(NEW YORK) — Darryl Campbell, better known as the rapper and hip-hop podcaster Taxstone, was convicted Thursday in New York of manslaughter in connection with the 2016 shooting of a bodyguard during a concert at Irving Plaza.
A jury in Manhattan found Taxstone guilty of shooting and killing Ronald McPhatter and seriously injuring three others.
He will be sentenced next month for what District Attorney Alvin Bragg called a “tragic and deadly confrontation in a packed New York City music venue.”
The shooting stemmed from a longtime feud Taxstone had with Roland Collins, known as rapper Troy Ave, who testified against him, prosecutors said. McPhatter was Troy Ave’s bodyguard.
Rapper TI was performing when the shots were fired. Troy Ave was on deck to perform.
(WASHINGTON) — The Republican-led House failed on Thursday to override President Joe Biden’s veto of a resolution that would have prevented retirement fund managers from accounting for certain social factors when making investment decisions.
The vote was 219-200 in favor of overcoming the veto, but a two-thirds majority vote is needed.
The House initially passed H.J. Res. 30 on Feb. 28 with the support of all Republicans and one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine. It took on the issue of environmental, social and governance (ESG), specifically whether retirement fund managers covered under federal law may include that strategy in their calculus.
ESG — labeled by critics as “woke capitalism” — has become a major target by conservatives who say it is unfair to certain companies, including in the oil and gas industry, and can be bad for investors. Supporters of the policy say it guides them to invest in issues they believe help society and reflects changing trends.
Following Biden’s veto on Monday, the first of his presidency, House Republicans took up the issue again. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said his conference would continue to fight against ESG.
“House Republicans will keep fighting to overturn this rule allowing ESG investing and to make sure Americans are getting the best retirement they can, not the most woke,” the leader wrote in his weekly floor lookout.
But the vote to override Biden’s veto — the House GOP’s first attempt to do so in the new Congress — was always unlikely to succeed. The measure needed two-thirds of the lower chamber’s support to advance to the Senate, where it would also need a two-thirds majority vote.
While there is a slim Republican majority in the House, the GOP is in the minority in the Senate.
Legislative action on the ESG issue came after a Labor Department rule under Biden took effect at the beginning of February allowing retirement fund managers to consider ESG factors. But it is an issue Republicans in Congress oppose because they say it is wrong to consider non-financial variables, like climate change.
House Republicans quickly introduced a resolution to block the Biden administration’s rule, which gained sufficient support in both chambers of Congress. After H.J. Res. 30 passed the House, it passed the Senate on March 1 with the bipartisan support of Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana.
Biden vetoed the measure on Monday, saying then that the Department of Labor’s rule “protects the hard-earned life savings and pensions of tens of millions of workers and retirees across the country.”
ABC News’ Lauren Peller contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden marked the 13th anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act in the same room where he once whispered in President Obama’s ear that enacting the legislation was a “big f—— deal.”
Biden cheekily recalled the hot-mic moment on Thursday, saying he stands by the terminology he used years ago in describing the sweeping health care reform.
“Many of you joined us that day after fighting for decades to make it happen, and I remember three words I used at the time, I thought it was –” Biden said, smiling to invited guests in the White House East Room. “I thought it was a big deal. And I stand by the fact, it was a big deal.”
The landmark health care law was passed in 2010 when Biden was vice president, and he gave high praise to former President Barack Obama for his leadership in securing the “extraordinary achievement.”
“While the Affordable Care Act has been called a lot of things, ‘Obamacare’ is the most fitting description,” Biden said to applause.
But Biden mostly used the event to hammer Republicans over health care policy, making the event resemble more a campaign speech than an anniversary celebration.
“Folks, our MAGA Republican friends — and by that way, I want to be clear: There are some good decent Republicans out there,” Biden said. “But this new crowd, this ain’t your father’s Republican Party.”
The president touted the progress his administration has made to advance health care policy though legislation like the Affordable Care Act and Inflation Reduction Act and warned that Republicans in Congress have not supported the same policies in a divided Washington.
“Folks, look, we’re making health care more affordable in many other ways as well. Last year, I proposed and the Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which no Republican voted for, even the good ones. I don’t mean ‘good’ in the moral sense. I mean the normal Republican,” he said.
Biden also highlighted recent moves by several pharmaceutical companies to cap the price of insulin — something he called for during his State of the Union address — as well as provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that will allow for Medicare to negotiate the price of some prescription drugs.
He also repeatedly focused on the fact that Republicans have yet to release their budget proposal and argued that the White House releasing its proposal earlier this month shows where they stand.
“Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I will tell you what you value,” he said. “Well, I value everyone having a decent shot. It’s about fairness. It’s about dignity. My budget continues to build on the progress we made in the Affordable Care Act.”
“We still haven’t seen the House Republican budget. They want to negotiate. I say, ‘I’ve laid down my budget on the 9th, you lay down yours, let’s negotiate.’ I don’t know where their budget is. No, I’m serious,” Biden added to laughter.
After his remarks, Biden took time to hold up Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez’s son, Hodge, who has become a familiar sight in Washington, including getting on TV during the week-long votes for House speaker.
The president held Hodge close for a few moments, with the seven-month-old baby putting his hands on Biden’s face.
(WASHINGTON) — The father of a student killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting was pinned to the ground and briefly arrested at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday afternoon after he loudly protested during a House hearing on what Republicans called federal government “overreach” regarding gun ownership.
Manuel Oliver and his wife, Patricia Oliver, were removed from the House oversight subcommittee hearing by Capitol Police officers at the direction of Chairman Pat Fallon.
The Olivers’ 17-year-old son, Joaquin, was murdered along with 16 other students, faculty and staff in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.
The Olivers have become advocates against gun violence in the years since. Manuel Oliver was previously removed from the White House last year after shouting at President Joe Biden for, he said, not doing enough on the issue.
Patricia Oliver spoke first during Thursday’s proceeding, interrupting Fallon, R-Texas. Manuel Oliver also shouted out, using an expletive as he criticized Republicans on the panel about halfway through the hearing.
Moments after police were directed to remove the Olivers, yelling and a loud thud were heard just outside the hearing room and Manuel Oliver was pinned to the ground by multiple officers, as seen in video captured by ABC News.
It wasn’t immediately clear what happened prior to Manuel Oliver being taken to the ground. One officer told ABC News that he was “resisting” and “moving around.” But his wife told ABC News that he “kept saying the truth” and that officers “didn’t like the way he speaks out.”
Freshman Democratic Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida — formerly of the group March For Our Lives, founded in the wake of the Parkland shooting — asked the officers what they were doing as they pinned Manuel Oliver and informed them that his son was killed in Parkland.
Capitol Police confirmed to ABC News that Manuel Oliver was arrested, and Patricia Oliver told ABC News within hours that he had been released.
She said that her husband did not lunge or get physical with officers before they took him down. But Capitol Police said in a statement that Manuel Oliver was detained for allegedly crowding, obstructing or incommoding “after he disrupted a hearing, refused to stop shouting, and then attempted to go back inside the hearing room.”
Patricia Oliver denied to ABC News that her husband tried to go back into the hearing.
Manuel Oliver was issued a citation as part of his arrest and wasn’t booked into jail, police said. They noted that his wife wasn’t detained because she “followed the lawful directions of our officers.”
The altercation appears to have begun after Patricia Oliver yelled during the hearing, leading Fallon to call for officers. Frost tweeted afterward that while “Patricia said one thing,” Fallon “escalated the entire situation.”
“You’re breaching protocol and distributing the committee room,” Fallon said at the hearing.
Fallon also scolded his critics in the gallery: “See, this is exactly what we have to avoid, which is some minority of folks trying to silence dissent. Dissent shouldn’t be kryptonite.”
Soon after, he cracked, “Is this an insurrection? So will they be held to the same– I don’t want another Jan. 6, do we?”
As the disruptions continued, Fallon said, “Does the Capitol Police not do their jobs? What in the hell’s going on?”
He then sent the hearing into recess, during which Manuel Oliver was taken into custody, he said. When the proceeding resumed, he addressed the incident.
“Unfortunately, we had some folks that were disruptive during the hearing,” he said. “We asked Capitol Police to remove them, they were then removed and then one decided to come back in while we were still gaveled in … Capitol Police were overwhelmed outside in the hallway and now we’re back in session.”
Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat who also sits on the subcommittee, told ABC News afterward, “We had people in the room who had become had become activists because they were personally touched by gun violence, and for them to hear elected officials that our answer to gun violence is to get rid of the ATF — I think it was difficult for member of the public to hear.”
(DENVER) — A student who was required to be patted down at the start of each school day allegedly shot and wounded two school administrators at East High School in Denver, authorities said.
The suspect, Austin Lyle, 17, fled the school after the Wednesday morning shooting, Denver police said. His body was discovered in nearby Park County on Wednesday night after an hours-long manhunt, officials said.
Lyle allegedly shot the school administrators as they patted him down in the school’s office area, which officials said is away from other students and staff.
The injured faculty members were both hospitalized. Eric Sinclair remains in serious condition and Jerald Mason has since been released from the hospital, according to the hospital and school district.
The suspect’s daily searches were part of a “safety plan” that was a result of “previous behavior,” officials said at a Wednesday news conference.
Last year Lyle was expelled from Overland High School in Aurora for allegedly violating school policy, a spokesperson for the Cherry Creek School District told ABC News.
Law enforcement sources told ABC News that in 2021 Lyle was charged with possession of a dangerous weapon.
It is unclear if that is the same incident that led to his dismissal from Overland High School, but sources told ABC News that school leadership described Lyle to police as “potentially violent” and a “threat to the safety of the school” after a series of events in the 2021-2022 school year, including bringing a weapon to Overland High School prior to his dismissal.
This year at East High School, Lyle appeared to be a “loner” who didn’t seem to have friends, according to two East High School students who did not want to be named.
For East High School, Wednesday wasn’t the first incident of gun violence for the school this year.
Last month, East High School students went to a city council meeting to call for action on school safety and gun violence after a 16-year-old student was fatally shot near the school, according to ABC Denver affiliate KMGH.
The superintendent said Wednesday that the school will be closed for the rest of this week, and that the building will now have two armed officers present through the end of the school year.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, in a statement, said removing school resource officers was a “mistake” and said they should be quickly returned.
Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero announced Thursday that all district schools will be closed Friday for a “mental health day.”
“I want to extend my heartfelt apologies to the East High School community and the larger DPS community,” he said in a letter. “No student or employee should have to carry the fear of potential violence when they walk into our buildings each day.”
Marrero encouraged students to “pause and process the challenging events this year” and provided contact information for multiple support services.
He noted that among the year’s “challenging events” was a significant data breach this month that comprised many employee names, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, driver’s license numbers and passport numbers. The breach was unrelated to the shooting.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday that the administration’s “hearts go out to the families of the two school administrators and in Denver today and to the entire school community.”
Jean-Pierre noted that President Joe Biden unveiled another executive action aimed at tackling gun violence last week but that “as the president said in the State of the Union, Congress needs to do something.”
The mayor also called on Congress to pass “common sense” gun legislation.
“Parents are angry and frustrated, and they have a right to be,” he said. “Easy access to guns must be addressed in our country — Denver cannot do this alone.”
This shooting comes two years to the day after a mass shooting at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, that claimed 10 lives.
ABC News’ Nic Uff and Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
(CHEYENNE, Wyo.) — A Wyoming judge temporarily blocked a state abortion ban, prohibiting the state and its employees from enforcing the ban. The temporary restraining order will remain in effect unless it is dissolved or modified by a court order, according to court documents.
The ban prohibits nearly all abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest and to save a woman’s life or prevent irreversible bodily harm, according to the law. The law makes violating the ban a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000.
Under the ban, abortions would be permitted for ectopic pregnancies, fetuses with fatal anomalies and women who need cancer treatment, among other exceptions.
Wyoming also became the first state to ban abortion pills, separate from all abortion services, last week in a bill signed into law by Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon.
In her decision, Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens said the temporary injunction will “preserve the status until the merits of an action can be determined,” court documents show.
Gov. Gordon allowed the ban to become law last week without his signature.
In a statement last week, Gordon said he believes that if the state legislature seeks to settle the issue of abortion, it may have to come through a constitutional amendment.
“If the legislature wants to expressly address how the Wyoming Constitution treats abortion and defines healthcare, then those issues should be vetted through the amendment process laid out in Article 20 of the Wyoming Constitution and voted on directly by the people,” Gordon said.
Wyoming was one of 13 states that had enacted trigger bans on abortion that were set to go into effect when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The trigger ban, which prohibits abortions in all circumstances except rape, incest or if the mother is at serious risk of death or injury, was blocked by a court as litigation to determine its legality under the state constitution continues.
(ATLANTA) — A growing number of children in the United States are being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Overall, the report found that about 1 in 36, or 2.8%, of 8-year-olds in the U.S. were diagnosed with autism in 2020, compared to 1 in 44, or 2.3%, of 8-year-olds in 2018.
This does not necessarily mean, however, that autism itself is becoming more common.
Instead, it’s likely that doctors, parents and communities are getting better at diagnosing children who may have been overlooked in prior years, the data shows.
Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder, is defined by the CDC as a “developmental disability that can cause significant social, communication and behavioral challenges.”
In recent years, there has been a major effort to improve screening, awareness and access to services in historically underserved communities. That means that more Black, Hispanic and Asian children are now being diagnosed.
In 2020, for the first time, the percentage of Black, Hispanic and Asian children diagnosed with autism exceeded the percentage of white children diagnosed with autism.
Boys continue to experience autism spectrum disorder at a rate that is nearly four times higher than for girls. The newly released report also found that autism among 8-year-old girls has exceeded 1%, according to the CDC.
A second CDC report — which evaluated 4-year-olds — warned about disruptions to early autism spectrum disorder detection that came with the coronavirus pandemic.
In the early months of the pandemic, younger children were less likely to have an evaluation of their development compared to the 8-year-old children when they were the same age, according to the report.
Early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is crucial. It can help children and families get the resources they need so that children can reach their full potential, according to the CDC.
“Disruptions due to the pandemic in the timely evaluation of children and delays in connecting children to the services and support they need could have long-lasting effects,” Dr. Karen Remley, director of CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said in a statement. “The data in this report can help communities better understand how the pandemic impacted early identification of autism in young children and anticipate future needs as these children get older.”
Autism spectrum disorder can be identified as early as infancy, although most children are diagnosed after the age of 2. There is no medical test to diagnose autism spectrum disorder, so doctors watch a child’s behavior and development to make a diagnosis, according to the CDC.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends all children be formally screened for autism spectrum disorder at their 18- and 24-month-old well-child visits. The AAP says pediatricians will begin monitoring babies at their first well-child visit by observing their behaviors.
“Early diagnosis is crucial for early intervention, which can greatly improve long term outcomes,” said Dr. Alok Patel, a pediatrician at Stanford Children’s Health and an ABC News medical contributor.
Early signs of autism spectrum disorder in children may include, but are not limited to, little or no smiling and limited eye contact by 6 months; little to no babbling, pointing or response to their name by 12 months; and few or no meaningful two-word phrases by 24 months, according to the CDC.
Additional signs of autism spectrum disorder may include delayed social interactions, exhibiting repetitive behaviors or showing a limited interest in activities and sensory issues like sensitivity to noise or sound.
Treatment for autism spectrum disorder comes in many different forms, from mental health therapy to occupational, physical and speech therapies. Sometimes medications can be helpful for things related to ASD, like mood problems or inability to focus.
(LOS ANGELES) — More than 30,000 picketing Los Angeles school service employees are expected to return to work on Friday after a planned three-day strike prompted the city’s mayor to intervene and jumpstart labor negotiations.
The job walkout by the Service Employees International Union Local 99 — which includes bus drivers, cafeteria workers and special education assistants — began on Tuesday, forcing the Los Angeles Unified School District to cancel classes for 420,000 students for three straight days.
“SEIU Local 99 school workers plan to return to schools Friday, March 24,” the union said in a statement.
While no contract settlement has been reached, both sides have returned to the bargaining table at the urging of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. No specifics on the negotiations were made public.
Bass’ office released a statement saying the mayor “will continue to work privately with all parties to reach an agreement to reopen the schools and guarantee fair treatment of all LAUSD workers.”
Max Arias, president of SEIU Local 99, issued a statement Wednesday evening welcoming Bass’ involvement in the negotiations.
“We are grateful that the mayor has stepped in to provide leadership in an effort to find a path out of our current impasse,” Arias said. “Education workers have always been eager to negotiate as long as we are treated with respect and bargained with fairly, and with the mayor’s leadership we believe that is possible.”
School district officials also released a statement, saying, they “have been in conversation with SEIU Local 99 leaders with the assistance and support of Mayor Bass.”
“We continue to do everything possible to reach an agreement that honors the hard work of our employees, corrects historic inequities, maintains the financial stability of the district and brings students back to the classroom,” the LAUSD’s statement reads. “We are hopeful these talks continue and look forward to updating our school community on a resolution.”
The striking service employees, backed by the powerful United Teachers Los Angeles union, began the final day of the strike by gathering at the school district’s bus yard. The workers are planning to hold a large rally later Thursday at the Los Angeles State Historic Park in downtown Los Angeles with plans for a “unified call for LAUSD to bargain fairly,” according to a statement from the union.
This week’s labor action is the first major work stoppage for the nation’s second largest school district since a 2019 strike by the 35,000 members of the United Teachers Los Angeles union.
The service employees have been working without a contract since June 2020. In December 2022, the union declared an impasse in negotiations, prompting the appointment of a state mediator.
The service workers’ union said many of its members earn “poverty wages” of $25,000 per year and are demanding a 30% pay hike, with an additional pay increase for the lowest-paid workers.
The school district’s most recent offer calls for a 23% wage increase, along with a 3% “cash-in-hand bonus.”
(WASHINGTON) — The fraught politics of immigration have largely focused on the land border between the U.S. and Mexico, but on Thursday afternoon a panel of lawmakers will turn to Florida’s maritime border and what government data shows is a sharply rising wave of migration from the Caribbean.
The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security is hearing from U.S. Customs and Border Protection as well as U.S. Coast Guard officials to learn about resource and policy needs to better secure the Florida coast.
Republican lawmakers are expected to press the officials on ways the Biden administration could strengthen policy and deter migrants. Democrats are likely to point to recent declines in migrants from certain countries recently included in the dual-track strategy of the administration cracking down on unlawful claims while opening narrow avenues for relief.
But conservatives aren’t swayed.
“I think they’re both out of control,” Subcommittee Chairman Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., told ABC News. “I wouldn’t say that the southern border is more in control.”
Gimenez cited the recent acknowledgement from Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz that the U.S. was not currently maintaining “operational control” of the border — defined under federal law as the complete prevention of unlawful entries, a feat no administration has ever achieved.
“Regardless of the technical terms, and whether you think that any president can actually meet that or not, this president has failed miserably,” Gimenez said, echoing broad Republican criticism of the Biden administration. “A greater failure than any other president in history.”
Experts say a number of factors have contributed to the protracted diaspora of populations across the Western Hemisphere, including the build-up of migration demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread instability in Haiti and deteriorating authoritarian regimes in South America.
In response to concerns about the border, President Joe Biden last year requested the largest-ever increase in Border Patrol personnel, with lawmakers ultimately approving funding for 300 additional agents.
Another 350 would be added under the president’s latest budget proposal, which is likely to be ignored by the divided Congress.
Most Republicans have opposed Biden’s funding proposals, saying solutions should start with apprehension and removal policies. While the White House has maintained some strict Trump-era measures, drawing the ire of immigration advocates, they have rolled others back and argued they want to be more humane.
Republicans have pointed to the reversal of restrictions including international agreements that facilitated the return of some asylum-seekers as well as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which made asylum-seekers wait outside the U.S. between immigration appointments. Mexico has since opposed such policies after the Biden administration showed a willingness to pull them back.
Gimenez, who said Biden is not being tough enough on Mexico, represents southern Florida and the Keys, a region that has seen an overall spike this year in unauthorized migrant dockings and other migrant apprehensions despite recent declines.
Border Patrol agents in the Miami region apprehended migrants 328 times last month, down from 1,357 apprehensions in January, according to CBP data.
So far this fiscal year, total Miami-area apprehensions have topped 5,000 for the first time since the Bush administration, with more than half the fiscal year to go.
Meanwhile, people without official travel documents have attempted to make legal entry more than 43,000 times this fiscal year at Miami ports, according to CBP data which includes Miami International Airport.
The U.S. Coast Guard has also found elevated numbers of migrants — mainly Cubans and Haitians — often on rafts and small boats not outfitted to handle the Atlantic Ocean. Such crossings can be deadly.
Coast Guard teams off the Florida coast have disrupted unauthorized Haitian maritime travel 3,567 times so far this budget year, far beyond the 419 encounters recorded in all of budget year 2017, the oldest year immediately available, or any year since except 2022.
Unauthorized migration from Cuba has also hit the highest levels seen in recent years. The vast majority of migrants found at sea are swiftly returned to their home countries by the Coast Guard.
“They come across on very flimsy boats and rafts and inner tubes — any way they can to seek freedom and seek a better opportunity here in the United States,” Gimenez said. “I don’t blame the folks trying to reach the United States. I’m a migrant myself. What I do blame — it needs to be done in a legal manner and it needs to be done in a safe manner.”
Outside experts have said broader forces are pushing people toward these journeys, regardless of the risk.
“Cuba is not far from the United States. The inability to migrate by land, the difficulty of accessing humanitarian parole for those lacking passports or sponsors, and historic levels of economic misery in Cuba have combined to cause an immediate spike in maritime migration across the Florida Straits,” analyst Adam Isaacson wrote last month.
South Florida has also long been a hub for international drug trafficking, and while the steady pace of CBP seizures continues, it appears uncorrelated to recent spikes in migration, based on a review of publicly accessible data.
Additionally, the vast majority of drugs seized by CBP are found at federal ports of entry.
ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — More than 30 million people across a large swath of the nation were on alert Thursday for tornados, large hail and damaging winds after a severe weather outbreak spawned by a “bomb cyclone” in California moved east, leaving a wake of destruction from mudslides, tree-toppling gusts and the largest twister to hit the Los Angeles area in 40 years.
Residents in the South are bracing for large hail and tornadoes expected to sweep into Texas and Oklahoma Thursday night.
The wild weather system is the same one that blew in from the Pacific Ocean in Northern California as a “bomb cyclone,” packing powerful winds that toppled more than 700 trees in San Francisco and killed at least five people in the Bay Area who were either struck by falling limbs or uprooted trees, officials said.
The storm pummeled the Golden State for two days, flooding farmland in the San Joaquin Valley and generating two confirmed tornadoes in Southern California, one just 10 miles from downtown Los Angeles.
The L.A.-area twister, the strongest to hit the area since March 1983, was rated as an EF1, with is on the lower end of the Enhanced Fujita tornado damage scale, according to the National Weather Service. Yet the 110 mph winds the tornado generated wrecked 17 structures, including 11 that sustained significant damage, according to the National Weather Service.
The ferocious Southern California funnel cloud touched down just after 11 a.m. local time in Montebello, just 10 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, and stayed on the ground for about three minutes, sending debris, including an industrial-size rooftop air conditioning unit damaging, swirling into the air, according to the weather service.
The tornado touched down in an industrial park, completely collapsing the roof of one warehouse, snapping a power power pole and uprooting trees, officials said. One person suffered minor injuries as a result of the tornado activity, according to the Montebello Fire Department.
“This was crazy. I mean we’re used to earthquakes, but not tornados,” Mike Turner, who was working in one of the damage warehouses, told ABC Los Angeles station KABC.
Turner said the twister ripped off an estimated 5,000 square feet of the roof of the factory he was in.
“It got real loud. Like I’ve never heard before, and for about 30 seconds to a minute,” Turner said. “Then we kind of all were in the office and then after it died down, we went outside, and there was debris everywhere, it was like dust bowl in the factory.”
A second tornado, rated an EF0, touched down in Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County, generating 75 mph winds and damaging 25 mobile homes, according to the National Weather Service.
The storm system was accompanied by torrential rain throughout the Los Angeles region, triggering a mudslide in San Bernardino County and prompting the rescues of 17 farm animals — including horses, cows and bulls — that got stuck in the mud, according to the San Bernardino County Animal Control.
As the menacing storm moves into Texas and Oklahoma Thursday evening, residents are being warned to expect large-size hail and the possibility of more tornadoes forming from Dallas to Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
As the storm moves farther east on Friday, a strong threat of tornadoes is expected for parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee, officials said. Among the cities bracing for twisters are Jackson, Mississippi; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Memphis, Tennessee.
