(WASHINGTON) — Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted from his role by a faction of his own party earlier this year, will resign from Congress at the end of the month, he said on Wednesday.
“I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways,” McCarthy wrote in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal. “I know my work is only getting started.”
The announcement caps off McCarthy’s fall from GOP leadership after rising to the speakership in a historic 15-round vote earlier this year. Speculation over McCarthy’s future spiked after a band of eight Republican backbenchers engineered his historic ouster less than two months ago over personal and policy disputes. After his defeat, he sent conflicting messages over whether or not he would seek reelection, serve out the rest of his term set to end in January 2025 or leave the House early.
McCarthy insisted Wednesday that he’ll remain involved, helping recruit and fundraise for House Republican candidates — exercising one of his greatest strengths as a House leader.
“I will continue to recruit our country’s best and brightest to run for elected office. The Republican Party is expanding every day, and I am committed to lending my experience to support the next generation of leaders,” he wrote in The Journal.
Still, his departure will again diminish the power of one of his party’s strongest fundraisers.
“Kevin McCarthy’s contributions to our country and to growing the House Republican majority are unparalleled. A razor-sharp political mind, Kevin personally raised hundreds of millions of dollars and recruited hundreds of diverse candidates that led us from deep in the minority to the majority. This devotion to building our party is born from a strong love of country and a heart for service that motivates Kevin at his core,” said Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who chairs House Republicans’ campaign arm.
More immediately, his departure from Congress will shrink Republicans’ already slim margin, which shrank after former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., was expelled from the House last week in the wake of a scathing ethics report and a slew of federal charges. Santos has pleaded not guilty and defended himself.
Speaker Mike Johnson will only be able to lose three GOP votes on each measure before falling below a simple majority.
Johnson downplayed the impact of McCarthy’s upcoming resignation, dismissing concerns that the former speaker’s looming exit weakens the GOP majority.
Asked by ABC News whether McCarthy’s resignation will have any adverse impact on his ability to run the House, Johnson said it wouldn’t.
“No,” Johnson said. “We’re going to keep moving forward and I’m optimistic about that.”
Johnson said he isn’t concerned about losing McCarthy’s vote and the potential that it could make it harder to pass votes.
“Our conference is working well together. And I’m confident in that,” Johnson said.
Johnson praised McCarthy for his leadership in a post on X Wednesday. He said McCarthy and his wife Judy “have served faithfully and sacrificed substantially for the good of our country and our cause.” Johnson told ABC News he is “sad to see [McCarthy] go.”
One of McCarthy’s rivals, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who brought the so-called motion to vacate McCarthy as speaker, celebrated the California congressman’s upcoming departure in a one-word post on X: “McLeavin’.”
President Joe Biden “appreciates” the work he did alongside McCarthy despite their differences, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.
“The president wishes Speaker McCarthy well and congratulates him on a career of service. While they have important differences about policy, the president appreciates that they were able to work across the aisle on important priorities for the American people,” Jean-Pierre said in the White House press briefing.
McCarthy’s announcement before California’s Dec. 8 campaign filing deadline is likely to open the floodgates for candidates to run for his ruby red congressional district, which includes a large part of the state’s Central Valley. California Gov. Gavin Newsom will have to call a special election to replace McCarthy.
McCarthy is the third lawmaker who will resign from the 118th Congress rather than serve out the full two-year term. He joins Democrat Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah, who both resigned earlier this year.
McCarthy’s resignation ends his 16-year career in the House. He was first elected to Congress in 2006 and about four years later was elected to majority whip. He served as majority leader and House Republican leader before his historic rise to the speakership earlier this year.
(NEW YORK) — A suspect is dead after reports of an active shooter at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
University police said shots were reported at Beam Hall as well as the school’s student union.
There “appears to be multiple victims,” according to police.
Beam Hall is home to the university’s business school. The student union is located one building over from Beam Hall.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Tracking one of the deadliest living beings on Earth will be the key to saving thousands of lives each year, researchers at the University of South Florida say.
The pesky bite of a mosquito has the potential to bring more than just itchiness and inflammation. More than 1 million people worldwide die from mosquito-borne diseases every year, according to the American Mosquito Control Association.
As global temperatures warm, the risk of contracting a mosquito-borne illness becomes more prevalent, simply because a hotter climate creates optimal breeding conditions for the insect.
Now, researchers at the University of South Florida are using citizen science — the practice in which the public voluntarily participates in scientific research — to help create artificial intelligence algorithms to help identify and stop disease-carrying mosquitoes before they are able to infect humans and other large mammals.
The citizen science aspect in the identifying process is critical, Ryan Carney, an assistant professor at the University of South Florida’s Department of Integrative Biology, told ABC News.
“As big of a problem that mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases are, we can all do our part to fight them,” he said.
In a small outdoor fountain containing thousands of mosquitoes, researchers are able to extract individual mosquitoes and use a zoom lens attached to a phone to capture an image of the mosquito. The image can then be uploaded via free apps to the Global Mosquito Observations Dashboard, a user-friendly web interface funded by the National Science Foundation that monitors invasive and vector mosquitoes.
AI is then used to train several algorithms to detect — in the larval or adult stage — the species of mosquito, which allows mosquito-controlled district officials to locate the mosquitoes capable of transmitting disease and eliminate them.
The database is essentially a “one-stop shop” to view all the mosquito observations throughout the world, Carney said.
Some of the most severe diseases mosquitoes carry and spread among humans are malaria, West Nile virus, Eastern equine encephalitis, yellow fever, dengue and Zika, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some mosquito-borne illnesses such as malaria, dengue and chikungunya virus are on the rise after decades of progress in prevention.
In 2023, malaria was transmitted on U.S. soil for the first time in 20 years, according to the CDC. A total of nine transmissions were reported in multiple states.
Seven of those transmissions occurred in Sarasota County, Florida, prompting state and county health officials to issue mosquito-borne illness alerts in the region over the summer, when mosquitoes are at their most active.
“When you ask people what’s the most dangerous animal in the world, most people think of things like sharks,” Carney said. “It’s actually the mosquito that’s the deadliest animal on the planet, responsible for about 700 million infections each year and nearly one million deaths.”
Climate change could exacerbate the problem though, Carney said, describing the rise in global temperatures as a “perfect storm” for mosquito-borne diseases.
“It affects virtually every step of the transmission process, from the habitats to the mosquitoes to the pathogens to the human hosts,” Carney said. “…Higher temperatures makes everything worse.”
Worsening drought, one of the consequences of climate change, will likely cause people to store water, the containers of which can serve as a breeding habitat for mosquitoes, Carney said.
The resiliency of mosquitoes will allow them to thrive amid a warming climate. Even if the climate changes rapidly, mosquitoes are expected to adapt with it, as well as expand their ranges, Carney said. Research published in the past year alone has discovered “super” mosquitoes that have mutated to withstand insecticides as well as mosquitoes who have leaned how to avoid the pesticides used to kill them.
“Climate means that there’s going to be more areas with more mosquitoes, that are going to be spreading more disease to more susceptible people,” he said.
Humans will need to “remain vigilant” in monitoring mosquitoes and the diseases they carry in the upcoming years, Carney said.
Carney reminded the public to think of the “Three D’s” of mosquito protection and prevention: Drain standing water near your home; dress appropriately with long sleeves, light colors and loose-fitting clothes; and defend with insect repellent.
(NEW YORK) — The Advanced Placement African American Studies course that sparked controversy among some conservative lawmakers has been revised and was released by the College Board on Wednesday. The updated curriculum is now set to launch in the 2024-25 school year.
“This is the course I wish I had in high school,” Brandi Waters, senior director and program manager of African American Studies in the Advanced Placement Program, said in a statement.
College Board revised its curriculum multiple times as the program was being piloted in schools, and decided in April of this year to “listen to the diversity of voices within the field” to make final changes to the course, it said.
When asked Wednesday if these revisions were impacted by the criticism the course faced from some state leaders, Waters told ABC News: “We’d hope that every student that’s interested in taking this course has access to it. We really can’t speculate what any state would do.”
The course had initially rendered “too much essential content as optional,” Waters told ABC News, and the revision process brought “even more of these foundational perspectives from the field.”
AP African American Studies received intense public scrutiny from some conservative leaders, such as Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who criticized the curriculum’s retelling of U.S. racial history.
DeSantis’ administration rejected the course in January, with the Florida Department of Education saying the version of it at the time was “inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” Several Florida students said they planned to sue the state if it refused to implement the curriculum and the White House criticized the state’s decision.
Florida, through the Stop WOKE Act, has restrictions on race-related education in public schools.
“If the course comes into compliance and incorporates historically accurate content, the department will reopen the discussion,” a Florida DOE official told ABC News in January. ABC News has reached out to the Florida DOE for comment on the new version of the course.
The Arkansas Department of Education also moved to remove the AP African American Studies pilot program in August due to concerns about whether the course would be applicable for college credit and whether it would be impacted by state race-related education restrictions.
The course reached 60 schools in the first pilot year, the 2022-23 school year, but its implementation has grown to cover roughly 700 schools and 13,000 students in its second year, according to College Board.
The course takes students through the origins of the African diaspora, the subsequent slavery and fight for freedom, the challenges and success of community development post-slavery, and the political and social movements that later evolved, according to College Board.
The curriculum will also mention major figures such as then-NFL player Colin Kaepernick, whose 2016 kneeling protest during national anthems sparked controversy, and critical race theory scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who founded the term “intersectionality” in the Black feminist movement.
Revisions to the course also included efforts to balance introduction-level topics with time for further exploration, create a robust and diverse source base for students, and align course content with college courses for credit, College Board says.
The course has been in development for three years with the input of nearly 300 African American Studies scholars, high school AP teachers and experts, according to College Board.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal grand jury returned a 15-count indictment against former U.S. ambassador and accused Cuban spy Manuel Rocha on Tuesday, charging him with a range of crimes varying from conspiracy, acting as illegal foreign agent, wire fraud and false statements.
The 32-page indictment offers further details into how Rocha — over more than four decades — rose through the ranks of the State Department and U.S. foreign policy establishment all while allegedly concealing his status as an agent for Cuba’s intelligence services.
The indictment also details how Rocha allegedly spoke about another unnamed Cuban agent who he said was also a U.S. government employee — though he said that agent was “betrayed.”
“A huge betrayal,” Rocha said in a Feb. 17, 2023 conversation with an undercover FBI agent. “Sadly she would have done much more had she not been betrayed.”
Prosecutors allege it was in Chile “in or around 1973” — the year of the military overthrow of the socialist government led by Salvador Allende — when Rocha became a “great friend” of Cuba’s intelligence services.
Eight years later, he applied for an appointment with the U.S. State Department, affirming that he was not acting as an agent of a foreign government — his first of many lies that would continue for decades, prosecutors say.
Rocha, who was born in Colombia and was raised in New York, started in 1981 in lower-level postings in U.S. embassies in the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Mexico before being elevated to serve in the National Security Council. That later led to assignments in Havana, Cuba, followed by serving as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Argentina and later his appointment as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia between 1999 and 2002.
The indictment unsealed Tuesday adds several charges of wire fraud against Rocha — noting how he sought to “unlawfully enrich himself while furthering the intelligence interests” of Cuba by repeatedly lying to attain and maintain his employment at the State Department — including annual annuity retirement payments after leaving office.
An attorney for Rocha did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the indictment.
(IDLIB, Syria) — The Orontes River in northwestern Syria has long been a lifeline for farmers, including 50-year-old Bahjat al-Bakru, who have used it to irrigate their nearby crops.
But since the start of the year, al-Bakru said, about 70% of his fruit trees have died because an invasive flower now covers the entire surface of the river in front of his land, choking off the only natural water source in Idlib province.
“Agriculture is my only source of livelihood and I lost most of my trees,” al-Bakru told ABC News. “The spread of the Nile flower in the river reduced the water level and blocked it completely. It became difficult to water my trees.”
The water hyacinth, nicknamed the Nile flower, is a free-floating perennial aquatic plant native to parts of South America that has emerged as a major weed in dozens of countries in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Although its large purple blooms and thick green leaves may be appealing to the eye, the Nile flower has been identified as one of the most aggressive invasive species and one of the worst weeds in the world due to its ability to grow and spread rapidly, according to the United Nations Environmental Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The plant has already ravaged river ecosystems and local economies, and experts warned that without intervention it could completely consume waterways like the Orontes River in northwestern Syria.
It’s unclear exactly when or how the Nile flower was introduced to the Orontes River, which flows through Lebanon, Syria and Turkey before draining into the Mediterranean Sea. Currently, the invasive plant extends for 34 miles across the surface of the river in Syria’s Idlib province, covering a vast majority of the water, according to a survey conducted by Idlib-based agricultural engineer Musa al-Bakr. The dense vegetation blocks the flow of the water by spreading in the river basin, lowers river levels by absorbing large amounts of water and suffocates the aquatic ecosystem by blocking out light and oxygen. As a result, the livelihoods of local communities are at risk.
“The drying up of water resources, the death of fisheries and the decline of cultivated areas as a result of drought will push the region toward further desertification,” al-Bakr told ABC News. “We have lost control of this plant to the point that we no longer see bodies of water, but rather we see green bodies of the Nile flower.”
Moreover, research suggests that global warming will be favorable to the survivability and growth of the Nile flower. In a 2013 report, the U.N. Environmental Programme expressed concern that “climate change may allow the spread of water hyacinth to higher latitudes.”
“According to recent climate change models, its distribution may expand into higher latitudes as temperatures rise, posing problems to formerly hyacinth free areas,” the organization wrote. “Given the complexity of control options and the potential for climate change to assist the spread of water hyacinth, it is critical to develop comprehensive management strategies and action plans.”
The spread of the Nile flower has been managed in neighboring countries like Egypt using various techniques, such as spraying a certain type of pesticide that eliminates the plant and mechanically removing the vegetation from the water with special boats. However, neither of those methods are available in Syria’s Idlib province.
For years, Idlib and other opposition-held areas of northwestern Syria have been under heavy bombardment by the Syrian military and allied Russian forces. The conditions have made it difficult for local authorities to address the issue of the Nile flower.
“We are in an area witnessing bombing, our capabilities are limited and we have hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the camps,” Mohammed Amhan, deputy director of water resources in Idlib province, told ABC News. “The spread of the plant is very large and needs a large financial cost that exceeds our ability. We ask the relevant international organizations to provide assistance to us so that we can combat this plant before it is too late.”
Local farmers, like al-Bakru, try on their own to protect their land and stop the Nile flower from spreading, but their efforts are ultimately in vain.
“Every day, I have to go down to the water to remove and remove this plant that now surrounds my trees,” al-Bakru said. “The control efforts are individual and this plant cannot be controlled. It is growing very fast and is creeping into agricultural land and destroying it.”
Another farmer in Idlib province, 60-year-old Hassan Skaif, said he has lost more than a dozen dunums of his trees on the banks of the Orontes River due to the spread of the Nile flower.
“This pest is spreading massively and if support is not provided in combating it, we will lose all our trees within several years,” Skaif told ABC News.
Just as farmers are suffering, so too are fishermen like 55-year-old Nafia Sattouf, who has been fishing in the Orontes River in Idlib province for 30 years but is now unemployed.
“I used to catch more than 30 kilos of fish of different sizes and weights per day, but now I barely get one or two fish and its size does not exceed the size of my palms,” Sattouf told ABC News. “This plant is a wonder like I have never seen in my life. It started with small seedlings on the sides of the river and within a few months, it covered the entire surface of the river.”
(NEW YORK) — The temporary cease-fire between Hamas and Israel ended early Friday, and Israel has resumed its bombardment of Gaza.
The end of the cease-fire came after Hamas freed over 100 of the more than 200 people its militants took hostage during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Dec 06, 1:22 PM EST
UN secretary-general invokes Article 99, calls for humanitarian cease-fire
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Wednesday that he’s invoked Article 99 of the U.N. Charter for the first time in his six years as leader.
Article 99 says that the secretary-general “may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
“Facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, I urge the Council to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe & appeal for a humanitarian cease-fire to be declared,” Guterres said in a post on X.
In a letter to the U.N. Security Council president, Guterres said, “The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region. … The international community has a responsibility to use all its influence to prevent further escalation and end this crisis.”
Dec 06, 12:41 PM EST
IDF encircling Hamas leader’s house: Netanyahu
Israeli forces are now “encircling” the house belonging to Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
“It’s only a matter of time until we catch him,” Netanyahu said.
The prime minister also said Israel is exerting pressure to allow Red Cross workers to visit the more than 100 hostages still being held by Hamas.
Dec 06, 11:24 AM EST
Biden calls reports of Hamas’ sexual violence against Israeli women ‘appalling’
Editor’s note: This report contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence.
President Joe Biden has blamed Hamas’ refusal to release civilian female hostages for the end of a temporary cease-fire and called reports of women allegedly sexually assaulted by Hamas “appalling.”
“We had a report in the earliest days that Hamas used rape to terrorize women and girls during the attack on October the 7th in Israel,” Biden said, according to pool reports of his remarks Tuesday at a closed-door fundraiser.
“Over the past few weeks, survivors and witnesses of the attacks have shared the horrific accounts of unimaginable cruelty,” he said. “Reports of women raped — repeatedly raped — and their bodies being mutilated while still alive — of women corpses being desecrated, Hamas terrorists inflicting as much pain and suffering on women and girls as possible and then murdering them. It is appalling.”
It’s on all of us — government, international organizations, civil society and businesses — to forcefully condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation — without equivocation, without exception,” Biden said.
ABC News’ Libby Cathey
Dec 06, 9:02 AM EST
IDF says it struck 250 targets in Gaza over last day amid ‘intensive battles’
The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday morning that its aircraft had bombed “approximately 250 terror targets in the Gaza Strip” over the last day amid what it described as “intensive battles.”
“During these strikes, terrorists from the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations were eliminated, and a number of terrorist infrastructure were destroyed,” the IDF said in a statement.
Israeli soldiers also located “one of the largest weapons depots” in Gaza “near a clinic and a school” in the northern part of the Hamas-controlled territory, according to the IDF.
“The depot contained hundreds of RPG missiles and launchers of various types, dozens of anti-tank missiles, dozens of explosive devices, long-range missiles aimed at central Israel, dozens of grenades and UAVs,” the IDF added. “All of the terrorist infrastructure was found close to civilian buildings in the heart of a civilian population. This is additional proof of Hamas’ cynical use of the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields.”
Hamas has denied Israel’s claims that it deliberately shelters behind civilians in Gaza.
Dec 06, 7:37 AM EST
US believes eight American hostages remain in Gaza, Kirby says
The United States believes eight Americans are still being held hostage by militants in the war-torn Gaza Strip, according to White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.
“We think there’s about eight hostages that are Americans. We know of at least one woman in that group,” Kirby told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in an interview Wednesday on Good Morning America.
“We’re doing everything we can to try to get them released,” he continued. “We’re constantly engaged with our partners in the region to try to get this humanitarian pause back in place, so that the flow of hostages can renew.”
Although a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Gaza’s militant rulers, Hamas, ended last week, the U.S. is “still flowing in humanitarian assistance” to civilians in Gaza, according to Kirby.
“And we’re trying to get it up to the level that it was during the pause,” he noted.
When asked about what Israel’s “endgame” might be in its war against Hamas as Israeli troops expand their offensive across all of Gaza, Kirby said: “That’s really something for the Israeli’s to speak to.”
“We obviously want to see Hamas eliminated as a threat to the Israeli people,” he added. “That hasn’t been achieved yet. They’re going after the leadership as best they can. They believe they need to operate in the south. We’ve told them you know we’ll continue to support their military operations but we want to make sure that as they do that they’re factoring in those innocent civilian lives as much as possible.”
Dec 06, 7:16 AM EST
Gaza hospital says it’s ‘besieged’ by Israeli forces
Al-Awda Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip is “besieged” by Israeli forces, a spokesperson said Wednesday.
There are currently 95 employees and 38 patients inside the hospital in the city of Jabalia, north of Gaza City, according to the spokesperson.
Just four hospitals remain operational in the north, according to the Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
Dec 06, 5:32 AM EST
Gaza hospital receives scores of dead, wounded in past 24 hours
A hospital in the Middle Area of the Gaza Strip has seen an influx of dead and wounded arrive at its doors over the last day, according to Palestinian health officials.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said Wednesday morning that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital has received 73 dead and 123 injured patients in the past 24 hours amid intense bombardment by the Israeli military.
Dec 05, 6:12 PM EST
Over 1,000 Americans and family members seeking to depart Gaza: State Department
More than 1,000 Americans and their family members are still stranded in Gaza, more than a month after the Rafah border crossing first opened to outbound traffic, according to the State Department.
“We know of approximately 1,050 individuals (about 350 U.S. citizens, plus lawful permanent residents and family members of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents) who we are in touch with and who are seeking to depart Gaza,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News, adding it “remains a fluid and quickly evolving situation.”
These figures come a day after State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters that the number of American citizens trying to exit the area stood at 220, and that there were 750 individuals eligible to leave Gaza who had not yet been able to depart.
Dec 05, 3:48 PM EST
State Dept. imposes visa restrictions on individuals ‘undermining peace’ in West Bank
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new visa restriction policy on Tuesday “targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank.”
The policy includes those “committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities,” Blinken said in a statement.
The State Department has already started pursuing initial action against individuals and will designate others “in the coming days,” spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters Tuesday.
The department expects the policy will impact “dozens of individuals and potential their family members,” he said.
During a visit to Israel last week, Blinken said he “made clear that the United States is ready to take action using our own authorities” and that Israel must “take additional measures to protect Palestinian civilians from extremist attacks.”
He added that the U.S. would also continue to engage with the Palestinian Authority to stress that it needed “to do more to curb Palestinian attacks against Israelis.”
ABC News’ Shannon K. Crawford
Dec 05, 3:26 PM EST
Netanyahu says Gaza must be demilitarized through ‘sheer force’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address Tuesday that Gaza must be demilitarized and that he is not ready to accept an international force being responsible for Gaza post-war.
“Gaza must be demilitarized and the only country that can do this and ensure it lasts is Israel,” Netanyahu said. “I’m not ready to close my eyes and accept any other arrangement.”
The prime minister said half of Hamas’ battalions have already been “destroyed.”
Netanyahu also said a tactic of sheer force made sense for bringing home the remaining hostages.
“The only way to bring home the rest of the hostages is through massive military force in Gaza and that’s what we are doing,” he said.
He also criticized those calling for a short war, saying, “I say to our friends who call for a short war, the only way for the war to end quickly is by applying sheer force. So I say stand with us. Stand with Israel. Stand with civilization.”
Dec 05, 1:14 PM EST
State Dept. imposes visa restrictions on individuals ‘undermining peace’ in West Bank
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new visa restriction policy on Tuesday “targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank.”
The policy includes those “committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities,” Blinken said in a statement.
During a visit to Israel last week, Blinken said he “made clear that the United States is ready to take action using our own authorities” and that Israel must “take additional measures to protect Palestinian civilians from extremist attacks.”
He added that the U.S. would also continue to engage with the Palestinian Authority to stress that it needed “to do more to curb Palestinian attacks against Israelis.”
ABC News’ Shannon K. Crawford
Dec 05, 10:43 AM EST
IDF says it has ‘hundreds of testimonies of rape and sex crimes’ from Oct. 7
Israeli authorities say they have collated “hundreds of testimonies of rape and sex crimes” they claim was committed by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7 terror attack.
A document from the Israel Defense Forces details allegations of sexual violence, with “almost all of the testimonies” coming from eyewitnesses and first responders who were present at the scene during or after atrocities, the document states. This is because “virtually all” of the victims of sexual violence were also murdered on Oct. 7, according to the document.
The IDF said the document offers “only a small part of an immense body of information of evidence of Hamas’ sex crimes” and said the evidence “proves beyond all doubt that Hamas and other … terrorists used rape and sexual violence systemically against Israeli women and children,” according to the IDF.
One IDF volunteer quoted in the document described seeing many young women “in bloody, shredded rags, or just in underwear.”
“Our team commander saw several (female) soldiers who were shot in the crotch and intimate areas,” the IDF volunteer said, according to the document.
The IDF alleges that some members of Hamas who were captured and then interrogated also gave testimony that women were sexually abused on Oct. 7.
An Israeli paramedic quoted in the document said they inspected the bodies of two teenage girls who had been murdered. One of the girls “had her pants pulled down towards her knees … and there’s the remains of semen on the lower part of her back,” the document states.
A survivor of the Oct. 7 attack, Gad Liebersohn, quoted in the document said that “for two hours I’m hiding and hearing people getting kidnapped and women getting raped … begging for their lives.”
Hamas, the militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has denied the allegations that its fighters committed sexual violence during the Oct. 7 attack on neighboring southern Israel.
Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the head of Israel’s Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, has described what she called “widespread rape evidence.”
ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge
Dec 05, 8:57 AM EST
At least two injured after rocket hits Israeli residential building, authorities say
Rocket fire struck a residential building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday afternoon, according to Israel’s emergency medical service MDA.
At least two people — a 67-year-old and a 60-year-old — were wounded by shrapnel while standing in the parking lot next to the building’s entrance, according to MDA, which said its staff provided treatment on site and transported the two victims to a nearby hospital.
Dec 05, 6:55 AM EST
Hospital in northern Gaza under siege, health ministry says
Another hospital in the northern Gaza Strip is under siege by Israeli troops, Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said Tuesday.
Israeli tanks and snipers have surrounded Kamal Adwan Hospital, where more than 7,000 displaced people are sheltering, according to the health ministry. Israeli troops are allegedly firing at “anyone who moves,” the health ministry said.
The power was also cut from the hospital, according to the health ministry.
Dozens of wounded people as well as the bodies of at least 108 who have died are currently inside Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to the health ministry.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
Just four hospitals remain operational in northern Gaza, according to the health ministry, as medical services in the besieged enclave struggle to deal with the mounting casualty toll.
Dec 05, 6:28 AM EST
At least 30 killed in airstrike on school in southern Gaza, hospital says
Dozens of people were killed or wounded in an Israeli airstrike that allegedly targeted a school housing displaced families in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, according to local medical staff.
A spokesperson for Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis told ABC News that it had received scores of patients from the scene, including 30 who had died and dozens who were injured.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
The strike came on the heels of the IDF’s announcement that it would be expanding its offensive on Gaza’s militant rulers, Hamas, across the entire strip.
Dec 05, 1:38 AM EST
‘Nowhere is safe in Gaza’: WHO
The World Health Organization painted a bleak picture of the situation in Gaza on Monday night and called for Israel “to take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as per the laws of war.”
According to the latest information from the WHO, there are only 18 functioning hospitals in Gaza, with three only providing first aid and the remainder just partial services.
With an increasing number of Palestinians displaced as the war continues, the WHO says, “syndromic surveillance has noted increases in infectious diseases, including acute respiratory infections, scabies, jaundice, diarrhoea, and bloody diarrhoea. Shelters in the south are also reporting cases of acute jaundice syndrome, a worrisome signal of hepatitis.”
The WHO previously said, “syndromic surveillance systems seek to use existing health data in real-time to provide immediate analysis and feedback to those charged with investigation and follow-up of potential outbreaks.”
The WHO warned thousands are likely to be cut off from health care services due to increased ground operations by Israel in southern Gaza. The open hospitals are operating beyond capacity, with the bed occupancy rate at 171% and intensive care units at 221%, the WHO said, based on data from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
WHO workers called the situation at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis “catastrophic, with the building and hospital grounds grossly overcrowded with patients and displaced people seeking shelter.”
The WHO said in a statement Monday night it has recorded 203 “attacks on hospitals, ambulances, medical supplies, and the detention of health-care workers attacks on hospitals, ambulances medical supplies” between Oct. 7 and Nov. 28.
“This is unacceptable,” the WHO’s statement read. “There are means to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and they should be instituted.”
(NEW YORK) — NASA and its astronauts are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the International Space Station being in orbit.
The federal space agency broadcast a live conversation between the Expedition 70 crew and NASA Associate Administrator Robert Cabana and Joel Montalbano, space station program manager on Wednesday afternoon.
The ISS launched on Nov. 25, 1998, but it was on Dec. 6 that year that one of the first elements of the ISS, Unity, was attached to the already orbiting Zarya module, according to NASA.
Unity connected the American and Russian segments of the station and is currently where crew eat meals together.
Cabana was the commander of the mission to connect the two modules and the first American to enter the ISS.
“I cannot believe it was 25 years ago today that we grappled Zarya and joined it with the Unity node. Absolutely amazing,” he told the crew. “We really appreciate what you guys are doing up there, all the science, the investigations to make life better here on Earth and prepare us for exploring beyond our home planet.”
The station has since grown to the size of an American football field made up of six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms and a gym as well as multiple areas to perform scientific research.
The space station has been continuously occupied for more than 23 years, “testing technologies, performing science, and developing the skills needed to explore farther from Earth,” NASA said in a press release.
According to NASA, the station has been visited by 273 people from 21 countries and has conducted more than 3,300 investigation.
During the call, the crew described some of the experiments they are performing, studying physiology and psychology in space and how the human body adapts in space to help improve the health of astronauts on long duration missions.
“The other thing that we’ve all been getting to work on … is a couple of different experiments in the life sciences glove box,” NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, one of the flight engineers of the crew, said during the call. “And those experiments are all studying aging, so aging process of the human body and our immune system and how that’s impacted as we age.”
She continued, “Believe it or not, we all get older faster when we’re on orbit and so that essentially speeds up time for researchers so they can study the phenomenon that happens in our cells at a faster rate than they could on Earth. And again, the goal of that is helping improve the health of astronauts on longer duration missions to the moon and Mars but also to help improve life on Earth for people in terms of tissue degradation as we age.”
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center praised the milestone on Wednesday in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter).
“Since the connection of the Zarya and Unity modules in 1998, we have supported 80 of the 275 launches for ISS construction, resupply, and crew support, including … 37 Space Shuttle[s], 33 cargo resupply and 10 crewed spacecraft,” the post read.
However, the space station program will be coming to an end eventually, NASA officials have said. NASA has noticed signs of weakening and aging in components, specifically its modules, radiators, and central trusses.
The constantly arriving and departing vehicles as well as extreme heating and cooling cycles the ISS experiences for every obit around the Earth has put wear and tear on the station.
As NASA focuses more of its efforts on programs as such as Artemis, to return astronauts to the moon, which will require more funds and is the “clear congressional priority,” NASA is looking to transition its operations in low orbit to commercially owned and operated space programs.
NASA has committed to utilizing and operating the space station through 2030. In 2031, NASA plans to deorbit the ISS and as it naturally descends, will target the component to splashdown in a remote, unpopulated area of the ocean.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — A 34-year-old suspect was identified Wednesday morning in a series of shootings in Texas on Tuesday that left six dead and injured several others, including two police officers, authorities said.
Austin police investigators “strongly believe” the suspect, Shane James, is connected to the violent incidents and was charged with capital murder, authorities said, adding that more charges were pending.
Interim Police Chief Robin Henderson said the incidents occurred at different locations in Austin over an eight-hour period on Tuesday, beginning with the shooting of an Austin Independent School District police officer.
Investigators are actively working to determine any relationship James may have had with the people who were shot and what prompted the violence. The two victims found at the home in San Antonio are believed to be family members of the alleged shooter, though that is not yet confirmed by detectives.
“Based on the information obtained over the course of these investigations, we strongly believe one suspect is responsible for all of the incidents,” Henderson said at a news conference Tuesday night.
Austin police officers said they were investigating whether the suspect had been involved in the shootings throughout the city. Two of the injured were police officers, law enforcement said.
Additionally, law enforcement officials in Bexar County said they were investigating whether another shooting that left two dead in a “grisly” crime scene near San Antonio was connected to the Austin shootings.
The series of shootings in Austin began at about 10:43 a.m. on Tuesday, when a resource officer was shot and injured near Northeast Early College High School, police said.
About two hours later, a man and a woman were fatally shot near Shadywood Drive on Austin’s south side, police said.
A cyclist then called 911 at about 5 p.m. to report he’d been shot and injured near the 5700 block of West Slaughter Lane, police said.
Officers then responded to a possible burglary just before 6 p.m. on Tuesday near the 5300 block of Austral Loop. Police and the suspect exchanged gunfire and one of the responding officers was hit multiple times, police said. The officer was later transferred to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to officials.
The suspect then allegedly led officers on a high-speed vehicular pursuit that ended in a crash of the vehicle the suspect was driving, police said, adding that the suspect was arrested with a firearm in his possession.
While the pursuit was in progress, officers went inside the residence that was allegedly burglarized on Austral Loop and discovered two people dead from gunshot wounds, officials said.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said he was contacted by Austin police officers on Tuesday evening and was told the suspect had a connection to a residence in San Antonio.
When deputies arrived at that residence, they forced entry and found two additional people, believed to be in either their 40s or 50s, with fatal gunshot wounds, police said. The bodies were wedged inside a very small room. Officials described the scene as “grisly.”
Sheriff Salazar said it wasn’t yet clear if the suspect had any connection to the people found dead in the house. He said officials believed the killings near San Antonio happened first and then the suspect went to Austin.
(NEW YORK) — Record-breaking rainfall has inundated the Pacific Northwest — and more rain is on the way.
Some areas in western Washington state saw 6 to 10 inches of rain in less than 24 hours — on top of the snow melt and the 6 inches of rain from over the weekend.
In western Washington, homes flooded, roads closed, drivers were rescued from their cars and some rivers rose to record levels.
Most rivers have already begun to recede, but another round of heavy rain is on the way for Washington and the Pacific Northwest.
The next storm arrives in the Pacific Northwest Wednesday night into Thursday with rain stretching from Seattle to Portland to Medford, Oregon.
Yet another storm system will move into Washington and Oregon by Saturday, with more rain hitting the coast and heavy snow falling in the mountains.
An additional 6 inches of rain is possible from Wednesday through this weekend for the Pacific Northwest.
