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(FALL RIVER, Mass.) — Shirley Chambra was outside smoking a cigarette when she saw sparks and then flames at her home: the Gabriel House assisted-living facility in Fall River, Massachusetts, according to her nephew, Ken Pelletier.

“I’m sure she felt so helpless being outside,” Pelletier told ABC News. “She’s lived there long enough she knows probably everybody there.”

Nine people were killed and dozens were hurt after a five-alarm fire tore through the assisted-living facility on Sunday night.

Responders found multiple people “hanging out of the windows, screaming and begging to be rescued,” Fall River Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon said.

About 70 people lived in the building, many of whom are immobile and have oxygen tanks, officials said.

Without responders’ quick actions, “we would’ve seen an even far — an unimaginable loss of life here, given the vulnerability of this population,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said.

When Pelletier saw the news of the fire, he said he rushed over to the facility and found his aunt on a bus with other residents, some of whom were covered in soot.

“She looked like she was in shock,” he said. “She was scared.”

“I’m sure when she left last night to go have a cigarette, she only left with what she has on her back, and, you know, her walker,” he added.

Pelletier said it was a relief to see Chambra alive.

“You have all those thoughts and things running through your mind, you know, worst case scenario,” he said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. The Bristol County District Attorney’s office said it “does not appear to be suspicious.”

The DA’s office identified the residents killed as: 64-year-old Rui Albernaz, 61-year-old Ronald Codega, 69-year-old Margaret Duddy, 78-year-old Robert King, 71-year-old Kim Mackin, 78-year-old Richard Rochon, 86-year-old Eleanor Willett. The names of the other two victims — a 70-year-old woman and a 77-year-old man — have not been released.

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(NEW YORK) — Consumer prices rose 2.7% in June compared to a year ago, marking a notable surge of price increases as President Donald Trump’s tariff policy took hold and some retailers warned they may pass some of the tax burden onto shoppers.

The reading matched economists’ expectations.

The fresh data indicated an acceleration from 2.4% annual inflation recorded in May. Still, the inflation rate clocked in below 3% recorded in January, the month Trump took office.

Despite a rise of inflation, Trump appeared to celebrate the data on Tuesday. The president issued a social media post highlighting “Very Low Inflation” and calling on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 3 percentage points.

The White House also touted the inflation reading, saying the rate of price increases demonstrates inflation is “on the right track.” Core inflation — a measure of inflation that strips out volatile food and energy prices — has matched or beaten economists’ expectations every month since Trump took office, the White House said.

“The data proves that President Trump is stabilizing inflation and the Panicans continue to be wrong about tariffs raising prices,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Tuesday.

Egg prices cooled significantly in June, deviating from an overall rise in prices. The price of eggs climbed 27% over the year ending in June, which marked a slowdown from 41% year-over-year growth in May.

Under Trump, inflation has defied doomsday predictions and helped to propel sturdy economic performance.

While inflation has eased, price increases have persisted at a higher rate than the Federal Reserve’s target level of 2%.

Some analysts expect price increases to accelerate over the coming months as tariffs take hold, though they acknowledged that the path forward remains unclear amid Trump’s fluctuating policy.

Typically, importers pass along a share of the tariff-related tax burden in the form of higher costs for shoppers. A host of major retailers, including Walmart and Best Buy, has warned about potential price hikes as a result of Trump’s levies.

The Federal Reserve issued a forecast last month indicating the central bank expects a rekindling of inflation.

The personal consumption expenditures index, a measure of inflation preferred by the Fed, will rise from 2.1% to 3% over the remainder of 2025, the central bank predicted. That forecast marked higher inflation expectations than the central bank had issued in March.

So far this year, the Fed has opted to hold interest rates steady as policymakers assess the potential impact of tariffs.

Speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C., last month, Powell said tariffs would likely “push up prices and weigh on economic activity” over the course of this year. But, he added, the effects would depend on the “ultimate level” of tariffs, which have frequently shifted.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, a top economic advisor to Trump, on Monday rebuked concerns about tariff-related inflation. The Fed, Hassett told CNBC, has been “very, very wrong” in its assessment of a potential resurgence of price increases. 

The posture of restraint at the Fed in recent months has elicited sharp and repeated criticism from Trump.

“We have a man who just refuses to lower the Fed rate,” Trump told reporters last month. “Maybe I should go to the Fed. Am I allowed to appoint myself? I’d do a much better job than these people.”

The president is legally barred from appointing himself head of the Fed, an independent federal agency.

The Fed is set to hold its next meeting on July 29 and 30. Investors peg the chances of a decision to leave rates unchanged at 95%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.

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(NEW YORK) — Heavy rain caused significant transportation delays in the Northeast on Monday, with flash flooding submerging cars, flooding roadways and canceling flights — and more wet weather is in the forecast.

Flash flood warnings were issued in New York City; northern New Jersey; Westchester County, New York; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; and Arlington, Virginia. A rare flash flood emergency was issued in Petersburg, Virginia, where 18 inches of water was recorded in some backyards.

In Plainfield, New Jersey, two people were killed when their car was swept into Cedar Brook, city officials said. This comes days after two others were killed in severe storms in Plainfield on July 3.

“To lose four residents in such a short span of time is unimaginable,” Mayor Adrian Mapp said in a statement. “We mourn with the families, and we remain committed to doing all we can to strengthen our emergency response systems and protect our residents from future harm.”

In North Plainfield, officers waded through chest-high water to rescue about 40 people as the heavy flooding destroyed homes and cars on Monday, North Plainfield police said.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency.

In New York City, police reported flooding conditions on the Cross Bronx Expressway, while video from Manhattan showed floodwaters rushing into the 28th Street subway station

Central Park recorded its second-highest hourly rainfall total, recording 2.07 inches in one hour. This represents a 1-in-20-year flood for Central Park.

More than 2,000 flights were canceled in the U.S. on Monday. The flooding also posed major disruptions to New Jersey Transit and Metro-North train travel on Monday night.

On Tuesday, the flood threat continues for the Mid-Atlantic.
A level 2 of 4 for excessive rainfall is in place from Washington, D.C., to Asheville, North Carolina.

Rainfall rates could reach 2 inches per hour as scattered storms roll through in the afternoon and evening.

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(NEW YORK) — Consumer prices rose 2.7% in June compared to a year ago, marking a notable surge of price increases as President Donald Trump’s tariff policy took hold and some retailers warned they may pass some of the tax burden onto shoppers.

The reading matched economists’ expectations.

The fresh data indicated an acceleration from 2.4% annual inflation recorded in May. Still, the inflation rate clocked in below 3% recorded in January, the month Trump took office.

Egg prices cooled significantly in June, deviating from an overall rise in prices. The price of eggs climbed 27% over the year ending in June, which marked a slowdown from 41% year-over-year growth in May.

Under Trump, inflation has defied doomsday predictions and helped to propel sturdy economic performance.

Speaking at the White House on Monday — before the inflation report — Trump touted the reduction of inflation so far this year.

“The economy is roaring, business confidence is soaring, incomes are up, prices are down and inflation is dead,” Trump said. “It’s dead.”

While inflation has eased, price increases have persisted at a higher rate than the Federal Reserve’s target level of 2%.

Some analysts expect price increases to accelerate over the coming months as tariffs take hold, though they acknowledged that the path forward remains unclear amid Trump’s fluctuating policy.

Typically, importers pass along a share of the tariff-related tax burden in the form of higher costs for shoppers. A host of major retailers, including Walmart and Best Buy, has warned about potential price hikes as a result of Trump’s levies.

The Federal Reserve issued a forecast last month indicating the central bank expects a rekindling of inflation.

The personal consumption expenditures index, a measure of inflation preferred by the Fed, will rise from 2.1% to 3% over the remainder of 2025, the central bank predicted. That forecast marked higher inflation expectations than the central bank had issued in March.

So far this year, the Fed has opted to hold interest rates steady as policymakers assess the potential impact of tariffs.

Speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C., last month, Powell said tariffs would likely “push up prices and weigh on economic activity” over the course of this year. But, he added, the effects would depend on the “ultimate level” of tariffs, which have frequently shifted.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, a top economic advisor to Trump, on Monday rebuked concerns about tariff-related inflation. The Fed, Hassett told CNBC, has been “very, very wrong” in its assessment of a potential resurgence of price increases.

The posture of restraint at the Fed in recent months has elicited sharp and repeated criticism from Trump.

“We have a man who just refuses to lower the Fed rate,” Trump told reporters last month. “Maybe I should go to the Fed. Am I allowed to appoint myself? I’d do a much better job than these people.”

The president is legally barred from appointing himself head of the Fed, an independent federal agency.

The Fed is set to hold its next meeting on July 29 and 30. Investors peg the chances of a decision to leave rates unchanged at 95%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.

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(WASHINGTON) — Immigrants who arrive in the United States illegally will no longer be eligible for a bond hearing, a move that comes as the Trump administration ramps up efforts to keep immigrants who enter the country legally detained, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The new policy change was announced in a memo last week from the acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. The memo was described to ABC News.

Before the policy change, immigrants could request a bond hearing before an immigration judge. The extensive new detention policy is also expected to face legal challenges

The news was first reported by The Washington Post.

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WASHINGTON — As federal authorities continue to crack down on the spread of fentanyl across the country, the Drug Enforcement Administration is warning about a surge in the use of methamphetamine, with DEA officials expressing particular concern over meth-laced pills being sold as drugs like Adderall to college-age adults.

“What we’ve seen here recently, that frightens me,” acting DEA administrator Robert Murphy told ABC News’ Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas in an exclusive interview.

Murphy said the DEA expects its seizures of methamphetamine to nearly double this year compared to last year.

The DEA has so far seized about 70,000 pounds of the drug this year, already nearly matching the numbers reached in all of 2024, Murphy said.

“Methamphetamine is by far the most coveted drug,” Murphy said. “This is what people want.”

The DEA has become so concerned about the continuing boom of methamphetamine use that it’s planning to hold a press conference on Tuesday to draw attention to it.

“In the first six months of this year, we’ve already seen more than … what we seized last year,” Murphy told ABC News. “And we project … we’re going to double what we seized last year.”

Murphy said that one of the most disturbing things about methamphetamine is that “Mexican cartels control 100% of it.”

“They control production, the smuggling, the distribution in the United States, and obviously the actual collection of monies and getting the money back into Mexico,” he said.

And cartels are growingly increasingly creative in how they try to smuggle meth across the U.S.-Mexico border — from hiding packages of meth pills among green onions to disguising meth shipments as loads of celery.

In one location during the week of July 4, the DEA discovered hundreds of boxes of cucumbers that had been lined with several hundred pounds of meth, worth nearly $4 million.

And in May, with assistance from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, federal authorities arrested six people who were allegedly bringing liquid meth into the United States and driving it to Kansas by hiding it in the septic tank of a charter bus.

Authorities became suspicious after realizing that the bus rarely had any passengers.

“They’re only limited by their imagination,” Murphy said of the smugglers. “And they have a very broad imagination.”

Murphy called it “a cat and mouse game.”

He said cartels now have a “huge focus” on pills, which he said have less of a stigma than injectable drugs.

As a result, Murphy said, turning meth into pill form makes it more marketable, and therefore more easily sold as something it’s not, such as fake Adderall or fake MDMA — the active ingredient in ecstasy.

“[It’s] all of the drugs that that are wanted by our college-age kids, and younger,” he said. “They’re actually getting meth, and they don’t know this.”

According to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, drug overdose deaths in the United States sharply decreased by almost 27% last year.

But while fentanyl and other opioid-related overdoses dropped the most — by more than a third — overdoses related to meth and other psychostimulants dropped the least — by nearly 22%.

“You’re buying a pill off the street nowadays, you’re taking your life in your own hands,” Murphy warned, saying that that “almost everything” the DEA is now seizing turns out to be “fake.”

“And as an investigator, our men and women have a hard time distinguishing between what’s real and what’s not,” Murphy said. “So there’s no way the average user is going to be able to do that.”

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HUNT, Texas — Camp Mystic’s executive director Dick Eastland began evacuating campers approximately 45 minutes after the National Weather Service issued an alert about a “life-threatening flash flooding,” according to an Eastland Family spokesperson.

The catastrophic flooding that continues to threaten central Texas left 27 dead at Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp located in Hunt, Texas, along the Guadalupe River.

Eastland received an alert on his phone from the National Weather Service at 1:14 a.m. on the morning of July 4 and began evaluating whether to evacuate the young campers who were sleeping in their cabins without access to electronics, according to Eastland family spokesperson Jeff Carr.

Based on a preliminary timeline of events, Eastland began moving campers to higher elevation by 2:00 a.m., as the situation began to deteriorate, according to Carr.

“They had no information that indicated the magnitude of what was coming. They got a standard run-of-the-mill NWS warning that they’ve seen dozens of times before,” Carr said on a call with ABC News.

Eastland died trying to help evacuate campers from their cabins, as the waters of the Guadalupe River rose. ABC News previously reported that some of those cabins lay in the river’s floodway, which Kerr County officials deemed “an extremely hazardous area due to the velocity of flood waters which carry debris, potential projectiles and erosion potential.”

The information provided by Carr provides one of the first windows into the late-night scramble that took place at the isolated camp, where 27 counselors and campers lost their lives in the flooding.

Carr previously told the Washington Post that the evacuations began at 2:30 a.m. but walked back the timeline when speaking to ABC News. He cautioned that the timeline determined by the family is preliminary and estimated the evacuations began closer to 2 a.m.. He said the timeline was pieced together based on the accounts of family members who assisted in the evacuation and Camp Mystic’s night watchman.

According to Carr, Eastland began communicating with his family members over walkie-talkie shortly after the first alert to begin assessing the scope of the rising waters. When they began to see the extent of the flood waters, Eastland began the process of moving campers from the lower-lying cabins to Camp Mystic’s recreational center, he said.

The National Weather Service issued a more dire alert at 4:03 a.m., warning in part, “This is a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY for South-central Kerr County, including Hunt. This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!”

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FALL RIVER, Mass. — The Massachusetts assisted-living facility that caught fire Sunday evening, leaving nine dead, was slated to undergo a recertification and compliance review process later this year.

“Gabriel House is up for recertification in November 2025 and is on the list of compliance reviews to be conducted this Fall,” a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services said in a statement Monday evening.

An official briefed on the probe into the cause of the deadly fire told ABC News that, as a preliminary matter, the fire does not appear to have been set intentionally. More likely, the source said, it appears to have been caused by some sort of electrical or mechanical problem.

Thirty people, including five firefighters, were taken to local hospitals after the deadly fire, according to officials.

The facility in Fall River is classified as an assisted-living residence, not a nursing home. This distinction means that complexes like Gabriel House are subject to a different inspection, certification and regulatory process than Massachusetts nursing homes.

The Massachusetts Division of Health Care Facility Licensure and Certification’s website says that the division conducts unannounced inspections of nursing homes every nine to 15 months.

Since Gabriel House is considered an assisted-living residence, its last onsite visit by representatives of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Aging & Independence occurred in October 2023.

The office said that at the time, it found areas where Gabriel House “was not in compliance with state regulations,” and the facility was required to submit a plan of correction.

A compliance review report sent to Gabriel House Executive Director Dennis Etzkorn indicated the alleged violations were primarily related to missing documentation.

One part of the report noted that state representatives reviewed a 90-day correspondence log “required to communicate information necessary to maintain the continuity of care for all Residents.”

“The Residence did not consistently document for each 24-hour period in the Correspondence Log,” the document stated. “The Residence did not use the Correspondence Log to communicate all significant or pertinent information necessary to maintain the continuity of care for all Residents.”

Another part of the report said, “Documentation of the Residence monitoring the effectiveness of its Evidence Informed Falls Prevention Program was missing for all calendar years” and that the personnel records of three employees “were missing documentation of a pre-employment physical examination.”

Gabriel House’s plan of correction indicated that changes were made and it received a certificate in December 2023. The certificate allowed Gabriel House to operate until November of this year.

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(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Pam Bondi has fired one of the top career officials tasked with advising her and other senior Justice Department officials of their ethical obligations, an official familiar with the dismissal confirmed to ABC News Monday.

Joseph Tirrell on Monday took to LinkedIn to post news of his termination, including a photo of his termination notice which provided no reasoning for his firing.

“Until Friday evening, I was the senior ethics attorney at the Department of Justice responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General directly on federal employee ethics,” Tirrell said in the post. “I was also responsible for the day-to-day operations of the ethics program across the Department.”

The removal letter from Bondi mirrors that of letters sent to multiple other DOJ employees fired in recent weeks, including at least 20 officials who supported former special counsel Jack Smith’s team in his prosecutions of President Donald Trump.

Tirrell did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News. A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.

Tirrell’s post outlined an extensive resume in public service, beginning with his time as a United States Naval Officer before he joined the FBI in 2006 in various ethics-related posts.

In 2023 he was appointed as the director of the DOJ’s Ethics Office, which advises employees of the rules governing financial disclosures, conflicts of interest and instances mandating recusal. among others.

It’s unclear what specifically prompted Tirrell’s firing, though several former officials noted that he was leading the office when Smith disclosed, after departing the DOJ, that Smith had accepted $140,000 in pro bono legal services as a “gift.” The disclosure noted that Tirrell specifically signed off on the gift as being in compliance with applicable ethics laws and regulations.

Tirrell’s dismissal also comes amid several other removals of officials who worked on Smith’s team, as well as at least two more career prosecutors who worked on the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Both investigations have been under the microscope of former interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin since he joined the main Justice Department to lead its so-called “Weaponization Working Group.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Monday lifted an injunction against the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the Department of Education.

The move allows the administration to proceed, for now, with mass firings that slashed nearly half of the agency’s workforce in March as well as other actions, such as shifting management of the federal student loan portfolio.

A federal judge in Massachusetts had barred the administration from moving forward, rejecting the administration’s argument that the steps were aimed at efficiency rather than effectively carrying out President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign promise to shutter the agency, something that would require congressional approval.

Legal challenges continue in the lower courts against the Trump education orders.

The Supreme Court’s majority didn’t explain its decision. The three liberal justices opposed the order, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing in dissent.

“The Department is responsible for providing critical funding and services to millions of students and scores of schools across the country. Lifting the District Court’s injunction will unleash untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault, and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended,” Sotomayor wrote.

“The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave,” Sotomayor added.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon celebrated the decision, saying the agency will carry out its reduction in workforce and ongoing efforts to return education to the states.

“Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” McMahon said in a statement.

While McMahon called the ruling a victory, she said it was a “shame that the highest court in the land had to step in to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities granted to him by the U.S. Constitution.”

National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues blasted the Supreme Court’s decision in a statement.

“The Supreme Court chose politics over the Constitution and, in doing so, put millions of American students at risk,” Rodrigues said. “This ruling gives the green light to an outrageous and unlawful power grab by President Trump, who is attempting to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education without any action from Congress.”

The Supreme Court’s decision to grant the administration’s emergency request is another win, albeit a temporary one, for Trump’s efforts to overhaul the federal government.

Last week, the nation’s high court lifted a preliminary injunction to let Trump move forward with an executive order mandating a restructure of federal agencies and mass layoffs of federal workers.

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