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(GAYLORD, Mich.) — A mysterious illness that killed over a dozen dogs in northern Michigan has been identified, officials said.

The Otsego County Animal Shelter said in a statement Aug. 19 that over 20 dogs in the county had died due to a “parvo-like” illness, a disease that’s highly contagious and often deadly in dogs. The shelter’s director, Melissa Fitzgerald, released a statement on Aug. 9 saying that most of the dogs who died were less than 2 years old and died within three days of showing symptoms.

On Wednesday, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Michigan State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory confirmed that the disease was canine parvovirus.

In their initial tests, Fitzgerald said the tests came back negative for parvovirus, and the “best guess” was that the cause of death was a new strain of the virus.

Officials said the affected dogs did not have a history of complete vaccination.

According to the Otsego County Animal Shelter, the illness is not affecting one breed over another, but appears to be more common in puppies and elderly dogs.

“This situation is complex because although the dogs displayed clinical signs suggestive of parvovirus, they consistently test negative by point-of-care tests performed in clinics and shelters,” MSU Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory Director Kim Dodd said in a statement Wednesday.

“Screening tests for parvo are done to help guide immediate isolation, disinfection, and treatment protocols. While those tests are valuable in the clinical setting, they are not as sensitive as the diagnostic tests we can perform here in the laboratory. We continue to further characterize the virus in hopes of better understanding why those animals were testing negative on screening tests,” she added.

“When MDARD first learned of these cases in northern Michigan, we immediately reached out to the veterinarians and animal shelters involved and began our response efforts,” Wineland said in a statement on Monday. “Protecting animal and public health is one of the department’s key pillars, but it is a team effort. Dog owners need to ensure their pet is up to date on routine vaccinations as it’s the first step in keeping your pet healthy.”

Jennifer Holton, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, told ABC News that because parvovirus is not a reportable disease, officials are mostly working with anecdotal information.

“Parvo is an incredibly hardy virus,” Holton said. “And by that, I mean it can survive various temperatures and all kinds of things.”

Holton said it’s essential for pet owners to get their dogs vaccinated and alert their veterinarian if they see signs of illness in their dogs.

She added that proper cleanup, to halt the spread of the disease through fecal matter, is also essential, particularly in high capacity areas like shelters, doggy day cares and other animal-friendly places.

While the mystery surrounding the current death rates is concerning, Holton said officials have the investigation under control.

“The word ‘panic’ has been used a lot; that is certainly not what we’re doing here,” Holton said. “Prioritizing animal health is one of the key fundamentals of what our animal industry division in this department does on the daily.”

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(NEW YORK) — More rain is pounding the soaked South. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are expecting 3 to 5 inches of rain over the next 48 hours, sparking flash flooding and river flooding.

The rain will continue to spread, reaching the Gulf by the weekend. Over the next five days, the Gulf Coast from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Fort Myers, Florida, will likely get 3 to 5 inches as well.

Louisiana and Mississippi were already hit by downpours this week, with several spots in Mississippi breaking daily rainfall records on Monday. Over the last 48 hours, rain totals climbed above 7 inches in Louisiana and reached 6 inches in Mississippi.

Meanwhile, areas along the California/Arizona/Nevada border, including Las Vegas, are bracing for downpours and possible flash flooding on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox declared a state of emergency in the wake of devastating flooding in Moab and other southern towns. The flooding killed a woman who was hiking in Zion National Park.

“We also urge everyone to take flash flood warnings very seriously. We mourn the loss of Jetal Agnihotri of Tucson and pray for her loved ones,” the governor said in a statement.

“I’m shocked by the size and scope of the flooding that swept through Moab causing damage to homes, businesses, and local infrastructure,” Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson added. “Fortunately, I’m hopeful for a full recovery.”

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(UVALDE, Texas) — Uvalde school board officials will consider Wednesday whether to fire Pete Arredondo, the school district’s police chief, exactly three months after the school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.

School board members agreed in an Aug. 15 meeting to hire outside attorneys ahead of the hearing.

Arredondo has been the target of criticism for the delayed response to the May 24 tragedy.

School officials have continued to face pressure to hold officers accountable for the 77 minutes it took before law enforcement breached a classroom door and killed the 18-year-old gunman.

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District recommended that Arredondo be fired. The Uvalde school board canceled its July 23 special session to consider the district’s recommendation “in conformity with due process requirements, and at the request of his attorney.”

Parents and community members have called on officials to fire Arredondo immediately, with some calling for the firing of other members of Uvalde’s school district police force who were present during the shooting.

According to an investigative report by the Texas House of Representatives into the events of May 24, the school district’s written active shooter plan assigned Arredondo “to assume command and control” during an active shooter incident.

“But as events unfolded, he failed to perform or to transfer to another person the role of incident commander,” the report from the state House read. “This was an essential duty he had assigned to himself in the plan mentioned above, yet it was not effectively performed by anyone.”

The report goes on to describe the general consensus from witnesses that officers on the scene either “assumed that Chief Arredondo was in charge, or that they could not tell that anybody was in charge of a scene described by several witnesses as ‘chaos’ or a ‘cluster.'”

In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Arredondo said he did not consider himself the commanding officer on the scene. He has said he was not made aware of the 911 calls coming from the children in the attacked classrooms.

Arredondo has defended the police response to the incident.

“We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced,” Arredondo said. “Our objective was to save as many lives as we could, and the extraction of the students from the classrooms by all that were involved saved over 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before we gained access to the shooter and eliminated the threat.”

Arredondo resigned from his city council post and is currently on leave from his position as UCISD police chief.

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(NEW YORK) — A civic organization plans to sue New York City’s largest utility company over the alleged illegal dumping of heated, toxic wastewater into a Hudson River estuary sanctuary.

The City Club of New York, along with Tom Fox, a representative of the club who serves on the Hudson River Park Advisory Council, plan to sue Con Edison for alleged “ongoing violations” of the federal Clean Water Act, according to a notice sent to the energy company earlier this month and obtained by ABC News.

Based on a review of public documents, the petitioners allege that Con Ed dumps water used to cool a power station off of Hudson River Park’s Pier 98 at “dangerously high temperatures” for aquatic life into the river. They also allege that Con Ed dumps wastewater containing “toxic pollutants,” such as chloroform, into the estuary sanctuary in violation of its state permit.

This matter was first reported by The New York Times.

Through their attorneys, the City Club of New York and Fox sent a notice to Con Ed on Aug. 10 of their intent to sue within 60 days.

Fox, who was involved in the effort to create Hudson River Park, said he wasn’t aware of the alleged dumping, which has purportedly occurred for decades, until recently.

“Nobody knew about this. I didn’t know about this, and I’ve been involved with the park for 40 years, since the beginning,” he told ABC News. “I think that for whatever reason, it wasn’t publicly acknowledged. Now that it is, we have a chance to correct the situation.”

The notice of intent claims Con Ed has violated state rules for estuaries by discharging water into the river that exceeds 90 degrees on more than a dozen occasions since 2006, according to state records. It claims a permit modification Con Ed requested in 2006 to allow for a higher discharge temperature was improperly approved by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation because the state agency did not hold a public hearing on the application, per state and federal law. It also claims that Con Ed has been discharging pollutants into the Hudson River without a valid permit for more than a year.

In a statement to ABC News, a Con Ed spokesperson said the company is “in compliance with our permit for both water temperature and discharge of chemicals at Pier 98.”

“We are reviewing the letter in detail and have noted numerous inaccuracies,” the spokesperson, Allan Drury, said. “For instance, our permit has not expired and we have not exceeded our permitted temperature limits. We will address these and other issues with the appropriate parties.”

The City Club of New York and Fox plan to seek an injunction requiring Con Ed to halt all discharges into the river, among other relief.

The notice of intent to sue was also sent to the DEC and the Hudson River Park Trust, which operates Hudson River Park and is Con Ed’s lessor. The petitioners allege that the DEC and trust have known about Clean Water Act violations at the Con Ed plant but have failed to act.

“Con Ed’s continuing thermal and industrial discharge into the sanctuary — facilitated by the disregard of applicable federal and state laws by DEC and the Trust — represents a threat to the preservation and protection of those resources,” the notice stated.

In a statement to ABC News, the DEC said it has identified more than two dozen minor “discrepancies” at the plant since 2010 and has not taken any enforcement action at the facility since that year.

“Since 2010, of the 4,400 sampling records at the Con Edison plant, DEC identified 27 reported exceedances and non-reporting of operational parameters unrelated to the outfall at the facility,” it said. “These discrepancies were considered minor and quickly resolved.”

ABC News did not immediately receive a response from the Hudson River Park Trust seeking comment.

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(WASHINGTON) — The murder of James “Whitey” Bulger was planned “as soon as” the notorious mobster had arrived at the prison in West Virginia where he was found beaten to death, a Justice Department prosecutor said.

The plot started with a phone call to the mother of Sean McKinnon, one of the men accused in the killing, the night before the high-profile inmate’s arrival, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hannah Nowalk told a federal magistrate judge in Florida at a court hearing for McKinnon.

“Yeah, we’re getting ready to get a — getting ready to get another higher profile person here tonight,” McKinnon allegedly told his mother the day before the 89-year-old Bulger arrived at U.S. Penitentiary Hazleton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.

A recording of that phone call was played in federal court on Monday by Nowalk, a transcript of which was obtained by ABC News.

Nowalk said that “as soon as they saw Bulger come into the unit, they planned to kill him.”

Sean McKinnon, 36, was charged by the DOJ last week in connection with the killing of Bulger on Oct. 30, 2018. Nowalk said McKinnon acted as the lookout while the two other men, Fotios “Freddy” Geas, 55, and Paul DeCologero, 48, went into Bulger’s cell and allegedly killed him.

Prosecutors have not yet offered a motive for the killing or said how the defendants knew of Bulger’s arrival.

“No, I mean, you should know the name,” McKinnon told his mother, according to the transcript of the phone call. “Every heard the name Whitey Bulger?”

McKinnon’s mother warned him to stay away from Bulger because she was worried hanging around Bulger would get him “in trouble,” the transcript shows.

Bulger, the leader of Boston’s Winter Hill gang, was on the run for 16 years before being caught by federal authorities in 2011, and later tried and convicted. Before being moved to a West Virginia penitentiary, Bulger was housed in federal prison in Florida.

Prosecutors allege that a mere 12 hours after Bulger arrived at USP Hazelton, he was found dead in his cell. The killing, Nowalk said, took all of seven minutes.

Nowalk said that on the day of the murder, at around 6:07 a.m., the three men gathered outside of Bulger’s cell, then went in and stayed there for seven minutes, allegedly killing Bulger. By 8:07 a.m., Bulger was found dead by prison guards.

McKinnon allegedly told his mother that the cell doors at the prison open at 6 a.m. and they do not lock, prompting the men to enter easily, Norwalk alleged.

“The admissions were, from Pauly, that he and Freddy used a belt with a lock attached to it and beat Mr. Bulger to death,” Nowalk told the judge in arguing for McKinnon’s pre-trial detention. “There were also admissions from Pauly and from Mr. McKinnon himself that they collectively were the guys that killed Bulger and that…Mr. McKinnon stood as lookout as Freddy and Pauly went into Mr. Bulger’s cell and bludgeoned him to death in those seven minutes that are recorded on the surveillance footage.”

Federal Magistrate Judge Philip R. Lammen ultimately ended up ordering McKinnon to be held pending trial.

Lawyers for McKinnon told Lammen that he lived near his mother and was not a flight risk, but the judge did not agree.

Nowalk said there are three witnesses whom the men told they killed Bulger.

At the time of the indictment, Geas was still incarcerated at USP Hazelton, according to prison records, and was serving a life sentence for a separate crime. DeCologero was no longer being held at USP Hazelton but was housed in the federal prison system and McKinnon was on federal supervised release and was arrested last week in Florida.

Attorneys for the three defendants did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.

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(NEW YORK) — A man is dead after slipping and falling off of a ledge on a mountain while he was hiking with two friends over the weekend.

The incident occurred on Saturday at approximately 12:50 p.m. when a group of three people made the decision to ride the tram to the top of Cannon Mountain, a peak in New Hampshire located in the White Mountain National Forest in the northern part of the state.

The three people had planned to tour the summit of the mountain before returning back to base by taking the tram down again, according to a statement released by New Hampshire Fish and Game on Monday. The group, however, reportedly changed their mind and decided that they would hike down the mountain instead.

“Unfortunately, they were not following an established hiking trail, starting down what they thought was a ski trail,” New Hampshire Fish and Game said in their statement. “The group encountered a location that was rocky, wet, and steep with a waterfall. As the group tried to maneuver their way down, one of the hikers slipped causing him to fall off a ledge.”

Authorities say the other two members who witnessed the fall immediately called 911 for help and first responders were able to hike to the coordinates provided by the witnesses in an attempt to locate the missing man. But when authorities arrived, they located a deceased male at the bottom of the waterfall.

“Conservation Officers and members of the Pemigewasset Valley Search and Rescue Team brought him to the tram parking lot, arriving at approximately 3:35 p.m.,” said New Hampshire Fish and Game.

The victim was subsequently transported by Ross Funeral Home to Littleton, New Hampshire.

The man’s identity has not yet been disclosed and he will remain unnamed until his family have been notified of his death.

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(UVALDE, Texas) — The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District is facing a $27 billion class-action suit in connection with the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

Attorney Charles Bonner told ABC News that he and several other attorneys served the Uvalde school district with a notice of claim Monday night following a school board meeting.

Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.

The notice cites an investigative report from the Texas House of Representatives which says, “Uvalde CISD and its police department failed to implement their active shooter plan and failed to exercise command and control of law enforcement responding to the tragedy.”

“We want this amount of money to compensate these people for this wrong that was parachuted upon them,” Bonner said.

Bonner also said he hopes the large sum can fund mental health resources and hold police forces accountable. The lawsuit will be formally filed in September, naming a long list of defendants.

The Uvalde school district did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

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(SPRINGDALE, Utah) — A hiker who went missing after flash floods hit Utah’s Zion National Park last week has been found dead, park officials said Tuesday.

Jetal Agnihotri, of Tucson, Arizona, was found in the Virgin River on Monday and was later pronounced dead by a medical examiner, park officials said.

“Our deepest sympathy goes out to the friends and family of Jetal Agnihotri,” Zion National Park superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh said in a statement.

The National Park Service initially received multiple reports of park visitors being swept off their feet by a flash flood in the Narrows in the Zion Canyon at around 2:15 p.m. on Friday.

One hiker was sent to the hospital, while rangers found several hikers isolated near Riverside Walk due to high flood water, the National Park Service said.

Agnihotri was reported missing Friday evening after she was overdue from a trip in the Narrows. She was found in the Virgin River near the Court of the Patriarchs, which is about 6 river miles south of the Narrows, park officials said.

The National Park Service was assisting the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and Zion’s rescue team as they searched parts of the Virgin River, located south of the park, for Agnihotri this week.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office’s water team investigated the fast-flowing and deep areas of the river, while dog handlers looked into areas with vegetation and log jams, park officials said.

More than 170 responders ultimately participated in the four-day search and rescue operation, park officials said.

Amid the search, Agnihotri’s family was anxiously awaiting news.

“We don’t know what she’s going through, where she is,” her brother, Pujan Agnihotri, told Salt Lake City ABC affiliate KTVX as the search entered day three.

Pujan Agnihotri had praised the National Park Service for its efforts in the search for his sister, whom he described as “strong-minded” and “independent.”

“We have confidence in […] whatever decision she would have taken,” Pujan Agnihotri said. “Unfortunately, this flash [flood came] out of nowhere, there [were] no caution signs, there was no closure during the flash flood.”

ABC News’ Nadine El-Bawab and Nicholas Kerr contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Authorities said the arrest of Joel Manuel De Jesus Amparo on drug charges may have saved countless lives across the country. 

8,000 fentanyl pills were recovered from packages at post offices on Staten Island where the district attorney said the seizures could “potentially save millions of lives.” 

Prosecutors in Staten Island said each of the pills the New Jersey Man was putting in the mail and sending to recipients across the country “contained enough fentanyl to carry its very own death sentence.”

The pills were made in New Jersey before police and federal investigators said Amparo sent them through the post office to locations nationwide. 

The mass production of fake pills tainted with fentanyl the DEA said is “fueling drug overdoses and poisonings nationwide.” 
 

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