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(NEW YORK) — The Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted Thursday to approve new rules requiring all wireless carriers to implement georouting for calls to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in a move it says will help “save more lives.”

“Time and again, across many different communities, I have heard stories of how important the 988 Lifeline is for individuals in need of support,” Commissioner Anna Gomez said during the FCC’s Thursday meeting. “Today we affirm the experiences of these individuals and take steps to enhance the lifesaving capability of this service.”

“Doing everything we can to ensure that individuals in a crisis can receive the support they need saves lives and is simply good policy,” she added.

When a person calls 988, that call is routed to one of the Lifeline’s 200-plus crisis centers around the United States. The new rules will require carriers to route calls based on where the call was placed, allowing for a more localized response. Since the three-digit number launched in July 2022, it has been using area code-based call routing.

“This is a mismatch I have long believed we should fix — and I believe we can save more lives if we do so,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said during the Thursday meeting. “Because if we get more people connected to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, to resources that are local, we can help more people with more meaningful assistance in more places.”

Rosenworcel explained that when the original 10-digit Lifeline number was created in 2005, most calls came in on landlines, so area code routing made sense. Now, she said, almost 80% of calls come from cellphones, creating the need for georouting to provide localized care.

Advocates have called for georouting to be implemented for years, saying callers would benefit from localized follow-up care, though there have been some concerns about caller privacy. Under the new georouting system, calls will be routed based on the location of the cell tower that originates the call, as opposed to the precise location of the caller — a move meant to protect privacy, according to the FCC.

The order passed Thursday only requires georouting for phone calls to the Lifeline. There is currently no requirement for text contacts to the Lifeline to be georouted. However, the FCC also voted to propose and begin seeking comments on a rule that would require georouting for texts.

Phone calls accounted for about 72% of contacts to the Lifeline for the month of August, according to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration data. Texts accounted for about 19% of August contacts. The remaining contacts come from web-based chat services, the data showed.

“We’re not going to stop working to improve the Lifeline until everyone gets access to the local help and resources that they need,” Rosenworcel said.

Last month, wireless carriers Verizon and T-Mobile implemented voluntary georouting for 988 calls placed on their networks — a move that accounted for about half of all calls to the Lifeline, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Around 80% of calls to the 988 Lifeline are done through wireless phones, and many people have phone numbers with different area codes from where they live, work or visit,” T-Mobile President of Technology Ulf Ewaldsson said at the time. “Georouting ensures that those seeking help will reach the available crisis center nearest their location for support. It’s about making sure help is there when and where it’s needed most.”

All national carriers will have 30 days to implement georouting for their 988 calls. Smaller providers will have 24 months.

Since the 988 launch, the Lifeline has fielded more than 10 million contacts.

If you are experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises, or are worried about a friend or loved one, please call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org.

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(BURLINGTON, Vt.) Residents of parts of upstate New York and Vermont awoke to winter-like weather Thursday morning, including the earliest a foot of snow has fallen in the higher elevations of the Green Mountain state in 14 years.

The overnight snowfall brought 12 inches to Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont, and 15 inches to the summit of Whiteface Mountain in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.

The snowy weather ties 2010 as the earliest date that the snow depth at Mount Mansfield has reached a foot, according to the National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont.

Winter storm watches and warnings were also issued in the West from Oregon to Colorado, where one to more than two feet of October snow is forecast through Saturday for the Rocky Mountains.

Millions of people from Oklahoma to Maine were feeling their coldest air of the season Thursday morning. Frost and freeze alerts were issued in 20 eastern states or about half of the country.

Frost alerts were also issued for Little Rock, Arkansas, Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta. Asheville, North Carolina, which is still recovering from devastating floods caused by Hurricane Helene last month, was under a frost alert Thursday.

The weather was also chilly in Tampa Bay, Florida, where temperatures dipped to the 50s Thursday morning.

The cold spell is expected to be short-lived. A warm-up is on the way for much of the eastern half of the United States. Temperatures are forecast to jump to the 70s in the Northeast and the 80s across the South over the weekend.

The high forecast for New York City on Sunday is 73 degrees, while Tampa could reach 83 on Sunday.

The first major winter storm of the season is moving through the Pacific Northwest on Thursday. Ahead of this storm, gusty winds and dry conditions are sparking fire weather alerts across the West Coast.

Red flag warnings signaling elevated fire danger have been issued for the San Francisco Bay Area and much of Northern California. Red flag warnings were also in place Thursday for parts of Colorado and Minnesota, and extreme fire danger is forecast for Nebraska, where warm, dry and gusty winds could spread fires quickly.

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(NEW YORK) — A man was arrested Wednesday for threatening utility workers who were restoring power in Hillsborough County, Florida, following mass outages caused by Hurricane Milton, according to officials.

Crews were working on a road repair when the man allegedly verbally threatened them and drove his vehicle toward them in an intimidating manner.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has identified the suspect as 57-year-old Kenneth Ray Velasco.

When the incident occurred, a power line crew was working on a road that was closed for repairs, creating a traffic delay. The man was in his vehicle and grew impatient.

He backed into a utility pole and fence, causing an estimated $1,000 in damage, according to official reports, and then attempted to flee the scene.

When the linemen tried to prevent him from leaving, he drove toward them in a deliberate manner that caused them to jump out of the way and also threatened to shoot them, officials said.

“Linemen have been working tirelessly to restore power after the storm,” said Sheriff Chad Chronister. “For this person to threaten their lives and deliberately endanger them, all because of a traffic delay, shows a disturbing lack of regard for the safety of others and the critical work being done.”

Velasco was pulled over in a traffic stop and charged with aggravated assault and felony criminal mischief for vandalism of property, according to the sheriff’s office.

He was arrested without incident, officials said.

“We’re grateful no one was seriously hurt, and this suspect will face the full extent of the law for his egregious crimes,” the sheriff said.

As of Wednesday evening, nearly 20,000 residents of Hillsborough County are without power.

The investigation into the incident is ongoing.

ABC News’ Victoria Arancio contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The fate of two U.S. Navy pilots remained a mystery Wednesday, a day after their fighter jet crashed during a routine training flight and search-and-rescue crews reported finding no sign of them in the rugged landscape of northeast Washington.

Wreckage of the EA-18G Growler jet was located Wednesday afternoon but the search continues for the two-person crew, military officials said in an update on Wednesday. The crash site is a mountainside east of Mount Rainier, officials said.

“Responders are facing mountainous terrain, cloudy weather, and low visibility as the search is ongoing,” Navy officials said in an earlier statement Wednesday afternoon.

The jet, from Electronic Attack Squadron 130, crashed at about 3:23 p.m. on Tuesday about 30 miles west of Yakima on the eastern side of Mount Rainier, according to the Navy.

The jet crashed after launching a training flight from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, officials said.

An MH-60S helicopter crew was immediately launched to search for the missing airmen and wreckage, officials said. Additional rescue units from the U.S. Navy Fleet Reconnaissance Squadron One, Patrol Squadron, Naval Air Station Whidbey Island Search and Rescue and the U.S. Army 4-6 Air Calvary Squadron from Joint Base Luis-McChord in Washington were also involved in the search, officials said.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, according to the statement.

The Growler aircraft, which according to the Navy is worth about $67 million, is “the most advanced technology in airborne Electronic Attack and stands as the Navy’s first line of defense in hostile environments.”

The 130 squadron adopted the nickname “Zappers” when it was commissioned as the Carrier Early Warning Squadron 13 in 1959, the military said.

The squadron was most recently deployed to the Southern Red Sea, where it carried out seven pre-planned strikes against Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, according to a statement.

The Zappers also carried out some 700 combat missions ” to degrade the Houthi capability to threaten innocent shipping,” according to a press release announcing the squadron’s return to Washington in July.

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(SIMPSON COUNTY, Miss.) — A Mississippi bridge set to be demolished collapsed in a deadly accident on Wednesday, officials said.

The Mississippi Department of Transportation confirmed there were fatalities, though it did not specify how many people died.

“[We] extend our deepest condolences to the families who have lost loved ones,” the Mississippi Department of Transportation said in a statement.

An inspector with the Mississippi Department of Transportation who was at the worksite when the bridge collapsed was unharmed, the department said.

The bridge, which spanned the Strong River in Simpson County on State Route 149, collapsed Wednesday afternoon, according to the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

The bridge had been closed to traffic since Sept. 18 and was in the process of being demolished as part of a bridge replacement project, the department said.

The replacement project had been given an estimate of 12 to 18 months to complete, according to previous statements from the department.

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(NEW YORK) — The husband of the owner of a New York City day care where a 1-year-old child died of fentanyl poisoning was sentenced Wednesday to 45 years in prison.

Felix Herrera Garcia, 35, pleaded guilty in June to federal drug charges for trafficking fentanyl out of the day care center.

In September 2023, a 1-year-old boy attending the day care, Nicholas Dominici, died, and three other children, ranging in age from 8 months to 2 years, were hospitalized and treated with Narcan, police said.

In his sentencing, federal prosecutors said Herrera Garcia was seen fleeing the Bronx day care through a back alley, carrying two heavy shopping bags while children were suffering from the effects of fentanyl.

Herrera Garcia and others stashed more than 11 kilograms of fentanyl and heroin in secret compartments, or traps, located underneath the floor tiles in the playroom where the children played, ate and slept on a daily basis, prosecutors said.

“Felix Herrera Garcia operated a deadly fentanyl trafficking enterprise out of a day care, recklessly putting babies at risk of fentanyl exposure on a daily basis,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement Wednesday.

“This case demonstrates the deadly reach and scope of the fentanyl epidemic, and the tragic collateral damage it inflicts on American lives,” Williams added.

Herrera Garcia fled to Mexico after the death and was arrested after a weeklong manhunt. His wife, Grei Mendez, who worked at the day care has also been charged in relation to the drug trafficking scheme.

Mendez pulled her and Herrera Garcia’s 2-year-old son from attending the day care prior to the incident after she worried he was exhibiting signs of fentanyl exposure, law enforcement sources familiar with the case previously told ABC News.

Mendez never reported the suspected exposure to police and did not allow the boy to return to the facility, according to the sources. However, she kept the day care open for other children.

In September, a federal criminal complaint showed Mendez allegedly deleted more than 20,000 messages between her and her husband sent from March 2021 to the day the 1-year-old boy died from fentanyl exposure at her facility, on Sept. 15, 2023.

Before calling 911 about the unresponsive children, Mendez allegedly made three other phone calls: one to a day care employee and two to her husband, according to the federal court documents.

In addition to the 45-year prison term, Herrera Garcia was sentenced to five years of supervised release, prosecutors said.

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(TEXAS) — Robert Roberson, the first person set to be executed in the U.S. based on the largely discredited “shaken baby syndrome” hypothesis, has filed a request for a stay of execution and a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court.

Roberson argues that his federal due process rights were violated when Texas’ highest court refused to consider his bid to reopen the case based on “substantial new scientific and medical evidence.”

The plea comes after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied his requests to either have his sentence commuted to life in prison or to have his execution delayed.

Roberson was found guilty for the murder of his 2-year-old daughter based on the testimony from a pediatrician who described swelling and hemorrhages in Nikki’s brain to support a “shaken baby syndrome” diagnosis, even though there is limited evidence that this is a credible diagnosis.

The hypothesis has come under serious scrutiny in biomechanical studies, as well as a growing body of medical and legal literature. The medical examiner at the time also suspected that Nikki sustained multiple head injuries and considered the death a homicide in the official autopsy.

Roberson is autistic, according to his legal team, which affects how he expresses emotions — a concern that also arose during the trial.

Since his conviction, newly presented evidence found that Nikki had pneumonia at the time of her death and had been prescribed respiratory-suppressing drugs by doctors in the days leading up to her death.

A medical expert who performed post-mortem toxicology reports and reexamined her lung tissue said they found that chronic interstitial viral pneumonia and acute bacterial pneumonia were damaging her lungs, causing sepsis and then septic shock, likely leading to vital organ failure.

Over 30 medical and scientific experts have written to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, asking it to reconsider Roberson’s sentence because it hinged on the “shaken baby syndrome.”

A bipartisan group of 86 Texas House of Representatives members have also spoken in support of Roberson’s clemency request, arguing that a state law enables reviews of wrongful convictions based on changes in scientific evidence. In Roberson’s case, they believe that the new evidence should have led to a new trial.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Trade Commission finalized a rule Wednesday that seeks to make it easier for American households to cancel their subscriptions and memberships.

The goal is to make it as simple for consumers to opt out of recurring payments — including for gyms, retailers or other businesses — as it is to sign up for them.

“Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement following the announcement.

“The FTC’s rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want,” Khan said.

Under the so-called “click-to-cancel” rule, if customers decide to enroll in a subscription online or through an app in one step — they should be able to cancel that way, too.

Businesses will be required to provide important information — such as when free trials end — and to obtain consumers’ consent before billing and charging them.

The changes are set to take effect in April 2025. Companies that don’t comply could face civil penalties, according to the agency.

The Biden administration announced in August it was working to adopt the rule as part of a broader effort to cut down the time and money Americans spend wrangling with companies over customer service.

“For a lot of services, it takes one or two clicks on your phone to sign up. It should take one or two clicks on your phone to end the service,” White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden said in August. “Consumers could see the new rule applied to gym memberships or phone and internet companies.”

 The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is critical of the initiative, accusing the federal government in a statement of “imposing heavy-handed regulations that micromanage business practices and pricing.”

Tanden said at the time that the efforts were about creating a better functioning market, not targeting any particular company or “shaming corporations writ large.”

“When they want to end one subscription, they can shop for another, but it’s their decision,” she said. “That’s what a free market is really about, empowering individuals to make the decisions they want to make without these practices that get in their way.”

The FTC says it received more than 16,000 comments from consumers, trade associations, watchdog groups, and state and federal agencies since it first floated the proposal in March 2023.

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(GEORGIA) — Former President Donald Trump sat down with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner on Tuesday night in front of an all-female audience in Cummings, Georgia, where he addressed several issues aimed at appealing to women voters including the child tax credit, the economy and reproductive rights — calling himself the “father of IVF.”

Speaking in front of a friendly audience of more than 100 women of all ages, Trump attempted to court suburban women in Georgia’s Forsyth County — a reliably-red county where Democrats have made gains in recent years.

Recently, Trump has worked to connect with women voters — the largest voting bloc in the 2024 election — by suggesting they’ll be “safer” under a Trump administration, that he will be a “protector” of women and they “will no longer be thinking about abortion” if he wins the White House.

During the event, which aired Wednesday morning, Trump was asked about his positions on abortion access and in vitro fertilization — key voter issues after the Supreme Court overruled Roe vs. Wade in 2022. Trump himself often brags about his role in the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule the case that secured the constitutional right to abortion.

“Oh, I want to talk about IVF. I’m the father of IVF,” Trump blurted.

Sen. Katie Britt, who introduced the IVF Protection Act, explained IVF to the former president, according to Trump.

“Within about two minutes, I understood we’re totally in favor of IVF. I came out with a statement within an hour, a really powerful statement with some experts, really powerful,” he said, adding that “we really are the party for IVF. We want fertilization.”

Trump reiterated his position on abortion where he suggested he has turned the power back to the states.

“It’s back in the states, where they can have the vote of the people. It’s exactly where they want to be. Remember this, this issue has torn this country apart for 52 years. So we got it back in the states, we have a vote of the people, and it’s working its way through the system, and ultimately it’s going to do the right thing,” Trump said.

At one point, Trump suggested that some states have to redo their abortion laws, referencing rape, incest and exceptions.

“Actually called himself the ‘father of IVF’ and if what he meant is taking responsibility, then yeah, he should take responsibility for the fact that one in three women in America lives in a Trump abortion ban state. What he should take responsibility for is that couples who are praying and hoping and working towards growing a family have been so disappointed and harmed by the fact that IVF treatments have now been put at risk,” Harris told reporters.

Trump’s comment was also quickly picked up by women championing the abortion-rights movement such as EMILY’s List and Planned Parenthood Action Fund where they called it “deeply out of touch with the vast majority of the American people.”

“Let’s call this charade what it is: a last-ditch attempt to deceive voters,” said Jessica Mackler, president of EMILYs List, calling it an “insult to women everywhere that he thinks they’ll fall for his bogus attempt to rebrand on abortion.”

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said Trump “cannot be trusted — not with our bodies, our lives, or our futures.”

Trump also doubled down on his rhetoric where he suggested to Maria Bartiromo on Fox News that “the bigger problem is the enemy from within” when answering a question on whether he thought the November election would be peaceful.

Trump’s comments in the previous week suggest that the military would handle his political adversaries if he became president. Faulkner played the video clip during the town hall, to which Trump replied, “if we have to.”

He continued, doubling down on his rhetoric, “I thought it was a nice presentation” and saying he wasn’t “unhinged” as Harris claimed during an Erie, Pennsylvania, rally earlier this week.

“It is the enemy from within, and they’re very dangerous,” Trump said to Faulkner.

At one point in the town hall, Faulkner described the Democrats’ prebuttal of the event, mentioning the family of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who died of complications following her abortion in the state — with a ProPublica report saying her death was a direct result of the state’s six-week abortion ban.

Thurman’s family was on a press call with Sen. Raphael Warnock, and when Faulkner asked about that call, Trump — instead of acknowledging the Thurman family and Amber Thurman’s death — quipped that the Fox News town hall he was currently participating in would “get better ratings.”
 

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(GEORGIA) — When 14-year-old Colt Gray rode the bus to his Georgia high school on the morning of Sept. 4, he had a long gun hidden in a poster board that looked like a school project, surveillance video showed, a state agent said in court Wednesday.

Colt Gray is accused of killing two students and two teachers, and injuring several others, at Apalachee High School that day.

A George Bureau of Investigation (GBI) agent who had viewed surveillance footage from the bus and the school appeared in a Barrow County courtroom on Wednesday to describe what the videos captured during a probable cause hearing in the case against Colt Gray’s father, Colin Gray.

On the morning of the shooting, Colt Gray left a notebook on his desk in math class, went to the bathroom with his backpack and came out of the bathroom with gloves on and the poster board in front of him, appearing to hide the AR-15-style rifle, the GBI agent said.

Colt Gray knocked on the door of his math class to go back in, and a classmate went to open the door, the agent said. But the classmate saw Colt Gray through the door window, backed up, put her hand over her mouth and told the teacher, the agent said.
The teacher went to the door window, told students to get into the corner and initiated a lockdown, the agent said.

The 14-year-old suspect allegedly entered another classroom and started shooting, the agent said. About six or seven people were shot during the approximately seven seconds the gunman was inside the room.

Colt Gray then ran back toward the bathrooms, and at 10:22 a.m. he allegedly aimed his rifle at a teacher and fired multiple shots, the agent said. The teen then turned toward another hallway and shot two coaches, the agent said. A student then came out of a bathroom and was shot and killed.

Two school resource officers entered the hallway and ordered the 14-year-old to put his rifle down and surrender, the agent said.

The notebook Colt Gray allegedly left on his desk contained a plan on how to execute the shooting, an estimated possible casualty count and sketches of his classroom, according to the agent.

Colt Gray was arrested on murder charges while Colin Gray is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. Colin Gray is accused of knowingly allowing his son to possess the weapon used in the shooting, according to the GBI.

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