(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Lee is increasing in strength, becoming a Category 3 hurricane on Sunday as it churned over the Atlantic Ocean with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph.
The hurricane is currently moving to the northwest at 8 mph, with its center located about 285 miles north, northeast of the Leeward Islands.
Lee had strengthened on Thursday to a Category 4 hurricane, and finally to a Category 5 by 11 p.m. ET before weakening to a Category 2 storm late Saturday night.
Lee weakened slightly on Friday due to less favorable atmospheric conditions where the storm is churning, including wind shear and dry air, which are expected to persist for at least another 12 to 24 hours.
On Saturday night, Lee was no longer a major hurricane but had been forecast to gradually strengthen on Sunday, potentially briefly reaching Category 4 strength on Monday before it weakens again into the middle of next week.
Lee will bypass the northern Caribbean islands, sparing Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The only impact on the islands will be large waves and life-threatening rip currents this weekend.
Long-range models can change over the next week, but they currently show Lee moving parallel to the East Coast. If Lee stays on that course, the East Coast would also be hit with rough surf and life-threatening rip currents throughout the upcoming week.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has pre-deployed assets to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, according to the White House.
President Joe Biden was briefed Thursday on the latest trajectory and FEMA’s preparations, the White House said.
(MAUI, Hawaii) — A month after wildfires destroyed parts of Maui, killing at least 115 people and displacing thousands of others, Mayor Richard Bissen said there is still a long road ahead for residents but was confident their solidarity would move them forward.
Bissen spoke with ABC News about the latest recovery updates for the island and remarked how residents have worked to assist those who were most affected by the wildfires.
“What we’re seeing in our community is overwhelming support,” he said. “As devastating as this has been, people are changing their priorities.”
As of Friday, the mayor said that roughly 6,000 people are living in 29 hotels and hundreds more are living in short-term housing. The plan is to get more people into those short-term housing.
“[We’ll] get them out of hotel rooms, [and] get them into places where they can have a washer and dryer kitchen. So I know that’s the plan for the 18-month-period,” the mayor said.
Bissen dismissed criticism from some residents who have complained that they are not being assisted as they navigate the situation. The mayor acknowledged that some people will have their frustrations and concerns but he said that he and other officials are listening.
“I want to meet with our folks and hear from them,” he said.
Bissen added that he’s encouraging residents to talk more with their neighbors and other people in the community and not stick with social media for information.
“We’re stronger together. We know what we want. This is our island, our community, and we’re going to decide on that and not have other influences tell us how we should or need to be,” he said.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green told reporters Friday that the number of people missing since the fire was 66. Green also said that travel restrictions to West Maui would be lifted on Oct. 8, a week earlier than the original plan.
The mayor said that tourism is still an important part of the island’s economy and said visitors should still come to Hawaii and explore the parts of Maui that are not off limits.
“I think that we know that people need jobs. We know people need income,” he said.
Bissen reiterated that he and other leaders will be there for the residents for as long as it takes and he is proud of the strength they have shown so far.
“I think our entire community is resilient. Our entire community from young to old. I think a lot of that is a reflection of who they’re around,” he said.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — More than a decade since the launch of dating apps, they have become unavoidable players in the modern dating game.
In the U.S., 3 in 10 adults say they have used a dating site or app, and 1 in 10 partnered adults say they met their current significant other through a dating site or app, according to a 2022 Pew Research survey.
But some millennials are ditching dating app culture in favor of returning to what is known in internet speak as IRL, or “in real life.”
To get a clearer picture of what today’s singles are up against, ABC News’ Alex Perez sat down with four single people – CeeJaye, Alex, Kara and JT. The discussion participants asked not to use their last names because of privacy concerns.
“I’m in that generation of, I was born before the internet. I remember meeting someone off of an app or a chat room. You know, just any kind of online meeting was very, very risky and scary. So there’s certain things that I just pretty much prefer to do, you know, the in real life thing,” CeeJaye, 38, said.
Alex, who is queer, believes apps have a place for niche communities – including LGBTQ people who live in rural or religious communities.
“I came from a small town where it’s not the safest to be like going up to strangers and be like, ‘You’re hot, let’s go out,'” Alex, 30, said.
Kara, 34, says she entered the dating sphere when she was 27 after being in a relationship for the majority of her 20s.
“The apps was what everyone was on, so I was like, “OK, that’s what I got to do,'” Kara said.
While dating apps appear to offer a seemingly endless supply of potential dates, questions remain about their ability to spark long-term meaningful relationships over hookups and casual encounters.
“I did have someone who, you know, just pretty much thought because the first meeting was out to dinner and drinks that automatically greenlit them to, you know, be extremely flirtatious at a point where they were saying sexual things to me. And I mean, the minute that I was in my car, it was like, ‘block, delete,'” CeeJaye said.
Kara added, “Just like the normal – people coming right out of the gate after you match with them being really hypersexual, and it’s just like, oh yeah, no, absolutely not.”
“We’re at a place of burnout,” Alex said.
Dr. Jack Turban, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavior sciences at The University of California San Francisco, says many of the common concerns about dating apps are backed by research.
“The incentive for these apps are just for people to be on them a lot. So they’re not necessarily having their incentives align with people having better mental health, performing long-term, deep relationships,” Turban said.
Turban also points to the potential negative effects on users’ mental health.
“In the realm of behavioral addictions, we often think about slot machines as the classic example. And the reason slot machines are so addictive is that the rewards have come at unpredictable intervals. Some people have compared dating apps or hookup apps to that exact same thing,” Turban said.
“But the reinforcing thing you’re getting is either affirmation or orgasm or some sort of sex excitement. And we know that those stimuli are really, really rewarding. So it’s not surprising that sometimes people get really, really hooked on the apps,” Turban said.
Yet some singles are taking bold steps and swapping their swiping in favor of meeting in real life.
Katie Conway, founder of Chicago-based speed dating group “Hot Potato Hearts,” says the idea to start the group was born out of her own dissatisfaction with dating apps.
“They’re very disconnected. All you’re doing is like looking at people’s pictures and judging them, and that was not what I was looking for. I was like looking to just like, talk and connect with people,” Conway said.
Conway says her speed dating events seek to create a safe and inclusive community – one that’s not necessarily just for meeting significant others.
“Maybe I will meet someone to go on dates with, or maybe I’ll join a book club or learn about a new podcast or something. It’ll just be an intentional night of connecting with different people without any expectations of where it will go,” Conway said.
“Technology is great. It’s awesome. It’s super helpful in many ways, but it can never replace just like a one-on-one with somebody,” Conway said.
(NEW YORK) — Artists and environmentalists are one and the same at a New York theater company, that has made it its mission to put sustainability at the forefront of its operations.
The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, a nonprofit theater company nestled in the sprawling hills just north of Manhattan, has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2040, meaning its performances will carry no net release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Sandra Goldmark, director for campus sustainability and climate action at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, told ABC News.
The primary way the theater company plans on achieving this feat is by altering how the building is powered — employing solar panels, natural convection heating, stormwater reuse, as well as providing EV charging stations, Davis McCallum, artistic director of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, told ABC News.
Deep thought has also been given to the way the theater company will reuse garbage and food scraps around its 98-acre campus, McCallum said.
The site of the festival itself was once a golf course that was then donated to the nonprofit by a local philanthropist. The theater company is now allowing the land to rewild and “heal,” Goldmark said, describing the process as a “beautiful mini play” about what needs to happen elsewhere in the country.
“We’ve really abused the land in ways, much like we do on golf courses,” she said. “And so it’s exciting to watch a group of artists and storytellers reclaim a very small piece of it.”
Sustainability goes beyond the infrastructure of the festival, though. The theater company is adamant on implementing the idea of a circular economy, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible.
Designing wardrobes that are made to last and pass onto new actors in the future is one of the basic ways the nonprofit is applying circularity to its operations.
The idea of sustainability is rooted in the arts — an industry that is constantly recycling, repurposing and reusing old ideas for a modern audience. A sustainable venue is the natural progression of the sustainability already rooted in theater culture and allows the participants to come together as a community to build a greener culture, Goldmark said.
“I mean, we’ve been producing Shakespeare’s plays for hundreds of years, and every time, or hopefully every time, they feel new,” Goldmark said. “And I think that idea is really important as we think about sustainability going forward.”
The theater is embarking on its lofty sustainability goal due to the looming threat of climate change, McCallum said.
“None of us are going to be spared the impacts,” he said. “If we want to make a difference in this shared future, then we all have to come together to embrace the call to climate action.”
The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival will run through Sept. 17.
(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Lee is churning over the Atlantic Ocean as a powerful Category 4 hurricane with winds of 155 mph, just below the strength of a Category 5, which begins at 157 mph winds.
On Thursday, Lee strengthened from a Category 2 hurricane to a Category 4, and finally to a Category 5 by 11 p.m. ET.
Lee will remain a powerful, major hurricane through the weekend.
Lee will bypass the northern Caribbean islands, sparing Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The only impact on the islands will be 10-foot waves and life-threatening rip currents this weekend.
Hurricane Lee will slow down Sunday and early next week, allowing 10-foot waves to reach the Southeast U.S. mainland.
By Thursday, Lee will be near Bermuda, bringing waves up to 20 or 30 feet.
By Friday, as Lee passes east of the Northeast U.S. coast, waves reaching 10 to 20 feet will be possible along the coasts of New Jersey, Long Island and New England.
It is too early to predict Lee’s path, but the latest models show Lee possibly making landfall near the Canada and U.S. border next Friday night into Saturday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has pre-deployed assets to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, according to the White House.
President Joe Biden was briefed Thursday on the latest trajectory and FEMA’s preparations, the White House said.
(NEW YORK) — The Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a man sitting in his car last month surrendered to authorities Friday morning on murder charges.
Mark Dial, the officer accused of fatally shooting Eddie Irizarry Jr. on Aug. 14, was also charged with voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment of another person and official oppression, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said during a press conference where he showed unedited body camera video from the incident.
“These videos speak for themselves,” Krasner said.
Originally, police had said that Irizarry was outside the car and was killed after lunging at police with a knife, but two days later the department acknowledged that he was shot while inside his car. Irizarry’s family released security camera footage that showed him fatally shot by police in his car just seconds after Dial exited his cruiser.
The district attorney’s office showed footage from the body-worn cameras of Dial and a second officer who was at the scene. Irizarry’s family and their counsel had previously seen the videos and requested that they be played in their entirety, he said.
Krasner warned that the footage “will in some ways be traumatic.”
The footage shows Dial getting out of his cruiser and approaching Irizarry’s car with his gun drawn. “I will f—— shoot you,” he says, before firing into the front driver’s seat where Irizarry was seated. Prior to shots being fired, an officer can be heard yelling at Irizarry to show his hands.
Dial fired six shots “at close range,” Krasner said. The DA was unable to answer how many times Irizarry was struck, pending a final autopsy report.
Dial can also be seen pulling a bloodied Irizarry out of the car and then, with the second officer at the scene, carrying him to their police cruiser. The second officer can be heard radioing that they are “scooping” a man to bring to a hospital.
The second officer has not been charged in the incident and his name is not being released at this time, Krasner said.
Bail has not been set yet, Krasner said. A preliminary hearing is expected to happen Friday, he said.
“To charge officer Mark Dial with murder is abhorrent,” Brian McMonagle, one of Dial’s attorneys, told reporters following the surrender Friday morning. “The undisputed facts of the case are that an individual made an illegal turn right in front of police officers, took off at a high rate of speed, and then tried to evade officers by going down a one-way street the wrong way, tried to hide from them.”
“And when police officers ordered him to show his hands, he instead produced a weapon and pointed it at an armed police officer,” he continued.
Dial has already been suspended for 30 days and the city’s police commissioner said she intended to fire the officer at the end of the suspension.
Then-Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, who has since left the department, said on Aug. 23 that an administrative investigation found Dial violated department rules against “insubordination” by allegedly refusing to obey “proper orders from a superior officer.” She said the administrative investigation also accuses Dial of “conduct unbecoming” an officer for “failure to cooperate in any departmental investigation.”
The Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing Philadelphia police officers, said last month it was standing by Dial.
“Officer Dial has the full support of the Fraternal Order of Police and we continue to review the facts and circumstances surrounding this tragic incident,” Dial’s lawyer, Fortunato N. Perri, Jr., said in a statement last month to ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Lee, now a powerful Category 4 hurricane, is one of only a handful of hurricanes in the Atlantic basin during the satellite era to intensify by 85 mph or more within a 24-hour period.
The storm intensified more than twice the National Hurricane Center’s definition of rapid intensification. Rapid intensification is defined as a storm increasing in wind speed by 35 mph or more in 24 hours.
At 5 a.m. ET on Thursday, Lee was a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph. Twenty-four hours later, Lee had strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane with whopping 165 mph winds.
Other notable storms to achieve this include Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and the record Hurricane Wilma in 2005. In just 24 hours Wilma increased from 75 mph winds (a Category 1 hurricane) to 185 mph winds (a Category 5 hurricane).
Last week, Hurricane Idalia rapidly strengthened from 75 mph winds on Tuesday morning to 130 mph winds by Wednesday morning.
Warm water is a major reason for Lee’s rapid intensification; Lee is in waters that are 3 to 4 degrees above average.
Lack of wind shear in the atmosphere and Lee churning over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean are other important variables.
Water temperatures in the Atlantic are influenced by a number of factors, including the overall weather pattern, and human-amplified climate change due to increased greenhouse gas emissions.
Lee weakened slightly to a Category 4 storm by Friday midday.
The storm is expected to move north of the Caribbean islands over the weekend and early next week, sparing them any direct impacts. However, rough surf and life-threatening rip currents are a growing concern for many islands in the region.
Long-range models can change over the next week, but they currently show Lee moving parallel to the eastern United States coastline. If Lee stays on that course, the East Coast would also be hit with rough surf and life-threatening rip currents throughout the upcoming week.
ABC News’ Ginger Zee and Dan Manzo contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — In a normal year, the young students at Lahaina’s King Kamehameha III Elementary School would be entering their second month of classes.
Now, all that’s left is a gray hazmat zone filled with the sorrow of what has been lost.
The school, which served around 650 preschool to fifth-graders in the historic West Maui town, burnt down in the wildfires that ravaged the community last month, killing at least 115 people and displacing thousands more.
For Lahaina’s youngest residents – its “keiki” – the fire has completely uprooted their daily routines. They are processing the disaster while dealing with destroyed homes, missing family members and classmates among the deceased.
Myles Verrastro, 6, was about to start his first-grade year at King Kamehameha III, but now his school, along with his home, lie in ashes. Myles and his mom Sarah are sheltered in a hotel just outside of Lahaina.
“I don’t know where we’re going after this. My mom might not find a place after this. We only get a month here,” Myles told ABC News.
Sarah Verrastro managed to get Myles into a new technical school through a lottery, although the makeshift school has not yet been set up.
“They need resources. They need staff,” Verrastro told ABC News. “They need a larger location eventually, if they’re going to accommodate kids that are displaced from the local school. A lot of us don’t know long-term and nor can we even really think long-term. We’re thinking short-term.”
Myles is one of the lucky children of Lahaina, as thousands of students are still without a school.
Only 1,652 of the 3,000 children from Lahaina have been enrolled in other public schools or distance learning on the island, according to the Hawaii Department of Education.
Ruben Brillantes and his large extended family are all still living in a two-bedroom space far from home just to be near the children’s new schools. There are 27 people who live there, with only one bathroom, Brillantes said.
On weekends, the family travels to the Royal Lahaina resort and two other hotels in West Maui. Brillantes says his 7-year-old nephew Kurt is struggling with being away from home.
“I want everything to be the same in Lahaina, and I miss my school. Or I just miss my friends, that’s all,” Kurt told ABC News.
An emotional Brillantes says there were nine or 10 kids from the neighborhood who used to play on their street every afternoon.
“They can’t do that anymore,” Brillantes said.
On his days off, Brillantes drops off the children at three different schools across the island.
“I’ve got to be tough because if I’m going to be weak, then my kids is going to be weak, too. So yeah, I don’t know. Just be strong every day, all day, every day,” Brillantes said.
Three of the four schools damaged in the Lahaina fire may reopen in mid-October, pending environmental tests.
For Brillantes, schools opening back up raises new concerns about what’s to come.
“When schools open up, I don’t know what’s going to happen because we might get kicked out at my working place. They’re still only allowing us to stay over there until October 31, I think. After that, we don’t know what’s going to happen to us,” Brillantes said.
For now, more than 100 of the displaced students are attending Sacred Hearts, one of the few Lahaina schools that is open. After two of its three buildings were destroyed by the fire, principal Tonata Lolesio created a makeshift school in a church just north of Lahaina.
More than half of Lolesio’s 220 students are new to Sacred Hearts after their public schools were damaged in the fire, with 180 more on the waiting list.
Lolesio’s goal is to provide stable learning for the keiki – now the last generation of what was once Lahaina.
“They lost their first home, we had to restore their second home, and because they are the future and our hope for our rebuilding and healing, this is the best we could do for now until we secure a new school here,” Lolesio said.
Dean Wong, head of Imua Family Services, explains the magnitude of this tragedy on children, not just in Lahaina, but all of Maui.
“This is absolutely a trauma. I’m traumatized. You know, something that was here that was a part of our life doesn’t exist anymore. And it’s just gone. It’s demolished, devastated,” Wong said. “And the pictures of everything – that is also traumatizing. And all of us want to process that differently. Each of us, you and I, as individuals, process trauma and grief, loss, things differently. And that’s true with children as well.”
For the keiki all around the island, going back to school has no precedent or timeline. The process has been slow, but families who spoke to ABC News say they’ve already been through the worst.
Back at Sacred Hearts, Lolesio stresses how important children are to the future of the island and its cultures.
“They know the stories of Lahaina before it burnt down. They know our history, our traditions, and our legacies,” she said.
ABC News’ Stephanie Wash and Emily Lippiello contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a man sitting in his car last month surrendered to authorities Friday morning.
It is not clear what charges Mark Dial, the officer accused of fatally shooting Eddie Irizarry Jr. on Aug. 14, faces from the incident. District Attorney Larry Krasner will hold a press conference at 11:30 a.m. to release unedited body camera video from the incident and discuss the charges against Dial.
Originally, police had said that Irizarry was outside the car and was killed after lunging at police with a knife, but two days later the department acknowledged that he was shot while inside his car. Irizarry’s family released security camera footage that showed him fatally shot by police in his car just seconds after Dial exited his cruiser.
Dial has already been suspended for 30 days and the city’s police commissioner said she intended to fire the officer at the end of the suspension.
Then-Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, who has since left the department, said on Aug. 23 that an administrative investigation found Dial violated department rules against “insubordination” by allegedly refusing to obey “proper orders from a superior officer.” She said the administrative investigation also accuses Dial of “conduct unbecoming” an officer for “failure to cooperate in any departmental investigation.”
The Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing Philadelphia police officers, said last month it was standing by Dial.
“Officer Dial has the full support of the Fraternal Order of Police and we continue to review the facts and circumstances surrounding this tragic incident,” Dial’s lawyer, Fortunato N. Perri, Jr., said in a statement last month to ABC News.
ABC News’ Alex Faul contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LAHAINA, Hawaii) — Wildfires tore across parts of Maui last month and now the displaced community searches for answers about their future.
Thousands were displaced, as their homes and businesses were burned to the ground. 115 people have been pronounced dead in connection with the blazes.
The disaster area is dotted with crews dressed head to toe in hazmat suits and hard hats who are sifting through the rubble searching for hazardous materials in the first phase of the rebuilding effort to return Lahaina to what it was.
A laundry list of concerns have compounded onto a community reeling from the trauma: looking for lost loved ones, identifying those who’ve been declared dead, being uprooted from their homes, finding reliable education, and hoping for an eventual return to normalcy.
“It feels like no time has gone by since the start of the fires,” said Khara Jabola-Carolus, a volunteer with Roots Reborn Lahaina, a resource hub for immigrants impacted by the wildfires.
She continued, “It’s really surreal to be in the experience of a humanitarian crisis … when the world starts moving on, but you’re still in crisis mode. I worry that attention is flickering.”
Early phases of rebuilding begin
Some people may not return to their land any time soon, as crews from the Environmental Protection Agency go from property to property in search of dangerous chemicals and materials like propane tanks, batteries, fertilizers, and more that were left behind in damaged structures. This could go on for months, officials say.
So far, they’ve cleared more than 340 properties, which is over 15% of the properties in need of searching, according to Tom Dunkleman, EPA’s incident commander on the wildfire response.
These materials need to be cleared out before residents and property owners can return to the burn site.
A five-mile swath of Lahaina, a historic town with deep cultural significance for the Native Hawaiian community, was damaged in the wildfire on the West side of the island.
Cultural monitors have been hired to work with official crews alongside their search, “advising us of cultural and historic items that might be present on the property, so we can make sure that they’re not further disturbed by our activities,” according to Dunkleman.
Once this process is done, officials can begin phase two of the disaster cleanup, including the removal of ash and debris by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. A FEMA spokesperson told ABC News that rebuilding decisions will be led primarily by property owners following cleanup efforts.
FEMA reports that about 5,800 survivors of the tragedy are currently staying in hotels and motels funded by the organization in coordination with state partners and the American Red Cross, while the state’s Air B&B program is also housing survivors. It is also working to help survivors move beyond hotels into more long-term housing solutions in the near future.
With wildfires and their destruction wreaking havoc more frequently in recent years due in part to climate change, FEMA said it has become more well-versed in such recovery efforts, pointing to the recovery of Paradise, California in 2018 following similarly devastating fires.
Long road ahead
Summer Sylva, the senior advisor for Native Hawaiian Affairs in the U.S. Department of the Interior, has been assigned to FEMA’s Cultural Protocol Task Force to ensure that the federal response to the devastation is sensitive to the needs of the community.
Sylva, who is kanaka maoli, a Native Hawaiian with roots in Lahaina, said the destruction has highlighted the longstanding tensions between Hawaii residents and the federal government.
Especially when it comes to the land and how it’s treated, she told ABC News.
“There is a history of land and water stewardship that has marginalized Native voices and that has put development interests and commercial development at the forefront of planning and land use,” said Sylva.
Officials of all kind have signaled that following the path forward is based on the community’s lead.
“We’re not only building back but we’re going to build back a stronger and more resilient future which means we need to withstand any challenge coming our way in rebuilding the way Maui wants to rebuild,” said President Joe Biden during a press conference.
Jabola-Carolus has been working with women and immigrant groups to ensure they get the resources they need. One month into the recovery, she said their efforts have shifted from restoring lost documents and medical care to finding housing and employment as they await for financial assistance to hit their wallets.
In the long term, Jabola-Carolus expects the conversation among residents to remain “political,” as issues like land ownership, environmental injustice, worker justice, and more are highlighted by the destruction’s impact on the community.
While stewardship of the land is likely to be a part of the requests from the community, Sylva said she can’t yet say what exactly the path looks like for people in the community.
However, she said she does believe people who are “building lives and creating families and creating multi generational legacies in this place” have “a lot of investment in seeing a sustainable future.”
This means affordable housing, and “having a meaningful voice in how those lands and those waters and all of the structures that get erected from here on are done,” she said.
“Hawaii is more than a tourist destination, right?” she added.
