(WASHINGTON) — Federal investigators are set to release a preliminary report into the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, earlier this month.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy and Director of the NTSB’s Office of Railroad, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Robert J. Hall will hold a press conference Thursday afternoon at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., to share their initial findings into the incident.
The agency released an investigative update last week saying that through surveillance video it identified and examined a rail car with “what appears to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment.”
Thirty-eight rail cars derailed in the incident, NTSB said. Eleven of those cars contained hazardous materials, five of which contained vinyl chloride, a highly volatile colorless gas produced for commercial uses.
The preliminary report will not offer a cause of the derailment but will document factual evidence during the on-scene portion of the investigation.
The release of the report also coincides with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s first visit to the derailment site.
Buttigieg — who will visit East Palestine Thursday — has faced criticism from Republicans for not traveling to the site sooner. The secretary defended his decision, saying on Twitter he “followed the norm of staying out of the way of the independent NTSB.”
Buttigieg will be joined on the trip by Amit Bose, the administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, and Tristan Brown, the deputy administrator for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — Two people have been shot and killed, including an Orlando news employee and 9-year-old girl, and multiple people were injured Wednesday in Pine Hills, Florida, police said.
According to Orange County Sheriff John Mina, the mother of the 9-year-old and another member of the Spectrum News 13 crew were also shot in the same area and are in critical condition.
The mother and child were shot in their nearby home. Mina said it was unclear why they were targeted.
The news crew was on the scene reporting on a 20-year-old woman shot and killed in the area this morning when they were shot at, police said.
Police arrested suspect Keith Melvin Moses, 19, in connection to the shootings. Moses was allegedly arrested while armed with a firearm that authorities believe will link him to the shootings, according to the sheriff.
According to Mina, Moses has a lengthy criminal history and is expected to be charged with each murder.
“I want to acknowledge what a horrible day this has been for our community and our media partners,” Mina said.
The victims were taken to the same regional hospital that cared for victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, according to ABC News Orlando affiliate WFTV.
(EAST PALESTINE, Ohio) — After a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, more than two weeks ago, residents and health officials have expressed concern about the state of water in the area.
Homeowners in East Palestine have complained of symptoms that some in the town believe are tied to the release of chemicals from the derailed train cars.
The incident has also sparked environmental concerns. An estimated 3,500 fish — such as minnows, darters and sculpin — have died in creeks and rivers around the area, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
While many officials have said the town’s water supply appears to be free of harmful levels of contamination, Kuldeep Singh, an assistant professor of earth sciences at Kent State University, told ABC News that long-term testing needs to be done to ensure the water supply is safe.
Singh said locations that previously showed clear results may not produce the same results two or three weeks down the road.
“What happens today is only a diagnostic of that space and time,” he said. “What may not happen in one location might be another location, what may not be in one particular location in time could be in another location in time.”
Cleaning up derailment site
According to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, most contaminants did not enter local waterways but are rather “pooling at the derailment site in puddles and ditches.”
So far, Norfolk Southern said it has removed more than 1.5 million gallons of contaminated water from the site, with the company telling ABC News that 400,000 gallons of contaminated water were collected on Tuesday alone.
Neither Norfolk Southern nor the Environmental Protection Agency revealed which contaminants were found in the water, or the levels of contaminants found.
Several of the train cars were carrying dangerous materials on board, including vinyl chloride, ethyl acrylate and isobutylene, are considered to be very toxic — possibly carcinogenic — and could be unsafe for both residents and the environment.
“These are hazardous chemicals and have potential health impacts if they contaminate our air and water,” Miranda Leppla, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law, told ABC News. “And so, it’s really important that we make sure that the cleanup efforts are really looking at this on a long-term basis.”
The risk is not just to humans. ODNR said the deaths of the fish in nearby creeks and rivers likely occurred from the immediate release of contaminants following the crash, although the agency does not believe there is currently any risk to aquatic life.
Testing water wells
According to the EPA’s latest update Sunday, results from sampling municipal well water don’t show quality concerns. The Columbiana County Health District has so far sampled 52 private water wells.
On a trip to East Palestine Tuesday, Gov. DeWine and EPA Administrator Michael Regan drank tap water while visiting a woman’s home to prove the water is safe to drink, although some residents are encouraged to use bottled water until their well water testing results return.
Singh said it’s possible the public supply wells are never contaminated because the aquifers — which are the water-bearing rocks that transmit water to wells — are deep underground and separated by hundreds of feet of sedimentary rock.
However, private water wells might be contaminated because their aquifers are shallower.
However, he added that to detect whether or not the private wells are contaminated, inspectors cannot examine them at random.
“If it’s random testing, you might be testing in a direction where you would never go, for example, but if nothing shows up in their well, does not mean contaminants are not there and that’s what my point is,” Singh said. “Random testing does not ensure that they are not contaminated. It has to be mapped from the site where contamination started, and then move outwards.”
Sampling groundwater
About a week after the accident, Norfolk Southern submitted an action plan to the Ohio Protection Agency saying it will install a number of monitoring wells to test groundwater.
“If you think about it, anything that spills, with simple gravity, would go into the soil and percolate down to the groundwater,” Singh said. “That part is not visible. Often, our choices and fears are dictated by the visible components, not the invisible.”
No reports have been released stating groundwater is contaminated but, if it is, it could feed to streams and rivers.
Additionally, because so much of groundwater is deep below the surface, “the effects of that contamination may take a longer time to appear,” Leppla said.
Unlike cleaning soil, which is much easier because it can be picked up and moved, groundwater takes longer to be decontaminated.
“Groundwater is the most important being that is the most pristine freshwater abundant available to us,” Singh said. “And once contaminated, may take forever. For example, cleanup, of…groundwater contamination might take 10 years. That takes a lot of costs on taxpayers.”
ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik contributed to this report.
US Environmental Protection Agency / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — National union officials say years of cost-cutting and staff reductions within the freight rail industry have led to an increase in the rate of derailments and fostered an increasingly unsafe environment for workers and the public. They urge a strengthening of protection for whistleblowers, among other steps.
Their comments preceded a Feb. 19 letter from Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg in which he accused rail companies of spending millions on lobbying efforts to oppose safety regulations rather than support rail safety.
Both union officials did not directly connect what they say is the degradation of safety measures, to the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio – where toxic chemicals were released into the air and water sources, forcing nearly 2,000 residents to evacuate their homes and leaving lingering environmental concerns. However, their letter demanding increased federal oversight was directly prompted by the incident, renewing their stance in the long-simmering debate about the increased focus on profit at the expense of public safety.
In a letter reviewed by ABC News from the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department dated Feb. 9 and in interviews with two officials, union leaders called for increased federal oversight of the largest freight railroads, which they allege have “cut corners” and initiated practices that “pose real threats to workers and public safety.”
While the number of incidents, fatalities, and derailments nationwide appear to have trended downward due to an overall decrease in miles traveled by freight rail during the pandemic, the rate of incidents per mile for the country’s largest freight railroads has increased over the last decade, according to data from the Federal Railroad Administration.
The nation’s seven Class 1 railroads – the largest freight rail companies including BNSF, Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific, CSX Transportation, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific – suffered two derailments for every million miles traveled in 2022, compared to the 1.71 derailments per million miles in 2013. Across 398 million miles traveled, 2022 saw a total of 818 derailments.
According to FRA data about Class 1 railroads, 447 train cars containing hazmat materials – dangerous goods such as petroleum and chemical products – were damaged or derailed in 2022.
Since 2013, 5,462 hazmat cars have been damaged or derailed, with 135 instances of cars releasing hazmat material. The Federal Railroad Administration notes on their website that rail transportation is “recognized to be the safest method of moving large quantities of chemicals over long distances,” especially compared to highway transport.
In an earnings call slide presentation dated Jan. 25, Norfolk Southern executives noted that its FRA train accident rate had increased from 2019 to 2022, though the railroad’s personal injury rate declined in the same period.
“We know all too well the deadly consequences of freight train derailments,” Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, wrote in his letter to the Federal Railroad Administration. “If there is no meaningful change in the industry, we fear that these safety incidents will unfortunately keep happening.”
In the letter, Regan urged the FRA to mandate that freight railroads use the agency’s close call reporting system to improve its federal oversight of the company. The FRA’s confidential close call reporting system is currently a voluntary program that allows employees to report near-miss incidents on a confidential basis to an independent third party. None of the Class 1 freight railroads participate in the program; however, Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, and 17 other railroads are among those who do participate in the programs.
In a statement Tuesday, the Department of Transportation called on both Norfolk Southern and the entire freight rail industry to join the confidential close call reporting system so that employees could “report unsafe events and conditions without fear of negative consequences….”
The program employs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a third party which maintains and analyzes close call incidents and other unsafe events. According to Regan, the program would allow employees to report risk and safety issues to the third party with legal protections against employer reprimand or retaliation.
“The whole point of…this program is to try to identify risks before there is a disaster,” Regan said in an interview with ABC News.
The American Association of Railroads, which represents the Class 1 railroads, described mandating the program as “wrongheaded,” noting in a statement to ABC News that preexisting reporting mechanisms are sufficient while “bureaucratic processes” would slow reporting.
When asked about the request on Feb. 15, a White House official said President Joe Biden supports whistleblower protections. However, the official would not comment on the specific close call reporting system or speculate on if it would have prevented the incident.
In a statement to ABC News, FRA Administrator Bose said that the reporting system “is an incredible tool to report unsafe events and conditions, and if more railroads participate, the potential safety benefits would be even greater.”
A spokesperson for the AFL CIO’s Transportation Trades Department said in a statement that if the FRA feels that it is unable to mandate the program through its safety jurisdiction, they would encourage Congress to give the agency the authority to do so.
Lauding the relatively low cost of the program, Regan said he believes that fixing the problems flagged by the reporting system “is going to be a heck of a lot cheaper than what the cleanup bill is going to be in Ohio right now.”
A deterioration in safety culture
“We’ve just seen a deterioration of safety culture in general throughout the industry,” Regan said in an interview with ABC News, commenting on the changing business model of the largest freight railroads over the last decade.
Regan said that the widespread adoption of precision-scheduled railroading in the 2010s led to the loss of 45,000 jobs since 2015.
A report from the Government Accountability Office described precision-scheduled railroading as a broad set of changes to increase efficiency and reduce costs, including reducing staff and assets and lengthening trains. Between 2011 and 2021, the seven largest freight railways reduced staff by 28%, according to the GAO. According to Regan, the impact of this cost-cutting is less time, energy, and people devoted to conducting necessary safety checks.
Regan said that five years ago, a worker would spend an average of two minutes inspecting a car; today, he says they are down to 30 to 45 seconds.
“They are applying for waivers on like brake inspections and automated track inspections, and all these things on a near-weekly basis these days, and we are constantly filing in opposition,” Regan said.
Regan said that years of employee cuts and stringent leave policies might make an employee afraid to report a potential issue and called for strengthened protection against retaliation.
“I’m sure most members do not feel comfortable reporting something that they thought was a risk or a safety problem because they don’t have that protection built into the law that says, you can report this and your employer cannot punish you or give you any sort of reprimand,” Regan said.
In an interview with ABC News, Jared Cassity, an official with the SMART Union Transportation Division and former local union representative, similarly expressed concern that lack of a confidential means of reporting close call incidents could deter employees from coming forward. He pointed, for example, to situations when an employee’s own conduct may have led to a close-call situation.
“If I break a rule, so to speak, that may result in a close call, there is no mechanism for me to report that is free from discipline,” Cassity said. “So it’s more advantageous for me to hopefully not break the rule, or if I do, not report it in the hopes that they won’t catch me.”
Cassity also suggested that the FRA may be unaware of the total number of derailments because they rely on self-reporting from the railroads. He compared the degree of self-reporting between the freight railways and the FRA to the relationship between Boeing and the Federal Aviation Association, the former of which paid over $2.5 billion after concealing information about their 737 MAX airplane.
When asked about the East Palestine derailment, Regan said the industry is lucky the incident was not worse or happened sooner.
“I think we are frankly fortunate we haven’t had a situation like this where there is an acute risk to public health because of a derailment,” he said.
”There is no downside.”
Regan and Cassity said that imposing a confidential close call reporting system would be a low-cost solution to improve accountability and transparency by allowing employees to report incidents without fear of retaliation or reprimand. Cassity said incidents more likely to be reported include speeding, encroaching on a train ahead, work limits, or coupling cars at too high a speed.
“There is no downside,” Cassity said.
Regan compared the FRA system to the Aviation Safety Reporting System, a confidential reporting system the FAA has used to analyze close call incidents in aviation. Regan said following the East Palestine derailment, the freight rail industry could look to the commercial airlines as a model for reducing incidents in the future.
ABC News reached out to the seven Class 1 railroads for comment. Some railroads like Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific pointed towards their current reporting systems as sufficient. A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern rebutted the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department’s allegation of decreased safety and noted that Norfolk Southern has seen a declining injury rate and mainline train accident rate.
Speaking on behalf of the broader freight rail industry, a spokesperson for the AAR wrote in a statement that “allowing employees a protected, streamlined way to report potential safety issues is essential.” However, rather than adopting a third-party system, they wrote that the internal procedures for confidential feedback are sufficient.
“It has become clear that the goal of encouraging swift, actionable feedback ends up bogged down in bureaucratic processes and resource intensive reporting” under the third-party system, the spokesperson wrote.
A spokesperson for the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department said the current industry-run systems lack the necessary protections from retaliation to be effective.
While the National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the incident, Cassity and Regan believe a more robust reporting policy would help railroad workers and the public.
“I think that the folks of East Palestine would see a difference in that the employees now have skin in the game to make sure that what’s actually occurring on the railroad is what’s being reported, and our agencies will be able to act in accordance,” Cassity said.
ABC News’ Karen Travers, Alex Presha, and Mark Nichols contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Springtime has come early to Washington D.C., if the city’s cherry blossom trees have anything to say about it.
Across the Potomac, dozens of trees have already started to bloom creating an odd scene of pink flowery streets and parks just mere weeks after Groundhog Day.
While park officials and longtime city observers have said that while it’s too early to know when the city’s most famous cherry blossoms will be blooming around the National Mall, they said it’s likely to be a much earlier than usual bloom.
“I don’t think anybody has been surprised, it’s been an extremely mild winter,” Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the National Parks Service told ABC News. “Heat drives them to bloom. In the absence of cold…we can’t be surprised that we’re having an earlier bloom.”
Although the likely later bloom will affect vacations, parties and other events surrounding the peak bloom on the Tidal Basin, event organizers told ABC News they will plan accordingly and still have fun things to do even if the petals are gone in April. At the same time, those who care for the trees warn that this phenomenon is a warning about the dangers of climate change to flora.
The 3,700 Tidal Basin cherry blossom trees, most of which have been around since they were brought to the city in 1912, are mostly made up of Yoshino Cherry, which bloom later than other cherry blossom trees in the city, according to Litterst.
The timing of the budding process for the Yoshino trees around the basin has varied over the years, but it has typically started the green bud stage, which is the first stage, around the end of February or the beginning of March, the NPS said. Peak bloom typically occurs from the end of March to early April, according to NPS data.
This year’s Yoshino green bud stage took place around Feb. 13, the earliest recorded green bud stage in nearly 20 years, NPS data showed. The earliest full bloom took place on March 15, 1990, according to the agency.
Litterst said the NPS will announce the forecasted date for full bloom on March 1, but warned that drastic weather patterns, like an arctic cold front similar to the one that brought late frost and damaged the trees in 2017, could affect the timeline.
“It’s likely to be earlier than the average dates,” he noted.
Julie Moore, a spokeswoman for the Trust for the National Mall, the non-profit group that helps maintain and restore the greenspace, told ABC News that climate change is the major factor behind this year’s early bloom.
This winter has seen abnormally warmer temperatures in Washington D.C., according to the National Weather Service, as January’s average temperatures were 45.2 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly eight degrees higher than the normal temperatures for that month.
That mild winter has so far continued into February for several days with temperatures for Thursday forecasted to be in the 80s, according to the forecast.
Moore said the trust’s arborists have seen the full bloom dates vary over the years due to shifts in extreme cold and milder winters.
“There are always a lot of twists and turns so we simply don’t know which way it will land,” Moore told ABC News.
Moore reassured that even if peak bloom takes place before spring officially begins, people who are looking to view the flowers won’t have to rush their plans as the petals will still be visible a few weeks after full bloom.
For the events tied to the cherry blossoms, such as the National Cherry Blossom Festival, a possible early bloom will shift some planning and timing, but it won’t necessarily mean that people who come to the city in April to celebrate spring will be left out, according to organizers.
Diana Mayhew, the president and CEO of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, told ABC News her team is eagerly awaiting the March 1 announcement and will be making changes to its schedule of events, which are tentatively set for March 20 through April 14, based on the full bloom.
“We have a contingencies place of moving 100 performances over the period,” Mayhew told ABC News.
She added that many events that have been tentatively scheduled for the nearly month-long festival will likely stay in place as the celebration’s themes have expanded to include celebrating the arrival of spring.
“The good thing is that a lot of people are within driving distance, so our visitors will come when the blossoms bloom and they come back,” Mayhew said.
Litterst said it is too early to tell what kind of short-term effects an early bloom will have on the trees this season, but said that higher temperatures will have an impact.
“Over time, we’re talking about the next 100 years, warming trends and climate change could have an effect on pollinators,” he said.
Moore said that other effects of climate change, including flooding on the Tidal Basin have also been damaging the trees over the years. Last year, the Trust had to replenish some saplings, according to Moore.
“The cherry blossom trees are in jeopardy,” she said.
Moore noted that several parties are working to come up with solutions.
In 2019, NPS, the Trust for the National Mall and the National Trust for Historic Preservation partnered with landscape architectural firms to create the Tidal Basin Ideas lab, a non-profit that is working on improving and bolstering the landscape to withstand environmental changes.
Some of the ideas that have been floated by the group include redesigned pedestrian paths, levees and new ground construction that would absorb the water.
“We need to make sure they continue to bloom for the next generation,” Moore said.
(LITTLE ROCK, Ark.) — Five people were killed in a twin-engine plane crash in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Wednesday, officials said.
The twin-engine Beech BE20 crashed in a wooded area after taking off from Little Rock’s Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport. It was en route to John Glenn Columbus International Airport in Ohio, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Five people were on board, according to the FAA, and Little Rock police said there were no survivors.
A Little Rock police spokesperson said, “We had a bad storm front move in at that time. I don’t know if the two are related, but the winds were bad, the rain was bad for a few minutes.”
(LOS ANGELES) — The Southern Baptist Church Executive Committee announced it will oust five churches for having female pastors, including one of the largest churches in the convention, California’s Saddleback Church, according to the church’s news service, Baptist Press.
After Saddleback Church’s founding pastor, Rick Warren, retired last year, the megachurch hired Andy Wood and his wife Stacie Wood to head the church, according to the church’s website.
The convention deemed Saddleback Church as “not in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention,” it said in a Facebook post.
The convention cited Stacie Wood’s role as a teaching pastor of the church as the reason for the ousting, stating that the Baptist Faith and Message says only men can members of the office of the pastor, according to Baptist Press.
“As stated in the Baptist Faith and Message Article VI, the SBC holds to the belief that the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. These churches have been valued, cooperating churches for many years, and this decision was not made lightly. However, we remain committed to upholding the theological convictions of the SBC and maintaining unity among its cooperating churches,” executive committee chairman Jared Wellman said in a statement to ABC News.
The other churches ousted for having female pastors were New Faith Mission Ministry in Griffin, Georgia; St. Timothy’s Christian Church in Baltimore; Calvary Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi; and Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, according to Baptist Press.
A sixth church was also ousted for failing to cooperate with the credentials committee regarding a sexual abuse allegation against its senior pastor, according to Baptist Press.
All six churches will have the opportunity to appeal the decision in June at the SBC Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Fern Creek said it would appeal the decision, according to Baptist Press.
The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention was formed in 1917. It is made up of 86 representatives chosen from qualified states and regions.
Saddleback Church did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(LOS ANGELES) — Eric Holder, Jr., the man who was convicted in the 2019 murder of hip-hop artist Nipsey Hussle, was sentenced to 60 years to life in prison, according to ABC station in Los Angeles, KABC.
Holder was found guilty on July 6, 2022, of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of the rapper, whose real name is Ermias Asghedom.
Holder also was convicted of two counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter and possession of a firearm. He pleaded not guilty.
During the trial, Holder also was found not guilty of attempted murder against two men who were wounded in the 2019 shooting attack.
Following the verdict, Holder’s attorney Aaron Jansen told ABC News there’s “deep disappointment” with the conviction and said that Holder plans to appeal his sentence.
“It was always going to be tough given the high-profile circumstances surrounding the case,” Jansen said. “We are grateful that the jury agreed with us, in part, that the case was overcharged and voted to acquit Mr. Holder, Jr. of the two attempted murder charges.”
Although Holder pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, he did not deny that he killed Hussle.
Jansen argued during the trial that while Holder did fatally shoot Hussle, it was a crime of passion and not a premeditated act.
“Mr. Holder has always been willing to accept responsibility for the charge of voluntary manslaughter for the life he took,” Jansen told ABC News in a statement on July 2, 2022.
Nipsey Hussle, known as “Neighborhood Nip” to his community and fans in South Los Angeles, was a Grammy-winning rapper who dedicated his life to building the streets of Crenshaw where he grew up and where he owned several businesses. It is on those streets that the rapper was killed on March 31, 2019, outside his Marathon Clothing store.
Holder, an aspiring rapper from the same neighborhood, belonged to the same gang as Hussle – the Rollin 60s of the Crips. But in the last years of his life, Hussle had worked to stop the violence and broker peace between rival gangs.
The rapper’s murder at age 33 sent shockwaves through the music world and the Marathon Clothing store, which has reopened at a new location, and become a memorial where thousands of fans flock to pay their respects to Hussle.
Since his death, millions have posted tributes to the rapper on social media, punctuated with #TheMarathonContinues – Hussle’s own metaphor for overcoming the struggles of life.
“I think I speak for the entire city of LA when I say that we’ve always known that Hussle was destined for greatness,” the rapper’s girlfriend Lauren London said as Hussle was honored as a hometown hero on Aug. 15, 2022, when he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “Nip would’ve been honored by this moment.”
“So whenever you’re in the City of Angels, and you see this star, I hope that it encourages you to break away from whatever might be holding you back, and for you to run your marathon until God says that it’s finished,” she added.
ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca contributed to this report.
(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — Preliminary hearings began Wednesday in the trial of Club Q shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich, who allegedly opened fire in a Colorado LGBTQ bar in November 2022.
Aldrich is nonbinary, according to court filings released by the Colorado state public defender.
As prosecutors attempt to prove that the evidence is strong enough for Aldrich to stand trial, details about a potential motive, the moments leading up to the shooting, and what unfolded during the tragedy will likely be played out in court.
The suspect accused of killing five people — Daniel Davis Aston, Kelly Loving, Derrick Rump, Ashley Paugh, Raymond Green Vance, Tara Bush — in the mass shooting at the Colorado Springs bar, faces 323 charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder and bias-motivated crimes.
At least 19 people were also injured.
Investigators and witnesses said the suspect allegedly opened fire as soon as they walked into Club Q at about midnight on Nov. 19. Patrons at the venue tackled Aldrich, subduing the suspect until police arrived, according to witnesses.
The defense has not openly commented on the case, as per Office of the State Public Defender policies.
(NEW YORK) — A massive winter storm is wreaking havoc on a large swath of the country, including in Minneapolis, where the city is bracing for a potentially historic snowstorm.
Minneapolis is forecast to get more than 17 inches of snow, which could be a top-five storm for the city.
Minneapolis Public Schools are moving to remote learning for Wednesday through Friday due to the storm.
“Plan ahead, drive safe, and limit travel,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz tweeted.
By Wednesday night, blizzard conditions will be possible in the Dakotas and Minnesota.
Further south, an ice storm warning was issued from Iowa to Michigan.
In the Northeast, a winter storm warning is in effect in upstate New York and New England. An icy mix is possible from Pennsylvania to Connecticut.
In the southern Plains, from Oklahoma City to St. Louis, damaging winds and isolated tornadoes are possible.
The storm in the Midwest and Northeast comes as a rare winter storm hits California. A blizzard warning has been issued for the mountains just outside of Los Angeles, marking the first blizzard warning in Southern California in more than 20 years.
Over 1,000 flights have been canceled across the U.S. on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, record February heat is expected from Florida to Washington, D.C.
New Orleans hit a whopping 83 degrees on Tuesday, making it the warmest Mardi Gras on record.
On Thursday, temperatures are forecast to jump close to 80 degrees in D.C., 83 degrees in Nashville and 84 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
In Orlando, Florida, it could reach a sweltering 90 degrees on Thursday, which would be the city’s all-time warmest February temperature.
