(CHICAGO) — One 17-year-old was found dead and two others were rescued in Lake Michigan after they became distressed in the water while swimming.
A possible drowning incident in Lake Michigan was reported to the Milwaukee County 911 Dispatch Center at around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department responded and found three individuals, believed to be 17 years old, in distress in the water.
Two were pulled from the water, one of whom had severe breathing difficulties and was hospitalized in critical condition. The second was uninjured and was medically cleared at the scene.
The third swimmer was later found dead in the water.
All three teens are believed to be related.
The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident.
(WASHINGTON) — A coalition of racial justice and civil rights nonprofit advocacy organizations are formally joining the fight to prevent a ban on TikTok.
The Asian American Federation, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, Calos Coalition and Hispanic Heritage Foundation are among the 13 groups arguing that TikTok serves as an essential platform for communities of color and other marginalized groups.
“TikTok is a modern-day digital town square that empowers diverse communities, often neglected by traditional media outlets, to share their underrepresented voices with people across America and the world,” lawyers from the firm Cooley LLP wrote in a court filing expected to be filed Thursday on behalf of the coalition.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law as part of a larger spending package, could potentially make the app unavailable in the U.S. TikTok and its parent company ByteDance filed a lawsuit against the law, which is now formally supported by the civil rights nonprofits.
Supporters of company’s lawsuit argue the legislation threatens the First Amendment rights of 170 million U.S. users and would effectively ban the app. The groups argue the legislation is unconstitutional and they also expressed “grave concerns about anti-Asian animus undergirding the TikTok Ban.”
“The TikTok Ban imposes an unprecedented prior restraint on free speech, silencing countless voices, while also discriminating on content and viewpoint,” the Cooley lawyers wrote.
Congressional leaders and President Biden have argued that restricting the app is necessary due to security concerns with the Chinese government.
ByteDance refuted those allegations in its lawsuit, arguing there has been no tangible evidence that the app poses any security risk.
(MOSCOW, Idaho.) — The prosecution and defense are working toward a June 2025 trial date for Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of killing four University of Idaho students in an off-campus house.
Judge John Judge said he anticipates the trial to take three months.
The defense still wants a change of venue, which has not yet been determined.
The parents of 21-year-old victim Kaylee Goncalves attended Thursday’s court hearing. The Goncalves had been desperate for a date to be set, telling ABC News in January their family is “in limbo” until trial begins.
“We got to get this case over,” Steve Goncalves said. “Let’s do it. Let’s stop playing these delay tactics, let’s just get it done.”
Roommates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle, as well as Kernodle’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin, were stabbed to death in the girls’ off-campus home in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022. Two other roommates survived.
Kohberger, who was a criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University at the time of the gruesome crime, was arrested weeks later.
A not guilty plea was entered on Kohberger’s behalf for four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
The prosecution and defense have gone back-and-forth proposing potential trial dates at hearings this year.
On Jan. 26, the prosecution told the judge it was ready to go to trial in summer 2024. Prosecutors said summer is best because there will be out-of-state witnesses who need accommodations in Moscow, which they said is difficult while local schools are in session.
The defense argued a summer 2024 trial is not realistic for this complex case. The defense said it still had a lot of digital evidence to go through, more potential witnesses to speak with and more documents to collect from Kohberger’s past and his family.
The prosecution agreed that there was a large amount of information to sift through.
The defense recommended a summer 2025 trial if the case moved forward in Latah County, but days after the Jan. 26 hearing, Kohberger’s defense filed a motion for a change of venue.
The prosecution said the case has national and international interest, so a change of venue would not solve any problem.
At a Feb. 28 hearing, the judge and prosecution proposed a trial date of March 3, 2025, while the defense asked for a June 2025 trial.
The next hearing to discuss a change of venue will be Aug. 29.
ABC News’ Julie Scott and Sasha Pezenik contributed to this report.
(BEND, Ore.) — A wind-driven wildfire threatening homes and causing evacuations in Central Oregon has grown to more than 3,614 acres, officials said Thursday.
The Darlene 3 Fire, which started around 2 p.m. Tuesday in Deschutes County, remained 30% contained Thursday for the second consecutive day. Between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, an additional 1,200 acres had burned, according to the Central Oregon Fire Management Service.
Fanned by gusty winds, the blaze quickly spread through a pine forest near homes on the south side of La Pine, a small town of about 2,500 people in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, officials said. On Wednesday, fire officials said a new blaze broke out on the east side of La Pine, threatening homes in several neighborhoods and triggering more evacuation ordered from the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office.
Officials said shelters were opened at a local high school and the La Pine Rodeo Grounds.
The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office said evacuation alerts were sent to 1,100 homes and businesses.
— Central OR Fire Info (@CentralORFire) June 27, 2024
It was not immediately clear if any structures had been damaged or destroyed.
Several campgrounds and hiking trails in the area were also closed, officials said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The sheriff’s office posted photos and video on its Facebook page showing a large plume of smoke emerging from a forest behind a group of homes and a firefighting air tanker dropping fire-suppression retardant on the flames.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act after determining the fire posed a threat to life and property and exceeded the resources of the local fire agencies. The act allows the state fire marshal to mobilize firefighters and equipment throughout the state to assist local fire crews in battling the fire.
Oregon State Fire Marshall Mariana Ruiz-Temple said gusty winds and hot weather caused the fire to quickly spread.
“The Emergency Conflagration Act allows us to send the full power of the Oregon fire service to protect life and property,” Ruiz-Temple said in a news release. “As we enter the hot and dry summer months, I am asking Oregonians to do everything they can to prevent wildfires.”
(NEW YORK) — Author Sadie Dingfelder discusses her experiences with face blindness in her new book, “Do I Know You? A Faceblind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination.”
From a young age, Dingfelder has been aware of her struggle with remembering people and faces. However, it took her decades to realize that her experience was not the norm.
She didn’t realize this until one day when she mistook her husband for a random man in the grocery store who had a similar build as her spouse.
A recent study found that only 3.08% of Americans meet the criteria for face blindness, or prosopagnosia. This condition affects close to 10 million Americans.
In her latest book, Dingfelder delves into her condition and unveils the incredible neural diversity of humans. ABC News sat down with Dingfelder to discuss her book in more detail.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Since childhood, science journalist Sadie Dingfelder has known that she isn’t good at remembering people or faces, but for decades she failed to notice that most people function otherwise. In fact, a recent study found that only 3.08% of Americans meet the criteria for face blindness. That number is close to 10 million Americans.
In her newest book, “Do I Know You?: A Faceblind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination”, Sadie Dingfelder explores her condition and reveals the remarkable neural diversity of humans. Sadie, thank you so much for joining us.
DINGFELDER: Thank you for having me.
ABC NEWS LIVE: All right. So how did you realize that you have face blindness?
DINGFELDER: Well, let me tell you. I was in a grocery store and I was following my husband around. He was. And all of a sudden, he went rogue. And he started filling up our grocery cart with all this junk food. And I, I, you know, had to stop him, obviously. So I plucked a jar of generic peanut butter out of the cart, and I said, ‘since when do you buy generic?’
And Steve looked completely horrified, and it took me a second, but he looked horrified because he was not Steve. He was not my husband. He was a random Steve-shaped stranger. And, you know, and on the way home, I just was thinking, ‘this is not the kind of mistake that neurotypical people make.’
ABC NEWS LIVE: You said that he looked horrified. So you were able to see certain emotions in the face? But not, just give us a sense if you can kind of describe what kind of images you might see.
DINGFELDER: Well, it’s really interesting because face recognition is controlled by a totally different part of your brain than emotion, recognizing emotion or gaze direction or even telling genders. So, I’m normal at all those things. My problem is I just can’t remember faces.
ABC NEWS LIVE: And so when did you connect the dots that this was somehow related to the brain function?
DINGFELDER: Well, so ironically, I am a science writer, and I specialize in neuroscience and psychology.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Convenient.
DINGFELDER: Right! So I knew, like, how to do the research, and I got myself into a study. So I pitched it as a story and I thought, oh, this is a fascinating disorder that I probably don’t have. But I had it, turns out.
ABC NEWS LIVE: And so not only do you have face blindness, but you also have something called stereo blindness. Explain what that is.
DINGFELDER: Yeah. This is. My world is very flat. I can’t catch a ball or a frisbee, and I stumble a lot. It’s because my brain — I only look out of one eye at a time. And in most people’s brains, combine the images from their two eyes into a single, you know, three-dimensional image. And my brain doesn’t doesn’t do it.
ABC NEWS LIVE: So you’ve really kind of taken this deep dive into your own brain. But in the same time, what have you learned just about neuroscience and how other people’s brains work?
DINGFELDER: Yeah, that’s been the huge revelation for me, is that, you know, your father, your best friend, your spouse. They could all be living in a world that like, if you could beam into their minds, you you would find the world to be completely unrecognizable. I had no idea that other people could visualize. I thought that people were speaking in metaphors.
You know, when you’re in yoga class and they’re like, shine your sternum forward, like, I didn’t realize people could actually visualize like, rays of light coming out of their sternum.
ABC NEWS LIVE: So if I were to say, visualize a meadow, a very calm scene, you’re not able to do that?
DINGFELDER: That. No, I can just think I can think about a calm scene.
ABC NEWS LIVE: But you wouldn’t be able to picture it?
DINGFELDER: Right.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Your story is really vulnerable. You really allow your inner thoughts, emotions, experiences. You kind of put it all out there for everyone else. What have you learned along this whole journey?
DINGFELDER: Oh, gosh. I have learned that there is just a wild amount of sort of hidden neurodiversity in the world. And so even people who seem completely, you know, like normal and like they’re fitting in, they might have, you know, they might have ADHD or autism or some of the rare things that I seem to have, and you wouldn’t have any idea.
And they often don’t have any idea either, because they have nothing to compare their experience to. And even cooler is how science, scientists are beginning to study this. You know, they they are peeking into our brains in lots of clever ways and discovering that this is not just a problem with describing things. We really do have very different inner lives from one another.
ABC NEWS LIVE: So fascinating. I think a lot of people are going to be really intrigued by this, Sadie. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. You can now purchase “Do I Know You? A Faceblind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination,” wherever books are sold.
An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max-9 aircraft grounded at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in Los Angeles, California, on Monday, Jan. 8, 2024. (Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — For the first time since the Alaska door plug blowout, Boeing brought reporters into the Boeing 737 MAX factory in Renton, Washington. The tightly controlled tour started with an explanation of what led up to the blowout incident and the changes that have happened since January.
According to the explanation from Boeing officials, the fuselage came to Boeing damaged from the supplier. To fix the fuselage, the door plug needed to come off. Before they could get the plug back on properly, the plane needed to be moved to a new outdoor location. The overnight Move Team put the door plug back on to seal the aircraft from the outdoor elements but didn’t install the bolts (that’s not their job, and they expected it to be handled by the other team), the Boeing reps on-site said.
The first team never filled out the paperwork when they removed the door, so it became a perfect storm of the overnight team doing its job to protect the plane from rain, but because there was no paperwork, the next team never put the bolts back on because they didn’t know they were removed, according to company reps.
“Very transparently, the fact that one employee could not fill out paperwork was shocking to all of us,” Elizabeth Lund, chair of Boeing’s Quality Operations Council, told reporters.
During the visit to the Boeing facilities, a company rep said the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout incident has changed how the airplane maker operates, how they look at safety, their culture and the way they do business.
For the frontline workers, it has taken an emotional toll on many of them.
“Yeah, it’s tough here sometimes,” Bill Riley, who has worked with Boeing for 16 years in the Quality department, said. “We’re human like everyone else obviously … And it’s our work that’s being scrutinized and stuff like that.”
“That’s how our team feels; they obviously feel bruised right now. And our job is to listen, and our job is to take time to heal and double-down and focus on exactly what Bill just walked you through, and that’s how we’ll get through this. There’s a lot to be proud of, but there’s a lot of work to do,” Katie Ringgold, vice president and general manager of Boeing’s 737 program, said.
There are 10 stations on the assembly line at the factory, and the safety procedures and production practices at each station have changed. Notably, if a single employee says something is wrong, that employee has the power to stop the entire production line.
Boeing has received 30,000 tips, suggestions, and safety concern reports from employees since the incident. Boeing says they review each one and have made necessary changes when warranted. Lund said company executives call the tips and concerns “gifts.”
Other changes to workflow include:
Each team is required to stand down for one hour each week to discuss concerns or how they can improve.
Boeing has drastically slowed production. The Federal Aviation Administration caps Boeing at 38 planes per month, but Boeing is only producing roughly 20 737s per month until they are confident the factory can handle more.
The factory visited by ABC has an unusually high number of new employees because so many longtime employees left during the COVID pandemic, Boeing reps explained. Many new and senior employees are being retrained, and all new hires get at least two additional weeks of training than they would have had pre-Jan. 5.
Production manuals are being simplified so instructions are easier to digest and easier for those who speak English as a second language, Boeing reps said.
(NEW YORK) — A 16-year-old inmate at a juvenile correctional facility in Wisconsin faces homicide and murder charges after a staff member he is accused of attacking died, court records show.
The incident occurred Monday night at Lincoln Hills School in Irma, a juvenile correctional facility operated by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC).
The staff member — identified as 49-year-old Corey Proulx — suffered critical injuries while attempting to detain a juvenile inmate after the teen allegedly attacked another staff member at the school, according to DOC.
Proulx, a youth counselor at Lincoln Hills School, died Tuesday from his injuries, DOC said.
The teen was charged Wednesday with second-degree reckless homicide, felony murder-battery and two counts of battery in connection with the incident, according to a criminal complaint. During a court appearance on Wednesday, a judge ruled that the suspect — Javarius Hurd — will be charged as an adult.
Hurd’s bond was set at $100,000 and he was ordered to have no contact with Lincoln Hills School staff or the victims’ family members.
He faces up to 58 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
ABC News has reached out to the teen’s attorney for comment.
The teen allegedly told investigators that he had “built-up aggression” toward the initial victim because he believed the female staff member was “abusing their power and treating him unfairly” and planned to attack her, according to the complaint. He allegedly said he asked another juvenile for a cup of soap that he threw at her, according to the complaint.
He is accused of then “repeatedly punching” the unidentified staff member in her face and upper body before fleeing into a courtyard, according to the complaint.
When Proulx followed to detain the teen, Hurd allegedly struck him “multiple times unprovoked” and punched him in the face twice with “full force,” according to the complaint.
Proulx went limp and fell to the ground, striking his head on the pavement, according to the complaint. Surveillance footage captured the incident, the complaint stated.
Proulx was airlifted via medical helicopter to a hospital in critical condition, authorities said. He was declared brain-dead Tuesday afternoon by the Lincoln County coroner, according to the criminal complaint.
The female staff member was treated for her injuries at a hospital and has since been released, according to the complaint.
No other juvenile inmates were involved in the incident, DOC said.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers ordered that U.S. and state flags fly at half-staff through sunset Thursday in honor of Proulx.
“By all accounts, Corey was a dedicated public servant who led with kindness and compassion in his commitment toward helping and supporting the youth he worked with,” Evers said in a statement.
DOC Secretary Jared Hoy said Proulx was a “dedicated professional, colleague, and friend.”
“A career in corrections, with its dual mission to protect the public and guide individuals toward rehabilitation, can be demanding and requires so many sacrifices for our staff and our families, and Corey made the ultimate sacrifice,” Hoy said in a statement. “Our DOC family is mourning Corey’s loss, and we are keeping all of his family members and friends in our thoughts.”
Proulx was remembered by his fiancée and daughter as an “amazing partner, father, son and human being,” DOC said.
Lincoln Hills School Superintendent Klint Trevino said Proulx was a “dedicated and compassionate member of our team, always striving to make a positive impact on the lives of the young individuals we serve.”
State Rep. Michael Schraa, chair of the Assembly’s corrections committee, said in response to Proulx’s death that he plans to conduct an informational hearing on conditions in the DOC.
“This is a prime example of why staff need the appropriate tools to keep themselves and other incarcerated individuals safe,” he said in a statement Wednesday.
(NEW YORK) — ABC News contributor LZ Granderson is revealing his HIV status, discussing which superstar’s mother inspired him to make that call, and talking about the virus’ disproportionate impact on people of color.
According to the most recent data from the CDC, more than 1.2 million Americans are currently living with HIV.
Thanks to modern medicine, preventing and treating the disease is now possible. However, the stigma attached to the virus persists. In a column for the Los Angeles Times, Granderson reveals that he’s been living with HIV for years.
ABC News’ Steve Osunsami sat down for a conversation with Granderson to hear why he’s speaking out now and how the virus disproportionately affects others.
GRANDERSON: I’ve just told, like, my best friend, yesterday. Told some other close friends yesterday.
ABC NEWS LIVE: It’s like coming out all over again.
GRANDERSON: It was a lot like coming out all over again. And I find myself apologizing a lot.
ABC NEWS LIVE: For?
GRANDERSON: Keeping secrets. I am HIV positive and have been for a long time. I used to hide my pills before the housekeeper shows up.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Wow!
GRANDERSON: In my socks.
ABC NEWS LIVE: You hid your pills in your socks before the housekeeper, because you didn’t want your housekeeper to know?
GRANDERSON: I didn’t want my housekeeper to find out.
ABC NEWS LIVE: You were afraid she would tell someone?
GRANDERSON: I just didn’t want anyone to know.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Yea.
GRANDERSON: My mom didn’t know. Heaven forbid, I have to tell my producer why I need to go to the drugstore now. You know what I mean? Like, I didn’t want any situation in which anyone will be asking me any questions. Like, why do you need to go to the drugstore right now? There were, there were people dying of AIDS in my environment, in my atmosphere.
ABC NEWS LIVE: That you were hearing?
GRANDERSON: So I definitely didn’t feel like I was in a place where I felt strong enough that I could do all of that, plus that. So I kept it to myself. Plus the, the guilt. You know, try to figure out who was it. Why did you do it? Like all these thoughts in my head?
ABC NEWS LIVE: Were you worried you were going to have to share that with people, or people were going to ask or you would need those answers?
GRANDERSON: I was worried I was going to shine a bad light on my community. And it’s killing all of us, but it’s really killing Black people, and it’s killing Black people because we’re afraid to talk about it. We whisper about it. You have queer Black people who are dying. You have heterosexual Black people who are dying and no one’s talking about it. So if you’re not having a conversation and we’re dying in silence, I don’t see a path of joy coming out of that.
[Granderson discussed how Tina Knowles, mother of singer Beyoncé inspired him to reveal his status.]
GRANDERSON: She flew from wherever Beyoncé was to Birmingham, Alabama, to tell Black journalists to get the word out about this virus that is still killing us and especially Black women. So I’m sitting there. And I’m like, she talking to me? I was like, I have to do my part.
ABC NEWS LIVE: When did you learn that you were HIV positive?
GRANDERSON: So, we were in Grand Rapids. I was with my partner, who’s now my husband, and I was getting my hair done. And I started to get these huge of wave of heat. I started to sweat, and then everything got black. And I woke up in the ambulance. Got to the hospital, I’m all hooked up and everything. And the doctors think I’m having a heart attack.
And so my husband’s rushing to the hospital. And they ran a bunch of tests. And the only thing that came back was that I was positive. The thing that went through my mind was the fact that my son was there in the room. And I remember saying to God, ‘I’m not done yet.’
ABC NEWS LIVE: And you weren’t by any means.
GRANDERSON: It was just about him. I had to take care of him.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Yeah I hear you.
GRANDERSON: That was the only thing I was thinking about.
[Granderson discusses telling his son about his HIV status just weeks before the ABC News interview.]
GRANDERSON: It went really well.
ABC NEWS LIVE: OK.
GRANDERSON: First thing he said was, ‘wow.’ And he says ‘I’m proud of you, pops.’ So I’m very grateful that God kept me. So I can get him across that finish line, because, that was the only thing I could think of that day.
My hope in doing this, Steve, really is to encourage people to be the hero in their own lives, especially queer Black men like us. You know, who are afraid of finding out or afraid of people thinking of them as less than.
When you saw me covering Wimbledon, I was HIV positive then. Pretty sure I was looking happy. So we can stop this. We can take care of ourselves. We can live healthy, productive lives. We can’t do any of that if we don’t get past the shame to ask for help.
