National

(WASHINGTON) — First lady Jill Biden apologized Tuesday through her spokesperson after receiving public backlash for saying in a speech Monday that Latinos are “as unique as breakfast tacos.”

Spokesperson Michael LaRosa tweeted a brief apology on Tuesday morning following an onslaught of criticism from conservatives and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

“The First Lady apologizes that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community,” the tweet read.

The First Lady apologizes that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community.

— Michael LaRosa (@MichaelLaRosa46) July 12, 2022

Biden’s invocation of breakfast tacos came at the UnidosUS annual conference, titled “Siempre Adelante: Our Quest for Equity,” in San Antonio on Monday evening, while speaking to the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy group.

The first lady noted in her remarks that the group’s longtime leader, Raul Yzaguirre, had “helped build this organization with the understanding that the diversity of this community — as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio — is your strength.”

Republicans pounced on social media, saying she was comparing Latinos to tacos, and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists also clapped back, sending a message to the first lady to “not reduce us to stereotypes.”

NAHJ encourages @FLOTUS & her communications team to take time to better understand the complexities of our people & communities.

We are not tacos.

Our heritage as Latinos is shaped by various diasporas, cultures & food traditions.

Do not reduce us to stereotypes. pic.twitter.com/KQIq5gwsht

— NAHJ (@NAHJ) July 12, 2022

“NAHJ encourages @FLOTUS & her communications team to take time to better understand the complexities of our people & communities. We are not tacos. Our heritage as Latinos is shaped by various diasporas, cultures & food traditions. Do not reduce us to stereotypes,” it said.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida responded by changing his Twitter profile picture to an image of a taco and tweeting, “#NewProfilePic.”

But Janet Murguía, the current president and CEO of UnidosUS, tweeted after Biden’s speech that the group was “honored” to host her, calling her “a great educator in, and a great amiga to, our community for years,” and adding she was, “Privileged to call her a friend.”

The analogy and apology from the first lady come at a time with President Joe Biden and Democrats are seeking to reach out to Hispanic voters ahead of the midterm elections and ahead of Biden meeting Tuesday with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the White House.

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(WASHINGTON) — The first full-color image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been released.

The images, the full set of which will be released Tuesday morning, will be the deepest and highest resolution ever taken of the universe, according to NASA.

The telescope will help scientists study the formation of the universe’s earliest galaxies, how they compare to today’s galaxies, how our solar system developed and if there is life on other planets.

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

Jul 11, 6:41 pm
Biden unveils 1st full-color image from telescope

President Joe Biden unveiled the first full-color image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.

The image, revealed during a press event held at the White House Monday and also attended by Vice President Kamala Harris, shows multiple galaxies.

It is the highest-resolution image of the universe ever captured, officials said.

“Today is a historic day,” said Biden. “It’s a new window into the history of our universe and today we’re going to get a first glimpse of the light to shine through that window.”

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the light seen on the image has been traveling for over 13 billion years.

Jul 11, 4:46 pm
NASA says all of the telescope’s instruments are ‘ready’

NASA announced Monday all four of the James Webb Space Telescope’s scientific instruments are ready to start being used.

The space agency said there are 17 modes, or ways, to operate the instruments. All have been examined and are “ready to begin full scientific operations.”

The last step was was checking the the telescope’s NIRCam, which block starlight so scientists can detect other nearby structures, such as exoplanets.

Jul 11, 4:00 pm
Test image from telescope offers preview

A test image taken by the James Webb Telescope offers a preview of what’s to come ahead of the release of the first full-color images.

NASA shared the photo last week taken by one of the telescope’s instruments, the Fine Guidance Sensor, or FGS, to demonstrate how strong, clear and sharp Webb’s images will be.

According to the space agency, the “false-color mosaic” is made up of 72 exposures taken over a 32-hour period.

NASA noted that the primary focus of the FGS is not even to capture images but to make sure the telescope is pointing precisely at its target.

Jul 11, 3:30 pm
What to know about the Webb telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope was jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Development began in 1996 but ran into several delays before it was completed in 2016 at a final cost of $10 billion.

The telescope was launched on Christmas Day and is orbiting 1 million miles from Earth.

It used infrared radiation to detect objects that are invisible to the human eye.

The four goals of the telescope are to study how the first stars and galaxies formed right after the Big Bang, comparing the galaxies from the past to those of today, how planetary systems formed and if there is any sign of life on other planets.

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(NEW YORK) — The wildfire that is threatening an iconic grove of sequoia trees in Yosemite National Park could now affect human health hundreds of miles in the opposite direction.

An air quality advisory has been issued for California’s Bay Area, specifically the North Bay and East Bay regions, as the Washburn Fire continues to grow on the southern portion of Yosemite National Park.

The fire, which sparked Thursday near the Washburn Trail in Yosemite’s Mariposa Grove, had expanded to more than 2,700 acres by Monday — inching dangerously close to sequoia trees that have been in the region for thousands of years. More than 2,000 of the acres burned are located in the national park, according to Yosemite Fire and Aviation Management.

In the regions surrounding the San Francisco Bay about 200 miles west of the fire, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District is warning residents of pollutant levels that are expected to be in the moderate range.

Satellite images show significant amounts of smoke wafting over Northern California’s Pacific coast.

Despite the significant smog, air quality is not expected to worsen beyond federal health standards, according to the agency.

The fire is expected to continue “moderately” over the next 12 hours, but fire activity will increase and “actively” spread through the week due to warming temperatures and subsequent drying, according to Yosemite Fire.

The management of the fire is progressing at a relatively slow pace as firefighters set off backfires to clear the fuel that compiled in the region over a large tree mortality event between 2013 and 2015.

Since the fire is slow-moving and not affecting human safety, firefighters are able to take the time to clear the fuel, which consists of both standing trees and dead leaves and brush that have fallen to the ground, fire experts told ABC News.

About 360 firefighters are battling the Washburn Fire, according to Yosemite Fire.

The fuel, however, is posing a significant safety threat to firefighters on the ground, the experts said. The spread may also slow once the fire reaches some of the recent fire scars, according to Yosemite Fire.

The Mariposa Grove, one of the most popular destinations in Yosemite National Park and home to more than 500 mature giant sequoia trees, remains closed, as does the Highway 41 entrance into Yosemite National Park. Sequoias, native to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, are adaptive to fire, but intense fire amplified by the dry fuel could kill them, according to experts.

No reports of damage to any of the named trees in the grove have been released, and some tree trunks have been wrapped in fire-resistant foil as protection, a method used in September when the KNP Complex Fire threatened trees in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest.

Sprinklers have also been set up around several trees, including the Grizzly Giant, the most famous giant sequoia at Yosemite, which stands at 209 feet. Fire officials hope the steady stream of water, combined with prescribed burns, will be enough to protect the trees from a fatal encounter with the wildfire.

Wildfires sparked by lightning have killed about 20% of the 75,000 large sequoias in the West in recent years, The Associated Press reported. Protections for the Mariposa Grove began as early as 1864, when President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation to conserve the grove, marking the first time the U.S. federal government set aside a natural wonder so that future generations could enjoy it.

That initiative later became the model for the National Park system.

ABC News’ Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.

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(AUSTIN, Texas) — A chorus of Texas state leaders on Monday called on law enforcement officials to release surveillance video from inside Robb Elementary School during the May 24 mass shooting, including Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is running for reelection.

“That video needs to be released, as well as the audio,” Abbott told Austin ABC affiliate KVUE in an interview Monday afternoon. “The Texans need to know. But, frankly, the people of Uvalde, they deserve to get to know exactly what happened. And I urge that it happen very quickly.”

The deluge of support from top politicians capped a day of finger-pointing and about-faces from state leaders. At a hearing in Austin on Monday morning, a key Texas state legislator suggested that an agreement between law enforcement and local officials to disclose a portion of the footage had been struck — only for one of the parties to the supposed agreement to quickly rebuff that claim.

Rep. Dustin Burrows, the chairman of a special Texas House panel investigating the Robb Elementary shooting, announced Monday morning that the Texas Department of Public Safety and the mayor of Uvalde had reached a deal to disclose surveillance video showing officers gathered in the hallway outside of the classroom containing the 21-year-old gunman.

But within hours of Burrows’ comment, the Texas Department of Public Safety gave ABC News a July 8 letter it sent to the chairman informing him that the law enforcement agency could not unilaterally grant his request for the tapes, citing instruction from the Uvalde-area district attorney, Christina Busbee.

“[Busbee] has objected to releasing the video and has instructed us not to do so,” according to the letter, which was signed by DPS Deputy Director Freeman Martin. “As the individual with authority to consider whether any criminal prosecution should result from the events in Uvalde, we are guided by her professional judgment regarding the potential impact of releasing the video.”

After Monday’s hearing concluded, Burrows clarified his earlier comments, telling ABC News, “We’re still working on getting the video released, but no agreements.” He later tweeted, “It is my intention to show the hallway video to the people of Uvalde, regardless of any agreement. I will not release it to the public until the people of Uvalde have seen it for themselves.”

Busbee did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.

This latest round of confusion is certain to exacerbate frustration within the Uvalde community. More than six weeks after the shooting, which ended the lives of 19 students and two teachers, several questions remain about the 77 minutes that elapsed between the time the shooter entered the school, and the moment law enforcement officers breached the classroom and killed him.

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw characterized the police response as “an abject failure” during testimony before a Texas Senate panel last month, raising the stakes for officials to release video footage.

On Sunday, families of the victims gathered in Uvalde’s town square to voice their frustrations with state and local leaders over their handling of the shooting and subsequent investigations. The event was called The Unheard Voices March & Rally, as a reflection of the sentiment shared by many residents of the small West Texas town.

The public back-and-forth over whether and what investigative evidence to publicly share from inside the school has become a source of conflict between some family members of the victims and officials who claimed to represent their interests. Busbee has said that releasing footage could hinder her ongoing probe into whether the shooting warrants any criminal charges.

Over the weekend, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin accused Busbee of misleading family members about McLaughlin’s support for releasing certain footage showing the police response during the rampage.

On Friday, McLaughlin affirmed his support for the release of “all videos,” including “the entire 77-minute hallway video … up the moment of the breach.” But less than 24 hours later, he issued a follow-up statement clarifying that he only sought the release of video showing the police response — not any children or any images from the classroom.

In the course of his about-face, McLaughlin claimed that Busbee had been “advising” families of the victims that he supported releasing videos showing deceased children, and accused her of “not telling the truth.”

McLaughlin later told ABC News that video from the hallway inside of Robb would “contradict misconceptions that Uvalde police were the only ones inside with weapons,” and releasing the tape would “provide transparency to everyone.”

On Monday, Rep. Burrows said he would “continue to put pressure on the situation and consider all options in making sure that video gets out for the public to view,” but did not commit to a timeline for a public release.

“I can tell people all day long what it is I saw, the committee can tell people all day long what we saw, but it’s very different to see it for yourself,” Burrows said. “And we think that’s very important.”

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(UVALDE, Texas) — State and local officials have agreed to release surveillance footage from inside the hallway of Robb Elementary School during the May 24 mass shooting that ended the lives of 19 students and two teachers, a key Texas state legislator said Monday.

The development appears to end a weeks-long dispute between the Texas Department of Public Safety and the mayor of Uvalde over how to handle the sensitive video, although it is not clear when the video will be made public.

The public back-and-forth ultimately became a source of conflict between some family members of the victims and officials who claimed to represent their interests.

At a Monday hearing in Austin, Rep. Dustin Burrows, the chairman of a special Texas House panel investigating the Robb shooting, said the video “would contain no graphic images or depictions of violence,” but supported releasing footage of the police response to help the public better understand what happened inside the school.

“I can tell people all day long what it is I saw, the committee can tell people all day long what we saw, but it’s very different to see it for yourself,” Burrows said. “And we think that’s very important.”

Burrows did not say when the video would be released, but committed to “continue to put pressure on the situation and consider all options in making sure that video gets out for the public to view.”

More than six weeks after the massacre, questions remain about the response of the police and the 77 minutes that elapsed between the time the shooter entered the school and when law enforcement breached the classroom and killed him.

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(NEW YORK) — A 15-year-old boy has been charged with murder stemming from the fatal stabbing of a 14-year-old boy on a New York City subway platform, authorities said.

The teen suspect, whose name was not released because he is charged as a minor, is also charged with criminal possession of a weapon, according to the New York Police Department.

Police identified the victim as Ethan Reyes, 14, of Yonkers, New York.

The stabbing unfolded around 3 p.m. Saturday when officers responded to a report of “a crime in progress” inside the West 137th Street-City College train station in the city’s upper Manhattan neighborhood, according to the NYPD.

Officers found Reyes on the northbound No. 1 line platform with a stab wound to the abdomen. He was taken by ambulance to nearby Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, NYPD Transit Chief Jason Wilcox said at a news conference Saturday night.

Wilcox said the suspect, initially identified as a person of interest in the homicide, was taken into custody for questioning after being found at West 173rd St. and Broadway suffering wounds to the back, abdomen and left hip, Wilcox said. He said the individual was taken to a hospital for treatment and is expected to survive, police said.

A preliminary investigation found that a fight or dispute between the suspect and victim began outside and spilled into the West 137th St. station, where investigators believe Reyes was stabbed on the subway platform, police said.

Wilcox said the NYPD Crime Scene Unit recovered a knife and a broomstick from the crime scene.

It was not immediately clear what the fatal fight was about.

The slaying followed a series of recent high-profile crimes that have taken place in the New York City subway system, including some captured by passengers on cell phone video.

In April, a 62-year-old man was arrested and indicted on federal terrorism charges after he allegedly detonated a smoke bomb and shot 10 passengers on a Manhattan-bound N subway train during the morning rush-hour commute.

In March, a 25-year-old man was charged with murder after police alleged he abruptly pulled a gun and randomly shot a 48-year-old stranger on a Q line train heading from Brooklyn to Manhattan, according to prosecutors.

In January, a 40-year-old woman died after she was pushed onto the subway tracks and struck by an oncoming train at the Times Square-42nd Street station. A 61-year-old man, described by police as homeless, was charged with second-degree murder, but has since been declared mentally unfit to stand trial and placed in a psychiatric facility indefinitely.

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(NEW YORK) — Dangerous heat is enveloping a large swath of the U.S., with temperatures forecast to climb above 100 degrees Monday from California to Arizona to Texas to Missouri.

Temperatures on Monday could reach a scorching 111 degrees in Redding, California; 114 in Palm Springs; 112 in Las Vegas; and 115 in Phoenix.

East of the Rockies, the humidity combined with the heat will make it feel oppressive. The heat index — what temperature it feels like with humidity — is forecast to skyrocket to 111 degrees in Austin, Texas; 109 in Houston; 105 in Dallas; 104 in St. Louis and 99 in Memphis, Tennessee.

College Station, Texas, reached a record high temperature of 111 degrees this weekend. At Camp Mabry, a military base in the Austin area, the temperature reached a July record high of 110.

More record highs are possible Monday in Texas, Northern California and Oregon.

Some of this heat will stretch into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a forecast of 92 degrees in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia and 91 degrees in New York. With humidity, it will feel like the upper 90s in some areas.

Click here for tips to stay safe in the heat.

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(UVALDE, Texas) — Hundreds of people marched from Robb Elementary School to Uvalde Town Square on Sunday to honor the victims and to hold elected officials accountable for the mass school shooting that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers.

Family members of the victims made impassioned speeches at the Unheard Voices March & Rally, demanding justice for their loved ones who were killed in the May 24 shooting.

“What I want, you can’t give me. I want my daughter back,” Kimberly Rubio, mother of Lexi Rubio, said. “We want answers. We seek justice. We demand change.”

One by one, victims’ family members came to the mic and announced the name of their loved one, holding posters with the child’s picture on them, according to ABC News San Antonio affiliate KSAT.

There were repeated chants of “vote them out,” referring to politicians who don’t support gun reform and who didn’t attend the rally.

People at the rally also expressed anger at law enforcement’s response to the shooting.

Uvalde police waited 77 minutes in the hallway outside the classroom where the suspect was before approaching him.

Pete Arredondo, the police chief for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD), resigned from his position on the Uvalde City Council, saying in his resignation letter that it was “in the best interest of the community to step down as a member of the City Council for District 3 to minimize further distractions.”

At the Unheard Voice March Sunday, community members called for Arredondo to step down from his position in the school district. The school district put him on administrative leave in June.

“You do not deserve to wear a badge,” said a loved one of 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza, who was killed in the mass shooting.

ABC News’ Izzy Alvarez and Marilyn Heck contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — As gun violence in America continues to take lives, lawmakers are pushing states to implement “red flag” laws, which allow law enforcement or family members to ask a civil court to temporarily remove guns from a person who poses a risk to themselves or others.

Nineteen states currently have “red flag” laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, on the books. Recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Highland Parks, Illinois have reignited calls for the government to enact these types of gun laws.

Last month, President Joe Biden signed into law a bipartisan gun bill which included $750 million in funding to help states implement “red flag” laws and other violence prevention programs.

The bill also enhanced background checks for people under the age of 21 and closed a so-called “boyfriend loophole,” by preventing individuals in serious dating relationships who have been convicted of domestic violence from being able to purchase a gun.

Experts told ABC News that when they are more frequently used, “red flag” laws could be effective.

“There’s many documented cases of use of red flag laws in circumstances and when people are threatening or saying they’re going to commit mass shootings. And they use the order, they remove firearms, and there’s no documented case [that] that person, for example, found another firearm or just went and did it anyway,” Daniel Webster, director for the Gun Policy and Research Center at Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News in an interview.

He added, “I wouldn’t call it necessarily ironclad, certain proof. But, it’s certainly compelling evidence that the laws are being used as intended to prevent these things.”

According to Webster, “red flag” laws are modeled after domestic violence restraining orders, which make them a quick response, allowing judges to immediately take action. The procedures allow due process for those whose guns are removed by giving them the opportunity to appear in court and present evidence as to why they should keep their guns.

Webster also said there is evidence these laws reduce suicide risk, which is the most common reason these orders are issued.

However, this tool is completely reliant on a good system response when there is evidence that someone might be a danger, Webster said.

Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychology and behavioral studies who is affiliated with the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University, told ABC News these laws are not being implemented on a large enough scale to determine whether they are effective.

“If nobody knows about it, it’s not used, it’s not scaled up, the police don’t have experience using it or aren’t accustomed to doing that, [or] you don’t have the infrastructure or the protocols in mind for it to become routine, you can’t expect it to do any good,” Swanson said.

Swanson said this was the case in Connecticut where a “red flag” law was passed in 1999, but wasn’t often put to use until around 2008. Researchers found that when used in the state, these laws were “modestly” effective in preventing suicides.

“For every 10 to 20 of these gun removal actions, one life was saved,” Swanson, a coauthor of the study, said.

After the July 4 shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, police revealed they had deemed the suspect, Robert Crimo III, a “clear and present danger” after a family member revealed he had threatened to “kill everyone,” according to police records.

Police had also gone to the suspect’s home a number of times before the shooting, including in September 2019, when Highland Park police removed a 24-inch Samurai blade, a box containing a 12-inch dagger and 16 hand knives from Crimo’s house that day, according to an incident report.

However, when he made the threats, the suspect did not own any firearms. So when state police did not find a gun license for Crimo in their system, no action was taken. Later that year, the suspect’s father signed an affidavit allowing him to obtain a gun license.

While Illinois has a “red flag” law in place, Webster said the state’s law does not apply a “prospective” approach that would have prevented Crimo from obtaining guns in the months after he made the threats. Webster said it is worth considering preventing people who pose a threat from being able to get guns for a certain span of time.

“To me, that sounds very reasonable, because you’re using the same logic to disarm someone once they already have a firearm,” he said. “But, you’re not using it to prevent the acquisition. So, that’s, that’s the missing piece here.”

According to Webster, things to be considered when determining whether an individual presents a “clear and present danger” to those around them include whether they have a history of violent behavior and what evidence there is that they could commit a shooting (such as their online search history or things they have obtained like body armor).

Whether the individual has displayed behavioral signals common among mass shooters should also be considered, he added.

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(FRESNO, Calif.) — A wildfire near Yosemite National Park is creeping closer to a grove of iconic sequoia trees that have been in the region for thousands of years.

The Washburn Fire, which originated on Thursday near the Washburn Trail in Yosemite’s Mariposa Grove, has since grown to nearly 1,600 acres and could soon threaten the survival of the sequoias, fire officials said.

The fire is burning in “difficult terrain” due to heavy fuel lingering nearby after a significant tree mortality event from 2013 to 2015, according to Yosemite Fire and Aviation Management.

The fuel consists of both standing trees and fuel that has fallen to the ground and is presenting safety hazards to firefighters, according to Yosemite fire officials.

The Mariposa Grove, one of the most popular destinations in Yosemite National Park and home to more than 500 mature giant sequoia trees, was evacuated and remains closed. People in the community of Wawona, which is surrounded by national park land and campground, were also ordered to leave their homes and campsites on Friday.

No reports of damage to any of the named trees in the grove have been reported. Some of the tree trunks were wrapped in fire-resistant foil, a similar method used in September to protect trees in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest when the KNP Complex Fire threatened their existence.

The trees, native to the Sierra Nevada range in California, are adaptive to fire, but intense fire could kill them, according to experts. Wildfires sparked by lightning have killed about a fifth of the 75,000 large sequoias, The AP reported.

The Washburn Fire is not fast-moving and is not impacting human safety, fire sources told ABC News. It will take several weeks for the fire to be fully extinguished because firefighters are managing the fire by setting off backfires to clear the fuel, the experts said.

Firefighters are also battling the blaze using air drops of fire retardant and by using bulldozers to create fire lines, The Associated Press reported.

A warming trend is forecast in the region over the next several days, but high wind events are not expected to exacerbate the wildfire.

ABC News’ Jenna Harrison Lisette Rodriguez contributed to this report.

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