(NEW YORK) — More than 110 million Americans across 29 states are under heat alerts Saturday from southern California to Massachusetts.
The Northeast has one more day of its first heat wave of the season, with highs reaching near 90 degrees along the I-95 corridor and heat indices in the upper 90s around 100.
Excessive Heat Warnings are in effect for Washington, D.C. and Baltimore today where heat indices may reach up to 112 degrees.
A cold front will sweep through tonight bringing a chance of damaging wind and an isolated tornado. This front will usher in much cooler air and for the next week temperatures will top out near 80 and cool into the 60s at nighttime.
The heat from the north is getting shoved south toward and it will create a week-long heat wave for the gulf states. Heat alerts are already in effect for the entire state of Mississippi as well as parts of Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.
Temperatures today will reach near 100 degrees with heat indices jumping up to 110 degrees through the weekend and into next week for places like Corpus Christi, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana. Heat alerts are in effect for places like Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri, and central and eastern Kansas where temperatures will reach near 100 degrees Saturday and heat indices will jump as high as 112 degrees.
The Excessive Heat Warnings are expected to end Saturday night as the main heat is pushed further south. However, Heat Advisories may continue on Sunday for some with lingering temps in the 90s and some heat indices near 100 degrees.
The record heat wave in the Desert Southwest is going to come to an end either this weekend or early next week as monsoonal moisture ramps up. But until then it is still very much at the height of danger after over a month of life-threatening heat. On Saturday, temperatures will reach near 110 degrees in places like Phoenix, Palm Springs and Las Vegas. El Paso may have an afternoon that doesn’t reach 100 degrees for the first time in more than 40 days.
On Sunday, temperatures may dip below 110 degrees in Las Vegas, but remain for Phoenix and Palm Springs. In the Northwest, there is fire weather danger with Red Flag Warnings in effect for parts of California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
(NEW ORLEANS) — As extreme heat takes over the U.S., millions of Americans will be faced with the “urban heat island” effect.
The lack of vegetation and shade, as well as an increase in paved surfaces and buildings, is causing temperatures to rise as much as 20 degrees in an urban area compared to surrounding regions.
With July poised to be the hottest month in recorded history, the impacts of climate change for the 85% of the U.S. population living in metropolitan areas are already being felt.
Residents across the country are taking the dangers of extreme heat into their own hands and channeling nature to cool their neighborhoods.
In New Orleans – one of the worst urban heat islands in the country – neighbors are planting hundreds of trees throughout the city. It’s a simple yet effective solution to reducing urban heat.
Trees and vegetation lower surface and air temperatures, reduce energy use from air conditioners, improve air quality, and aid in stormwater management, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Trees provide shade, which could leave surfaces 20 to 45 degrees cooler and leads to evapotranspiration, the process by which water moves from the earth’s surface into the atmosphere and can reduce peak summer temperatures by 2 to 9 degrees, according to research from the Energy and Buildings journal.
New Orleans residents lead the reforestation
Angela Chalk, 60, is a fourth-generation New Orleans resident who lives in the Seventh Ward neighborhood. She lived through Hurricane Katrina, which decimated her city and uprooted the trees, homes, and lives of residents for years.
It’s estimated that New Orleans lost anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 trees in the hurricane, according to tree-planting group SOUL (Sustaining Our Urban Landscape).
However, “in my community, we can’t relate to that because there weren’t any trees to begin with that we could miss,” said Chalk, an executive director of the non-profit Healthy Community Services, a local environmental advocacy group.
In some neighborhoods, particularly low-income or predominantly Black communities, less than 10% of the area is shaded by trees. The city’s Pontchartrain Park, one of the first suburban-style neighborhoods developed for African Americans in the segregated South, is one of these neighborhoods.
Low-income communities and communities of color are more likely than others to live in historically redlined neighborhoods that are intra-urban heat islands, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
“We’re the first to be impacted and the worst to be impacted, and having those conversations in our community now is one of those things that we just can’t wait for it to be an acute issue. When we think about it, we have to think about it all the time and how it impacts our lives,” said Chalk.
Eugene Green, a city councilman and longtime resident of New Orleans, felt the intense heat while growing up in Pontchartrain Park but never thought about the role that the almost complete lack of trees played in his historic Black neighborhood during unbearably hot days. As an adult, it’s very clear to him.
“Pontchartrain Park is a good example of a community that is responding or is being responded to in terms of what effects discrimination and other problems had on the development of those communities,” said Green in an interview with ABC News.
SOUL, which is leading the New Orleans Reforestation Plan, worked to identify similar neighborhoods and is working to begin the city’s reforestation by ensuring that all neighborhoods have at least 10% of tree canopy coverage and shade.
This makes for an equitable and attainable starting point for the project, said Susannah Burley, the executive director of SOUL. From here, they can continue to grow the canopy, or tree cover, fairly throughout the city.
In Pontchartrain Park, the organization is planting a tree in front of every household that wants one. The organization said it has a 70% opt-in rate.
“That neighborhood is completely transformed,” said Burley. “You drive down blocks that had no trees and now there’s trees down almost every single block.”
At the center of climate change impacts
Extreme heat causes hundreds of deaths per year nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Several populations are threatened when temperatures stay high — including those who live without air conditioning, have health conditions worsened by heat, work outside, are homeless, are elderly and more.
After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans residents were left to face the heat amid the devastation and wreckage of the storm.
“The city felt so much hotter because we just had no shade. We lost so many of our big, beautiful magnolia trees and live oak trees,” said Connie Uddo, the director of the NOLA Tree Project, which is also planting trees throughout the community. “The city was just struggling. The recovery was just like moving through sludge. Everybody was just doing nothing but cleaning. And really the question is: Are these neighborhoods able to come back?”
Although trees are an effective way for communities to address heat, many residents remain unaware of their impact. In New Orleans, trees are seen by some as dangerous or a liability in a city that faces an intense annual hurricane season.
“Katrina, it’s long ago in the calendar but it’s still at the front of everybody’s memory. It seems like yesterday and so people are worried about having trees falling over in a storm and causing more damage than they already have from wind,” said Burley. “So we are really careful to mitigate that fear by planting the right tree in the right spot. “
Trees are not just heat management, but can also act as a barrier for flooding and storm intensity as they store tens of gallons each day and reduce runoff and erosion.
Convincing residents on the impacts of tree-planting has been a priority for local advocacy groups.
“The regular person doesn’t think about placing a tree on the south side of their home and shading it in the summer. And then if you plant a deciduous tree, you’re gonna get heat in the winter. But, you know, once you start explaining this to people, they start sharing the information and it’s really exciting to see converts sharing the information,” Burley said.
Deciduous trees are those that become dormant during winter.
The EPA reports that the benefits of urban tree canopies are “always higher than the costs” of their maintenance.
A five-year study in the Journal of Forestry found that cities “accrued benefits ranging from about $1.50–$3.00 for every dollar invested. These cities spent roughly $15–$65 annually per tree, with net annual benefits ranging from approximately $30–$90 per tree.”
“One tree isn’t gonna change how a neighborhood responds to a storm event, but if you plant a whole neighborhood with trees, then you can change how the neighborhood responds,” Burley said.
NOLA Tree Project and SOUL say tree planting efforts give residents a hands-on control to the impacts of climate change on their community. Education is a priority as tree-planting projects expand.
“People can go back and forth and fight all they want about climate change, or fossil fuels and the fossil fuel industry and the big bad guy,” said Uddo. “While all that is going on, what can you do right now, right now to have a positive impact on climate change? Buy a tree.”
(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — A Louisville, Kentucky police officer critically wounded in a mass shooting at a bank in April will finally be heading home on Friday.
Officer Nickolas Wilt, a 26-year-old rookie who was shot in the head, will be discharged Friday after more than three months of hospitalization and rehab treatments.
Wilt graduated from the police academy on March 31 and was shot just days later, on April 10, while responding to an active shooter at Old National Bank.
Wilt “never hesitates,” Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey said at an April press briefing as body camera footage was released. “This young man went back in to the line of fire.”
The suspected gunman, a 25-year-old man who worked at the bank, was killed by officers after fatally shooting five people.
The police department said Friday of Wilt’s release, “This is the day we have all been praying for.”
The Louisville community is invited to gather at the Southeast Christian Church parking lot at 12:30 p.m. as Wilt and his family drive by.
“This will be the first time, Officer Wilt will be able to see, in person, the love and support the community has for him,” the department said. “The Wilt Family asks for continued support and prayers as they transition him home.”
(PHOENIX) — The medical examiner’s office in Arizona’s Maricopa County is over capacity and has had to bring in refrigeration units due to a spike in deaths this month amid a record-breaking heat wave, officials said.
It’s the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 that the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office has needed extra coolers for the dead. As of Thursday, the office was at 106% of standard capacity, according to Phoenix ABC affiliate KNXV-TV.
A Maricopa County spokesperson confirmed to ABC News on Thursday evening that 10 individual refrigeration units had been sent to the medical examiner’s office to increase capacity, should the need arise. The coolers are located near the office in downtown Phoenix but are not yet in use, according to the spokesperson.
“While we typically see a surge in intakes to the Office of the Medical Examiner (OME) in July, this year has been worse than prior years,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “At Maricopa County, we do not wait for a challenging situation to become a crisis before we respond. That is what prudent planning is all about. As the County did during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have secured additional coolers to manage the increase in decedents. These coolers have not yet been utilized. Our staff at OME is working diligently to perform investigations and close cases.”
The spokesperson noted that it was not immediately known how many of the latest deaths were heat-related because it takes time for the medical examiner’s office to confirm and report the cause and manner of each death.
On Wednesday, the Maricopa County Department of Public Health released data showing that the county has had a total of 24 confirmed heat-associated deaths so far this year, with another 249 deaths under investigation.
Arizona’s capital is currently on a record stretch of 28 consecutive days with temperatures at or above 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Overnight temperatures in Phoenix did not drop below 90 degrees for a record 16 days in a row this month. The city also hit a daily temperature record of 119 degrees on Tuesday.
The weather forecast for Friday shows extreme heat will continue to plague the southwestern United States, with temperatures expected to reach a high of 113 degrees in Phoenix. The heat is forecast to persist over the weekend but by Sunday and Monday, temperatures aren’t expected to be quite as high as they have been in recent weeks.
The National Weather Service has issued coast-to-coast heat alerts that are in effect on Friday morning across 35 states from California to Maine.
The heat waves occurring in North America, Europe and China throughout this month would not have been possible without global warming, according to a rapid attribution analysis by World Weather Attribution, an academic collaboration that uses weather observations and climate models to calculate how climate change influences the intensity and likelihood of extreme weather events. In some regions, the sweltering temperatures have triggered wildfires as well as heat-related hospital admissions and deaths, the researchers said.
(NEW YORK) — A 23-year-old truck driver who was attacked by an Ohio police dog while trying to surrender with his hands up, broke his silence about the horrific ordeal Thursday night, telling ABC News, “I just didn’t want to die.”
Jadarrius Rose, 23, of Memphis, Tennessee, spoke out about the July 4 incident on a central Ohio highway one day after the K-9 officer Rose alleged sicced his dog on him was fired from the Circleville, Ohio, Police Department.
The former officer, 29-year-old Ryan Speakman, was terminated from the force after an investigation by the Circleville Police Use of Force Review Board prompted police officials to conclude he “did not meet the standards and expectations we hold for our police officers,” according to a statement the agency released on Wednesday.
National civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is now representing Rose, told ABC News that the incident, which was caught on police body-camera video, harkened back to the 1960s Civil Rights Movement when police dogs were let loose on non-violent protesters.
“We have to say, we will not tolerate this. We won’t go back to the days where they’re siccing dogs on unarmed Black people,” Crump said.
Rose’s 911 call ‘for help’
Rose’s encounter with the police dog came after he led state troopers on a three-county chase, officials said. The pursuit unfolded when the Ohio State Highway Police attempted to pull Rose over for missing a mudflap on his trailer, according to an incident report.
Rose said he was on his cellphone speaking with his mother, Carla Jones, when he noticed state troopers in his side mirrors trying to pull him over. He was about 30 miles from his destination after traveling more than 600 miles when the incident unfolded.
“I was on the phone with my mom and I said, ‘What should I do?’ So, she told me to pull over if you know you didn’t do nothing wrong,” Rose said.
Rose said that when he initially stopped, he saw police in his mirrors with their guns drawn, including one pointing an AR-15 rifle. He said he decided to pull away, hung up on his mother and called 911.
“I was just hoping that they would be able to help me,” he said of the 911 dispatcher who answered his call. “I wanted to get out. I hadn’t committed a crime. It’s not like I murdered somebody, and they got their guns ready to shoot me,” Rose told ABC News. “I just didn’t want to die. That’s what was going through my mind. I just didn’t want to die. That’s why I called them for help.”
‘I had to tell the dog to stop’
During the pursuit, police placed spike strips in the road in front of him that blew out his tires. He said on several occasions he feared troopers were going to run him off the road.
He said he was still on the phone with the 911 dispatcher when he finally exited his truck to surrender.
“It was like 10, 12 people with guns and they had them pointed right at me, and I just was walking directly to the guy that was telling me to come to him,” Rose said.
Then he saw the Circleville K-9 officer and his dog racing across the grassy center median toward him.
“I didn’t know what to do. So, I just stopped because I didn’t want to make a bad move or anything like that,” Rose said.
As the dog was let loose and charged toward him, Rose got on his knees and put his hands up, according to police body-camera footage released of the incident.
A state trooper could be heard in the body camera footage repeatedly yelling at Speakman, the K-9 officer, “Do not release the dog with his hands up.”
“I was defenseless,” Rose said. “If I would have tried to defend myself, that would have given them more reason to shoot me. I just wanted my life.”
He said that even after the police dog’s teeth dug into his left arm, it did not appear that the police officers rushed to get the animal off him immediately. He said he directly pleaded with the dog to let him go.
“I had to tell the dog to stop,” Rose said. “I asked the dog, ‘Please stop. It hurts’ and he finally let go.”
Mother is thankful her son survived
Rose was treated at a hospital and later booked at the Ross County, Ohio, Jail on charges of failure to comply, a fourth-degree felony, according to the highway police.
Carla Jones said she didn’t speak to her son again until after he was taken into custody.
“I’m grateful that my son is still alive,” Jones told ABC News.
Rose said he has watched the body-camera video of the arrest multiple times.
“I cried a few times because I know that what I was telling my family was true, none of it was a lie,” Rose said. “It was all true. Like the police will try to do anything to make it seem like the so-called suspect was lying.”
Rose added that watching the video made him feel “heartbroken.”
Moving forward, Crump said, “Justice for Jadarrius is trying to make sure that officers who sic dogs on unarmed Black people are held accountable.”
“Imagine the psychological trauma and the mental anguish that Black people go through in America when sirens and flashing lights come on behind them. That’s what the Jadarrius Rose video represents to every Black person in America, the fear of being the next hashtag,” he said.
Crump said Rose is still facing criminal charges.
“They are going to claim that because he was missing a mudflap they have these rights to draw 20 guns on him,” Crump said.
Speakman was fired after the Circleville Police Use of Force Review Board investigated the attack and submitted its report to the city officials.
The officer was let go despite the review board concluding that the “department’s policy for the use of canines was followed in the apprehension and arrest.”
“It’s important to understand that the Review Board is charged only with determining whether an employee’s actions in the use of force incident were within department policies and procedures,” the Circleville police statement said. “The Review Board does not have the authority to recommend discipline.”
The Circleville police statement did not comment on the fate of the police dog.
Prior to Speakman’s termination on Wednesday, Circleville Mayor Donald McIlroy told ABC News on Monday that Speakman, the K-9 officer, was put on paid administrative leave on July 20 and his dog was put in a kennel.
Asked by ABC News if he was aware of any disciplinary action taken against Speakman in the past, McIlroy said, “Yes.” He directed ABC News to the city’s human resources department to file a public records request, but the file has not yet been released.
Efforts by ABC News to reach Speakman for comment have not been successful.
Fired K-9 officer filed grievance
Tom Austin, executive director of the Ohio Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, said in a statement released Wednesday following the announcement of Speakman’s firing that the union’s senior lawyer, Joseph Hegedus, has filed an official grievance with the city of Circleville contending the officer was terminated “without just cause.”
In the grievance, Hegedus wrote that the officer’s firing is “contrary to mandatory principles of progressive discipline” and is a violation of the union’s collective bargaining agreement. The grievance asked that Speakman’s termination be rescinded and that he be reimbursed for “wages, seniority and benefits lost.”
Hegedus also asked that Speakman’s termination be expunged from his personnel records.
Despite the firing of Speakman, the central Ohio Black Lives Matter organization said it is moving forward with a protest at noon on Saturday outside the Circleville Police headquarters. In a statement Wednesday to ABC News, the BLM group said more than 1,100 people plan to participate in the protest.
The BLM group is also calling for the dog that attacked Rose to be retired, asking for Circleville Police Chief Shawn Baer to resign or be fired and that all charges against Rose be dropped. The organization is also asking that race sensitivity training be provided to all Circleville police officers and that the police department’s budget be cut by 50%. Baer could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
“In the wake of the termination of former officer Ryan Speakman from the Circleville Police Department, our resolve for justice has only grown stronger,” the group said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
The BLM group said it is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the incident, adding, “We firmly believe that [an] indictment is necessary.”
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — Attorneys for Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of killing four Idaho college students last year, are trying to get his indictment dismissed.
In a new court filing from July 25, but released on Thursday, Kohberger’s attorneys are asking the judge to dismiss the indictment on the “grounds that the Grand Jury was misled as to the standard of proof required for an indictment.”
Kohberger’s lawyers argue the grand jury should have been instructed that the standard of proof based on what was presented to them is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” But they were not given that instruction, his lawyers argue.
Instead, the filing claims they were given the standard of proof required for a “Presentment,” which the filing claims is having a “reasonable ground for believing that a particular individual … has committed” a certain offense. And because the grand jury was allegedly told they could indict on a lower standard of proof, Kohberger’s lawyers want the indictment dismissed.
If the judge won’t dismiss the indictment, Kohberger’s attorneys are asking for a new preliminary hearing to argue this in front of a magistrate to decide if the case should proceed.
(WILMINGTON, Del.) — With attorneys buzzing around him, Hunter Biden sat quietly at a desk Wednesday in the Wilmington, Delaware, federal courtroom — hands folded, jaw locked — where hours earlier he had entered in hope of putting his legal tribulations in the rearview mirror.
It was the most consequential moment in a day filled with them: both sides frantically seeking to resurrect a painstakingly negotiated plea agreement after a prosecutor declared “there is no deal” and Biden’s lawyer could be heard saying to prosecutors, “Rip it up.”
Under questioning from the judge, fissures had emerged as a result of the two sides’ interpretation of a key passage in the agreement: Paragraph 15, which outlined in broad language the scope of Hunter Biden’s immunity from additional criminal charges.
It states that the government would “agree not to criminally prosecute Biden outside of the terms of this agreement for any federal crimes encompassed by the attached statement of facts, Attachment A to the Diversion Agreement, and the statement of facts attached as Exhibit 1 to the Memorandum of Plea Agreement filed this same day,” the judge read in court.
A copy of the memorandum obtained by Politico and authenticated by a source to ABC News included the same language. Details in that document and in paraphrased commentary from Wednesday’s hearing shed fresh light on the deal brokered by the parties after the Justice Department’s five-year probe of President Joe Biden’s son — an agreement that Judge Maryellen Noreika declined to approve at the end of Wednesday’s hearing.
Attachments to the deal described how, in the period from 2017-2018, Hunter Biden “continued to earn handsomely and spend wildly” the large sums of money he made from business endeavors in Ukraine, China, and Romania — some $2.6 million in 2018 alone.
“However … in the throes of addiction, Biden essentially ignored his tax obligations,” Leo Wise, the lead prosecutor, told the judge.
By 2019, Hunter Biden had “spent almost the entire sum” of his 2018 income “on personal expenses, including large cash withdrawals, payments to or on behalf of his children, credit card balances, and car payments for his Porsche,” Wise said.
Those outstanding tax obligations — ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars — went unpaid until 2020, when a third party paid the IRS more than $2 million to relieve Biden of his tax burdens, interest and penalties. ABC News has reported that Kevin Morris, an attorney and confidant to Biden, made those payments.
In the courtroom, Judge Noreika repeatedly criticized the deal’s “form over substance” and puzzled over whether the two documents — the plea agreement on tax charges and the diversion agreement on the felony gun charge — were linked or separate.
Noreika’s line of questioning on that matter precipitated her decision to defer approval of the agreement and request additional briefing, giving the parties 30 days to resolve any outstanding issues.
“These agreements are not straightforward and they contain some atypical provisions,” she said. “I am not criticizing you for coming up with those, I think that you have worked hard to come up with creative ways to deal with this. But I am not in a position where I can decide to accept or reject the Plea Agreement, so I need to defer it.”
Experts said the deal does indeed bear some uncommon features, particularly in the way prosecutors structured Biden’s immunity from future charges.
Prosecutors included details about Hunter Biden’s foreign business endeavors into the plea deal on the misdemeanor tax charges, but wrote the immunity standards into the diversion agreement — the much-cited Paragraph 15 — which would include “any federal crimes encompassed” in the statement of facts for the plea agreement.
Lucian Dervan, a law professor at Belmont University, said the judge seemed concerned that the decision to handle immunity in the diversion program rather than in the plea agreement “might have removed that issue from her purview.”
In most venues, judges don’t typically weigh in on diversion agreements, Dervan explained — those arrangements are typically treated as a private contract between prosecutors and defendants, depriving judges from scrutinizing them in detail.
“The judge didn’t seem to like that,” Dervan told ABC News.
Will Scharf, a former federal prosecutor, framed it as an attempt to “hide the ball” from the judge.
“[Prosecutors] put the facts in the plea agreement, but put their non-prosecution agreement in the pretrial diversion agreement, effectively hiding the full scope of what DOJ was offering and Hunter was obtaining through these proceedings,” Scharf, currently a Republican candidate for attorney general in Missouri, tweeted late Wednesday.
Judge Noreika not only scuttled the structure of the deal, but her meticulous line of questioning also exposed gaps between the two parties’ understanding of the nature and substance of Hunter Biden’s future legal exposure.
Because the statement of facts included details about Biden’s work in Ukraine and China, attorneys for Biden interpreted the immunity element to cover those overseas business endeavors. Prosecutors balked, framing the immunity deal in far narrower terms.
“So there are references to foreign companies, for example, in the facts section,” Noreika said. “Could the government bring a charge under the Foreign Agents Registration Act?”
“Yes,” Wise replied.
That exchange prompted Chris Clark, an attorney for Biden, to state: “As far as I’m concerned, the plea agreement is null and void.”
The court went into recess and attorneys for both sides entered a frenzied cycle of negotiations — huddling privately and then meeting in the middle of the courtroom to negotiate. Between private consultations with his attorneys, Hunter Biden sat stoically as others around him worked to hammer out his fate.
When Noreika gaveled court back into session, Clark said he was “prepared to agree with the government that the scope of paragraph 15 … broadly relate to gun possession, tax issues, and drug use.”
In the aftermath of the judge’s decision to defer her approval, experts seem to agree that a pathway exists to an acceptable agreement.
“It seemed like everyone was on the same page at the end, and I assume when the document is re-created it will be modified to make that sentiment more clear,” Dervan said. “I don’t see that as a huge impediment to moving forward.”
(NEW YORK) — The Jefferson County District Attorney’s Bessemer Division office has talked with police about potentially pressing charges against Carlee Russell, the Alabama woman who told police she was kidnapped after she went missing for two days, prosecutors confirmed to ABC News.
Chief Assistant District Attorney Lane Tolbert told ABC News on Thursday that police are seeking two charges against Russell — falsely reporting an incident and false reporting to law enforcement authorities — which are each class A misdemeanors in Alabama and punishable by up to one year in prison, he said.
“We advise what we think the charges should be,” Tolbert said, adding that if charges are filed they would be filed by the Circuit Clerk of Jefferson County, Bessemer Division’s office.
Asked by ABC News on Thursday morning when and if charges could be filed, a spokesperson for the circuit clerk’s office declined to comment.
ABC News has reached out to the Hoover Police Department for further comment.
Hoover Police Department Chief Nicholas Derzis told reporters in a press conference on Monday the disappearance of Russell, the 25-year-old woman who returned home on July 15 after she went missing for two days, was a “hoax.”
Derzis read a statement that he said was provided to police by Russell’s attorney, Emory Anthony, acknowledging that “there was no kidnapping.”
“My client has given me permission to make the following statement on her behalf. There was no kidnapping on Thursday, July 13th 2023. My client did not see a baby on the side of the road. My client did not leave the Hoover area when she was identified as a missing person. My client did not have any help in this incident. This was a single act done by herself,” the statement read by Derzis said.
“We ask for your prayers for Carlee as she addresses her issues and attempts to move forward. Understanding that she made a mistake in this matter, Carly again, asks for your forgiveness and prayers,” the statement continued.
ABC News reached out to Anthony and Russell’s family for further comment.
Derzis said that police have a scheduled meeting with Anthony to discuss the case and they are in discussions with the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office over “possible criminal charges related to this case.”
Derzis said that police will announce potential charges “when and if they are filed.”
The press conference on Monday came after police told the public last week that Russell searched for Amber Alerts and the movie Taken on her phone before her disappearance.
Russell also made searches related to bus tickets in the hours before she went missing, Derzis said.
Taken, the 2008 movie starring Liam Neeson, centers around a young woman who is abducted and the quest to save her from her kidnappers.
“There were other searches on Carlee’s phone that appeared to shed some light on her mindset,” Derzis said, adding he would not share them out of privacy.
Russell told police that she was taken by a male and a female when she stopped to check on a toddler that she reported on the highway, Derzis said on July 19.
Russell called 911 on July 12 at around 9:30 p.m. ET to report a toddler on Interstate 459 in Alabama before her disappearance, but the Hoover Police Department said in a press release last week that investigators have not found any evidence of a child walking on the side of the road.
(NEW YORK) — Amid record-setting heat waves across the globe, July 2023 is poised to become the hottest month ever recorded, according to a report by Copernicus, the European climate change service, and the World Meteorological Organization.
So far, the first three weeks of July have been the warmest three-week period ever recorded globally, with July 6, 2023, being the hottest overall day on record, according to the report.
The previous hottest month on record was July 2019.
Though July has not concluded, other agencies, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are expected to report similar findings in the coming weeks.
Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement, “Record-breaking temperatures are part of the trend of drastic increases in global temperatures. Anthropogenic emissions are ultimately the main driver of these rising temperatures.”
Buontempo said at a news conference Thursday that “there is a higher-than-usual chance of seeing record-breaking months” over the next few months.
When asked if 2023 could become the hottest year on record, Chris Hewitt, director of Climate Services at the World Meteorological Organization, said, “We could anticipate it being a very warm year, if not a record year. We’ll have to wait and see.”
(NEW YORK) — Florida authorities have released images of luggage in which a woman’s body was found earlier this month as well as an artist’s rendering of the unknown victim.
“Please take a close look at the images because the victim has not been identified,” the Delray Beach Police Department said in a statement on Wednesday night.
Investigators believe the homicide occurred sometime between July 17 and July 20. On July 21, officers were deployed to the 1000 block of Palm Trail in Delray Beach after someone called 911 and “reported seeing something strange” in the Intracoastal Waterway, according to the Delray Beach Police Department.
Detectives discovered a suitcase in the water with human remains inside. Soon after, two other suitcases were found with remains at nearby locations along the waterway — one on Southeast 7th Avenue and the other on Casuarina Road, police said.
The remains were that of a white or Hispanic woman who was between the age of 35 and 55. The victim was approximately 5-foot-4-inches tall, had brown hair and may have had tattooed eyebrows. She was found wearing a floral tank top with a black undershirt and black mid-thigh shorts, according to police.
Detectives believe the luggage with the remains was placed into the Intracoastal Waterway sometime between July 17 and July 20. The area of interest is about a mile long and police have asked members of the public with personally-owned surveillance cameras along the waterway to review footage during the specified timeframe, looking for any unusual people or vehicles as well as anyone with luggage.
Detectives said they believe the homicide is an isolated incident.
The photographs released late Wednesday were of “two unique pieces of luggage that the victim’s body was found in” — the first being a “purple Palm Springs Ricardo Beverly Hills bag” and the second a “green and black polka dot Charlie Sport bag,” according to police.
Police also had the forensic imaging unit of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office produce a reconstructed image of what the victim may have looked like. The rendition also includes a full body sketch showing similar clothing to what the victim was found wearing.
“The brand for the floral top is ‘Betzabe’ which from what we can tell is a Brazilian company,” the Delray Beach Police Department said in the statement on Wednesday night. “It’s important for the public to know that these reconstructed images are not an exact likeness of the victim or her clothing and are simply the interpretation of the artist.”
“If you think you recognize the victim from the artist rendering, please give us a call,” police added. “If you saw something or have any information about this case, please contact us. No bit of information is too small.”
Anyone with information about the case is urged to call Delray Beach Police Detective Mike Liberta at 561-243-7874.
