.
The St. Louis Fire Department said there’s been a report of a partial roof collapse and possible natural gas leak at the scene of a storage facility at St. Louis Zoo. Further details were not immediately available.
The fire department also said there were several vehicles trapped in high water with rescue squads responding in small boats.
As of 7 a.m. local time, St. Louis Fire Department confirmed they had responded to approximately 18 homes with flooding and trapped occupants. Six occupants and six dogs have so far been rescued by boat and approximately 15 others were contacted but chose to shelter in place.
The Forest Park-DeBaliviere train station was seen completely submerged in photos, with water rising above the platforms. The floodwaters were so high that the roofs on some of the structures collapsed, emergency officials said.
By noon, another six adults and several pets were rescued from three homes by the St. Louis Fire Department, and water had begun to recede about 6 to 8 inches, according to fire officials.
One of the families was trapped in the attic due to the floodwaters, according to the fire department.
In total, more than 70 rescues took place, Dennis Jackson, chief of the St. Louis Fire Department, said during the news conference. While there has been widespread property damages, the number of injuries remained low, said St. Louis Police Chief Mike Sack.
By 2 p.m., the highways were mostly clear and all bridges were open, Heather Taylor, senior adviser for public safety for the city of St. Louis, told reporters Tuesday afternoon. However, some areas still have high water levels, Sack said.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, who is currently overseas on a trade mission to Germany and the Netherlands, thanked rescue crews and said his lieutenant governor, Mike Kehoe, would act on his behalf.
“I have been briefed on the extreme flooding in the St. Louis area,” Parson said in a statement. “We appreciate the rapid and professional response of local first responders and emergency managers involved in flood rescues and other protective measures. We also thank our Missouri State Highway Patrol and MoDOT crews for working alongside local teams.”
ABC News’ Max Golembo, Melissa Griffin, Will Gretsky and Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
(LAKE MEAD, Nev.) — For the third time since May, human remains have been discovered in Lake Mead near Las Vegas as the water level in the nation’s largest reservoir continues to shrink to historic lows due to a decades-long drought, officials said.
The human remains were found around 4:30 p.m. Monday by a visitor to Swim Beach on the Nevada side of the lake’s west end, according to a statement from the National Park Service.
Park rangers responded to investigate and set up a perimeter around the area as the remains were recovered, officials said.
The Clark County medical examiner’s office is working to identify the remains, officials said.
The park service said an investigation is underway. No further information was released.
Water levels in the reservoir, which straddles Nevada and Arizona, are so low they could soon hit “dead pool” status, in which the water is too low to flow downstream to Hoover Dam, officials said.
The minimum water surface level needed to generate power at the Hoover Dam is 1,050 feet, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Anything below that is considered an “inactive pool,” and a “dead pool” exists when the water level hits 895 feet, according to the federal agency.
Satellite images released last week by NASA show side-by-side comparisons of Lake Mead, one taken on July 6, 2000, and the other more than two decades later on July 6 of this year. The images show waterways, which are fed by the Colorado River, have drastically thinned over the past 22 years as the surface of Lake Mead continues to hit its lowest levels since it was created in the 1930s.
A result of the diminishing water level is that bodies and human parts have been emerging.
On May 7, human skeletal remains were found near the lake’s Callville Bay, according to the National Park Service. The discovery came a week after the decayed body of a man was found stuffed in a steel barrel near the reservoir’s Hemenway Fishing Pier, more than 20 miles from Callville Bay, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
The Clark County medical examiner’s office with the help of the FBI are still working to identify the remains recovered from the lake.
Homicide detectives from the Las Vegas Police Metropolitan Department said they suspect the man found in the barrel died from a gunshot wound. They believe the man was killed in the mid-1970s to early 1980s, based on his clothing and footwear.
Earlier this month, a World War II-era boat was discovered partially sticking out of the receding water roughly a mile from the Lake Mead Marina, which is also at the west end of the reservoir on the Nevada side, officials said.
The sunken vessel was identified as a “Higgins boat” used for beach landings during WWII and to survey the Colorado River decades ago, officials said.
Photography by Keith Getter (all rights reserved)/Getty Images
(ST. LOUIS) — A record amount of rain has poured down on the St. Louis area overnight as the area has recorded 7.02 inches of rainfall since midnight, which surpassed the old record of 6.85 inches set almost 107 years ago on Aug. 20, 1915.
The historic rainfall event is causing widespread flash flooding across the region Tuesday morning with some areas getting more than half a foot of rain in just a few hours.
Heavy rain will continue for St. Louis and its surrounding areas through Tuesday morning as thunderstorms sit over Missouri. However, a short break in the weather is expected Tuesday afternoon and into the evening but more heavy rain with flooding is expected to continue Wednesday morning.
The St. Louis Fire department says there’s been a report of a partial roof collapse and possible natural gas leak at the scene of a storage facility at St. Louis Zoo. Further details were not immediately available.
The fire department also says there are several vehicles trapped in high water with Rescue Squads responding in small boats.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Mandy Gutierrez, principal of Robb Elementary School in Texas, was suspended with pay Monday, her attorney, Ricardo Cedillo, confirmed to ABC News.
A special legislative investigation into the May 24 massacre at the school found that Gutierrez was aware of security problems prior to a shooter accessing the school — killing 19 students and two teachers — but she had not had the problems fixed.
District officials declined to discuss the suspension or what it means.
Gutierrez joins school district police chief Pete Arredondo, still on unpaid administrative leave. The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District has recommended Arredondo be fired.
The chief has been singled out for a series of catastrophic failures in leading the police response to the massacre that ignored the possibility that children and teachers could be saved had the teenage gunman been confronted and neutralized, as standard police protocol dictates.
News about Gutierrez’s suspension began circulating just before a regularly scheduled school board meeting Monday night. During the session, the board announced that the 2022-23 school year would start on Sept. 6 as the district puts in place a series of security improvements and arrangements for emotional and social support services.
Before officials announced their plans, the board was again greeted by family members of victims of the shooting, as well as other community residents disturbed with the way the district’s leaders have acted since May 24.
“These parents are still hurting. And they want answers,” Daniel Myers, a pastor, told the board.
Brett Cross, father of Uziyah Garcia, who was killed in the massacre, pointed to board members, saying only one of those present had reached out to his family. He demanded someone on the board take responsibility for failures that allowed the shooting to occur in the first place and how the district has handled the aftermath.
“You care more about your damn selves than you do for our children,” Cross told the board. “Why have y’all still not taken accountability for y’all’s mess-ups? Can any one of y’all look me dead in the eyes and say, ‘Look, we messed up?'”
Finally, board member Luis Fernandez confessed that “everybody messed up.”
“So, let’s recap: Two months later… nothing has changed,” Belinda Arreola told the board. “We are once again banging our heads against a brick wall, demanding answers and accountability… Getting nowhere because it’s always something.”
“I feel that no amount of security will ease our hearts and our minds,” Tracy Byrd said, pointing to the significant loss of life, despite heavy law enforcement response. The board did not respond.
Among the security improvements announced were that Wi-Fi and communications problems identified by investigators would be the subject of an audit starting Tuesday. Officials are also now conducting a search for an interim district police chief, and the district police force will be reorganized. Other improvements announced were that new video camera systems have arrived and are being installed this week, and vestibules and school access points are being reviewed by consultants and limited.
The district’s Raptor security system is being reworked so emergency alerts are clearer for users. The district has also asked for 30 to 40 state troopers to be on hand to assist on the first day of school.
Among social and emotional support announced were that there will be five more licensed counselors, one per campus, as well as telemedicine to include psychiatric and counseling services via the UT Health System. It was also announced that the district will use the Rhithm app, a morning assessment to ask students how they’re doing and feeling, and that parent support will be available via the Bereavement Center, to include individual support available to anyone in the community in need.
