(SYRACUSE, N.Y.) — An explosion at a large family’s home in Syracuse, New York, left 10 people in severe or critical condition on Tuesday night.
Around 50 firefighters responded to the residence at 205 Carbon Street around 4 p.m. ET, where they smelled a strong odor of gas and found a car underneath the collapse, Syracuse Fire Chief Michael Monds told reporters on Tuesday.
Multiple victims were found spread out around the building, Monds said. First responders sent 13 people at the scene to the hospital, 10 by ambulance, he told the media.
Six victims were found outside of the structure, the chief said. Victims sustained burns and crush injuries.
A young child was found in the car near the structure, and three others were found in void spaces inside the structure.
Authorities had searched 95% of the home Tuesday night, the chief said.
Dogs trained to search for live victims searched the home twice, and a cadaver dog is being brought in to search the home, the chief said.
Authorities believe that everyone has been accounted for.
Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh said at a press conference that a family of seven live at the home. Another family of six was visiting the home at the time of the incident, he said.
There are no open code violations for the home, according to the mayor. The landlord is currently being interviewed by authorities.
The cause of the explosion is still under investigation. Authorities will reconvene Wednesday morning to continue their investigation, Monds said.
National Grid responded to the scene to ensure there were no gas leaks and is working with firefighter investigators to determine the cause of the collapse. A spokesperson for the utility company told ABC News there were no reports of any gas leaks before the home collapse.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump is making plans to spend part of the week of the Republican National Convention in Chicago — more than an hour’s drive from where the convention itself will be taking place in Milwaukee, according to sources familiar with his plans.
Trump is expected to visit Chicago to attend a fundraiser, though details are still being finalized. A campaign official tells ABC News the former president will stay in Milwaukee to accept the Republican nomination on Thursday evening.
At one point, several officials briefed on security plans and logistical arrangements indicated Trump would likely stay overnight at his property in Chicago — Trump International Hotel and Tower — during the duration of the RNC.
After reporters — including those from ABC News, ABC affiliate WLS in Chicago, and The New York Times — reached out to the campaign to confirm logistics, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a statement saying, “President Trump is staying in Milwaukee.”
Trump held a campaign event in Racine, Wisconsin, on Tuesday — 30 miles south of Milwaukee — where he touched on inflation and immigration.
During his remarks, Trump said “I love Milwaukee” — a reference to that the former president allegedly called Milwaukee a “horrible city” during a closed door meeting with congressional Republicans last Thursday.
“I was the one that picked Milwaukee, I have to tell you, I was the one that picked it [for the RNC],” Trump said during his rally. “These lying people that they say, ‘oh, he doesn’t like Milwaukee.’ I love Milwaukee.”
The appearance marks Trump’s third visit to the midwestern battleground state as he tries to draw contrast with President Joe Biden.
His decision to stay in Chicago, based on personal preference, comes after his reported comments disparaging Milwaukee. Trump’s campaign disputed the characterization of his comments, and Democrats persistently amplified his words — including through a new billboard campaign in the city.
Trump’s campaign spokesperson punched back on the reports, arguing that Trump’s words were taken out of context.
“He was talking about how terrible crime and voter fraud are,” said campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung.
In another statement, the campaign wrote that it was a “total lie” that Trump called Milwaukee a “horrible city.” However, they went on to add, “President Trump was explicitly referring to the problems in Milwaukee, specifically violent crime and voter fraud,” suggesting he did make comments about the city, just not in the way some were interpreting it.
Biden’s campaign and other Democrats are capitalizing off Trump’s comments criticizing the host state.
ABC News’s Lalee Ibssa and Soorin Kim contributed to this report.
(LOS ANGELES) — The nation’s second-largest school district has voted to ban cellphone and social media use for over 429,000 K-12 students during school days.
The Los Angeles Unified School District board passed the ban by a vote of 5 to 2 on Tuesday morning, one day after U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy called for an immediate warning label on social media platforms in a New York Times op-ed, similar to warnings on cigarette packs mandated by Congress in the 1960s.
Jessica Quindel, a math teacher at Venice High School in the district, spoke prior to the vote and called for the proposal to pass. Quindel described the daily management of students’ use of smart cellphones as an “uphill battle” and said teachers struggled to keep the “culture” of student cellphone use under control.
“Managing student use of smartphones as a classroom teacher is now more like running a nonstop marathon. It takes a lot of energy and it’s really hard to keep up,” Quindel said.
The school district will now have to develop and present updated cellphone and social media policies within 120 days, or by the fall semester, that would forbid students by the spring semester of the 2024-2025 school year from using cellphones and social media platforms during the school day. LAUSD cited possible tactics like locked pouches, cellphone lockers or technological means and promised the policies would be “informed by best practices and by input from experts in the field, labor partners, staff, students, and parents.”
The updated policy change would also take into consideration students who use cellphones for translation and evaluate social media use for youth.
Medical experts have joined the chorus of parents, teachers and administrators raising alarm bells in recent years about social media’s negative effects on children and adolescents.
“The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor,” Murthy wrote in his op-ed Monday, adding that teens face higher risks of anxiety and depression and had reported spending an average of nearly five hours a day on social media last summer.
Speaking with “GMA3” on Tuesday, Murthy said the proposed warning label cited in his op-ed, which would need to be approved by Congress, would be a digital label that would appear regularly when using social media.
“The exact design of it, the frequency with which it appears — that would all be determined in a scientific testing process that we would undergo after Congress authorized the label,” Murthy said. “That’s what we do with tobacco and alcohol labels, and the good news about labels is that we thankfully know from experience that these labels actually do work. In the case of tobacco labels, they are effective in increasing awareness and in changing behavior.”
LAUSD is not the first district to pass a cellphone ban for students. Others like the Manchester Public School District in Connecticut already require students to lock cellphones in secure pouches before they are allowed to get them back at the end of the school day.
In addition to school districts, lawmakers across the country have been considering how to address the mental health of youth. Legislators in New York, for instance, passed a bill earlier this month that would halt social media platforms from showing suggested posts to users under 18.
This article was updated to note the Los Angeles Unified School District voted to pass the cellphone and social media ban.
(LONDON) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived on a state visit to Pyongyang, and was met at the airport by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
In the history of bilateral relations between Russia and North Korea, this is just the second visit by the head of the Russian state. Putin also made the first visit by a Russian leader to Pyongyang in 2000.
Putin will spend two days in North Korea before traveling to Vietnam, the Kremlin said. The diplomatic trip follows Kim’s visit to Russia in September 2023.
Kim, during that visit, had “cordially” invited Putin to visit North Korea at a “convenient time,” the Korean Central News Agency, a state-run media outlet, reported at the time.
Putin had accepted with “pleasure and reaffirmed his will to invariably carry forward the history” of friendship between the nations, the outlet said.
Negotiations are planned on Wednesday in various formats.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced two new election-year executive actions that could provide relief to thousands of undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for several years.
“Today’s a good day,” Biden said, to cheers from an audience at the White House.
The first action aims to streamline the process through which undocumented spouses and undocumented children of U.S. citizens apply for lawful permanent residence.
The policy will allow noncitizen spouses married to U.S. citizens to apply to live and work in the United States legally without having to leave the country. Noncitizen children of applicants would also be eligible for protection.
Under current laws, some undocumented migrants must first leave the U.S. and apply for legal residency from their home countries when they marry a citizen. In some cases, those migrants are barred from returning to the U.S. for up to 10 years.
To be eligible for the program, noncitizen spouses must have been in the U.S. for at least 10 years as of June 17, 2024, without having been previously legally admitted into the country, or paroled into the country. They also must have been legally married to a U.S. citizen as of the same date and must also be deemed not to pose a threat to public safety or national security. If found eligible, the spouses would be given three years to apply for legal permanent residence.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that up to half a million spouses could be eligible for the program, and approximately 50,000 children of these spouses would also be protected.
“President Biden is taking an incredibly important action by helping the spouses of U.S. citizens get a path to citizenship. This balanced approach, combined with Biden’s border security actions, is much more popular than Trump’s mass deportation plan,” Kerri Talbot, Executive Director of The Immigration Hub, told ABC News in a statement.
The president also announced a new action that will allow some undocumented immigrants, including some DACA recipients and so-called “Dreamers,” to obtain employment-based nonimmigrant visas quicker, senior administration officials said.
To be eligible, applicants must have graduated from an accredited higher education institution in the United States and have a high-skilled job offer from a U.S. employer in their field of study.
Tuesday’s announcement comes just two weeks after President Biden implemented an executive action that restricts the number of migrants who can seek asylum in between ports of entry when migrant encounters at the border reach more than a daily rate of 2,500 for a week straight.
Some members of his own party denounced the asylum cap. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit to challenge the order last week.
Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, told ABC News in an interview that caucus members had met with the President at the White House in May and called for the protections announced today.
“I think it’s a happy day for many immigrant families across America. I think there’s going to be people crying tears of joy paired with some sighs of relief. This is a significant executive action by President Biden and the Hispanic Caucus has been for months encouraging and advocating for the President and administration to provide these protections,” the congresswoman said.
The exterior of the Boeing Company headquarters is seen on March 25, 2024 in Arlington, Virginia. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Boeing CEO David Calhoun apologized to the families of victims of previous plane crashes involving the company’s planes, including the 737 Max, before being grilled by senators Tuesday during a hearing on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal invited the families to the highly anticipated hearing, and many came holding posters of loved ones killed, including in the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 off Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 near Addis Ababa in 2019.
Before Calhoun began his opening statement, he turned and faced the families.
“I apologize for the grief we have caused,” he said. “We are focused on safety.”
Blumenthal thanked the families for joining the hearing.
“The issues before us today have real human consequences [and] real Life and death results,” the senator said.
In his opening statement, Blumenthal hearing pressed Calhoun on whether the executive has made progress in turning the company around.
The senator mentioned the incident in January when a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 shortly after takeoff. He said that the “façade quite literally blew off the hollow shell that had been Boeing’s promises to the world.”
“Mr. Calhoun, you were brought in turn this company around,” Blumenthal said. “But instead of asking what has caused Boeing’s safety culture to erode, you and your colleagues in the C-suite have deflected blame, looked the other way, and catered to your shareholders instead.”
The hearing came after not long after Blumenthal said he received new information about Boeing’s questionable practices.
His office said on Tuesday said a current Boeing employee has come forward as a whistleblower identified the employee as Sam Mohawk, a quality assurance inspector for Boeing in Renton, Washington.
Mohawk alleges that Boeing is cutting corners by losing track of parts that have been labeled as non-conforming or not up to design standards, according to Blumenthal. Sometimes these parts get a second chance because they can be fixed or were mislabeled, but often they should be discarded. Still, the parts sometimes end up in newly built airplanes, Mohawk said, according to the senator.
“He said that he has been told by his supervisors to conceal this evidence from the FAA, and that he is being retaliated against as well,” Blumenthal said in a statement.
A Boeing spokesperson said the company had received on Monday evening the documents supplied to Blumenthal by the whistleblower. The company is reviewing the claims now, the spokesperson said on Tuesday.
“We continuously encourage employees to report all concerns as our priority is to ensure the safety of our airplanes and the flying public,” the spokesperson said.
The latest whistleblower stepped forward as Boeing CEO David Calhoun prepared to sit for a Senate hearing on his company’s “broken safety culture” on Tuesday afternoon. Previous whistleblowers have accused the Arlington, Virginia-headquartered company of cutting corners on safety practices as it builds aircraft.
Calhoun in January said Boeing was “accountable for what happened” during the Alaska flight.
“Whatever the specific cause of the accident might turn out to be, an event like this must simply not happen on an airplane that leaves one of our factories,” he said at the time. “We simply must be better. Our customers deserve better.”
ABC News’ Clara McMichael contributed to this report.
(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — The shooter who killed five and injured over a dozen more at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2022 accepted a plea deal Tuesday in connection with federal hate crimes charges and was given 55 concurrent life sentences.
Anderson Lee Aldrich pleaded guilty to each of the 74 charges of violating provisions of the Matthew Shepard And James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 as well as gun crimes in the Club Q shooting. Aldrich initially pleaded not guilty.
United States District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney accepted the plea agreement, sentencing Aldrich to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, to be followed by a 190-year sentence of imprisonment.
Prosecutors said earlier this year they would not seek the death penalty.
“You went to this community’s safe space and mass murdered people,” said Sweeney, adding that it was appropriate to sentence him to life during Pride month which honors the LGBTQ community. “This community is much stronger than you, stronger than your armor and stronger than your weapons and sure as hell stronger than your hatred.”
Daniel Davis Aston, Kelly Loving, Derrick Rump, Ashley Paugh and Raymond Green Vance were killed in the attack.
Several victims and their families spoke at the sentencing hearing, some who said they wanted the death penalty in his case, while others took the opportunity to tell Aldrich about the pain they’ve felt in the aftermath of the shooting.
“You do not deserve to be sitting here when you took the lives of five people,” said a relative of Paugh. “I want you to feel the pain every day that you’ve caused all of us.”
“All I have left of him now is an urn that I speak to every day at night,” said Adriana Vance, the mother of Raymond Green Vance.
Aston’s parents Jeff and Sabrina spoke about their son Daniel, who was transgender, and denounced the anti-LGBTQ hate he and others have faced.
“He was probably the happiest I’ve ever seen him in the last few years” before the shooting, said Jeff Aston at the sentencing hearing. “He certainly didn’t deserve to go this way.”
As part of the guilty plea, Aldrich admitted to carrying out a bias-motivated attack when he killed five people, injured 19 individuals through gunfire and victimized about 26 other individuals who were targeted “for actual or perceived gender identity or sexual orientation,” in a premeditated attack, Sweeney said at the Tuesday hearing.
The sentencing recommendation details Aldrich’s alleged past use of online platforms “to express anti-gay and anti-transgender views,” use of anti-gay slurs and harassment of a gay co-worker in the years preceding the attack.
In addition to the federal charges, Aldrich was already sentenced to over 2,000 years in state prison in June 2023 after pleading guilty to five counts of murder in the first degree and 46 counts of attempted murder in the first degree. Aldrich pleaded no contest to two bias-motivated crimes.
Aldrich opened fire in Club Q with an AR-15 style rifle and was wearing a tactical vest with ballistic plates and had “at least two additional magazines loaded with ammunition,” on the night of Nov. 19, 2022. The club had just hosted a drag show that night as one of several events to honor Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20, according to court documents.
Aldrich was only stopped after two patrons forcibly removed their gun.
(BOSTON) — A 911 outage is impacting the entire state of Massachusetts Tuesday afternoon, according to Boston police.
“The statewide 911 system is down — calls are not going through,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said at a news conference. “We’ve been in touch with the state and all the relevant officials to work on getting this resolved.”
The cause was not immediately clear. The Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety said it’s investigating.
“If you need police services, call your local district station directly,” Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said. “For medical or fire-related emergencies, you can use the red light call boxes located on street corners.”
Boston fire officials said the fire department can also be reached as 617-343-2880.
Cox said any emergency reported to one service will be seamlessly relayed to the appropriate department.
“We have a robust system in place,” Cox said. “Our agencies are well-coordinated and ready to support each other.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Just as firefighters were getting the upper hand on multiple major wildfires burning across California, two new blazes broke out and rapidly spread overnight, dealing additional challenges to the crews battling the flames, authorities said.
In what fire officials called an unusually early start to the state’s wildfire season, firefighters were scrambling to gain control of at least six massive wildland fires burning at both ends of the Golden State.
On Monday, two new wildfires erupted in Northern California, including one called the Sites Fire that ignited around 2:30 p.m. PT in Colusa County, about 60 miles north of Sacramento, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Fueled by tall dry vegetation and fanned by wind gusts of up to 20 mph, the fire quickly spread to 10,000 acres by Tuesday morning, triggering numerous evacuations, according to Cal Fire.
The Sites Fire was 0% contained. A red flag warning signaling high fire danger was already issued for the area when the fire started, officials said.
“Hot dry conditions continue to hamper suppression efforts,” Cal Fire said in an update on the Sites Fire Tuesday morning.
A cause for the fire was under investigation.
The Aero Fire in Calaveras County, in the Sierra foothills about 40 miles east of Stockton, started about 3:30 p.m. PT and spread overnight to 5,249 acres, threatening nearly 3,700 structures, according to Cal Fire. At least three structures were destroyed and another was damaged by the blaze, which was 20% contained on Tuesday morning, officials said.
The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office issued several evacuation orders for residents living in the fire zone. A shelter for people and their livestock was opened at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds Livestock Evacuation Center in nearby Angels Camp, and another shelter was opened at a veterans hall in Valley Springs, officials said.
“Firefighters had a small decrease in winds and an increase in relative humidity overnight that assisted crews with construction of fireline,” Cal Fire said in a statement Tuesday. “The Aero Fire is burning in an area that has not experienced a large fire since 2003 and is burning in grass and oak woodlands.”
An investigation into the cause of the blaze is underway.
The Sites and Aero fires ignited as firefighters were gaining control of the Point Fire in Sonoma County near the Wine Country towns of Healdsburg and Geyserville. As of Tuesday morning the Point Fire, which started Sunday afternoon, had burned more than 1,200 acres and was 40% contained, according to Cal Fire.
The Point Fire destroyed two structures and a firefighter was injured battling the blaze, Cal Fire said. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Another major Northern California fire, the Junes Fire in Butte County, was 95% contained Tuesday after burning 1,056 acres, according to Cal Fire. The blaze, which started on Saturday, destroyed one structure, Cal Fire said.
In Southern California, firefighters were making significant progress battling two major blazes in the Los Angeles area.
The largest Southern California fire, the Post Fire, erupted on Saturday afternoon near Gorman, in the Tejon Pass area about 70 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. It has burned more than 15,600 acres, prompted the evacuations of 1,200 campers at the Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area and forced the closure of Lake Pyramid, according to Cal Fire.
On Tuesday morning, the Post Fire was 24% contained, but ridge-top gusty winds of up to 55 mph were hampering efforts by firefighters to expand containment, Cal Fire said.
“Fire weather conditions are making it difficult to control the fire,” Cal Fire said in a statement. “Important structures like power lines, dams, and oil pipelines are at risk. To limit the spread and to increase containment fire crews are building and reinforcing fire lines around the permitter. Aviation assets are also being used to slow down the fire and to extinguish hot spots.”
Meanwhile, firefighters gained the upper hand on the Hesperia Fire, which also started on Saturday evening in San Bernardino County, triggering an evacuation warning for local residents. According to Cal Fire, the blaze, which burned 1,078 acres, was 72% contained on Tuesday morning.
Firefighters are also battling at least 11 other smaller wildfires across the state, which had all burned less than 1,000 acres, according to Cal Fire.
Mangoes are seen in a net during harvest on a farm, March 24, 2021, in Actopan, Veracruz state, Mexico. (Hector Quintanar/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE)
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has temporarily paused any new exports of mangoes and avocados out of Michoacán, Mexico after an incident that reportedly sparked security concerns for its safety inspectors on the ground.
A spokesman for the agency said Monday that the inspection program will remain paused until it can ensure its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service inspectors working in Mexico are safe.
The USDA did not elaborate on the nature of the specific security threats.
“The programs will remain paused until the security situation is reviewed and protocols and safeguards are in place for APHIS personnel,” the USDA spokesman added.
The USDA first alerted the Avocado Exporting Producers and Packers of Mexico of its decision to suspend new exports out of the western Mexican state earlier this month.
Any produce that has already been inspected and is in transit will not be blocked or impacted by the suspension, the agency said.
This marks the second time in just over two years that inspections have been suspended following an incident in February 2022 that dealt with USDA employee safety, which was resolved within a week of the ban and had no severe impact on the avocado supply in the U.S.
The USDA has inspectors working in Mexico to ensure the products meet U.S. standards, without whose signoff the avocados and mangos cannot be sent north.
Michoacán and Jalisco are the only two Mexican states allowed to export avocados to the U.S., an industry worth billions of dollars each year.
Michoacán is known as one of Mexico’s most dangerous states, which has been dominated by organized crime for decades. The avocado industry has been no exception, with extortion rampant in the lucrative produce industry.
If the current issue is not resolved as swiftly as the 2022 incident, and the supply chain is disrupted for a long period of time, there could be an impact on U.S. supply.
