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(NEW YORK) — A 50-year-old woman is hospitalized in critical condition Monday after being bitten by a shark at Rockaway Beach in Queens, New York, officials said.
The woman was swimming at Beach 59th Street at around 5:50 p.m. ET when she was bitten by a shark in the left leg, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation confirmed to ABC News.
Lifeguards quickly removed the woman from the water and gave her first aid. The woman was taken in critical condition to Jamaica Hospital, the parks department said. She remains in critical condition, a hospital representative confirmed to ABC News on Monday night.
NYC Parks said in a statement that “shark bites in Rockaway are extremely rare,” adding: “We remain vigilant in monitoring the beach and always clear the water when a shark is spotted.”
Following the shark bite incident, lifeguards at Beach 59th Street cleared everyone from the water. The New York Police Department used a helicopter to survey the area, but they didn’t see any sharks, according to NYC Parks.
Authorities, including the parks department, the NYPD and the Fire Department of New York, will surveil the beach on Tuesday. Due to the surveillance, the beach will not be open until at least 11 a.m.
“We hope for a full recovery for this swimmer,” NYC Parks said.
(JUNEAU, Alaska) — Astonished scientists could not have predicted the severity of a glacial lake outburst flood that inundated a large portion of Juneau, Alaska, over the weekend.
Now, they’re worried the unprecedented event could happen again.
City officials in Juneau, Alaska, issued an emergency declaration Sunday after a glacier lake outburst flood, from the Suicide Basin on the Mendenhall Glacier, wreaked havoc in the city.
Typically, researchers at the National Weather Service expect a steady flow when a break occurs from Suicide Basin, National Weather Service Juneau hydrologist Aaron Jacobs told ABC News. However, the fast-moving waters bursted out of the basin and flowed furiously through the Mendenhall River and into the Mendenhall Lake, eroding river embankments along the way.
The sheer force of Mother Nature was on full display — and nearly difficult to fathom — as the energy from the fast-moving waters were able to decimate hillsides, homes and 100-foot trees, Jacobs said.
How rare was the flooding event from the Mendenhall Glacier
When the Federal Emergency Management Agency created flood maps for the Mendenhall Glacier, it defined a 100-year flooding event as discharge of 17,000 cubic feet per second, and a 500-year flooding event as discharge of 20,000 cubic feet per second, Jacobs said.
The flooding that occurred on Saturday night was the result of a discharge event of about 25,000 cubic feet per second, which FEMA had previously determined had less than 1% chance of occurring, Jacobs said.
“We couldn’t imagine this amount of water coming out so fast,” Jacobs said.
The Mendenhall Lake level crested at 14.97 feet on Saturday around 11:15 p.m. local time, well above the previous record of 11.99 feet in July 2016.
“We haven’t seen these levels, ever, in our lifetimes,” Jacobs said.
Scientists at the National Weather Service will now be tracking the probability of whether the severity of the most recent flooding event could happen again, and when, so they can give the public adequate warning, Jacobs said.
What led to the glacier lake outburst flood
A glacial lake outburst flood occurs when a dam containing a glacial lake breaks. But Mendenhall Glacier actually gets lifted up from pressure building within the basin. So when the glacier is great enough to lift the glacier, the water escapes the basin and flows downstream, Jacobs said.
The basin fills in the summertime from snow melt and rainfall. The Suicide Glacier, which used to feed into the Suicide Basin, still hangs over it, so the melting from that ice contributes to water levels in the basin as well, Jacobs said.
The flooding destroyed several structures along the Mendenhall River, according to the National Weather Service. Two homes have been lost and another partially damaged and washed away, Rob Barr, deputy city manager of Juneau, told ABC News.
“A handful” of other residences, including a condo building were left significantly undermined,” Barr said.
How researchers predict outburst floods from Mendenhall Glacier
Those in charge of monitoring the Mendenhall Glacier and the lakes within it can tell when a flooding event is gearing up, Jacobs said.
The National Weather Service in Juneau has a “well-versed” monitoring program, which involves elevation marks on Suicide Basin and a camera pointed it its direction, in order to see how much the water levels are falling and rising.
A flood watch was issued for the region on July 31, nearly a week before the break on Mendenhall Glacier occurred.
But while it is possible to monitor the water levels in the basin, it is difficult to assess just how much water is in it, Jacobs said.
Concerning flooding from the Mendenhall Glacier has been happening for over a decade
Suicide Basin has been releasing glacier lake outburst floods that cause inundation along Mendenhall Lake and Mendenhall River since 2011, according to the National Weather Service.
As of Monday morning, the Mendenhall River had returned to normal levels, between 5.5 and 6 feet, and flooding had receded, Jacobs said.
Cleanup crews are now assessing the damage and removing the debris scattered in the river and land surrounding it, Jacobs said.
The risk of flooding from melted glaciers to increase as climate warms, a study published in Nature Climate Change in 2021 found.
(NEW YORK) — Thousands of flights have been canceled or delayed on Monday, and more than 800,000 customers are without power across 11 states, as severe storms target the East Coast.
Cities seeing major impacts at airports include Atlanta, New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Boston. The Federal Aviation Administration said thunderstorms are also expected to impact airports in Memphis, Dallas, Denver, Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
The FAA issued multiple ground stops Monday night for several airports on the East Coast, including JFK, Newark, Philadelphia, Atlanta and airports in the Washington, D.C., area.
In Washington, D.C., federal employees, including at the White House and the Pentagon, were instructed to leave work early Monday afternoon due to the weather.
The main threats Monday afternoon and evening are tornadoes and destructive winds.
A severe thunderstorm watch is in effect for parts of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. A tornado watch is stretching across 11 states including Tennessee, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
As of 7:45 p.m. ET, more than 800,000 customers were without power across 11 states, according to poweroutage.us. Georgia had the most outages, with at least 210,000 customers without power, followed by North Carolina, with around 195,000 customers in the state without power.
By 6 p.m. ET, the storms were expected to slam Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, and near Philadelphia, Raleigh and Atlanta.
The severe weather is expected to be gone by Tuesday morning.
Over the weekend, stormy weather spawned tornadoes, triggered flash flooding, knocked out power and uprooted trees across the U.S.
There were more than 300 damaging storm reports from Colorado to Virginia. There were also 10 reported tornadoes — eight across Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Colorado on Saturday and two in Illinois on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
Storm damage was reported from Wichita, Kansas, through central Illinois and into Birmingham, Alabama.
Torrential rainfall led to dangerous flash flooding in parts of northeastern Missouri on Friday night, including in the town of Kahoka, where more than 6 inches of rain fell within six hours. Water rescues were reported in the area.
Golf ball-sized hail was reported in Loveland, Colorado, and Almena, Kansas, on Saturday.
More than 40,000 people were left without electricity in Alabama on Sunday as gusty winds up to 61 miles per hour brought trees crashing down on power lines.
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ABC News’ Clara McMichael and Teddy Grant contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A white mother who says she was accused of trafficking her biracial daughter has filed a federal lawsuit against Southwest Airlines alleging she and her daughter were victims of “blatant racism” by airline employees.
According to the lawsuit, filed Aug. 3 in the District Court of Colorado, Mary MacCarthy and her then 10-year-old daughter traveled on a Southwest flight from San Jose to Denver in October 2021, following the sudden death of MacCarthy’s brother.
When they arrived at Denver International Airport, MacCarthy and her daughter were met by police officers, according to the lawsuit.
“The officers began questioning Ms. MacCarthy and made it clear that they were given the racially charged information that Ms. MacCarthy’s daughter was possibly being trafficked by her simply because Ms. MacCarthy is white and her daughter is Black,” the lawsuit states. “After significant questioning, during which Ms. MacCarthy’s daughter began to break down in tears, Ms. MacCarthy was eventually allowed to leave by the officers, but not before this display of blatant racism by Southwest Airlines caused Ms. MacCarthy and her daughter extreme emotional distress.”
MacCarthy told ABC News that when they boarded the flight to Denver, she asked to sit with her daughter and passengers on the flight moved to give them the opportunity to do so.
She described the flight to Denver as “uneventful,” until she and her daughter disembarked the plane and were greeted by what she described as “armed police officers who knew our names.”
“Once they said, ‘We’re here because you were reported for suspicious behavior,’ an alarm bell went off in my head because I’m a mother of a biracial child. I’m aware of racial profiling. I’m aware that the word ‘suspicious’ is sometimes code for race,” MacCarthy said. “That’s when I kind of switched into being, you know, this grieving mother to a mother who’s there to protect her child and herself from these accusations.”
MacCarthy used her cell phone to record her interaction with the police officers.
MacCarthy and her lawyer also provided a police bodycam video to ABC News that they said was obtained through an open records request. In the bodycam video, a Southwest Airlines employee is seen telling MacCarthy that flight attendants on the flight from San Jose to Denver reported noticing “suspicious behavior.”
According to MacCarthy’s lawsuit, she and her daughter were allowed to leave the airport only after MacCarthy “explained why she was traveling and gave her identification.”
The lawsuit alleges that a Southwest employee called the Denver Police Department while the flight was in the air to report MacCarthy for “suspected child trafficking.”
Southwest Airlines is also accused in the lawsuit of a January 2021 incident in which a white male passenger traveling with his Black daughter was “pulled … off of a plane for questioning.”
The lawsuit alleges that Southwest has not taken steps to “correct the racist assumptions … its employees make about mixed-race families traveling together.”
Southwest Airlines declined to comment on pending litigation.
MacCarthy said she brought the lawsuit in hopes of getting “accountability” from Southwest Airlines, including a change in how they train their flight attendants.
She also said she is doing so on behalf of other parents who have faced similar situations, but may not have the “wherewithal or the means” to take legal action, saying, “If I can use my voice to make life a little bit easier for parents of color or children of color, even if it makes one person’s life easier, I’m going to do it.
MacCarthy said her daughter does not talk about the incident to this day.
“She is growing into a young woman who speaks out on all sorts of issues herself, but when it comes to talking about what happened that day, she clams up,” MacCarthy said. “It was probably like the worst day of her life because of what was going on with my brother’s death. It’s not something that she in any way wants to revisit.”
(NEW YORK) — Over 1,100 flights have been canceled within, into or out of the U.S. on Monday as severe storms target the East Coast.
Cities seeing major impacts at airports include Atlanta, New York City, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Boston. The Federal Aviation Administration said thunderstorms are also expected to impact airports in Memphis, Dallas, Denver, Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
In Washington, D.C., federal employees, including at the White House and the Pentagon, have been instructed to leave work early Monday afternoon due to the weather.
The main threats Monday afternoon and evening are tornadoes and destructive winds.
A severe thunderstorm watch is in effect for parts of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. A tornado watch is stretching across 11 states from Tennessee to West Virginia to Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
By 6 p.m. ET, the storms will be slamming Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, and nearing Philadelphia, Raleigh and Atlanta.
The severe weather will be gone by Tuesday morning.
Over the weekend, stormy weather spawned tornadoes, triggered flash flooding, knocked out power and uprooted trees across the U.S.
Storm damage was reported from Wichita, Kansas, through central Illinois and into Birmingham, Alabama.
Torrential rainfall led to dangerous flash flooding in parts of northeastern Missouri on Friday night, including in the town of Kahoka where more than 6 inches of rain fell within 6 hours. Water rescues were reported in the area.
Golf ball-sized hail was reported in Loveland, Colorado, and Almena, Kansas, on Saturday.
More than 40,000 people were left without electricity in Alabama on Sunday as gusty winds up to 61 miles per hour brought trees crashing down on power lines.
ABC News’ Clara Mcmichael contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — One of the highest-ranking FBI officials ever criminally charged is expected to plead guilty next week in Manhattan federal court, according to a new court filing.
Charles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York field office, is scheduled for a “plea proceeding” Aug. 5, according to a judge’s order.
“The Court has been informed that Defendant Charles McGonigal may wish to enter a change of plea,” the order said.
McGonigal was charged over his ties to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire who has been sanctioned by the United States and criminally charged last year with violating those sanctions.
McGonigal, who retired from the FBI in 2018, is charged with violating U.S. sanctions by trying to get Deripaska off the sanctions list. He was also accused of investigating a rival Russian oligarch in return for concealed payments from Deripaska.
McGonigal has also been charged in a separate case in Washington, D.C., with concealing $225,000 he allegedly received from a former Albanian intelligence employee. His attorney said during a hearing last week he expects that case to also be resolved without going to trial.
(NEW YORK) — Stormy weather spawned tornadoes, triggered flash flooding, knocked out power and uprooted trees across the United States over the weekend.
There were more than 300 damaging storm reports from Colorado to Virginia. There were also 10 reported tornadoes — eight across Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Colorado on Saturday and two in Illinois on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
Storm damage was reported from Wichita, Kansas, through central Illinois and into Birmingham, Alabama.
Torrential rainfall led to dangerous flash flooding in parts of northeastern Missouri on Friday night, including in the town of Kahoka where more than 6 inches of rain fell within 6 hours. Water rescues were reported in the area.
Golf ball-sized hail was reported in Loveland, Colorado, and Almena, Kansas, on Saturday.
More than 40,000 people were left without electricity in Alabama on Sunday as gusty winds up to 61 miles per hour brought trees crashing down on power lines.
Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia’s capital after storms swept through the area late Sunday.
The threat for severe weather shifts eastward on Monday. Damaging winds, hail and tornadoes are in the forecast for a swath of the East Coast, from Georgia to New York state, including several major cities like Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City. The bullseye for tornadoes and damaging winds will be from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Washington, D.C. and into the Appalachian Mountains.
There is also a potential for flash flooding from Washington, D.C. to New York City and into parts of New England if the storms bring torrential rainfall while moving slowly through the area. The latest forecast shows there could be local rainfall amounts of 2 to 3 inches within a short period of time, which would cause localized flash flooding.
The severe weather is expected to hit the Appalachians early Monday afternoon before sweeping east across the forecasted threat area through the later afternoon and evening hours, clearing the East Coast after sunset.
(GARLAND, Texas) — At least one person was injured in a possible explosion at a Sherwin-Williams facility in Texas early Monday, authorities said.
The victim — an employee at the paint manufacturing plant — was treated on scene in Garland, northeast of Dallas. The structure is on fire and multiple roadways in and around the area are closed, according to the Garland Police Department.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LOS ANGELES) — A firefighting helicopter crashed, killing all three crew members, after it collided with a second helicopter while battling a blaze in southern California on Sunday, fire officials said.
Riverside County firefighters were called to the scene of a structure fire in Cabazon at about 6 p.m. on Sunday and they soon noticed that the blaze had moved into the nearby grass, Cal Fire Southern Region Chief David Fulcher said.
Cal Fire helicopters and planes were called in to help extinguish the blaze, he said.
“While engaged in the firefight, two helicopters collided,” Fulcher said in a midnight press briefing. “The first helicopter was able to land safely nearby. Unfortunately, the second helicopter crashed and, tragically, all three members perished.”
The crew included a Cal Fire division chief and a captain, along with a pilot, who was contracted by the department, Fulcher said.
The crash happened near Pipeline Road and Apache Trail, the Riverside County Sheriff’s office said in a statement, adding that the National Transportation Safety Board would be taking over the investigation.
Both helicopters were contracted by Cal Fire and arrived at the scene with different objectives, fire officials said.
The helicopter which was able to safely land was a Sikorsky Skycrane, a type that carries retardant or water that’s dropped on a blaze, Fulcher said. The one that crashed was a Bell helicopter, used for observation while fighting fires.
The crash caused an additional four-acre fire, which was then extinguished, Fulcher said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(LONG BEACH, Calif.) — A boat fire in Long Beach, California, killed two people and injured three others, according to fire officials.
The fire broke out near the 200 block of Marina Dive at Alamitos Bay on a 35-foot pleasure craft on Saturday, the Long Beach Fire Department said.
The boat was near a fuel dock, fire officials said.
“The fire required multiple land-based and marine-based resources to extinguish the fire,” the Long Beach Fire Department said in a post on Facebook. “The fire has been extinguished, and resources continue to operate at the incident.”
The Long Beach Fire Department said five people were involved in the incident. The three surviving victims suffered burn-related injuries, and were treated and transported by paramedics to area hospitals.
Two women in their 60s died in the incident, authorities told ABC News Los Angeles station KABC.
The fire was extinguished with help from the Orange County Fire Authority, Long Beach fire officials said.
People aboard boats near the incident told KABC they heard a powerful blast. When firefighters arrived at the scene there were clouds of thick black smoke and flames.
“Initial reports indicated they were in the process of doing some type of refueling operation, or had just completed a fueling operation,” Long Beach Fire Department Capt. Jake Heflin said, according to KABC.
An investigation into what caused the fire is ongoing, authorities said.
Last month, two firefighters in New Jersey died while extinguishing a raging fire aboard a cargo ship docked in Newark.
The firefighters called in a “Mayday” after two of their own became trapped inside the burning vessel and were nowhere to be seen. That was followed by a second “Mayday” call 15 minutes later, Newark officials said at the time.
Two Newark firefighters — 45-year-old Augusta Acabou and 49-year-old Wayne Brooks — were ultimately found and subsequently taken to a hospital where they both died, according to city officials.
Three other firefighters from the Newark Fire Department, as well as two from the Elizabeth Fire Department, were injured during the incident, city officials said.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Morgan Winsor, and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
