Eruption at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano sends lava shooting 1,000 feet in air

Eruption at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano sends lava shooting 1,000 feet in air
Eruption at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano sends lava shooting 1,000 feet in air
Gary Miller/Getty Images

(HAWAII) — Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano is erupting again in spectacular fashion, sending lava shooting 1,000 feet into the sky, according to the United States Geological Survey.

On Friday morning, “Episode 26” of the ongoing eruption at Halemaʻumaʻu — the pit crater within Kīlauea Caldera at the summit of the volcano — spewed lava fountains that reached massive heights, according to the USGS’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Episode 26 was preceded by small, sporadic spattering and lava overflows, according to the USGS.

Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world and located on the Big Island, has been especially active in the last several months, erupting dozens of times since December.

In May, Kilauea also spewed leva more than 1,000 feet. On June 11, eruptions at Kilauea measured at more than 330 feet, according to the USGS.

The current eruption began at 1:40 a.m. local time, with lava fountains and flows erupting from the north vent, according to the USGS.

The eruption is flowing into a remote area of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Flows have been confined to the Halemaʻumaʻu crater and the southwest side of Kaluapele, Kīlauea’s summit caldera.

The USGS issued a volcano watch – known as a code orange – which means that an eruption is either likely or occurring but with no, or minor, ash.

Volcanic gas emissions and tephra — fragments of rock, minerals and glass — from the lava fountain may be distributed south of the caldera, due to the winds blowing from the north, the USGS said.

Other hazards include Pele’s hair — strands of volcanic glass often produced by lava fountaining activity — crater wall instability ground cracking and rockfalls.

Kīlauea’scaldera rim surroundingHalemaʻumaʻucrater has been closed to the public since 2007 due to such hazards.

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Record-shattering heat wave hitting wide swath of US: Latest forecast

Record-shattering heat wave hitting wide swath of US: Latest forecast
Record-shattering heat wave hitting wide swath of US: Latest forecast
ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A dangerous heat wave is moving in, with more than 100 million people from the Midwest to the Northeast on alert for life-threatening temperatures.

The widespread heat alerts are first impacting Midwest states including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska and South Dakota. The heat index — what the temperature feels like with humidity — could reach 110 degrees on Friday and Saturday.

Central U.S. cities like Denver and Minneapolis could shatter heat records this weekend. In the Chicago area, the heat index could hit 105 degrees from Saturday to Monday.

The South will also be feeling the heat. The heat index is forecast to hit 104 degrees in Nashville, Tennessee, and Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday and Tuesday.

The dangerous and record-shattering heat will shift east by the end of the weekend and the start of next week. Daily record highs are possible from Detroit to Raleigh, North Carolina, to Boston on Monday and Tuesday.

In New York City, the heat index is expected to skyrocket to 103 degrees, 107 degrees and 105 degrees from Sunday to Tuesday. In Washington, D.C, the heat index is forecast to jump to 103 degrees, 107 degrees and 108 degrees.

Boston could feel like 102 degrees on Tuesday.

Heat indices up to 107 are also possible in cities including Detroit, Cleveland, Ohio, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia from Sunday to Wednesday.

Doctors recommend taking excessive heat warnings seriously. Over 700 people die from heat-related illnesses every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and extreme heat is considered the deadliest weather-related hazard in the U.S., according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment.

Click here for tips to stay safe in the heat.

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Congressman Max Miller said he was run off the road by driver waving Palestinian flag

Congressman Max Miller said he was run off the road by driver waving Palestinian flag
Congressman Max Miller said he was run off the road by driver waving Palestinian flag
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

(ROCKY RIVER, Ohio) — Republican Congressman Max Miller says that he was run off the road by a man waving a Palestinian flag in Ohio — an incident that comes amid a heightened environment of political violence.

“The deranged hatred in this country has gotten out of control,” Miller said on social media Thursday. “Today I was run off the road in Rocky River, and the life of me and my family was threatened by a person who proceeded to show a Palestinian flag before taking off. I have filed a police report with Capitol Police and the local police department. We know who this person is and he will face justice.”

“As a Marine, a proud Jewish American and a staunch defender of Israel, I will not hide in the face of this blatant anti-Semitic violence,” Miller continued.

This incident comes amid a disturbing increase in political violence nationwide and in the immediate aftermath of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband being fatally shot in their home. State Sen. John Hoffman remain in critical condition after he was shot nine times along with his wife Yvette, who was shot eight times. She has since been released from the hospital and is recovering at home.

“As a Marine, a proud Jewish American and a staunch defender of Israel, I will not hide in the face of this blatant anti-Semitic violence,” Miller continued.

This incident comes amid a disturbing increase in political violence nationwide and in the immediate aftermath of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband being fatally shot in their home. State Sen. John Hoffman remain in critical condition after he was shot nine times along with his wife Yvette, who was shot eight times. She has since been released from the hospital and is recovering at home.

The suspect was apprehended and charged after police investigated “suspicious activity” in Mayor Paul Young’s neighborhood, the Memphis Police Department said Wednesday.

The suspect — 25-year-old Trenton Abston — has been charged with attempted kidnapping, stalking and aggravated criminal trespass, police said. He is detained at the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office jail and is scheduled to appear in court on Friday, online jail records show. It is unclear if he has an attorney at this time.

“Let’s make something abundantly clear to anyone who needs to see this, which, apparently, is a lot of people,” Miller said in his social media post. “If you have an issue with a legislator, your city councilman, your mayor, anyone like that. The appropriate thing to do is to reach out to them for a phone call to set up a meeting at one of our district offices. What is not okay is to assault anyone, whether you are a member of Congress or anybody else within our district when you are driving to work.”

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Dad arrested for son’s death after allegedly leaving him in hot car to go drinking

Dad arrested for son’s death after allegedly leaving him in hot car to go drinking
Dad arrested for son’s death after allegedly leaving him in hot car to go drinking
amphotora/Getty Images

(ORMOND BEACH, Fla.) — Police in Florida have arrested a father who they say is responsible for the death of his 18-month-old son after he left him “helpless in a hot truck” for more than three hours while he got a haircut and went drinking at a local bar, police say.

The Volusia Sheriff’s Office along with the Ormond Beach Police Department arrested 33-year-old Scott Allen Gardner on Thursday and charged him with aggravated manslaughter of a child and child neglect causing great bodily harm, according to a statement from the Volusia Sheriff’s Office.

“Gardner is responsible for the death of his 18-month-old son Sebastian, who was left helpless in a hot truck for more than 3 hours on the afternoon of Friday, June 6, while Gardner got a haircut and then went drinking inside Hanky Panky’s Lounge,” authorities said.

Additionally, Gardner gave multiple false accounts of what occurred that day when he was being investigated by police, officials said.

“It was estimated by medical personnel that Sebastian’s body temperature reached 111 degrees during this tragedy,” police said. “The same OBPD officer who tried to revive Sebastian placed Gardner in handcuffs today as he was taken into custody at his mother’s home in Ormond Beach.”

Officials said they will provide more details of the investigation on Friday and that their investigation is currently ongoing.
 

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Mom who drove truck through ‘park full of kids,’ ran over 12-year-old girl sentenced to 10 years

Mom who drove truck through ‘park full of kids,’ ran over 12-year-old girl sentenced to 10 years
Mom who drove truck through ‘park full of kids,’ ran over 12-year-old girl sentenced to 10 years
Marilyn Nieves/Getty Images

(PEORIA, Ariz) — A mother in Arizona has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after driving her pickup truck through “a park full of kids” and running over a 12-year-old girl, officials said.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell announced earlier this week that 31-year-old Brandie Gotch was handed the 10 year sentence which stemmed from an incident that took place in February 2024 when her children “were fighting with each other at Westgreen Park in Peoria,” according to a statement from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, and that “other kids at the park were egging them on and recording the altercation.”

“As this was happening, Gotch arrived at the park to pick up her kids. While walking them back to her truck, a boy on the playground called her a name,” officials said. Gotch went over to him and started pulling him by his hair. A second boy called her a name, and she chased him around the park with a stick. Gotch then got into her truck with her kids. The second boy stood behind the truck, dancing and mocking her. He eventually moved away to stand by his sister.”

It is then that authorities say Gotch backed out of the parking space and revved her engine before driving directly at the boy and his sister.

“He was able to jump out of the way, but his sister’s leg was run over,” officials said. “Gotch kept driving through the park where more than a dozen other children were at the time, including some who had to run to get out of the truck’s path.”

Gotch immediately drove away from the park but was arrested at home a short time later, officials said.
“This could have been a much more tragic situation; thankfully the worst injury in this was a sprained ankle and some bad scrapes and bruises,” said Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell. “Even when angry or frustrated, it’s up to adults to act like adults. It is never okay to take to take our rage out on a kid.”

Gotch pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated assault — a class two dangerous felony — will now serve 10 years in prison, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

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The ocean is changing colors, researchers say. Here’s what it means.

The ocean is changing colors, researchers say. Here’s what it means.
The ocean is changing colors, researchers say. Here’s what it means.
Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — Warming waters are causing the colors of the ocean to change — a trend that could impact humans if it were to continue, according to new research.

Satellite data shows that ocean waters are getting greener at the poles and bluer toward the equator, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Science.

The change in hue is being caused by shifting concentrations of a green pigment called chlorophyll, which is produced by phytoplankton, Haipeng Zhao, a postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the paper, told ABC News.

Phytoplankton are photosynthetic marine organisms. As algae, phytoplankton has photosynthetic pigments, which absorb green light and cause the waters around it to appear primarily green, Susan Lozier, dean of the College of Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-author of the paper, told ABC News. Where phytoplankton are absent, the water appears blue.

The researchers analyzed satellite data on the open ocean collected from 2003 to 2022 by a NASA instrument that combs through the planet every two days to measure light wavelength, according to the paper.

The presence of chlorophyll in open ocean is a proxy for concentrations of phytoplankton biomass. The colors indicate how chlorophyll concentration is changing at specific latitudes, in which the subtropics are generally losing chlorophyll, and the polar regions — the high-latitude regions — are greening, the researchers said.

Green areas became greener, especially in the northern hemisphere, and blue regions “got even bluer,” according to a press release by Duke University.

“We borrowed concepts from economics called the Lorenz curve and the Gini index, which together show how wealth is distributed in a society,” said Nicolas Cassar, the Lee Hill Snowdon Bass chair at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, in a statement. “So, we thought, let’s apply these to see whether the proportion of the ocean that holds the most chlorophyll has changed over time.”

The researchers examined how the patterns they observed were affected by variables like sea surface temperature, wind speed, light availability and mixed layer depth.

Warming seas correlated with changes in chlorophyll concentration, they found. The other variables did not show any significant associations to chlorophyll concentration.

However, the findings cannot be solely attributed to climate change, the authors said.

The study period was too short to rule out the influence of recurring climate phenomena, Lozier said.

“We haven’t been able to observe the ocean for decades and decades, just because the satellite technology is pretty new,” Lozier said.

After focusing his Ph.D. on regional studies in high-latitude oceans, Zhao said he was inspired to dive deeper to see whether oceans were transforming in color throughout the rest of the world.

“The ocean has been warming, so there’s a big question then about, what are the biological consequences of the ocean warming?” Lozier said.

Several studies since the 1990s have documented enhanced greening on land, attributed to average leaf color increasing due to rising temperatures and other factors, according to the researchers. However, documenting such changes in the ocean has proven to be more difficult.

The satellite images provide data on the chlorophyll production at the surface, but the picture is still incomplete, the researchers said.

If the trend continues, marine food webs could be impacted, the researchers said. Since phytoplankton are at the base of the food chain, it can be used to determine the presence of fish, too, Lozier said.

A persistent decline in phytoplankton near the equator could cause a redistribution of the location of fisheries, the authors said. This could be especially impactful in low to middle-income nations, such as the Pacific Islands, that rely on commercial fishing for food and economic development, the authors said.

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Alleged trespasser at Memphis mayor’s home charged with attempted kidnapping

Alleged trespasser at Memphis mayor’s home charged with attempted kidnapping
Alleged trespasser at Memphis mayor’s home charged with attempted kidnapping
Memphis Police Department

(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — A man accused of trespassing at the home of the Memphis, Tennessee, mayor has been charged with attempted kidnapping and stalking, according to police, who said the suspect had a Taser, gloves, rope and duct tape in his vehicle at the time of his arrest.

The suspect was apprehended and charged after police investigated “suspicious activity” in Mayor Paul Young’s neighborhood, the Memphis Police Department said Wednesday.

“On Sunday night, around 9:30 pm, a man jumped a wall leading into our subdivision,” Young said in a statement. “We now know that he walked straight to our home, knocking on the door with gloves on, a full pocket, and a nervous demeanor.”

Surveillance footage showed that the individual went directly to the mayor’s residence upon scaling the wall and did not approach any other home in the neighborhood, according to the Memphis Police Department.

The suspect — 25-year-old Trenton Abston — has been charged with attempted kidnapping, stalking and aggravated criminal trespass, police said. He is detained at the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office jail and is scheduled to appear in court on Friday, online jail records show. It is unclear if he has an attorney at this time.

The Memphis Police Department credited the “rapid response” of its officers and the surveillance footage throughout the neighborhood with quickly identifying, locating and arresting the suspect.

“We understand the concerns raised by this incident and want to reassure the public that the Memphis Police Department remains fully committed to the safety of all residents, including our city’s elected officials,” the department said in a press release. “We take any potential threat seriously and will continue to act swiftly and thoroughly.”

The incident comes amid heightened concerns over violence against elected officials, after two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses were shot on Saturday in what prosecutors called “political assassinations.” Democratic Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed, and Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were wounded in the attacks.

Young, who has served as Memphis’ mayor since January 2024, cited the Minnesota shootings while making a plea that political violence “cannot become our norm.”

“In today’s climate, especially after the tragic events in Minnesota and the threats my wife and I often receive online, none of us can be too careful,” Young said in a statement on Instagram while sharing a photo of him and his family. “The link between angry online rhetoric and real-life violence is becoming undeniable.”

“Let’s do better,” he added. “Let’s raise our discourse, reduce the hate, and protect one another — no matter our beliefs. Let’s reclaim our strength as one community. Let’s choose love.”

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9-year-old girl recounts moment she was bitten by shark while snorkeling in Florida

9-year-old girl recounts moment she was bitten by shark while snorkeling in Florida
9-year-old girl recounts moment she was bitten by shark while snorkeling in Florida
Tampa General Hospital. Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

(BOCA GRANDE, Fla.) — A 9-year-old girl who was bitten on the hand by a shark in Florida is speaking out about the terrifying moment she was attacked.

Leah Lendel was snorkeling near Boca Grande on June 11 when “something hard bit me and then tried to tug me away,” she said at a news conference Thursday alongside her parents and the doctors who treated her.

“Then I pick up my hand and it’s all in blood,” Leah said. “Then I started screaming with my mom.”

“There was so much blood in the water right next to me,” Leah’s mom, Nadia Lendel, said at the news conference. “In an instant, I knew it’s a shark attack.”

“I just started to scream to my husband,” Nadia Lendel recalled. Meanwhile, Leah’s “instincts kicked in” and she ran out of the water, her mom said.

“Then my dad was with me,” Leah said. “He picked me up and we ran to the road.”

Leah’s parents expressed their gratitude for the construction workers who were eating lunch on the beach and immediately ran to help them call 911 and put Leah’s arm in a tourniquet. Leah’s dad said EMS then responded within minutes.

Tampa General Hospital doctors praised the first responders for choosing to fly the two hours in the helicopter to their hospital where they said they had the expertise to help Leah within the six-hour window to save the tendons, tissue and muscle.

Doctors said they operated on Leah’s hand less than an hour after she came through the hospital doors.

At the hospital, “I was trying to hold myself together,” said Leah’s dad, Jay Lendel. “I think I was crying more than she was.”

Tampa General Hospital Dr. Alfred Hess said luckily a shark bite is not jagged, but leaves a clean cut on the wrist that doesn’t ruin all the tissue.

First Leah’s bone was stabilized and then doctors said they worked on blood flow. Some blood vessels were taken from Leah’s leg to help get blood flow back to her hand, the doctors said.

Leah will next undergo physical therapy, her doctors said, and eventually the pins in her hand will be removed.

“I’m just thankful for everybody,” Jay Lendel said. “I’m just very thankful she’s alive.”

Meanwhile, another shark bite was reported on Tuesday on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

The victim suffered a non-life-threatening injury to the leg and was airlifted to a hospital in Savannah, Georgia, according to the Hilton Head Island Fire Rescue.

There were 28 unprovoked shark bites in the U.S. last year, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File. Florida recorded the most with 14; South Carolina had two.

Just one shark attack in the U.S. last year — which occurred in Hawaii — was fatal, ISAF said.

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Some military families want further housing reform

Some military families want further housing reform
Some military families want further housing reform
Antoinette Reeder (left), Shae Anderson (center) and Audrey Kray have documented what they say are unhealthy living conditions in privatized military housing. ABC News

(WASHINGTON) — Moving cross-country from the Carolinas to California, the Reeder family looked forward to its next assignment in San Diego in the summer of 2022. The couple had originally met in California.

But in the first week, after the Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant and his family had settled into their new home, they had to move out and into a hotel temporarily.

“The first thing you know, military families want to see is, where can my furniture fit?” Antoinette Reeder, whose husband has served for nearly 19 years, told ABC News. Before they unloaded any furniture, Reeder said she started to notice an ant infestation and a strong musty smell coming from the bathroom. She said that was her first hint that mold could be in the home.

Reeder said she knew the smell because she faced similar issues in their former military housing on the East Coast.

“I already knew the protocol,” Reeder said. “[…] When we moved in here, though, we were given a card that said that our home was inspected by a military housing inspector. And it was passed off. It was checked with the box that it passed. And it was just astonishing to me.”

“If it’s happening in all of these different places, this has gotta be a really big issue,” Reeder said.

Issues, such as water intrusion and mold, within their privatized military-provided housing has caused eight home remediations for the family in nearly three years, Reeder said. The repairs are often disruptive. The family says their children have suffered from rashes and respiratory issues.

Reeder said she feels healthier and breathes easier when she leaves her home. She has had her home tested independently for mold and used moisture meters to monitor conditions firsthand.

“My husband’s command has been very helpful, but they’re not involved,” said Reeder, outlining the rigorous process to file disputes involving a series of offices with both the military advocates and private companies that extends beyond servicemembers’ direct leadership.

Some families dealing with similar issues say they often have to pay out of their pockets for expenses that result from displacements. This is a problem currently for Shae Anderson, another military spouse of a Navy chief petty officer, also located in San Diego.

Anderson said her family is in its third housing remediation in a home they moved into in October 2024. They have lived through the disruptions of other home repairs while stationed at military installations. She said her youngest child struggles with rashes and conjunctivitis, which she believes may be caused by exposure to mold in their military homes. Other members of her family have struggled with respiratory symptoms, Anderson added.

“Our experiences have been traumatizing, and we have had so many disruptions to our quality of life,” Anderson told ABC News. “Our children have had to move schools, my husband’s career has been impacted and our family has suffered so much financial loss due to it all.”

While living in San Diego, Anderson and Reeder met and bonded over a common problem, mold in their homes. Along with the two women, Audrey Kray, the wife of a Marine Corps Staff Sergeant, has also been involved in bringing awareness through the nonprofit, “Safe Military Housing Initiative.” The military wives have binders documenting deteriorating conditions and what they describe as substandard housing.

Anderson’s son drew a heart on her notebook binder, which she says, “it’s just a little reminder, every time I go to my notebook and I’m going through and reliving the horror experience we’ve been through, the reason that I’m fighting. And that’s for my kids. I also want every service member and their family to have a safe home.”

These families have lived in homes managed by Liberty Military Housing, the largest employee-owned and Navy and Marine Corps housing provider.

“In my instance, it shouldn’t have taken four homes, three moves, two displacements over 15 months. That should have been day one for us,” said Kray.

“It’s very challenging when husbands are deployed or off on training and you’re going through these housing experiences,” Kray said.

All three women have worked with military advocates who lean on the private housing companies that own these homes to come and fix the problems.

Liberty, their landlord, have offered each family new housing while remediating their properties, but they keep facing similar housing issues, the families said.

The military spouses also told ABC News that the disruption of having to pack again and change homes alone is a challenge after moving bases and assignments. In one instance, Reeder said she noticed mold behind vanities that were being replaced by contractors, alarming her and prompting assistance from the district office and an environmental team to conduct tests.

The issues date back nearly three decades, to the Military Housing Privatization Initiative of 1996. When the Department of Defense got out of the housing business with the MHPI, it was trying to solve a major problem. Government reports from the time showed that a majority of military homes already needed significant repairs. The agreements with the private industry were made because those housing companies offered better expertise than the U.S. military to renovate or replace inadequate housing. And according to congressional research, the government gave the companies contracts that are sometimes 50 years long, to incentivize the massive undertaking. In creating the agreements, the privatized contracts affect how far the government can push these companies to take certain actions today.

In 2023, the U.S. Government Accountability Office identified several unresolved concerns with the Military Housing Privatization Initiative. One of them was the need for a more formal dispute resolution process. GAO also raised that some of the private housing companies may be lacking compliance with elements of the Tenant Bill of Rights established in 2020, among other recommendations.

“I know firsthand that our warfighters cannot deliver if they are sidelined by problems at home, especially those that can negatively affect health and quality of life,” Assistant Secretary of Defense Dale Marks said in a statement to ABC News. “Secretary Hegseth and I are committed to rebuilding military readiness and appreciate the support from Congressional committees to make much-needed housing reforms.”

Today, there are about 14 private companies with MHPI contracts that provide about 200,000 homes for service members and their families.

Through what’s called the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), the majority of servicemembers receive a tax-free housing allowance, which helps them cover the cost of rent. BAH rates vary due to rank, whether the servicemember has dependents, and the geographical location of the current duty assignment.

Current BAH policies are intended to cover 95% of estimated home costs in the civilian market, but in most cases, the money stretches the farthest in military housing, compared to housing for rent in the civilian world. Some DOD officials and military families have questioned whether the BAH rates for some locations are enough, according to congressional research conducted in 2023.

For many of these families dealing with mold and other issues, they feel they can’t afford to leave military housing.

“We would have to move very far away from where my husband works in order to afford anything,” said Reeder, who raised concerns with the rising costs of the housing market in Southern California.

These military wives said factors like commute time, distance from medical providers and school districts influence families’ decisions to stay in the surrounding base area, in addition to the benefit of community living near other servicemembers and their families.

In response to the experiences of these families in San Diego, the chief executive officer Philip Rizzo of Liberty Military Housing told ABC News in an interview, “We’re not profiting off military families by cutting corners.”

Rizzo stressed that these complaints are not the “norm” with properties under Liberty’s management.

“I think the challenge with 36,000 homes nationwide is if we’re 99% right, that means there is 360 families that aren’t having a good experience. That’s a large number, right?” Rizzo said. “And I would expect if we’re 1/10 of 1% that’s a large number, and our goal is to be zero. We want everybody to be satisfied. We want everybody to be happy in their home.”

As an Army veteran and son of a career U.S. Air Force officer, who grew up in military housing, Rizzo emphasized he didn’t want anyone living in an environment where they are becoming sick. He emphasized that since the 2019 congressional hearings about these concerns, the government has added more oversight over companies like Liberty, focusing on identifying gaps in the repair processes.

He says Liberty Military Housing has since implemented new training for its workers and contractors, and says the company has an average maintenance response time that beats anything in the civilian world. He also points out that his tenants have a formal dispute process internally and can also be navigated with a military resident advocate.

“We’re going to do what we can, following industry guidance and guidelines to eliminate any hazards or risk in the home,” Rizzo said.

Rizzo told ABC News that he knows there will be challenges with both new builds and older houses. He said Liberty Military Housing is committed to responding quickly and effectively to minimize disruption for families.

Reeder hopes for change. “This isn’t just us complaining about ‘we have mold’ and ‘our house is dirty,'” she said. “We have scientific results showing this is a problem and it’s affecting our health.”

Jenny Wagnon Courts contributed to this report.

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Minnesota state Sen. Hoffman credits daughter for ‘saving countless other lives’

Minnesota state Sen. Hoffman credits daughter for ‘saving countless other lives’
Minnesota state Sen. Hoffman credits daughter for ‘saving countless other lives’
Glen Stubbe/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images

(MINNEAPOLIS) — Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife are crediting their daughter Hope for “saving countless other lives” on the night the couple was shot and wounded at their home in what prosecutors called an assassination attempt.

“Without Hope, we wouldn’t be here right now,” the Democratic state senator and his wife said in a statement on Wednesday, according to Minneapolis ABC affiliate KSTP. “Our daughter’s quick instincts and wherewithal to state that her dad is Senator John Hoffman when she called 911 led the police getting to the Hortman’s so quickly and saving countless other lives.”

Vance Boelter is accused of shooting and wounding John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their house in Champlin, Minnesota, as well as shooting and killing state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their home in nearby Brooklyn Park early Saturday morning, authorities said. Boelter allegedly showed up to their doors impersonating a police officer, officials said.

But two other lawmakers were spared the night of the shootings, according to acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joseph Thompson.

After Boelter allegedly shot the Hoffmans, prosecutors said he drove to a state representative’s house in Maple Grove. That lawmaker was not home as she and her family were on vacation, Thompson said, and Boelter left the scene.

Boelter then allegedly drove to a state senator’s home in New Hope and parked on the street, Thompson said.

After learning of the shooting at Hoffman’s home, New Hope police dispatched an officer to the New Hope lawmaker’s house, Thompson said. When the officer arrived, she saw Boelter’s car parked down the block and she believed Boelter was an officer dispatched to the scene, Thompson said.

The officer pulled up next to Boelter, rolled down her window and tried to speak with him, but he did not respond and stared straight ahead, Thompson said. So the New Hope officer drove to the state senator’s home and waited for other law enforcement, and by that time, Boelter had left the scene, Thompson said.

After learning of the shooting at the Hoffmans’, officers were proactively dispatched the Brooklyn Park home of his fellow lawmaker, former Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives Melissa Hortman.

When two Brooklyn Park officers arrived at the Hortmans’, they saw Boelter’s SUV in the driveway with emergency lights flashing and Boelter standing in front of the house, Thompson said.

Boelter saw the officers and allegedly started shooting and running into the house, killing Melissa Hortman and her husband, Thompson said.

The officers fired at Boelter as he allegedly rushed into the home, Thompson said, but the suspect escaped into the house and out the back.

Boelter, who was arrested Sunday night, allegedly had a list of 45 elected officials in notebooks in his car, Thompson said.

He faces federal charges including stalking and firearms charges and state charges including first-degree murder, officials said.

The Hoffmans are recovering from their injuries. John Hoffman was shot nine times and Yvette was shot eight times, Yvette said, according to a message released by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

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