(MENDON, Mo.) — About eight cars of an Amtrak train derailed after hitting a dump truck at a public crossing in Mendon, Missouri, according to Amtrak and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Injuries have been reported but it was not immediately clear how many, Amtrak said.
Passenger Rob Nightingale, 58, told ABC News Live his car tipped to the side and he climbed through a window to escape. He said he saw a little girl crying and her family trying to comfort her.
Nightingale said he saw some people covered in blood.
The train was en route from Los Angeles to Chicago with 243 passengers on board at the time of the crash, which took place at about 1:42 p.m. local time, Amtrak said.
Missouri Public Safety officials, highway patrol troopers and other personnel are responding, Gov. Mike Parson tweeted.
Mendon is about 100 miles northeast of Kansas City, Missouri.
This comes one day after an Amtrak train collided with a car in California, killing three people.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTION) — The Supreme Court on Monday said separation of church and state does not prohibit public school employees from praying aloud on the job near students.
The case involved a high school football coach praying post-game at the 50-yard line, joined by his players.
Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the opinion. The vote was 6-3.
“Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect expressions like Mr. Kennedy’s,” Gorsuch wrote. “Nor does a proper understanding of the Amendment’s Establishment Clause require the government to single out private religious speech for special disfavor. The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
In her dissent, Sotomayor introduced the case as being “about whether a public school must permit a school official to kneel, bow his head, and say a prayer at the center of a school event,” and wrote, “The Constitution does not authorize, let alone require, public schools to embrace this conduct.”
She said the free exercise clause serves as “a promise from our government” while the establishment clause serves as a “backstop that disables our government from breaking it” and “start[ing] us down the path to the past, when [the right to free exercise] was routinely abridged.”
“It elevates one individual’s interest in personal religious exercise, in the exact time and place of that individual’s choosing, over society’s interest in protecting the separation between church and state, eroding the protections for religious liberty for all,” she wrote.
Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett joined the majority opinion in its entirety, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined for the most part.
The ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District is a win for former high school football coach Joe Kennedy, who was suspended from his job in 2015 over post-game prayers on the 50-yard line that sometimes involved his players.
“This is just so awesome,” Kennedy said in a statement Monday. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be back on the field with my guys. I am incredibly grateful to the Supreme Court, my fantastic legal team, and everyone who has supported us. I thank God for answering our prayers and sustaining my family through this long battle.”
Kennedy insisted the midfield prayers were brief, private individual acts of faith, while the school district argued that student participation breached constitutional prohibitions against the promotion of religion by government officials.
“It was my covenant between me and God that after every game, win or lose, I’m going to do it right there on the field of battle,” Kennedy previously told ABC News of his ritual, which he said typically lasted less than a minute.
“This is a right for everybody. It doesn’t matter if you’re this religion or that religion or have no faith whatsoever,” he said. “Everybody has the same rights in America.”
The school district in Washington state responded to the ruling in a statement, saying, “In light of the court’s decision, we will work with our attorneys to make certain that the Bremerton School District remains a welcoming, inclusive environment for all students, their families and our staff.
“The Bremerton School District’s priorities have always been protecting the rights and safety of students while ensuring that they receive an exemplary education. That’s why, when we learned that a district employee was leading students in prayer, we followed the law and acted to protect the religious freedom of all students and their families,” it said. “We look forward to moving past the distraction of this 7-year legal battle so that our school community can focus on what matters most: providing our children the best education possible.”
Lower courts had sided with the school district. A Supreme Court reversal in favor of Kennedy could soon expand the ability of government employees nationwide to practice their faiths more openly while on the job, legal experts say.
The First Amendment protects free speech and free exercise of religion, but it also prohibits the establishment of religion by the government.
The Supreme Court has long said that public school-sponsored prayer violates the Establishment Clause, even if the prayer is voluntary.
At the same time, the court has ruled that free speech rights don’t end at the schoolhouse gate and that religion need not be entirely expunged from public schools.
While Kennedy routinely prayed on the field after games for more than seven years, attracting varying levels of participation from students, it wasn’t until 2015 that the school district informed the coach of constitutional concerns.
“They just said if anybody could see you anywhere here, it was over,” Kennedy said.
The school district explained at the time in a statement that the prayers violated “constitutionally-required directives that he refrain from engaging in overt, public religious displays on the football field while on duty.”
Some parents complained that the prayer sessions were applying inappropriate pressure on students to participate, even if unintended.
“The coach is a leader. The coach is a mentor. If he goes to the 50-yard line, he has a message he wants to deliver, and so the players would follow,” said Bremerton parent Paul Peterson, whose son Aaron played for coach Kennedy in 2010.
“The harm is to those who are the minority students, the minority faiths, the students who have no faith,” he said. “They are being pressured into doing something that they don’t fundamentally agree with. That’s what the First Amendment protects us from.”
A federal appeals court called Kennedy’s characterization of his prayers as brief, quiet and solitary as a “deceitful narrative,” noting that they were clearly audible prayers surrounded by groups of students, amounting to unlawful religious speech as “a school official.”
Kennedy’s case has been cheered on by top Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, dozens of state and federal lawmakers, and star NFL quarterbacks, like Kirk Cousins and Nick Foles, who told the justices in a friend-of-the-court filing that the power of prayer promotes good sportsmanship.
The school district has had broad backing in court filings from other professional athletes, members of Congress, civil rights groups, teachers’ unions, and local government groups, including the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Kennedy currently lives in Florida but told the court that he would move back to Bremerton to return to coaching, if the justices ruled in his favor.
ABC News’ Libby Cathey contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the First Amendment protects a public school coach’s right to pray near students.
The case focusing on separation of church and state involved a high school football coach praying post-game at the 50-yard line, joined by his players.
The court held that the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect an individual engaging in a personal religious observance from government reprisal; the Constitution neither mandates nor permits the government to suppress such religious expression.
Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the opinion. The vote was 6-3.
“Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect expressions like Mr. Kennedy’s,” Gorsuch wrote. “Nor does a proper understanding of the Amendment’s Establishment Clause require the government to single out private religious speech for special disfavor. The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.”
Gorsuch wrote for the majority, “the Constitution neither mandates nor permits the government to suppress such religious expression.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justice Stephen Breyer and Elana Kagan.
Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the opinion in its entirety
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Still concerned about COVID-19 transmission in automobiles? One carmaker may have a novel approach to keeping passengers safe.
British luxury marque Jaguar Land Rover claims the Cabin Air Purification Pro filtration in its new Range Rover SUV can “significantly reduce odors, bacteria, viruses and allergens including SARS-CoV-2 virus” thanks to nanoe X, an electrostatic technology developed by Panasonic.
When the SUV’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning [HVAC] filtration system is turned on, trillions of ionized water particles are released into the cabin through the front and rear air vents, according to JLR. These particles “denature,” or essentially kill the virus on contact, the automaker says.
“We want people to know the capability of the vehicle,” Nick Miller, program chief of the new Range Rover, told ABC News. “This is the first Range Rover to have the next generation system.”
Health officials and practitioners have long underscored the importance of proper air filtration and ventilation for lowering transmission of the novel coronavirus. The Environmental Protection Agency states on its website that air cleaners and HVAC filters can help reduce airborne contaminants, including viruses, in a building or small space when used properly, but they are not sufficient on their own.
“By itself, air cleaning or filtration is not enough to protect people from COVID-19. When used along with other best practices recommended by CDC and other public health agencies, including social distancing and mask wearing, filtration can be part of a plan to reduce the potential for airborne transmission of COVID-19 indoors,” according to the EPA.
Panasonic says its nanoe X technology “inhibits bacteria and viruses, moulds, allergens, pollens and hazardous substances … and helps clean the air that we breathe.” The technology can be found in homes, offices, hotels, schools and spas and has been tested globally in laboratories and institutions. Experts interviewed by ABC News said the technology could help in vehicles but were skeptical of its overall impact compared to mask-wearing.
JLR partnered with Perfectus Biomed Ltd, a microbiology and virology lab, to test the company’s prototype system. A sealed chamber simulated “a vehicle ventilation system in recirculation mode over a 30-minute cycle,” JLR said. The result? The system inhibited the virus’s spread by as much as 97%, the automaker said.
The Range Rover filtration system, which also includes a PM2.5 filter (blocking particles down to 2.5 microns in size), discharges 10 times the amount of ionized particles than the previous system, Miller noted. Moreover, the nanoe X technology was also tested on the virus in a closed lab environment by Texcell, a research organization that specializes in viral testing and immunoprofiling, which claimed “over 99.99% of novel coronavirus activity was inhibited within 2 hours.”
Since the technology collects invisible moisture in the air, the Range Rover’s filtration system does not need servicing or updating, Miller said. And there are limitations, he acknowledged.
“We’re absolutely not claiming we’re a medical device,” Miller said. “No way are we claiming that you will not get COVID in the car. But it decreases the likelihood.”
John Brownstein, Ph.D., an ABC News medical contributor, epidemiologist and chief innovation officer of Boston Children’s Hospital, said the risk of COVID transmission in an automobile is small but “turning on these air filtration systems can create an additional level of protection.”
“You can’t social distance in a car,” he pointed out. “These systems could be a useful tool. But if you’re really concerned [about COVID], wear a mask with other passengers.”
He added, “The new trend in public health is air quality. But there’s a gimmicky part too.”
Dr. Rajat Mittal, a professor of mechanical engineering and medicine at Johns Hopkins University, said he doubted the claims made by Panasonic and Jaguar Land Rover. In the Texcell test, conducted in a 45-liter chamber, a piece of gauze saturated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus solution was placed in a petri dish and exposed to the nanoe X technology for two hours.
“The inside volume of a car is 3,000 to 5,000 liters — 100 times bigger than this chamber in the lab,” Mittal told ABC News. “In the test, the virus couldn’t move and was locked in place on a piece of gauze. In a real situation, an infected person will circulate and spread the virus in the air via little droplets.”
He added, “I really think more is needed to convince someone like me with a scientific background that it is a valid claim.”
Advanced, powerful infiltration systems in automobiles are starting to become more common. In 2015, Tesla was the first to install HEPA-rated filters in its electric vehicles. The carmaker claims passengers can “literally survive a military grade bio attack” when the Bioweapon Defense Mode is running.
The large HEPA filter in the new Mercedes EQS all-electric sedan eliminates 99.6% of pollutants — fine dust, microparticles, pollen and other substances — from the cabin, according to Mercedes. Moreover, the sedan’s Energizing Air Control Plus system cuts odors such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
Volvo, Ford and Lincoln are also rolling out premium air filtration systems. Volvo’s Advanced Air Cleaner technology comes with a sensor that measures PM2.5 levels inside the cabin. Lincoln says its Auto Air Refresh, available in the Aviator SUV, is a “holistic air filtration and active air monitoring system” that helps “clean the cabin air by filtering out particles caused by atmospheric dust, tobacco smoke, smog and some allergens, including pollen.”
Ford’s all-new standard certified cabin air filters, called Ford Refresh95, will be available in a majority of its vehicle lineup by the end of 2023.
James Dickerson, chief scientific officer at Consumer Reports, said more high-tech filtration systems, like the one in the Range Rover, may be coming to the market if automakers see high demand from consumers.
“Introducing an ionization system that’s effective and can fit inside the tight confines of an automobile … this is novel technology” for the industry, Dickerson told ABC News. “We very much support manufacturers that are looking for ways to make their vehicles more pleasant and more attune to the needs of consumers particularly as it relates to air quality.”
Mittal of Johns Hopkins said vehicle air filtration systems are only effective with a HEPA filter and a fast replacement rate of air inside the cabin.
“A HEPA filter will definitely catch viruses and the AC needs to be on with air recirculated quickly,” he said.
There are downsides, however: Some filters would have to be maintained and replaced and any benefits may not outweigh the costs, he argued.
“I wouldn’t pay even $100 to put one in my car — they’re not worth the money,” he said. “Wear a mask and open the windows. That’s the best thing you can do to reduce transmission.”
(NEW YORK) — Every year, approximately 38 children die from being left in a hot car, according to Kids and Cars Safety, a national nonprofit that tracks hot car deaths and aims to prevent vehicle-related risks to children and pets.
As the U.S. heads into more heat waves this summer and temperatures in the Midwest, South and West soar into the triple digits, there is a concern for parents about hot car deaths. One parent, Peter Hansen, opened up about the issue on social media.
“I have severe anxiety about leaving our kids in a hot car on accident,” Hansen, a father of three in Chicago, wrote in a LinkedIn post. “It’s 100 degrees in Chicago today and the heat is intense across the country. Working from home has me multitasking more than usual, which can distract me from the kids some days, especially if driving on a work call. This is simply a post to make sure your kids are not left in your car in this heat.”
The 40-year-old told Good Morning America a recent episode with two of his three kids one morning gave him a scare and prompted him to reflect on the dangers of hot cars and how easily things can go wrong.
“We got doughnuts and came back in the house,” Hansen recalled. “It’s still 7 in the morning – it wasn’t 100 degrees yet – but five minutes later, I was in the house and my four-year-old walked through the door five minutes later, she’s like, ‘Daddy, you forgot me.’ And it was like, I swear I saw her get out of the car … but I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It really terrified me that I thought both of them got out of the car together like they normally do.”
Data from Kids and Cars Safety indicates over 1,000 children, with 87% of them age 3 and under, have died from heatstroke after being in a hot car since 1990 and so far, six hot car deaths have occurred this year, including one in Houston where a 5-year-old boy was reportedly in a car for several hours on a day when the Texas city reached 102 degrees.
Amber Rollins, a director at Kids and Cars Safety, said the issue is often misunderstood and even dismissed by many parents and caregivers.
“I think the No. 1 misconception is that this will never happen to me and that it only happens to bad parents and nothing could be further from the truth,” Rollins told GMA. “I’ve worked with families that this has happened to for 16 years and they are engineers, school teachers, principals, nurses, doctors, you name it. It’s the type of people that I aspire to be as a parent, the kind that read every safety book about the most expensive car seat and strapped him in so tight and covered every outlet. That’s the kind of person this is happening to.”
According to Rollins, hot car deaths have also been trending upwards for the last three decades, with an exception during the last two years of the pandemic when more families stayed at home.
“In the ’90s, we realized children were being killed by overpowered airbags and children are still safer riding in the back seat. We moved them to the back seat because that’s where they’re the safest. However, now they’re out of sight of the driver,” Rollins explained. “So they’re in the back seat, they’re rear-facing now until age 3 or even longer, depending on the size of the child. And that car seat looks the same for the driver whether there’s a baby in there or not.”
“This is not like parents didn’t just all of a sudden overnight become neglectful and irresponsible,” she added. “This is an unintended consequence of moving them to the back seat.”
How to prevent hot car deaths
Multiple solutions have been proposed to avert a hot car death before they occur. Among the high-tech options include carbon dioxide detection, lidar or light detection and ranging technology, car alarm systems, car camera systems and car seats with weight sensors, each with its own pros and cons.
A new idea, called “Cabin Awareness,” from Toyota would use radar technology, powered in part by a car’s battery, to notify drivers who have left a Toyota vehicle that a child or a pet remained inside the car.
Brian Kursar, chief technology officer for Toyota Connected North America and Toyota Motor North America, has led the “Cabin Awareness” project since its inception in 2018 and said the project is moving now toward a testing phase with May Mobility, a Michigan-based company that develops autonomous technology, including vehicles.
“The ‘Cabin Awareness’ concept uses millimeter-wave radar to detect micro-movements and so micro-movements really are the things that a camera can’t see. So it’s also able to understand breathing, heartbeat, and ultimately provides us a solution to something that we’ve not been able to really touch, which is the ability to understand life in a vehicle,” Kursar explained to GMA, adding that radar could “see through things like cloth” and go beyond a camera’s line of sight.
Toyota’s “Cabin Awareness” could link up to a driver’s cell phone, a smart device — such as smart lights, a smart speaker, or smart TV — inside their home, or possibly other Toyota vehicles in an environment such as a parking lot and ultimately, contact emergency services when other alerts go unanswered.
“Based on our algorithms, we’re able to understand where in the vehicle that movement is coming from. And then we’re able to now take a number of options to escalate, to let the customer know that there is life potentially at risk in a vehicle,” Kursar said.
“We see this as an opportunity not just to contact the customer. You can give the system a list of contacts such as grandma, right, such as your neighbor, right, and these are additional folks that can start helping to resolve this problem with the vehicle,” Kursar added. “Maybe we can now do a vehicle-to-vehicle ping to say, if you’re within proximity of a child or an adult at risk in a car, now you have this almost community outreach where people in their cars, they turn on their cars, and it says, [someone in] a green Sienna within your proximity, may be at risk for heat exhaustion.”
For now, “Cabin Awareness” is not available in Toyota vehicles just yet and the timeline for a potential rollout will depend on testing results.
In the meantime, Kids and Cars Safety’s Rollins recommends several solutions that parents can keep in mind and adopt this summer.
Adopt the “look before you lock” habit.
“We want to use that habit system to prevent it from happening,” Rollins said. “No matter what, even if the child is not with you, open the back door and check the back seat. Every single time you leave the car.”
“It takes two seconds,” she continued. “And it’s a great way to make sure you’re never forgetting anything, including your children or inanimate objects that aren’t as important but make that a 100% habit.”
In addition to being left in a car, a child or pet can gain access to a car when they’re unlocked, so Rollins also emphasized the importance of utilizing car door locks. “You want to keep your car locked 100% of the time, even if you don’t have children. Little ones can get into neighbors’ cars. It happens all the time. You want to keep keys and remote openers out of reach of children 100% of the time and childproof your home.”
“You want to check the inside trunk and floorboards of all vehicles in the area immediately, even if they’re locked,” Rollins added. “A lot of times, kiddos will get in and they try to get out and they push the lock button. And so people don’t think they’re in there if it’s locked, but they definitely can be.”
Rollins suggests keeping a physical object, like a diaper bag, in the front seat or playing a kid’s song to remember that you’re traveling with your child. “If you’re not a diaper bag person 100% of the time, create a reminder object in your car. So throw a stuffed animal in the car seat. And then anytime you put the child in the car seat, that stuffed animal comes up to the front seat with you as your visual cue that the baby is with you,” Rollins said.
Enlist the help of others.
“If you take your child to daycare or anyone, a family member that watches them, whoever it is, you want to make a policy with them. They would call you immediately if your child didn’t show up as scheduled and I mean immediately,” said Rollins. “That one phone call could have been the difference between life or death for hundreds of children.”
Make kids aware of the hazards of a hot car.
“Talk to your kids about how dangerous it is to get into a car without a grown-up and talk to them about never allowing a grown-up to leave them in the car,” Rollins said.
Use stick-on door alarms.
Inexpensive door alarms can be more accessible for parents than full-fledged home security systems in the short term and peel-and-stick options are sold online and in stores.
(NEW YORK) — This Fourth of July is expected to be the second-busiest for travel since 2000, with 47.9 million Americans taking trips, according to AAA.
Here’s what to know before you head to the airport or hit the highways.
Air travel
Friday, July 1 is shaping up to be the busiest day for air travel during the holiday weekend. Monday, July 4 will likely be the lightest, according to AAA booking data.
The top domestic destinations for the holiday this year are: Orlando; Seattle; New York; Anaheim, California; Anchorage, Alaska; Ft. Lauderdale; Las Vegas; Honolulu; Denver; and Chicago, according to AAA.
Fourth of July airfare is up 45% compared to 2019, now at an average of $437 for a domestic roundtrip, according to Hopper.
But the best prices for domestic trips can be found with a quick weekend trip, flying on Saturday, July 2 and returning on Monday, July 4, according to Hopper.
Road travel
The afternoons of Thursday, June 30 and Friday, July 1 are anticipated to be the most crowded days on the road as commuters leave work early and mix with holiday travelers, according to AAA.
If you’re going to brave the roads on Friday, before 10 a.m. or after 9 p.m. is best, according to analytics company INRIX. On Thursday, before 7 a.m. or after 8 p.m. is best.
July 3 and July 4 are expected to be the best days for traffic, according to INRIX.
(NEW YORK) — The heat is on this summer, and it’s forecast to stay that way.
Millions of Americans had already been given a taste of sweltering temperatures by the time the summer solstice — the longest day of the year and the official start of the summer season — arrived last week.
A reprieve from the heat is likely not coming, forecasts into the coming months show.
Following back-to-back dangerous heat waves that impacted a large swath of the nation over the past two weeks, much of the country will be bracing for more rounds of intense heat as summer continues.
The final days of June and first days of July will likely bring above-average temperatures along the Gulf Coast, with building heat in the West. Rounds of intense summer heat and longer-duration heat waves will be likely over the next couple of weeks and heading through the month of July, according to long-range weather forecast models monitored by meteorologists.
Odds favor above-average temperatures across much of the South and along the East Coast, according to the latest July outlook issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center. While there will be breaks in the heat from time to time, more rounds of prolonged, dangerous heat will be more likely in these areas — which have already experienced triple-digit temperatures — heading into the middle of summer.
The Midwest, which saw some of the highest temperatures during the most recent heat waves, will be one of the few regions to experience relief from the heat in the coming days.
Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer. On average, more people in the U.S. die from extreme heat than any other severe weather event, including tornados, hurricanes and flooding combined, according to the National Weather Service.
Vulnerable populations, including impoverished and marginalized communities and those with pre-existing health conditions such as asthma and heart disease, are most at risk when temperatures begin to skyrocket, Ladd Keith, an assistant professor in the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning at the University of Arizona, told ABC News.
“With climate change, we’ve already seen the number of heat waves increase,” he said. “In the 1960s, they were occurring twice per year. And we’ve already seen that increase to six times a decade in the last decade.”
As the heat index increased, cities all over the country began offering heat management strategies such as cooling and hydration centers. In Tennessee, utility company Middle Tennessee Electric even suspended disconnections for non-payment until at least July 6 amid the forecast for scorching temperatures.
Cities tend to be hotter than their natural surroundings because of the heat island effect caused by buildings, roads and other infrastructure, which absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than a natural landscape, Keith said. This is why is it important for cities to also implement heat mitigation strategies, such as planting trees, increase vegetation, and use cool pavements and cool roofs during new construction, he said.
“Just the average temperatures that are rising due to climate change — and how we built our cities — can expose people to unsafe temperatures throughout the summer season, particularly for historically hotter states,” Keith said. “And so that’s a concern, because it could certainly lead to things like dehydration, heat, heat exhaustion and up to heatstroke.”
Heat severity in urban areas is “drastic and inequitably distributed,” Keith said. Lower-income, marginalized minority neighborhoods are physically hotter because they have less vegetation, and they have less public investment that’s historically connected to those locations, he added.
In addition, a lot of critical urban infrastructure and systems, such as industry, airports and transportation hubs, are typically located in lower-income areas “intentionally,” Keith said.
“So that physically makes those places hotter, so they’re exposed to more heat just by where they live,” he said.
Combine that with the inability to access health care or afford basic utilities such as air conditioning, and people’s health can succumb to the heat, Keith said.
The heat and megadrought are becoming such a concern in the West that the city of Los Angeles named its first-ever chief heat officer earlier this month, while the Federal Emergency Management Agency has identified Los Angeles County as the nation’s most vulnerable county to heat waves.
Despite cities being hotter, there are actually more heat-related hospitalizations in rural regions, likely due to the types of occupations those residents hold and their travel patterns, Keith said.
The next heat wave is forecast to also hit the Pacific Northwest, a region that experienced triple-digit temperatures twice in 2021 — something that would have been unheard of two decades ago.
It is estimated that about 1,400 people in the U.S. and Canada died as a result of that heat wave.
“There’s just a less visible risk, and it kind of hides some of those deaths, unfortunately,” Keith said.
(BRENTWOOD, Calif.) — Three people are dead and two others seriously injured after an Amtrak train collided with a car in Brentwood, California, on Sunday, the East Contra Costa Fire Department told ABC News San Francisco station KGO.
The two people who were wounded, including a child, suffered serious injuries and were both sent to John Muir Medical Center, according to officials.
It’s unclear how many people were on the train.
Fire department officials said they have been called out to that train crossing up to twice a year because there isn’t a traffic guard at that location.
(EL ESPINAL, Colombia) — At least four people have died and dozens were injured after an accident occurred at the venue of a bullfight in Colombia.
The spectators were watching the bullfight in El Espinal, Colombia — about 100 miles southwest of Bogota — on Sunday when several stands collapsed, the Tolima Civil Defense told ABC News.
In addition to the four people who died, about 60 people were treated on-site for minor injuries, while another 10 were transferred to local hospitals.
It is unclear what caused the stands to collapse.
Additional information was not immediately available.
The ethics surrounding bullfighting, which involves killing the bull at the end of the contest, has come into question in recent years. While the practice is customary in many Spanish-speaking countries, a judge in Mexico City extended a ban on bullfighting indefinitely earlier this month over complaints that bullfights violated resident’s rights to a healthy environment free from violence, The Associated Press reported.
While four states in Mexico have already banned bullfighting, a ban in Mexico City could mark the end of nearly 500 years of bullfighting in Mexico and could threaten the practice internationally, The AP reported.
ABC New’s Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said Sunday that women shouldn’t be prosecuted for seeking abortions following the Supreme Court’s ruling last week overturning Roe v. Wade, which allowed state-level abortion bans in South Dakota and elsewhere to take effect.
Noem, a Republican, celebrated the high court’s finding that there is no constitutional guarantee to abortion access, but she told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, “I don’t believe women should ever be prosecuted. I don’t believe that mothers in this situation [should] ever be prosecuted. Now doctors who knowingly violate the law, they should be prosecuted.”
South Dakota was one multiple states that had in place a so-called “trigger law,” which immediately banned abortions once the Supreme Court announced its ruling, according to the research and policy group Guttmacher Institute. Following the court’s decision, all abortions in the state became illegal “unless there is appropriate and reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female.”
The law makes performing an abortion — either through a procedure or via medicine — a felony.
However, Noem said Sunday, “I don’t believe there should be any punishment for women, ever, that are in a crisis situation or have an unplanned pregnancy. And South Dakota has been strong on that argument.” She called the new court ruling “wonderful news in the defense of life. Every life is precious.”
“We want to help support these mothers,” she continued. “I think we can do better in this country making sure that we’re walking alongside them in these situations.”
Raddatz cited data from the nonpartisan social policy think tank Commonwealth Fund that “the 14 states that have the most restrictive abortion laws, including South Dakota, invest the least in policies and programs for women and children.”
“So what do you mean when you say these mothers will never be alone?” she asked, challenging Noem.
“I would say that the facts on the ground are that South Dakota’s doing a lot to coordinate with nonprofits, with churches, and then also the state in a new way by launching this website,” Noem answered, referring to a government portal with information about resources for pregnant women and new mothers.
The Supreme Court handed down its decision reversing Roe on Friday, ruling that there was not a constitutional guarantee to abortion access and that abortions could be regulated, or banned, by each state individually.
Raddatz noted in 2006 and in 2008 that South Dakota voters rejected initiatives for complete bans on abortion. She asked Noem if the governor would “be willing to let the voters of the state decide the issue again?”
Noem said voters decide the issue of abortion “every single year when we come to legislative sessions.”
“They vote for their representatives to come to sessions,” she said.
President Joe Biden, responding to the Roe reversal, said Friday that his administration would work to protect certain medications that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, “like contraception, which is essential for preventative healthcare [and] mifepristone, which the FDA approved 20 years ago to safely end early pregnancies and is commonly used to treat miscarriages.”
When Raddatz pushed Noem on her stance on abortions via medication, using the “so-called abortion pill,” Noem said she didn’t believe telemedicine abortions were safe.
“I don’t believe that telemedicine abortions are safe for individuals, for women to conduct at home, many times they’re doing it unsupervised. It’s a medical procedure, and so I do believe that there should be a physician supervision in place when that is being conducted by individual,” Noem said.
Medication abortions are considered safe, according to the nonprofit organization Kaiser Family Foundation, “with a 0.4% risk of major complications, and an associated mortality rate of less than 0.001 percent (0.00064%).”
She also said she thinks there will be continued discussion among local lawmakers about the legality of constituents who travel across state borders to get an abortion elsewhere.
“That, certainly, isn’t addressed in our statute today and so I think that there’ll be a debate about [it], but also we’re having lots of debates in South Dakota,” she said.
