(LONDON) — Two children were killed and 11 people were injured in a stabbing attack at a Taylor Swift-themed event at a dance school in the United Kingdom, police said.
The 11 injured includes nine children — six of whom are in critical condition — and two adults who are in critical condition, Merseyside police said. It appears the adults were trying to protect the children, police said.
A 17-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, police said.
The incident isn’t being treated as terror-related and no other suspects are being sought, police said. A motive isn’t clear, police added.
Officers responded just before noon local time to reports of a stabbing at a property on Hart Street in Southport, a seaside town about 20 miles north of Liverpool, according to Merseyside police.
Officers who arrived at the scene were shocked at the “ferocious” attack, police said.
“Horrendous and deeply shocking news emerging from Southport,” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote on social media. “My thoughts are with all those affected. I would like to thank the police and emergency services for their swift response. I am being kept updated as the situation develops.”
King Charles said in a statement, “My wife and I have been profoundly shocked to hear of the utterly horrific incident in Southport today. We send our most heartfelt condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones of those who have so tragically lost their lives, and to all those affected by this truly appalling attack.”
Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, said in a statement, “As parents, we cannot begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through. We send our love, thoughts and prayers to all those involved in this horrid and heinous attack.”
The town of Southport sits in the county of Merseyside, in England’s northwest.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris wrapped up what has been a whirlwind week in the presidential race with her campaign saying Sunday it has raised more than $200 million in less than a week.
On Thursday night, Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and took the lead in addressing the public about their discussions.
Harris has secured commitments from enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee if they all honor their commitment when voting, according to ABC News reporting.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Election content on social media ‘could be propaganda’ for foreign adversaries: ODNI
Content about the election on social media “could be propaganda” for foreign adversaries, officials with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned on Monday.
“The American public should know that content that they read online, especially on social media, could be foreign propaganda, even if it appears to be coming from fellow Americans or originating in the United States,” an ODNI official said on a conference call with reporters on Monday. “In short, foreign influence actors are getting better at hiding their hand and using Americans to do it.”
Russia is still pervasive in this space and remains the biggest threat to the election, according to the officials.
The officials also warned that the influence operators will use the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump “as part of their narratives portraying the event to fit their broad goals.”
-ABC News’ Luke Barr
DNC says it raked in $6.5M in grassroots donations in 24 hours after Biden endorsed Harris
The Democratic National Committee is claiming it has raised $6.5 million in grassroots donations in the 24 hours after President Biden’s endorsement of Vice President Harris on July 21.
The DNC said $1 million was donated in the 5 p.m. hour alone for what they’re claiming is a record for its best online fundraising day of all time.
The DNC is making a significant push in battleground states, investing an additional $15 million into those crucial states this month to fund new field offices, build data infrastructure, mobilize volunteers and strengthen coordinated campaigns.
“Democratic voters, volunteers, and grassroots donors are fired up,” chairman Jaime Harrison said in a memo. “We are confident that in our battleground states, Democrats will win up and down the ballot in November.”
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
5:28 PM EDT Gov. Andy Beshear rallies for Harris in Atlanta, calls out JD Vance
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear spoke on Sunday at the opening of Kamala Harris’ campaign office in Forsyth County, Georgia.
The possible VP pick for Harris has been an effective surrogate for the vice president’s White House bid over the weekend, coming to the metro Atlanta event fresh off of a stump in Iowa on Saturday night.
The red-state governor introduced himself to the Southern audience on Sunday while boosting Harris’ candidacy and taking a number of swipes at Trump’s Vice Presidential pick, JD Vance.
“Are you ready to beat Donald Trump? Are you ready to beat JD Vance? Are you ready to elect Kamala Harris president of the United States of America?” Beshear asked the crowd, adding, “Let’s win this race,”
“Let me tell you just a bit about myself,” Beshear said. “I’m a proud pro-union governor. I’m a proud pro-choice governor. I am a proud pro-public education governor. I am a proud pro-diversity governor and I’m a proud Harris for president governor,” he added.
Calling out Vance, Beshear said, “Just let me be clear. JD Vance ain’t from Kentucky. He ain’t from Appalachia. And he ain’t gonna be the vice president of the United States.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
2:18 PM EDT Former Vice President Al Gore endorses Kamala Harris
Former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday.
“As a prosecutor, [Kamala Harris] took on Big Oil companies — and won. As [VP], she cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the most significant investment in climate solutions in history, the Inflation Reduction Act. That’s the kind of climate champion we need in the White House,” he wrote on X.
“With so much at stake in this year’s election — from strengthening democracy in the US and abroad, to expanding opportunity for the American people, to accelerating climate action — I’m proud to endorse Kamala Harris for President,” he added.
-ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim
July 28, 2024, 10:42 AM EDT Vance says Trump ‘doesn’t care’ about his past criticism
During a quick stop at a diner in Minnesota on Sunday morning, Sen. JD Vance on Sunday spoke about his past criticisms of former President Donald Trump.
When asked by ABC News if he and Trump have talked about his past criticism of the former president, Vance said yes, adding that Trump “doesn’t care about what I said eight years ago.”
“I mean, look, President Trump and I have talked a lot about this,” Vance said. “In fact, I sometimes joke that I wish that he had the memory of Joe Biden, because he’s got a memory like a steel trap, and he certainly remembers criticisms that people have made.”
“But this is where the media, I think, really misses Trump — Donald Trump accepts that people can change their mind, and you ask, ‘Why did I change my mind on Donald Trump?’ Because his agenda made people’s lives better,” Vance said.
“This whole thing is not about red team versus blue team or winning an election for its own sake. It’s about getting a chance to govern so that you can bring down the cost of groceries, close that border and stop the fentanyl coming across our country for four years,” Vance continued, saying he was “wrong” about Trump.
“He did a better job of that than anybody that I’ve ever seen as president in my lifetime. So I changed my mind, because he did a good job. And that’s what you do when people do a good job and you’re wrong. I’ve talked to President Trump a lot about it, but look, he, I mean, he just, he doesn’t… He doesn’t care about what I said eight years ago. He cares about whether we together [and] can govern the country successful.”
When asked again if the two have talked about the subject, specifically in the last week since his comments have resurfaced, Vance admitted that they haven’t spoken about it and their conversations have focused on the race ahead.
-ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh, Soorin Kim and Hannah Demissie
(COLUMBIA, S.C.) — Homeland Security Investigations has seen a 300% increase in foreign victims of financial sextortion, according to the head of the center that investigates cybercrimes at the Department of Homeland Security.
“We have seen an 86% drop in domestic victims of financial sextortion since that time, unfortunately, what we’ve seen is almost 300% increase in foreign victims of financial sextortion,” Mike Prado the head of HSI’s Cyber Crime Center told ABC News.
Sextortion is when a victim sends explicit material to a scammer and then is threatened with public posting unless they pay the scammer money.
The HSI Cyber Crimes Center focuses on all things cyber – but they primarily focus on online child sexual exploitation, according to Prado.
“The threat that we talk about has evolved so rapidly from even a few years ago that we’re deploying new tools, new techniques, new proactive measures and new preemptive strategies to try to combat the continued prevalence of online child sexual exploitation and abuse,” Prado said.
The two most prevalent areas that sextortion scams take place is in the Ivory Coast and in Nigeria, according to Prado. Homeland Security Investigations has an agent detailed to the Ivory Coast to work with local authorities due to the non-extradition rules they have.
Prado added the scams are not sexual in nature, but just look to get money from victims.
Working to end child sexual abuse
Criminals who want to abuse children are attempting to get children off social media platforms and onto encrypted apps, outside the eyes of law enforcement, according to Prado.
“Everywhere children are congregating online, predators are aware of that and then taking them off platform into other more encrypted chat rooms and areas where they can have encrypted conversations outside the eyes of law enforcement and outside the lot, outside the eyes of the tech industry and abusing these abusing these children,” he said.
Predators, he said, “stop at nothing” to abuse a child.
There has also been an unpick in the use of artificial intelligence to create images using children who haven’t been the victim of abuse.
“It is probably the most concerning emergent threat that is now a reality that our agents are dealing with on a daily basis out in the field, and that our agents at the cyber-crime center are dealing with on a daily basis,” he said. “This generative AI problem is going to exponentially grow the number of images that our agents are having to sift through to determine if a child has actually been directly abused or indirectly abused through the use of generative AI.”
To stop online predators, HSI deploys agents in 200 field offices around the country, and 93 foreign offices in 73 counties.
“These cases are tremendously important to us,” he said.” I want to continue to make it a priority that these cases be worked as expeditiously as possible.”
(LOS ANGELES) — One of the largest wildfires in California history, the Park Fire in Northern California, continued to rage Monday morning, racing across four counties and threatening more than 4,200 structures as thousands of firefighters struggled to increase containment lines, officials said.
The blaze, which authorities said was deliberately ignited Wednesday afternoon, had spread to 368,256 acres by Monday morning, or more than 560 square miles, through Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE). Containment on the fire remains at 12%, officials said.
The Park Fire is the largest fire burning in the state and the nation right now, surpassing the 288,690-acre Durkee Fire in eastern Oregon, which was sparked on July 17 by a lightning strike and was 49% contained as of Sunday evening, according to the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office.
The Park Fire is now the seventh largest fire recorded in California history, officials said. It comes as the state battles 22 other fires, including some as small as 12 acres as of Monday.
More than 100 structures have been confirmed destroyed, and at least five others damaged, according to CAL FIRE. There have been no reports of deaths or people unaccounted for, officials said.
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office lifted some evacuation orders on Sunday. But evacuees like Nalley Orozco told ABC News they had nothing to return to but charred rubble.
Orozco, of the Butte County town Cohasset, was one of more than 3,800 people forced to evacuate as the Park Fire consumed her home and reptile-breeding business Killer Clutches.
“We left everything behind, all personal belongings, all of the enclosures, all the supplies,” Orozco told ABC News, adding that she was able to save all of her animals but lost her home and business.
The rapid spread of the fire is being fueled by an abundance of vegetation and one of the hottest and driest summers on record in the area, officials said.
Temperatures in the area, which have been in the triple digits, cooled slightly to a high of 92 degrees on Sunday in the Chico area, according to the National Weather Service. Winds also died down in the area, but gusts of up to 20 mph are expected on Monday.
In an updated statement Sunday evening, CAL FIRE said that the cooler night and morning temperatures of about 70 degrees moderated the fire behavior, “allowing fire crews the opportunity to actively combat the fire outside of the National Forest lands.”
“This proactive approach aims to safeguard the communities and ecological and cultural resources that may be at risk from the fire,” CAL FIRE said in its statement.
The high temperature on Monday in the fire zone is forecast to be 94 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. By the end of this week, temperatures are forecast to spike back into the 100s, according to the weather service.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Butte and Tehama counties due to the Park Fire, as well as Plumas County, where the Gold Complex Fire, which started on July 22, has burned more than 3,000 acres and was 50% contained on Monday.
Ronnie Dean Stout II, 42, was arrested on suspicion of arson in the Park Fire after he allegedly pushed a burning car into a gully in Bidwell Park, near Chico, according to Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. Stout, who is being held without bail in the Butte County Jail, is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday afternoon.
“I don’t know if I’d say I’m angry, but frustration and unnecessary, yes,” Chico-area rancher John Russell told ABC News of learning the fire was deliberately set.
Russell said the fire burned up to this property line but was stopped by firefighters who cut a fire line around his land with a bulldozer to save his barn and cattle.
“I know I’m being recorded, so I won’t say obviously, I’ll put it tactfully… Our cattle survived. We can go on. We can fix the rest. But truly, the real damage and sadness and anger would come from the people who have lost everything,” Russell said.
There are more than 4,700 personnel, 16 helicopters and 337 fire engines assigned just to the Park Fire, officials said.
“Numerous firefighting air tankers from throughout the state are flying fire suppression missions as conditions allow,” according to CAL FIRE.
A fire burning near the Sequoia National Park, the 2024 SQF Lightning Complex Fire in Tulare and Kern counties in Central California, is the second largest blaze burning in the state, having consumed 82,699 acres since starting on July 13, according to CAL FIRE. The blaze was 33% contained on Monday.
The heavy smoke from fires in Northern California and Oregon is spreading across several states, including Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Montana. By Monday afternoon, some of the heavy smoke is expected to reach as far as the Dakotas and Nebraska.
ABC News’ Mola Lenghi and Jaclyn Lee contributed to this report.
(DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza) — Bashayer Al-Abeed is 16 years old and has been hospitalized in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza, for four months. In March, a bombing destroyed her home, killed her entire family except for her aunt, and changed Bashayer’s life forever.
When Al-Abeed first arrived at the hospital, she had a severe head injury and a brain hemorrhage, and was admitted comatose and in critical condition, her doctor, Dr. Hisham Muhammad Abu Hadda, consultant neurosurgeon at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, told ABC News earlier this month.
“She was on a ventilator, paralyzed and in a complete coma. Her condition was extremely critical and she was being treated in intensive care,” Abu Hadda said.
Because she has spent so much time in the hospital, and because of the shortage of the necessary food, Al-Abeed now suffers from acute malnutrition, in addition to recovering from her other injuries, according to her doctor.
“The hospital always seeks to provide food and medicine, especially for children. There is an acute shortage of nutrients, especially foodstuffs that contain vitamins, minerals, and nutritional components that the patient needs, especially neurological patients,” Abu Hadda told ABC News.
Malnutrition is spreading throughout Gaza, according to humanitarian organizations, as food and critical nutrients remain scarce. Sixty cases of malnutrition have been reported in northern Gaza, which has been largely cut off from receiving humanitarian assistance for months, World Health Organization spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said earlier this month.
According to a group of independent experts at the United Nations, famine has spread throughout all of Gaza.
Three children recently died in Gaza from malnutrition, the experts reported: a 6-month-old on May 30, a 13-year-old on June 1, and a 9-year-old on June 3.
“When the first child dies from malnutrition and dehydration, it becomes irrefutable that famine has taken hold,” the experts said.
The Israeli government denies that conditions causing malnutrition exist inside Gaza and says it works with international organizations to ensure necessary aid crosses the border into Gaza from Israel.
Al-Abeed was first hospitalized and put in intensive care after the attack on her family home on March 3 and spent nearly seven weeks in intensive care, her aunt, Yousra Ahmed Al-Abeed, told ABC News. The girl’s mother, father, two brothers, sister, sister-in-law, and her nephew were killed in the bombing, Yousra Ahmed Al-Abeed said.
“We arrived at the hospital and found her unconscious. She entered intensive care and spent 47 days, and during this period in care, after examinations and photographs, it was found that she was suffering from a brain hemorrhage, which led to her being quadriplegic,” her aunt said.
After being discharged from critical care, it became clear that the 16-year-old was also malnourished, her aunt said.
“She became very emaciated. She couldn’t help herself move. Sometimes she needed two people to help her,” Yousra Ahmed Al-Abeed said. “She can’t even turn her head. If you help her sleep on her back, she will stay in that position.”
Yousra Ahmed Al-Abeed takes care of her niece and stays with her at the hospital every day, she told ABC News. For those first 47 days, her niece was being fed a liquid diet through tubes. Now, her diet still only consists of liquid, but she is getting some additional nutrients, her aunt said.
“Everything she eats is liquid. How do fluids benefit a sick person? To this day, she has been living on liquids,” Yousra Ahmed Al-Abeed said.
Bashayer Al-Abeed’s aunt hopes that people outside of Gaza look at her niece’s story and have “compassion and mercy” for children suffering from malnutrition in Gaza.
“My wish for Bashayer and all the malnourished children is to live their lives and return to how they were,” Yousra Ahmed Al-Abeed said, adding, “My message to the world: Just as you want your children to live happily and without deprivation, we also wish for our children to live without deprivation.”
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump will sit for a “victim interview” in the investigation into his attempted assassination, the FBI announced on a Monday conference call with reporters.
FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Pittsburgh field office Kevin Rojek did not say when the interview will take place, but said it will be “a standard victim interview we do for any other victim of crime.”
One spectator was killed and two were hurt in the shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Trump suffered a graze wound to his ear.
On Monday’s call, Rojek and other senior FBI officials provided new details about information gleaned from the investigation into what happened at the rally.
Rojek said it appears the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks “made significant efforts to conceal his activities.”
“We believe his actions also show a careful planning ahead of the rally,” Rojek said.
Senior officials from the FBI painted a picture of a shooter who had no friends and his social circle appeared to be limited to his immediate family.
Crooks did a significant amount of preplanning online and didn’t show any outward signs he would be planning a shooting of a former president, officials said.
The FBI determined that, in addition to searching for details on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Crooks also searched for details about other mass casualty events, officials said.
Rojek said his searches were “related to power plants mass shooting events, information on improvised explosive devices and the attempted assassination of the Slovakian prime minister earlier this year.”
Crooks also searched for nationally elected officials, including President Joe Biden and former presidents, officials said.
The gun used in the shooting was purchased by Crooks’ dad in 2013 and legally transferred to Crooks in 2023, according to the FBI.
The FBI also provided an updated new timeline.
Crooks went to the rally site at 11 a.m. on the day of the shooting and spent one hour in the area before traveling home, the FBI said.
At 1:30 p.m., Crooks obtained the rifle from his home and told parents he was going to the shooting range, the FBI said.
Crooks arrived back at the rally site at 3:45 p.m. and started flying a drone about 200 yards from the rally site from 3:50 p.m. to just after 4 p.m., the FBI said. The drone did not contain a memory card, officials said. The FBI said it is working to determine if Crooks was viewing footage and whether that revealed insights into the security posture.
At 4 p.m., Crooks drove throughout the area in the vicinity of the shooting. Shortly after 5 p.m., Crooks was identified as suspicious by a local SWAT officer who took a photo of him, the FBI said.
Just after 5:30 p.m., that same SWAT officer observed Crooks using a rangefinder and reading news on his phone, officials said. At 5:56 p.m., Crooks was seen walking in the vicinity of the AGR building, the FBI said.
Police dash camera video from 6:08 p.m. captured Crooks on the roof, the FBI said.
At 6:11 p.m., a local police officer was boosted up to the roof and encountered Crooks, who pointed a rifle at him, the FBI said. The officer immediately dropped off the roof, the FBI said.
About 25 to 30 seconds later, shots were fired, the FBI said.
Explosives were found in Crooks’ car and home, but the explosives in the car didn’t go off because the receivers found on Crooks were in the off position, the FBI said.
“Explosive experts in the FBI lab assessed the devices from the subject’s vehicle were capable of exploding. However, the magnitude of the damage associated with an explosion is unclear,” Rojek said.
FBI officials declined to answer any questions about the law enforcement posture, security strategy and response, citing multiple ongoing reviews.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday morning approved a blood test to screen for colorectal cancer in certain individuals.
The blood test, known as Shield and manufactured by Guardant Health, is already commercially available, but FDA approval will help broaden availability and insurance coverage.
The test was approved for people aged 45 and older with an “average risk” of colon cancer.
Specialists warn that the blood test is not an equivalent alternative to colonoscopies, but it could lead to more people getting screened since it takes less time and effort to get screened. Colonoscopies are more accurate at detecting cancer, allow for the removal of precancerous polyps, and are recommended every 10 years instead of every three years for the blood test.
The false positive rate of the Shield test is about 10%, and it only found 13% of large polyps as compared to 95% with a colonoscopy in a clinical trial.
Shield detects colorectal cancer by detecting DNA shed by tumors in blood samples. Results take about two weeks after the samples are received by the laboratory.
Shield is not the first blood-based screening tool available for colorectal cancer, and colonoscopies are still considered the gold standard for screening.
However, the test presents another option to screen for a type of cancer that has been affecting many Americans at younger ages than before.
Earlier this year, an FDA advisory panel — the Medical Devices Advisory Committee (MDAC) — recommended that the federal health agency approve the test. Although FDA approval isn’t guaranteed, the agency usually agrees with its advisers.
Despite the high overall sensitivity rate, the clinical trial data indicated Shield may miss one in 10 people who have precancerous lesions and one in 1,000 people with cancerous lesions.
These “false negatives” may result in tests finding no evidence of cancer, but patients actually have precancerous or cancerous lesions, according to the clinical trial data.
Although members of the MDAC did express concerns about false negatives, the committee ultimately found the test to be safe and effective and that the benefits of use outweighed potential risks.
“The FDA approval of the Shield test is a significant victory for patients and an important milestone in Guardant Health’s mission to conquer cancer with data. Shield can help improve colorectal cancer screening rates so we can detect more cancers at an early stage, when they are treatable,” AmirAli Talasaz, Guardant Health co-CEO, said in a press release.
“We are now getting ready to launch this test in the near future and are very excited to empower physicians with a viable blood-based screening option to tailor the screening regimen to the unique needs of their patients,” Talasaz said.
(NEW YORK) — The days of the perfect-looking yard — often lawns that guzzle copious amounts of water to stay green — may soon be gone.
Homeowners are increasingly opting to “re-wilding” their homes, incorporating native plants and decreasing the amount of lawn care to make their properties more sustainable and encourage natural ecosystems to recover, according to Plan It Wild, a New York-based native landscape design company.
About 30% of the water an average American family consumes is used for the outdoors, including activities such as watering lawns and gardens, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the West, where water is absorbed almost immediately by the sun or thirsty vegetation, outdoor water usage can increase to an average of 60% for the average family.
As concerns for the environment — as well as increasing utility bills — grow, so do homeowners’ preferences for how they decorate their yards.
“I don’t want to mow it. I don’t want to water it,” Judy Vigiletti, resident of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, told ABC News. “There’s a lot of lawn, and I need to get rid of it.”
Vigiletti is in the process of removing a large chunk of her lawn — an aesthetic that has taken hold of the modern American neighborhood — and replacing it with native plants.
Embedded in her vision for her new yard are the sights of a natural environment.
“I can just imagine when the wind blows in, the leaves are swaying and the plants are moving,” Vigiletti said. “And that’s what I’m looking for — that kind of harmony.”
Live vegetation native to the region, such as shrubs and trees, provide many benefits once established. They require much less maintenance, including little water beyond normal rainfall, according to the EPA. They also provide collection for stormwater and water quality benefits as well as carbon sequestration.
A method of “tucking in” the plants with a bit of mulch helps them to retain moisture, Dave Baker, co-founder and COO of Plan It Wild, told ABC News.
Vigiletti is among a growing movement of homeowners who are choosing regional vegetation over the traditional lawn, according to Plan It Wild. The landscape design company has seen a surge of people wanting to get rid of their lawns, a trend they have dubbed “rewilding,” Joanna Hall, CEO of Plan it Wild, told ABC News.
When Jane Balter moved into her home in Mount Kisco, New York, it was almost all grass and trees. She began re-wilding the space four years ago, she told ABC News.
One of the biggest challenges she ran into was learning the specifics of her property — some areas were wetter and some drier.
“So that’s sort of a trial and error, and then you learn from what you did and see what’s growing,” Balter said. “And you just plant more of that.”
Now, Balter describes her outdoor space as a “sanctuary.” In a once wildlife-less landscape now lives biodiversity. There are now deer, fox, coyote, birds and insects that venture into her yard, she said.
“It’s the feeling, is just gratitude, really,” she said. “That something that was so lifeless has become so full of life.”
Even early in Vigiletti’s yard transformation, monarch butterflies, have already begun to appear. Populations of the iconic species have been on a steady decline in recent years, according to researchers.
Hall estimates between 40 to 60 million acres of lawn across the country. The lawn is being over-watered and being flooded with pesticides, she said.
“Nothing is wrong with grass,” she said. “It’s that in America, we just have too much.”
This story is part of our Climate Ready series – a collaboration between ABC News and the ABC Owned Television Stations focused on providing practical solutions to help you and your family adapt to extreme weather events and the current challenges of climate change.
(LONDON) — At least eight people were transported to hospitals with stab wounds following a “major” incident in the United Kingdom, police and emergency officials said Monday.
Officers responded just before noon local time to reports of a stabbing at a property on Hart Street in Southport, a seaside town about 20 miles north of Liverpool, according to Merseyside Police.
“Armed police have detained a male and seized a knife. He has been taken to a police station,” the department said in a statement.
The eight injured people were transferred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Aintree University Hospital and Southport and Formby hospital, the North West Ambulance Service said on social media. The patients’ conditions and ages were not immediately released.
Thirteen ambulances had been dispatched to the scene, along with a Hazardous Area Response Team, an Air Ambulance and and Merit Doctors, emergency officials said.
Officials at Alder Hey said they were “working with other emergency services to respond to this incident and our Emergency Department is currently extremely busy.” The hospital said it had declared Monday’s stabbing a “major incident.”
“We ask parents to only bring their children to the Emergency Department if it is urgent,” the hospital said in a statement.
The town of Southport sits in the county of Merseyside, in the the U.K.’s northwest.
(NEW YORK) — Something seemed off from the moment Beaver County SWAT sniper Gregory Nicol spotted a man skulking around the outskirts of the site where former President Donald Trump was about to take the stage on July 13.
From his second-floor post inside the AGR complex at the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, Nicol noticed the young man in a gray T-shirt, lurking.
“He was looking up and down the building … It just seemed out of place,” Nicol, assistant leader of the Beaver County SWAT team, told ABC News in an interview that airs Monday on Good Morning America, “It just didn’t seem right.”
Nicol noticed an unattended bike and backpack. And he saw the man looking up and around, then pulling a rangefinder from his pocket. There was no apparent reason to have a distance-gauging device at a political rally featuring the man who, in a few days, would accept his party’s presidential nomination. The sharpshooter snapped pictures of the suspicious-looking man and the bike, then flagged it to fellow snipers from his team assigned to the event and called it into the command group.
Nicol would be the first officer to issue a warning about 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. Within an hour, Crooks would open fire from the roof of that very building, less than 200 yards from the rally’s stage, wounding Trump on live TV, killing one person in the crowd, and critically injuring two more.
The sniper and his fellow Beaver County SWAT officers were assigned to Trump’s Butler campaign rally, and tasked with supporting the Secret Service and other law enforcement in the mission to keep the event and Secret Service protectee, safe.
They have not spoken publicly until now.
‘Something that we’ll always carry with us’
In their first public comments since the assassination attempt, the Beaver County SWAT team and their supervisors spoke with ABC News Senior Investigative Correspondent Aaron Katersky, marking the first time any of the key law enforcement personnel who were on site July 13 have offered firsthand accounts of what occurred.
The violent episode has already led to the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. And, in the wake of the assassination attempt, a series of law enforcement, internal, and congressional probes have been announced — with communications and coordination a key focus of investigators’ attention.
“This one is something that we’ll always carry with us,” assistant Beaver County SWAT leader Mike Priolo told ABC News.
Long before Crooks would fire his AR-style rifle that Saturday evening, Crooks’ presence wasn’t the only thing that didn’t seem quite right to the local SWAT team.
Team members said that the day of the rally, they had no contact with the agents on Trump’s Secret Service detail.
“We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened,” said Jason Woods, team leader for Beaver County’s Emergency Services Unit and SWAT sniper section.
“So I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened. We had no communication,” Woods said. “Not until after the shooting.”
By then, he said, “it was too late.”
The Secret Service, whose on-site team was supplemented as usual by local, county and state law-enforcement agencies, was ultimately responsible for security at the event, but none of the concerns apparently reached members of Trump’s detail.
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi declined to respond directly to the comments Woods and his colleagues made to ABC News. He said the agency “is committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that never happens again. That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI and other relevant investigations.”
To the men and woman of Beaver County SWAT, what happened is clear: There was a lack of planning and communication that caused a catastrophic failure in the protection of Donald Trump. They said they saw the problem coming, and they tried to alert the people in charge and sound the alarm.
With the presidential campaign in full gear and Trump now saying he wants to return for another rally outside Pittsburgh, it is critical to know what went wrong at the last one — so it doesn’t happen again.
“I have to imagine that they’re going to make some very serious adjustments — namely, probably, hold it inside where you have a lot more control over who’s coming in,” said Beaver County District Attorney Nate Bible, who oversees the county SWAT unit. “If we’re asked for assistance, we will provide it.”
‘An away game’
By mid-morning on July 13, the Beaver County team of snipers and spotters was in position — hours before Trump was set to take the stage that evening at the sprawling grounds that’s studded by a complex of warehouses.
Once they were positioned at the security perimeter — outside the metal detectors — Woods said he immediately wondered whether they had been put in the most effective spot.
“I think the better location would have been inside looking out, and that’s actually where the Secret Service snipers end up getting placed,” Woods said. “For us to effectively do our job, I don’t know if that was the best location.”
But it was “an away game,” Woods said, meaning his team was not in charge. So they deferred to the Secret Service agents whose job it was to determine the security plan and keep Trump safe.
“I knew the Secret Service knew where we were supposed to be, and that’s where we were placed,” Woods said.
“Our instructions, marching orders were given to us from Butler County EMS unit, their command. With, historically speaking, approval from the Secret Service,” Priolo said.
This was not the team’s first time participating in a Secret Service operation.
“We as a team would assume that that would be a robust type thing, that they would have constant communication. And it very well might have been — we’re just not aware of it,” said Beaver County Chief Detective Patrick Young, the commander of emergency services.
The event’s atmosphere, Young said, also meant a dynamic environment: Officers had to rapidly gauge whether rallygoers’ bulging back pockets held merely bottled water or booze — commonplace at a festive gathering under the blazing summer sun of Western Pennsylvania — or was a sign of something more sinister.
“Our first indication that there was going to be something different about this was the lack of patrol that we’d seen in the area,” Priolo said of the plans.
The effect of that, he said, was that the SWAT officers would have to personally handle any urgent patrol-level incident that should arise.
“The best analogy I’ve heard is — we’re a scalpel, when you’re asking us to be used as a hammer,” Priolo said. “That’s kind of what we figured out throughout the day.”
‘They must have found this guy’
When Nicol observed Crooks’ suspicious presence and called it in to local command via radio, he said he expected action to be taken — like a uniformed officer would “check it out,” according to text messages between snipers on the ground, which were obtained by ABC News.
“The first thing I did, I sent those pictures out, we had a text group between the local snipers that were on the scene. I sent those pictures out to that group and advised them of what I noticed and what I’d seen,” Nicol said. ‘There was a text back that said, ‘Call it into command.’ I then called into our to the command via radio. And they acknowledged.”
“I assumed that there would be somebody coming out to — you know, to speak with this individual or, you know, find out what’s going on,” he added.
Nicol moved through the building trying to shadow Crooks, who was outside, and keep eyes on him. But Nicole lost sight of Crooks as Nicol made his way down to the building’s first level.
By that time, Trump had taken the stage, Nicol said.
Then, as the former president began speaking, Nicole noticed rallygoers looking away from the podium, up toward the roof of the AGR building. Some were shouting that there was someone up there.
Nicol said he was almost relieved, thinking to himself, “Oh, they must have found this guy we were looking for out there, and everybody’s watching the police deal with him.”
He would soon discover that wasn’t the case.
“That’s when I heard the gunshots,” Nicol said. Crooks had opened fire on the campaign rally.
SWAT medic Michel Vasiladiotis-Nicol responded with Beaver County SWAT Det. Rich Gianvito, along with other local personnel from Butler County and the surrounding areas.
They squeezed through the fence perimeter and headed toward the building where the shots had come from.
“We then ascended that ladder to then meet up with — what — we weren’t sure again if it was a mass casualty or what we were walking into,” said Vasiladiotis-Nicol, who is sniper Gregory Nicol’s wife.
“We’re prepared for anything at that point,” Gianvito said, including a possible firefight because the team had no idea if the rooftop shooter was dead or alive, or if there could be an accomplice still unaccounted for.
On the roof, they found Crooks motionless and face down — images captured on Gianvito’s helmet camera. Crooks’ wrists had been quickly bound with white plastic ties, in case he was still alive. A long trail of blood flowed down the sloped roof.
Vasiladiotis-Nicol put her gloved fingers to the shooter’s neck. “He had absolutely no pulse,” she recalled.
In the seconds after the shooting, Trump was rushed to a local hospital, where doctors treated a wound to his ear. Later that night he flew back to his golf club in New Jersey. The first photos of him after the shooting — blood down his face, fist raised over the heads of the Secret Service agents rushing him away — have already become iconic images.
What remains are looming questions and an impatient Congress. How could this happen? Could the shooting have been prevented? Was it a failure of planning, coordination, communications — or all of the above?
“I think with some better planning perhaps, it could have been stopped,” said Bible, the Beaver County DA. “You’re protecting one of probably the more high-profile political candidates in history. So, how was a 20-year-old able to fire off several shots at him?”
