An American Airlines plane. Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
(LAS VEGAS) — An American Airlines flight returned safely to Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport following an “engine issue” on Wednesday morning, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Two videos showed what appeared to be smoke and flames coming from an engine while the plane was in the sky.
Matthew Villasista was at the Las Vegas National Golf Club when he saw what appeared to be smoke coming from the plane.
“We could hear lots of booming noises, almost like a boombox. It sort of stopped us in our tracks to hear the noises,” he told ABC News.
Mark Jackson was in a parking lot when he said he heard what sounded like “large fireworks.”
“When we looked up and saw what was really happening, I was shocked and super sad thinking about how scared everyone on board must be,” Jackson told ABC News. “Those brave pilots working under some heavy pressure. It just looked like it was dropping rapidly.”
American Airlines Flight 1665 — an Airbus A321 — was heading to Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, the FAA said.
(FRISCO, Texas) — A Texas grand jury has indicted a teenager for first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of another teen at a track meet, in a case prosecutors said has “shaken” the community.
The deadly stabbing occurred at a Frisco Independent School District stadium on April 2 during a track and field championship involving multiple schools in the district.
Karmelo Anthony, a then-17-year-old student at Frisco Centennial High School, was arrested and charged in the murder of Austin Metcalf, 17, an 11th grader at Frisco Memorial High School who police said was stabbed during an altercation in the bleachers at the meet.
A grand jury has since indicted Anthony for first-degree murder, Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis announced Tuesday. Willis said his team had presented evidence for several weeks before the Collin County grand jury returned the indictment. A trial schedule is yet to be set.
“We know this case has struck a deep nerve — here in Collin County and beyond,” Willis said in a statement. “That’s understandable. When something like this happens at a school event, it shakes people to the core. But the justice system works best when it moves with steadiness and with principle. That’s what we’re committed to. And that’s exactly what this case deserves.”
Willis’ office noted that 17-year-olds are considered adults in the Texas criminal justice system. If convicted, Anthony faces five to 99 years, or life, in prison, the office said.
The teen has allegedly said he acted in self-defense, according to court records, a claim also raised by his defense attorney.
Anthony’s attorney, Mike Howard, called the indictment an “expected and routine step in the legal process,” and said the teen “looks forward to his day in court.”
“It’s only in a trial that a jury would hear the full story, one that includes critical facts and context that the grand jury simply didn’t get to hear,” Howard said.
“We expect that when the full story is heard, the prosecution will not be able to rule out the reasonable doubt that Karmleo Anthony may have acted in self-defense,” he added.
The stabbing occurred under the Memorial High School tent in the stadium bleachers, according to the arrest report. Responding officers said they spoke to multiple witnesses, including one who reported the altercation began after Metcalf told Anthony to move out from under their team’s tent, according to the arrest report.
The witness reported that Anthony allegedly reached inside his bag and said, “Touch me and see what happens,” according to the arrest report.
Metcalf grabbed Anthony to move him, according to a witness, and Anthony allegedly pulled out what the witness described as a black knife and “stabbed Austin once in the chest and then ran away,” the arrest report stated.
Anthony allegedly confessed to the killing and officers say he told them he was protecting himself, according to the arrest report.
Following the indictment, Metcalf’s father, Jeff Metcalf, told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA that he’s “pleased that we are moving forward.”
“With the first degree murder indictment, it now goes into the court system,” Jeff Metcalf said in a statement to WFAA. “I fully believe that justice will be served for Austin Metcalf. I look forward to the forthcoming trial. But it will never bring my son back.”
Anthony’s mother, Kala Hayes, spoke out on the incident at a press event in April, saying the family has “been under attack.”
“Whatever you think what happened … my three younger children, my husband and I didn’t do anything to deserve to be threatened, harassed and lied about,” she said.
Anthony was initially held on $1 million bond following his arrest, though he was released from the Collin County Jail after a judge reduced his bond to $250,000.
As part of his bond conditions, he has been ordered to be on house arrest, be supervised by a parent or designated adult at all times and have no contact with Metcalf’s family, according to court records.
Both the Metcalf and Anthony families have launched fundraisers that have each raised more than $500,000.
(ASBURY PARK, N.J.) — A lifeguard is in the hospital after she was impaled by an umbrella at a New Jersey beach on Wednesday morning, officials said.
The woman was found on the ground near the lifeguard stand with an umbrella stake that had pierced the front of her left shoulder and was sticking out the back of her arm by about 1 foot, Asbury Park Fire Chief Kevin Keddy told ABC News.
She was being treated by her fellow lifeguards, Keddy said, and when the fire department officials arrived they took over and stabilized her. The fire department responders also cut the umbrella stake in the front and in the back to make the wound more manageable, he said.
Paramedics then responded and took the lifeguard to a hospital, Keddy said, adding she was conscious and alert the whole time.
“She’s a tough young woman,” the chief said.
The circumstances surrounding the impalement were not immediately clear, but Keddy said his advice to beachgoers is to always make sure umbrellas are placed securely in the sand and are carried with the point down.
(WASHINGTON) — At a confirmation hearing Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s pick for the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Susan Monarez, faced questions about her stance on vaccines — after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a vaccine skeptic, has recently made controversial choices around them
Monarez was clear in her support for vaccines.
“I think vaccines save lives. I think that we need to continue to support the promotion of utilization of vaccines,” Monarez said.
Her comments came as she was asked by Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders about a recent decision reported by POLITICO that Kennedy has decided to end U.S. funding for a global vaccine alliance, Gavi.
“I wasn’t involved in that decision making. If I’m confirmed as a CDC director, I will certainly look into it, and I’m happy to follow up with you,” Monarez said.
Kennedy has long held many vaccine-skeptic views, refuted by experts and high-quality studies, long before he joined the administration, but he has insisted he is not “anti-vaccine” and rather “pro-safety.”
Earlier this month, Kennedy removed all 17 sitting members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee and replaced them with new members. The move has been controversial, with some experts saying it makes the U.S. “less prepared for infectious disease threats.”
Monarez also stood apart from Kennedy on her views on autism, and whether there is any link between the neurological disorder and childhood vaccinations — which Kennedy has long raised as a potential reason for rising rates of autism diagnoses.
“I have not seen a causal link between vaccines and autism,” Monarez said, asked by Sanders if she agrees with the American Medical Association’s stance “that there is no scientific proven link between vaccines and autism.”
Kennedy, in his own confirmation hearing, refused to acknowledge that there is not a link between vaccines and autism, causing him to nearly lose the key vote of Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican and a doctor.
Kennedy has since launched a major effort at NIH to look into the causes of rising autism diagnoses.
The myth that vaccines cause autism was born out of a fraudulent 1998 study, hypothesizing that the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine caused intestinal inflammation, which, in turn, led to the development of autism.
The paper has since been discredited by health experts, retracted from the journal in which it was published, and its primary author, Andrew Wakefield, lost his medical license after an investigation found he had acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in conducting his research.
More than a dozen high-quality studies have since found no evidence of a link between childhood vaccines and autism.
Monarez outlined her credentials in her opening statements, touting her experience with health technology and public health. She also laid out her goals as the CDC director, which includes restoring public trust, modernizing public health infrastructure and employing evidence-based rapid decision making.
“These priorities support the president’s and the secretary’s vision of a healthier America. To achieve them, I will lead with integrity, transparency and purpose, and work with Congress to maximize health outcomes and protect the American people,” Monarez said in her opening statement.
Trump tapped Monarez to lead the CDC in March after the administration withdrew Trump’s other pick, Dr. David Weldon, to head the agency citing the fact that he did not have the votes needed to be confirmed.
Monarez, if confirmed, will work with Kennedey to “prioritize Accountability, High Standards, and Disease Prevention to finally address the Chronic Disease Epidemic and, MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN!” Trump said in a social media post announcing her nomination.
Monarez has served as the acting CDC director since late January.
She has experience in both the public and private sector — including working in the government under former presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Trump’s first term and Joe Biden. Her work has included strategies to combat antimicrobial resistance, too.
She has also led projects to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve health outcomes.
(NEW YORK) — New York City’s municipal races have brought disgraced politicians back into the limelight, as multiple candidates seeking a political comeback raised the question of whether voters will give them a second — or third — chance.
Among the slate is Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman whose downfall came after a slew of sexting scandals that culminated in a 21-month federal prison sentence, who is vying for one of Manhattan’s City Council seats.
But Weiner’s attempt at a third political comeback appears futile.
Though no candidate has reached the 50% threshold, as of the current vote count, needed to be declared the outright winner in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, election results from the New York City Board of Elections (BOE) show Weiner facing a fourth place finish in the five-person race as of Wednesday morning.
Assemblymember Harvey Epstein maintains a steady lead, while nonprofit leader Sarah Batchu and Manhattan Community Board Chair Andrea Gordillo battle for second place. Community advocate Allie Ryan trails behind Weiner.
Because of ranked-choice voting in New York City, more comprehensive results won’t be reported until a week later on July 1, when the NYC BOE runs ranked-choice tabulations. Results are expected to be certified on July 15.
Weiner’s scandalous past comes as New York City’s mayoral race faces its share of controversy as well, with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo continuing to deny the sexual harassment allegations that led to his resignation nearly four years ago.
Cuomo, however, conceded Tuesday night in the Democratic primary after Zohran Mamdani held a healthy lead, but his campaign added that he was “looking toward November,” indicating he was not ruling out an independent run.
And though the federal investigation into incumbent Mayor Eric Adams over fraud and bribery was dismissed earlier this year, he continues to take heat as the first sitting mayor to be indicted as he attempts to court voters running as an independent.
Yet Weiner, 60, attempted to differentiate himself from the other candidates with checkered pasts by emphasizing accountability for his wrongdoings.
“All of that happened, and I accept responsibility for it,” he told ABC’s “The View” in May. “You won’t hear me do what some other people in public life have done — Donald Trump or Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams: ‘I’m a victim, they persecuted me for no reason.’ I was dealing with very serious problems. I was dealing with what I now understand to be addiction.”
“I am saying ‘Yes, I did these things. I got into recovery. I tried to make my life better,'” he said. “And now I can be of service. And I’m a damn good politician.”
In 2011, Weiner resigned from his congressional seat after a sexually explicit photo was posted on his social media page — which he initially said was a hack, but later admitted was his own doing — in addition to revelations of more sexting content with various women online.
He attempted a comeback two years later in an unsuccessful New York City mayoral run. Despite his initial lead, his campaign was plagued by controversy as more sexually explicit messages and images became public, with Weiner operating under the alias “Carlos Danger.”
In 2016, new sexting allegations came to light which prompted his wife Huma Abedin to announce the couple’s split.
In 2017, Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison after one of his sexting scandals was found to involve a 15-year-old girl. Following his release, he was also designated a Level 1 registered sexual offender, classified as a low-risk to reoffend.
During his appearance on “The View,” Weiner emphasized that he was still in recovery for sex addiction.
He also recognized that he would receive blowback during his campaign, but he did not think his past should hold him back. He cited a need for change among Democratic candidates as his reason for getting back into politics.
“When I woke up in November of ’24 and saw the election results — but more than who won, I looked around New York City and saw how many fewer Democrats even turned out to vote. And I started to say to myself ‘something is seriously wrong here,'” he said. “We’re hardcore anti-Trump territory and Trump did better.”
Weiner presented a more moderate platform than some of his Democratic counterparts. According to his campaign website, some of his goals include increasing police presence, protecting undocumented immigrants but deporting violent criminals, taxing the rich, and eliminating waste.
(LEXINGTON COUNTY, S.C.) — Twenty people were injured by a reported lightning strike while swimming at a beach in South Carolina, officials said.
The incident occurred at approximately 5 p.m. on Tuesday, when multiple agencies responded to a “reported electrocution” due to lightning at Dominion Beach Park near the Lake Murray Dam in Lexington County, South Carolina, officials said in a press release.
When first responders arrived on the scene, 20 patients — eight adults and 12 juveniles — had been injured by the strike, officials said.
Eighteen of those individuals were treated at the scene, while 12 were sent to three local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, Vanessa Diaz, the public information officer for Lexington County, told ABC News in a statement.
All of the patients are expected to recover, officials said.
When the strike occurred, it was a “bright and sunny day” at the lake, but then a bolt of lightning hit the water and “energized a metal cable with buoys on it that surrounds the swimming area,” the Irmo Fire District said in a statement.
“Lightning can strike far away from a cloud. It doesn’t seem logical but a few hundred of us are believers today,” the fire district said.
Several people had swam out to the buoys and were holding the cable when the lightning hit, with others nearby in the water, the fire district said.
“Everybody got quite a jolt, we’re so fortunate that injuries were not worse than they were,” the fire district said.
Dominion Beach Park is expected to reopen on Wednesday “following safety assessments and clearance from authorities,” Lexington County officials said.
This week is Lightning Safety Awareness Week, which began in 2001 “in order to call attention to lightning being an underrated killer,” according to the National Weather Service. So far this year, there have been four reported deaths from lightning strikes in the U.S., according to the National Lightning Safety Council.
(LONDON) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday again claimed “total obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear program during the NATO summit in the Netherlands, escalating his pushback on an early Pentagon intelligence report suggesting joint U.S.-Israeli strikes may have set back Iran’s nuclear program back by only a matter of months.
“I believe it was total obliteration,” Trump told reporters speaking alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in The Hague, Netherlands.
A preliminary analysis of the strikes by the Defense Intelligence Agency and U.S. Central Command prompted questions as the efficacy of the operation. Two people familiar with the report told ABC News it suggested the strikes did limited damage and that Iran was able to relocate highly enriched uranium stocks before the strikes occurred.
Later on Wednesday, during a solo news conference, Trump continued to push back on that analysis and claimed American pilots who carried out the strikes were being demeaned by news reports about the Pentagon’s preliminary assessment.
“Since then, we’ve collected additional intelligence,” he said. “We’ve also spoken to people who have seen the site, and the site is obliterated, and we think everything nuclear is down there. They didn’t take it out.”
“They presented something that wasn’t finished,” Trump said of U.S. intelligence reports on the impact of the U.S. strikes. Over the course of the news conference, Trump highlighted Israeli and Iranian reports of the damage caused by the strike.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Wednesday that the country’s nuclear facilities had been “badly damaged,” as quoted by the Associated Press — which Trump repeated.
On Iran, Trump told reporters he’s not interested in restarting negotiations and didn’t view it as “necessary.” Though he also said that the U.S. would be talking with Iran “next week” and “we may sign an agreement. I don’t know.
“I don’t see them being back involved in the nuclear business anymore,” Trump said of Tehran.
Trump earlier Wednesday insisted Iran’s nuclear program had been set back “basically decades,” adding, “It’s gone for years.”
“I believe they didn’t have a chance to get anything out, because we acted fast,” Trump said. “If it would have taken two weeks, maybe. But it’s very hard to remove that kind of material, very hard and very dangerous. Plus, they knew we were coming, and if they know we’re coming, they’re not going to be down there.”
Asked if they could rebuild and whether the U.S. would strike again, Trump said that would be someone else’s problem.
“I’m not going to have to worry about that,” he said. “It’s gone for years, years, very tough to rebuild, because the whole thing is collapsed. In other words, inside, it’s all collapsed. Nobody can get in to see it, because it’s collapsed.”
Asked if he trusted U.S. intelligence, the president said the initial report was “very inconclusive. The intelligence says we don’t know, it could have been very severe, that’s what the intelligence says. So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take the ‘we don’t know.’ It was very severe. It was obliteration.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke in support of the president’s position, having accompanied Trump to The Hague.
Like Trump, Hegseth (whom the president described as the “secretary of war”) claimed what he called “fake news” about the Pentagon assessment as demeaning the B-2 pilots who carried out the strikes.
“These pilots these refuels these fighters, these air defenders, the skill and the courage took to go into enemy territory flying 36 hours on behalf of the American people in the world to take out a nuclear program is beyond what anyone in this audience can fathom,” Hegseth said, speaking next to Trump at his news conference.
The defense secretary also rejected the early Pentagon analysis of the damage done by the military operation.
“Given the 30,000 pounds of explosives and capability of those munitions, it was devastation underneath Fordo,” Hegseth said.
“Any assessment that tells you it was something otherwise is speculating with other motives,” Hegseth continued. “And we know that because when you actually look at the report, by the way, it was a top secret report, it was preliminary, it was low confidence.”
Hegseth suggested the leak of the report had “a political motive,” adding, “We’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now because this information is for internal purposes.”
Rubio also claimed that the leak of the preliminary report was politically motivated, saying that the attacks led to “complete and total obliteration.”
“But all this leaker stuff, these leakers are professional stabbers,” he said. “They go out and they read this stuff, and then they tell you what it says against the law, but they characterize it for you in a way that’s absolutely false.”
The report prompted further consternation among Trump’s opponents in Washington. Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Coons told ABC News at the NATO summit it is too soon to determine the success of U.S. strikes, adding that the recent round of fighting could have been avoided if Trump had not withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal in his first term.
“The American public needs answers for what what’s really going on,” Shaheen, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said. “If what we see is Iran’s nuclear program has not been obliterated, then we need to try and get Iran back to the negotiating table,” she added.
Shaheen said further nuclear tensions are also possible, as Tehran may “be convinced their race to get a nuclear weapon is even more important — given North Korea’s example — and they will do everything possible to get there as quickly as possible.”
Meanwhile, Trump said the ceasefire is “going very well” despite Tuesday’s continued exchanges, which prompted him to lambast both Israel and Iran and to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn him off further attacks.
“Israel came back yesterday,” he said. “I was so proud of them, because they came back, you know, they went out because they felt it was a violation. And technically they were right, but it just wouldn’t have worked out very well. And they brought the planes back.”
“They’re not going to be fighting each other,” he added of Israel and Iran. “They’ve had it. They’ve had a big fight, like two kids in a schoolyard. You know, they fight like hell. You can’t stop them. Let them fight for about two, three minutes. Then it’s easier to stop them.”
Trump said the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday proved decisive. “That hit ended the war,” he said, likening the U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Japan at the end of World War II.
“I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing that ended that war,” Trump said. “If we didn’t take that out, they would have been, they’d be fighting right now,” he continued.
The president expressed optimism about the future of U.S. and Iranian relations.
“I think we’ll end up having somewhat of a relationship with Iran,” he said. “I’ve had a relationship over the last four days. They agreed to the ceasefire, and it was a very equal agreement. They both said, that’s enough. They both said it.”
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti, Luis Martinez, Anne Flaherty and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Emil Bove, President Donald Trump’s former defense attorney who took aggressive steps to enforce Trump’s political agenda at the Justice Department in the early months of his presidency, told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “I’m not anybody’s henchman” at a confirmation hearing Wednesday to consider him for a federal judgeship.
Trump last month tapped Bove, who has been helping lead the Justice Department, for a judgeship on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In his opening statement Wednesday, Bove vigorously disputed what he described as “a wildly inaccurate caricature” of himself generated by the “mainstream media” which has cast him as a “henchman” of President Trump.
“I am someone who tries to stand up for what I believe is right, I’m not afraid to make difficult decisions — I understand that some of those decisions have generated controversy,” Bove said. “I respect this process, and I’m here today to address some of your questions about those decisions, but I want to be clear about one thing up front: There is a wildly inaccurate caricature of me in the mainstream media. I’m not anybody’s henchman. I’m not an enforcer.”
The hearing comes one day after a former top DOJ career official issued an explosive whistleblower complaint accusing Bove of allegedly suggesting the Trump administration should defy judicial orders that sought to restrict their aggressive efforts to deport undocumented immigrants earlier this year.
The 27-page complaint, provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department’s top watchdog and obtained by ABC News, alleges that Bove and other top DOJ officials strategized how they could mislead courts regarding the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts and potentially ignore judges’ rulings outright.
Addressing the complaint, Bove denied the allegations outright.
“No, I have never advised the Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order,” Bove said. “Even if that account is taken at face value, the whistleblower acknowledges that he left the meeting on March 14 of this year with the understanding that, of course, the department would advise clients to abide by court orders.”
Bove also suggested the issuance of the complaint by Erez Reuveni, a longtime career official who was promoted under the first Trump Administration for his immigration legal work, was an example of the “unelected bureaucracy” seeking to thwart “the unitary executive” and “the people that elected the president.”
“What I mean by that is, throughout this complaint, there’s a suggestion that a line attorney, not even the head of the Office of immigration litigation, was in a position or considered himself to be, to bind the department’s leadership and other Cabinet officials,” Bove said. “I don’t abide that line thinking in my management style, and I’m not apologetic of that.”
Bove also rejected allegations that there was any “quid pro quo” deal with New York Mayor Eric Adams in the DOJ’s decision to drop federal corruption charges against him in exchange for his support on immigration enforcement.
“That’s simply false and it’s refuted by — refuted by the record,” Bove said.
Multiple career prosecutors resigned in protest over the move and described the arrangement as a clear ‘quid pro quo.’ A federal judge ultimately rejected the department’s request to drop the case ‘without prejudice’ — which would have left the prospect they could seek charges against Adams again if he did not continue supporting the administration. In his ruling dismissing the charges, Judge Dale Ho was deeply skeptical of the government’s motives, writing, “Everything here smacks of a bargain.”
Adams has denied the allegations and has pushed back on accusations of a quid quo pro.
Ranking Democratic Senate Judiciary member Sen. Dick Durbin, in his opening remarks at Wednesday’s hearing, said, “The former personal defense attorney of President Trump, Mr. Bove has led the effort to weaponize the Department of Justice against the president’s enemies. Having earned his stripes as a loyalist to this President, he’s been rewarded with this lifetime nomination.”
Republican Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley cast Bove as a victim of an “intense opposition campaign” by Democrats and the media.
“I think that this committee owes this nominee a fair shake and respect at this hearing,” Grassley said. “This is hardly the first time this Congress that we’ve come into a nomination hearing against a backdrop of breathless claims that one of President Trump’s nominees is uniquely unqualified or unfit.”
Grassley argued that lawmakers should instead look to Bove’s resume as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and his time as a judicial clerk on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, prior to serving as Trump’s personal attorney.
“This high stakes worked demands sharp legal judgment and steady resolve,” Grassley said. “Day in and day out, he was in the trenches putting terrorists and drug traffickers behind bars … Put very simply, Mr. Bove checks every box — academic distinction, federal courtships, complex trial and appellate litigation, senior Justice Department leadership. His experience isn’t just sufficient, it is very exceptional.”
(NEW YORK) — The first major heat wave of the summer will bring another day of dangerously high temperatures to the East Coast on Wednesday before relief moves in.
The oppressive heat shattered records across the Northeast on Tuesday. New York City and Philadelphia hit 99 degrees, breaking the city’s daily record highs. Baltimore and Newark, New Jersey, soared to 104 degrees and 101 degrees, respectively, also setting new daily records.
On Wednesday, more than 120 million Americans from Louisiana to New Hampshire remain under heat alerts.
Excessive heat warnings are in effect for a number of cities, including Washington, D.C.; Pittsburgh; Philadelphia; Richmond, Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia; and Wilmington, North Carolina.
Overall, the heat won’t be as extreme as Monday and Tuesday, but Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia could still break records with highs close to 100 degrees.
The heat index — what temperature it feels like with humidity — is forecast to reach 99 degrees in New York City, 105 in Philadelphia, 108 in D.C. and Wilmington, 104 in Charleston, South Carolina, and 106 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Relief from the oppressive heat will arrive on Thursday.
Click here for what you need to know to stay safe in the heat.
Angela Palermo/Idaho Statesman via TNS via Getty Images
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — The woman who said she will offer key eyewitness testimony in Bryan Kohberger’s upcoming capital murder trial repeated that claim at least four times, to three different officers, after she was pulled over last year, according to police footage obtained by ABC News.
The body camera and dashcam footage, along with a police report from the unrelated September 2024 incident were released last weekend by police in Pullman, Washington, in response to a public records request.
In the videos, the woman explained to police that among her many life stressors, she was due to take the stand in the high-profile trial of the man charged with killing four University of Idaho students in 2022. She had been pulled over on Sept. 4, 2024, first for driving with expired registration, then was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence, the police report said.
After the woman was placed under arrest, she told officers that she was the DoorDash driver who, in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, dropped off food for Xana Kernodle, one of the four killed that night. Police believe Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death by a masked intruder in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, just minutes after the DoorDash driver pulled away.
Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary for the four Idaho college students’ stabbing deaths. He could face the death penalty if convicted. His lawyers insist that he is innocent, and that he was driving around alone on the night when the killings occurred. The woman, in talking to police while in custody, reiterated that she would be testifying “against Bryan” four times, to three different officers.
“I’ve gotta testify against Bryan next year. I’ve got enough crap going on,” she told one officer through sobs, handcuffed in the back of the police vehicle.
As she was driven to the Pullman Police holding facility, the woman again repeated that claim.
“I’m supposed to testify against Bryan next year,” she said, “The guy that killed all the freakin’, all the girls over in Moscow.”
“Well, this won’t change any of that,” the officer said.
“Yea well, I got a DUI on my record? That’s gonna look like crap,” the woman said.
“I think maybe be more concerned about the drug use than the DUI,” Pullman Police Officer Breauna Carpenter said.
The woman responded, “Yeah.”
The woman’s DUI charge was later amended to first-degree negligent driving and she pleaded guilty.
While being questioned at the Pullman Police holding facility ,the driver once again said, to a third officer, “Now I have to testify in that big murder case here, ’cause I’m the Door Dash driver.”
When asked, she clarified the “murder case with the college girls … I’m the DoorDash driver, I saw Bryan there. I parked next to him.”
The driver has not responded to a request for comment from ABC News.
Prosecutors have already signaled they will want to use Kernodle’s DoorDash order in their case against Kohberger. They have told the court the driver’s presence at the crime scene would help them establish a “timeline of events” for Kernodle before the killings, and to corroborate their witnesses’ testimony, according to court records.
The case against Kohberger is largely circumstantial. As of now, the DoorDash driver could well be one of only two people still alive who could put the intruder in the vicinity of the crime scene on the night the students were killed.
Also expected to testify — the girls’ surviving roommate who told police she saw a masked, male intruder with “bushy eyebrows” in the home right around the time the killings occurred. That descriptor was given to investigators early on, and has been a hallmark of the case since the start.
Jury selection is scheduled to start Aug. 4 in Boise, Idaho. Opening arguments are set for Aug. 11.
