(PARIS) — Police in Paris were searching the Paris 2024 Olympics headquarters on Tuesday, the event’s organizing committee said.
“A police search is currently underway at the headquarters of the Organising Committee,” the committee said. “Paris 2024 is cooperating fully with the investigators to facilitate their investigations.”
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(NEW YORK) — The United States Coast Guard and Royal Bahamas Defense Force called off its search on Sunday for an American free diver who went missing off the coast of Bimini, Bahamas.
Ryan Proulx, 31, was last seen near the Bimini Barge Wreck on Friday, a diving location roughly 1.5 miles west of Bimini Inlet, according to the Coast Guard.
After aircraft crews searched over 673 square miles for Proulx, the Coast Guard suspended the search on Sunday afternoon.
“We offer our deepest condolences to the Proulx family,” Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Matt Spado said in a statement on Twitter. “The decision to suspend the active search efforts pending further development is one we never take lightly.”
Proulx traveled from Palm Beach, Florida, to the Bahamas last Thursday with a group including his wife, according to his friend Steve Diffenbacher, who spoke with ABC affiliate WBPF-TV. An experienced diver and licensed captain, Proulx would frequently make the trip down the East Coast for clients who wanted to transport their boats, according to Diffenbacher.
According to the Coast Guard, Proulx was last seen wearing a green top and red fins while free diving at the Bimini barge wreck. Located nearly 75 feet under the surface with strong currents, the wrecked barge-turned-artificial reef attracts large game fish, which cluster near the shipwreck and a nearby drop-off, according to Scuba Schools International.
Proulx previously served as a police officer with the East Hartford Police and Monroe Police Departments, according to a release from the East Hartford Police Department. A representative for the East Hartford Police Department could not be reached for comment about Proulx’s disappearance.
Proulx’s family declined to make a public statement about the search.
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(NEW YORK) — Climate change is taking a major human, economic and environmental toll in Europe, which has now been dubbed the fastest warming continent of the world, according to a new report.
Europe has been warming twice as much as the global average since the 1980s, the report, released Monday by Copernicus, the European Union’s climate change service, and the World Meteorological Organization, states.
Summer 2022 in Europe was characterized by rolling heatwaves, record-breaking temperatures and more than 100 heat-related deaths in a single event.
In 2022, Europe was approximately 2.3 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial revolution average — global temperatures between 1850 and 1900, which are used as a baseline for the Paris climate accord.
Several countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. had their warmest year on record in 2022, according to the report.
Europe’s 2022 annual average temperature was between the second and fourth highest on record, with an anomaly of about 0.79 degrees Celsius above the average between 1991 and 2020.
Summers with extreme heat will likely be “frequent and more intense across the region” in the future, Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement.
“The record-breaking heat stress that Europeans experienced in 2022 was one of the main drivers of weather-related excess deaths in Europe,” Buontempo said. “Unfortunately, this cannot be considered a one-off occurrence or an oddity of the climate.”
The pattern of extreme heat has already continued into 2023. An early season heat wave that plagued countries along the Mediterranean Sea such as Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Algeria in April was found to have been prompted by anthropologic, or human-caused, climate change, according to a study published last month.
In addition to extreme heat, the year was also marked by drought, wildfires and sea surface temperature reaching new highs, which were then accompanied by marine heatwaves, the report states.
Meteorological, hydrological and climate-related hazards in Europe in 2022 resulted in 16,365 reported fatalities (many of them due to heat stress, the No. 1 weather-related killer in the world.
Glaciers in Europe lost a volume of about 880 cubic kilometers of ice from 1997 to 2022. The Alps were the worst affected, with an average reduction in ice thickness of 34 meters, the report said.
MORE: Extreme heat taking its toll on US, European economies
In 2022, glaciers in the European Alps experienced “unprecedented” mass loss in one single year, caused by very low winter snow amounts, a very warm summer and Saharan dust deposition, the researchers said.
The report also noted a “hopeful future” for renewable energy, which generated more electricity on the continent than polluting fossil gas for the first time in 2022.
Wind and solar power generated 22.3% of European Union (EU) electricity in 2022, overtaking fossil gas at 20%, the researchers said.
Increasing use of renewables and low-carbon energy sources is crucial to reduce dependence on fossil fuels,” World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “Climate services play a key role in ensuring the resilience of energy systems to climate-related shocks, in planning operations, and in informing measures to increase energy efficiency.
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(BEIJING) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday at 4:30 p.m. local time, according to an official with the U.S. Department of State.
The meeting comes amid soaring tensions between the United States and China, fueling concerns that the two counties could break out into conflict.
“State-to-state interactions should always be based on mutual respect and sincerity. I hope that Secretary Blinken, through this visit, could make positive contribution to stabilizing China-U.S. relations,” Xi said in opening remarks to Blinken before their closed-door meeting, according to Chinese state media.
Blinken, America’s top diplomat, arrived in the Chinese capital on Sunday for an official two-day visit aimed at easing tensions. He is the first U.S. secretary of state to visit China in five years and the highest-level U.S. official to make the trip since President Joe Biden took office.
On the first day of his high-stakes trip, Blinken met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang for nearly six hours and, afterwards, both sides said they had agreed to continue high-level discussions, with Qin accepting an invitation from Blinken to visit Washington, D.C. However, behind closed doors, Qin told Blinken that China-U.S. ties “are at the lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic relations,” according to Chinese state media.
Earlier Monday, Blinken met with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi for about three hours.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(MEXICO CITY) — When responding to the scene where two American tourists were found dead in their luxury hotel room in Mexico this week, paramedics told ABC News that they began to feel “intoxication symptoms such as hypoxia and racing heartbeat.”
The paramedics said they decided to leave because they felt the scene was unsafe. They then took themselves to a local hospital for treatment, they told ABC News.
The victims had no vital signs when the paramedics entered the room at Hyatt’s Rancho Pescadero on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula on Tuesday at around 9:10 p.m. local time. The lifeless body of a woman was found on the bed, while the lifeless body of a man was found in the fetal position on the floor of the shower, which was still on when the paramedics arrived, they told ABC News.
The victims had been dead for about 10 or 11 hours when they were found and there were no signs of violence or an altercation. The cause of death was “intoxication by substance to be determined,” the State Attorney General’s Office of Baja California Sur said in a statement on Thursday.
The attorney general’s office identified the victims as 28-year-old Abby Lutz and 41-year-old John Heathco, both from Newport Beach, California.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State confirmed the death of two American citizens in northwestern Mexico’s Baja California Sur state this week.
Rancho Pescadero is a Hyatt property and boutique beachfront hotel in the scenic village of El Pescadero, nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the foothills of the Sierra de Laguna mountain range. The hotel’s general manager, Henar Gil, said in a statement on Thursday that his staff does “not believe that the cause of death was related to any issues with the hotel’s infrastructure or facilities, including carbon monoxide or a gas of any kind.”
“Beyond anything else, on behalf of the entire Rancho Pescadero team, we are deeply affected and sorry for the loss the families and loved ones of Abby and John are enduring. This is a shocking and unimaginable situation, and we are committed to supporting and treating them with understanding and compassion,” Gil added. “We will continue to cooperate with authorities as they look into the cause of this terrible tragedy.”
Lutz’s family said they “are shocked and saddened to hear about the passing of our beloved Abby.”
“Abby had an adventurous spirit and a wonderfully kind heart,” they said in a statement on Thursday. “She loved to travel, see new places, and share her zeal for life with those around her. We ask for your thoughts and prayers for our family during this very difficult time.”
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(NEW YORK) — At least 15 people are dead and 10 injured in a “mass casualty collision” that occurred Thursday on a highway in Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.
The crash happened on the Trans-Canada Highway between a semi-trailer truck and a bus near the town of Carberry in southwestern Manitoba, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The collision occurred around 11:40 a.m. local time. The semi-trailer was traveling eastbound on Highway 1 when it struck the bus, which was traveling southbound on Highway 5, as the bus crossed the eastbound lanes, police said.
“Immediately it became apparent that this was a mass casualty situation,” Superintendent Rob Lasson, officer in charge of major crime services for Manitoba, told reporters during a press briefing Thursday evening.
The bus was carrying 25 people, the majority of whom were seniors, according to Assistant Commissioner Rob Hill.
Ten people were transported to the hospital with various injuries, Hill said. The local medical examiner was working to confirm the identities of those killed, he said.
“To all those waiting, I can’t imagine how difficult it is not knowing if the person you love the most will be making it home tonight,” Hill said during the press briefing.
Both drivers survived the crash and are in the hospital, authorities said.
Lasson stressed that it was still early but that the incident will be investigated fully.
“We need to be alive to the fact that there could be wrongdoing and if so, there could be a criminal element to this investigation,” Lasson said, calling it a “complex, large investigation.”
The head of the truck company involved in the crash, Day & Ross, said they will fully cooperate with the investigation and “offer any assistance and support that we can.”
“All of us at Day & Ross are heartbroken by the tragic news out of Manitoba this afternoon,” Day & Ross CEO William Doherty said in a statement to CTV. “The thoughts of the entire Day & Ross team are with those who have lost loved ones in this terrible incident, and we are holding out hope that those injured will recover.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the news of the crash “incredibly tragic.”
“I’m sending my deepest condolences to those who lost loved ones today, and I’m keeping the injured in my thoughts,” he tweeted. “I cannot imagine the pain those affected are feeling — but Canadians are here for you.”
ABC News’ Aleem Agha and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
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(NEW YORK) — At least 10 people are dead in a “mass casualty collision” that occurred Wednesday on a highway in Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.
The crash happened on the Trans-Canada Highway between a trailer truck and a transit vehicle near the town of Carberry in southwestern Manitoba, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Multiple hospitals in the region are preparing to receive patients from the incident, Shared Health in Manitoba said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(BAJA CALIFORNIA SUR, Mexico) — Two Americans were found dead in their luxury hotel room in Baja California Sur, Mexico, local police told ABC News.
Police and paramedics arrived at the Hotel Rancho Pescadero in El Pescadero around 9 p.m. Tuesday and found a man and a woman with no vital signs, police said.
The victims have been identified as John Heathco, 41, and Abby Lutz, 28, according to the Baja California Sur Attorney General’s office. Lutz is from Newport Beach, California, the AG’s office said. Local police initially said both victims were in their mid-30s.
Their cause of death was “intoxication by substance to be determined,” the AG’s office said in a statement Wednesday.
The man and woman had been dead for about 10 or 11 hours when they were found, the attorney general’s office said. There were no signs of violence on their bodies, according to the AG’s office.
“We can confirm the death of two U.S. citizens in Baja California Sur, Mexico on June 14. We offer our sincerest condolences to the families on their loss,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said Thursday. “We are closely monitoring local authorities’ investigation into the cause of death. We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance. Out of respect for the privacy of the families, we have nothing further to add at this time.”
Hotel Rancho Pescadero is a luxury hotel and a Hyatt property.
“We are truly heartbroken by this terrible tragedy,” Henar Gil, general manager of Rancho Pescadero, said in a statement. “Our hearts are with the impacted families and loved ones during this unimaginable loss. Local authorities are still actively investigating the situation, and the safety and security of our guests and colleagues remains a top priority, as always.”
Hyatt didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
ABC News’ Will Gretsky and Shannon Crawford contributed to this report.
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(BERLIN)– An American tourist was killed and another was injured when they were attacked by an American man they met near the famous Neuschwanstein castle in southern Germany, authorities said Thursday.
The incident occurred Wednesday afternoon in the German state of Bavaria near the Marienbruecke, a pedestrian bridge popular for its stunning view of Neuschwanstein. Nestled on the edge of the Bavarian Alps, the 19th-century palace was the inspiration for the castle in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Two women, ages 21 and 22, met a 30-year-old man on a hiking trail east of the bridge who then lured them onto a path that led to a viewpoint, according to a statement from the Bavarian State Police.
The man then “physically attacked” the younger woman, police said. When the other woman tried to intervene, the man choked her and pushed her down a steep slope. He then apparently attempted to sexually assault the 21-year-old before also pushing her down the slope. Both women fell nearly 50 meters (165 feet), according to police.
A mountain rescue service from the nearby town of Fuessen rescued both women. The 22-year-old was injured but responsive and taken to a hospital. The 21-year-old suffered serious injuries and was airlifted to a hospital, where she died overnight, police said.
The suspect had left the scene but was arrested close by soon after, according to police.
Although the names of the suspect and the victims have not yet been released, a Bavarian State Police spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that all three were American tourists.
The suspect appeared before a judge in the nearby town of Kempten on Thursday and was ordered to be held in jail pending a potential indictment. He is under investigation on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and sexual offense, according to police.
Police have called for any witnesses to come forward as they continue to investigate the alleged attack.
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(ROME) — The Vatican press office released photos on Thursday of Pope Francis recovering after undergoing intestinal surgery.
Francis was checked into Gemelli hospital in Rome Wednesday, June 7, for a three-hour intestinal operation.
The 86-year-old pontiff will be discharged on Friday morning, Matteo Bruni, director of the press office for The Holy See, said Thursday.
Photos taken and released on Thursday show the pontiff’s visit to “to the Pediatric Oncology and Children’s Neurosurgery Department on the 10th floor of Gemelli, adjacent to the apartment where he is convalescing,” the Vatican said.
The pope went to Gemelli hospital in Rome to undergo “a Laparotomy and abdominal wall plastic surgery with prosthesis under general anaesthesia,” Matte Bruni, director of the press office for The Holy See, said in a statement last week.
The Vatican has said in the days since that the surgery went well and the pope has been recovering.
“Pope Francis continued his convalescence this afternoon, working with rest and recovery intervals,” the Vatican said on Wednesday.
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