(ST. MICHAEL, Minn.) — A 30-hour standoff involving Wright County sheriff’s deputies and a suspect carrying a rifle came to end when authorities stormed the home in St. Michael, Minnesota, on Wednesday night.
The standoff began after the sheriff’s office received a complaint that a man and woman were verbally arguing and the man was carrying a rifle.
The sheriff’s office said it received the gun complaint at 12:37 a.m. on Tuesday regarding a domestic situation. The residence then remained under surveillance until emergency response units arrived at approximately 2:50 p.m. on Tuesday. Authorities were on the scene into Wednesday night, according to the sheriff’s office.
Police identified the suspect as 39-year-old Brandon Gardas. He has active arrest warrants for domestic assault and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, according to the sheriff’s office.
The standoff came to an end at approximately 8:30 p.m. Wednesday after law enforcement entered Gardas’ home. Officers shot Gardas upon entering the residence, police said.
He was airlifted to an area hospital and his condition is unknown. No police officers were injured.
Gardas fired several rounds at law enforcement during the standoff, authorities said.
Police said the area surrounding the home will remain secured for investigative purposes and asked the public to stay away from that area. Earlier Wednesday, police had told people in the immediate vicinity of the home to evacuate due to the “volatile nature” of the incident and said they rerouted several roads in the area for public safety.
(WASHINGTON) — Yellowstone National Park reopened three of its five entrances to visitors on Wednesday after unprecedented flooding closed the park on June 13 and reshaped many of its rivers, canyons and roads.
The south loop’s Cody, West Yellowstone and Grand Teton/Jackson entrances opened at 8 a.m. on Wednesday. The Madison, Old Faithful, Grant Village, Lake Village, Canyon Village and Norris areas of the park will again become accessible to visitors.
The park’s northern region, including Lamar Valley and Mammoth Hot Springs, will remain closed until at least early July, park officials said.
Many of the park’s famous wildlife-viewing areas will also be unavailable to visitors returning to the south loop region of the park.
Main routes into the Montana tourist towns of Gardiner, Red Lodge and Cooke City continue to be closed off.
A statement from the National Park Service said that park staff have engaged over 1,000 business owners, park partners, commercial operators and residents in the surrounding gateway communities to help create a plan for how to manage summer visitation while the park’s north loop remains closed.
“It is impossible to reopen only one loop in the summer without implementing some type of system to manage visitation,” the park’s superintendent, Cam Sholly, said in a statement.
The park has subsequently instituted an interim visitor access plan, coined the Alternating License Plate System (ALPS), to balance the demand for visitor access, park resource protection and economic interests of the local communities.
Park officials said the plan was suggested by those from gateway communities during a major public engagement with the park last week. They added that the National Park Service will actively monitor the new system while also building a new reservation system that can be implemented if needed.
According to ALPS, visitation will essentially be monitored based on a vehicle’s license plate.
For public vehicle entry, it will not matter if the last numerical digit on the plate is odd or even. For all others, entrance will be granted based on the odd and even numbered days of the calendar month, so that odd-numbered ending license plates will be able to enter on odd days and vice versa for those ending in even numbers.
For vehicles with personalized license plates that only contain letters, entry will be granted along with odd-numbered ending plates. Vehicles with a combination of letters and numbers that end in a letter will be granted entry on even-numbered days.
Park officials have stated that under this new plan, entrance station staff will turn away vehicles that do not follow the odd-even structure.
There are some exceptions. For one, current commercial use operators with active commercial use permits can enter on any day, including those with commercial tours and stock groups. Commercial motor coaches will also be permitted to enter regardless of their license plate makeup.
Visitors who have proof of overnight reservations in the park’s hotels, campgrounds and backcountry reservations may also be permitted entry regardless of the day’s number status. Essential services such as mail, employees and contractors will be able to enter any day as well.
Regardless of license plates, motorcycle groups will only be permitted into the park on even days.
The ALPS plan is temporary, as the park braces for its summer season while managing its partial-capacity status.
Sholly said that as repairs continue across the park, park officials will work to reopen new sections throughout the summer.
“It is critical for visitors to stay informed about this interim system as we evaluate its effectiveness. They should plan ahead and be patient with us as we are still managing significant recovery while moving into this operational phase,” Sholly said.
(ATLANTA) — Extreme heat is forcing the Atlanta Zoo to close its gates early on Wednesday and Thursday.
The heat index — what temperature it feels like — is forecast to skyrocket Wednesday to 100 degrees in Atlanta.
Some animals who call the Atlanta Zoo home may be brought inside earlier in the day than usual because of the high temperatures, said Rachel Davis, the zoo’s director of communications. Animals also have access to shade or water features like water-mist fans, she said.
“The Animal Care Teams carefully monitor and check in on all animal habitats at multiple times throughout the day,” Davis told ABC News via email. Some “are native to tropical environments in Africa or southeast Asia. Others, like giant pandas, which are native to cool, high-altitude forests in China, would already, just by virtue of the season, be spending time in their indoor dayroom habitats, which are kept in the 60s Fahrenheit year-round.”
Some zoo residents even get to indulge in frozen treats!
“These vary among species and their diets — for example, for gorillas it might be frozen fruit juice,” Davis said.
The zoo said its last entry time for Wednesday and Thursday will be 12:30 to 1 p.m, with normal hours expected to resume Friday.
(NEW YORK) — While many Americans have noticed sky-high gasoline prices, the lesser-known increase in diesel costs could be what drives the U.S. economy into a recession, experts told ABC News.
Oil prices, which on Wednesday afternoon stood at $105 per barrel, are likely to remain high through November, when they’ll moderate to around $100 per barrel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Elevated diesel prices could persist even longer as heightened demand for diesel outlasts that for gasoline, experts said. Since nearly all products that people consume rely on trucks, trains, and other modes of transportation that use diesel fuel, the already-inflated prices for many goods will prove difficult to dial back in light of those elevated diesel costs, they said.
“No one really notices diesel prices in the U.S. because it’s really only used by industries,” said Damien Courvalin, head of energy research and senior commodity strategist at Goldman Sachs. “But that diesel represents a piece of your plane ticket, a piece of that box of cereal… that price is folded into aggregate inflation.”
The nationwide average price for a gallon of diesel stands at $5.81, which marks a staggering 80% increase since a year ago, when a gallon cost $3.22, according to AAA data. In California, the average price of a gallon of diesel is just below $7 per gallon, AAA data shows.
‘Diesel is my biggest concern’
While gasoline demand may decline leading into a recession, diesel demand often remains elevated, experts said. “In the pandemic we didn’t see diesel demand fall off the way we saw gasoline fall because we all ordered things off of the internet,” said Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at market research firm OPIS.
Many facets of U.S. industry rely on diesel-fueled transportation of goods, experts said. Typically, overall consumer demand drops during a recession. But diesel demand could remain at high levels in the lead up to a recession, especially in light of the prevalence of e-commerce and home delivery, experts said.
“Diesel is, quite frankly, my biggest concern, even more so than gasoline,” Cinquegrana said. “You could make behavioral changes when it comes to gasoline — you could carpool to work, some of us have the ability to work from home.”
But with diesel, high costs elevate the prices of everyday goods, since the higher cost of transportation is often passed down to consumers. In turn, consumers restrain their spending habits at grocery and other retail stores, slashing demand and exacerbating an economic slowdown, experts said. Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of U.S. gross domestic product.
“Those trucks run on diesel, and those costs get passed on to the consumer — that’s why the price of eggs, the price of milk, beer, go up,” Cinquegrana said. “It’s the price of diesel that kind of breaks the back of the economy eventually.”
Refineries are nearing capacity
The fundamental issue behind the high prices of both gasoline and diesel: demand is high and supply is constrained. Currently, U.S. refineries are producing about a million barrels less per day than they were pre-pandemic, according to the EIA.
In recent years, energy companies have slowed oil expansion in response to a call for fiscal discipline from shareholders. The rise of renewable energy alternatives has also posed a challenge for long-term investment in oil extraction.
While President Joe Biden is set to travel to Saudi Arabia next month, a prospective oil deal likely won’t help the U.S. in the short term.
“Their oil is in the ground,” said Courvalin, the head of energy research at Goldman Sachs. “None of us use that, we need refined oil — it needs to go through the refining process to get what we consume.”
Last week, Biden sent a letter to major oil refinery companies calling on them to take “immediate actions” to increase output. The letter accused the companies of taking advantage of the market environment to reap profits while Americans struggle to afford gas. It mentioned the possibility of Biden invoking the Defense Production Act, which requires companies to produce goods deemed necessary for national security.
But experts told ABC news that U.S. refineries are already near full capacity, and it would take a prolonged period to build new ones. Refineries are “very complex, highly regulated, and very expensive to build,” the EIA said. “Building new refineries to increase capacity is not something that can be done in a short time frame.”
“You have to realize that up until recently, nobody was screaming for more refining capacity in the world,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, a consulting firm. “In fact, if anything, refining capacity was starting to look like horses in buggies did in 1908.”
Biden should ‘go further’
The Biden administration’s short term response to the crisis has involved the release of oil from strategic reserves and a call for a gas tax holiday. The long term response has centered around a transition to clean or low carbon energy, but Cinquegrana criticized this proposal as “not appreciating how difficult an energy transition is.”
“What we really need is that higher investment – we talk about refining capacity: if there is none, then I cannot increase gasoline supply,” Courvalin said. “There is nothing the policy can do at this stage.”
The Biden administration has called for a federal gas tax holiday which would temporarily pause the federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents per gallon on diesel fuel.
“On the one hand, yes, it does reduce prices at the pump,” Courvalin said of the potential holiday. “But when you look at it from a commodity perspective, it also means we are still not balancing, just subsidizing what we are running out of.”
The American Petroleum Institute sent the White House its own 10-step proposal to alleviate supply shortages. Their recommendations ranged from lifting development restrictions on federal lands and waters to revising the NEPA permitting process.
“I would go even further,” McNally comments on the letter, “reversing the ban on cross-border pipelines, removing the prospective risk of onerous regulation of oil and gas companies and investment and so forth until we can legislate a proper climate change policy.”
Some of the major energy companies agree.
“In the short term, the US government could enact measures often used in emergencies following hurricanes or other supply disruptions — such as waivers of Jones Act provisions and some fuel specifications to increase supplies,” ExxonMobil suggested in a statement to ABC News.
“Longer term, [the] government can promote investment through clear and consistent policy that supports U.S. resource development, such as regular and predictable lease sales, as well as streamlined regulatory approval and support for infrastructure such as pipelines,” the company added.
(NEW YORK) — COVID-19 vaccines began to be rolled out for children between six months and 4 years old across the United States this week.
This means roughly 20 million babies, toddlers and preschoolers under age 5 are now eligible for shots after they were authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week.
As of Wednesday, 2.7 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Moderna’s vaccines have been delivered nationwide, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told ABC News.
Parents looking to schedule appointments can visit vaccines.gov, a website jointly run by the HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and VaccineFinder from Boston Children’s Hospital.
Vaccines.gov launched Tuesday, a few days earlier than planned. There are currently 1,591 locations on the website that include a mix of children’s hospitals, doctor’s offices, community sites, clinics and pop-ups offering the shots.
To use the tool, people can click on the button on the homepage that reads, “Find COVID-19 Vaccines.”
On the next page, users enter their ZIP code and click on the type of vaccine, depending on the age group they would like to receive.
It’s important to select the correct age group because Pfizer’s three-dose vaccine for kids is three micrograms each, one-tenth the dose offered to adults, while Moderna’s two-dose vaccine is 25 micrograms each, one-quarter of its adult-sized dose.
Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said the number of locations is expected to increase to more than 10,000 in the coming weeks are more locations get their shipments delivered
“Of course, we understand there’s a lot of anxiety and parents have been waiting a long time to get these vaccines,” Brownstein said. “At some point, the supply will outstrip the demand. Any parent will have access in the coming days. It will take time to get vaccines, but there will be enough to supply.”
The Biden administration has said it eventually expects that 85% of kids under age 5 will live within five miles of a potential vaccination site.
“HHS has received orders for approximately 4.2 million doses to date,” the agency told ABC News. “We made 10 million doses of vaccine available for ordering initially, with millions more available soon, so supply should not be a barrier to someone getting their young child vaccinated.”
For those who may not have access to the internet or are not internet literate, they can call 1-800-232-0233, which offers help to schedule appointments in English, Spanish and other languages.
Brownstein also recommends that people contact their family physicians or pediatricians to either schedule an appointment or ask where to find appointments.
“It absolutely makes sense [to contact them],” he said. “That’s where you have a formal relationship.”
It could prove challenging to get this youngest age group vaccinated if it’s not convenient to do so.
According to the CDC, only about 30% of American children between ages 5 and 11 have been vaccinated compared to 75% of kids above age 12.
Adding to the challenge is that many young children will not be able to receive their vaccines at pharmacies, because many states do not allow pharmacists or trained pharmacy staff members to vaccinate children under 3 years old.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jun 23, 6:26 am
More than 8 million have fled Ukraine, UN says
More than 8 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, according to an update by the United Nations.
More than 4 million Ukrainians fled through Poland — by far the preferred route for the displaced, the U.N. report said. Hungary, the second most used route, reported just over 800,000 crossings.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Fidel Pavlenko and Yuriy Zaliznyak
Jun 23, 6:08 am
Belarusian military flexes its muscle near Ukrainian border
The Belarusian Defense Ministry announced “mobilization exercises” on Wednesday in the Gomel region bordering Ukraine.
The military drills, scheduled to last until 1 July, will include special operations forces as well as freshly called up conscripts, Belarusian officials said on Telegram.
The Belarusian army has already been placing wooden dummies of tanks on the Ukrainian border to demonstrate their presence, Ukrainian Ministry of Defense spokesperson Alexander Motuzyanyk said on Wednesday.
Real weapons are arriving near the Ukrainian border, too, with a new batch of Russian missiles for the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system being brought to Belarus on Tuesday night, local monitoring groups reported. The delivery included at least 16 missiles, with the likely addition of one Pantsir missile defense system, the report said.
Still, Ukrainian officials maintain that “at this stage of the war,” there is no imminent threat “of the Belarusian army invading” Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, said on Wednesday as cited by local media.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Fidel Pavlenko and Yuriy Zaliznyak
Jun 23, 5:39 am
EU shifts to coal as Russia tightens gas tap
The European Union will temporarily shift back to coal to cope with slowing Russian gas flows, an EU official said on Wednesday, as a tight gas market and rocketing prices set off a race for alternative fuels.
The International Energy Agency warned Russia could cut gas supplies to Europe completely this winter.
“Europe should be ready in case Russian gas is completely cut off,” IEA chief Fatih Birol told The Financial Times on Wednesday.
While Russia denies premeditated supply cuts, several European countries, including Germany and Italy, reported a dip in gas flow via pipelines from Russia over the past week.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Fidel Pavlenko and Yuriy Zaliznyak
Jun 22, 7:31 am
Turkey raises hopes for grain exports
A four-way summit discussing ways to export grain blocked in Ukraine will be held in Istanbul in less than 10 days, Turkish presidential sources told local media on Tuesday.
According to Turkish officials, a military delegation will head to Russia this week to discuss details. On top of Russian and Ukrainian delegations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the UN Secretary General António Guterres are likely to attend the Istanbul summit, local sources said.
The lives of about 400 million people in different countries depend on Ukrainian food exports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Tatiana Rymarenko, Fidel Pavlenko and Natalya Kushnir
(LOGAN COUNTY, W. Va.) — Six people reportedly died in a helicopter crash in West Virginia on Wednesday.
The Bell UH-1B helicopter crashed by Route 17 in Logan County around 5 p.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which also said six people were on board. Emergency service personnel responded to the scene.
The six people were killed, Logan County Office of Emergency Management Deputy Director Sonya Porter told ABC News affiliate WCHS.
It’s unclear what caused the crash, but there was a severe thunderstorm watch for Logan County at the time of the incident, according to the county’s office of emergency management.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA are investigating the incident.
This is a developing story, please check back for updates.
(SAN FRANCISCO) — The search continued Thursday for a gunman who shot two people, one fatally, on a packed Muni commuter train in San Francisco on Wednesday, police said.
The shooting occurred around 10 a.m. as the light-rail train was moving between stations, according to San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Kathryn Winters.
Winters said police were initially called to the city’s Forest Hill Muni station for a report of a shooting, but the train had already pulled away. Officers caught up to the train at the busy Castro Street Station, where they discovered the two victims, Winters said.
Police late Wednesday released a photo of a person of interest connected to the shooting.
Winters said the gunman and commuters aboard the train ran off as soon as it stopped and the doors opened at the station.
Winters said one victim, a man, was pronounced dead at the scene. A second individual was taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
The shooting happened ahead of this Sunday’s Pride Parade in San Francisco and in the heart of the city’s popular Castro District, which is expected to be filled with revelers celebrating LGBTQ pride this weekend. Winters said preliminary evidence showed that the shooting has no connection to this coming weekend’s activities or directed at the city’s LGBTQ community.
San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar told ABC station KGO-TV in San Francisco that police informed her that the shooting occurred during a confrontation the gunman had with the victim who died.
“We do know the shooting happened after a heated verbal argument,” Melgar said.
It was not immediately clear whether the gunman and the deceased victim knew each other. She said the second victim who was wounded was an innocent bystander.
Winters said on Wednesday that homicide detectives were securing surveillance video from the train and the Forest Hill and Castro stations in hopes there was footage of the shooting that could help them identify the assailant.
Police had released a vague description of the perpetrator, saying he was a man wearing dark clothes and a hooded sweatshirt.
Melgar asked any commuters who were on the train and witnessed the shooting to contact police immediately.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — After Thursday’s hearing, the House Jan. 6 select committee will delay its final hearings for several weeks, a spokesperson confirmed to ABC News Wednesday.
“The Select Committee continues to receive additional evidence relevant to our investigation into the violence of January 6th and its causes. Following tomorrow’s hearing, we will be holding additional hearings in the coming weeks. We will announce dates and times for those hearings soon,” the spokesperson said.
Initially, the committee was expected to hold its sixth and seventh hearings by the end of June. But after Tuesday’s session, members said they need more time to incorporate new information into their public presentations.
Chairman Bennie Thompson said later “at least two” are planned for next month starting the week of July 11, after the House returns from the Independence Day recess. But the panel has not ruled out adding even more hearings down the road.
He claimed the delay is due to the need to take in new information the committee has obtained, from a documentary filmmaker who turned over hours of taped videos with Trump and his inner circle spanning “almost a year,” and additional Trump White House records from the National Archives.
“There may well be a need for future hearings because of information elicited because of the hearings,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who is regularly briefed by committee chairs, told ABC News on Wednesday.
Following Tuesday’s hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., also told reporters he expected the committee would continue its hearings beyond June because of new evidence they have been receiving.
The committee’s next hearing and last one for June, scheduled for Thursday at 3 p.m., will focus on what the committee has called Trump’s pressure campaign on the Department of Justice.
The new schedule comes after British documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who had substantial access to Trump, his family and closest aides around the Jan. 6 attack, confirmed in a statement this week he “fully complied with all of the committee’s requests” and handed over footage which includes interviews with Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Vice President Mike Pence.
According to Vice Chair Liz Cheney, the final two hearings will focus on how former President Donald Trump “summoned and assembled a violent mob in Washington and directed them to march on the U.S. Capitol” and “ignored multiple pleas for assistance and failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol,” she said in the committee’s first June hearing.
(SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla.) — A Florida judge told lawyers for the parents of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie that he will make a decision on whether he will dismiss a civil lawsuit brought by the Petitos in the next few weeks. The two sides appeared in Sarasota County Court on Wednesday.
Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt, the parents of Gabby Petito, brought a lawsuit against Christopher and Roberta Laundrie after their daughter was murdered. The Petitos claim in the lawsuit that Brian Laundrie, Petito’s boyfriend, told his parents he had killed her before he returned home alone from their trip out West.
The Laundries filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
In court filings, lawyers for the Petitos claim the Laundries failed to disclose that Petito was killed or where her body was and then went on a vacation with their son after she was killed.
In a hearing held over Zoom, Matthew Luka, a lawyer for the Laundries, argued that the law did not oblige them to disclose any information on Gabby Petito and that they had a first amendment right not to speak.
Patrick Riley, a lawyer for Petito’s parents, told the judge the case was about Laundrie parents’ conduct after they found out that Gabby Petito was killed by their son. Riley alleged that the Laundries knew on Aug. 28 that Gabby Petito was killed, where the body was and that her family was desperately looking for information. The family then knowingly went on vacation with Brian Laundrie, Riley alleged.
Riley also alleged that a statement made by a lawyer for the Laundries saying they hope Gabby Petito is found was made while they knew she was dead and that her body was in a different location than where investigators were searching at the time.
Riley claimed first amendment protections does not apply in this case.
Judge Hunter Carroll also held a hearing in a wrongful death suit filed by Gabby Petito’s mother. Schmidt is seeking damages in excess of $30,000 and is demanding a trial by jury. Riley said he is awaiting a response from representatives for the estate before the case could move forward.
Petito and Brian Laundrie were on a cross-county trip last year, documenting their travels on social media. Petito suddenly disappeared on Aug. 25. Brian Laundrie returned home to North Port, Florida, alone.
Eleven days into the search, Petito’s body was found in a remote area in a national park in Wyoming in September. The cause of death was ruled to be strangulation.
In January, the FBI concluded that Petito was murdered by Brian Laundrie, saying that Laundrie wrote in a notebook that he killed her. The notebook was found near his body, along with a backpack and a gun.
