(NEW YORK) — A murder suspect who has evaded authorities for several months was finally captured by U.S. Marshals after he fell through the ceiling from the attic space where he was hiding, authorities said.
Deario Wilkerson, 20, has been wanted since May 9 when an arrest warrant for first degree murder and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon was issued for him in regard to the April 2 shooting death of Troy Cunningham, who was found shot to death on the 1500 block of N. Merton Street in Memphis, Tennessee, according to a statement from the U.S. Marshals published on Monday.
The case was subsequently adopted for a fugitive investigation by the U.S. Marshals Two Rivers Violent Fugitive Task Force (TRVFTF) in Memphis, authorities said.
“On August 26th, the TRVFTF tracked Wilkerson to a residence in the 1400 block of N. Merton in Memphis. Deputy marshals, with the assistance of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and Memphis Police Department’s Fugitive Apprehension Teams, surrounded the home,” read the U.S. Marshals statement detailing the incident. “Wilkerson attempted to hide in the attic as the USMS searched the residence; however, he fell through the ceiling.”
The U.S. Marshals Two Rivers Violent Fugitive Task Force is a “multi-agency task force within Western Tennessee. The TRVFTF has offices in Memphis and Jackson, and its membership is composed of Deputy U.S. Marshals, Shelby, Fayette, and Tipton County Sheriff’s Deputies, Memphis and Jackson Police Officers, Tennessee Department of Correction Special Agents, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol. Since 2021, the TRVFTF has captured over 2,600 violent fugitives and sexual predators.”
Wilkerson was not injured from the fall and was taken into custody without further incident.
Masoud Pezeshkian (R), the winner of the 14th presidential elections in Iran, attends to receive presidential decree from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (L) during an endorsement ceremony at the Imam Khomeini Husseiniya in Tehran, Iran on July 28, 2024 (Iranian Leader Press Office/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — After the supreme leader of Iran signaled a willingness to return to nuclear negotiations with the United States, the Biden administration cast doubt on the likelihood of resuming talks in the near future.
“We will judge Iran’s leadership by their actions, not their words,” a State Department spokesperson said Tuesday.
“If Iran wants to demonstrate seriousness or a new approach, they should stop nuclear escalations and start meaningfully cooperating with the IAEA,” they added, referencing the International Atomic Energy Agency, an intergovernmental watchdog that Tehran has often subverted.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave Iran’s newly installed president, reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, the go-ahead to relaunch talks with the U.S. on Tuesday while warning the country’s government against putting any trust in Washington.
“This does not mean that we cannot interact with the same enemy in certain situations,” Khamenei said, according to the official transcript of his remarks. “There is no harm in that, but do not place your hopes in them.”
The State Department spokesperson said the administration still saw a negotiated solution as the best way to contain Iran’s nuclear program, but that Iran’s failure to cooperate with the IAEA and its escalatory actions made diplomacy impossible.
“We are far away from anything like that right now,” they said.
Members of the administration also largely view the prospect of returning to indirect talks with Iran as a politically unfavorable step that could prove detrimental to Vice President Kamala Harris’ and other Democrats’ chances at winning in November, several officials told ABC News.
The doubtful outlook for resuscitating negotiations in the coming months further diminishes the already low odds of securing a deal with Iran before President Joe Biden’s time in the White House comes to an end, all but pushing his promise to negotiate a “longer and stronger” agreement out of reach.
Khamenei’s comments Tuesday echo the position he took around the time Tehran signed off on the 2015 nuclear pact known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the JCPOA — a landmark accord that granted Iran relief from economic sanctions in exchange for limiting its nuclear program.
Former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2018, calling it “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” and reimposing financial restrictions on Iran.
In the years since, Khamenei’s public comments on the matter have oscillated between encouraging negotiations with the U.S. and outright dismissing the possibility of a renewed pact.
Foreign policy observers say the upcoming U.S. presidential election is injecting even more uncertainty into the prospects of reaching another nuclear agreement with Iran.
Trump has previously made unsubstantiated claims that Iran was ready to accept conditions that were highly favorable to the U.S. at the end of his term and that he was “ready to make a deal.” But on the campaign trail, Trump — a sworn enemy of the Iranian regime — has taken an increasingly hawkish stance against the country, which reportedly carried out a cyberattack targeting his campaign and has plotted against him and his former Cabinet officials.
Harris has also promised to take an aggressive approach to curbing Iran’s malign influence in the Middle East, but she supported the JCPOA, as well as the current administration’s efforts to cut a new deal. However, she has not clearly said whether she would attempt to pick up where Biden left off.
Indirect talks with Iran under the Biden administration officially kicked off in April 2021. Despite mediators’ initial optimism, talks eventually sputtered out after multiple rounds of stop-start diplomacy failed to move both sides toward an agreement.
So far, Biden has made good on another of his major promises regarding Iran: his declaration that the country would “never get a nuclear weapon on my watch.”
However, officials within his administration say Tehran has made substantial progress toward that goal in recent years.
In July, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Iran was likely only “one or two weeks away” from having breakout capacity to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon, and that the U.S. was watching “very, very carefully” to see whether the country would move toward weaponizing its nuclear program, a step the administration says the regime has not yet taken.
The U.S. shutting down the possibility of any renewed talks with Iran right now comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, including Israel’s preemptive strike Saturday night on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
Former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. watches his former running mate Nicole Shanahan speak during a campaign event at the Henry J. Kaiser Event Center in Oakland, Calif., on March 26, 2024. (Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — An environmental group is calling for a federal agency to investigate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who allegedly used a chainsaw to cut off the head of a dead whale, strapped it to the roof of his minivan, and drove it across state lines roughly three decades ago when he was in his 40s.
On Monday, the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, a nonprofit group, wrote a letter to directors of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration asking them to investigate Kennedy for his alleged actions, which his daughter, Kick Kennedy, recounted to Town & Country in a 2012 interview. The story resurfaced this week amid tabloid reports about Kick Kennedy’s dating life.
According to the Town & Country piece, “word got out that a dead whale had washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port, [Massachusetts].”
“Bobby — who likes to study animal skulls and skeletons — ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale’s head, and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York,” according to the article.
A spokeswoman for Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.
Kick Kennedy told the outlet, “Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet. We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last week suspended his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Republican Donald Trump. Trump’s campaign announced later that Kennedy would join his presidential transition team.
In the letter to the NOAA, Brett Hartl, national political director for the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, argued that Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer, violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and possibly the Endangered Species Act.
“We hope that the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement, at a minimum, is able to ensure that Mr. Kennedy surrenders any and all illegally obtained wildlife that he continues to possess, including the whale skull he took from the Massachusetts beach in 1994,” Hartl wrote, according to a copy of the letter he provided to ABC News.
“Given Mr. Kennedy’s reckless disregard for the two most important marine conservation laws in the United States, we ask that NOAA consider all appropriate civil and criminal penalties as well,” he wrote.
Representatives for the NOAA did not respond to an emailed question about whether the agency had decided to investigate Kennedy.
The resurfaced whale anecdote is the second story regarding Kennedy’s handling of wild animals that has drawn attention and scrutiny this summer.
Earlier this month, he told Roseanne Barr that in 2014 he jokingly planted a dead bear cub in Central Park after picking up the cub from the side of the road and putting it in the back of his vehicle.
(NEW YORK) — A prominent Latino voting organization is calling on the Justice Department to investigate a series of raids held across Texas last week as part an ongoing election fraud investigation led by the state’s controversial attorney general, Ken Paxton.
The raids targeted prominent Democrats and election volunteers — including some in their late 80s — according to a spokesperson for the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, at a press conference on Monday.
Investigators allegedly confiscated cellphones, computers, and other records, according to LULAC officials.
“I call upon the appropriate federal authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the factors that led Texas Attorney [General] Ken Paxton to order these armed raids,” Lupe Torres, a LULAC leader, said.
Among those targeted in the raids was Lydia Martinez, an 80-year-old retired teacher who lives in San Antonio, who “was removed from her home in her night gown and made to wait outside in full view of her neighbors and the general public, causing great humiliation and discomfort,” said LULAC president Roman Palomares at the Monday press conference.
“Lydia’s devices, personal calendar, and voter registration materials were confiscated, and she was coerced into providing her passwords under the threat of delayed return of her property,” LULAC said in its letter to the Justice Department.
Speaking to ABC News on Tuesday, LULAC CEO Juan Proaño called the raids “baseless.”
“There’s no merit to it at all. There’s no evidence that was actually provided, even to the judge when they received these warrants. They’re baseless,” Proaño said of the allegations. “We know for a fact, certainly as it relates to our members, that there is nothing at all to substantiate any voter harvesting, any voter fraud at all.”
Paxton said in a statement last week that his office had uncovered “sufficient evidence” of election fraud to justify the search warrants executed during the raids. A county prosecutor outside San Antonio referred the alleged “election fraud and vote harvesting” to the attorney general’s office in 2022, according to Paxton’s statement.
The raids also coincided with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s announcement this week that the state, since 2021, had purged more than a million people from the state’s voter rolls, including nearly half a million deceased people and over 6,500 noncitizens. State election officials frequently update voter rolls to remove deceased individuals or those who have moved out of the state.
Proãno told ABC News that the small fraction of noncitizens make up only half of a percentage point of the registrants removed, which he believes is proof that widespread voter fraud among noncitizens is not a systemic issue in the state of Texas.
“It’s almost half a percent. We’re not saying that it doesn’t exist. We’re not saying that there are folks that are not U.S. citizens who are registered. Sometimes they register by accident. Sometimes they get bad information and they do register. But there is not systemic voter harvesting going on there, not systemic voter fraud,” Proãno said on ABC News Live with Kyra Phillips.
Abbott said his office had referred “any potential illegal voting” activity to Paxton’s office for investigation.
A Justice Department spokesperson told ABC News it had received a letter from LULAC, but would not comment on whether they plan to take any investigative steps.
Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — A couple in their 50’s were kidnapped and assaulted this weekend while house hunting in Connecticut, police have said.
The incident occurred on Sunday afternoon in the city of Danbury, when a group of six men intentionally rear-ended the couple’s Lamborghini sports car before forcing them into the back of a van.
The men — all of whom live in Florida — beat the couple with a baseball bat, duct taped their hands and feet and covered the male victim’s eyes. Some members of the group then drove off with the Lamborghini while the others sought to escape with the victims in the van.
“It seems like they were struck with a bat,” Sgt. Steven Castrovinci said of the kidnapped couple, as quoted by ABC News’ New York City station WABC-TV. “The male victim was pretty bruised, pretty swollen and they indicated they were struck with a bat several times.”
A witness alerted law enforcement and followed the van until it lost control and crashed. Police were then able to apprehend the four men in the van and free the kidnapped couple. The other two men were arrested later.
Police told WABC that the two victims were taken to the hospital and are recovering from their injuries, which are not life-threatening.
All six suspects now face charges including first-degree assault, first-degree kidnapping and reckless endangerment. The motive remains unclear, and there is no clear connection between the suspect and the victims.
WABC named the arrested men as Angel Borrero, 23; Reynaldo Diaz, 22; Anthony Pena, 23; Josue Romero, 26; Ricardo Estrada, 21; and Michael Rivas, 18.
(NEW YORK) — A dog breeder has been found dead and as many as 10 of his Doberman puppies have gone missing as police investigate his death as a homicide, authorities said.
The Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado along with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the 5th Judicial District Attorney’s Office are investigating the death of 57-year-old Paul Peavey, who had last been heard from on the night of Aug. 19 and was reported missing the evening of Wednesday, Aug. 21, according to a statement from the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office released on Monday.
Three days later, the body of an adult male was discovered just before noon last Saturday by a privately organized search party, police said.
Later that day, the coroner’s office confirmed the identity of the deceased to be that of Mr. Peavey and officials said they would conduct an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of his death, according to the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office.
Peavey had been a breeder of Doberman dogs, and it was reported that many of his Doberman puppies were missing from his property following his death, police said.
While authorities have not yet determined a motive in the homicide, the puppies’ whereabouts are part of the ongoing investigation, Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office said in their statement.
“We can confirm that many puppies are unaccounted for, possibly as many as 10, and we are asking for the public’s help in the following ways,” said the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office. “The unaccounted-for Doberman puppies may have been sold through social media sites or by other means since Tuesday, August 20. All of Mr. Peavey’s puppies are microchipped. Anyone who purchased a Doberman puppy in the central Colorado area within the last week is encouraged to check the puppy for a microchip and contact the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office at 303-679-2393 or admin@clearcreeksheriff.us. We would then be able to determine if the puppy was one of Mr. Peavey’s.”
“Anyone who purchased a puppy through Mr. Peavey’s business, Elite European Dobermans, since June 2024 is also asked to contact the Sheriff’s Office. Please contact us if you received the puppy that was purchased or if you did not receive the puppy. This will help us determine exactly how many puppies are unaccounted for,” authorities continued.
The investigation is in its very early stages and police said that they would release additional information “that does not compromise the investigation or future court proceedings” in due course.
Police emphasized that locating Peavey’s unaccounted for puppies may also help solve his homicide.
“We have gotten several tips regarding the puppies that are unaccounted for, and we appreciate all the information that has been sent to us,” authorities said.
Anyone with information about this investigation is asked to call the Sheriff’s Office non-emergency number at 303-679-2393, or submit a tip via email at crime_tips@clearcreeksheriff.us.
(NEW YORK) — As the Israel-Hamas war continues, cease-fire discussions are occurring in the Middle East, with officials hoping to bring an end to the conflict.
The United States and its allies continue to plead for a cease-fire deal, with discussions set for this week.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Israel launches largest raids in West Bank in years
The IDF overnight widened a major military operation in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, attacking from the air and from the ground using tanks and bulldozers, ABC News has learned.
The targets of the raid are Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas. The IDF has described the ongoing operation as an “extensive operation to counter terrorism” and to “thwart Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructures.”
Reports indicate that nine Palestinians have so far been killed, though that number could rise. The IDF has reportedly ordered Palestinians to evacuate from the three targets locations, with troops also entering a hospital in the area.
The raid is believed to be the first operation by the IDF targeting several cities at once since the Second Intifada, which ran from 2000 to 2005.
IDF launches large raids in the West Bank
Israel Defense Forces said it launched an “operation to counter terrorism” in the northern West Bank overnight Tuesday.
“The security forces have now begun an operation to counter terrorism in Jenin and Tulkarm in the Menashe division,” the IDF said in a statement.
Hostage in good condition, will remain in hospital for more tests
Qaid Farhan Alkadi, the hostage rescued from a tunnel in Gaza, is in “good condition,” but will remain in the hospital for “another day or two of medical tests to make sure he is still OK,” Shlomi Codish, the CEO of Soroka Medical Center, said during a press conference Tuesday.
Alkadi is being treated at the Soroka Medical Center after being rescued by Israeli forces.
Israeli delegation heads to Doha to continue cease-fire talks
A delegation from Israel — including Israeli Security Agency, Mossad and IDF officials — is heading to Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday to continue hostage release and cease-fire talks, an Israeli official told ABC News Tuesday.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
Hostage was alone when found by Israeli forces
Qaid Farhan Alkadi was alone when he was located by Israeli forces in a tunnel in Gaza, Israel Defense Forces officials told ABC News.
In the last few days, IDF and Israeli security agency forces had been operating in the area where Alkadi was found and rescued, according to IDF officials. The forces operated underground, in a complex environment where there was suspicion of the presence of hostages, terrorists and explosives, the officials said.
Farhan was located by Israeli forces when he was alone, without his captors, and was rescued from the tunnel, the officials added.
-ABC News’ Dana Savir
Hostage families renew calls for cease-fire after hostage rescue
Hostage families are calling for an immediate cease-fire, calling the rescue of Kaid Farhan Al-Qadi — a Bedouin father of 11 from south of Rahat — from a tunnel in Gaza, “nothing short of miraculous,” in a statement.
“However, we must remember: military operations alone cannot free the remaining 108 hostages, who have suffered 326 days of abuse and terror. A negotiated deal is the only way forward,” the hostage families said in a press release.
Al-Qadi was kidnapped from his security job at Kibbutz Magen’s packing factory on Oct. 7. He is the eighth hostage that Israeli forces have rescued alive since Oct. 7, according to an IDF official.
“Every single day in captivity is one too many. The remaining hostages cannot afford to wait for another such miracle,” hostage families said.
-ABC News’ Dana Savir
Israel to use ‘all means’ to return remaining hostages
IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told a press conference on Tuesday of the “complex rescue mission” that freed Qaid Farhan Alkadi from a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip.
“He is back home in Israel,” Hagari said of Alkadi. He is only the eighth hostage rescued alive from Gaza by the IDF, and the first rescued alive from a tunnel under the strip. Alkadi was among scores of people seized in southern Israel during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack.
“We cannot go into many details of this special operation but I can share that Israeli commandos rescued Qaid Farhan Alkadi from an underground tunnel, following accurate intelligence,” Hagari said.
“His medical condition is stable and he will undergo examinations in hospital. His family had been waiting 326 days to receive the news they did today.”
“But there are still 108 hostages, whose families are still waiting to hear news that their loved ones are home. And they should know that we will not rest until we fulfill our mission to bring all our hostages back home.”
“We will pursue the return of our hostages through all means possible. I repeat, through all means possible.”
-ABC News’ Morgan Winsor
Israeli forces rescue hostage from Gaza
The Israeli military announced Tuesday that it had rescued an Arab citizen of Israel who was among scores of people abducted in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attack.
Qaid Farhan Alkadi, 52, from the Bedouin town of Rahat in southern Israel, was rescued “in a complex operation in the southern Gaza Strip,” according to Israeli authorities.
An Israeli source told ABC News that the rescued hostage is currently at Soroka Medical Center in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Top US general ends Israel visit
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr. has completed a visit to Israel amid intensifying fighting across the Lebanese border and continued uncertainty about a potential Iranian attack on Israel.
Brown met with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israeli Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi in Tel Aviv on Monday. The officials discussed Hezbollah’s weekend rocket and drone attack and the “need to de-escalate tensions to avoid a broader conflict,” per a Pentagon readout.
Hezbollah launched its attack in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Fouad Shukr in Beirut last month.
Cease-fire talks moving forward after strikes: Kirby
Cease-fire talks are now moving forward at a working group level in Cairo over the next few days to hammer out specifics, according to National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby.
This weekend’s strikes by Israel and Hezbollah have “not affected the actual work on the ground by the teams trying to get this cease-fire deal in place,” Kirby told reporters Monday.
Kirby also rejected any suggestion that talks broke down this weekend, instead saying they were “constructive” enough to work on “finer details” at lower levels.
“There was no breakdown,” he said. “They made enough progress that they were willing to, or needed to transition to a working group level so you didn’t need the mediators all there and the leadership there.”
Brett McGurk, a top senior adviser on the Middle East at the White House, stayed in Cairo an extra day to kick off the meetings and is still there, Kirby said, adding that all parties are being represented in these discussions.
“One issue that will be for the working groups to flesh out is the exchange of hostages and prisoners that Israel’s holding — what that exchange looks like, how many, some of the details of exactly who will be released on either side and at what pace, those kinds of things,” Kirby said.
Al-Aqsa Hospital still operating despite evacuations
Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah is still operating, despite new temporary evacuation orders from Israeli forces to leave the surrounding area near the hospital.
Out of the 650 patients in Al-Aqsa Hospital, only 100 remain in the hospital that are being treated, the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said.
The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged they have been “operating in recent days in the Deir al Balah area,” but they said the evacuation orders did not include “the hospitals and medical facilities in the area,” in response to an inquiry from ABC News.
Three out of 18 water wells are still functioning in Deir al Balah due to “ongoing military operations,” the U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees said in a post Monday.
World Food Programme operations ‘severely hampered’ in Gaza
The World Food Programme, the U.N.’s worldwide food assistance program, is being “severely hampered” by the “intensifying conflict” in Gaza.
The agency said border crossings have been limited and roads in Gaza have become so unusable that urgent repairs are needed in order to transport basic needs, like food and medicine.
“Transporting food, water, medicine and hygiene equipment is critical for the survival of communities in Gaza today and will be needed for months to come,” Antoine Renard, the country director for Gaza, said in a statement. “Roads are part of this lifeline.”
6:26 PM EDT Hospital in central Gaza under evacuation order after nearby explosion
Israeli forces issued an evacuation order in the vicinity of the Al Aqsa Hospital, Deir Al Balah, in central Gaza, urging people to flee, according to a statement from Doctors Without Borders Sunday.
“An explosion approximately 250 meters away triggered panic with many choosing to leave the hospital,” the organization said.
Of the approximately 650 patients in the hospital prior to the explosion, only 100 remain, with seven in the intensive care unit, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Doctors Without Borders is considering suspending wound care for the time being, while trying to maintain lifesaving treatment, according to the statement.
“This situation is unacceptable,” the organization said. “Al Aqsa has been operating well beyond capacity for weeks due to the lack of alternatives for patients. All warring parties must respect the hospital, as well as patients’ access to medical care.”
Aug 26, 2024, 4:56 PM EDT Sirens sound in Tel Aviv as Hamas fires rocket from Gaza
Sirens sounded in Tel Aviv Sunday night for the first time since January as Hamas launched a single rocket toward central Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces said the Hamas rocket fell into an “open area” in Rishon LeTsiyon, south of Tel Aviv.
Israeli emergency services officials said no one was injured by the rocket, but a 26-year-old woman was hurt going to a shelter.
Hamas confirmed it fired an “M90” rocket at Tel Aviv.
-ABC News Victoria Beaule
4:37 PM EDT Hezbollah leader says missile barrage on Israeli base ‘has ended’
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said missile and drone strikes targeting a “base for military intelligence” near Tel Aviv, Israel, “has ended” for now.
Nasrallah said the strikes carried out Sunday constituted the first and second phases of Hezbollah’s response to Israeli missile strikes in Lebanon. He said Hezbollah reserves the right to “respond” if it learns its strikes on Israel are not “sufficient.”
Nasrallah said Hezbollah’s missile and drone strikes targeted the Glilot military base near Tel Aviv, alleging it is a “base for military intelligence.”
“It contains a large number of officers and soldiers and it manages many of the assassination operations that take place in the region, as well as the sedition and deception operations,” Nasrallah alleged.
Hezbollah believes “a number of drones” reached their target. Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said most of the Hezbollah missiles and drones were intercepted and denied that the Glilot military base was hit.
Hagari also confirmed that the soldier who was killed in the Hezbollah missile strike was hit by a fragment of an Iron Dome interceptor.
Nasrallah said a total of 340 missiles were fired at the Glilot military base.
A “preemptive strike” by Israel failed to cause any significant damage, according to Nasrallah.
“What happened was aggression, not a preemptive action,” Nasrallah said.
-ABC News Victoria Beaule
3:33 PM EDT Hamas rejects latest cease-fire deal
Hamas leader Osama Hamdan has released a statement indicating Hamas does not accept the latest iteration of the cease-fire proposal as written.
Hamas insists that changes added by Israel since July 2 are non-starters for them, specifically, Israel Defense Forces positions in the Philadelphi corridor, an eight-and-a-half-mile long demilitarized buffer zone running along the border between Egypt and Gaza. Hamas also objected to a proposal for non-Palestinian control of the Rafah border crossing.
Hamdan said Hamas will not return to the cease-fire talks as long as the new conditions stay in the proposal.
“The occupation set new conditions for accepting the agreement and backed away from what it had previously agreed to,” Hamdan said in a statement. “The delegation informed the mediators today of our opinion.”
-ABC News’ Victoria Beaule
1:16 PM EDT Soldier killed, 2 others injured in ‘combat’ in Northern Israel, says IDF
An Israeli soldier was killed and two others were injured Sunday “in combat in northern Israel,” the Israel Defense Forces announced.
The circumstances of what led to the death and injuries of the soldiers were not immediately disclosed by the IDF.
The soldier who was killed was identified by the IDF as Petty Officer 1st Class David Moshe Ben Shitrit, 21, of Geva Binyamin, Israel. The soldier was a member of the Israeli Navy’s 914th Fleet, according to the IDF.
The two soldiers who suffered light to moderate injuries are also members of the 914th Fleet, according to the IDF. Their names were not immediately released.
-ABC News’ Anna Burd and Jordana Miller
US not involved in Israel’s pre-emptive strike on Lebanon, official says
A U.S. official reaffirmed Sunday that the United States was not involved in Israel’s pre-emptive strike Saturday night on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon but had provided Israel some intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information believed to have been used in the mission.
The U.S. had provided some “ISR support in terms of tracking incoming Lebanese Hezbollah attacks but did not conduct any kinetic operations as they were not required,” the official said.
“We continue to closely monitor the situation and remain well-postured and ready to support the defense of Israel from attacks by Iran and any of its proxies, to include Lebanese Hezbollah,” the official said.
At least three people were killed overnight in the Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said Sunday. The casualties included two people who were killed in the village of At Tiri and one in the town of Khiam, the ministry said, adding that two additional people were injured and required hospitalization.
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez
IDF issues new evacuation order in central Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces announced a new evacuation order Sunday for a small strip of land in a humanitarian area of central Gaza.
The new evacuation order for an area of Deir al-Balah came just days after the IDF ordered the evacuation of two refugee camps in the same area as the Israeli military prepared for a new ground offensive in the humanitarian zone.
The IDF suspects that Hamas terrorists are hiding in the area and using Palestinian refugees as human shields.
Sunday’s evacuation order affected those living in a relatively small area of Deir al-Balah that includes five schools sheltering displaced people and tent camps around them. The area is near the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, one of the largest remaining functional hospitals in Gaza, servicing all of central Gaza.
-ABC News’ Bictoria Beaule
Hezbollah planned to strike Israeli intelligence, sources tell ABC News
Israel believes the Hezbollah targets in central Israel were meant to be a complex of intelligence bases and the headquarters of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, just north of Tel Aviv, two Israeli security sources told ABC News.
-ABC News’ Dana Savir and Bruno Nota
3 killed, 2 injured in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, officials say
At least three people were killed overnight in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said Sunday.
Two were killed in the village of At Tiri and one in the town of Khiam, the ministry said, adding that two additional people were injured and required hospitalization.
The United Nations agency in charge of peacekeeping in southern Lebanon called on Sunday for a cease-fire and for all sides to “refrain from further escalatory action.”
“In light of worrying developments across the Blue Line since the early morning, UNSCOL and UNIFIL call on all to cease fire and refrain from further escalatory action,” the agency said in a statement, referring to a demarcation line separating Israel from Lebanon.
There have been no reports of injuries on the Israeli side, according to emergency services in Israel.
-ABC News’ Ghazi Balkiz, Jordana Miller and Victoria Beaule
Israel continues strikes in southern Lebanon, IDF says
The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday said the military was targeting Hezbollah with additional strikes in southern Lebanon.
“In the last hour, the IDF struck Hezbollah launchers in several areas in southern Lebanon to remove threats,” the IDF said in a statement. “In addition, the IDF identified a terrorist cell operating in the area of Khiam in southern Lebanon. The IAF swiftly struck the terrorists.”
-ABC News’ Anna Burd and Victoria Beaule
‘Whoever harms us — we will harm them,’ Netanyahu says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday described his country’s preemptive strikes within Lebanon as a “strong action to foil the threats” raised by a potential attack by Hezbollah.
“It has eliminated thousands of rockets that were aimed at northern Israel,” Netanyahu said as he convened his Security Cabinet for a meeting at 7 a.m. local time. “It is thwarting many other threats and is taking very strong action — both defensively and offensively.”
Netanyahu had earlier in the morning been managing the situation with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant from the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, his office said. The prime minister’s office released photos of the pair meeting with military officials.
“We are determined to do everything to defend our country, to return the residents of the north securely to their homes and to continue upholding a simple rule: Whoever harms us — we will harm them,” Netanyahu said.
-ABC News’ Kevin Shalvey
‘Thousands’ of Hezbollah rocket launchers destroyed, IDF says
The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday said it had destroyed “thousands” of Hezbollah rocket launchers.
“Approximately 100 IAF fighter jets, directed by IDF intelligence, struck and destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels that were located and embedded in southern Lebanon,” the military said in a statement.
The statement added, “Most of these launchers were aimed toward northern Israel and some were aimed toward central Israel. More than 40 launches areas in Lebanon were struck during the strikes.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky and Kevin Shalvey
Israel warns Lebanese citizens of danger as it strikes Hezbollah
The Israeli Air Force launched “dozens” of planes to attack locations throughout southern Lebanon, saying it was continuing “to remove threats, to vigorously attack the terrorist organization Hezbollah.”
“Israel’s air defense systems, navy ships and Air Force planes are on a defense mission above the country’s skies, identifying, intercepting threats and attacking wherever in Lebanon it is required in order to remove threats and harm Hezbollah,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.
The aerial strikes within Lebanon were coming as Israeli defenses were dealing with “different types of threats,” including scores of rockets and drones launched into Israeli airspace, he said.
“We have already intercepted a number of rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles that approached the territory of the State of Israel,” Hagari said.He added, “We warn the Lebanese citizens in South Lebanon. We recognize that Hezbollah is firing in a large area near your homes. You are in danger. We attack and remove Hezbollah threats.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky and Kevin Shalvey
Hezbollah claims hundreds of rockets launched at Israel
Hezbollah claimed early on Sunday to have launched more than 320 rockets toward 11 military locations within Israel and Golan Heights.
The “enemy sites” that had been targeted were detailed in a statement. They included military bases in Meron, Ein Zeytim and Al-Sahl.
Barracks in Naveh Ziv, Ramot Naftali and Zaoura were also among the sites targeted, Hezbollah said.
The group described those launches as a “first stage,” saying they were “targeting Israeli barracks and sites to facilitate the passage of offensive drones towards their desired target deep inside” Israel.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to soon face her first post-convention test when she sits for a formal interview airing in primetime Thursday.
CNN announced Tuesday that Harris and her running mate Gov. Tim Walz will be interviewed by anchor Dana Bash, marking the first sitdown with a reporter since President Joe Biden bowed out of the race.
The announcement came as Harris faced growing calls from critics about her availability to reporters since she took over the campaign.
Ian Sams, a senior adviser to the Harris campaign, appeared reiterated on Monday that Harris would “schedule” a sit-down interview by the end of the month.
The initial absence of plans for any such sit-down prompted accusations by Republican critics of dodging the press.
“She refuses to do any interviews or press conferences, almost 30 days now, she has not done an interview,” former President Donald Trump said of Harris at a North Carolina event earlier this month. “You know why she hasn’t done an interview? Because she’s not smart. She’s not intelligent.”
His campaign has said Harris is trying to “duck and hide” from the news media, which is sure to sling several tough questions her way when she meets the press.
The lack of a media interview has yet to hurt Harris, whose poll numbers are outpacing those of President Joe Biden when he was atop the Democratic ticket, according to 538’s national polling average. As of Tuesday, Harris is polling ahead of Trump, 47.2% to 43.6%; when Biden left the race, he was polling at 40.2% compared to Trump’s 43.5%, according to 538’s polling average.
Harris has also stirred enthusiasm from Democrats that had been absent most of the campaign cycle — and is riding a high following last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Moreover, she chose a running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, whose rural background has helped the ticket craft a message Democrats have said they believe will make inroads with voters in conservative parts of the country.
All the while, Trump has seemed to abandon the discipline Republicans had lauded him for this summer. Recently, he has made false claims about the crowd size at a Harris rally and appeared to forget to mention a policy proposal he had been slated to unveil at an event in Michigan.
Democrats have cautioned that Harris has several hurdles to clear in the coming weeks.
One of those hurdles is the pending media interview, where Harris would likely have to defend the decisions of the Biden administration and specify some of her policy stances.
On Monday, Trump sought to spotlight Harris’ connection to the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, laying wreaths in Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the third anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members.
“Caused by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world,” Trump claimed when he spoke to National Guardsmen at a Detroit event later Monday.
Harris is also likely to be pressed on how much she knew about Biden’s capacities prior to the June 27 debate. That night, she urged Americans to judge Biden not on the “90 minutes” on stage but the “three-and-a-half years of performance.”
Yet, that same debate performance set in motion a weekslong effort by top Democrats to nudge Biden from the race.
Few had a better understanding of what Biden was like behind the scenes than Harris, his No. 2, and an interviewer would likely challenge her about what she witnessed in private.
Harris would surely be asked about the war in Gaza. She said recently, “We need a cease-fire,” but is a member of an administration that has yet to help broker one.
The situation at the southern border would likely be another topic an interviewer would press Harris on. Republicans have linked her to an increase in unauthorized border crossings earlier in Biden’s term, misleadingly dubbing her the “border czar.”
An interviewer might also ask Harris to respond to the criticism of her recently unveiled economic plan, in which she called for an end to grocery “price-gouging,” prompting accusations by some Republicans that she wants “communist price controls.”
Harris travels this week to south Georgia, where she will embark on a bus tour and hold a rally in Savannah, Georgia.
(OROVILLE, Calif.) — A 26-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of starting a massive Northern California wildfire in July that destroyed 26 homes and businesses and prompted the evacuation of nearly 30,000 people, officials said.
Spencer Grant Anderson of Oroville, California, was arraigned on Monday on charges of arson of an inhabited structure, arson of forest land and arson causing multiple structures to burn, according to the Butte County District Attorney’s Office.
Anderson was ordered to return to court on Wednesday after he has a chance to speak to his court-appointed attorney, prosecutors said.
“It was a long-term investigation. There are a lot of moving parts. Right now it’s an accusation and everybody has a right to a trial,” Anderson’s attorney, Larry Pilgrim, told ABC News on Tuesday as he waited at the Butte County Jail to speak to his client for the first time.
Pilgrim said he plans to ask for a continuance in the case to allow him to review the evidence. He said Anderson will enter a plea at a later date.
Investigators from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) identified Anderson as a possible suspect a day after the Thompson Fire ignited near the town of Oroville on July 2, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said at a news conference on Monday.
“For 50 days, Cal Fire devoted four to six investigators per day, brought in from around the state, to continuously watch Anderson as other investigators meticulously built the case,” Ramsey said. “If Anderson had chosen to light another fire, we were confident the surveillance personnel would be able to detect and stop the fire before it could get out of control.”
Anderson was taken into custody on Aug. 22 when Cal Fire investigators executed search warrants and “located evidence further implicating Anderson in starting the Thompson fire,” prosecutors said in a statement without elaborating on the evidence.
Ramsey said that on the day the fire was ignited, Cal Fire investigators pinpointed the area where the fire started near the intersection of Cherokee and Thompson Flat roads in a rural area northeast of Oroville and quickly determined the “fire was caused by an intentional human act.”
“Arson by its very terms is a very difficult crime to solve because it burns up the evidence,” Ramsey said, praising the work of investigators on the case.
Ramsey said several 911 callers and witnesses in the area at the time the fire started reported seeing a blue Toyota driving in the area and investigators determined the fire was most likely started by a flaming object thrown from the Toyota as it drove southbound on Cherokee Road.
Using automatic license plate readers in the area, investigators were able to identify the Toyota and trace it to Anderson, Ramsey said.
“Anderson was arrested and questioned. He admitted that on the morning of the fire, he purchased fireworks from a firework stand in Oroville, then went up to Cherokee Road to ‘test one’ by throwing it out his car window,” prosecutors said in the statement.
In addition to destroying 26 structures, including 13 homes, the Thompson Fire damaged eight structures and burned 3,789 acres before it was fully contained on July 8, according to Cal Fire. Two firefighters were injured battling the blaze, Cal Fire said.
If convicted of the charges, Anderson faces a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison, according to prosecutors. Anderson has been ordered to be held without bail at the Butte County Jail.
The Thompson Fire was the second wildfire deliberately set in Butte County in July. On July 24, the Park Fire was deliberately started in Bidwell Park near Chico and spread to more than 429,000 acres across Butte, Tehama, Shasta and Plumas counties.
Ronnie Dean Stout II, 42, was arrested on a felony count of arson of an inhabited structure or property, according to the Butte County District Attorney’s Office. Stout has pleaded not guilty.
Stout was allegedly spotted pushing a car that was on fire down a gully called “Alligator Hole” in Bidwell Park, igniting the Park Fire, now the fourth largest wildfire in California history, according to prosecutors.
(WASHINGTON) — Climate change may not be a top concern for voters for the 2024 presidential election, but that hasn’t stopped many Republicans from making misrepresentations about environmental and energy policy – a departure from the previous tactic of majority climate change denial, according to experts on environmental politics who spoke with ABC News.
Debates around energy policy, specifically regarding renewable energy versus fossil fuels, are inherently connected to climate change, in large part because fossil fuels are the largest contributor to climate change, according to the United Nations, accounting for more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and almost 90% of carbon dioxide emissions.
In recent years, Republicans have been finding opportunities to condemn green energy, like in February 2021, when a historic freeze caused widespread power outages in Texas, affecting more than 4.5 million people and killing hundreds. At the time, some Republican politicians used the crisis to make false claims about renewable energy, claiming that it was unreliable and the cause of the outages. However, a failure to adequately winterize power sources – particularly the state’s natural gas infrastructure, which “represented 58 percent of all generating units experiencing unplanned outages, derates or failures to start” during the outage – is what caused the grid failure, according to a report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released the following November.
While many Republicans previously denied the science that human-caused emissions exacerbated climate change, experts on environmental politics say the conversation has evolved to focus less on the climate science.
“There’s been a real shift in the rhetoric in the past few years,” according to Leah Aronowsky, a science historian at the Columbia Climate School, whose research has focused on the history of climate science and climate denialism. “We’ve seen this shift in rhetoric from denying the reality of climate change to maybe kind of problematizing some of the major solutions that are on the table, like wind and solar energy in particular.”
The effects of climate change are worsening in every part of the U.S., according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, a breakdown of the latest in climate science coming from 14 different federal agencies, published in November.
Even so, climate change policies are not among the top of concerns for Republican voters, according to January 2024 polling from the Pew Research Center. While 54% of Americans overall view climate change as a major threat, just 12% of Republicans and those who lean Republican say dealing with climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress.
While denying climate change no longer resonates with some GOP voters as strongly as it once did, the policies that are required to transform the energy economy in the U.S. and around the world to address climate change are still unfavorable to a lot of them – hence the change in messaging, according to David Konisky, a professor of environmental politics at Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
“It’s very difficult for Republicans to reconcile any interest in addressing climate change along with messaging and a commitment to maintain reliance on fossil fuels,” Konisky told ABC News.
In the end, the widespread opposition to climate policy reform has little to do with disputing climate science and more to do with objections to the monetary cost of addressing it, according to Aseem Prakash, a professor of political science at University of Washington and director of the Center for Environmental Politics.
The Democratic and Republican divide concerning environmental issues began during the Reagan administration in the 1980s, according to Aronowsky. However, the politics of climate have changed a lot in recent years, according to Prakash. For example, Republicans rarely use the term “climate change” anymore – “it’s become a trigger word,” Prakash said – and instead are framing the subject as “renewable energy” and the problems they claim could arise from policies implementing it.
During a rally in South Carolina in September 2023, former President Donald Trump lambasted offshore wind turbines, claiming that the “windmills are driving [whales] crazy” and are causing an increase in the number of dead whales washing ashore – one of many false claims the former president has made about wind power. During a Republican fundraising dinner in 2019, Trump also claimed that noise from the wind turbines causes cancer, and that they are a “graveyard for birds.”
The rhetoric has surfaced in local politics, too, according to the experts. A protest against offshore wind turbines that took place in February 2023 in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, featured several local Republicans, including the mayors of New Jersey’s Seaside Park and Point Pleasant Beach, and U.S. Rep. Chris Smith.
Despite the claims, there are “no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Many Republicans are also talking about oil in new ways, touting domestic oil as cleaner and more pristine than imported oil, though supporting data has been absent. Trump has vowed to boost U.S. oil production if elected to a second term, promising to “drill, baby, drill” to lower the costs of energy. Yet data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration in March showed that the United States “produced more crude oil than any nation at any time, according to our International Energy Statistics, for the past six years in a row” – 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023, during the Biden administration, breaking the record set in 2019 of 12.3 million during the Trump administration.
Playing into those politics are gasoline prices, which have become a partial barometer of economic security, Matt Huber, a professor in Syracuse University’s geography and environment department, told ABC News. He also noted that that the oil and gas industry has history of funding research that contradicts climate science.
The state of modern American politics includes heavy investment by the fossil fuel industry into the Republican Party and its candidates, Konisky said: “I think that has become almost religious doctrine for many in the Republican Party … whatever the U.S. energy future looks like, it must rely heavily on fossil fuels.”
Donald Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, received $354,937 in funding from the oil and gas industry as of March 2023, according to Open Secrets, a research group that tracks money in U.S. politics. While the vice-presidential hopeful spoke publicly about the country’s “climate problem” as recently as 2020, he changed his position in 2023 after he was elected to the Senate, championing fracking and decrying clean energy ever since, Politico reported.
Neither the Republican National Committee nor the Trump/Vance campaign responded to an ABC News request for comment.
Other established Republican senators have received much more funding from oil companies than Vance has. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney has received nearly $8.7 million from the oil and gas industry. Texas Sen. John Cornyn has received $5.1 million, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has received more than $5 million, according to Open Secrets.
Another explanation for the Republican departure from climate denial is that it’s becoming an increasingly untenable position to assert that climate change is not real, Lise Van Susteren, a general and forensic psychiatrist who has researched how climate change has affected people’s psychological health, told ABC News.
The main reason is that the effects of climate change are now happening in people’s backyards, she said. Those effects include extreme wildfires, drought, a higher frequency of major hurricanes, and sea level rise.
