(PHOENIX) — A man died after attempting an illegal BASE jump in the Grand Canyon in Arizona, officials said Friday.
The Grand Canyon Regional Communications Center received a report around 7:30 a.m. local time Thursday of a visitor who had attempted a base jump from Yavapai Point on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, the National Park Service said.
“Park rangers responded and located the body of a deceased male approximately 500 feet below the rim, along with a deployed parachute,” NPS said in a statement.
The body of the BASE jumper was recovered Friday morning. The victim was transported by helicopter to the rim and then brought to the Coconino County Medical Examiner’s Office, which is conducting an investigation into the incident along with NPS.
The name of the victim is being withheld pending positive identification, NPS said. No further information was released.
BASE is an acronym for building, antenna, span and earth. The recreational sport involves jumping from a fixed object and using a parachute to descend to the ground.
The “high-risk activity” is prohibited in all areas of Grand Canyon National Park, NPS said.
The incident comes a day after a 20-year-old man accidentally fell 400 feet to his death from a scenic overlook at the Grand Canyon, officials said.
(NEW YORK) — A tropical disturbance near Cuba is taking aim at Florida and could strengthen into a tropical depression or tropical storm this weekend.
It has an 80% chance of developing into a tropical depression over the weekend and a 90% chance of developing into a tropical depression over the next seven days. If this strengthens to a named storm, it would be called Debby.
Regardless of how strong the potential storm will be, it’s forecast to bring up to 6 to 8 inches of rain to parts of Florida’s west coast as well as the Georgia and South Carolina coast.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency in 54 counties.
A tropical storm warning is in effect in Florida from East Cape Sable to Boca Grande, including Naples.
A tropical storm watch is in effect for parts of the Florida Keys, the southern coast of the Florida peninsula and the west coast of the Florida peninsula, including Tampa.
A storm surge watch has also been issued for parts of the west coast of the Florida peninsula.
The current forecast track calls for the system to become a tropical depression by Saturday morning as it moves across Cuba.
The outer bands will reach South Florida on Saturday morning and bring scattered thunderstorms, heavy downpours and gusty winds.
The storm will continue to strengthen as it closes in on the west coast of the Florida Peninsula and is forecast to come ashore Sunday or Sunday night. Flash flooding is a threat on Sunday.
By Monday morning, the storm will move into the Atlantic Ocean or near the Southeast coast, potentially bringing rain and wind to the Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina coastline. But this forecast could change.
Heavy rain will likely impact coastal areas of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina through Wednesday.
Atlantic hurricane season ramps up throughout August and typically peaks in September.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts an above-average hurricane season this year. NOAA scientists predict between 17 and 25 named storms, compared to an average of 14; between eight and 13 hurricanes, compared to an average of seven; and between four and seven major hurricanes, compared to an average of three.
(MESA, Ariz.) — An Arizona detective has been arrested and charged in his wife’s death after he allegedly strangled her and locked her body in their bedroom before fleeing the scene.
John Byrd, 47, has been arrested and charged with one count of second degree murder after he admitted to police that he strangled his wife to death, according to the Mesa Police Department in Arizona.
Byrd told police that he has had “some mental issues lately and has been very stressed about his home and work life,” according to a police booking report obtained by ABC News.
Byrd had a heated argument with his wife the morning her body was found and said that “during that argument ‘a switch just flipped’ in him and he put his hands around the victim’s neck and strangled her to death,” Byrd told police, according to the police report.
Byrd then told police that he left her body in their bedroom and locked the door so that the children would not see her. He told police that he knew what he had done was wrong, according to the report.
Byrd’s wife was found dead in their home after a woman reported her missing on Wednesday after she had not been seen or heard from for most of the day and failed to show up to a gym class they always attended together.
The woman who reported her missing had contacted the couple’s 11-year-old son by text and was told the boy and his siblings — ages 8 and 4 — had not seen their mother all day and her bedroom door was locked, according to police.
The woman also told police that the victim’s husband had left home at around noon Wednesday and had not returned, so she picked up the three children and took them to her home, police said.
When police arrived on the scene, Byrd’s employer was at the residence to pick up his work vehicle because Byrd was on medical leave from his job. Police gathered additional information before they entered the house to conduct a welfare check on the victim, police said.
The victim was found dead on her bedroom floor, with no major visible injuries seen on her body, according to police.
Byrd was not in the residence and police could not find or reach him by phone. No calls had been made from the residence to report that the woman had been injured.
Officers and detectives found Byrd driving a vehicle registered to the victim and he was detained. A search warrant was authored for the couple’s residence and physical evidence was collected from Byrd.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, where Byrd was employed, told ABC News it is “in the process of ending Byrd’s employment.”
The Pinal County Attorney’s Office will handle Byrd’s prosecution.
(BUTLER, Pa.) — There may have been radio traffic from local police that the Secret Service didn’t have access to that could’ve proved crucial to stopping former President Donald Trump from going on stage the day of the assassination attempt, the acting director of the Secret Service said Friday.
“It was so apparent to me that in this incident, in the final 30 seconds, which has been the focus of what happened before the assailant opened fire, there was clearly radio transmissions that may have happened on that local radio net that we did not have,” acting Director Ronald Rowe said at a news conference. “And so, we have to do a better job of collocating, leveraging that counterpart system, and this is going to drive our operations going forward.”
Rowe said the shooting was a Secret Service failure alone.
“In no way should any state or local agency supporting us in Butler on July 13 be held responsible,” he said.
One spectator was killed and two were hurt in the assassination attempt at a July 13 election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump suffered a graze wound to his ear. The gunman was killed by snipers.
Rowe said July 13 was the first time the Secret Service’s counter snipers were deployed to a Trump rally this year. Going forward, he said the Secret Service will have counter snipers at all events with presidential candidates.
Rowe said there were two command posts: one post with the Secret Service and Pennsylvania State Police, and one post with local police. He said it was “unique” that there were two security command posts, and in the future, he will make sure everyone is in the same room.
Rowe also walked through the timeline.
On July 8, agents from the Pittsburgh field office conducted a walkthrough of the event, he said. On July 10, the Secret Service counter sniper and technical security personnel arrived in Pittsburgh and began advanced planning for their teams, he said.
On July 12, the build-out of the campaign rally site began, he said, and continued through the early morning hours of July 13.
The morning of July 13, a site briefing was conducted with Secret Service personnel and law enforcement partners supporting the event, Rowe said. Secret Service personnel took their posts and a technical security sweep of the protective site started before the site opened to event staff, vendors and the public, he said.
About 15,000 people came to the rally, Rowe said.
At 5:53 p.m., the Secret Service counter sniper team leader texted the Secret Service counter sniper teams that local police were looking for a suspicious individual who was outside of the perimeter, lurking around the AGR building, Rowe said.
“At this time, Secret Service personnel were operating with the knowledge that local law enforcement was working on an issue of a suspicious individual,” Rowe said.
“Neither the Secret Service counter sniper teams, nor members of the former president’s security detail, had any knowledge that there was a man on the roof of the AGR building with a firearm,” he said.
At 6:11 p.m., the gunman’s first shots were fired, he said. Within three seconds, Trump’s detail rushed the stage and shielded him with their own bodies, Rowe said.
He said video from that day affirmed there should’ve been better coverage.
“We should have had better protection for the protectee. We should have had better coverage on that roofline,” Rowe said.
Going forward, Rowe said, he’s directed each special agent in charge — who oversee the Secret Service’s field offices across the U.S. — to be precise and clear with state and local partners.
“We’re not going to have this assumption that, ‘Oh, we think that they have it,’ and we’re going to we’re going to work together,” he said. “We’re going to have good, hard, fierce conversations about what we’re going to do, and then we’re going to go out there, and we’re going to make all of these venues secure moving forward.”
(WASHINGTON) — A one-time aide to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro left a woman “weeping and in shock” after threatening her on a phone call in 2018, according to an email the woman sent to state lawmakers in 2023, five years after the alleged conversation.
The former aide, Mike Vereb, allegedly invoked Shapiro’s name on the call, telling the woman that “by the time he and Josh were done with me, I would be worse than nothing,” said the woman, who requested that her name not be published, in an interview with ABC News.
“You are going to continue to be nothing by the time Josh and I get done with you,” the woman quoted Vereb as saying, telling ABC News that she was left “shaken” by the way in which Vereb “freely” referenced others in power.
“Obviously part of what left me shaken was not just Mr. Vereb’s aggressive and unrelenting tone, but how freely he made it seem he was speaking beyond himself,” she said.
News of the alleged 2018 incident, which has not been previously reported, comes as Shapiro emerges as a leading contender to become Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential running mate on the Democratic ticket.
There is no evidence that Shapiro, who was at the time Pennsylvania’s state attorney general, was aware of Vereb’s allegedly threatening call.
The 2018 incident marks the second allegation of wrongdoing against Vereb — who was once one of Shapiro’s closest aides. After bringing him to the governor’s office in early 2023, the Shapiro administration settled an unrelated sexual harassment complaint against Vereb last September for nearly $300,000, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Weeks later, Vereb resigned.
Critics say the allegations against Vereb raise questions about whether Shapiro should have known about his alleged behavior and worked harder to prevent it.
Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro, claimed the then-attorney general was not made aware of the woman’s complaint at the time and more broadly condemned Vereb’s alleged behavior.
“This incident occurred 6 years ago and was not reported to agency leadership at the time,” Bonder said in a statement to ABC News. “This alleged behavior would be completely inappropriate and would not be tolerated — and any use of the Governor’s name in this manner is unacceptable.”
Vereb declined to comment for this story.
In the fall of 2023, within weeks of Vereb’s resignation, the woman transmitted an email recounting her experience to one of Shapiro’s deputy chiefs of staff and a group of state legislators, both Republicans and Democrats.
“[Vereb] confronted and threatened me that evening leaving me weeping and in shock standing alone in a parking lot,” she wrote of the phone call in the October 2023 email, which was obtained by ABC News. “Then and now I was struck by how he seemed so at ease in threatening me.”
She wrote that she had raised the incident at the time in 2018, including to a member of Shapiro’s office who “compassionately listened” but later passed away without getting back to her. It is not clear what the employee did with the information before she passed away.
In her 2023 email, the woman — a self-identified independent who was once a registered Republican — hinted at the use of the governor’s name: She wrote that Vereb was “naming a handful of folks with some power in Harrisburg” and made “some implication of the OAG” — an apparent reference to the Office of the Attorney General.
The woman, who runs an independent nonprofit advocacy group for abused children, wrote she received the phone call from Vereb in 2018 in the course of a policy dispute between her organization and the attorney general’s office.
As attorney general, Shapiro supported a change to Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law in the wake of his office’s high-profile investigation into child abuse within the state’s Catholic church. The woman’s organization had pushed back on elements of the pending legislation — citing potential “unintended consequences,” she wrote — which the woman said precipitated the call from Vereb.
The woman wrote in the email that she felt compelled to come forward again and write the email after news broke that Shapiro’s administration had reached a settlement with an employee who accused Vereb of sexual harassment and retaliation, writing that “the recounting of how she felt intimidated and retaliated against resonated with me.”
Of the $300,000 sexual harassment settlement Shapiro’s administration brokered, a spokesperson said that “Shapiro and his Administration take every allegation of discrimination and harassment extremely seriously and have robust procedures in place to thoroughly investigate all reports,” but “in order to protect the privacy of every current and former Commonwealth employee involved, the Administration does not comment further on specific personnel matters.”
State Rep. Abby Major, one of the Republicans who received the woman’s 2023 email, told ABC News on Wednesday she had previously known the woman through legislative work and was “proud” of her for coming forward last year — suggesting that even if Shapiro was unaware of this specific incident, he bears responsibility for what she said were Vereb’s well-known antics.
“[Vereb and Shapiro] have a history of Mike being his enforcer — they play good cop, bad cop,” Major said. “Mike [was] out doing Josh’s dirty work so Josh can be the guy that everybody loves.”
Erin McClelland, a Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania Treasurer, appeared to criticize Shapiro’s handling of the sexual harassment allegation on X last week.
“I want a VP pick that’s secure enough to be second under a woman, is content to be VP & won’t undermine the President to maneuver his own election & doesn’t sweep sexual harassment under the rug,” she wrote.
Other Democrats in the state have defended Shapiro’s ability to work with women and his handling of the sexual harassment settlement, which precipitated Vereb’s resignation.
“We know that Josh Shapiro would be an incredible pick [as the vice presidential nominee] — I hope that he is highly considered,” state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, a Democrat, said this week. “But obviously, Vice President Harris knows what she’s doing.”
(DURHAM, N.C.) — A North Carolina man has been arrested after he allegedly struck a Lowe’s store employee with a sledgehammer and stole a drill set, police said.
Aaron Deshown Willams, 25, has been arrested on warrants for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury and robbery with a dangerous weapon, according to the Durham Police Department.
The Lowe’s employee was helping Williams when he allegedly took a sledgehammer from his shopping cart and struck the employee in the head, according to police.
When the victim fell to the ground, the customer grabbed a drill set box and ran out of the store, police added.
The victim was transported to the hospital with serious injuries, but they are now in stable condition.
William also had an outstanding warrant for possession of a firearm by a felon, according to police. He is currently being held in the Durham County Jail with no bond.
(WASHINGTON) — One month after the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling on presidential immunity, the judge overseeing former President Trump’s federal election interference case now has jurisdiction over the case again.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is now likely to set a series of deadlines, including a potential status conference.
The case has been stayed for seven months as Trump’s legal team appealed presidential immunity all the way to the Supreme Court.
In a 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court found that a president has absolute immunity for acts within their core constitutional powers and a presumption of immunity for “acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.”
Judge Chutkan will now be responsible for applying the Supreme Court’s decision to the allegations in Trump’s criminal case, including whether Trump’s actions were “official acts” or private conduct that can be prosecuted.
Trump last year pleaded not guilty to charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election by enlisting a slate of so-called “fake electors,” using the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations,” trying to enlist the vice president to “alter the election results,” and promoting false claims of a stolen election as the Jan. 6 riot raged — all in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
The former president has denied all wrongdoing.
Trump originally faced a March 4 trial date before his appeal effectively paused the proceedings for more than half a year.
(ATHENS, Ga.) — The murder trial for the suspect accused of killing 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus is expected to start in mid-November, a judge said Friday, as the defense is seeking to move the high-profile case to another county.
Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard said jury selection would likely begin on Nov. 13, with the trial starting on Nov. 18.
The suspect, Jose Ibarra, appeared in the Athens-Clarke County courtroom for the hearing Friday morning.
His defense is seeking to move the trial out of Athens-Clarke County, arguing in a motion filed on Thursday that it “will not be possible to find an impartial jury to hear the matter.” They also cited the “extensive media coverage” of the case in the county.
Haggard preliminarily gave prosecutors within 10 days of the motion’s filing to respond to the request and said he would like to have a motions hearing sometime in late September or early October.
The defense said the schedule sounded reasonable. Prosecutors said they would like to wrap up the trial proceedings before Thanksgiving for the jurors, which Haggard said was “not lost on me.”
Ibarra, 26, was indicted by an Athens Clarke County grand jury on malice murder and felony murder and other offenses in May. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Riley, a student at Augusta University, was found dead in a wooded area on the Athens campus on Feb. 22 after she didn’t return from a run. The indictment alleges Ibarra killed her by “inflicting blunt force trauma to her head and by asphyxiating her” and seriously disfigured her head by striking her “multiple times” with a rock.
Additional charges in the 10-count indictment include aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing or hindering a person making an emergency telephone call and tampering with evidence. The latter charge alleged that he “knowingly concealed” evidence — a jacket and gloves — involving the offense of malice murder.
He was also charged with a peeping tom offense. The indictment alleges that on the same day as Riley’s murder, he spied through the window of a different person who lived in an apartment on campus.
In a separate motion filed on Thursday, the defense sought to sever that charge from the indictment, arguing that the offense is against a different alleged victim and would “create significant prejudice.”
Ibarra was denied bond following his arrest on Feb. 23 and is being held at the Clarke County Jail.
Police have said they do not believe Ibarra — a migrant from Venezuela who officials said illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 — knew Riley and that this was a “crime of opportunity.” Her death has become a rallying cry for immigration reform from many conservatives.
(NEW YORK) — Recent images released from NASA have revealed new information on the origins of the asteroid system.
Nearly two years ago, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, collided with Dimorphos, a small asteroid that is the moon of a bigger space rock, Didymos, at about 14,000 miles per hour, testing a strategy to defend against a potential asteroid headed toward Earth.
In a slate of studies published this week, NASA researchers have suggested that the mission did far more than accomplish its initial goal.
The five papers, published in the journal Nature Communications, have provided information on the origins, physical characteristics and evolution of the asteroids and are helping scientists gain a greater understanding of binary asteroid systems like planet asteroid Didymos and moonlet Dimorphos.
“These findings give us new insights into the ways that asteroids can change over time,” Thomas Statler, lead scientist for Solar System Small Bodies at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement.
He went on, “This is important not just for understanding the near-Earth objects that are the focus of planetary defense, but also for our ability to read the history of our Solar System from these remnants of planet formation. This is just part of the wealth of new knowledge we’ve gained from DART.”
In one study, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland studied the geology of the asteroids. They found Didymos was smoother at lower elevations, rockier at high elevations and had more craters while the moonlet Dimorphos had boulders of varying sizes.
The team concluded that Dimorphos likely spun off from Didymos in what is known as a “large mass shedding event,” which are natural processes that speed up the spinoff of smaller asteroids.
The team’s analysis suggested Didymos has a surface age between 40 and 130 times older than Dimorphos with the former estimated to be 12.5 million years old and the latter less than 300,000 years old, NASA said.
Because Dimorphos’ surface is younger, it likely had “low strength” which, in turn, contributed to why DART was so successful in disrupting its orbit.
In another paper, researchers compared the shapes and sizes of the boulders on the two asteroids and determined Dimorphos likely formed in stages with material from Didymos, providing further evidence that the former spun off from the latter.
A third study compared the boulders on Dimorphos to rubble pile asteroids — asteroids that are made up of pieces of debris — and found they shared similar characteristics, concluding all the asteroids likely formed similarly.
“The images and data that DART collected at the Didymos system provided a unique opportunity for a close-up geological look of a near-Earth asteroid binary system,” Dr. Oliver Barnouin, a planetary geophysicist from Johns Hopkins APL, said in a statement. “From these images alone, we were able to infer a great deal of information on geophysical properties of both Didymos and Dimorphos and expand our understanding on the formation of these two asteroids. We also better understand why DART was so effective in moving Dimorphos.”
A firefighter works as the Nixon Fire burns with evacuation orders in the area on July 29, 2024 near Aguanga, Calif. — Mario Tama/Getty Images
(REDDING, Calif.) — It’s only August, but already the U.S. wildfire season has burned more than 4.4 million acres, up a staggering 278% from last year, the National Interagency Fire Center reported Thursday.
Fueled by record high temperatures, including prolonged heat waves that have left many parts of the West with bone-dry vegetation, firefighters were battling 93 large active wildfires on Thursday in 13 states, including 28 fires that have prompted evacuations, according to the fire center.
With precipitation in the West below normal for July, some of the largest fires in U.S. history have ignited, especially in California and Oregon where a combined 44 fires were burning on Thursday, according to the fire center.
“Warming temperatures, drier conditions, and shifts in precipitation are contributing to an increase in the frequency of large wildfires and acres of land burned in the U.S. each year,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A prime example is the Park Fire in Northern California, which was deliberately set on July 24 and rapidly spread through dry vegetation to become the largest active fire in the nation and the fifth-largest wildland blaze in California history.
“Year-to-date annual acres burned for the U.S. is above the 10-year average at 123% of normal,” according to a statement from the center.
The fire center added, “In comparison to the outlook issued a month ago, larger areas of the West are expected to experience above normal significant fire potential in August and September.”
And just because most of the wildfire activity is happening in the West, thatdoesn’t mean the rest of the country is immune from the effects.
“Western wildfires account for about half of the smoke that the rest of the contiguous U.S. experiences each year,” according to Climate Central, an independent group of scientists that researches climate change.
The average number of heat waves major U.S. cities experience each year has doubled since the 1980s, according to the federal government’s Fifth National Climate Assessment. In the United States, summer minimum nighttime temperatures are warming nearly twice as fast as summer maximum daytime temperatures, according to Climate Central.
No state has experienced a worse wildfire season than California. The number of acres consumed by flames in the Golden State as of Thursday is 768,137, an increase of 2,905% from 2023, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). The 4,696 wildfires that have erupted in the state this year have destroyed more than 700 structures, including homes and commercial property, according to Cal Fire.
Here are some of the largest fires burning in the West:
The Park Fire in California
Firefighters battling the Park Fire in Northern California, the largest active fire in the nation, made significant progress in the past three days, increasing containment lines on the blaze to 22% as of Thursday night, according to Cal Fire.
The Park Fire, which officials said was deliberately started on July 24 and spread through Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties in Northern California, has grown to 394,953 acres. The blaze leapfrogged this week over the 2020 Creek Fire, which tore through Central California’s Sierra National Forest, to become the fifth largest wildfire in state history, officials said.
The Park Fire has destroyed at least 540 structures and damaged another 50, according to Cal Fire. No fatalities or injuries have been reported.
More than 3,800 people have been evacuated due to the Park Fire, Cal Fire said.
Ronnie Dean Stout II, 42, of Chico, has been accused of starting the blaze and was arrested on a charge of felony arson with an enhancement of special circumstances. On Thursday, Stout made his second court appearance this week. His arraignment was continued to a later date to allow his public defender to review the case reports and determine a plea, according to ABC affiliate station KRCR in Redding, California.
Stout, who remains in jail without bail, was allegedly spotted just before 3 p.m. PT on July 24 pushing a burning car down a gully called “Alligator Hole” in Bidwell Park, near Chico, sparking the Park Fire, prosecutors said.
The Nixon Fire in Southern California
California firefighters were also confronting the Nixon Fire that Monday off Richard Nixon Boulevard in Riverside County, northeast of the town of Aguanga, according to Cal Fire.
As of Thursday afternoon, the Nixon Fire had grown to 5,222 acres and was 18% contained, according to Cal Fire.
At least four structures in the fire zone were destroyed, according to Cal Fire.
The Alexander Mountain Fire in Colorado
Colorado firefighters were also trying to get the upper hand on the Alexander Mountain Fire, which was first reported Monday morning, according to the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. The fire burning in a remote mountainous area near Roosevelt National Park grew to 8,134 acres by Thursday night, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
The fire was 5% contained, according to the Forest Service.
Stone Canyon Fire in Colorado
The Stone Canyon Fire west of Rabbit Mountain and the town of Lyons and about eight miles from the Alexander Mountain Fire had burned 1,553 acres as of Thursday night, according to the Boulder Office of Disaster Management.
The blaze was 30% contained, officials said.
The remains of a person were recovered from a home in the area of the Stone Canyon Fire on Wednesday, according to Boulder County Sheriff Curtis Johnson. But Johnson released few details on the circumstances of the death.
