(FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.) — Dangerous fire conditions are creating the perfect fuel for wildfires to scorch through the arid landscapes of the Southwest.
The Tunnel Fire, which sparked Sunday about 14 miles northeast of Flagstaff, Arizona, exploded to more than 16,000 acres by Wednesday morning, destroying at least 25 structures, according to Coconino County officials. More than 200 firefighters are battling the fast-moving inferno, which is currently 0% contained.
An additional 250 structures are threatened, which has prompted evacuations of nearly 800 homes and 1,000 animals in the area. While the Red Cross has opened a shelter at a local middle school, the Fort Tuthill County Stables has been opened for horses, goats, sheep, pigs and chickens that reside in the evacuation zone, according to the county.
A red flag warning has been canceled in Arizona due to relaxing winds but remains in five neighboring states from Nebraska to New Mexico.
Videos taken in the region show skies covered in orange flames and thick plumes of smoke as the blaze continues to gain traction and spread. Some flames are reaching up to 100 feet, according to officials.
A decades-long megadrought, combined with low humidity and high winds, has created tinderbox conditions in the area.
The Southwest is experiencing the driest conditions in at least 1,200 years, a study published in Nature Climate Change in February found.
Officials have declared a state of emergency in the area affected by the Tunnel Fire.
ABC News’ Max Golembo and Marilyn Heck contributed to this report.
(SYRACUSE, N.Y.) — Police officers in Syracuse, New York, are under scrutiny after a video went viral of an 8-year-old boy being put into the back of a police cruiser after allegedly stealing a bag of chips.
The boy is seen crying and screaming while an officer walks him to a marked police vehicle. Bystanders are heard shouting at police to let go of the child, offering to pay for the chips and to walk him home themselves.
The boy was not handcuffed or arrested and was not injured, officials said. Police say they drove the boy home to his father following the incident on Sunday in the city’s northside.
Kenneth Jackson, the man who took the video, can be heard shouting in protest: “I’m taking this video to help to make sure you all don’t kill him because that’s what you all do.”
He told Good Morning America in an interview that he believes the incident highlights the tension between law enforcement and the people they serve.
“We have a policing problem when it comes to policing the community,” Jackson said. “Clearly, as the world can see, there’s a big disconnect.”
The footage has been viewed millions of times on social media, sparking outrage and criticism of the police officers’ actions.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul denounced the officers’ actions.
“As a mother, that was a heart-wrenching video to witness,” she said Wednesday at a press conference. “Many of us are parents and you can’t help but imagine the fear in that child as he had to endure that experience.”
Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh released a statement on the incident, saying, “What occurred demonstrates a continuing need for the city to provide support to our children and families and to invest in alternative response options to assist our officers.”
He added that the child was not handcuffed nor arrested during the incident.
“He was placed in the rear of a patrol unit where he was directly brought home,” the department statement said. “Officers met with the child’s father and no charges were filed.”
The Syracuse Police Department has said that the incident is under investigation. The department is also reviewing body camera footage taken of the incident.
(MILWAUKEE) — Milwaukee Public Schools reinstated the school district’s mask mandate Tuesday after just one day of making face coverings optional for students.
In a press release, MPS cited “significant transmission” of COVID-19 within the city as the reason for the mandate returning. Starting Wednesday, all students through 12th grade and staff will be required to mask up while inside district buildings.
MPS said the district can go back to a mask-optional policy if school leaders determine risk is low for viral transmission within the city and within the school district over the next few weeks.
In late March, the MPS board voted during its monthly meeting to make masks optional starting April 18, but warned face coverings would return if cases began rising. MPS did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
As defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Milwaukee County is still considered an area with “low” community levels of COVID-19. However, the city is reporting an increase in cases. According to the City of Milwaukee Health Department, there is “substantial” transmission of the virus with 58.1 confirmed cases per 100,000 people.
The school district is not the only agency in the city to reverse its policy on masks.
Earlier Tuesday, Milwaukee County Transit System announced face coverings would be optional for riders on county buses. However, later in the day, it announced the mask mandate would remain in place “out of an abundance of caution” due to rising case counts.
Milwaukee County Chief Health Policy Advisor Dr. Ben Weston said COVID cases have risen 200% over the last three weeks from 34 new cases per day to 104 new cases per day. Additionally, he shared the test positivity rate is back over the 5% threshold for moderate transmission.
“That number is rising each day due to a combination of factors,” Weston said in a statement, according to local ABC affiliate WKOW. “The emergence of new, more transmissible variants and low vaccination rates throughout the county means we must remain vigilant to slow the spread of the disease.”
Data from the Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management shows 61.9% of residents in the county have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, far below the national average of 77.4%.
Weston urged Milwaukee residents to continue wearing masks in high-risk settings and to get vaccinated and boosted if they haven’t already.
(WASHINGTON) — An alleged “intruder” at the Peruvian Embassy in Washington, D.C., was shot and killed by Secret Service Wednesday morning, according to authorities.
The suspect was found smashing windows of the Peruvian ambassador’s residence, D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee told reporters.
The ambassador’s relatives were inside and called the police just after 8 a.m., Contee said.
The suspect was shot “following a confrontation” in the backyard of the residence, the Secret Service said. Contee said the suspect allegedly pulled a metal stake on police. Officers used lethal force when Tasers didn’t work, he said.
Contee said a motive remains under investigation, adding that it’s unclear if the suspect knew it was an ambassador’s residence.
The Peruvian ambassador’s residence was damaged by the break-in but the ambassador, his family and staff, along with Secret Service agents, are all safe, the embassy said in a statement.
Two officers are being evaluated for injuries, Contee said.
ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Brooke Tansley and her husband Scott Herrmann were aboard a Delta flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles on Monday with their two young children when the pilot told passengers over the loudspeaker that masks were now optional.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I think you’re going to want to hear this. I have some really exciting news,” Tansley remembers the pilot saying. “The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has lifted the mask mandate. You can all take off your masks.”
Tansley could hear scattered cheers and applause. She was stunned, then scared.
The couple had gone to extraordinary lengths to protect their kids who at ages 4 years old and 8 months old still don’t qualify for a vaccine. Her youngest also can’t wear a mask, and she had planned during her trip to meet up with a coworker who was immunocompromised. It was their first flight since the pandemic began.
“I don’t begrudge him his excitement,” she told ABC News of the pilot. “I just wish that he would have taken a minute to consider people in different circumstances and the decision he was making on behalf of everyone on that plane.”
Delta Air Lines, responding to the family’s experience, encouraged patience.
“We empathize with all who are navigating this sudden change in federal policy. As we work to provide our customers and people the most up-to-date information for their travels, we continue to encourage everyone to be patient and understanding with one another. Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people,” the airline said in a statement to ABC News.
For a pandemic that seems never-ending, the federal government’s 15-month travel mask mandate came to a surprisingly abrupt end Monday after a Trump-appointed federal judge declared the mandate unlawful. Major airlines swiftly dropped the mandate they had grown to loathe, along with Amtrak, Uber and Lyft.
But airports in New York and Philadelphia kept their mask mandates intact — creating the confusing situation that people could fly maskless from one airport but have to put it back on depending upon where they land.
The Biden administration, which had recently renewed the mandate until May 3, seemed to be caught off guard by the judge’s decision, scrambling in the hours that followed to respond to questions. On Monday evening, an administration official told reporters that the TSA would no longer enforce the rule, even though federal health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would still recommended masks while traveling.
“This was deeply disappointing,” tweeted Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House coordinator for COVID-19. “CDC scientists had asked for 15 days to make a more data-driven durable decision. We should have given it to them.”
As of late Tuesday, though, it remained unclear how hard President Joe Biden might fight the ruling. The Justice Department said in a statement it would appeal the recent ruling if the CDC deemed it necessary. The CDC was noncommittal.
“CDC continues to recommend that people wear masks in all indoor public transportation settings. We will continue to assess the need for a mask requirement in those settings, based on several factors, including the U.S. COVID-19 community levels, risk of circulating and novel variants, and trends in cases and disease severity,” the agency said in a statement.
The biggest hint though came from Biden himself. With the clock ticking toward the May 3 deadline, Biden suggested to reporters that a legal fight on masks wasn’t his priority.
When asked if people should continue to wear masks on planes, Biden responded tersely: “That’s up to them.”
Several legal experts told ABC that the Biden administration might not want to pursue a legal challenge for both pragmatic and political reasons. For one, by the time any kind of legal wrangling takes place, the administration might be willing to let the mask mandate expire anyway.
Another factor is that the case would likely have to go before the U.S. Supreme Court, where a favorable ruling isn’t a sure bet. The high court’s conservative majority has ruled against federal powers on other pandemic-era restrictions related to housing evictions and vaccine mandates for private industry.
Also, many Americans simply don’t like the mandate.
“Politically and legally, the administration is not going to have a lot of incentive to pursue this,” said Sarah Isgur, an ABC News contributor and former Justice Department official during the Trump administration.
Jeffrey Lubbers, a professor of administrative law at American University’s Washington College of Law, said he thinks the Florida judge’s ruling was “highly questionable” and that there’s ample room to challenge it. But whether the administration fights to defend the mandate would probably have more to do with preserving the federal government’s power to prevent the spread of communicable diseases — a power that could be useful in the future.
“This mandate is supposed to expire in two weeks, and it’s also an unpopular mandate. So, it it worth going to court?” he said. But on the flip side, “what happens in two or three months if there’s a new variant and we have a ruling on the books that says CDC can’t regulate this? The government has a political calculation here too.”
Isgur said it’s possible the administration also is considering the upside of having a court ruling to blame if COVID cases increase as a result of the mandate being lifted.
“At some point, the pandemic restrictions had to end, and no one wants to be left holding the bag,” she said.
As for Tansley, she said she hopes people will be compassionate and consider the immunocompromised and families like hers whose kids remain unprotected. She also doesn’t know how her family will get home next week and whether they’ll make the decision to fly again.
“It made me sad and upset to know that my family and my coworker’s safety have been put at risk because of one powerful person in a position and then a pilot who made a call to change the policy in mid-flight. It was something that could have easily waited,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — Lori Vallow pleaded not guilty Tuesday to murder charges related to the deaths of her two children in 2019. Her husband Chad Daybell had previously pleaded not guilty on similar charges.
Vallow and Daybell appeared in court in Fremont County, Idaho. Last week, a judge ruled that Vallow was fit to stand trial after she was recently released from an Idaho mental health facility.
Nearly two years ago, authorities discovered the remains of Lori Vallow’s children on property belonging to Chad Daybell, Vallow’s husband and the children’s stepfather.
Since then, authorities said Vallow and Daybell’s story has publicly unraveled and both face charges in connection to multiple murders.
Daybell appeared in court Tuesday morning for a hearing on whether his trial should be moved from Fremont County to Ada County after the defense argued that the jury in Fremont County may be swayed by extensive media coverage in the area.
After hearing multiple arguments and witness testimony, the judge announced that a written ruling would be released at a later date.
Following Daybell’s court appearance, Vallow appeared in court for arraignment and pleaded not guilty to all charges. She’s charged with three counts of first-degree murder: her children, J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan, and her husband’s first wife, Tammy Daybell.
The couple is scheduled to face trial starting in January 2023. Daybell and Vallow could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted on multiple first-degree murder charges.
(STOCKTON, Calif.) — A suspect has been charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old girl at a high school in Stockton, California, in what officials said appears to be a random attack.
The student was killed when a trespasser, initially described as a man in his 40s, entered Stagg High School on Monday and stabbed her multiple times. Responders immediately began lifesaving measures, but she was pronounced dead at a local hospital, Stockton police said.
“A trespasser entered the front of our school today, stabbed one of our students multiple times,” Stockton Unified School District Superintendent John Ramirez Jr. said at a press conference Monday. “Unfortunately, she did not make it. The assailant was taken, was detained, and taken into custody immediately.”
“The school was also put on lockdown to assure the safety of the rest of our students,” he added. “We began to work with local law enforcement immediately and they’ve taken over the investigation.”
Anthony Gray, 52, was arrested in connection with the stabbing and booked into the San Joaquin County Jail on murder, police said late Monday.
“Detectives believe this appears to be a random act and they are trying to determine why this student was targeted,” the Stockton Police Department said on Facebook.
Gray is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday. It is unclear if he has an attorney.
Officials had said Monday they did not have a motive for the attack but said the man was not a parent.
Ramirez praised the school’s resource officer for acting quickly to apprehend the suspect, saying it helped to prevent the stabbing from continuing.
“When the incident happened, there were staff immediately there,” he said. “It had been so quick that they weren’t able to stop it, but they were there immediately.”
(PONTIAC, Mich.) — The parents of the accused Michigan school shooter were denied a request to reduce their bond on Tuesday.
Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews said the events leading to the arrest of Jennifer and James Crumbley make the bond currently set appropriate, as their actions were “premeditated to conceal their whereabouts.”
The two are charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter after allegedly failing to recognize warning signs about their son in the months before their son allegedly shot and killed four of his classmates at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021.
Prosecutors have accused the parents of giving their son a gun that was later used in the school shooting and allege the parents hid in an abandoned warehouse in Detroit and had concealed their car by hiding their license plates instead of turning themselves in the day they were charged.
Their son, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, is facing 24 counts, including four counts of murder and a terrorism charge
A judge ruled that Ethan Crumbley must remain in adult jail. His lawyers said in January they will claim an insanity defense. He is being held in isolation, under behavior watch, and must be checked on every 15 minutes.
The Crumbleys’ bond is set at $500,000 each, which they were attempting to get reduced to $100,000 each.
A lower court denied a similar motion to reduce their bond in January.
(SAN FRANCISCO) — A man who has spent 32 years in prison for being wrongly convicted of murder was exonerated by San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin on Monday.
Joaquin Ciria was arrested in 1990 and convicted of shooting and killing his friend, Felix Bastarrica, in San Francisco. His conviction was based on false witness testimony and police misconduct, according to Boudin.
“Our office is proud of and grateful for the work of the Innocence Commission in rectifying the wrongful conviction of Mr. Ciria,” Boudin said in a press release.
He added, “Although we cannot give him back the decades of his life lost we are thankful that the court has corrected this miscarriage of justice.”
Boudin dismissed the case against Ciria after a judge overturned his conviction.
According to Boudin, no physical evidence linked Ciria to the crime, but San Francisco police believed Ciria to be the shooter based on street rumors and statements from the alleged getaway driver, George Varela.
Varela testified in exchange for complete immunity that he drove Ciria to and from the scene. Boudin states that Varela, who was then a teenager, was pressured by police to name Ciria as the perpetrator.
The commission found that Varela has admitted to Ciria’s family members that he had falsely testified.
The jury heard from three eyewitnesses in Ciria’s trial, two of whom Boudin’s office says were “cross-racial identifications by strangers whose views were compromised by distance and poor lighting during the late-night shooting.”
An alternate suspect was not mentioned to the jury, and evidence of Ciria’s alibi was not given on trial despite two available alibi witnesses.
The Innocence Commission also found that another eyewitness, the victim’s best friend, identified another person as the shooter, and that other witnesses confirmed details to corroborate this new eyewitness’ story, including the description of the shooter provided by the stranger eyewitnesses, which more closely matches another suspect.
Ciria’s case was the first one reviewed by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office’s Innocence Commission since its formation in 2020. The commission was created to review potential wrongful convictions and present findings to Boudin’s office.
“When a conviction is a perversion of justice because it deprives an innocent person of his freedom while robbing the victim and his family of justice, the District Attorney has a duty to correct that intolerable violation,” said Lara Bazelon, the chair of the Innocence Commission.
Ciria has long maintained his innocence. His release date is not yet known, but could be within the next few days, the DA’s office said.
“Joaquin’s case highlights so many issues with our system, including how long it takes to undo a wrongful conviction, the problems with using incentivized testimony, the unreliability of cross-racial identifications, and the ways people of color aren’t afforded the presumption of innocence,” said Paige Kaneb, supervising attorney at the Northern California Innocence Project, who represented Ciria.
There have been more than 270 known wrongful convictions in California alone since the National Registry of Exonerations began tracking wrongful convictions in 1989. Ciria will be added to that registry.
“Studies on the causes of wrongful convictions demonstrate that key contributing factors include mistaken eyewitness identification, false testimony, and official misconduct,” Boudin’s office said in a press release. “All three of those factors were present in Mr. Ciria’s case and led to his wrongful conviction in this case.”
(PONTIAC, Mich.) — The parents of the accused Michigan school shooter were denied a request to reduce their bond on Tuesday.
Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews said the events leading to the arrest of Jennifer and James Crumbley make the bond currently set appropriate, as their actions were “premeditated to conceal their whereabouts.”
The two are charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter after allegedly failing to recognize warning signs about their son in the months before their son allegedly shot and killed four of his classmates at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021.
Prosecutors have accused the parents of giving their son a gun that was later used in the school shooting and allege the parents hid in an abandoned warehouse in Detroit and had concealed their car by hiding their license plates instead of turning themselves in the day they were charged.
Their son, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, is facing 24 counts, including four counts of murder and a terrorism charge
A judge ruled that Ethan Crumbley must remain in adult jail. His lawyers said in January they will claim an insanity defense. He is being held in isolation, under behavior watch, and must be checked on every 15 minutes.
The Crumbleys’ bond is set at $500,000 each, which they were attempting to get reduced to $100,000 each.
A lower court denied a similar motion to reduce their bond in January.
