General view of beaches along Cancun hotel zone in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Dec. 4, 2023. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A 12-year-old boy was killed on a beach in Cancun after gunmen on jet skis opened fire, allegedly targeting a rival drug dealer, according to Mexican officials.
The incident, which took place on Kukulcán Boulevard in the municipality of Benito Juárez on Sunday, is now under investigation by the Attorney General’s office.
Prosecutors said they believe “attackers arrived by sea, aboard a jet ski shooting at some people presumably in dispute for drug sales.”
The 12-year-old, who has not been publicly identified, is not believed to have been purposefully targeted by the shooters.
“The authorities arrived immediately and the minor was transferred to the hospital where, unfortunately, he lost his life,” prosecutors said.
The boy and his family, who were present at the time of the shooting, are Mexican and from the municipality.
(WASHINGTON) — Following an election clouded by irregularities, the Biden administration on Monday called on Venezuela’s electoral authority to release detailed polling data to support its claim that the country’s autocratic leader Nicolas Maduro has secured a third six-year term — a contested outcome that could have significant ramifications for the region and fuel debate over immigration in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election.
“We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a news conference in Tokyo.
“It’s critical that every vote be counted fairly and transparently that election officials immediately share information with the opposition and independent observers without delay,” he continued.
Despite challenges from Maduro’s political opposition and unanswered questions from South American officials acting as impartial observers, Venezuela’s electoral council, which is aligned with Maduro’s regime, formalized the results of the vote, effectively handing the ruler another six-year term.
Maduro has responded with defiance.
“We have always been victims of the powerful,” Maduro asserted during a nationally televised ceremony on Monday. “An attempt is being made to impose a coup d’état in Venezuela again of a fascist and counterrevolutionary nature.”
María Corina Machado, the opposition popular leader, asserted that, despite Maduro’s claims, her party’s candidate had won an “overwhelming” victory and that the reported polling results were “impossible.”
In the weeks preceding the election, the prospect of Maduro clinging to power has stoked fears of increased economic turmoil and political violence that experts say could spark another exodus from the country.
Almost 8 million Venezuelans — roughly a quarter of the country’s population — have left the country over the last decade, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.
That diaspora has exacerbated irregular migration to the U.S. In 2023, border patrol agents encountered Venezuelan migrants attempting to enter through the southern border nearly 335,000 times, data from the Department of Homeland Security shows.
The Biden administration has attempted to curb the number of crossings through multiple initiatives, including by introducing a new policy allowing Venezuelans to apply for entry to the U.S. from abroad, resuming deportations of Venezuelan migrants, and even using diplomatic leverage to push Maduro to hold the country’s most recent election.
Despite the changes and modest improvements to Venezuela’s economy, data shows that the number of the country’s nationals crossing between checkpoints on the U.S.-Mexico border has remained elevated. Polling conducted by a Venezuelan-based research firm earlier this year found that roughly a quarter of the country’s current population was considering emigrating if Maduro won the election.
Senior Biden administration officials defended their handling of Maduro’s government, including using economic incentives to entice Maduro to take steps aimed at moving the country towards democracy.
“That Venezuela did, in fact, hold an election yesterday, which allowed an opposition candidate to be on the ballot and for a voting process to unfold only came about as a result of the calibrations that we’ve done with our sanctions policy over the last year,” one official said.
The driving factors behind Venezuela’s immigration crisis are also complicated. A high-ranking State Department official who served under President Donald Trump told the Washington Post he warned the former administration that imposing hardline sanctions would “grind the Venezuelan economy into dust & have huge human consequences, one of which would be out-migration.”
The Biden administration has largely kept Trump’s economic penalties on Venezuela in place, but it has made some notable carveout, including granting authorizations to select companies permitting them to operate in the country’s lucrative oil sector.
In the wake of Maduro’s handling of the election, officials indicated that they would not revoke existing sanctions but that they would rethink their approach to Venezuela based on whether the government increases transparency surrounding the election.
“We’re watching. The world watching. I won’t get ahead of a decision hasn’t been made here in terms of consequences. We’re going to hold our judgment until we see the actual tabulation of the results,” National Security Spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday.
(LONDON) — A 17-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with a stabbing that injured at least eight people in the United Kingdom, police and emergency officials said Monday.
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.
“Armed police have detained a male and seized a knife. He has been taken to a police station,” the department said in a statement.
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.
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 Liverpool 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.
“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.”
The town of Southport sits in the county of Merseyside, in England’s northwest.
(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.
(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.”
(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) — As the Israel-Hamas war continues, efforts to secure the release of hostages taken by the terrorist organization are ongoing, and Israeli forces have launched an assault in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Here’s how the news is developing:
July 28, 2024, 4:43 PM EDT Netanyahu and Gallant to decide how to retaliate for Golan Heights attack
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were granted the authority Sunday to decide the manner and timing of a response to the alleged attack by Hezbollah on the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, according to the prime minister’s office.
During a meeting in Tel Aviv, members of Israel’s political-security cabinet gave Netanyahu and Gallant the authority to devise a plan to retaliate for the strike that killed 12 people, including children playing soccer, according to the statement from the prime minister’s office.
“The members of the cabinet authorized the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense to decide on the manner of response against the terrorist organization Hezbollah, and when,” according to the statement.
Hezbollah has denied involvement in the rocket attack. The Israel Defense Forces and the White House both blamed Hezbollah for the attack.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
July 28 , 2024, 1:41 PM EDT White House blames Hezbollah for deadly rocket attack on Golan Heights
The White House on Sunday blamed Hezbollah for the rocket strike Saturday on Golan Heights that it said killed children playing soccer.
At least 12 people were killed in the weekend attack in Majdal Shams, a town in the Golan Heights, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
“We have been in continuous discussions with Israeli and Lebanese counterparts since the horrific attack yesterday in northern Israel that killed a number of children playing soccer,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement. “This attack was conducted by Lebanese Hezbollah. It was their rocket, and launched from an area they control. It should be universally condemned.”
Hezbollah has denied involvement in the rocket attack in Majdal Shams. But the IDF said a Hezbollah rocket was used in the attack, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier Sunday that “every indication” points to Hezbollah as responsible for the strike.
-ABC News’ Fritz Farrow
July 28, 2024, 12:35 PM EDT Middle East Airlines delays flights following Israeli strike on Lebanon
Lebanon’s flagship air carrier, Middle East Airlines, delayed departures of several inbound flights to Beirut on Sunday, the airline announced.
The decision by Middle East Airlines came after the Israel Defense Forces announced on Sunday that the military struck targets “deep inside” Lebonnon overnight. The IDF attack in Lebanon unfolded a day after a rocket strike killed 12 people in Majdal Shams, a town in Golan Heights.
Hezbollah denied involvement in the rocket attack in Majdal Shams, but IDF officials claim it was a Hezbollah rocket that hit a sports field, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “every indication” points to Hezbollah as being responsible for the strike.
Middle East Airlines said it delayed the departures of six inbound flights to Beruit that would normally land at night. The flights are now scheduled to land during the day on Monday, the airline said.
Meanwhile, Royal Jordanian Airlines also told ABC News it is considering rescheduling a flight from Amman to Beirut to early Monday morning.
(PARIS) — Services to the French rail networks have been partially restored following Friday’s sabotage attack ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony.
Crews worked through the night amid inclement weather to restore service to all the lines affected by the attack. The rail company is aiming to get service fully restored by Monday.
No arrests have been made nor have suspects been identified in the arson attack on the railway system.
Most train lines were running with delays after the fires and at least 800,000 people have been affected, according to a statement from France’s rail network, according to France’s state-owned railway network SNCF.
The fires started to be reported at 4 a.m. local time on Friday, SNCF said. Trackside signal boxes were set on fire and cables on the lines had been cut, which caused major disruptions in the north and east of France, according to SNCF.
SNCF said it had increased security along all lines with 1,000 workers and 50 drones.
Justin Timberlake’s DWI case in Sag Harbor, New York, has been adjourned until Aug. 2.
At that time Justin will be arraigned on misdemeanor charges of driving while intoxicated and failing to keep right, WABC-TV reports. The new arraignment is due to a problem with the way Justin was initially charged. He did not appear in court on Friday, according to WABC-TV.
Justin will now appear virtually Aug. 2 in Sag Harbor Village Justice Court. He’s been accused of running a stop sign and swerving out of his lane while leaving The American Hotel in his BMW.
According to WABC-TV, in his first public comments since the arrest, Timberlake’s attorney Ed Burke contended Justin “was not intoxicated,” adding, “I’ll say it again. Justin Timberlake was not intoxicated. And we are very confident that charge, that criminal charge, will be dismissed.”
Burke argued in court that the case should be thrown out due to a “defective accusatory instrument,” which is another way of saying there was an issue with the way that Justin was charged.
“The police made a number of very significant errors in this case … and there are many others,” Burke continued. “Sometimes the police, like every one of us, make mistakes. And that’s the case in this very instance.”
According to the criminal complaint, Justin “was driving drunk, had bloodshot, glassy eyes, slowed speech, was unsteady on his feet and performed poorly on a field sobriety test.” He told the arresting officer he’d only had one drink and refused to take a chemical test, WABC-TV reports.
The next date of Justin’s Forget Tomorrow World Tour is Friday in Poland.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Solomiya Fomeniuk, 16, recalled the Russian missile strike on the Okhmatdyt pediatric hospital in Ukraine earlier this month with horror, but also as a case of miraculous survival.
The girl was one of five children in the dialysis department at the moment of the attack on July 8. Two people — a doctor and a teacher — died as a result of the strike. A 7-year-old boy died later after he was transported away from the site, officials said.
Solomiya is disabled due to spinal hernia. The girl was admitted to the Kyiv hospital in late May 2022 after kidney failure.
“It’s the best clinic in Ukraine with a dialysis department and the only one where we can actually live to receive treatment regularly,” Solomiya’s mother, Oksana Fomeniuk, told ABC.
July 8 started as usual, she said, adding that even when the sirens went off, it didn’t initially scare the parents nor hospital staff.
“We’ve been here for a while, there were at least two impacts nearby during the past two years, but we always thought that a hospital is a safe place,” she said. “We are always anxious of course, but the kids learned to be courageous and patient since dialysis lasts for 4 to 5 hours and they can’t move during the procedure”.
However, when the first missiles hit the ground a couple kilometers from the hospital Oksana and others quickly went down to the shelter while doctors and nurses decided to go into the room to switch the kids off from the dialysis equipment and take them downstairs too. At that moment the missile hit.
“The first thing I saw was a piece of ceiling above me,” Solomiya recalled. “The equipment around prevented it from falling on me. I even raised my hands to try to hold it. I couldn’t breathe, there was dust and hot air around. And this smell…”
The girl saw two injured female doctors and a nurse lying on the floor bleeding, she said.
“One doctor, Anastasia, shook up from our cries, stood up and came up to pull me from the rubbles,” Solomiya said. “She is so tiny herself, but somehow managed to carry me to the window where men who ran from the street were already helping.”
Most of all the girl was worried about her mom, she confessed. Oksana herself barely got out of the rubble as the missile hit right at the foundation of the building.
“I smelled death,” she said. “I was in the rubble by the knees and couldn’t breathe because of the dust and the smell of the fuel.”
Oksana managed to run out through the back door.
“The second thing that shocked me was the scale of the damage,” she said. “Everything was in a black smoke, the building was destroyed, others half damaged. And all I could think about was where my Solomiya were.”
Oksana saw pieces of furniture and mattresses around, a body inside the premise, children coming out of the building through the broken windows, nurses carrying them out — and said she couldn’t believe that her daughter was alive.
“The nurse was running and shouting that Solomiya was OK and she was taken to another building, but I only believed that when I saw her there. I’m telling you, God saved us. Because if my girl were in another bed, as before, she could have died.”
Svitlana Lukyanchuk, a 30-year-old nephrologist, was later identified as the woman who had died in the room. The head of the dialysis department, Olha Babicheva, was also severely injured, officials said.
Young surgeon Oleh Golubchenko also said he believed he was lucky to be alive. Photos and videos of him in a white bloody uniform as he helped to search the debris went viral.
“My grandma carefully washed and whitened the robe right on the day before. I think I haven’t even thrown it away yet,” Golubchenko said, laughing both bitterly and with relief.
He had been performing a halo rhinoplasty on a 5-month-old patient on the morning of July 8.
“It’s a complicated procedure, but very interesting for me as a specialist. I pre-planned everything on the weekend, designed a model of the expected result,” Golubchenko told ABC.
The surgeon, anesthesiologist Yaroslav Ivanov, second surgeon Ihor Kolodko and nurse Olha Baranovych were halfway through the surgery when the siren went off in Kyiv.
“We don’t start operations during the air raid alert, but if we have already started we have to continue because you can’t move the patient quickly, especially a kid. So we carried on, stayed calm and even joked,” Golubchenko recalled.
When the missile hit the nearby building the wave threw him a couple of meters away from the operating table. “I was shocked for a few seconds and then saw everyone on the floor, bleeding. I shouted, ‘Is everyone alive?’ Olha, the nurse, was apparently severely injured, I saw her face really damaged. Yaroslav was bleeding too but got up.”
The doctors rushed to their little patient covered by surgical gowns. The boy was intubated, so Golubchenko couldn’t check if he was actually OK.
“I ran in the corridor to find an Ambu bag. The boy’s mom was there, shouting hysterically … I found the bag, the anesthesiologist disconnected the boy and quickly carried him away, I followed him … on my way I stopped to help another nurse as she was bleeding, so I bandaged her … There was such a chaos, total mess,” he said.
When Oleh went outside, the first person to call him was his friend, Rostyslav, who is also a surgeon, as he heard of the strike.
“I asked him to pick my patient and finish the surgery,” Golubchenko said. “He literally was here in 15 minutes and took the boy.” Taras, the boy who had been in surgery, and his parents are well now, Golubchenko said.
Only later did Golubchenko notice that he himself was covered in blood.
“I just felt something warm on my back and legs. Those were all small wounds from the glass. The doctors took everything away and said I had a concussion. I think I escaped with a fright. Big fright,” the surgeon said, sighing. “You know, before the surgery, the patient’s father asked me whether I believed in God. What a question! But now my outlook has transformed. I’m telling you, I went to the church the following day and prayed as I could.”
It’s painful for Golubchenko to see his department damaged as it had been just renovated. It was even more painful for many Ukrainians. Okhmatdyt, which in Ukrainian means protection of motherhood and childhood, is the best pediatric hospital in Ukraine. The doctors say they received incredible support from the management, while parents admit everything was done from the heart here, with great love to kids so that they experience as much fun and comfort here as possible.
In just one day, people and businesses raised more than $7 million for Okhmatdyt through the joint project of the UNITED24 presidential fundraising platform and Monobank. Germany accepted kids from the Kyiv hospital and pledged about 10 million euros for the reconstruction of the hospital.
Oleh Holubchenko said he himself received calls from his American colleagues who have helped a lot, in particular Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft-focused organization, and American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association
Fomeniuk and her daughter, Solomiya, said their hopes for Solomiya’s kidney transplantation, which they have been waiting for since last fall, have now now faded a bit due to the strike. But they still showed their support for the hospital and optimism for the doctors, who they hope keep going.
The attack on Okhmatdyt on July 8 was one of more than 1,800 such strikes in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, according to the World Health Organizaition.
Oksana confessed she sometimes thinks that horrible strike didn’t actually happen and it was just a horror movie because it doesn’t seem real.
“The missiles flying in Kyiv are not something normal by default,” she said. “When kids who are fighting for their lives have to suffer even more during the attacks is something totally, totally over the line.”
