(NEW YORK) — New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana are under heat alerts Wednesday with the heat index — what the temperature feels like with humidity — expected to reach as high as 122 degrees in some areas.
Temperatures hit records on Tuesday and more are possible across Texas on Wednesday, including in Houston, where it could be up to 99 degrees; San Angelo, where it could be up to 110 degrees; Midland, where it could be up to 108 degrees; and Laredo, where it could be up to 113 degrees.
Temperatures in San Angelo and Del Rio, Texas, hit all-time record highs on Tuesday, reaching 114 degrees and 113 degrees, respectively.
The hottest place in the country Tuesday was Rio Grande Village, Texas, where temperatures reached 118 degrees. Record highs were reported all the way to North Dakota. Grand Forks hit 100 degrees, while Fargo reached 98 degrees and Jamestown hit 99.
Also, a new round of severe weather is expected Wednesday in the western Plains from South Dakota to western Texas, with the biggest threat being damaging winds and large hail.
Temperatures will cool slightly after Wednesday with thunderstorms rolling through, but temperatures are still expected to be above seasonal norms. Extreme heat will be back by next week.
Six states from Florida to Virginia are under flood alerts for more heavy rain over the next 48 to 72 hours.
Some areas could see additional 5 to 7 inches of rain and more flooding is expected.
Morrissey‘s been making music for 40 years, and he’s going on tour to celebrate.
The outing, dubbed the 40 Years of Morrissey tour, includes a run of dates in Mexico and South America before kicking off in the U.S. on October 7 in Orlando, Florida. It will wrap up later that month with four dates in New York City.
Morrissey released his first single with The Smiths in 1983. After The Smiths broke up in 1987, Morrissey went solo and released 13 albums on his own.
For the full list of dates, visit Morrissey’s Instagram page.
Billy Idol is celebrating the album that started it all for him. The rocker is releasing an expanded edition of his 1982 self-titled debut, with lots of new goodies for fans.
The new release, dropping July 28, will feature a previously unreleased 12-minute Clubland Extended Remix of his classic tune “White Wedding.” In addition, the two-CD set will feature a separate album with a previously unreleased concert, recorded August 12, 1982, at The Roxy in West Hollywood, California. It features performances of such tracks as “Hot in the City,” “Mony Mony,” “White Wedding” and more.
Idol is set to perform at the U.K.’s Glastonbury Festival on Saturday, June 24, as part of the new supergroup Generation Sex, featuring Idol and Tony James from Generation X, along with Steve Jones and Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols.He’ll also hit the road on a North American solo tour in late summer, kicking off August 27 in Vancouver, Canada. A complete list of dates can be found at BillyIdol.net.
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — A cheek swab taken from Bryan Kohberger is a statistical match to DNA evidence found at the Moscow, Idaho, crime scene where four University of Idaho students were murdered late last year, according to new court documents.
Kohberger, a 28-year-old criminology Ph.D. student at Washington State University, is accused of fatally stabbing Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.
Investigators found a Ka-Bar knife sheath on the bed with the bodies of Mogen and Goncalves. The sheath was face down, partially under Mogen’s body and the comforter on the bed, according to court documents.
DNA evidence was found on the Ka-Bar knife sheath that came from a single source that was male.
After assuming the investigation from Idaho State Police, the FBI submitted the possible suspect DNA to publicly available genetic genealogy services to determine potential relatives of the suspect. The FBI then used common genealogical techniques to develop a family tree that led to Kohberger.
The DNA was 5.37 octillion times more likely to be Kohberger’s than a random person from the general population, according to the documents.
Law enforcement previously said they had obtained DNA from the knife sheath and matched it to DNA from Kohberger’s father found in the trash outside the family home. Now, the new documents show a match directly from a cheek swab taken from Kohberger.
Kohberger, was arrested at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains on Dec. 30. Kohberger, who was arrested on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary, has been extradited from Pennsylvania to Idaho. He is being held awaiting trial.
The judge entered a not guilty plea on Kohberger’s behalf last month.
(QUINCY, Wash.) — A 26-year-old active-duty member of the U.S. Army has been identified as the suspected gunman who shot five people, two fatally, at a campground near a music festival in Washington state over the weekend, authorities said.
The soldier, Spc. James M. Kelly, who is stationed at the Joint Base Lewis McChord, was taken into custody after he was shot and wounded by an undercover police detective, who once served in the U.S. Marines, according to the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.
The shooting unfolded about 8:25 p.m. Saturday at a campground near the Gorge Amphitheatre in Quincy, Washington, which at the time was hosting the Beyond Wonderland electronic music festival.
Kelly was treated at a hospital for his injuries and booked at the Grant County Jail on suspicion of murder, officials said.
It was not immediately clear is Kelly has hired an attorney or will be appointed a public defender.
A motive for the deadly shooting rampage remains under investigation by the sheriff’s office and the North Central Washington Special Investigations Unit.
Killed in the incident were 29-year-old Brandy Escamilla and her fiancée, Josilyn Ruiz, 26, both of Seattle, according to the Grant County Coroner’s Office.
The sheriff’s office identified the victims wounded in the shooting as 31-year-old Andrew “August Morningstar” Caudra of Eugene, Oregon; 20-year-old Lily A. Luksich of Millcreek, Washington; and 61-year-old Lori Williams, who was working as a security guard at the music festival.
Luksich attended the music festival with Kelly, who allegedly shot her in her lower extremities, according to the sheriff’s office.
Williams was responding to the shooting in a utility task vehicle when she came under fire.
“During her response, she encountered the suspect who shot in her direction multiple times,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Williams was struck by a single bullet that penetrated the windshield and struck her in the right side of her face, shattering her glasses and causing bruising and lacerations.”
Escamilla and Ruiz were walking through the campground when they were randomly shot and killed, officials said.
Undercover Det. Edgar Salazar, a member of the Moses Lake Police Department, also responded to the reports of gunfire and confronted Kelly, whom he located with Luksich in an agricultural field adjacent to the campground, according to the sheriff’s office. Kelly was allegedly firing randomly into a crowd when he was shot by Salazar, the sheriff’s office said.
Other law enforcement officers took Kelly into custody and provided him with medical aid.
The 35-year-old Salazar, who was working undercover at the music festival, previously served in the U.S. Marines and is a firearms instructor and street crimes detective, according to the sheriff’s office.
The shooting prompted promoters of the electronic dance festival to cancel the event’s second day.
Lt. Col. Mike Burns, a U.S. Army Special Operations Command spokesman, said in a statement that Kelly joined the Army in 2021 and is a fire support specialist assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
(NEW YORK) — Hunter Biden’s plea agreement and pretrial diversion has been assigned to a federal judge who was appointed by President Donald Trump, but in the past has supported presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle.
U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika of the District of Delaware has been assigned to the case, according to a docket entry Wednesday, and will have the power to either approve or reject a plea agreement prosecutors brokered with Hunter Biden’s legal team.
Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, agreed to a plea deal Tuesday regarding a pair of tax-related misdemeanors and a deferred prosecution agreement on a felony gun charge following a five-year Justice Department probe.
Despite her appointment to the federal bench by a Republican, Noreika’s nomination was initially endorsed by two Democratic U.S. lawmakers, Delaware Sens. Chris Coons and Tom Carper, according to paperwork Noreika filed as part of her confirmation process.
She has in the past has contributed to both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, giving $2,500 to Mitt Romney in 2012, $2,300 to John McCain in 2008 and $1,000 to Hillary Clinton the same year, according to campaign disclosure filings.
Noreika also donated several thousand dollars to Tom Cotton’s Senate campaign between 2013 and 2014, and $1,000 to Rick Santorum’s Senate campaign in 2005.
She has not made any federal political contributions in the last nine years.
A native of Western Pennsylvania, Noreika attended Lehigh University and Columbia University before enrolling at the University of Pittsburgh Law School, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1993. She spent more than 25 years in private practice in Wilmington, Delaware, where her practice focused on patent law, before her nomination to the district court in 2017.
As part of his plea deal, the younger Biden will acknowledge his failure to pay taxes on income he received in 2017 and 2018, according to the agreement. For the gun charge, he will agree to pretrial diversion, with the charge being dropped if he adheres to certain terms.
He will likely avoid jail time if Noreika signs off on the deal.
The agreement would potentially end a yearslong probe by the Justice Department, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
(BUCHAREST, Romania) — Andrew Tate, the notorious influencer detained in December by Romanian officials, made his first court appearance as a defendant on Wednesday after being charged with rape, human trafficking and creating an organized crime group.
Tate faces the charges along with his brother, Tristan, another internet personality, and two women, both Romanian nationals, prosecutors said. The court hearing on Wednesday was intended to establish whether they would remain under house arrest, or face a lighter form of judicial surveillance that would allow them to leave their Bucharest compound.
A decision on their detention is expected to be handed down Friday.
Neither of the Tate brothers responded to ABC News’ questions outside the court, though Andrew Tate did issue a short statement to the assembled media following the hearing.
Tate, who has amassed a huge online following and continues to be active on social media, thanked his supporters and said, “we are not the first affluent and wealthy men who have been unfairly attacked.”
“I also want to give a very special thanks to Romania and Romanian people,” Tate said. “The number of Romanian people who send me messages is absolutely fantastic. This is my home, I love this country, I’m gonna stay here regardless no matter what, and I look forward to being found innocent.”
Andrew and Tristan Tate, along with two women, both Romanian nationals, were charged on Tuesday with rape, human trafficking and creating an organized crime group, local prosecutors said in a statement.
No trial date has been set, and such trials can take years in the Romanian judicial system.
They have all been in police custody — first in jail, then under house arrest — for about six months as they awaited the full charges.
“Tate’s legal team are prepared to cooperate fully with the appropriate authorities, presenting all necessary evidence to exonerate the brothers and expose any misinterpretations or false accusations,” a spokesperson for the siblings told ABC News on Tuesday.
ABC News’ Dragana Jovanovic contributed to this story.
(WASHINGTON) — Congress is in a race against the clock to regulate artificial intelligence and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is unrolling the early-stage steps that the chamber will take to try to get a handle on the rapidly evolving technology.
Artificial intelligence, or AI, poses potential peril to humankind, science and technology experts warned last month, writing in a statement posted on the Center for AI Safety’s website that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
Now, Congress is wading into the regulatory space, with leaders from both parties leading efforts to educate their members on and draft legislation around regulating artificial intelligence.
Schumer outlined early steps Wednesday for how Congress can rise to the challenge of regulating the industry before it’s too late.
“We have no choice but to acknowledge that AI’s changes are coming, and in many cases are already here. We ignore them at our own peril,” his prepared remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies read. “Many want to ignore AI because it’s so complex. But when it comes to AI, we cannot be ostriches sticking our heads in the sand. The question is: what role does Congress and the federal government have in this new revolution?” Schumer said.
Schumer’s SAFE Innovation framework, unveiled Wednesday, outlines four pillars that he hopes will guide future bipartisan collaboration on legislation governing AI: security, accountability, protecting our foundations and explainability. Lawmakers, Schumer said, should focus their efforts on ensuring U.S. security pertaining to AI and accountability to ensure issues like misinformation and bias are addressed. AI should also uphold democratic values, and lawmakers should understand why it chooses certain outputs, Schumer said.
The framework is not legislative text, and it’s not clear how long it will take for Congress to begin putting together legislative proposals. There has not yet been any legislation introduced in Congress to deal with regulating AI, though a bicameral group of lawmakers introduced a proposal earlier this week that would create a blue-ribbon commission to study AI’s impact.
Schumer is encouraging his committee chairs to work with top committee Republicans to begin drafting regulatory proposals.
To aid in that effort, he’s calling in the experts. In addition to the new framework, Schumer announced plans Wednesday to convene a series of forums this fall that will bring together industry leaders to discuss with one another and educate members on AI.
The goal, Schumer said, is to put Congress in a position to regulate before AI presents serious issues. It’s a relatively new approach for Congress, which typically reacts to issues as they bubble up.
“By the time we act, AI will have evolved into something new,” Schumer will say “AI is evolving so quickly — but also has such complexity — that a new approach is required.”
Schumer isn’t the only leader convening experts to discuss the subject. Earlier this year, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted two AI experts from MIT for an all-member session, Fox News reported. The Senate heard from one of those professors, Antonio Torralba, at a separate session earlier this month.
The administration is also turning its attention to AI.
President Joe Biden appeared at a roundtable event focused on AI in California on Tuesday, describing artificial intelligence as something that has “enormous promise and its risks.”
The president added that next month, Vice President Kamala Harris will lead a meeting of “civil rights leaders of America, consumer protection groups and civil society to continue our administration’s ongoing engagement on AI.”
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.
The life of Priscilla Presley is on display in the new official trailer for A24’s Priscilla.
Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, the film was adapted from Priscilla and Sandra Harmon’s 1985 book, Elvis and Me, and follows the life of the woman who was married to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Caliee Spaeny stars as the eponymous Priscilla, while Euphoria star Jacob Elordi takes on the role of Elvis Presley.
While no release date has been announced yet, the trailer promises the film is coming soon.
The 45-second trailer shows flashes of Elvis and Priscilla’s life together — from the Army days to their iconic wedding and the early years at Graceland.
“The hardest part of writing the script was just editing down so many incredible details from Priscilla’s memoir,” Coppola told Vogue in October 2022. “I was interested in trying to imagine what growing up in that world must have looked like through her eyes.”
As for what made Spaeny the right choice for the title role, Coppola said it was her ability “to act and age across a big span of time.”
“The character goes from the age of 15 to 27 over the course of the film,” Coppola said. “It was really important for me to have the same actress playing Priscilla at those different stages of her life, and I think Caliee can pull it off.”
And while it may seem like an impossible task to cast someone who can fill Elvis’ blue suede shoes, Coppola said Elordi “has that same kind of magnetism.”
“He’s so charismatic, and girls go crazy around him, so I knew he could pull off playing this type of romance icon.”
Who’d have thought Jason Aldean would nail it as a makeup artist? Well, he sort of did.
Jason’s wife, Brittany, recently shared a video of him doing her makeup, albeit discreetly. Throughout the clip, Jason hides behind Brittany with only his hands visible on camera.
The comical moment starts with Jason tying Brittany’s hair, and brushing her face with powder and blush. The “She’s Country” hitmaker then proceeds to apply “long, slow strokes” of eyeshadow on Brittany’s eyes as she laughs, before putting lipstick on her lips and, unfortunately, all over her face.
Could Jason take on a new job as a makeup artist? Watch Brittany’s Instagram video and decide.
