(NEW YORK) — Federal health officials have begun collecting samples of aged raw cow’s milk cheese across the U.S. to test for bird flu, the Food and Drug Administration announced.
Sample collection started at the end of this month and is expected to be completed by the end of March 2025, the FDA said Monday. If needed, the agency said it will extend the collection period.
It comes after the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a federal order earlier this month that raw milk samples nationwide would be collected and shared with the agency to be tested for bird flu.
The FDA said it plans to collect 300 samples of raw cow’s milk cheese that has been aged for at least 60 days from warehouses and distribution centers across the country.
Samples will be tested with a PCR test, which looks for genetic material from the virus, and will be completed within one week of collection, according to the FDA. Samples that indicate the presence of the virus will undergo viability testing.
Viability testing will be done by injecting part of the virus into an embryonated egg and analyzing if it grows or multiplies.
Raw milk cheese is made with unpasteurized milk. In the U.S., cheese can be made from raw milk but must be aged a minimum of 60 days to lessen the risk of any pathogens that may be present, per the FDA.
Samples that test positive for viable virus will be “evaluated on a case-by-case basis,” the FDA said, and the agency may issue actions “such as a recall, follow-up inspection or other possible responses to protect public health.”
The FDA has previously warned of the dangers of drinking raw milk, which does not undergo pasteurization — a process that kills viruses and bacteria. The agency currently considers unpasteurized soft and hard cheeses, as well as other products made from unpasteurized milk, a “high-risk choice.”
Past studies from federal health officials have shown that pasteurization effectively kills the bird flu virus. Nearly all, or 99%, of the commercial milk supply produced on dairy farms in the U.S. follows a national pasteurization program.
Pasteurization has been a practice in the U.S. for more than 100 years and kills harmful bacteria and viruses by heating milk to a specific temperature over time, the FDA notes.
The U.S. has been facing an outbreak of bird flu, or avian influenza, since April, when the first human case was reported.
Almost all confirmed cases have had direct contact with infected cattle or infected livestock. Most bird flu cases in the U.S. have been mild, and patients have typically recovered after receiving antiviral medication.
The Pacific island nation of Kiribati was the first country to ring in 2025, with its 133,500 citizens celebrating the new year at 5 a.m. ET on Tuesday. The Micronesian nation was soon followed into 2025 by the Chatham Islands in New Zealand at 5:15 a.m. ET.
Auckland, New Zealand
New Zealand’s capital Wellington and its largest city of Auckland — both located on the country’s North Island — welcomed 2025 at 6 a.m. ET. Fireworks lit up the Auckland skyline as massed crowds watched.
Sydney
Residents of the western Australian city of Sydney enjoyed a fireworks display three hours ahead of midnight local time, which is 8 a.m. ET.
The famed Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House provided a familiar backdrop for New Year’s revelers in the country’s largest city.
Tokyo
The words “Happy New Year” lit up a building in Tokyo as Japan ushered in 2025.
Seoul
In South Korea, people gathered at midnight to honor the victims of this weekend’s plane crash at South Korea’s Muan International Airport that killed 179 of the 181 people on board.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong said goodbye to 2024 with an epic fireworks display at 11 a.m. ET.
(NEW YORK) — Nearly half of U.S. states are set to raise their minimum wage at the outset of 2025, boosting pay for millions of workers stretching from California to Maine.
In all, 21 states will raise their wage floors on Jan. 1 in keeping with inflation-adjusted increases or as part of scheduled hikes that take effect at the beginning of each calendar year.
The pay increases will affect about 9.2 million workers, who will gain a combined $5.7 billion over the course of 2025, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, or EPI.
After the wave of wage hikes, Washington will become the state with the highest minimum wage, offering workers $16.66 per hour. Workers in California and New York will enjoy the second-highest wage floor, as both states implement a minimum hourly wage of $16.50.
Pay increases set to take hold in the new year will bring the wage floor to $15 an hour or higher in Washington, D.C., as well as 10 states, among them Delaware, Illinois and Rhode Island. Those areas play host to one of every three U.S. workers, EPI found.
Overall, the states set to raise their minimum wage on Wednesday include: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
The nation’s highest wage floors will take effect in some of the nearly 50 cities and other localities that will impose minimum pay hikes.
Twenty-nine cities in California will see pay hikes, including a $17-an-hour wage floor that will take effect in Oakland. Seven localities in Washington will increase their minimum wage, among them the country’s highest wage floor: $21.10 an hour in Tukwila.
The latest round of pay increases, however, will not affect more than a dozen states concentrated in the South that lack a minimum wage or offer a minimum wage that does not exceed the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour.
The last federal minimum wage hike took place in 2009, when Congress raised the pay floor to its current level. When adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage stands at its lowest level since February 1956, nearly 70 years ago, EPI found.
(DURANGO, Mexico) — Four family members, including three Americans, were shot in an attack in Durango, Mexico, that left three of the four relatives dead, officials said.
The three adults were all killed: two brothers who are U.S. citizens, Vicente Peña Rodríguez and Antonio Fernández Rodríguez, and their relative, who is a local resident, Jorge Eduardo Vargas Aguirre, the Durango Attorney General’s Office said.
Vicente Peña Rodríguez’s son, a minor, survived, and is in critical condition, the attorney general’s office said.
The attack unfolded on Friday night as the family was traveling in a GMC Yukon with an Illinois license plate, officials said. The SUV was found on the side of the Francisco Zarco highway.
Authorities are investigating whether robbery was a motive, according to the attorney general’s office.
(LONDON) — Azerbaijani authorities investigating last week’s Azerbaijan Airlines crash in Kazakhstan are probing the “disturbing” possibility that Russian air traffic controllers may have directed the damaged plane out over the Caspian Sea, a source with knowledge of the investigation told ABC News.
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia have all opened investigations into the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243 crash.
The source — who did not wish to be identified given the sensitivity of the ongoing Azerbaijani investigation — said Azerbaijani authorities have “very little doubt” that flight J2-8243 was damaged by a Russian Pantsir anti-aircraft system over Chechnya on Dec. 25.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev suggested on Sunday that the plane was shot down by Russia unintentionally, that it “was damaged from the outside on Russian territory” and was “rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare.” He cited fire from the ground for serious damage to the tail section of the aircraft and apparent shrapnel holes in its fuselage.
Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for the plane crashing, but stopped short of saying Russia was behind a strike.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Friday said, “The investigation into the air accident is ongoing. And we do not think we have a right to give any assessments and will not do so until conclusions are drawn based on the results of the investigation. We have our own aviation authorities that can do it, and this information may come only from them.”
The source with knowledge of the investigation said the subsequent conduct of air control officials after what they suspect to be a Russian strike on the plane was a focus of the ongoing investigation into the incident, in which 38 of the 67 people on board were killed.
The aircraft was heading northwest from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to Grozny in Russia — the capital city of Russia’s Chechen Republic — when the incident occurred. At the same time, Ukrainian drones were attacking targets in Chechnya, prompting a response from Russian anti-aircraft units.
Early explanations for the crash included a collision with birds and heavy fog in the area. Some Russian media organizations also suggested Ukrainian drones collided with the plane during their attack on targets in Chechnya.
Russian authorities did not immediately close Chechen airspace, the source said, adding that this decision may have been negligent but does not appear to prove any intent by Russia to shoot down the incoming Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft.
The doomed plane flew east across the Caspian Sea to the Kazakh city of Aktau some 280 miles away — rather than landing in Chechnya or another closer airport, which was “puzzling” for investigators, according to the source.
The area was blanketed in heavy fog at the time of the incident, survivors said, forcing the aircraft to make two landing attempts at Grozny airport before it was rocked by apparent explosions on its third approach.
Russia’s Rosaviatsia air transport agency said Friday that the captain was offered other airports at which to land on account of the fog and drone alerts, but chose Aktau. It was not immediately clear which airports had been offered or why the plane didn’t land at one of them.
The investigators’ “most obvious” and “most unfortunate” theory is that Russian air traffic control officials may have directed the plane over the Caspian Sea, the source said.
That explanation, if it turns out to be true, is “disturbing” but possible, the source added.
The aircraft ultimately crashed around 2 miles from Aktau International Airport on the Caspian Sea’s eastern coast.
Putin on Saturday spoke with Aliyev and “apologized for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured,” a Kremlin readout said.
“At that time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, and Russian air defence systems repelled these attacks,” it added.
On Sunday, Aliyev said Moscow should admit responsibility for the incident and offer compensation.
“The facts are that the Azerbaijani civilian plane was damaged from outside on Russian territory, near the city of Grozny, and practically lost control,” Aliyev told state television.
Aliyev said he did not believe the damage was intentional, though expressed disappointment over alternate theories for the crash offered by Russian authorities in the immediate aftermath.
“This openly showed that the Russian side wants to hush up the issue and this, of course, does no one credit,” he said.
“Unfortunately, for the first three days we heard nothing from Russia except crazy versions,” Aliyev said.
Russia and Azerbaijan — which until 1991 was a constituent state of the Soviet Union — are both members of the Moscow-centric Commonwealth of Independent States bloc. The neighboring nations retain close political, economic and security ties.
Bilateral relations have become more important to the Kremlin since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine prompted a collective Western effort to isolate Moscow on the international stage.
Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has pursued non-alignment and a balance in its relations with Russia and the West. The country has notably become an important source of natural gas for Europe, while also serving as a key conduit for Russian oil exports.
ABC News’ Dragana Jovanovic, Ines de la Cuetara and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Though Jimmy Carter was a U.S. president, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the founder of a global organization, The Carter Center, to his more than one dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he was a grandfather first and foremost, his grandson Jason Carter told “Good Morning America.”
“He’s an interesting guy, but he really was a grandfather to me first,” Jason Carter said in a live interview Tuesday on “GMA,” just days after the former president’s death on Dec. 29, at age 100.
“He was my grandfather so I have a lot of memories, like others do, of him taking me fishing or sitting around and talking about what I should do in my life,” Jason Carter continued. “When I graduated from college, he and I sat down and I said, ‘What would you do if you were me?,’ and he said, ‘I would go to Africa and join the Peace Corps,’ and so I did that.”
Jimmy Carter is survived by four children and around two dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren, according to the Jimmy Carter Library.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19, 2023, at age 96.
Jason Carter, the son of the Carters’ eldest child, John William “Jack” Carter, described his grandparents’ decades-long marriage as “one of the great American love stories.”
He said a photo of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter kissing each other amid the backdrop of the U.S. presidency shows who they really were at heart, two people who remained in love after meeting in the small town of Plains, Georgia.
“He spent eight years in politics, and the other 92 years he spent at home in Plains, Georgia,” Jason Carter said of his grandfather. “Obviously, working around the world, doing things for The Carter Center and otherwise, but really, he was a small-town guy who lived out that faith that is reflected in that picture and the love that is reflected in that picture.”
Jason Carter, who plans to deliver a eulogy at his grandfather’s funeral on Jan. 9, said he sees his grandfather’s legacy as one of someone who stayed true to himself even while reaching the highest heights of power.
During his own political career, including a run for Georgia governor in 2014, Jason Carter said he tried to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps in that way.
“He’s one of those people who demonstrates that you can be in politics and not change who you are, that you can be an honest person, a person who lives out his faith and love in the real world, and still be in politics, and I think that was my hope,” he said. “Our politics is messy, and he was always one of those rare people who was able to reach the highest levels of it without compromising who he was, and we talked about that aspect of it a lot.”
Now, as his family moves forward after the death of their patriarch, Jason Carter said they are reflecting on the annual New Year’s family vacation that Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter hosted every year and sharing memories of sipping champagne together on New Year’s Eve.
As they look ahead to the new year, Jason Carter said he and his family want to continue their grandfather’s work at The Carter Center, which describes itself as a “nongovernmental organization that helps to improve lives by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy and preventing diseases.”
“He built this remarkable organization over 40 years that’s really been his life’s work,” Jason Carter said of The Carter Center, of which he has served as chair of the board. “There’s 3,000 employees that work all over the world … and of those 3,000 employees, only a couple hundred are in the U.S., and the rest are in Ethiopia or Sudan or Mali or Chad or Bangladesh, the places where the center can do the most good for the most people.”
DECEMBER 30: Palestinians taking shelter in tent camps are battling harsh weather conditions as heavy rainfall has flooded their tents on December 30, 2024 in Deir al-Balah, Gaza. The ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza are worsen by the severe storms, which have led to widespread flooding in the camps where thousands have sought shelter. (Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Rebel forces in Syria are building a transitional government after toppling the regime of President Bashar Assad in a lightning-quick advance across the country.
The Israel Defense Forces continues its intense airstrike and ground campaigns in Gaza, particularly in the north of the strip around several Palestinian hospitals.
Meanwhile, the November ceasefire in Lebanon is holding despite ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, which Israeli officials say are responses to ceasefire violations by the Iranian-backed militant group.
Tensions remain high between Israel and Iran after tit-for-tat long-range strikes in recent months and threats of further military action from both sides. The IDF and the Yemeni Houthis also continue to exchange attacks.
Israel intercepts missile from Yemen, threatens Houthi leaders
A missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by Israeli air forces, the Israel Defense Forces said in a Monday night statement, amid continued Israeli and Houthi long-range attacks.
Sirens sounded “due to the possibility of falling shrapnel from the interception,” the IDF said.
The latest missile launch came shortly after Danny Danon — Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations — said Israelis “have had enough” of attacks from the Houthis in Yemen, ongoing since October 2023 in protest of Israel’s war in Gaza.
“Israel will not stand by waiting for the world to act,” Danon said.
Addressing the Houthi leadership, he added, “Let me remind you what happened to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to [former Syrian President Bashar] Assad and to all those who thought to destroy us.”
“This is not a threat, it is a promise,” Danon said. “You will share the same miserable fate.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky, Dana Savir and Ellie Kaufman
Ukraine foreign minister meets Syrian leader in Damascus
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Monday met with Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa — also known by nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
Sybiha became the latest foreign representative to meet with Sharaa in Damascus, where the latter’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham forces and their allies are establishing a transitional government having toppled former President Bashar Assad.
Sybiha wrote on X that he “personally conveyed the message” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “We are with you and ready to assist in restoring normal life, stability and food security,” Sybiha said.
“We rely on the new Syria respecting international law, including Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he added. “This will pave the way to fully restoring our diplomatic ties, political dialogue and diplomatic presence. We are ready to develop cooperation in a number of areas.”
The visit came days after Zelenskyy announced Kyiv’s dispatch of 500 tons of wheat flour to Syria as part of the “Grain from Ukraine” humanitarian program in cooperation with the World Food Program.
Gaza hospitals become ‘battlegrounds,’ WHO chief says
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said early Monday that Gaza’s beleaguered hospitals “have once again become battlegrounds and the health system is under severe threat.”
Ghebreyesus said the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north Gaza town of Beit Lahia “is out of service,” following an Israeli raid which itself came after several weeks of encirclement and bombardment.
Israeli forces raided the compound on Friday, forcibly evacuating all remaining patients and staff. The Israel Defense Forces said it detained 240 alleged militants, among them hospital director Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya. The IDF said the hospital was a “command center” for Hamas “military operations” in the surrounding area.
Ghebreyesus said Safiya’s “whereabouts are unknown. We call for his immediate release.”
Kamal Adwan patients were transferred to the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, both of which have also reported repeated Israeli attacks. The latter “is itself out of function,” Ghebreyesus said.
“Seven patients along with 15 caregivers and health workers remain at the severely damaged Indonesian Hospital, which has no ability to provide care,” he added.
Four patients were detained by the IDF during their transfer out of Kamal Adwan Hospital, the WHO chief said.
Two other facilities — the Al-Ahli Hospital and Al-Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital in Gaza City — were also attacked and sustained damage on Monday, Ghebreyesus said.
“We repeat: stop attacks on hospitals,” he wrote. “People in Gaza need access to health care. Humanitarians need access to provide health aid. Ceasefire!”
Family of Gaza hospital director asks international community to help find him
The family of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Gaza Strip, is pleading with the international community to help learn his whereabouts, alleging he was detained by Israeli forces during a recent raid on the medical facility.
The family posted a message on Abu Safiya’s official Instagram page, on which the doctor had been posting updates about the hospital’s functioning, pleading, “We do not know the fate of our father.”
“We appeal to every compassionate individual and all international organizations and institutions to take action,” said the family, asking the international community to apply media pressure and make appeals to “help us push for his swift release from captivity.”
The message said Abu Safiya is still recovering from injuries he suffered a month ago while working at the hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement released on Saturday that Abu Safiya is suspected of being a Hamas terrorist and is being held in Gaza.
Abu Safiya had not been arrested in previous IDF raids of the hospital.
-ABC News’ Camilla Alcini and Nadine Shubailat
IDF issues statement on Kamal Adwan Hospital raid
The IDF released a statement outlining their operations in and around Kamal Adwan Hospital in the last few days.
The Israel Defense Forces said the hospital was a “command center” for Hamas “military operations in Jabaliya,” although the statement and attached media do not provide corroborating evidence of this.
The statement says the IDF faced heavy fighting in areas near the hospital, and says the IDF detained 240 terrorists, including the director of the hospital, Dr Hossam Abu Safiya, whom it says is is “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative.”
Abu Safiya was one of the only male staff members at the hospital not detained during the IDF’s raid of the hospital in October, and he would have helped coordinate numerous resupply and patient evacuations with Israel over the last several months.
Kamal Adwan is the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza and is operating at a limited capacity due to a lack of medical supplies and the repeated attacks on the hospital.
(GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA) — The U.S. Department of Defense on Monday announced that Guantanamo Bay detainee Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yazidi had been repatriated to Tunisia, a transfer that leaves 26 detainees at the U.S. facility in Cuba.
Yazidi arrived at Guantanamo Bay the day it opened on Jan. 11, 2002, and was never charged. He was handed over to the Tunisian government, the Pentagon said in a press release on Monday.
“On Jan. 31, 2024, Secretary of Defense (Lloyd) Austin notified Congress of his intent to support this repatriation and, in consultation with our partner in Tunisia, we completed the requirements for responsible transfer,” the press release said.
The transfer came days after the Pentagon announced the repatriations of three other detainees, as the Biden administration pushes to reduce the number of people held at the notorious facility.
The Pentagon said in a press release earlier this month that Mohammed Farik bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, who are both Malaysians, were sent to their home country to serve the remainder of a 5-year sentence imposed in June. Officials had also announced the transfer of Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu to Kenya.
Fourteen of the remaining 26 detainees are eligible for transfer, according to the Pentagon. Another three are eligible for periodic review.
“The United States appreciates the support to ongoing U.S. efforts toward a deliberate and thorough process focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” the Pentagon said in a statement announcing Bajabu’s repatriation earlier this month.
The cases of seven other detainees are ongoing under military commissions, the tribunal process under which detainees are tried. Two detainees have been convicted and sentenced by those commissions.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — The Pacific island nation of Kiribati was the first country to ring in 2025, with its 133,500 citizens celebrating the new year at 5 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
The Micronesian nation was soon followed into 2025 by the Chatham Islands in New Zealand at 5:15 a.m. ET.
Most of the rest of New Zealand crossed the International Date Line at 6 a.m. The islands of Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga and parts of Antarctica were among those joining the party shortly after.
Auckland, New Zealand
New Zealand’s capital Wellington and its largest city of Auckland — both located on the country’s North Island — welcomed 2025 at 6 a.m. ET. Fireworks lit up the Auckland skyline as massed crowds watched.
Sydney, Australia
Residents of the western Australian city of Sydney enjoyed a fireworks display three hours ahead of midnight local time, which will be at 8 a.m. ET.
The famed Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House provided a familiar backdrop for New Year revellers in the country’s largest city.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LONDON) — The Pacific island nation of Kiribati was the first country to ring in 2025, with its 133,500 citizens celebrating the new year at 5 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
The Micronesian nation was soon followed into 2025 by the Chatham Islands in New Zealand at 5:15 a.m. ET.
Most of the rest of New Zealand crossed the International Date Line at 6 a.m. The islands of Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga and parts of Antarctica were among those joining the party shortly after.
Auckland, New Zealand
New Zealand’s capital Wellington and its largest city of Auckland — both located on the country’s North Island — welcomed 2025 at 6 a.m. ET. Fireworks lit up the Auckland skyline as massed crowds watched.
Sydney, Australia
Residents of the western Australian city of Sydney enjoyed a fireworks display three hours ahead of midnight local time, which will be at 8 a.m. ET.
The famed Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House provided a familiar backdrop for New Year revellers in the country’s largest city.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
