(LONDON) — An elephant trampled a tourist on safari to death in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, officials said.
In what park officials are calling a “tragic accident,” the tourist was charged and trampled by an elephant near Crocodile River at Malelane Gate which “regrettably resulted in the loss of life,” according to a statement from South African National Parks released on Saturday.
“South African National Parks (SANParks) officials are at the scene to attend to the matter and support the family,” park officials said.
Authorities are currently investigating the events that led up to the incident as well as the circumstances surrounding the death of the tourist.
“Due to the sensitivity of this matter, we appeal to the public to refrain from posting any pictures or videos of the incident and the victim,” officials said.
Authorities have not yet released any information about the tourist who was killed in the incident.
“SANParks Board and Management extend their heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the deceased for the loss of their loved one,” officials said.
(TOKYO) — The oval-shaped pit suddenly formed on a busy road in Yashio, Japan, taking down a truck and trapping the driver inside. Emergency crews battled unstable ground and debris.
The crater is about 30 feet wide and 16 feet deep. It formed in a well-traveled area of Saitama Prefecture, just outside Tokyo, Japan’s capital. While Tokyo is a global economic hub, Saitama is more residential.
Authorities say the driver, a man, is inside the cab and is in communication with firefighters. However, his truck’s front end appeared lodged in dirt, making the rescue difficult.
Locals appeared stunned. One woman described hearing a thunderous boom, running outside and seeing a hole where the road had been: “I could still see part of the truck at first, but then it kept sinking … and sinking … and then it was just gone.”
Another man, on his way to grab lunch, said he was just as shocked: “I drive this road all the time. Now I don’t know if it’s even safe to use anymore.”
Firefighters have deployed a crane and ropes. The walls of the hole are fragile, making the operation dangerous. Police have shut down roads in the area, fearing more collapses. Status of the driver is unclear.
The cause of the sinkhole is also not clear, but officials are investigating whether underground pipes, recent weather, or construction may have contributed.
(EAST PALESTINE, OHIO) — Norfolk Southern and East Palestine reached a settlement over the February 2023 derailment that sent toxic chemicals into the area’s air, soil and creeks, the village said.
“The settlement provides the Village with $22 million from Norfolk Southern to be used for priorities identified by the Village in connection with the train derailment,” the village said in a statement.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department is firing “over a dozen” officials who were part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s teams that prosecuted President Donald Trump, officials confirmed to ABC News Monday.
Acting Attorney General James McHenry transmitted letters to the officials informing them of their termination, officials said, that said given their part in the prosecutions they couldn’t be trusted in “faithfully implementing the president’s agenda.”
It’s not immediately clear the exact number of officials who were fired on Monday, but the move was largely expected after President Trump’s threats leading up to the 2024 election stating he planned to fire Smith “on day one.”
Smith resigned prior to Trump taking office and submitted his final report to former Attorney General Merrick Garland. Garland released Vol. 1 of Smith’s final report detailing Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but he was blocked by District Judge Aileen Cannon from sharing with Congress the second volume of Trump’s report detailing his investigation of Trump’s mishandling of classified documents after leaving his first administration.
Separately, an official confirmed to ABC News that the top career official in the Justice Department, Bradley Weinsheimer, was recently informed he was being reassigned out of his role. Weinsheimer was a longtime career public official and gained notoriety last year in exchanges with President Joe Biden’s attorneys as they sought to prevent Special Counsel Robert Hur from releasing portions of his final report that detailed Biden’s diminished capacities.
(WASHINGTON) — The official portrait of first lady Melania Trump was unveiled by the White House on Monday.
The image, released in black and white, was taken in the residence by photographer Régine Mahaux.
The first lady’s office confirmed the photo was taken on Jan. 21, 2025, though the initial release mistakenly said it was taken in 2024.
The portraits of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were released earlier this month ahead of the inauguration. Those images were put out by the transition team.
Melania Trump attended the inaugural events, and made a statement with her style choices. She first wore a navy and ivory ensemble, complete with a hat, from American designer Adam Lippes for the swearing-in ceremony. For the evening’s inaugural balls, she donned a black-and-white gown designed by her longtime stylist Herve Pierre.
She also joined President Trump as he surveyed hurricane damage in North Carolina last Friday.
The two celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary last week. President Trump took to his social media platform to wish her a happy anniversary.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Buckley Carlson, a former Capitol Hill aide and the son of conservative media personality Tucker Carlson, is set to join Vice President JD Vance’s press office, sources tell ABC News.
The younger Carlson is set to serve as Vance’s deputy press secretary, sources said.
Buckley Carlson has worked as an aide on Capitol Hill since 2019, including most recently serving as deputy chief of staff to Republican Rep. Jim Banks.
He first joined Banks’ office in 2019 as a staff assistant before becoming communications director in 2021.
Earlier this month, Vance tapped several former employees to join his vice presidential staff in senior staff roles, including Jacob Reses, who is continuing to serve as his chief of staff.
Brian Gray, who served as Vance’s political director for his 2022 Senate campaign and state director for his Senate office, was tapped to be his deputy chief of staff.
Ben Moss will serve as Vance’s director of domestic policy after previously serving as Vance’s general counsel during his time in the Senate.
Andy Baker, a former foreign officer, was brought on to serve as Vance’s national security adviser.
Will Martin was made Vance’s communication director after previously serving as Vance’s communication director during his time in the Senate. Luke Schroeder, who previously served as press secretary for Vance’s Senate office, is now Vance’s deputy communications director. Both men also worked for Vance during the presidential campaign.
Taylor Van Kirk is Vance’s press secretary after previously working as the communications director for his 2022 Senate campaign and as his press secretary during the presidential campaign.
Vance’s director of operations is Abby Delahoyde, who previously held the same role under Vance when he was in the Senate. She also previously worked for Rep. Byron Donalds and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
Sean Cooksey, the former chair of the Federal Election Commission, also joined the vice president’s staff to serve as general counsel to Vance.
(WASHINGTON) — In 2020, as a pandemic raged across the globe, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took to social media to appeal to his hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook.
The son of the late U.S. Attorney General and New York Sen. Bobby Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, the younger Kennedy said he was looking for parents whose children had been vaccinated against a different virus — human papillomavirus or HPV — and later grew sick.
Public health researchers and doctors said there was no evidence that the vaccine, Gardasil, was linked to the health problems he cited, noting 160 favorable studies on safety. A federal court created to compensate people injured by vaccines also had already rejected a similar claim, citing “insufficient proof” that the vaccine was behind the plaintiff’s health issues.
But in his posts, Kennedy said that he and lawyer Michael Baum – “one of my closest friends” — believed there was still a path forward. The families could sue the manufacturer Merck in civil court claiming marketing fraud – allegations Merck denies.
“If you have been injured by Gardasil, call us,” Kennedy wrote on Facebook, posting a toll-free number invoking his famous initials “RFK.”
According to financial disclosure documents released last week, Kennedy’s primary source of income in the past year were large sums of referral fees from multiple law firms, including Baum’s office, whose civil lawsuit against Merck’s Gardasil vaccine went to trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court last week.
Kennedy’s leading role in building a case against Merck is now raising questions about how he might wield his power as the nation’s next health secretary – a job intended as an impartial overseer in public health – while in line for potential payouts from a major pharmaceutical company.
“This disclosure shows that RFK Jr. made millions off of peddling dangerous anti-vaccine conspiracies,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which will oversee Kennedy’s nomination.
“Even worse, if he is confirmed, his finances will still be tied to the outcomes of anti-vaccine lawsuits — even as he’d be tasked with regulating them as health secretary. These are outrageous conflicts of interest that endanger public health,” Warren said in a statement provided to reporters.
Kennedy, who is expected to testify for the first time Wednesday before the Senate panel, said he has resigned his work with several law firms, including Wisner Baum, and that if confirmed he would not be involved in legal cases.
But in a plan greenlit by federal ethics officials, Kennedy said he plans to retain his right to 10 percent of fees awarded in contingency cases with Wisner Baum so long as the cases don’t involve the U.S. government. The federal government is not a party in the civil lawsuit against Merck.
“I am entitled to receive a portion of future recovery in these cases based upon the set percentage as set forth in the referral agreement,” he wrote.
Kennedy disclosed another $856,559 in income from Wisner Baum referral fees, although the documents do not say which legal cases were tied to those fees. Other income included $8.8 million from his firm Kennedy & Madonna. Kennedy said he was terminating his relationship with the firm, which would no longer use his name.
A spokesperson for Kennedy declined to comment on the record on the Wisner Baum payouts and ongoing lawsuit. Baum did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement on the civil lawsuit, Merck said “an overwhelming body of scientific evidence, including more than 30 years of research and development along with real world evidence generated by Merck and by independent investigators, continues to support the safety and efficacy of our HPV vaccines. The plaintiff’s allegations have no merit, and we remain committed to vigorously defending against these claims.”
Robert Krakow, a New York lawyer who specializes in vaccine injury cases and has worked with Kennedy in the past, said referral fees are fairly standard when it comes to personal injury claims.
Kennedy has been a “galvanizing force” when it came to questioning vaccine safety, providing a special touch when talking to families because “he was very sincere and listened to people,” Krakow said. Using social media platforms to recruit clients is a natural extension of that work, he said.
“It’s not often you have a celebrity do that,” Krawkow said of Kennedy’s work to find clients who claim vaccine injuries. “But there’s nothing inherently wrong with recruiting people for referral fees.”
Reuters was first to report Kennedy’s extensive role in the Gardasil vaccine lawsuit.
Because Kennedy’s financial arrangement was allowed by ethics officials, it’s not clear whether the issue will be a sticking point for Republicans eager to align with Trump. According to the agreement released last week, Kennedy can keep the fees from Wisner Baum so long as the independent ethics office at the Health and Human Services Department determines the case does “not involve the United States as a party and in which the United States does not have a direct and substantial interest.”
Kennedy also has insisted in private meetings with senators that he is not “anti-vaccine,” but only wants more study, according to one person familiar with the discussions.
The messaging aligns with what Kennedy has said publicly. Kennedy often notes he was vaccinated as a child and opted to vaccinate his own children decades ago. His work as chair and chief litigator of the Children’s Heath Defense, which opposes the recommended schedule of vaccines for children, did not begin until around 2015.
“What I’ve said is I’m pro-science and pro-safety,” he told a local New Hampshire television station in 2023.
Still, public health experts and many senators — several of them old enough to remember serious outbreaks of measles and polio in the 1950s — have expressed serious concerns about his role in eroding confidence in vaccines even if he says he won’t outright block access to them.
“We potentially face a massive health hazard, maybe especially for our children,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Sanders, a Vermont Democrat who had been seen as someone who might be able to find common ground with Kennedy on environmental and food policy, said the concern with the incoming administration was that “we may revert back to those terrible days when so many children died” before age 3.
As head of the Health and Human Services Department, Kennedy would be responsible for the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the selling and marketing of vaccines, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which collects data on vaccines to issue public health recommendations that are closely followed by doctors.
If confirmed, he could insist upon appointing vaccine skeptics to the independent group that reviews FDA data on vaccines.
Kennedy also could alter how information is used from CDC’s public reporting system known as “VAERS” that allows anyone to flag possible adverse reactions from vaccines. The reports are unverified but used to look for potential patterns that can be investigated.
Health officials say symptoms reported in VAERS are often found to be unrelated from a person’s immunization history.
Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law San Francisco and expert in legal issues on vaccinations, said handing over that process to someone with Kennedy’s track record would be unprecedented.
“Kennedy has been a committed anti-vaccine activist for a long time. I have seen no indication that his views have changed,” Reiss said.
ABC’s Sony Salzman and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, according to a new report.
The American Heart Association (AHA) report, published Monday in the journal Circulation, found that 941,652 Americans died from cardiovascular disease in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. That’s an increase of more than 10,000 from the just over 931,500 reported to have died from cardiovascular disease in 2021.
It also means that a person in the U.S. dies of cardiovascular disease every 34 seconds, or nearly 2,500 people every day, according to the AHA report.
“The stats are pretty sobering from this report,” Dr. Tara Narula, ABC News chief medical correspondent and a board-certified cardiologist, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday. “In fact, cardiovascular disease kills more Americans than all forms of cancer and accidents combined.”
Cancer and accidental deaths continue to remain the second and third leading causes of death, respectively, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The AHA report also found racial and ethnicity disparities, with Black Americans having the highest prevalence of cardiovascular disease. Between 2017 and 2020, 59% of non-Hispanic Black females and 58.9% of non-Hispanic Black males had some form of the disease, according to the report.
In addition, the report showed several heart disease risk factors continue to rise, with nearly 47% of American adults having high blood pressure and more than half, 57%, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.
Additionally, 72% of U.S. adults have an unhealthy weight, with nearly 42% of adults having obesity, which also is a risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease, according to the AHA report.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Dhruv Kazi, associate director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center In Boston, said risk factors for cardiovascular disease are expected to rise over the next several years.
“Although we have made a lot of progress against cardiovascular disease in the past few decades, there is a lot more work that remains to be done,” Kazi wrote. “If recent trends continue, hypertension and obesity will each affect more than 180million U.S. adults by 2050, whereas the prevalence of diabetes will climb to more than 80 million.”
Overall, cardiovascular-related deaths have begun plateauing after ticking upward during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the AHA. The report found death rates dropped during the survey period for all 10 leading causes of death except kidney disease, which increased by 1.5%.
The good news is that 80% of cardiovascular disease is preventable, according to Narula. Ways to lower the risk include eating a heart-healthy diet, getting regular exercise, quitting smoking, managing stress, and getting adequate sleep every night.
Lori Van Buren/Albany Times Union via Getty Images
(HEMPSTEAD, N.Y.) — A New York state trooper who claimed to have been shot in the line of duty in October is now facing criminal charges for having allegedly “staged” the shooting, according to officials.
Thomas Mascia, 27, surrendered to police Monday morning, a spokesperson for the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office told ABC News. He faces charges of official misconduct, falsely reporting a crime and tampering with evidence.
Mascia’s parents, Dorothy and Thomas, also surrendered to police on charges of criminal possession of a firearm, according to the district attorney’s office. All three have been released on their own recognizance.
Mascia was on duty Oct. 30 in Hempstead when he “initiated a radio transmission for shots fired,” according to a felony complaint obtained by ABC News.
He then “claimed he was shot by the driver of a black Dodger Charger described as either a Black or dark-skinned Hispanic male.”
The complaint alleges Mascia actually “staged the scene of the shooting,” placing shell casings on the ground hours earlier.
He then allegedly “shot himself in the leg in another location before returning to the staged location” on the Southern State Parkway.
State police temporarily shut down the section of the parkway where Mascia claimed the incident occurred “in an effort to locate the non-existent shooters, causing alarm and inconvenience to the public,” the complaint states.
The complaint accuses Mascia of staging the shooting “for the benefit of gaining attention or sympathy for himself.”
An attorney representing Mascia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
He is expected to make his next court appearance Feb. 5.
(LONDON) — Many residents of northern Gaza and southern Lebanon are expected to return to their homes in the coming days and weeks, with most of the fighting in both areas paused under Israeli ceasefire agreements with Hamas and Hezbollah.
Under Israel’s multi-phased deal with Hamas, some hostages held in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have started to be released. Negotiations between Israel and Hamas are expected to continue amid the first phase of the deal, which was slated to last about six weeks.
135,000 tents needed in Gaza
As people return to northern Gaza on Monday, the Gaza government said it “immediately and urgently” needs at least 135,000 tents because 90% of the buildings have been destroyed.
The government called on the international community to help provide “basic supplies” for Palestinians.
8 dead hostages among 33 being released in 1st phase: Israel
Of the 33 Israeli hostages set to be released during the first phase of the ceasefire, eight have been killed by Hamas, according to Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer.
Seven hostages have already been released since the start of the ceasefire, meaning 18 more living hostages will be released by Hamas in the coming weeks.
More hostages are set to be released on Thursday and Saturday, Mencer said.
Threats to ceasefire will ‘bear the full cost,’ Israeli minister says
Katz Israel, the Israeli defense minister, said on Monday that his country would “firmly” enforce the ceasefires that have paused fighting in Gaza.
“Anyone who violates the rules or threatens IDF forces will bear the full cost,” he said in Hebrew on social media. “We will not allow a return to the reality of Oct. 7.”
Tens of thousands trek into northern Gaza
Tens of thousands of people were marching and driving on Monday back to northern Gaza, after Israel allowed them to cross into the north for the first time in over a year.
Long lines of Palestinians — some singing, others smiling and some kneeling to kiss the soil as they stepped into the northern part of the strip — were seen making their way home.
Those returning home were moving along two main routes.
Many of those who were were walking home were moving along al-Rashid Street, a path expected to be taken by about 300,000 people.
Many of those who were driving north were doing so along Salah al-Din Road.
A line of cars could be seen stretching for about 8 miles on Monday morning, as they waited for permission to cross into the northern part of Gaza.
-ABC News’ Sami Zyara, Diaa Ostaz, Jordana Miller, Nasser Atta and Samayeh Malekian
1 dead, 4 injured after IDF fired at ‘dozens of suspects’ in central Gaza
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its team evacuated one person who was killed, and four people who were injured, after an attack by Israeli snipers near the Wadi Gaza Bridge on Sunday.
Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that troops fired “warning shots” at “several gatherings of dozens of suspects” who the IDF said posed a threat to them.
Additionally, a rocket was destroyed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza, according to the IDF’s statement.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had introductory call with Israel’s Netanyahu
Newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had an introductory call on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a statement from a U.S. senior defense official.
“Both leaders discussed the importance of advancing mutual security interests and priorities, especially in the face of persistent threats,” according to the statement.
Hegseth, who won Senate confirmation after being selected by President Donald Trump for the role, stressed to Netanyahu that the U.S. is “fully committed” to ensuring that Israel “has the capabilities it needs to defend itself,” according to the statement.
Additionally, the defense official said that “both leaders agreed to remain in close contact.”
Israel-Lebanon ceasefire extended to Feb. 18
The White House announced Sunday that the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will be extended until Feb.18.
Lebanon, Israel and the U.S. will also begin negotiations for the return of Lebanese prisoners captured after Oct. 7, 2023.
