(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Idalia is expected to strengthen to a hurricane on Monday as it bears down on Florida.
Idalia could become a major Category 3 hurricane by Tuesday night.
Landfall is currently forecast for Wednesday morning in Florida’s Big Bend area, north of Tampa.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Aug 28, 8:33 AM EDT
Idalia’s latest forecast
Idalia may rapidly intensify on Monday night and Tuesday, strengthening to a major Category 3 hurricane by Tuesday night.
Landfall is currently forecast for Wednesday morning in Florida’s Big Bend area.
Storm surge is expected to be severe. It could reach 4 to 7 feet in Tampa and up to 11 feet in the Big Bend area.
Up to 10 inches of rain is possible in north Florida. Tampa Bay could see more than 6 inches of rain.
By Wednesday evening, Idalia will be weaker — a tropical storm — as it moves near the Carolinas with heavy rain and gusty winds. Idalia is not expected to impact the Northeast.
(HOUSTON) — Houston, Texas, implemented the second stage of its mandatory water conservation measures on Sunday, as the area experiences drought conditions, according to the city.
The city’s drought contingency plan is enforced when there is a major drop in yearly rainfall and when higher than normal temperatures lead to continuous stress on the water system, Houston Public Works said in a news release.
During stage two, single-family homes with even-numbered street addresses can take part in outdoor water use on Sundays and Thursdays between 7 p.m. CT and 5 a.m. CT, according to Houston Public Works.
Single-family residential customers with odd-numbered street addresses are restricted to Saturdays and Wednesdays for outdoor water use between the same times. All other customers are limited to Tuesdays and Fridays, according to officials.
“Houston Public Works asks the public to please do your part in helping us reduce citywide water use,” Houston Public Works Director Carol Haddock said in a statement. “Our goal is to reduce water usage from all customers by 10%. Our crews are working diligently in conjunction with area contractors to repair water leaks across the city.”
Customers who violate the city drought contingency plan could be fined up to $2,000 for each offense after a written warning following the first violation, Houston Public Works said.
Houston is one of many U.S. cities that have experienced record-breaking heat this summer.
Temperatures in the city reached 110 degrees on Sunday, with a heat index — or feel-like temperature – of 115 degrees, according to Houston ABC station KTRK.
Houston is forecast to remain in triple digits on Monday, according to meteorologists.
“It’s going to be hot for a minute, and so we have to manage this crisis,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said about the heat at a city council meeting on Wednesday, according to KTRK.
“We’re just having to manage this situation as we move forward,” Turner said of the then-anticipated stage two plan.
Regarding broken pipes in Houston’s water infrastructure, Turner said, “We need additional contractors to deal with water main leaks,” according to KTRK.
Houston is asking residents to check and repair water leaks, check sprinkler heads to ensure that water is not being sprayed into the street or storm drains, take shorter showers and run dishwashers and washing machines when full, according to Houston Public Works.
Houston entered the first stage of the contingency plan in June 2022.
(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Idalia is forecast to become a hurricane on Tuesday as it continues to churn off the eastern coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
Idalia has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and is moving northeast at 3 mph as of Sunday, according to meteorologists. The center of the storm is located about 95 miles from Cozumel, Mexico.
The tropical storm brought heavy rain to portions of the Yucatan Peninsula and western Cuba on Sunday afternoon.
Hurricane and storm surge watches for parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast were issued on Sunday by the National Hurricane Center.
Idalia is currently over the northwestern Caribbean Sea and will not move much over the next 12 to 24 hours. However, on Monday, the storm will begin to make a more pronounced move northward, picking up forward speed as it moves into the eastern Gulf of Mexico Monday night into Tuesday, according to weather experts.
The storm will gradually grow in strength over the next 24 to 48 hours, meteorologists said.
The current forecast calls for Idalia to make landfall sometime Wednesday morning as a Category 2 hurricane. However, some impacts will likely begin later Tuesday in some areas as the storm closes in.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 33 counties along the Gulf Coast on Saturday in response to Tropical Storm Idalia.
Leaving almost half of the state under a state of emergency, DeSantis said in a statement he “signed an Executive Order issuing a state of emergency out of an abundance of caution.”
Rapid weakening will likely begin just after landfall. However, threats of heavy rain and flash flooding will not lessen as the storm sweeps across northern Florida and up along the Southeast coast, from Georgia into the Carolinas toward the end of the week, according to meteorologists.
Widespread heavy rain is now likely for portions of the eastern Gulf Coast and Southeast, but the heaviest rainfall will be determined by the track Idalia takes as it makes landfall, according to meteorologists.
Major flash flooding is an increasing concern where the heaviest rainfall ends up happening, experts said.
Meteorologists are forecasting the biggest rain totals, about 4 to 6 inches, to happen across parts of the Florida Panhandle, northern Florida, southern Georgia and across the eastern Carolinas.
Isolated rain totals of over half a foot could occur in spots. Elsewhere, a large swath of 2 to 4 inches of rain is possible across the western Florida Peninsula and up across much of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
Rain totals could change as the main impacts from Idalia are a few days away, experts said.
In addition to Idalia, Hurricane Franklin is moving across the western Atlantic and could impact Bermuda in the coming days.
Franklin is now a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph and is moving to the NNW at 8 mph. The center of the storm is about 565 miles SSW of Bermuda.
Franklin will continue to strengthen over the next few days, likely reaching major hurricane strength later Sunday and could potentially strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane on Monday, according to experts.
The storm is not expected to directly impact the U.S.
(JACKSONVILLE, Fla.) — The suspected gunman alleged to have fatally shot three Black people and wounded a dozen others in a “racially motivated” rampage at a Jacksonville, Florida, store, was identified by officials Sunday as a 21-year-old white man who left behind a last will and testament and “the writings of a madman” full of hate.
The suspect, identified as Ryan Christopher Palmeter, died by apparent suicide after unleashing a barrage of gunfire with an AR-15-style weapon he purchased legally and used to kill Black shoppers at a Dollar General store on Saturday afternoon, Jacksonville County Sheriff T.K. Waters said at a news conference Sunday afternoon.
Waters said the massacre was captured on store surveillance camera. The sheriff’s office played a brief clip from the security footage showing the man he identified as Palmeter shooting at a Black Kia 11 times outside the store, killing his first victim, identified as Angela Michelle Carr, 52, before storming through the front sliding glass doors and gunning down victims at random.
The sheriff identified the other victims killed in the shooting as 19-year-old Anolt Joseph “AJ” Laguerre Jr. and 29-year-old Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion.
“It was clear his crimes were motivated by wanting to shoot Black people,” Waters said.
The alleged assailant’s writings were discovered in physical form “on his person,” sources told ABC News. Investigators have not found a substantial social media footprint left by the suspect, but are continuing to search, according to the sources. Investigators also searched the suspect’s home in a Jacksonville suburb, officials said.
Waters described the suspect’s written screeds seized in the investigation as “the writings of a madman,” with paragraph after paragraph full of offensive and hateful language, including racial slurs.
Waters the shooting at the Dollar General in the predominantly Black New Town neighborhood northwest of downtown Jacksonville occurred after the suspect was confronted at Edwards Waters University, a historically Black Christian college on the west side of Jacksonville, and was asked to leave.
He alleged the suspect then put on a bulletproof vest and a mask, drove across town to the Dollar General on Kings Road and opened fire on Black shoppers with a semiautomatic rifle which appeared to have swastikas on it.
“I think he was looking for the first place he could stop that was occupied to commit this horrific act,” Waters said on GMA.
The assailant, according to investigators, lived with his parents in Clay County, southwest of Jacksonville.
The shooting erupted at 1:53 p.m. on Saturday, about 35 minutes after the suspect sent a text message to his father, telling him to look at his computer, the sheriff said at a news conference on Saturday. Waters said the suspect’s family called the Clay County Sheriff’s Office just as the shooting was occurring.
“By that time, he had already began shooting in Jacksonville,” Waters said on Saturday.
The shooting happened five years to the day when a 24-year-old gunman killed two people and wounded 12 others at a 2018 Madden 19 e-games tournament in Jacksonville.
The suspect in Saturday’s shooting referenced the e-games tournament attack in his writings, Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan told reporters on Saturday.
“Yesterday in Jacksonville, Florida, three people were killed in a horrific act of hate. In the wake of the mass shooting, FBI and ATF agents responded to the scene and are continuing to work closely with local law enforcement on the ground,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Sunday. “The Justice Department is investigating this attack as a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism. The entire Justice Department extends its deepest condolences to the loved ones of the victims and to the Jacksonville community as they mourn an unimaginable loss.”
The FBI confirmed on Saturday that it is assisting in the investigation of Saturday’s attack.
In March, the FBI released data showing that hate crimes in the United States spiked by 35% in 2021. The bureau recorded a total of 10,840 hate crime incidents in 2021, up from 8,052 in 2020.
On May 14, 2022, a self-professed 18-year-old white supremacist wearing body arming and wielding an AR-15 style weapon fatally shot 10 Black people at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and wounded three others. The gunman, Payton Gendron, pleaded guilty to 15 state charges in all, including domestic terrorism motivated by hate, murder and attempted murder. He was sentenced in February to life in prison without the possibility of parole and could still face the death penalty in a federal case against him.
During his sentencing hearing, Gendron claimed he was brainwashed by white supremacist propaganda he consumed on the internet, saying in court, “I believed what I read online and acted out of hate, and now I can’t take it back.”
White supremacist propaganda, including the mass distribution of flyers containing hateful language and images, projections on buildings and in-person gatherings, reached a record high in the United States in 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The organization’s yearly assessment of propaganda activity found 6,751 incidents in 2022, the highest number since the ADL began tracking such incidents in 2017. This total includes racist, antisemitic, or anti-LGBTQ content and efforts.
The count represented a 38% increase over the previous year, according to the ADL.
Saturday’s shooting occurred as the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, a prominent moment in the Civil Rights Movement, was being marked in Washington, D.C. The Rev. Al Sharpton, a national civil rights leader, condemned the shooting in a statement Sunday, saying the suspect “decided to open fire at a Dollar General while we were marching against hate in Washington.”
“Nineteen buses came here from Florida … including one from Jacksonville, and while these Floridians were still on the road there was a killing in their home state,” said Shapton, adding he will address the shooting in a sermon he is scheduled to give at Howard University in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. “I am reminded of the Birmingham bombing, which came just a few weeks after the 1963 March on Washington.”
ABC News Meredith Deliso and Victoria Arancio contributed to this report.
(COLUMBIA, S.C.) — A 20-year-old University of South Carolina student was fatally shot Saturday when he accidentally tried to enter the wrong house on the street where he lived and was mistaken for a burglar, according to police.
The student was identified as Nicholas Anthony Donofrio, according to the Richland County, South Carolina, Coroner’s Office. Donofrio was from Connecticut and had just started his sophomore year last week at the university, school officials said.
Donofrio was shot to death early Saturday at a home several blocks from the University of South Carolina in southeast Columbia, the state capital, according to a statement from the Columbia Police Department.
The shooting unfolded just before 2 a.m. on the street where Donofrio lived, police said.
“Preliminary information indicates that Donofrio who resided on South Holly Street attempted to enter the wrong home when he was fatally shot,” according to the police statement.
Prior to the shooting, police were sent to the home to investigate a report of a burglary in progress, according to the statement.
“While en route, the emergency call for service was upgraded to a shots fired call,” police said in the statement.
When officers arrived at the home, they found Donofrio dead on the front porch with a gunshot wound to his upper body, according to police.
The shooting remains under investigation. Police did not release the name of the person who shot Donofrio.
Investigators are consulting with the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office in Columbia regarding the circumstances of the case, according to the statement.
Classes for the fall semester at the University of South Carolina began on Thursday.
“Our Student Affairs team is providing resources and support to those who may be affected by this tragedy, and we remind all of our students that help is always available to them,” officials of the university said in a statement.
The shooting comes about four months after a similar shooting in Kansas City, Missouri. Ralph Yarl, 17, was shot in the head and arm on the evening of April 13 when he went to the wrong house to pick up his siblings, according to police.
Andrew Lester, the 84-year-old homeowner who shot Yarl, was arrested and charged with one count of felony assault in the first degree and one count of armed criminal action, also a felony. Lester pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on April 18 on a $200,000 bond.
According to a probable cause statement obtained by ABC News, Lester told police that he “believed someone was attempting to break into the house” and grabbed a gun before going to the door because he was scared. Lester, who is white, claimed that he saw a “Black male approximately 6 feet tall” pulling on the door handle and “shot twice within a few seconds of opening the door.”
(CHOCTAW, Okla.) — A teenager was killed and several people were injured after gunfire erupted at a high school football game in Oklahoma Friday night, police said.
The shooting occurred at Choctaw High School during the third quarter of the school’s game against Del City High School, police said.
Police believe an argument between at least two men that broke out on the visitor’s side of the stadium led to the shooting, according to Choctaw Police Chief Kelly Marshall.
A 16-year-old boy was shot in the groin area and later died from his injuries, police said Saturday. The teen, who has not yet been publicly identified, was not a student at either school, police said.
Two other people sustained gunshot wounds in the shooting and were transported to a local hospital. A 42-year-old man who was shot in the chest is believed to be in stable condition in the intensive care unit following surgery, Marshall said. A young woman who was shot in the thigh has since been treated and released, police said.
Two female victims who are believed to be students were injured while attempting to flee the shooting, sustaining broken wrists and a broken leg, police said.
Two guns and eight rounds were recovered at the scene, police said.
A person of interest is still on the loose, according to police. The Uvalde Foundation for Kids has offered a financial reward for information leading to an arrest.
“In a stadium filled with spectators and students, someone knows something. Do the right thing & say something,” Uvalde Foundation for Kids national director Daniel Chapin said in a statement.
A Del City officer working security at the game also discharged his firearm at the scene, Del City Police Chief Loyd Berger said. The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the discharge.
Skordle.TV’s live coverage of the game captured the moments when shots were fired. The video shows players running off the field to the initial bewilderment of the announcers, before one of them says, “Oh, we’ve got people shooting.”
Chief Marshall said she will be meeting with school officials on Saturday to “provide counseling as well as discuss further safety measures for our students and spectators.”
“We are determined to solve this senseless act and restore a sense of safety to our community,” Marshall said.
(LAKE CITY, Fla) — A 12-year-old girl died this week after shots were fired into her Florida home.
Police in Lake City, Florida, said officers found the girl suffering from a gunshot wound on Thursday night.
EMS and officers administered first aid but the girl died from her injuries. Police said she was sitting on a couch inside the home when shots were fired.
Video from ABC Jacksonville affiliate WJXX-TV showed where bullet holes had pierced the home.
Police have not announced any arrests in connection to the shooting and have asked the public for any information on a suspect.
“The loss of a young life is an indescribable pain that affects not only the immediate family but also the entire school community,” Columbia County Schools said in a statement Friday following the shooting.
Counseling services will be made available to students “to provide guidance and emotional support to those affected by this heartbreaking loss. We will continue to provide updates and resources to the school community as we work through this tragedy together,” the school district added.
News of this latest shooting underscores how gun violence continues to impact children and families across the country.
More than 4,000 children and teenagers have been shot this year, according to data published by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA). At least 6,170 children and teenagers were shot in 2022, according to GVA.
Separately, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis this week found that gun-related deaths were again the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in 2021, surpassing motor vehicles, drug overdoses and cancer.
“In the operating room and across our communities, we continue to see an increase in gun violence among children,” said Dr. Chethan Sathya, a pediatric trauma surgeon at Northwell Health in New York.
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — Attorneys for Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of killing four University of Idaho college students last fall, have asked the judge to nix cameras in the courtroom “for the remainder of the proceedings.”
In a new court filing released Friday, the defense says the “camera-[wielding] courtroom observers have failed to obey” an earlier directive not to focus “exclusively” on their client, pointing to photos that they said were a “blatant violation,” and to headlines they called “blatantly sensationalistic and prejudicial.”
That, the defense said, necessitates the “expulsion of cameras from future proceedings.”
The defense stated cameras’ “continued exclusive focus” on Kohberger also provides “fodder” for those on social media “who are not bound by notions of journalistic integrity and who have potentially an even greater reach than traditional media outlets.”
“Considering this is a capital case it is not surprising defense counsel seeks to insulate the defendant as much as possible,” David Calviello, a former New Jersey prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney, said. “In order to improve the clients chances of success in a capital case it’s imperative that they get a jury that knows little to nothing about the case. It doesn’t help to have unflattering images of the defendant’s face emblazoned in their memory.”
Arguing that rampant coverage could prejudice a potential jury pool, Kohberger’s lawyers said that that risk is “wherever they go, viewable on their smartphones and constantly updated by thousands of unchecked sources.”
“Far from constituting an undue and over restrictive burden on the press’ right of free speech,” Kohbeger’s lawyers said, “Mr. Kohberger is entitled to defend himself against capital criminal charges without cameras focused on his fly.”
The judge has not yet weighed in on their request.
Kohberger’s push to banish cameras from court comes as the one-time doctoral candidate, now facing capital murder charges, has also just moved to dismiss the indictment against him for the second time, arguing in a separate court filing that prosecutors used “inadmissible evidence” in presenting their case to the grand jury, that they lacked sufficient evidence, and have withheld evidence that might aid Kohberger in defending himself in the capital murder case he faces.
A memo with further details has been filed under seal, but in their filing Kohberger’s lawyers have cited select Idaho statutes that they say the prosecution violated during the Grand Jury process. One state rule of evidence they specifically point to says evidence must be proven authentic to back up the case – whether it’s witness testimony, “distinctive characteristics of the item, taken together with all the circumstances,” or an “opinion identifying a person’s voice,” the rule says.
Their public filing does not delve into the specifics of what Kohberger’s team alleges, but police have insisted that a critical eyewitness account on the night of the murders links Kohberger to the scene.
Prosecutors allege that in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, Kohberger, a criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University, broke into an off-campus home and stabbed to death four University of Idaho students: Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.
Around the time the killings allegedly occurred, authorities say one of the surviving roommates in the home heard “what she thought was crying coming from Kernodle’s room,” and “heard a male voice say something to the effect of ‘it’s ok, I’m going to help you.'”
Opening her door, the roommate “saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her,” a figure she described “as 5’10” or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows,” according to the affidavit.
Authorities said Kohberger’s driver’s license information and photograph “indicates that Kohberger is a white male with a height of 6′ and weighs 185 pounds. Additionally, the photograph of Kohberger shows that he has bushy eyebrows,” which they said was “consistent with the description of the male” which the surviving roommate “saw inside the King Road Residence” on the night of the killings.
After a six-week hunt last winter, police zeroed in on Kohberger as a suspect, saying they tracked his white Hyundai Elantra and cell phone signal data, and recovered what authorities said was his DNA on a knife sheath found next to one of the victims’ bodies. He was arrested on Dec. 30 and indicted in May, and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. At his arraignment, he declined to offer a plea, so the judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.
If convicted, Kohberger could face the death penalty.
Though the trial was initially set for Oct. 2, on Wednesday, Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial, postponing the trial indefinitely.
Calviello said with their latest motion to dismiss Kohberger’s team is attempting to poke holes in the case against their client, citing “foundational rules that form the threshold for a legitimate claim” as they try to show the case “fails to be sufficient.”
“Whether or not they’ll succeed in this motion remains to be seen, and without knowing the details we’re left to speculate – but it tells us they may be upping the ante, especially now that they have more time to do so,” Calviello told ABC News.
One of the rules cited in Kohberger’s latest attempt to dismiss the indictment notes that “evidence about a process or system” should show that it “produces an accurate result.”
Kohberger’s defense has repeatedly pushed for prosecutors to disclose more information about the investigative genetic genealogy which eventually helped law enforcement link him to the crime scene.
The prosecution’s assertion that Kohberger’s DNA was found on the button snap of that knife sheath is a critical linchpin of their larger circumstantial case – while Kohberger’s defense has attempted to cast doubt on the strength of investigators’ DNA evidence, and whether it pointed irrefutably to just their client.
Kohberger’s defense has alleged that his DNA could have been put on the Ka-bar knife sheath by someone other than him — for instance, during the investigation which spanned “hundreds of members of law enforcement and at least one lab,” they suggested in a June court filing.
This is not Kohberger’s first attempt at tossing out the indictment. In late July, they asked that the indictment be dismissed, arguing that the indictment is flawed because the grand jury was “misled as to the standard of proof required.” That motion is still pending.
Responding to Kohberger’s second push to dismiss in a filing released Friday, prosecutors leading the case against him asked for more time to respond, pointing to the more than 100-page supporting argument Kohberger’s team included in their motion, including “detailed factual and evidentiary issues” which the prosecution team say required review of the grand jury transcript and “complex scientific representations and disputes.”
The prosecution asked to address both his attempts to dismiss the charges against him in one hearing in late September, a request to which Kohberger’s attorney agreed.
The judge has yet to weigh in on that motion, as well.
(NEW YORK) — Evacuation orders have been lifted in a Louisiana town following a chemical leak and fire at a refinery, officials said.
Crews responded Friday to a release of naphtha — a flammable liquid that can be used as fuel — and a fire at a storage tank at Marathon Petroleum’s refinery in Garyville, about 40 miles west of New Orleans, the company said.
“The release and fire are contained within the refinery’s property and there have been no injuries,” Marathon Petroleum said in a statement. One firefighter is being evaluated for heat stress, Marathon Petroleum later noted.
Precautionary evacuations were mandated for all residents in a two-mile radius after the fire started, according to St. John the Baptist Parish officials.
Some area schools were evacuated while others were ordered to shelter in place.
The fire was still burning Friday afternoon but under control, parish officials said.
Marathon Petroleum said “the facility began a shutdown process of units closest to the fire this morning,” adding that “facility operations will continue to be evaluated, with safety as our top priority.”
The cause of the incident will be investigated, parish officials said.
