Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex walks in the Paddock prior to the F1 Grand Prix of United States at Circuit of The Americas on October 22, 2023 in Austin, Texas. CREDIT: Clive Mason – Formula /Getty Images
(LONDON) — Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, is on his way home after a quick visit to the United Kingdom to see his father, King Charles III, who is battling cancer.
Harry, 39, was spotted Wednesday at London’s Heathrow Airport, where he is expected to catch a flight home to California.
Harry’s flight home caps a whirlwind overnight trip to London, where he reportedly met with Charles for less than an hour and stayed in a hotel rather than in one of the king’s royal residences.
“If they can’t even just say, ‘Stay over in the house, in Clarence House, or one of the rooms in Buckingham Palace,’ there are plenty of them, it seems to suggest he’s still very much an outsider,” ABC News royal contributor Robert Jobson said of Harry’s status with his family, from whom he has been distant for several years.
Harry, who stepped down from his senior royal role in 2020, was spotted Tuesday arriving at Clarence House, the London residence of Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla.
Shortly after his meeting with Harry, which took place privately, Charles was photographed in a car alongside Camilla as the two traveled to a helicopter to fly to Sandringham, the king’s estate in Norfolk, England.
Buckingham Palace announced Monday that Charles, 75, has been diagnosed with cancer. The palace did not state what type of cancer Charles is battling but noted that he has started “a schedule of regular treatments.”
Harry’s visit with Charles marked the first time he has seen his father since May, when he traveled to the U.K. to attend Charles’ coronation.
At the coronation, Harry sat in the congregation with other members of the royal family and did not play a role in the service at Westminster Abbey. He and his older brother, Prince William, the heir to the throne, did not appear to interact at all during the service.
Harry and William did not have plans to see each other while Harry was in the U.K., a source told ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed dismissed reports saying people were dying of hunger in his country, but allowed that people “may have died” due to malnutrition-associated illnesses.
“There are no people dying due to hunger in Ethiopia,” Ahmed told lawmakers in Parliament on Tuesday.
Authorities in Tigray are warning that the northern Ethiopian region is on the brink of a famine as nearly 400 people have died of hunger in Ethiopia’s conflict-hit Tigray and Amhara regions in recent months.
About 91% of Tigray’s population has been “exposed to the risk of starvation and death,” Getachew K. Reda, of the Interim Regional Administration of Tigray, announced in a recent statement.
“Tigray is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe the likes of which have not been seen since the infamous 1984-85 famine that claimed the lives of millions of people across Ethiopia,” the administration said. “Indeed, at the moment, millions of Tigrayans are simply awaiting their gut-wrenching fate: death.”
A combination of drought — triggered by a shortage of seasonal rainfall — a desert locust infestation, and the temporary suspension of humanitarian aid have caused a “nightmarish humanitarian tragedy,” the administration said.
In a rare admission by the federal body, the national ombudsman last month announced nearly 400 people have died of starvation in Ethiopia’s Tigray and Amhara regions in recent months. There have been at least 351 recorded hunger-related deaths in Tigray, with an additional 44 deaths recorded in Amhara.
The region is still reeling from a devastating two-year civil war which saw the Ethiopian federal government and allied forces engaged in a deadly conflict with Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, forces in Northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
Speaking to ABC News in January 2023, Professor Jan Nyssen, senior professor at the Department of Geography at Ghent University, said at least 383,000 to 6,000 civilian deaths have occurred in Tigray between November 2020 and August 2022. The conflict left over 20 million people in Ethiopia in need of aid, over 2.8 million displaced.
In a statement sent to ABC News, the World Food Programme has said it is “extremely concerned” about the deteriorating situation in Northern Ethiopia, working to deliver food assistance to up to three million people in the coming weeks.
“Many are already facing severe hunger,” said Chris Nikoi, WFP’s Ethiopia country director.
In March 2023 the United Nations and the U.S. suspended food aid to Ethiopia’s Tigray region following a scandal involving the theft of humanitarian grain. The organizations later resumed deliveries on a smaller scale.
World Health Organization Director General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus said the WHO is “gravely concerned” about the situation in Amhara: “The internet is still cut off in the region, severely impeding communication with health partners and authorities. Restrictions on movement are impeding the provision of humanitarian assistance.”
“The most pressing need is for access to the affected areas, so we can assess the need and respond accordingly,” Ghebreyesus said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Environmental Protection Agency announced a new rule on Wednesday to significantly reduce the level of air pollution known as particulate matter (PM) by updating the national air-quality standards, citing negative health impacts of PM exposure.
While the rule is being praised by environmental and health groups, some industry groups have signaled that it could pose a political challenge for President Joe Biden this year as they claim it will hamper American manufacturing and eliminate jobs.
“Today’s action is a critical step forward that will better protect workers, families and communities from the dangerous and costly impacts of fine particle pollution,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters.
“The science is clear, soot pollution is one of the most dangerous forms of air pollution and it’s linked to a range of serious and potentially deadly illnesses, including asthma and heart attacks,” he said.
Particulate matter is made up of microscopic solid particles such as dirt, soot or smoke and liquid droplets in the air that are small enough to be inhaled. Those small particles can get into the lungs or bloodstream and contribute to health problems like asthma, respiratory symptoms, heart attacks, or premature death in people with heart or lung problems, according to the EPA.
This type of pollution comes from a variety of sources including power plants, cars, and construction sites. Wildfire smoke is also a significant source of particulate matter pollution.
“We know that particulate matter in the outside air leads to death. It kills people,” Patrice Simms, vice president of litigation for healthy communities at Earthjustice, told ABC News.
“And often that is a product of triggering heart attack, cardiopulmonary events or triggering asthma attacks that are fatal,” Simms said.
Regan said the updated standard will prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths and 290,000 lost workdays in the year 2032. On that same timeline, Biden administration officials also say the new standard will yield up to $46 billion in net health benefits.
“The impact of this pollution oftentimes disproportionately affects our most vulnerable communities, including low-income communities, communities of color, children, older adults and those who struggle with heart or lung conditions,” Regan said.
“Each one of these events — whether it’s someone’s death or hospitalization or heart attack or asthma attack — are traumatic experiences for the individuals,” Simms said. “They can be traumatic experiences for families and destabilizing for both families and communities.”
“There are both things that you can calculate numerically about what are the impacts [of PM pollution] and how many deaths and how many hospitalizations, but there also are really important kinds of impacts that are hard to quantify,” he added.
The previous annual standard for particulate matter was 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Under this new rule, the EPA is lowering the annual standard to 9 micrograms per cubic meter.
The updated rules do not revise the 24-hour standard which is meant to account for short-term spikes in pollution. That will remain at 35 micrograms per cubic meter.
President and CEO of the American Lung Association Harold Wimmer called the update “a step forward for public health,” but noted that the standards fall short of what his organization and others called for.
“While the stronger annual particle pollution standard will mean fewer asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes and deaths, it is disappointing that EPA did not follow the strong science-based recommendations of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the health community to also revise the 24-hour standard to more fully protect public health,” Wimmer added.
Industry groups like the American Forest & Paper Association, American Wood Council and the group’s member company CEOs sent a letter to the White House in October expressing their opposition to the now finalized rule, saying the move, “threatens U.S. competitiveness and modernization projects in the U.S. paper and wood products industry and in other manufacturing sectors across our country.”
“This would severely undermine President Biden’s promise to grow and reshore U.S. manufacturing jobs, and ultimately make American manufacturing less competitive,” the letter said. “It also would harm an industry that has been recognized as an important contributor to achieving the Administration’s carbon reduction goals, including in future procurement for federal buildings.”
Simms, who has worked in this space for 25 years, told ABC News these industry outcries aren’t new.
“I’ve been doing this work for 25 years in a variety of different capacities,” Simms said. “And I can say that every time that an agency like EPA has taken steps to protect people and to reduce pollution, I see this same playbook start to get utilized, which is ‘the sky is falling.’ ‘If we protect people this way, we’re going to destroy business and we’re going to undermine the economy.’ And there’s really good data to show that that’s just not true.”
“We do not have to sacrifice people to have a prosperous and booming economy,” Regan said.
(NEW YORK) — California search and rescue crews are looking for a missing helicopter with five Marines aboard, the U.S. Marine Corps said.
The CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter was “reported overdue” to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Tuesday night. The helicopter departed from Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas and was en route to Miramar, in the San Diego area.
The Marines have asked for help from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and Civil Air Patrol.
The sheriff’s department said it received a call at 1:50 a.m. and sent its own helicopter to search, but the helicopter wasn’t able to reach the area due to the atmospheric river storm hitting the region. The sheriff’s department said it has now sent off-road vehicles to navigate the rough terrain.
Firefighters responded to the point where the helicopter was last known, and nothing was found, Cal Fire officials said.
Ukrainian rescuers extinguish a fire in a residential building following a missile attack in Kyiv on Feb. 7, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Russian missiles struck Kyiv early on Wednesday, killing at least four, destroying homes and temporarily knocking out power for many, Ukrainian officials said.
“Another massive Russian air attack against our country,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media. “Six regions came under enemy fire.”
At least 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones and 44 missiles were fired, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Fifteen of the uncrewed drones were intercepted, along with at least 29 cruise missiles of varying types, Ukraine said.
“We are grateful to our brave air defenders and our international partners who help us strengthening air defense capabilities,” the ministry said.
The air raid alert began at about 6 a.m. local time and lasted for about three hours.
At least three people were killed and another 16 were injured in Kyiv, according to the city administration. Another person was killed by the strike in Mykolaiv, where dozens of houses were hit, Zelenskyy said. Another two were injured in Kharkiv, he said.
“My condolences to all who have lost loved ones,” he said. “We will definitely retaliate against Russia; terrorists will always face the consequences of their actions.”
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A. Brink, who is in Kyiv, said she and others around the country awoke to “another massive Russian missile and drone attack.”
“There is no time to lose,” she said on social media. “Ukraine needs our security assistance now.”
(WASHINGTON) — The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has detected and tracked four Russian military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Tuesday, according to a statement.
“The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace. This Russian activity in the Alaska ADIZ occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat,” the statement said.
The ADIZ is a zone that stretches out 150 miles from the U.S. coastline where the U.S. requires aircraft to identify themselves.
NORAD tracks aircraft in the region through a “layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft,” according to their statement, and they say they remain “ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America.”
Russia’s defense ministry issued a press release about a long-range training flight by bombers to the Arctic that might offer a description of some of the Russian bombers in this incident saying that two Tu-160 strategic missile carriers performed a flight over the neutral waters of the Arctic Ocean and the Laptev Sea, lasting over 10 hours.
“The flight was carried out in strict accordance with international rules for the use of airspace,” said the commander of long-range aviation, Lt. Gen. Sergei Kobylash, whose words were reported to the Russian Ministry of Defense. “Long-range aviation pilots regularly fly over the neutral waters of the Arctic, North Atlantic, Black and Baltic Seas, and the Pacific Ocean.”
Strategic bombers Tu-160, Tu-95MS and long-range bombers Tu-22M3 are part of the long-range aviation of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation. Long-range aircraft are the air component of the Russian nuclear triad, but they can also carry out strikes with conventional missiles and bombs, including cruise missiles, says the Russian Ministry of Defense.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi stands with Ukrainian Minister of Energy German Galushchenko as he talks to the press during a media briefing, in Kyiv, on Feb. 6, 2024, before his visit to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The chief of the United Nation’s atomic energy watchdog warned Tuesday that there’s “no place for complacency” in security at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine.
“There is absolutely no place for complacency or to believe that everything is stabilised there. Far from it,” Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Tuesday, according to a press release.
The energy chief is scheduled visit to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — the largest nuclear plant in Europe — on Wednesday.
The plant has been under Russian control since March 2022. The plant is located on the banks of the Dnipro River in the country’s southeast. It continues to be run by Ukrainian staff and has suffered many outages and even shelling since the war began.
Grossi had met earlier on Tuesday with the country’s energy officials. The IAEA has continued to have a “general concern” about the amount of staffers running the facility, Grossi said during a press conference in Ukraine on Tuesday.
Prior to the war, the facility maintained a staff of about 12,000, according to the IAEA. But that’s been cut to between 2,000 and 3,000 workers, the agency said.
“As I was saying just now, the facility is not producing energy, but still, there is a need to have a minimum number of people, ensuring a number of functions,” Grossi said. “So, so far, the situation is stable, but it is a very, very delicate equilibrium.”
He added that it was “very near” the minimum necessary staffing.
“So this is why I need to see by myself what is the situation, what are the prospects in terms of staffing,” he said.
Russian nuclear officials have said they plan to add staff, he said.
(WASHINGTON) — In Nevada’s unusual primary system, which includes a primary and caucus, Nikki Haley, the only Republican in the race aside from Donald Trump, was trounced by “None of these candidates,” an option in the primary ballot, according to an ABC News projection.
With 57% of the expected vote reported statewide for Republicans, “None of these candidates” is leading with 60% of the vote (26,038 votes). Nikki Haley has 33% (14,328), Mike Pence has 4% (1,793) and Tim Scott has 1% (543). Former President Donald Trump is not on the ballot.
The “None of these candidates” option’s lead over Haley had widened by nearly 15 points since the first GOP results dropped around 11:12 p.m. ET.
The Haley campaign did not respond directly to a question about losing to “None of these candidates” in the Nevada primary Tuesday night, instead releasing a statement where they seemingly called Thursday’s GOP caucuses a “game rigged for Trump.”
“Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots the house wins. We didn’t bother to play a game rigged for Trump. We’re full steam ahead in South Carolina and beyond,” the campaign’s statement read.
The winner of Thursday’s GOP contest, where Trump is on the ballot, will earn the delegates who help decide the 2024 nomination.
Nikki Haley, who is GOP front-runner Trump’s only remaining major challenger, is not running in the caucuses. Trump didn’t run in the primary.
As such, Trump is all but guaranteed to win the caucuses and the state’s 26 delegates for the GOP nomination.
The former president has also encouraged his supporters not to “waste” their time with the primary.
The discrepancy between the two contests is because Nevada Republicans wanted to keep their caucuses rather than switch to a new primary, as required by a recent state law.
For Democrats, there was only one contest: the primary on Tuesday, which President Joe Biden is projected to win over author Marianne Williamson and others. (Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, however, was not on the Democratic ballot after missing the filing deadline.)
Biden’s projected victory in the Democrats’ primary solidified into Tuesday night. With 71% of the expected vote recorded for Democrats, he has 90% (76,202) of the Democratic vote. The “None of these candidates” option has 6% (4,789) of the vote and Marianne Williamson has 3% (2,117).
Early voting in the primary began on Jan. 27 and ran through Friday. The state has closed primaries, meaning only registered Democrats and Republicans could participate, but ballots are unique in that voters could choose “none of these candidates.”
State significance
Nevada is a key swing state in the 2024 election. In 2020, it narrowly went for Biden.
The president, appearing to be looking toward November’s election, blasted Trump while campaigning in Nevada this past weekend.
“Trump and his MAGA friends are dividing us, not uniting us. Dragging us back to the past, not leading us in the future,” Biden said at a get-out-the-vote rally in North Las Vegas.
Trump, for his part, has labeled Biden as the “real threat … But we keep marching forward.”
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel delivers remarks before the NBC News Republican Presidential Primary Debate at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County on Nov. 8, 2023 in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, has discussed with Donald Trump the possibility of resigning from her position after the South Carolina primary, according to multiple sources familiar with the conversation.
Sources caution that discussions are fluid, but if McDaniel steps down, he is likely to support Michael Whatley, who serves as the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party.
McDaniel has faced pressure to step down for months, with calls only growing after the RNC reported poor fundraising numbers. Trump has hinted changes were coming, suggesting in an interview with Newsmax that McDaniel step down as chairwoman.
In a statement to ABC News, RNC Spokesperson Keith Schipper says, “Nothing has changed. This will be decided after South Carolina.”
The Trump campaign has not returned requests for comment.
In January, McDaniel was re-elected for her fourth term as chair, saying at the time, “It is an honor to be re-elected as Chairwoman of the RNC, and I am deeply grateful that our members have entrusted me with another term in this role.”
“The work to make Joe Biden a one-term president is already underway: it is time for our party to unite and re-dedicate ourselves to electing Republicans up and down the ballot. I look forward to working alongside conservative leaders, including Harmeet and Mike, from across our party to deliver on our promises to the American people,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel retained support from well over half of the 168 voting RNC members, clinching 111 votes, while her opponents — attorney Harmeet Dhillon received 51 and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell — received four.
During a candidate forum before the vote, McDaniel was the only candidate to receive a standing ovation from RNC members, according to several sources who were present in the room.
Ahead of the race, McDaniel released a letter boasting endorsements from more than 100 of the 168 voting RNC members, handing her buffer room to shed support to a challenger and still be on strong footing.
(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel Robert Hur has completed his investigation into classified documents found at a number of properties associated with President Joe Biden and is expected to release his final report “in the coming days,” sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.
No specific date has yet been set, the sources said. News of the report’s upcoming release was first reported by The Washington Post.
ABC News previously reported that the special counsel’s investigation found sloppiness and other mistakes in the handling of classified documents following Biden’s time in the Senate and his vice presidency — but that the improper handling of classified documents was more likely a mistake than a criminal act.
A spokesperson for special counsel Hur’s office declined to comment.
In late 2022, the White House told the National Archives that documents bearing classification markings had been discovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. — the location of Biden’s private office after his term as vice president expired in early 2017.
Biden’s personal attorney later informed investigators that additional classified records were identified in the garage of Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home — a development that led the Justice Department to appoint Hur as special counsel to investigate further.
In all, about 25 documents marked classified were found in locations associated with Biden.
