(NEW YORK) — The severe heat in the Northwest has now turned deadly, with the Oregon state medical examiner reporting two suspected heat deaths on Wednesday.
With temperatures expected to stay in the triple digits across much of the Northwest this weekend, officials are warning people of the dangers.
One death was reported by Multnomah County, which includes Portland, on July 25. Officials have not said where and when the second death occurred.
The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet responded to ABC News’ request for further details on the deaths.
Over a dozen counties across Oregon remain in a state of emergency on Thursday.
Spreading across the country, over 35 million Americans continue to be under excessive heat warnings or heat alerts, with many of them in the Northwest.
Redding, California, will likely near 115 degrees on Thursday to break its previous record, according to the National Weather Service.
Spokane, Washington, may also break a record on Thursday as it is projected to reach 102 degrees.
The extreme heat in the region, coupled with record warm nights, is expected to reach into next week, the NWS said.
Multnomah County officials ask residents to take the heat seriously.
Officials have set up overnight cooling shelters and a daytime cooling center along with officials from the city of Portland and community partners.
County officials said the centers will remain open until at least Friday morning.
“People don’t think they’re at risk from heat. But we have plenty of younger people ending up in the emergency room right now. It’s not cooling off much at night and we’re only halfway through this thing,” Brendon Haggerty, program supervisor at the Multnomah County Health Department, said in a statement.
The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division has put measures in place to ensure safety for outdoor workers during the heat.
According to OSHA, when the heat index hits or exceeds 80 degrees, employers need to provide shady areas for workers to rest, more break time and access to plenty of water. If the index hits 90 degrees, breaks must be longer, communication must become more frequent and each worker must be monitored more closely throughout the shift.
During a 2021 heat wave, 800 people died in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia throughout late June and early July. Heat records were broken across the region, with Portland hitting 116 degrees at its peak.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration’s unusual decision to publicize its offer to Russia to free Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan — the basketball star and former Marine whom the U.S. says are wrongfully held by Moscow — was made in part to reassure Americans rather than entice the Russians, White House aides said Thursday.
White House spokesman John Kirby said on Good Morning America that the deal the U.S. proposed for Griner and Whelan had been “set forth many weeks ago” and that the administration decided to publicize it to show Americans what President Joe Biden was doing to try to free them amid months-long scrutiny.
“This isn’t something that just happened … This has been going on for a while, and we just haven’t been able to come to fruition on it,” Kirby said.
“There was a lot” that went into the U.S. decision to reveal the proposed deal, he said, “both in terms of what was happening, what wasn’t happening and certainly in the context of Mrs. Griner having to testify yesterday.”
Kirby attested to the administration’s investment, amid criticism from some quarters that they weren’t more engaged. Highlighting the offer to Russia now was valuable even if it hadn’t been accepted, Kirby insisted.
“It was important to put this out there, that the American people know how seriously President Biden takes his responsibilities to bring American citizens home when they’ve been unjustly detained, but we also thought it was important for the world to know how seriously America takes that responsibility,” he said.
Griner was arrested and later pleaded to illegally bringing hashish oil into the country, though she said it was “inadvertent” and was part of her vape cartridge. Her court case is expected to go into next month.
Whelan, who worked in corporate security after being discharged from the Marines, was convicted in Russia of espionage — which he and the U.S. deny.
Sources confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that the possible deal, which the State Department described to reporters as a “substantial proposal,” included exchanging convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout for Griner and Whelan.
Bout, dubbed the “Merchant of Death” by the media, was an internationally infamous weapons trafficker before his 2008 arrest in Thailand. He is serving a 25-year sentence.
State Department spokesman Ned Price declined on Wednesday to shed much light on the government’s offer to Russia but he acknowledged there was precedent for prisoner trades.
Often, however, such deals only become public once they are confirmed and in motion.
“We demonstrated with [Marine veteran] Trevor Reed, who came home some months ago, that the president is prepared to make tough decisions if it means the safe return of Americans,” Blinken told reporters, referring to the former Marine jailed in Russia before he was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a 20-year sentence in the U.S. for drug smuggling.
Reed has publicly urged the White House to do more for Griner and Whelan.
He felt the administration was “not doing enough,” he told ABC News earlier this month.
“I hope that President Biden and his administration will do everything possible to get both, you know, Brittney and Paul out of Russia, and that they will do that immediately,” Reed said then. “Because every day that, you know, they sit here and wait to make a decision is one more day that, you know, Paul and Brittney are suffering.”
Both Whelan’s family and Griner’s attorneys said they were gladdened by news on Wednesday of a potential deal for their freedom — but also noted the future was unknown.
“The offer that the U.S. government has made, and extraordinarily made public, is super. Hopefully the Russian government will take the concessions that have been made and allow Paul to come home,” Paul Whelan’s twin brother, David Whelan, said Thursday on Good Morning America.
An attorney for Griner, Maria Blagovolina, said the “defense team learned about [the] U.S. offer from the news” and “is not participating in the swap discussions. From the legal perspective, the swap is possible only after the court reaches a verdict. In any case, we would be really happy if Brittney will be able to come home and hope it will be soon.”
At a press conference in Moscow on Thursday, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova confirmed that “the issue of mutual exchange of Russian and American citizens, staying in places of detention on the territory of the two countries, was discussed at one time by the presidents of Russia and the United States,” but “a concrete result has not yet been achieved.”
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that “there are no agreements in this area yet.”
ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva, Shannon K. Crawford and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
Jason and Keely Roberts pose with four of their six children, including their 8-year-old twins, Luke and Cooper. – Roberts Family photo
(HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.) — Eight-year-old Cooper Roberts, who was enjoying a Fourth of July parade when he was shot in the chest in the Highland Park, Illinois, mass shooting, is now paralyzed from the waist down, his mother, Keely Roberts, said.
The bullet went into his back and exited his chest, “which did significant damage throughout his body, including to his aorta, liver, esophagus and spinal cord,” Roberts said in a statement Wednesday.
Cooper remains in the hospital recovering from multiple surgeries and infections, and will need another heart surgery, she said.
“Cooper has been asking me — will I walk again? Will I have to be in a wheelchair forever?” Roberts went on. “I have been straight with him, because I have to be … we don’t know what kind of mobility he will have.”
Roberts herself was shot in two parts of her leg and needs ongoing orthopedic treatment.
Cooper’s twin, Luke, was hit by shrapnel. While his physical injuries were minor, “what he has to carry is devastating,” Roberts said.
“To hold a tourniquet on his mother’s leg … to see his twin brother’s lips go gray … to sit covered in our blood as good Samaritans provided the on-the-spot first-aid that kept us both alive… it’s too much for anyone, much less an 8-year-old,” she wrote.
Seven were killed and dozens were injured in the mass shooting. The suspected gunman is in custody.
“While I — along with Cooper and my entire family, should feel a lot of hate right now — I do not. My family does not. I find myself feeling that I have seen much more kindness than evil,” Roberts said.
The mom of six thanked the community members at the parade who rushed to help and all of the doctors and nurses who have cared for Cooper.
“They saved my son’s life,” she said. “On a holiday, when many were not in, they stepped up and made the impossible possible. There was someone who made sure to be available to run back and forth to a blood bank as needed for Cooper. Those surgeons spent six hours in the operating room refusing to let Cooper die — patch-working his liver, aorta, esophagus — again and again and again pouring blood transfusion after blood transfusion into his body.”
“The fact that Cooper is still here with us today is a miracle,” she added.
She also credited the doctors and nurses for keeping the family’s spirits up and helping Cooper stay “the happy, sweet little boy he has always been.”
Cooper and Luke “are good, sweet boys who love everyone and want good for everyone they know,” Keely Roberts said. “Their lives are so much more and better than this terrible thing than was done to them.”
The suspected mass shooter was indicted Wednesday on 117 counts. He has not entered a plea and is due in court on Aug. 3.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is working to secure testimony from a growing number of officials in former President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who reportedly discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, recently sat with committee investigators for a transcribed interview, the sources said.
ABC News previously reported that Pompeo is expected to speak with the committee in the coming days, though his interview is not officially scheduled.
Among the officials actively negotiating with the committee are former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and former acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, sources familiar with the negotiations said.
Wolf would also be able to speak to Trump’s desire to order the federal government to seize voting machines.
The engagement shows that even after the committee’s round of dramatic public hearings, it continues to pursue additional evidence about what the administration’s most senior officials knew about Trump’s actions surrounding Jan. 6.
Committee investigators are not only focused on the discussions surrounding the 25th Amendment that occurred within the Cabinet, but also Cabinet members’ concerns after the attack on the Capitol about Trump’s decision-making, including his potential conversations with world leaders.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that Ratcliffe “didn’t want much to do with the post-election period.” Hutchinson said that Ratcliffe “felt that there could be dangerous repercussions, in terms of precedent set for elections, for our democracy, for the 6th. You know, he was hoping that we would concede.”
The committee also has expressed interest in speaking with other senior Trump officials like Robert O’Brien, the former national security adviser.
Representatives for Mnuchin, Ratcliffe, Wolf and O’Brien did not immediately respond to ABC’s request for comment.
Another area of focus are Cabinet officials who resigned in the wake on Jan. 6: former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
They will potentially join a growing list of officials who have already cooperated with committee investigators, including former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and former Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia. Former Attorney General Bill Barr also sat with committee investigators for a deposition.
A spokesperson for the Jan. 6 committee declined to comment.
Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone testified that Scalia wanted to convene a Cabinet meeting on Jan. 7 2021. Scalia told the committee he requested the meeting that morning because “I thought that trying to work within the administration to steady the ship was likely to have greater value than simply resigning.”
The committee has been releasing new information leading up to the release of the anticipated September report on their findings.
In an audio clip released by the panel earlier this week, then-acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller told investigators there was “no order” from Trump to have 10,000 National Guard troops ready for deployment ahead of Jan. 6. Miller was responding to a Mark Meadows interview with Fox News from February 2021 where he claimed that it was a “given” that Miller had told thousands of troops to be at the ready.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. economy shrank 0.9% in the second quarter of this year, the Commerce Department reported Thursday morning, marking the second quarter in a row that the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) has declined.
The economy contracted 1.6% in the first quarter of 2022.
According to the Commerce Department, the decline in GDP “reflected decreases in private inventory investment, residential fixed investment, federal government spending, state and local government spending, and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by increases in exports and personal consumption expenditures (PCE).”
The latest contraction in GDP this year has raised fears of a recession.
As ABC News’ Economics Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis notes, “That makes it two back-to-back quarters of economic activity declining here in the United States — and that is considered on Wall Street a strong signal that we either are in a recession, or will be soon.”
(NEW YORK) — The family of former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who has been detained in Russia for more than three years, said they now have “a little bit of hope” after learning that the United States has offered a prisoner swap to bring home Whelan as well as another jailed American, professional basketball player Brittney Griner.
“The offer that the U.S. government has made — and extraordinarily made public — is super. Hopefully the Russian government will take the concessions that have been made and allow Paul to come home,” Paul Whelan’s twin brother, David Whelan, told ABC News’ Robin Roberts during an interview Thursday on Good Morning America.
It’s the first time the Whelan family has spoken out since U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday that he will hold a call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “in the coming days” and a critical topic of discussion will be securing Whelan and Griner’s freedom. Blinken revealed that the U.S. government had already “put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release” and remains hopeful for a breakthrough on their cases.
Three sources familiar with the offer confirmed to ABC News that the U.S. had proposed exchanging convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in order to secure Griner and Whelan’s release from Russia. CNN was first to report this plan.
“We speak to people in the State Department and the National Security Council on a regular basis, but not to this level of detail. I think we were all taken by surprise yesterday when the announcement was made,” David Whelan said. “And it’s nice also to know that the offers are being made — that perhaps this is the only one that’s been made public, but there may have been other offers made in the past by the U.S. government.”
Paul Whelan, a 52-year-old former Marine and Michigan-based corporate security executive, has been held in Russia since his December 2018 arrest on espionage charges, which both he and the U.S. government claim are false.
Griner, a 31-year-old Houston native and star center for the Phoenix Mercury, was returning to Russia to play in the WNBA’s offseason when she was detained at Sheremetyevo International Airport in the Moscow suburb of Khimki on Feb. 17, after being accused of having vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in the country. The two-time Olympic gold medalist has been held in Russia ever since and is currently on trial for drug charges.
(NEW YORK) — New grants, technology enhancements and partnerships are helping grocers and shoppers who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to get more access to more places for online grocery shopping.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) opened applications earlier this month for grants to an organization that will provide technology and systems support for new retailers to offer SNAP online shopping.
The recipient of the $5 million SNAP EBT Modernization Technical Assistance Center grant funded by the American Rescue Plan, will be announced this fall and go toward creating a more diverse set of grocery stores beyond the larger chains with established online shopping programs.
Stacy Dean, the agency’s deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, called online grocery shopping “a vital resource that improves access and convenience for all, including low-income families.” She added that this grant has the potential to “improve customer service for SNAP participants, especially those that face barriers in traveling to a physical store.”
In more recent efforts to bolster support and expansion for EBT-SNAP payment integration, Instacart announced a new partnership with Albertsons to add more online grocery shopping benefits, including delivery and pickup, to give more families access to affordable food.
The company said it will add 10 new states to the SNAP payment integration, which will now include 49 states plus Washington, D.C., to serve nearly 30 million people experiencing food insecurity.
Delivery and pickup fees will be waived on the first three EBT SNAP orders for each customer with a valid EBT card associated with their Instacart account, according to a representative for the company. Standard rates apply after the first three orders.
Just over three million households using SNAP shopped online in May 2022, which was a substantial increase from the nearly 35,000 households in March 2020. The USDA said this was due in large part to its expansion of the pilot program at the onset of the COVID pandemic, which added nearly 130 retailers in two years.
“At Instacart, our goal is to continue unlocking access to nutritious food for those who need it most. We’ve long advocated to expand online EBT SNAP acceptance, and we’re proud to bring this critical service to people,” Sarah Mastrorocco, vice president of access to food and nutrition, said in a statement. “Our partners offer a broad selection of fresh food and pantry staples, and with this expansion, we’re giving more families access to nourishment, paired with the convenience of same-day delivery and pickup.”
SNAP is accepted for online grocery shopping with Meijer, Price Chopper/Market 32, Tops Friendly Markets and Albertsons, which includes Pavilions, Safeway and Vons.
With these expansions, the brand said it now powers EBT SNAP payments for over 60 retailers that span more than 8,000 stores.
The combined efforts to modernize the SNAP program are set to help more Americans who participate to have the same shopping access as food-secure families. The USDA is currently developing a pilot program that will allow SNAP consumers to use their phones to purchase groceries at checkout and will soon seek states to participate in the pilot.
As a whole, the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) leverages 15 nutrition assistance programs to ensure that children, low-income individuals and families have opportunities for a better future through equitable access to safe, healthy and nutritious food while building a more resilient food system.
(LONDON) — A rare pink diamond has been unearthed in Angola and is claimed to be one of the largest ever recovered in the world.
The 170-carat precious stone, called the “Lulo Rose,” was found at the Lulo alluvial mine in Angola’s diamond-rich Lunda Norte region, according to a press release from the mine’s Australia-based owner, the Lucapa Diamond Company.
Lucapa said the Lulo Rose is believed to be the biggest pink diamond recovered in the last 300 years and the fifth-largest diamond ever discovered at the Lulo alluvial mine, where the stones are extracted from a riverbed. It’s the 27th diamond of 100 carats or more to have been found at the mine, according to the company.
The two largest diamonds ever recovered in Angola were previously found at the same mine, with the biggest being a 404-carat clear diamond, according to Lucapa, which is now searching for the mine’s kimberlite pipes, or underground deposits that would be the main source of the stones.
“Lulo is an exceptional alluvial resource and is truly a gift. We are once again made very proud by yet another historic recovery,” Lucapa’s CEO and managing director Stephen Wetherall said in a statement Wednesday. “We too look forward to our partnership progressing its exploration effort, where we are now bulk sampling the priority kimberlites, in search for the primary kimberlite sources of these exceptional and high-value diamonds.”
The rare colored gemstone will be sold via international tender by Angola’s state-owned diamond marketing company, Sodiam.
Angola is among the world’s top 10 producers of diamonds. Only one in 10,000 diamonds found are colored, according to the Gemological Institute of America, a California-based nonprofit that researches gemology.
“This record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage for diamond mining and demonstrates the potential and rewards for commitment and investment in our growing diamond mining industry,” Angolan Minister of Mineral Resources, Petroleum and Gas Diamantino Azevedo said in a statement Wednesday.
(NEW YORK) — A TikTok account with more than 17 million followers has sparked a discussion about children’s privacy and safety online.
The mom behind the popular TikTok shares photos and videos featuring her 3-year-old daughter, whom she calls Wren Eleanor and whom the account is named after.
Over the past month, other parents on the social media app have started raising their concerns about the account and about the potential dangers of sharing videos and photos of young children online.
Some users have pointed out, for example, that certain photos of Wren Eleanor have been saved tens of thousands of times. Other users have highlighted inappropriate comments on some posts using hashtags like #savewren.
In response, some parents have said that they are taking their own children’s photos off social media.
“I just deleted all photos of my son on social media I can’t take that chance,” one TikTok user wrote.
“Just removed videos of my own child. This is so sad,” wrote another.
Wren Eleanor’s mom has now disabled comments on her posts. She did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
Sarah Adams, a TikTok user from Vancouver, British Columbia, said she has been aware of the account for the past year, since joining the app.
She told ABC News she believes the mom’s account is in the spotlight now because of its large following.
“I think this is the start of a conversation, a much larger and broader conversation about accounts like this,” she said. “This is being used as an example for the larger conversation about our children and social media and the exploitation of them.”
“It’s not just one account,” she added. “This is a big problem that we have on social media right now.”
Adams, a stay-at-home mom of two kids under 4, said she started her own TikTok account after becoming a parent and seeing how many people put their children on social media.
She said she started posting videos of herself on TikTok to see if other parents noticed the same things she had, and were as concerned as she was.
“I felt like I’m a stranger and I shouldn’t have had access to all that information about other people’s kids,” said Adams, who said she does not post photos of her own children online. “I just wanted to see if anyone else out there felt the same, like does anyone else think this is reaching worrisome new heights and things are getting a little out of control?”
Adams said what concerns her most are social media accounts run by parents that primarily feature their children.
“It’s different for parents who occasionally include their child in their content versus a child being their content,” she said. “No baby, no toddler, no child under the age of 13 should have a social media account that’s dedicated to them.”
A TikTok spokesperson told ABC News they cannot comment on a specific account.
The spokesperson said there are many features built into the app to help protect users’ safety, particularly kids, including the Family Pairing features that gives parents and caregivers control over content settings on their child’s app. The app also allows users to control their own account settings, like limiting who can comment on videos and turning off the ability for other users to download their videos.
In addition, according to the spokesperson, the app removes content that “depicts or promotes physical abuse, neglect, endangerment, or psychological disparagement of minors,” as outlined in TikTok’s Community Guidelines.
Takeaways for parents
Jasmine Hood Miller, director of community content and engagement for Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization focused on media safety for families, said parents should remember that every photo posted online creates a digital footprint for their child.
“That’s basically an electronic paper trail that doesn’t go away for your kids,” Hood Miller told ABC News. “So it’s something to really, really think about even as early as when you have a newborn and you’re so excited and you want to share.”
“As a parent, you need to stop and think before you kind of jump on that bandwagon,” she added.
Hood Miller said posting on social media has become so “normalized” in today’s world that parents may not always think about what it could mean for their child both in the present and long term, citing risks such as loss of privacy and safety.
“When you put something out there, you don’t have any control over it. You lose control over those photos,” she said. “Anyone can easily copy the photo, tag it and save it and use it for things that you are not intending and maybe not even thinking of.”
Here are five tips for parents from Hood Miller herself:
1. Stop and think before posting: “Have that critical thinking before posting. That’s what we teach our kids, our students. We’re telling them, ‘Think about your digital footprint because it may impact you when you’re going to apply for college or a job,’ and so we have to do the same thing as parents. Someday your preschooler is going to grow up and they may not want documentation of their potty training online for their friends to find,” said Hood Miller.
2. Turn off your phone’s GPS for pics: “We recommend that you turn off your phone’s GPS when you take those photos so that there’s no geotagging where people can find your location,” she said.
3. Add privacy settings wherever possible: “Limit the audience of the posts. If you have a private account, you know the people who are following you, like friends and family,” said Hood Miller, adding that parents can also use nicknames for their children on social media instead of their birth names.
4. Use photo-sharing sites instead of social media: “Something like Google Photos requires users to log in to see the photos so that way you can keep it more contained,” she said. “There are a few different options that still gives families the ability to share, especially with relatives who maybe don’t live nearby, and watch little ones grow.”
5. Talk to your kids early and often about social media: “You can have those conversations as early as possible,” said Hood Miller, noting that kids today are automatically born into a world of social media. “They’re not afraid to tell you what they like and what they don’t like, what they want and what they don’t want, so you can start asking them.”
“But ultimately, as a parent, you want to have their best interests in mind and try to make the right decisions to be proactive and protective,” she added.
