(LAFAYETTE, Ind.) — A 1-year-old boy was allegedly fatally shot by his 5-year-old sibling at an apartment in Indiana, police said.
Police received a report of a shooting at an apartment complex in Lafayette around 3 p.m. local time on Tuesday.
Responding officers found the 1-year-old dead from a gunshot wound at the residence, police said.
“Detectives with the Lafayette Police Department determined that the child was shot by his five-year-old sibling, who was able to gain access to a weapon in the apartment,” the Lafayette Police Department said in a statement.
The weapon was a handgun, according to police.
An autopsy was performed on Wednesday and the preliminary cause of death is one gunshot wound, Tippecanoe County Coroner Carrie Costello said.
The coroner identified the victim as 16-month-old Isiah Johnson.
There are no further updates in the investigation at this time, police said.
“This continues to be an active investigation by our department,” Lafayette Capt. Brian Phillips said in a statement to ABC News on Wednesday.
Lafayette is located about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis.
(WEST READING, Pa.) — The cause of a deadly fire is under investigation after seven people were killed and several others injured in an explosion at a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania, police and city officials said.
The explosion occurred Friday evening at the RM Palmer Company in West Reading, located about 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia. It caused destruction to one building nearby and damaged another. Images of the scene showed smoke and flames billowing from the factory.
One person had been found alive overnight in the rubble, giving first responders hope that more survivors would be rescued, though two additional bodies were recovered from the rubble at the site of the factory Sunday night, West Reading Police Chief Wayne Holben said at a press conference.
Tower Heath said earlier its hospital in West Reading initially received 10 patients from the explosion.
The victims killed in the incident ranged in age from 30 to 63 and were all from Pennsylvania.
They were identified by the Berks County Coroner’s Office as Michael Breedy, 62, of Marion Township; Diana Cedeno, 44, of Reading; Domingo Cruz, 60, of Reading; Susan Halvonik, 63, of Upper Providence Township; Judith Lopez-Moran, 55, of Reading; Xiorky Nunez, 30, of Reading, and Amy Sandoe, 49, of Ephrata.
“Forensic medical examinations are continuing to determine the cause and manner of death for all victims,” the coroner’s office said.
An investigation to determine the official cause of the fire will be conducted, officials said.
“In the initial incident report from Berks County to PEMA, a reference to a gas leak was included. It is really important to note that incident reports from counties are a snapshot in time of the understanding of the incident at the time the report was made,” Ruth A. Miller, PEMA’s communications director, said in a statement.
The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday said it’s launching a safety investigation looking into the natural gas explosion and fire.
West Reading Mayor Samantha Kaag issued an emergency declaration Saturday to access more resources for emergency responders on the scene.
Kaag, a former volunteer firefighter, called the incident “pretty scary,” adding that it was so strong it pushed a building back 4 feet. The mayor said the factory building was “pretty leveled” and crews will “probably” be working through the weekend to clear the debris.
In a statement Saturday, RM Palmer said it is “devastated by the tragic events.”
“We have lost close friends and colleagues, and our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of all who have been impacted,” the company said. “We are sincerely grateful for the extraordinary efforts of all of the first responders and for the support of our Reading community, which has been home to our business for more than 70 years.”
The company said it will continue to coordinate with local and national agencies to assist in the recovery process. It added that it has been unable to get in touch with the families of impacted employees at the time due to downed communication systems but “will be providing additional information and making contact with employees, impacted families, and the community as soon as possible.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was on site Saturday surveying the damage and “to pledge our support as the community recovers,” he tweeted.
A woman who lives next to the chocolate factory has filed a lawsuit accusing the company of negligence that led to the fatal explosion.
RM Palmer did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment about the lawsuit.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Wednesday voted to repeal two congressional authorizations from decades ago allowing the use of military force against Iraq, a country then falsely accused of stockpiling chemical and nuclear weapons and now a U.S. security partner in the Gulf region.
The measure passed the Democrat-led Senate in a bipartisan 66-30 vote and now heads to the Republican-controlled House.
The 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force took effect under former Presidents George H. W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, respectively. Both AUMFs authorized force against Iraq.
A third, broader AUMF approved by Congress 2001 was not incorporated into the latest repeal effort because supporters say it is still needed to combat al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS and related terror operations.
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a longtime advocate of repeal, said in a statement the Senate action would help Congress reassert its power to declare war as spelled out in the Constitution.
“Passing this bill is an important step to prevent any president from abusing these AUMFs, reaffirm our partnership with the Iraqi government, and pay tribute to the service members who served in Iraq and their families,” Kaine said.
Kaine said he urged the House, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to swiftly pass the legislation and send it to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature. Kaine’s Republican co-sponsor, Indiana Sen. Todd Young, called for quick action by the House as well.
“A broad and diverse coalition in the House supports this legislation, and I am hopeful the bill will receive prompt consideration,” Young said in a statement.
Previous attempts to retract or amend the authorizations failed in recent years, including a 2021 bill to repeal the 2002 AUMF approved by the then-Democratic-controlled House but which stalled when it reached the Senate.
In the current debate, some senators expressed concerns the new repeal attempt could be seen as a sign of U.S. weakness by international foes such as Iran. But the legislation has found a broad support in the House across party lines and McCarthy has indicated support for the measure.
The legislation “has a good chance of getting through committee and getting to the floor,” the California Republican recently said at a GOP retreat in Orlando.
Biden came out in support of repeal earlier in March, noting that no ongoing military activities rely on the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs.
“President Biden remains committed to working with the Congress to ensure that outdated authorizations for the use of military force are replaced with a narrow and specific framework more appropriate to protecting Americans from modern terrorist threats,” the White House said in a statement just before the Senate held a test vote March 16.
IAVA, a large Iraq war veterans’ group, welcomed the resolution, too, saying Congress should not allow a president to have “unchecked” authority over troop deployments.
“Congress has shirked its responsibility to our troops and their families for too long by leaving open-ended authorizations of military force in place. It’s past time to change that,” IAVA CEO Allison Jaslow said in. statement about the Senate vote.
(NEW YORK) — Artificial intelligence-driven language models have garnered millions of users in recent months, instantly whipping up viral sensations like a biblical verse about how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR.
However, the AI-enhanced chat bots pose significant dangers that far outweigh the benefits, according to a group of tech leaders, including entrepreneur Elon Musk, who signed an open letter on Wednesday calling for a six-month pause in the development of AI systems and a major expansion of government oversight.
“AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity,” the letter said.
“Recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control,” the letter added.
Earlier this month, artificial intelligence company OpenAI released the latest version of ChatGPT, the AI-powered language model that became an internet sensation late last year.
GPT-4, the latest model, can understand images as input, meaning it can look at a photo and give the user general information about the image; and it can write code in all major programming languages, among other advances.
The open letter released on Wednesday calls on AI labs to immediately pause the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.
In addition to Musk, prominent figures signed onto the letter include Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Marc Rotenberg, the president of the nonprofit Center for AI and Digital Policy.
In all, the letter features more than 1,000 signees, including professors, tech executives and scientists.
The letter arrives roughly a month after Microsoft released a newly AI-enhanced version of its search engine Bing for some users.
Microsoft declined to comment on the letter. Open AI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Describing conversations with the chatbot that lasted as long as two hours, some journalists and researchers warned that the AI could potentially persuade a user to commit harmful deeds or steer him or her toward misinformation.
In a series of blog posts, Microsoft acknowledged unexpected results and placed limits on the tool.
“We’ve updated the service several times in response to user feedback, and per our blog are addressing many of the concerns being raised, to include the questions about long-running conversations,” a Microsoft spokesperson previously told ABC News.
In January, Microsoft announced it was investing $10 billion in OpenAI, the artificial intelligence firm that developed Chat GPT.
The move deepened a longstanding relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI, which began with a $1 billion investment four years ago.
The open letter called on AI developers to work with policymakers to improve oversight of artificial intelligence technology, and called on the industry to shift its priorities as it works to enhance AI.
“AI research and development should be refocused on making today’s powerful, state-of-the-art systems more accurate, safe, interpretable, transparent, robust, aligned, trustworthy, and loyal,” the letter said.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. would like to see any decision on judicial overhaul in Israel in “keeping with a consensus” and based on the “broadest possible base of public support,” White House spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday.
Kirby sent the message at the daily briefing amid questions on a rare public disagreement between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Netanyahu’s controversial plan to overhaul his nation’s judiciary.
“The good thing about a deep friendship is that you can be that candid with one another,” Kirby told reporters about the close allies.
Netanyahu’s proposals, which opponents say amount to a power grab to give his government more oversight of the court system, prompted mass protests that brought Israel to a standstill.
The prime minister announced Monday a pause to the legislation to allow parties to negotiate, and to avoid a “civil war,” he said, but he vowed to implement the changes one way or another.
Netanyahu’s plan has sparked unease among Biden and other top U.S. officials.
Vice President Kamala Harris, asked about Israel while traveling in Ghana on Wednesday, said “we are all watching it.”
Biden told reporters on Tuesday that he was “very concerned” about the situation and said it was his hope Netanyahu “walks away” from his proposal.
“They cannot continue on this road, and I’ve sort of made that clear,” Biden said, adding he would not invite Netanyahu to the White House in the near future.
Netanyahu shot back that while the alliance between the U.S. and Israel is strong, “Israel is an independent country that makes its decisions according to the will of its citizens and not based on external pressures, including our best friends.”
The tensions between the two leaders coincided with the White House’s second Summit for Democracy happening this week with 120 countries.
Biden asserted democracies were becoming stronger, not weaker, as he spoke at the summit on Wednesday.
“The work of democracy is never finished, it’s never laid down,” the president said. “We have to continually renew our commitment, continually strengthen our institutions, root out corruption where we find it, seek to build consensus and redirect political violence.”
Netanyahu also addressed the summit in video remarks, in which he said the debate over his judicial proposal is an example of how to “ensure a proper democracy.”
“We have to move from protest to agreement, and that’s where I want to get,” Netanyahu said, adding that he believed a “balance can be achieved.”
The prime minister also took a moment to address the U.S.-Israel relationship, describing it as “unshakeable.”
Kirby said Wednesday there was “a lot to like” about Netanyahu’s remarks.
“He talked about searching for compromise, he talked about working towards building consensus here with respect to these these potential judicial reforms, he talked about how unshakable he knows the relationship is between the United States and Israel and he talked about his great respect for President Biden and that’s a respect President Biden shares as well,” Kirby said.
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson, Molly Nagle and William Gretsky contributed to this report.
Steven Van Zandt may be busy on tour with Bruce Springsteen, but he hasn’t forgotten about his other band. The guitarist just announced a very special concert with the Disciples of Soul.
Little Steven and the Disciples Of Soul present Sorcery & Soulfire Live! at the Basie! is set to go down April 18 at Red Bank, New Jersey’s Count Basie Center for the Arts. The show will have Little Steven and the band “reinventing” songs from two of their albums, 2017’s Soulfire and 2019’s Summerof Sorcery, along with other fan favorites.
“Come on down,” says Little Steven, “and we’ll see what sorcery we can conjure up!”
Tickets for the show are on sale now, but fans who can’t get there still have a chance to experience the evening. The concert will be recorded and released as a concert film later this year.
This isn’t the only performance the Disciples of Soul has planned. On April 15, they’ll be the house band at the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music’s American Music Honors event at Monmouth University, where Little Steven is among the inaugural honorees.
As for the Springsteen and the E Street Band tour, it hits Detroit, Michigan, Wednesday, March 29. A full list of dates can be found at brucepsringsteen.net.
The fifth episode of true-crime podcast Truth and Lies: The Boston Stranglerjust dropped, featuring a conversation with Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon, two of the stars of Hulu’s new film The Boston Strangler.
The podcast is the first collaboration between ABC Audio and 20th Century Studios, and is hosted by award-winning journalist and author Dick Lehr. It features ABC News archive material from the case and new interviews with relatives of those involved.
Knightley and Coon respectively play Record-American newspaper reporters Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole, the journalists who tracked the brutal murders that terrorized Boston in the 1960s.
“I’d heard of it, but I didn’t know anything about it,” English actress Knightley tells ABC Audio of the case. “So the script was the first time that I’d actually really known anything. And then [I] went, ‘Wow, look at these two women. This is amazing.’ And then sort of did some Googling and went, ‘Oh, they … have been completely left out of most of the things written about it.'”
Fargo Emmy winner Coon adds, “And as women, we’ve all walked into rooms and been dismissed or underestimated. And that’s certainly the way these women were being treated in a newsroom in the 1960s when it was so rare for women to be journalists at all, let alone not be just on the lifestyle desk or the advice column, or covering society pages.”
Coon continues, “It was 10 years before they coined the term ‘serial killer.’ … Loretta was doing some really innovative stuff by psychologically profiling that killer, and I think some of the cops were involved in that, as well. But that was very forward-thinking work. So it’s really also a journalism movie.”
20th Century Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
(A previous version of this story included a misspelling of Carrie Coon’s name. The text above has been updated to correct the error.)
(SANTA FE, N.M.) — Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies is stepping away from prosecuting the fatal on-set “Rust” shooting, her office announced Wednesday.
The move comes after state Rep. Andrea Reeb announced she would be stepping down as special prosecutor in the case as well.
In their place, Carmack-Altwies appointed long-time New Mexico attorneys Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis to serve as special prosecutors in the case over the fatal October 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, her office said. Actor Alec Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter for Hutchins’ death.
“My responsibility to the people of the First Judicial District is greater than any one case, which is why I have chosen to appoint a special prosecutor in the ‘Rust’ case,” Carmack-Altwies said in a statement. “Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis will unflinchingly pursue justice in the death of Halyna Hutchins on behalf of the people of First Judicial District.”
With the appointment of the new special prosecutors, Carmack-Altwies will step aside from prosecuting the case, “allowing her to focus on the broader public safety needs in New Mexico’s First Judicial District,” Heather Brewer, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office, said in a statement.
There will be no further comment on the case at this time, Brewer said.
ABC News’ Vera Dryman contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
For a Rolling Stones fan, there would be few things better than a lifetime, all-access pass to their concerts. And apparently Owen Wilson had one, but it was revoked after he took the definition of “all access” too far.
During an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Wilson explained he and a friend, who was good friends with Mick Jagger, were given all-access laminates, noting they “were good for the rest of your life.” But then he messed up at a show in Argentina.
“That night, at the concert, I’m kind of wandering around and testing it out — like, ‘I’m going to walk over here and see if anybody stops me.’ And no one would stop me any place,” Wilson explained. “I ended up right at this place where I could look over and see Mick Jagger on the stage right there and I’m kinda watching and then all of a sudden he bolts during ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ and comes running down.”
Turns out Wilson was standing on part of the stage; he says he froze as Jagger came running toward him.
Wilson says he felt terrible after it happened, noting, “I go to bed that night still thinking, ‘Well, gosh, that was kind of a gnarly experience.’” And that big mistake resulted in his pass being revoked.
“Then I get a call the next morning asking, from Mick’s security team, ‘Do you have that laminate?’ ‘Yes, I still have it.’ ‘OK, we’re going to come over and pick it up,'” he said.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Wilson didn’t get to enjoy the pass for very long: “I only had it for 24 hours.”
(DEN HAAG, Netherlands) — A 41-year-old man allegedly fathered more than 500 children in the Netherlands, according to the Donorkind Foundation, an organization that helps children born via sperm donations who are looking for their origins.
Donorkind, which is based in Den Haag, Netherlands, confirmed in a statement that a generous “serial donor” would have given his sperm nationally and internationally.
A lawsuit brought by the mother of one of his children is now asking a Dutch court to help prevent the man from donating in the future.
According to the Dutch medical guidelines, a donor can only father 25 children to avoid possible incest and psychological problems. But it’s not considered a criminal offense to go over.
The donor, who Dutch media identified as “Jonathan M.,” was already excluded in 2017 from donating via the Dutch Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (NVOG). At that time, he already fathered 102 babies from 11 different clinics, officials said. But it did not stop “Jonathan,” who is said to be a musician to carry on his genetic contributions both online and internationally.
Ties van der Meer, chairman of Donorkind, who was also conceived by a sperm donation, told ABC News that his foundation received multiple phone calls from more than 30 mothers this week.
“They were calling from all over the world,” he said. “They were all very worried wondering if their child would be coming from the same donor.”
“Jonathan M.” never mentioned the real number of children he truly had to the Fertility clinics or to the mothers, van der Meer said, adding that he’s in regular touch with some of the mothers of Jonathan’s 500 kids.
The Donorkind president confirmed to abc news that “Jonathan M.” even sees few of his children.
“It needs to be flagged and to be fought. I can imagine how traumatic it can be,” said Ines M., a 38-year-old who had a baby with an anonymous donor 2 years ago from the Netherlands. Her daughter will have the option to meet with her donor when she turns 16.
Donorkind Foundation says it’s now fighting against keeping donors anonymous, as “it makes very complicated to control the number of children for each of them.”
According to van der Meer, “anonymity” goes against the right of the child: “I speak with children now adults who live in constant fears. They are afraid of having a relationship with their group siblings without knowing it”.
Donorkind Foundation is also asking the Netherlands to destroy any of the samples “Jonathan M.” has stored, except those to be used by women who already had a baby via his donation and would like to give a sibling to their child.
In the Netherlands, private or public clinics pay between $10 to $20 per sperm donation.
