(NEW YORK) — A U.S. fighter jet shot down a Turkish drone armed with air-to-surface missiles that was flying extensively in the area of U.S. ground troops in northeast Syria on Thursday, according to a U.S. official.
An F-16 shot the drone down after a dozen unheeded calls to Turkish military officials stating American forces were in the area and the U.S. would engage in self-defense if it didn’t leave, according to the official.
The shootdown of the Turkish drone comes days after Turkey conducted retaliatory airstrikes in northern Iraq against locations related to the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), the militant Kurdish group that claimed responsibility for recent bomb attacks in Ankara.
Reuters reported Thursday that the Turkish Defense Ministry said in a statement that the drone did not belong to the Turkish armed forces.
Both the United States and Turkey are members of the NATO alliance, and Thursday’s shootdown will likely increase the tensions between the two countries, which had previously been at odds over Turkey’s refusal to allow Sweden to join the alliance.
There are about 900 U.S. troops based in eastern Syria who continue to work with Syrian Kurdish forces to prevent a resurgence by the Islamic State. Known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Turkey has repeatedly claimed the SDF and the PKK are the same organization.
The U.S. has previously criticized Turkish airstrikes inside Syria that targeted Kurdish forces operating in close proximity to American forces.
Last November, U.S. officials said one Turkish airstrike came within 130 meters of American military personnel.
“These strikes put our troops at risk. They also risk the continuation of the defeat ISIS mission,” a U.S. Central Command spokesman said at the time.
That airstrike came at a time when the Turkish military was conducting a ground operation against SDF forces in northern Syria that led the Kurdish group to suspend its military operations with the U.S. military.
Bell Biv DeVoe joined forces with Rev Run for a fresh new single full of throwback ’90s vibes.
Co-written by Rev Run, BBD and fellow ’90s hip-hop legend LL Cool J, “Act Like You Know” marks the group’s first single in six years.
“‘Act Like You Know’ celebrates the brotherhood and history between us and Run that’s been 40 years in the making,” MichaelBivins of BBD said. “We hope the fans enjoy this track as much as we did getting together to make it.”
The celebratory track arrives on the heels of the cable debut of The Hustle of @617MikeBiv, the WE tv docufilm exploring the life and career of Bivins, the Grammy-winning artist and founder of BBD and NewEdition.
The Hustle of @617MikeBiv first released August 24 on ALLBlk, AMC’s destination for all things Black TV and entertainment. The movie is described as “an inspiring story of triumph and resilience” that traces Bivins’ dreams of “being an NBA player to becoming one of R&B and hip hop’s most influential figures.” Featured in the film are all the members of BBD as well as SnoopDogg, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, DougE.Fresh, Sean “Puffy” Combs and more.
Along with the docufilm’s WE tv release on October 5 at 9 p.m. ET, viewers will be able to enjoy the premiere of the song’s official music video.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — At least 49 people, including a 6-year-old boy, were killed Thursday in Russian missile strikes on a village in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine, officials said.
At least seven others were wounded in the attack, which targeted a building that housed a cafe and a shop in the village of Groza in the Kupyansk district, according to the local prosecutor’s office.
(NEW YORK) — Australia is voting in a landmark referendum to decide whether it will permanently recognize Indigenous Australians in the Constitution and set up a body to advise on policies impacting their communities.
More than 17.6 million Australians are called on to cast their ballots in the compulsory vote on Oct. 14.
The proposal would see an advisory body elected by and made up of Indigenous Australians. It would have no veto power to make laws but would be able to directly consult parliament and the government.
“For as long as this continent has been colonized, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been fighting to assert and reassert the right to determine their own futures in this place,” said Sana Nakata, Principal Research Fellow at the Indigenous Education and Research Centre at James Cook University.
“So this vote has been a long time in the making. It won’t come again,” said Professor Nakata.
Views towards “the voice” are mixed, even within Indigenous communities where some are skeptical about how much change it could actually bring about; however, polling shows 80% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians support it.
“Like in any community, not all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people agree, “ said Professor Nakata. “There are prominent Aboriginal people arguing against the Voice to Parliament process on conservative grounds, and others who argue against the Voice to Parliament out of preference for treaty or to demand greater law-making power than the Voice enables.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is campaigning for a “yes” vote, although government opposition and the right National party are mostly arguing against.
Generally, the “no” side is leading the opinion polls.
Either way, there’s no doubt the referendum is igniting fierce debate in Australia over where the country is as a nation on reconciliation and forcing Australia to confront ghosts of the past.
Indigenous Australians remain one of the most disadvantaged groups in Australia, with low life expectancy, high rates of suicide and some of the highest incarceration rates in the world.
“Yes” advocates say that official recognition by way of a constitutional change is a step towards reconciling the pain of the past and closing the gap between indigenous Australians and the rest of the population.
They argue it will drive practical progress in the hardships faced by indigenous Aussies in areas such as health and infant mortality, education and employment.
However, those in the “no” camp say such an advisory body would create additional layers of bureaucracy, potentially leading to filibustering or ineffectiveness. They also say the proposal is too vague.
Professor Nakata disagrees that it will impede on government or parliamentary efficiency, saying, “all in all, the Voice offers an opportunity to hold the existing bureaucracy more accountable to the communities that they govern and does so in a way that allows ‘the Voice’ to determine for itself what are priority issues to guide its work.”
For the proposal to pass, there needs to be a double majority — which means both a majority of Aussie voters and at least four out of six states need the majority vote.
Other countries have enshrined the rights of Indigenous people, including Canada which recognizes the rights of its Indigenous people under the Constitution Act 1982.
(LONDON) — An ecstatic couple slow danced surrounded by their loved ones in an opulently decorated wedding hall flanked by pyrotechnics.
Within an hour, over 200 of their closest friends and family suffered severe burns and smoke inhalation. More than half did not survive.
Videos verified by ABC News and reviewed by a fire investigator reveal the hazards that turned the venue, Al-Haitham Hall in Hamdaniya, Iraq, into what the investigator described as a “firetrap.”
The deadly fire in late September sparked a speedy government investigation that placed the blame on the venue’s owners but has also revealed broader cleavages within Iraqi society.
Pyrotechnics
A report issued by Iraq’s Interior Ministry four days after the fire highlights four pyrotechnic devices in the center of the wedding hall as responsible for the start of the fire. Sparks reached four meters in height, according to the report.
The judgement prompted ire among some observers, who claimed the devices were “cold” pyrotechnics that did not emit live flames. Several TikTok videos showed users placing their hands into the showers of sparks emitted by the devices in an effort to demonstrate their perceived lack of risk.
In security footage from less than a minute before the fire began, a videographer can be seen stepping through the sparks, but experts say the devices may not be without their risks. ABC News consulted a person with knowledge of cold pyrotechnics who said they can still be hazardous if safe distances are not observed and the sparks come into contact with flammable material.
Captain Walter Godfrey, president of Fire/Reconstruction Consultants Inc., which is based in Florida, reviewed the video and said the four “cold” pyrotechnic devices were the “central ignition source” and in turn led to the fire spreading to the hall’s “highly flammable” central ceiling fixture.
Flammable decorations
Drone video obtained from wedding videographers shows the hall’s elaborately decorated central ceiling fixture.
Godfrey identified the brown material as the first to be ignited.
“Being leafy in design it allowed sufficient oxygen around the individual leaves to support combustion and depending on their chemical make-up supports rapid flame spread throughout the venue,” he said.
Godfrey identified this same material falling from the ceiling in the video, moments after the fire began.
Godfrey believes the flaming decorations then acted as a catalyst, spreading to the white fabric drapes acting as light diffusers and gold hanging decorations, before falling on vinyl covered tables and chairs and in turn igniting them.
Security video released by Iraqi’s interior ministry shows thick smoke billowing down from this same central ceiling fixture. Godfrey believes the smoke was circulated by air conditioning units located close to the active fire, further adding to confusion and obscuring vision in the first few minutes.
Blackout
Gandhi Bashar Abdul Ahad, a musician at the wedding, told ABC News that women and children started screaming as they noticed the fire dropping from the ceiling.
“All the lights went out inside the hall, and it became very dark, and people started bumping into chairs and tables and people falling on top of each other,” he said.
The government investigation claimed the hall’s owner, thinking that a short circuit had started the fire, had cut the electricity and plunged the room into darkness. Godfrey suggests instead the fire could have caused the circuits in the ceiling area to short out, pop the breakers, and cut out the lights.
Fire exits
ABC News spoke with two attendees who confirmed that there were only two exit routes; the main entrance and a second exit route via the kitchen.
Godfrey deems the lack of exits on a building of this size as “criminal,” highlighting how the table layout acted as a barrier, trapping guests on one half of the room with no exit route.
When the fire broke out Ghandi was sitting with the band on stage. He said, along with the bride and groom, he managed to escape through the kitchen door.
“I went to the main door to help the families, but I was unable to enter due to the intensity of the fire inside. No one could enter the hall to save the families because everyone who entered would die,” he said.
Graphic videos taken by videographer Ghali Kasko at 11:36 p.m. show gaping holes in the external walls that Ghali claims were made by desperate civilians using bulldozers to reach people trapped inside the building.
Failure to enforce regulations
Nineb Lamassu, a Peacebuilding Advisor for an NGO based in Mosul, told ABC News the scale of the deadly fire was the result of negligence on the part of the proprietor.
However, the interior ministry’s recommendation in its report that six regional officials be fired for their failure to enforce safety regulations has angered many in the often-neglected region of Ninevah, who believe administrators from the local Christian community are being unequally scapegoated.
Speaking to ABC News from Baghdad, Abbas Kadhim, director of the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative, said the government report’s fast turnaround was the result of political pressures as Iraq’s government faces the approaching anniversary of opposition protests.
“This is a time when the atmosphere is very tense,” Kadhim said.
“It’s very hard to expect the government to reform this situation because it is associated with the wider problem of corruption which is rampant in the country. Enforcement is next to nil,” Kadhim said.
“Many feel it didn’t handle the root causes of the problems,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — The year 2023 is already on track to be the warmest year on record, according to Copernicus, Europe’s climate change service.
The month of September saw several unprecedented temperature anomalies around the world, following the hottest summer ever recorded, according to the monthly climate report released by Copernicus on Wednesday, which analyzes billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world to highlight changes observed in global surface air temperature, sea ice cover and hydrological variables.
Several records were broken “by an extraordinary amount” in September due to never-before-seen high temperatures for that time of year, Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement. The month as a whole was around 1.75 degrees Celsius (3.2 Fahrenheit) warmer than the September average for 1850 to 1900, the preindustrial reference period, according to the report.
Now, 2023 is expected to round out the year as the warmest on record globally — clocking in at about 1.4 C above pre-industrial levels, Burgess said.
The number is dangerously close to the goal to limit global warming to 1.5 C (2.7 F) above pre-industrial levels set in the Paris Agreement.
Average global surface air temperatures in September 2023 measured at 16.38 C, about 61.48 F, nearly 1 degree Celsius above the 1991 to 2020 average for September and beating the previous record, set in 2020, by .5 degrees Celsius, according to Copernicus.
The global temperature during September 2023 featured the largest deviation from the average, not just for the month of September, but for any month in the dataset going back to 1940, the researchers said.
Among the continents that experienced warmer-than-usual conditions in September was Europe, which beat its previous record by 1.1 degrees Celsius.
Antarctic sea ice extent also remained at a record low level during the month of September. Both the daily and monthly extents reached their lowest annual maxima in the satellite record in September, with the monthly extent 9% below average, according to the report.
Greenhouse gas emissions and El Niño conditions over the equatorial eastern Pacific are likely both playing a role in reaching new global temperature records, models show.
With El Niño conditions forecast to strengthen through the end of the year, the annual temperature anomaly for 2023 could follow trends set in Summer 2023 and September 2023, breaking the previous record by a large margin.
Globally, 2023 has already featured the hottest summer on record, multiple hottest months on record, including July and August, and the hottest day recorded on Earth for several days in a row at the beginning of July.
The last time Earth recorded a colder-than-average year was in 1976.
(NEW YORK) — A bus crash on Tuesday in Mestre, Italy, a suburb near Venice, left 21 dead, including two babies, and another 15 riders injured, according to officials.
Prosecutors are investigating whether the 40-year-old driver suddenly became ill before the coach plunged off an overpass and onto a highway, officials said Wednesday. Investigators are also looking into whether the bus was certified.
The bus was carrying passengers to a campsite in Marghera when the wreck occurred, police said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Many of the injured, who were rescued in an evacuation operation, were listed as code red, indicating they were in critical condition. Authorities initially said 18 people were injured, but on Wednesday the number was revised to 15.
The injured passengers were taken to five hospitals in Veneto, officials said.
Venice City Councillor Renato Boraso told reporters that some of the passengers aboard the electric bus suffered burns.
Veneto Gov. Luca Zaia said most of the passengers on the bus were foreign tourists, but it remained unclear Wednesday what countries they were from. There were no immediate reports of Americans being on the bus.
Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro declared a state of mourning through Friday for the “tragic accident that occurred in Mestre,” ordering flags to be lowered to half-mast across the city “in memory of the numerous victims who were on the fallen bus,” he said in a statement posted on X.
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered her “condolences to the families of the victims and those injured in the serious accident in Mestre.”
Italian President Sergio Mattarella also called the mayor of Venice “to express his condolences for the very serious tragedy of Mestre,” the official account of the Italian president posted on X.
The accident impacted the local railway network, shutting it down for a time, though services were later restored, officials said. Traffic in the area was impacted, according to a post from the City of Venice.
ABC News’ Will Gretsky and Jolie Lash contributed to this story.
(NEW YORK) — A major class of vertebrate species is experiencing widespread population declines due to climate change, according to new research.
Amphibians, the most threatened class of vertebrates, are deteriorating globally, with about 40% of more than 8,000 amphibian species studied categorized as threatened — a greater percentage than threatened mammals, reptiles or birds, a paper published in Nature on Wednesday suggests.
Habitat loss due to agricultural expansion, timber and plant harvesting and infrastructure development is the most common threat, affecting about 93% of threatened amphibian species, Jennifer Luedtke, manager of species partnerships for conservation nonprofit Re:wild and the global coordinator for the Amphibian Red List Authority for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Amphibian Specialist Group, told reporters during a news conference.
But global warming in recent decades is likely the culprit for the increased declines, the researchers said. Since 2004, when the first Global Amphibian Assessment was completed by the IUCN, the primary driver of the declines has shifted from disease to climate change, according to the paper.
Between 2004 and 2022, the effects of climate change were responsible for 39% of amphibian species moving closer to extinction, compared to just 1% in the two decades prior, Kelsey Neam, species priorities and metrics coordinator at Re:wild and program officer for the Red List Authority of the IUCN’s Amphibians Assessment Group, told reporters.
Amphibians are particularly sensitive to changes in their environment, partly because they breathe through their skin, Neam said.
Effects of climate change — like sea level rise, wildfires, changes in moisture and temperature and increasing frequency — and intensity of extreme weather events — such as storms, floods and drought — can result in the loss of important breeding sites for amphibians, which can then lead to increased mortality, Neam said.
Amphibians are often forced to adapt or move elsewhere, but the changes are often occurring too quickly for them to adapt, and habitat fragmentation is creating barriers that make migration increasingly challenging, Neam said.
“Habitat protection alone won’t be sufficient as a risk reduction measure,” Luedtke said. “We really need to be promoting the recovery of amphibians by mitigating the threats of disease and climate change through effective actions.”
Salamanders and newts were found to be the most heavily affected species, according to the paper.
The greatest concentrations of threatened species were found in the Caribbean islands, Mesoamerica, the tropical Andes in South America, the mountains and forests of western Cameroon and eastern Nigeria in Africa, Madagascar, the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka.
Documented amphibian extinctions also continue to increase, the study found. At least 37 species have been lost since 1980, the most recent being two frog species, Atelopus chiriquiensis and Taudactylus acutirostris.
However, not all the paper’s findings were bad news, the researchers said.
Since 1980, the extinction risk for 63 species of amphibians has been reduced due to conservation intervention, “proving that conservation works,” Luedtke said.
Urgent scaled-up investment and policy responses will be needed to support the survival and recovery of amphibians, the researchers said.
(LONDON) — Over the last few years, fluorescence under ultraviolet light has been reported among many animals, including birds, reptiles, insects and fish. However, not much has been known about the frequency of fluorescence among mammals. Until now.
In a new study published today by researchers from the Western Australian Museum and Curtin University, fluorescence among mammals was found to be “extremely common.”
These include domestic cats, or Felis catus, along with polar bears, bats, mountain zebra, wombats, dwarf spinner dolphins, leopards and Tasmanian devils.
Fluorescent compounds were found in bone, teeth, claws, fur, feathers and skin, researchers said.
The fluorescent colors observed including red, yellow, green, pink and blue.
“We were quite curious to find out about fluorescence in mammals,” said Kenny Travouillon, curator of Mammalogy at the Western Australian Museum and lead author of the study. “By using the spectrophotometer in the School of Molecular and Life Sciences at Curtin University, we were able to measure the light that was emitted from each specimen when exposed to UV light.”
Scientists explain that fluorescence is the result of a chemical on the surface of a mammal — such as protein or carotenoid — that absorbs light before emitting it at “longer and lower-energy wavelengths” — often a pink, green or blue glow.
The platypus — one of Australia’s most treasured species — was also found to fluoresce under UV light.
“To date, reports of fluorescence among mammal have been limited to a relatively small number of species,” the study’s authors said. “Here, we are able to reproduce the results of these previous studies and observe apparent fluorescence in additional species: we report fluorescence for 125 mammal species.”
The most fluorescent animals were found to be all white or with lighter colored fur, which represented 107 out of 125 species, of about 86%. Fluorescence, however, was more “masked” by melanin in mammals with darker fur, such as the Tasmanian devil.
“There was a large amount of white fluorescence in the white fur of the koala, Tasmanian devil, short-beaked echidna, southern hairy-nosed wombat, quenda, greater bilby, and a cat — and while a zebra’s white hairs glowed its dark hairs did not,” said Travouillon.
Only one mammal examined — the dwarf spinner dolphin — has no fluorescence externally. Only the teeth of the dolphin were found to fluoresce.
“Fluorescence was most common and most intense among nocturnal species and those with terrestrial, arboreal, and fossorial habits,” said Travouillon.
The study makes clear that fluorescent qualities are very common in mammals, however, scientists say debate continues on if fluorescence has any particular biological function in mammals, or if it is simply a result of their surface chemistry: “For most fluorescent animals there is insufficient information to evaluate.”
“The only major mammalian clade missing from our dataset is lemur, a group that requires further investigation for the occurrence of luminescence; we predict, based on the prevalence of white fur, that this clade will also contain fluorescent species,” the researchers said.
“We would not suggest that further studies should focus on non-preserved animals e.g., live or freshly dead,” they concluded.
(DUBAI, United Arab Emirates) — A 21-year-old New York City college student who was recently sentenced to prison time in the United Arab Emirates over an altercation at a Dubai airport has been freed, an advocacy group said.
Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, a student at Lehman College in the Bronx, had been sentenced to one year in prison after being accused of “assaulting and insulting” Dubai International Airport customs officials, according to Detained in Dubai, an advocacy organization that supports foreign nationals who have been detained and prosecuted in the United Arab Emirates.
Her sentence has since been commuted and she boarded a flight home to New York late Tuesday night, the group said.
“The 21 year old is ecstatic to be returning to the US after five months of anguish,” Detained in Dubai said in a statement.
De Los Santos had been detained in Dubai since July, according to Detained in Dubai. She was traveling back to New York from a trip to Istanbul with a friend when she had a 10-hour layover in Dubai on July 14, the group said. While going through security, a security officer asked the student, who recently had surgery, to remove a medical waist trainer suit she wears around her waist, stomach and upper chest, Detained in Dubai said.
De Los Santos complied and repeatedly asked the female customs officers for help to put the compressor back on to no avail, according to Detained in Dubai. While calling out to her friend for help, she “gently touched” the arm of one of the female officers “to guide her out of the way” of the security curtain, De Los Santos told Detained in Dubai.
De Los Santos was detained for touching the female customs office, signed paperwork in Arabic and was allowed to leave the airport, according to Detained in Dubai. Upon returning for her flight to the U.S., she was told she had a travel ban issued against her, the group said.
On Aug. 24, judges ordered her to pay a fine of 10,000 dirhams (about $2,700) but customs officials appealed the sentence, according to Detained in Dubai. She was sentenced to a year in prison, the advocacy group said on Monday.
“They either want her in jail or they want to pressure her into making a compensatory payment to them,” Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, claimed in a statement last month. “The government of Dubai should stop this type of corruption by banning government employees from being able to accept out-of-court settlements for criminal complaints,” but does not mention the risk of detention.
The State Department said earlier Tuesday they are “aware of the sentencing” of De Los Santos.
“The department is in communication with her and her family and we’re going to continue to monitor her case and be involved,” State Department principal deputy spokesperson Verdant Patel said at a press briefing Tuesday.
ABC News did not immediately receive a response from Dubai authorities seeking comment on the matter.
Prior to De Los Santos’ sentence being commuted, Detained in Dubai said the appeals process could take months and called for De Los Santos’ immediate release. The group also urged the State Department to revise its travel warnings to “include the risk of false allegations and extortion scams.” Currently the State Department’s advisory warns Americans to “exercise increased caution in the United Arab Emirates due to the threat of missile or drone attacks and terrorism.”
De Los Santos’ mother contacted Detained in Dubai after learning about Tierra Allen’s case, the group said. The Texas resident was charged in Dubai for allegedly verbally accosting a rental car agent in April and was issued a travel ban while awaiting trial, according to Detained in Dubai. Her criminal charges were ultimately dropped and the travel ban lifted, and she was able to return to the U.S. in August, according to Detained in Dubai.
