(NEW YORK) — Traffic deaths for the first quarter of this year were the highest since 2002, according to early estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The agency estimates 9,560 people died from motor vehicle crashes during the first quarter of this year — up 7% from the same time in 2021.
Traffic-related deaths have been on the rise since the onset of the pandemic. In 2019, NHTSA reported 36,355 people died on U.S. roads — a number that grew to 38,824 in 2020 and 42,915 in 2021, despite less cars on the road.
“The overall numbers are still moving in the wrong direction,” said NHTSA administrator Steve Cliff.
“We’re talking about three years in a row of traffic deaths, not just being up but being up significantly,” Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the non-profit Governor’s Highway Safety Association said in an interview with ABC News.
Adkins said the surge is due to multiple factors — including less traffic enforcement on roads and prevalence of dangerous behaviors among drivers.
“States are telling me all across the country that speeds are up, drivers are just continuing to speed,” Adkins said. “We really need to bring some of the same attention to speeding that was brought to drunk driving and distracted driving. If we were to get drivers to slow down even a little bit, that make a big difference.”
Cliff said states should “double down” on traffic safety, saying, “Through the bipartisan infrastructure law, there are more resources than ever for research, interventions and effective messaging and programs that can reverse the deadly trend and save lives.”
(ROCHESTER, N.Y.) — A captain of the Rochester Fire Department who was accused of taking firefighters to a party filled with racist tropes has retired.
Following an investigation by the City of Rochester, Capt. Jeffrey Krywy was forced to leave the department by the city, Mayor Malik Evans announced Tuesday, according to ABC News Rochester affiliate WHAM.
“As of Monday, he has chosen to retire before termination proceedings begin,” Evans said in a statement to WHAM.
Last week, Jerrod Jones sued the City of Rochester and Rochester Fire Department, accusing Krywy of forcing him and two other firefighters to attend a private party on July 7.
According to the lawsuit, Jones said that when he arrived at the party, he saw a large cut-out of former President Donald Trump and buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken next to Juneteenth flags.
Jones alleged that the Mary Znidarsic-Nicosia, who owned the home where the party was being held, approached him and asked if he wanted to take home the fried chicken.
He also claims that there was an entertainer at the party impersonating Democratic Monroe County Legislator Rachel Barnhart and there was a senior member of the Rochester Police officer at the party.
Nate McMurray, Jones’ lawyer, took to Twitter on Tuesday, criticizing the incident, saying that an independent investigation hasn’t happened yet.
McMurray also criticized Krywy’s retirement because he presumably retired with his full pension.
McMurray did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Jones said that he told acting Battalion Chief George Smith about the incident and Krywy’s involvement and was told it’d be looked into but was assigned to work with Krywy during his following shift, court documents show.
Jones claimed he’s suffering emotional distress, fears that he will be retaliated against by Krywy and others and is currently on leave from the RFD, according to the lawsuit.
(DENVER, Colo.) — Federal government officials announced a more severe water shortage level in the Colorado River Basin Tuesday, saying it is essential that states like Arizona dramatically reduce water use before drinking water supplies or power production are affected.
“The system is approaching a tipping point and, without action, we cannot protect the system and the millions of Americans who rely on this critical resource,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton said in a briefing with reporters.
Reservoirs in the Colorado Basin, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are both at historically low levels after 23 years in drought conditions. Currently, Lake Powell is at 26% capacity, and Lake Mead is at 27% capacity. Combined storage of the two reservoirs is 28% of capacity.
More than 70% of the western U.S. is experiencing extreme or severe drought conditions, amplified by climate change.
But the federal government is stopping short of forcing water cuts under its emergency authorities, saying that although state action has been insufficient, they would rather work together to find a solution that avoids harming people that rely on Colorado River water.
Arizona’s water allocation must be reduced by 21% in 2023, one of the largest cuts of the seven basin states.
California currently has no required water savings planned for the upcoming year. But the country of Mexico, which also receives an allotment, will need to reduce their allocation by 7% in 2023.
The Bureau of Reclamation could announce additional actions down the line if states don’t reach these targets. Officials said the drought threatens the entire future of the Colorado River Basin, including drinking water supplies, power generation, wildlife and the river itself.
“Without prompt, responsive actions and investments now, the Colorado River and the citizens that rely on it will face a future of uncertainty and conflict,” Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Tanya Trujillo told reporters.
Lake Powell is projected to be at 3,521.84 feet by the end of the year, which is 23% capacity. Glen Canyon Dam stops generating power at 3490 feet. Future projections show that under the driest scenario, Lake Powell may drop below 3,490 feet in the middle of 2023. ABC News is working to see if modifications can be made to Glen Canyon Dam to operate below this critical threshold.
Lake Mead is projected to be at 1047.61 feet by the end of the calendar year. Under the driest scenario, Lake Mead could drop below Level 3 shortage as early as the summer of 2023 and reach below 1000 feet as early as 2024.
ABC News is also looking to see if modifications can be made at Hoover Dam to operate below current minimum elevations.
(NEW YORK) — The New York City Department of Education will no longer randomly test students for COVID-19 when the new school year begins Sept. 8, the department said Tuesday.
Instead, test kits will be sent home for students, parents and teachers to use if they are exposed to the virus.
As part of the department’s new COVID-19 protocols, students will no longer be required to submit a daily health screening form.
Masks will no longer be required but are strongly recommended if or when a student is exposed.
The department said that students and staff who test positive or exhibit symptoms must quarantine for five days and then wear a mask on the sixth through 10th day upon their return to school.
Masks are also required when entering a medical office in a school or exhibiting coronavirus symptoms.
Schools are now required to report positive cases to “The Situation Room,” a group within the department that tracks COVID-19 cases within the schools.
Recent New York City Education Department data shows that between Sept. 13, 2021 and Aug. 15, 2022, there have been over 250,000 positive COVID-19 cases within the schools, with students making up 190,301 of those cases.
New York City schools will still require all adults, including teachers and contracted employees, entering public school buildings to be vaccinated, the department said. Any other adult entering a building must show proof of at least one vaccination dose.
Students will still not need to be vaccinated to attend classes but will once again need to show proof of vaccination to participate in extracurricular activities, including high-risk public schools athletic league sports.
The city’s department of education will distribute over 160,000 air purifiers to schools, track ventilation in buildings daily and upgrade HVAC systems aligned with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Last week, the CDC laid out new guidance regarding COVID-19 as millions of students return to school.
Some rules include: unvaccinated kids no longer having to quarantine; test-to-stay, which allows students who are in contact with someone who has COVID-19 to continue to attend in-person school as long as they stayed asymptomatic and tested negative; and loosening the 6 feet social distancing requirement.
“We’re in a stronger place today as a nation, with more tools — like vaccination, boosters, and treatments — to protect ourselves, and our communities, from severe illness from COVID-19,” the CDC’s Dr. Greta Massetti, one of the authors of the updated guidance, told ABC News in a statement last week. “This guidance acknowledges that the pandemic is not over, but also helps us move to a point where COVID-19 no longer severely disrupts our daily lives.”
ABC News’ Katie Kindelan contributed to this report.
(LAKE TAHOE, Nev.) — Authorities in Northern California have announced a new phase in the ongoing search for a teenager who disappeared after a party 11 days ago.
“We are moving into a more limited but continuous search-and-rescue effort,” Capt. Sam Brown of the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said during a press briefing on Monday. “We are going to have to switch modes and kind of focus on the investigative end and try to figure out where do we go from there.”
Kiely Rodni, 16, was last seen on Aug. 6 around 12:30 a.m. local time near the Prosser Family Campground in the small town of Truckee, some 20 miles north of Lake Tahoe. She was at a party with upwards of 300 people when she vanished along with her vehicle, a silver 2013 Honda CRV with California license plates and a sticker of a ram below the rear wiper blade, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, which is leading the search and investigation.
Rodni’s cellphone has been out of service since then.
“Her cellphone went dead and became virtually untraceable shortly after,” Angela Musallam, public information officer for the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, told ABC News during an interview that aired Aug. 9 on “Good Morning America.”
With no trace of Rodni or her car, detectives are not ruling out a possible abduction, Musallam had said. Though, “right now we don’t have any evidence that supports an abduction,” Placer County Sgt. Scott Alford told reporters during a press briefing on Aug. 9.
“We’re considering everything,” Alford said. “This is a missing person’s case, this is a search-and-rescue effort.”
Dozens of law enforcement personnel have been involved in the search, including foot patrol, aircraft, canine and dive teams. Other local, state and federal agencies, including the Truckee Police Department, the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office, the California Highway Patrol and the FBI, are assisting the Placer County Sheriff’s Office in the investigation, according to Musallam.
Rodni has also been added to the FBI’s missing persons database. Among the more than 1,200 tips the FBI said it has received and combed through, investigators have pursued several leads, including digging up a burial site near the Prosser Family Campground — only to find the remains of a dog.
“It’s important to hold onto hope,” Rodni’s mother, Lindsey Rodni-Nieman, told ABC News during an interview Tuesday on “GMA.” She then added: “It’s OK to feel sad and frustrated, it’s OK to feel this anguish.”
Rodni-Nieman told ABC News the last text message she received from her daughter said she was planning to leave the party in about 45 minutes and would be coming “straight home.” That was about an hour before Rodni’s cellphone last pinged near a lake.
Authorities, as well as Rodni’s family, are urging anyone who saw her the night she vanished to come forward as well as anyone who attended the party to cooperate with the investigation. In particular, investigators are asking for any photographs or videos from that night to help them piece together a timeline. A $50,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to Rodni’s safe return.
Last week, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office said its detectives have located surveillance footage from a local business in Truckee where Rodni was spotted on Aug. 5 at 6:08 p.m. local time, prior to her disappearance. She was last seen wearing a black spaghetti-strap bodysuit, green Dickies pants with a black belt and black Vans shoes. She also may have a dark gray Lana Del Ray hoodie with the lyrics: “You don’t want to be forgotten. You just want to disappear.”
However, on Sunday, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office said its detectives “have developed information” that Rodni was seen in another video, taken that night at the party, wearing a white sweatshirt with the pink writing “odd future.” It remains unclear whether she was wearing that sweatshirt when she vanished.
“I recognize both sweatshirts,” Rodni’s mother told ABC News. “The darker one belongs to her best friend. The lighter one is something that I’ve seen her wear time and time again.”
Anyone with information about Rodni or her whereabouts can call the Placer County Sheriff’s Office’s tip line at 530-581-6320 and select option seven. Callers can remain anonymous.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Veronica Miracle contributed to this report.
Michael A. McCoy/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Anyone looking to ditch Amtrak or the long commutes to and from La Guardia, JFK, or Newark Airport when traveling between New York City and Washington, D.C., will now have another option—a float plane.
Tailwind Air will start flying two daily flights between the Skyport Marina near East 23rd Street in Manhattan and College Park Airport just outside D.C. The plane will take off from the water in New York and land on the runway at the Suburban D.C. airport in College Park, Maryland.
Tailwind said the flights will operate using eight-seat Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft. The flight time will be between 80-90 minutes and cost $395 one-way.
The airline is touting the ease of the smaller planes, saying passengers have up until 10 minutes before departure to check in for the flight.
“When factoring in the full journey—one hour and twenty minutes in the air (comparable to DCA-LGA service except with no need to access crowded and congested airports on both ends) or the three hours fifty minutes for the Acela—Tailwind Air will offer the fastest, least stressful, premium way to travel between DC and Manhattan. That, paired with the unforgettable views, makes this a compelling experience,” Tailwind Air co-founder Peter Manice said in a press release.
College Park Airport is 30-minute drive from Downtown D.C. and connects directly to Metro’s Green Line.
The first departure is Sept. 13.
“Bypassing the congestion of the northeast corridor between New York and Washington, DC remains the core mission of Tailwind Air,” Alan Ram, CEO and co-founder of Tailwind Air, said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — Adam Foss, a former prosecutor in Boston whose TED Talk brought him into partnership with singer John Legend on criminal justice reform, raped a woman in a New York City hotel, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said Tuesday.
According to court documents and statements made on the record in court, Foss, 42, met the 25-year-old woman at a Midtown Manhattan hotel after exchanging calls and texts for approximately one month. After the survivor repeatedly said no to Foss’s sexual advances, the two fell asleep, before he allegedly raped the woman as she slept.
Foss pleaded not guilty.
Bragg urged other potential victims of Foss to come forward.
“Our Special Victims Division is survivor-centered and trauma-informed, and we encourage anyone who believes they have been the victim of a sex crime to call our Hotline at 212-335-9373. Our prosecutors, investigators, and service providers are available to help.”
Foss was an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The National Law Journal named him among the 40 most up-and-coming lawyers in the US. In 2013, the Massachusetts Bar Association voted Foss prosecutor of the year.
(MERRICK, N.Y.) — Sal’s Shoe Repair in Merrick, New York, was doing more than fixing heels and worn soles.
The Genovese organized crime family operated an illegal gambling operation out of the shop, generating “substantial revenue,” which was then laundered through cash transfers, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said.
Nine purported members and associates of the Genovese and Bonanno organized crime families were charged Tuesday with racketeering and illegal gambling offenses for running gambling parlors out of other legitimate-seeming establishments in Queens and on Long Island, including a coffee bar and La Nazionale Soccer Club.
Salvatore Rubino, 58, known as “Sal the Shoemaker,” was among those arrested, prosecutors said.
A Nassau County police detective, Hector Rosario, is also among the defendants. He allegedly accepted money from the Bonanno family in exchange for offering to arrange police raids of competing gambling locations, according to the indictment. He is charged with obstructing a grand jury investigation and lying to the FBI.
“Current members of the five families demonstrate every day they are not adverse to working together to further their illicit schemes, using the same tired methods to squeeze money from their victims. Enlisting alleged assistance from a member of law enforcement also proves they are willing to do all they can to hide their illegal behavior,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Michael Driscoll said in a statement.
Beginning in May 2012, the Genovese and Bonanno families jointly operated a lucrative illegal gambling operation in Lynbrook, New York, called the Gran Caffe. The profits earned through this and other gambling locations generated substantial revenue, which was then laundered through cash transfers to the defendants and through “kicking up” to the crime families’ leaders, the indictment said.
“Today’s arrests of members from two La Cosa Nostra crime families demonstrate that the Mafia continues to pollute our communities with illegal gambling, extortion, and violence while using our financial system in service to their criminal schemes,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said in a statement.
Among those charged are Anthony “Little Anthony” Pipitone, a captain and soldier in the Bonanno family, and Carmelo “Carmine” Polito, acting captain in the Genovese family, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors detail one call Polito made in October 2019 to an associate asking him to relay a message to a debtor: “Tell him I’m going to put him under the f——- bridge.”
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in West Virginia on Tuesday rejected the plea deals of Jonathan Toebbe, a former nuclear engineer for the U.S. Navy, and his wife Diana, because she said they did not allow for enough prison time.
Jonathan Toebbe’s plea agreement called for a sentence of 12-17 years and Diana Toebbe’s plea agreement called for a sentence of three years after they pleaded guilty to offering to sell secrets about submarine nuclear propulsion systems to a foreign country.
Toebbe had faced life in prison for violating the Atomic Energy Act before reaching the agreement with federal prosecutors in West Virginia, where he put an SD card at a “dead drop,” according to the charging documents.
“These are serious crimes but we are talking about serious punishment. Twelve-and-a-half years is not a slap on the wrist,” defense attorney Nicholas Compton said.
The judge, though, said it was not in the best interest of the community to accept the plea agreements since the proposed sentences failed to account for the “grave harm” she said the Toebbes caused.
“Make no mistake these defendants have been charged with very serious crimes,” Judge Gina Groh said. “I find the sentencing options available to me to be strikingly deficient.”
The Toebbes, of Annapolis, Md., seemed to neighbors and co-workers as the typical suburban couple before they were arrested last October for allegedly scheming to sell secrets about Virginia-class nuclear submarines to a foreign country, which was not identified in court papers but was Brazil, a source told ABC News.
At the time of his plea, Toebbe conceded he sent a package to a foreign government, listing a return address in Pittsburgh that contained a sample of restricted data and instructions for establishing relationship to buy additional restricted data.
Toebbe said he began corresponding with someone he thought was a representative of the foreign government who was really an undercover FBI agent.
On June 8, 2021, the undercover agent sent $10,000 in cryptocurrency to Toebbe as “good faith” payment.
A few weeks later, Jonathan and Diana Toebbe traveled to a location in West Virginia, prosecutors said. There, with Diana Toebbe acting as a lookout, Jonathan Toebbe placed an SD card concealed within half a peanut butter sandwich at a pre-arranged “dead drop” location, they said.
After retrieving the SD card, the undercover agent sent Jonathan Toebbe a $20,000 cryptocurrency payment, prosecutors said. In return, Jonathan Toebbe emailed the undercover agent a decryption key for the SD card. A review of the SD card revealed that it contained restricted data related to submarine nuclear reactors, the indictment said.
Both the Toebbe’s withdrew their plea agreement after a judge rejected the agreement.
“Yes, your honor, I’d like to withdraw my plea,” Jonathan Toebbe said.
The judge on Tuesday set a trial date of Jan. 17, 2023, giving the parties time to negotiate a new plea agreement or proceed to trial.
(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — Six people, including four teenagers, were shot in related incidents in Memphis overnight, police said.
The first shooting was around midnight Tuesday, when officers heard multiple shots and saw a white SUV fleeing the scene, Memphis police said.
Officers responded to where the shots were fired and found an empty white Infiniti SUV in an apartment complex, police said. The SUV, which had been reported stolen, had bullet holes and part of a gas pump hanging from the tank, police said.
Police said they later learned that 19-year-old Reginald Felix, a 17-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy had been in the stolen SUV when they were shot around midnight.
A 25-year-old was also shot at the scene, police said.
A 14-year-old boy and a 25-year-old man took Felix, the 17-year-old and the 16-year-old from the apartment complex to Methodist North Hospital, police said.
While en route to the hospital they were shot by unknown suspects in a dark car, according to police.
The five of them abandoned the SUV and ran to the hospital, police said.
Officers responded to the scene at Methodist North Hospital at 12:47 a.m., according to police.
It’s not clear if the suspects in the dark car and the victims are known to each other, police said. No one from the dark car has been arrested.
Felix and the 16-year-old have since been released from the hospital and are charged with theft, police said.
The 17-year-old remains in the hospital and is expected to be charged with theft, police said.
The 14-year-old and two 25-year-olds remain hospitalized, according to police.
ABC News’ Keith Harden contributed to this report.
