(NEW YORK) — Government officials are closely tracking a massive surveillance balloon believed to be from China as it travels across the U.S.
The white balloon, which China’s foreign ministry has claimed to be used for meteorological purposes, is at an altitude of around 60,000 feet with a vessel described as the size of three buses, officials said.
According to U.S. officials, the balloon traveled west of Alaska, south over the Aleutian Islands, over water into southwest Canada and then over Montana.
Social media sightings have been popping up as the balloon moves southeastwardly across the continental U.S.
One of the earliest sightings confirmed by ABC News was around 4:21 p.m. ET Wednesday in Reed Point, Montana.
More than two hours later, around 6:46 p.m. ET, it was filmed east of Reed Point, in Billings, Montana. Other footage captured it over Billings over the next hour, as civilians wondered what the object was.
From Montana, the balloon traveled southwest through South Dakota and Nebraska, according to U.S. officials.
ABC News has not confirmed any other sightings of the balloon until around 9:41 a.m. ET on Friday, when it was filmed over Sabetha, Kansas.
Over an hour later, it appeared farther east over Saint Joseph, Missouri, where it was filmed around 11 a.m. ET.
Video footage captured the balloon farther east, over Cameron, Missouri, between 11:56 a.m. and 12:28 p.m. ET.
About 30 minutes later, it was shot farther south within the Kansas City metro area, in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.
The balloon appeared to be heading toward North Carolina, according to a senior U.S. official familiar with the situation. ABC News confirmed several sightings of the balloon over the state by Saturday morning.
Around 8:40 a.m. ET, the balloon was filmed over Biltmore Park in Asheville.
The balloon continued to move southeastwardly, with sightings over the Hendersonville and Saluda areas, before being captured over the Eagle Lake neighborhood in Charlotte around 10:22 a.m. ET.
The U.S. will likely wait until the balloon is over the Atlantic Ocean to then try to shoot it down and retrieve it, according to the senior U.S. official.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Jerry Mata, whose 10-year-old daughter Tess was killed in the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting last year, still returns to the campus of Robb Elementary to honor his child.
“I’ve been coming at nighttime, every once in a while,” Mata told ABC News. “This was her last place, where she took her last breath. I have to come until it’s demolished.”
Mata and other victims’ families are waiting for the buildings to be torn down, while the community grapples with mixed emotions over plans to demolish the school and replace it with a new one elsewhere in Uvalde.
Robb Elementary is the site of the second-deadliest elementary school shooting in American history, where 19 children and two teachers were killed on May 24, 2022.
Ten days after the massacre, the local school district announced plans to demolish the school.
It was not a straightforward decision, given both the events of May 24 and the cultural and historical significance Robb Elementary holds in the small community located 60 miles from the Mexican border.
Irene Stone, the director of development at Uvalde’s El Progreso Library, and whose family helped construct the school back in 1955, said the school’s past should not be erased.
“I’d love to see all this history that we have researched put in that memorial,” Stone told ABC News, “so that we can honor the men like my grandfather and my great uncle and my dad who built the school.”
Robb Elementary played a key role in the fight for equal rights by Chicano and Mexican-American students, who at one point were barred from speaking Spanish within the school’s walls, according to Stone, in a community where the population has long held steady at 80% Hispanic or Latino.
In the spring of 1970, 650 students staged a walkout after the firing of one of the school’s only Latino and bilingual instructors. The protest led to a lawsuit that found the district was in violation of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling 16 years prior and resulted in an order to the district to desegregate in 1976.
That decree was later challenged by the school district in 2007, but an agreement was reached with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a civil rights nonprofit which took up the case, in 2017.
District leadership has spent the months since the Robb massacre seemingly at odds with many of the victims’ families, with some parents organizing a two-week sit-in protest at the district office, culminating in the controversial resignation of longtime Schools Superintendent Hal Harrell.
Gary Patterson, a career administrator named interim superintendent in Harrell’s place, said he supports the decision to demolish the school, but acknowledged questions about how to honor Robb’s legacy are complicated.
“I don’t think that the history of Robb Elementary or the significance… have to go away. Because to take the building down, I mean, it’s more than just the building,” Patterson told ABC News. “It’s the history and the culture. So, what we need to do is find a way as a community to memorialize the history of that area as well as the students who lost their lives.”
When asked about a proposed memorial on school grounds, Patterson said nothing’s been decided yet.
“We’re not at that point where those decisions are–the school district’s not going to rule that out at all. If the district feels and the community feels that’s the appropriate place, then I think yes,” he said.
“I don’t think Uvalde will ever outlive the tragedy, and I’m not sure they should,” Patterson said. “I think it’s become a part of our fabric, and we need to see how we can move together while we don’t diminish anything that happened there.”
Mercedes Salas, a teacher at Robb Elementary who survived the massacre and whose own children attended the school, said the school evokes complicated emotions for her and her family.
“Prior to that day I had a lot of great memories with my coworkers, with my students, you know?” Salas told ABC News. “My personal children attended… and they have nothing but great memories. So, I just have mixed emotions because my last day was a horrible day, you know, a day full of fear.”
Others, like Mata, whose family has attended the school for generations, are ready to see the building go.
“Robb Elementary should be a thing of the past,” Mata said.
There is currently no scheduled date or budget for the demolition of the school, but the district and Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin have assured residents that plans are forthcoming.
Construction is set to begin on a new school adjacent to one of the community’s existing elementary schools in August for students to attend as early as 2025. The district has set a fundraising goal of $50 million, which will be the sole source of funding for the school.
Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.
(EAST PALESTINE, Ohio) — Local officials in East Palestine, Ohio, have ordered roughly 2,000 residents, about half the town’s population, to evacuate their homes after a Norfolk Southern train derailed and caught fire.
A Norfolk Southern train traveling from Illinois to Pennsylvania derailed around 9 p.m. Friday, ignited, and prompted a response from over 50 fire departments across three states, according to East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway.
In an interview with ABC News early Saturday morning, Conaway said residents living in a one-mile radius of the fire have been asked to evacuate or shelter in place voluntarily. At a Saturday morning press conference, Conaway said the evacuation is mandatory, though the town “can’t physically make people leave their homes.”
Janet Meek, a 55-year-old resident in the evacuation zone, said she decided not to evacuate due to concerns about her pets, though she reported feeling the impacts of the blaze when she went outside.
“It’s like burning our eyes, and it was burning our throats,” she said. “We don’t … didn’t feel real good.”
Fire chief Keith Drabick said at the press conference Saturday morning that the train was carrying hazardous substances but could not confirm if the fire impacted the train cars carrying the hazardous goods. Drabick said the odor permeating East Palestine is not harmful at current levels, but representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency are monitoring the situation.
East Palestine is a small village on the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio with roughly 4,700 residents.
A spokesperson from Norfolk Southern said they are “coordinating closely with local first responders while mobilizing our own teams.”
“If you have to come to East Palestine, don’t,” Drabick said. “Stay out of the area until we can get this mitigated.”
Efforts to contain the fire stalled Saturday night when firefighters withdrew from the blaze due to concerns about air quality and explosions.
Conaway said firefighters withdrew from the fire Friday night due to concerns about air quality, with a plan to reengage once they get a “better grasp of what exactly is what chemical is burning.” At Saturday’s press conference, Drabick added that there had been multiple explosions overnight, which posed a risk to firefighters.
Early Saturday morning, Conway described the fire as “contained” but “ongoing.” Drabick said daybreak would show the extent of the damage and long-term potential for the blaze.
The call to evaluate comes as East Palestine is hit with some of the coldest weather this year, dropping to 6 F on Friday night.
Living a block from the railroad tracks, Meek said she heard a “loud boom” around 9 p.m. after coming home from a local basketball game.
After her husband reported seeing a “billowing ball of fire” while walking their dogs, she went outside to witness the fire, only to return inside after feeling some of the effects of the fumes. Meek said she has seen over 100 fire trucks respond to the fire, which she said appeared uncontained.
“There was no actually stopping it…,” she said. “It just looked like mushroom clouds, and everything was exploding, like you could just hear these explosions.”
(MANATEE COUNTY, Fla.) — A new state guidance in Florida is directing school districts to cover up or remove books in classrooms that have not been approved under a law restricting instruction and books on race and diversity and making it a felony for teachers to share pornographic material to students.
The directive instructs schools to “remove or cover all materials that have not been vetted” in classrooms, according to a copy of the guidance reviewed by ABC News.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in April signed the “Stop WOKE” act, which restricts lessons and training on race and diversity in schools and in the workplace, particularly anything that discusses privilege or oppression based on race, or whether someone “bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” due to U.S. racial history. WOKE in the bill stands for “Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees.”
A judge in November temporarily blocked the law from restricting race-related curriculum and conversation in colleges and universities, which is still being battled out in the courts.
Michael Barber, communications director of Manatee County schools, told ABC News on Friday that teachers could be charged with a third-degree felony if they share a book that’s considered pornographic or obscene under Florida law. But many teachers misinterpret the law as meaning they could be indicted for simply sharing any unvetted material, he said.
Manatee County acted under an abundance of caution when they asked teachers to cover all their books, which could have been an overreaction, according to Barber. The county official explained that teachers have an online link to a list of books that have been approved for their grades and if they make sure their class collections are on the list then they would be fine.
Barber admits that this is a tough time as teachers are preparing their students for national state accountability tests and don’t have much time to vet their reading material. Manatee County schools are planning to ask volunteers to help them with the vetting process, he said.
“Each school district is tasked with ensuring that the materials offered in school libraries and classrooms offer educational value and comply with Florida law,” DeSantis’ press secretary Bryan Griffin tweeted on Tuesday.
But Don Falls, a history teacher at Manatee High School in Florida, says the new law limits the kind of information that can be given to students.
According to Falls, if a student feels uncomfortable about the content that is being presented, then that would be a violation of the law by the teacher.
“Last week, I was doing a couple of lessons on civil rights, looking at the Albany movement, Birmingham in 1963. And, of course, some of those images of those periods can be quite upsetting: dogs turned on little girls, fire hoses,” Falls said in an interview on ABC News Live Prime. “I’m showing them some of these images, in the back of my mind, I was saying, ‘Well, if a student here gets upset about these, have I violated the law?’ But the information to me is too important to deny students. And so I’m still going to continue to do it.”
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. wrote in a tweet last month, “A teacher or any adult faces a felony if they knowingly distribute egregious materials such as images which depict sexual conduct, sexual battery, bestiality or sadomasochistic abuse. Who could be against that?”
Falls believes that rule is unnecessary because schools were already operating under those standards.
“We have a set of ethical guidelines that we agree to. State guidelines that go along with our contract that would prohibit any of that. And those have always been there in all my years of teaching,” Falls said. “So, this attempt to try to convince the public that there is this kind of cabal of woke people that are out there distributing this stuff is just ridiculous because that just doesn’t happen.”
Earlier this week, the College Board released an updated version of the AP African American course framework after the Florida Department of Education rejected the course on Jan. 12.
Falls compared the law to McCarthyism, the controversial campaign by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to repress and persecute communists in the U.S. government.
“How ridiculous this was that in 2023 that we are covering books, that we are looking to ban books, that we are at a point that sounds like McCarthyism in our society,” Falls said. “I guess it’s frustrating as a long-time educator. I have been in the classroom for 38 years and I’ve never seen anything like this where this kind of widespread attempt to silence students, silence teachers to control the information in the classroom.”
DeSantis’ press secretary Bryan Griffin on Friday directed ABC News to a tweet he wrote in response to a video shared online that seemed to show empty bookshelves in a Florida library.
“This is the latest lie from the crowd who believes they should be able to subject children to their preferred political agenda in public schools without any accountability to parents or the taxpayer,” Griffin wrote.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin and Brianti Downing contributed to this story.
The stars came out in Los Angeles Friday night to celebrate Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy, who were honored as the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Persons of the Year, the first time the organization has had dual honorees.
USA Todayreports the star-studded night featured performances of plenty of Motown classics, including a surprise performance by Stevie Wonder, who performed “Try Something New” and joked that Gordy “didn’t think I could sing” when he was younger. Stevie also performed a reggae version of “The Tears of a Clown.”
Lionel Richie was also on hand to celebrate his two friends, performing his classic “Easy.” He told the crowd, “To get a chance to sit here in front of two of my amazing mentors … I don’t know if I’m more excited to be part of the Motown family or having Berry and Smokey as my dear friends.”
Among the other performances: Dionne Warwick sang “My Guy,” Sheryl Crow performed the Jackson 5 hit “I Want You Back,” Brandi Carlile performed “The Tracks of My Tears,” TheTemptations treated the crowd to a medley of “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” “I Can’t Get Next to You” and “My Girl, and The Four Tops sang a medley of “Baby I Need Your Loving,” “It’s the Same Old Song,” “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” and “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch).”
Smokey himself, who’s 82, also performed a ballad he wrote for Gordy called “Did You Know,” telling Gordy they have “the best friendship in the world,” and adding, “you are so precious.”
Gordy, 93, reiterated Smokey’s sentiment in his acceptance speech, sharing, “I’m happy to be here with my best friend. I mean…damn.”
Korn has shared a video stream of the band’s Requiem Mass concert, which took place last year at the Hollywood United Methodist Church in Los Angeles.
The unique performance, which celebrated the release of Korn’s Requiem album, was accompanied by a backing choir and required those attending to wear “appropriate black funeral attire.”
You can watch Requiem Mass streaming now on YouTube.
Korn has also released a live EP capturing the Requiem Mass performance, which is out now.
You can catch Korn perform live this year at the upcoming Sick New World and Bonnaroo festivals.
Depeche Mode has revealed the title and premiere date of the first single off the band’s upcoming album, Memento Mori.
The track is titled “Ghosts Again” and will arrive Thursday, February 9, at 11 a.m. ET. You can listen to a brief snippet of the song via Depeche Mode’s Twitter.
Memento Mori is the follow-up to 2017’s Spirit. It is the first Depeche Mode album following the death of band member Andy Fletcher, who died last May.
“We started work on this project early in the pandemic, and its themes were directly inspired by that time,” Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore said of Memento Mori. “After Fletch’s passing, we decided to continue as we’re sure this is what he would have wanted, and that has really given the project an extra level of meaning.”
Depeche Mode will support Memento Mori on a giant world tour, which kicks off in the U.S. in March.
There was a Beatles reunion in Los Angeles this week. Ringo Starr shared video of him dancing with his bandmate Paul McCartney at a party thrown by McCartney’s daughter Stella McCartney.
“Man, this beautiful day is getting better and better we were at the Stella McCartney rollerskating party,” Ringo wrote on Twitter next to a clip of him and McCartney dancing to the ’70s disco hit “Young Hearts Run Free” by Candi Staton. “What a time we had go get them, Paul, peace, and love.”
According to TheNewsMarket, the bash, which took place at Henson Recording Studios, celebrated Stella’s 18-year partnership with Adidas. The party also showed off the Spring Summer 23 Adidas by Stella McCartney collection.
Dillon and Richard Dreyfuss in ‘Close Encounters’ – Columbia Tristar/Courtesy of Getty Images
The Hollywood Reporter notes actress Melinda Dillon passed away on January 9. One might not recognize her name, but the actress logged memorable performances as the matriarch in 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind for Steven Spielberg, as well as 1983’s holiday classic A Christmas Story.
A Tony-nominated actress, Dillon was twice nominated for an Academy Award, as well: for Close Encounters, in which she played the mom of an alien-abducted kid, and in 1981 for her performance in Absence of Malice opposite Paul Newman.
Dillon also appeared as John Lithgow‘s wife in 1987’s Harry and the Hendersons and 1991’s The Prince of Tides opposite Barbra Streisand. She was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Paul Thomas Anderson‘s 1999 drama Magnolia.
Doja Cat responded to critics hating on her zany style. Posting three glamour shots of herself, Doja captioned it, “Felt like doing a pretty beat for you boring a** lemon water b****es out there so you can shut the f*** up now.” Selena Gomez commented, “I love and feel you.”
Lizzo will be heading to Japan this summer to headline the Fuji Rock Festival alongside the Foo Fighters and The Strokes. Other artists include Lewis Capaldi, Alanis Morissette and Weezer. The event runs July 28 to July 30. Sign up for ticket alerts at viagogo.com.
Louis Tomlinson is also heading to Asia for his Faith in the Future Tour. The singer released seven new dates and announced, “I’m really excited to be coming back to Asia for these shows in April. I can’t wait to see you all again this year!” Visit his official website for ticketing information and tour dates.
Katy Perry and fiancé Orlando Bloom attended Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi‘ssurprise vow renewal, which was supposed to be a 50th birthday party for Portia. Katy and Orlando were among a crowd of famous faces at the event, which People says included Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, Courteney Cox and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Speaking of Katy, Miranda Kerr is singing her praises. Kerr was previously married to Orlando and the two share a 12-year-old son named Flynn. The model shared clips of them on TikTok, writing, “When you love your son’s step mom [sic].”
The Backstreet Boys are releasing a tribute book honoring their 30th anniversary. It’ll feature tour photography, profiles of the band, memories from fans, a forward from Melanie “Sporty Spice” Chisholm and more. Backstreet Boys 30th Anniversary Celebration arrives April 11 and is available for preorder.
