(EL MONTE, Calif.) — Two police officers have died after being shot in El Monte, California, Tuesday while responding to a possible stabbing at a motel, authorities said.
The El Monte Police Department said two officers “immediately took gunfire upon arrival” at the Siesta Inn.
The officers were taken to LAC-USC Medical Center, where they died of their injuries, ABC News Los Angeles station KABC-TV reported.
The suspect was also shot and died at the scene, according to KABC.
Neither the police officers nor the suspect have been identified, and additional details about the incident were not immediately available.
“There are no words to describe our grief and devastation by this senseless act as we learned about the passing of two of our police officers,” the city, police department and El Monte Police Officers Association said in a statement. “It weighs heavy on our hearts and we are sending our support to their families. We would also like to thank the El Monte community and our surrounding government agencies for the outpouring support we have received in the last few hours.”
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has taken over the investigation, the El Monte Police Department said.
(ATLANTA) — An armed man is in custody after officials say he threatened people inside a HomeGoods store in the Atlanta area.
The HomeGoods in Alpharetta, about 25 miles from Atlanta, was evacuated as were the neighboring businesses, authorities told reporters.
There were no reports of shots fired, the Alpharetta Department of Public Safety said.
“The manager came out of the office and she just told all of us to run,” one HomeGoods employee told ABC Atlanta affiliate WSB-TV.
Authorities said the suspect, who has not been identified, was located in the store and contained at 12:20 p.m. Police said negotiators tried to speak with him.
At 1:28 p.m., authorities announced that the suspect had been taken into custody.
(WASHINGTON) — A series of photos taken on election night 2020 inside the Trump White House captures the tension as Donald Trump’s family and his top aides track election returns and see Trump’s early lead fade away.
The photos, taken by a White House photographer and published exclusively in the book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, are a visual representation of the testimony of senior Trump advisers who told the House Jan. 6 committee that they did not believe Trump should declare victory on election night.
The photos show Trump’s family and campaign team camped out in the Map Room of the White House.
The room, located in the basement of the White House residence, is where President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tracked the movement of Allied Forces during World War II.
It’s called the Map Room because some of the maps used by FDR are framed and on the walls.
For election night, however, Trump’s political team transformed the room in to a campaign war room, installing large-screen televisions and placing them over FDR’s maps.
The photos capture the apparently pained expressions on the faces of Trump’s inner circle.
According to a source who is shown in at least one of the photos, they were taken as the campaign’s analysts, who had been more confident early in the evening, became concerned Trump could lose.
The photos feature some of Trump’s most prominent advisers, including chief of staff Mark Meadows, campaign manager Bill Stepien, senior strategist Jason Miller, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
Also present are several Trump family members, including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Lara Trump.
In videotaped testimony released Monday by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Stepien said Trump was “increasingly unhappy” on election night as votes were counted and he started to lose.
Stepien, Miller and other key aides urged Trump not to declare victory that night.
“My belief, my recommendation was to say that votes were still being counted, it’s too early to tell, too early to call the race,” Stepien said in a clip of his interview with the committee played during Monday’s hearing.
Trump, he said, “thought I was wrong,” and would instead declare victory at the White House early the next morning on the advice of Rudy Giuliani, who Miller said was “definitely intoxicated” on election night.
Giuliani on Tuesday challenged Miller’s testimony and denied being drunk on election night at the White House.
(WASHINGTON) — Celebrity chef José Andrés on Monday announced plans to open a restaurant in the Old Post Office, the Washington landmark which recently reopened as the Waldorf Astoria Washington D.C. after operating for five years as the Trump International Hotel.
“People of DC big news! Today after a dream of 30 years I’m announcing we will open @bazaarbyjose in the Old Post Office!” Andrés tweeted. “Building longer tables in the heart of our nation’s capital, welcoming people from across the city & the world.”
The new restaurant follows Donald Trump’s company agreeing to sell its hotel lease in May.
It’s not the first time Andrés has planned to have a location in the complex — or the first time his career overlapped with Trump. According to The Washington Post, Andrés was in progress on the $7 million Topo Atrio, at Trump International, when Trump launched his 2016 presidential candidacy.
The chef split with Trump after the latter, then a businessman and reality TV show host, announced his campaign at an event in New York where he notoriously disparaged some immigrants.
Andrés subsequently sought to exit their partnership and a legal battle ensued. (It was settled in 2017.)
The chef went on to repeatedly, publicly criticize Trump-the-politician, tweeting in 2017 that Trump’s continued behavior only reaffirmed his decision to pull out of the hotel partnership.
The forthcoming eatery, The Bazaar by José Andrés, has locations in Chicago, Miami’s South Beach and in Las Vegas. It offers a “vibrant mix of sophisticated cuisine” and “playful lounge spaces,” according to the restaurant’s Twitter.
A hotel spokesperson told ABC News they “look forward to sharing more details about new partnerships in the coming months” but that “with a long history of innovation across the culinary industry, Waldorf Astoria creates iconic, award-winning dining experiences at its landmark locations worldwide. We are continuing that tradition with exciting food and beverage concepts at our newest hotel.”
In a video Andrés — whose humanitarian organization World Central Kitchen is also working to provide meals to Ukrainians during the Russian invasion — tweeted with his announcement on Monday, he took in the historic bells of the Old Post Office ringing in the background.
“For whom the bells toll?” he asked. “Well, for a new restaurant by José Andrés at the Old Post Office.”
(FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.) — Two wildfires are threatening communities near Flagstaff, Arizona, as the fire danger remains high due to dry, hot conditions.
The largest, the Pipeline Fire, has quickly swelled to over 20,100 acres since first reported on Sunday and is 0% contained. It is burning about 6 miles north of Flagstaff, with “critical” weather concerns due to warm and windy conditions, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center.
The Haywire Fire is also burning nearby, about 17 miles northeast of Flagstaff. It has grown to over 4,000 acres since first reported on Monday and merged with the smaller Double Fire and is also 0% contained.
On Monday, the Coconino County Board of Supervisors declared a state of emergency due to the Pipeline and Haywire fires.
Several communities are under evacuation and parts of the Coconino National Forest are temporarily closed due to the fires.
High winds and remote terrain have challenged the fire response, though aerial operations were seen on Tuesday. Some 500 fire personnel are working on both fires, with aerial resources including six helicopters and one fixed-wing aircraft, state officials said Tuesday.
“We are priority for all our aircraft, at least in the region if not the nation,” Aaron Graeser, incident commander for the U.S. Forest Service, told reporters Monday.
The causes of both fires are under investigation. Fire officials suspect a lightning strike caused the Haywire Fire. A 57-year-old man was arrested by U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officers for “federal natural resource violations” in connection with the Pipeline Fire, according to the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office.
Federal court records show Matthew Riser was charged with building a prohibited fire, residing on national forest lands and possession of a controlled substance (marijuana).
Riser allegedly lit toilet paper on fire in the Coconino National Forest around noon on Saturday. The Pipeline Fire was reported the following day at around 10:30 a.m. in the area, according to a statement of probable cause. Riser reportedly told a law enforcement officer that he did not see the “no campfire” signs, but saw them when he drove out of the area, the probable cause stated.
His attorney told Phoenix ABC affiliate KNXV there is no evidence that Riser started the fire. A detention hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
(RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif.) — The manager of a Northern California gas station was fired after he accidentally set the gas price to 69 cents a gallon.
John Szczecina, who served as the manager for a Shell gas station in Rancho Cordova, said he mistakenly placed the decimal in the wrong spot and that the price was supposed to be $6.99 a gallon.
“I put all three prices on there, except the diesel. The last one kind of didn’t go. So, I just took responsibility for it and said yeah, it’s my fault,” Szczecina told ABC News Fresno station KFSN.
The pricing error reportedly cost the gas station $16,000, as hundreds of drivers capitalized on the mistake and filled their tanks.
Szczecina told KFSN he’s worried the station owners will sue him for lost revenue, revealing that his family created a GoFundMe to help repay them.
According to auto club AAA, nationwide gas prices recently reached $5 a gallon for the first time.
Drivers in California are paying much higher prices for gas — an average of $6.43 per gallon — than the national average.
Gas prices have skyrocketed in the last few months, pinching the pockets of millions of Americans who are struggling to fill their tanks amid inflation costs.
More motorists are also poised to hit the road as the busy summer season gets
(WASHINGTON) — Wilma Mankiller, the first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, can now be seen on U.S. quarters available for purchase.
Mankiller, an activist for Native American and women’s rights, is the third woman to have her face adorned upon a quarter as part of the American Women Quarters Program.
“Chief Mankiller was a true champion for tribal sovereignty, women’s rights, health care, education and building strong communities for the Cherokee people. Every Chief that has followed her looks to her as the standard by which their work should be measured,” Chuck Hoskin Jr., the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, told ABC News Tuesday.
The new coin design shows Mankiller with a “resolute gaze to the future,” the U.S. Mint said in announcing the design.
Mankiller looks to be wearing a traditional shawl, and to her left is the seven-pointed star of the Cherokee Nation. The coin is inscribed with several phrases, including, “E Pluribus Unum,” “Wilma Mankiller,” “Principal Chief,” and “Cherokee Nation,” which is written in the Cherokee syllabary.
“Even years after her passing, Chief Mankiller is making an impact,” Hoskin said at a coin release event held by the Cherokee Nation and U.S. Mint last week.
“She’s not changing the world on this day simply because her likeness is being struck on the quarter. Her likeness is being struck on the quarter because she keeps changing the world for the better,” Hoskin added.
Mankiller served as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1985 to 1995. During her leadership, the nation’s population sprung from 68,000 to 170,000, according to a biography on her website.
The first woman to hold this title, Mankiller advocated throughout her tenure for improved healthcare, education and housing services. While she was principal chief, infant mortality declined and educational achievement rose across the nation, Cherokee Nation officials say.
“She was very driven on behalf of other people she was nurturing, she wanted to make people feel better. She was very approachable,” Ross Swimmer, the Cherokee Nation’s former principal chief, said at the release event.
Mankiller worked with the federal government while chief, working to pilot a self-government agreement for the Cherokee Nation through the Environmental Protection Agency. She guarded centuries of Cherokee traditions, customs and legal codes while managing a budget that reached $150 million by 1995, her website says.
“Wilma suffered from several serious illnesses and was almost killed in an auto accident, but she never complained. She would never say, ‘well, I just can’t do that today, I just don’t feel like it,’ or ‘no, I’m in pain,’ you would never hear that from her. She would go right on and get done what needed to be done,” Swimmer said at the event.
“I want to leave you with my mom’s last words. In 1995, the last time she took the podium as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, she said, ‘I did what I could,’” Felicia Olaya, her daughter, said in a speech at the release event.
In 1993, Mankiller was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
After Mankiller finished her term as principal chief, President Bill Clinton honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. In 2018, Mankiller was inducted into the National Native American Hall of Fame as one of the first female inductees.
“Chief Mankiller’s efforts to inspire our Cherokee people to work together at the grass roots level to build strong communities in the spirit of “Gaudgi” is alive and well. Our Cherokee people remain organized to this day working on their own solutions and for every challenge they are confronted with, not simply content to wait for any government to come to the rescue,’ Hoskin told ABC News.
Mankiller began her activism in 1969, when she began serving as director of Oakland’s Native American Youth Center, working to restore pride in Native heritage and reduce the downward spiral of Native youth who grew up in the streets.
In the late 1970s, Mankiller founded the Community Development Department for the Cherokee Nation, which focused on improving access to water and housing. A feature film was created around this work, entitled “The Cherokee Word for Water.”
“Chief Mankiller is still making an impact today, because now every time a little girl sees Wilma’s face on a quarter, and reads her story, she realizes she can do it too,” Hoskin said Tuesday.
Mankiller died in 2010 from pancreatic cancer.
The first coin of the American Women Quarters Program was released in January, with a quarter featuring poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou.
“These inspiring coin designs tell the stories of five extraordinary women whose contributions are indelibly etched in American culture,” Alison L. Doone, the Mint’s acting director, said in a statement last year. “Generations to come will look at coins bearing these designs and be reminded of what can be accomplished with vision, determination and a desire to improve opportunities for all.”
In March, Sally Ride, the first woman to travel to outer space, appeared on U.S. quarters.
Nine Otero-Warren, a leader in Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools, and Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood who left a legacy for women in the film industry, are both set to appear on U.S. quarters in the coming months.
(NEW YORK) — The World Health Organization said it is planning to assess whether the monkeypox outbreak spreading around the world is a public health emergency.
According to Global Health, more than 1,700 monkeypox cases have been identified in non-endemic countries, mostly in Europe and North America.
In the U.S., there are 65 confirmed or suspected cases in 17 states and the District of Columbia, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.
Because of the highly unusual nature of the outbreak, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he has decided to convene an emergency committee under the International Health Regulations next week.
“The global outbreak of monkeypox is clearly unusual and concerning,” he told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday held in Geneva. “I think it’s now clear that there is an unusual situation meaning even the virus is behaving unusually from how it used to behave in the past.”
He continued, “But not only that, but it’s also affecting more and more countries and we believe that it needs also some coordinated response because of the geographic spread.”
The first case of monkeypox among humans was recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970, and the illness has since spread to several other nations, mostly in central and western Africa.
Typically, the disease does not naturally occur on other continents, and infections are usually identified among people who recently traveled to countries where monkeypox is more commonly found.
However, lately the virus has been identified in people with no history of travel or known contact with anyone who tested positive for monkeypox, which many indicate evidence of community transmission.
According to the National Library of Medicine, between 2007 and 2020, there have been six events declared public health emergencies of international concern.
These include the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009; the Ebola outbreak in West Africa from 2013 to 2015; the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2018 to 2020; the Zika outbreak in 2016; the ongoing spread of poliovirus that started in 2014; and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday responded in a lengthy statement to the House’s ongoing Jan. 6 committee hearings, assailing the panel as illegitimate and their presentation as one-sided — but rather than refute their evidence, he reiterated the same baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election that are at the center of the proceedings and the group’s case that he had attempted a “coup.”
Trump’s 12-page statement, sent to reporters on Monday night, comes after the second public hearing held by the House select committee investigating last year’s deadly Capitol attack. His statement, marked by characteristic exclamations and insults, called the hearings “a smoke and mirrors show” that failed to include “all exculpatory witnesses, and anyone who so easily points out the flaws in their story.”
The statement, however, did not directly respond to the specifics laid out by the committee to the public thus far — including testimony earlier Monday from Trump’s inner circle that he knew he had lost the last presidential race and had no legitimate reason to claim widespread fraud, instead choosing to listen to Rudy Giuliani to falsely claim victory over Joe Biden.
Much of Trump’s statement, instead, went after President Biden and the Democratic majority in Congress, building on arguments Republicans are making ahead of November’s midterms. Trump said Democrats were at fault for various issues plaguing the country, and he framed the effort to investigate Jan. 6 as a way to deflect attention away from these issues.
“America is crumbling, and Democrats have no solutions. Our nation has no hope of change for the better under Democrat leadership,” Trump said. “People are desperate. Rather than solving problems, Democrats are rehashing history in hopes of changing the narrative.”
Members of the committee, which includes two Republicans, have pushed back at the characterization that their investigation is motivated by partisanship. Instead, they have said, their work uncovered the extent to which the former president worked to undercut the democratic process and remain in power.
“The Constitution doesn’t protect just Democrats or just Republicans. It protects all of us, we, the people. And this scheme was an attempt to undermine the will of the people,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the committee, said during the first public hearing on Thursday.
Throughout much of his Monday statement, Trump rehashed false or unfounded claims by him, his campaign and his supporters that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Biden through stolen ballots, mistaken vote counts and various other means.
Trump said the ongoing Jan. 6 hearings were a “narrative” authored by Democrats “to detract from the much larger and more important truth that the 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen.”
Numerous legal challenges by Trump and others as well as audits and investigations in the wake of the 2020 election discovered no pattern of widespread issues. Likewise, local election officials across the country — both Democrats and Republicans — said the fraud claims were without merit.
Trump used his statement to make arguments beyond the last election, targeting Biden and the Democratic Party’s perceived vulnerabilities with voters, such as rising inflation.
“Our country is in a nosedive,” Trump said. “Americans are struggling to fill their gas tanks, feed their babies, educate their children, hire employees, order supplies, protect our border from invasion, and a host of other tragedies that are 100% caused by Democrats … and the people of our country are both angry and sad.”
The Jan. 6 investigations and its hearings, Trump contended, were meant to bar him from running in the next presidential election. “This is merely an attempt to stop a man that is leading in every poll, against both Republicans and Democrats by wide margins,” he boasted, without offering evidence.
Trump has repeatedly teased but has not formally announced if he will run for president in 2024. He has played a large role in the ongoing 2022 midterm election primaries by endorsing candidates in races across the country, with mixed results.
Video depositions played at the first two hearings included witnesses who were close with Trump at the time of the election and on Jan. 6, including his daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump and then-Attorney General Bill Barr.
Barr, who has stated his team found no evidence of extensive fraud, described how he felt about Trump’s increasing focus on such claims, telling investigators: “He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.'”
The next open hearing by the committee is currently set for Thursday, after one scheduled for Wednesday was postponed.
(NEW YORK) — A coalition of families and survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks on Tuesday urged President Joe Biden, during his visit to Saudi Arabia next month, to hold the kingdom accountable for its role in the terrorist strike that killed almost 3,000 people.
“We appreciate the president’s commitment to do everything he can to support the 9/11 family community, but empathy is not enough,” Terry Strada, the national chair of “9/11 Families United,” said in a statement. “President Biden must do what past presidents have not, which is to demand transparency from Saudi Arabia and accountability for those who supported al Qaeda and the hijackers who murdered our loved ones.”
The White House said Tuesday Biden would travel to Saudi Arabia next month for a summit of Arab leaders. The visit will include a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, as well as with the effective leader of the country, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to White House officials.
Strada was responding to a comment by White House spokesman John Kirby during an interview with CNN earlier in the day.
“What I can tell you is that the president will never shy away of representing the interests of the American people on a national security level wherever he goes,” Kirby said, when asked if he could assure the victims’ families that Biden would address some of their concerns with Mohammed.
“He continues to do everything he can to support the families of the victims of 9/11,” Kirby added. “He knows what a devastating grief they still endure, and he will not shy away from representing them and their concerns.”
Biden has come under intense criticism for agreeing to meet with Mohammed, whom the U.S. has assessed ordered the operation that murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
As a candidate, Biden pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over its human rights abuses.
But the president has also struggled to rein in sky-high inflation. While many ways out of his control, the rapidly rising cost of goods is weighing on Americans’ wallets and proving to be a major political liability for Biden and Democrats heading into this fall’s midterm elections.
Biden is seeking ways to relieve high gas prices, which have in large part been pushed higher by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions on Moscow’s oil and gas sector.
A major oil producer, Saudi Arabia chairs the Gulf Cooperation Council grouping of oil-producing Arab nations.
The White House has welcomed increased oil production with the hope it would drive down gas prices in the U.S. Biden authorized a historic release of oil from the nation’s strategic reserve of petroleum, and his White House welcomed a decision by the OPEC+ oil cartel to boost its production levels.
While Saudi Arabia and the Biden administration have both said energy security will be part of Biden’s discussions during his visit, the White House has sought to avoid the negative optics of an American president flying to Saudi Arabia in a bid for more oil.
“Of course, he will be — they will discuss energy with the Saudi government,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday. “I think what I’m trying to say is to look at this trip as it being only about oil is not — it would be simply wrong to do that.”
The president had even danced around whether he was even going to go to Saudi Arabia at all; “I have no direct plans at the moment,” he said on June 3, after multiple reports said he planned to travel there.
But while Biden once pledged to isolate Saudi Arabia, Jean-Pierre said Tuesday he was “not looking to rupture relationships.”
Asked if Biden would bring up Khashoggi during his meeting with the crown prince, Jean-Pierre would not directly answer.
“Human rights is always part of the conversation in our foreign engagements,” she told reporters on Air Force One, en route to Philadelphia. “So, that will always be the case.”
Biden will also travel to Israel and the West Bank during the trip, which will take place July 13 to 16, according to the White House.
