(CHICAGO) — One person is dead and two were inujured after a shooting at a WeatherTech warehouse in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook early Saturday morning, ABC Chicago station, WLS reported.
Officers were dispatched to 1 Weathertech Way at 6:25 a.m. Saturday in response to reports of a subject shot, Bolingbrook police said in an online statement.
The suspect was located and taken into custody Saturday at approximately 9:25 a.m., police said.
According to police, in addition to the one victim dead, another is in critical condition and one has been released from the hospital.
The incident is still under investigation, authorities said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(CHEYENNE, Wyo.) — For Wyoming, a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade means an automatic ban on abortion as the state is one of 13 that have enacted “trigger bans” on abortions. But even as Roe stood, the state sat in a so-called “abortion desert” where access to pregnancy termination was few and far between.
In a ruling Friday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that protected the constitutional right to abortion nationally. Now, it will be up to the state legislatures to decide on abortion rights.
In Wyoming, even anticipating this possibility, advocates for abortion rights fought to gain access to abortion care for patients in the state — and questioned how a historically libertarian state became so restrictive.
Wyoming law tightens
In March, Gov. Mark Gordon signed a bill passed by both the Wyoming House and Senate. The bill, HB0092, would ban abortion in all circumstances except rape, incest or if the mother is in serious risk of death or injury, if the protections of Roe are overturned. It would also prohibit the use of government funding towards an abortion.
Following a Supreme Court ruling, the law could become active in about a month.
The governor’s office told ABC News that Gordon will adhere to the process outlined in the bill and has no additional comment regarding his choice to sign the legislation.
On Friday, Gordon tweeted a statement in support of the Supreme Court’s ruling, calling it “a decisive win for those who have fought for the rights of the unborn for the past 50 years.”
Republican state Rep. Patrick Sweeney, who voted against the trigger law, said in a press call Friday that it was difficult for the House to get the rape and incest clause included in the Senate’s bill, and he worries that clause could be removed in the legislation’s next session.
Sharon Breitweiser, executive director of Pro-Choice Wyoming, told ABC News before the Supreme Court’s decision that this ban could become reality “sooner than we had ever thought possible.”
She said in prior legislative cycles, the organization was always able to find “compassionate, realistic” elected officials who would be able to hold such anti-abortion laws from reaching the governor’s desk.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming tweeted Friday in support of the court’s decision to overturn Roe.
“The Supreme Court today ruled to return power back to states to legislate in a way that reflects the will of their voters. With today’s decision, the U.S. will no longer have the same anti-life laws as countries like communist China & North Korea,” he wrote.
Brent Blue, who provided abortions in Wyoming for decades, said the new state ban is hypocritical to Wyoming political tradition.
“It’s sexist, it’s racist and it’s anti-Wyoming,” said Blue, who spoke with ABC News before the Supreme Court’s decision. “It’s the government interfering with the lives of individuals, when the Republican party in the state has dedicated itself for decades to getting the government out of the lives of individuals.”
Blue said that the new legislation has no accountability because there is no medical or financial assistance offered to children who are born to parents without resources, saying “the hypocrisy is overwhelming.”
“To try to limit access is really promoting poverty and is really racist… it’s going to affect poor women and women of color, and the true irony and crime involved is that the same people voting for this are voting against Medicaid expansion for parents who have no resources,” Blue added.
The push to open a second clinic
Currently, Wyoming has one health care center that offers abortions, the Women’s Health & Family Care in Jackson, which has the phrase “management of unplanned pregnancy,” on their website’s gynecology page. The center’s pregnancy termination services are limited to medication abortions, which can be administered only up to 10 weeks’ gestation.
However, Wellspring Health Access, a national abortion rights organization, is in the midst of building a full-service abortion clinic in Casper.
Wellspring Health Access has been working to establish the clinic for almost two years, its founder and president Julie Burkhart told ABC News. But just as the clinic was reaching its opening date, an arson attack on May 25 pushed back the clinic’s opening by several weeks.
Even before the arson attack, the clinic has become home to regular protests by anti-abortion rights groups, according to Burkhart.
Now, with the Supreme Court decision, Wellspring may never be able to provide abortions in their Wyoming clinic. Burkhart said in a Friday statement the ruling will impact those “who already face the greatest barriers to access” including “people living in rural communities, the Native population and people with low incomes.”
Burkhart told ABC News before the decision that Wyoming residents sought out the organization to establish a clinic in their state. The clinic was strategically placed in central Wyoming to reach not only Wyoming patients, but also those who live in restrictive nearby states such as Nebraska, South Dakota and Montana.
Before the May ban was introduced, Wyoming law had moderate restrictions on abortions, allowing abortions to occur until the fetus was viable, around 24 weeks, following the framework of Roe.
Therefore, Burkhart said it had made sense for Wellspring to go to Wyoming when they started planning the Casper clinic in 2020, since it was a historically libertarian state where laws lacked major restrictions on abortion.
Burkhart said the Wellspring team has found much support in Casper from both vendors and community members, despite the recent arson attack.
“My absolute assessment is that there are some folks who we know who have been elected to the state Legislature over the past couple of cycles who do not speak for the broader majority of Wyomingites and they have their axe to grind,” Burkhart told ABC News. “They have their agenda, and unfortunately, it’s not what people in the state feel is needed or necessary.”
While most Americans nationally support abortion rights, a 2014 Pew Research poll found abortion beliefs to be right down the middle in the state, with 48% of Wyoming adults feeling abortion should be legal in most cases, and 49% believing it should be illegal in most cases.
Before the Friday ruling, Burkhart said Wellspring was already working on a legal strategy that she is hopeful will protect their ability to provide full reproductive care. She said Friday it is an “immediate” priority for the organization to determine the best legal steps going forward.
“The Wyoming constitution has strong protections for Wyomingites’ bodily autonomy. We will fight tooth and nail to protect this fundamental right for the people of Wyoming, including in the courts. We call on Wyoming lawmakers to honor the Wyoming constitution and take action to protect abortion access for the people of this state,” Burkhart said in a statement Friday.
Going out of state for care to end a pregnancy
The average distance a person in Wyoming must drive to obtain an abortion before 14 weeks was 132 miles, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization. That distance may expand as bans emerge, pushing people to leave their state to obtain abortion care.
Riata Little Walker, a lifelong Wyoming resident in Casper, said she had to travel to Denver, Colorado, to receive care when her pregnancy took a turn for the worse in January 2020.
Walker and her husband were ready to have their first child when doctors found a complex combination of heart defects in the fetus. At 22 weeks, Walker said she decided to be induced into labor to terminate the pregnancy.
“We were given our options, but there was no talk of leaving the hospital,” Walker told ABC News. “There was a chance our daughter could have survived birth, but she was incurable and she would have suffered greatly.”
Ultimately, Walker said she decided to undergo “termination for medical reasons,” or TFMR. In the second and third trimester, abortions can be performed by inducing labor, which includes labor and delivery.
Dr. Jeffrey Marcus, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist with North Atlanta Women’s Specialists in Georgia, told U.S. News TFMR is “when a pregnancy is ended due to a structural, genetic or chromosomal abnormality of the baby or when continuing the pregnancy would risk the health of mother.” Marcus said because it was technically abortion, an overturning of Roe would mean TFMR would not be a guaranteed option for women who receive such diagnoses.
“A lot of people don’t want to look at TFMR as abortion, but it is,” Walker said.
After the induced labor, Walker’s daughter survived for 10 minutes, during which the family said goodbye, took pictures and had her baptized. The care and compassion Walker felt from the medical professionals in Denver impacted her, she said.
“We were able to choose the best option for us and have the time that we needed to take care of our daughter,” Walker said. “Most people have to go to an abortion clinic and walk through protesters.”
Walker said she and her husband were fortunate because they had the resources to get top-level care in Denver, including her mother driving them there. The one-night stay for the procedure cost $19,000, she said.
Walker said she comes from a conservative, Catholic family of Wyoming ranchers, but added that even her great-grandparents believed abortion should be “a private decision.”
“Wyoming has had a terrible shift,” she said of the state’s politics, adding it “used to be ‘live and let live.'”
The possibility of a ban in Wyoming has Walker concerned for the futures of women in the state.
“I was pro-life with exceptions for rape, incest or if the mother had to make a decision [for her health],” Walker said, before the Supreme Court’s ruling. “But then I realized that actually meant I was pro-choice. It’s too gray to say one situation is OK and one isn’t, not everyone is going to agree, but they should have a choice.”
(NEW YORK) — Before the Supreme Court released its ruling Friday upending abortion rights in the U.S., Elisa Wells was thinking of virtual mailboxes.
For people who move or travel a lot, a virtual mailbox is a way to check their mail online. If an item is critical, they forward it to their current location.
For Wells, founder of the online abortion site Plan C, which tells women how to find the abortion pill, it’s a potential workaround to state laws restricting access.
Using dried garbanzo beans and old pill bottles, Wells tested whether a virtual mailbox set up in a state like California or New York — which allow abortion pills to be prescribed through a telehealth appointment — could make its way to a woman in a state like Texas or Oklahoma that restrict access.
The answer was yes.
“We want all the information we provide on our website to be as helpful as possible,” Wells told ABC’s “20/20.”
“We know that people looking for abortion care, especially in restricted states are in a really stressful situation. And we don’t want them to have to guess about what to do and which services to use,” she added.
As 26 states are expected to eventually ban or severely restrict abortion in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson, a grassroots resistance movement is on the rise that looks notably different than it did in the 1960s.
Unlike before the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion, about half of the U.S. will already offer abortion access, and several online-based state funds are providing patients with flights, child care, gas cards and access to food delivery services like Grubhub and DoorDash if they need to travel far. The National Abortion Federation is expanding a nationwide hotline — established in 1978 — to connect abortion seekers to those funds.
“It is just really important that people understand that there is an infrastructure in place right now to help people move across the country and to help provide support,” said Melissa Fowler, chief program officer at NAF.
It’s possible anti-abortion rights states will try to brand such efforts as illegal, paving the way for more court challenges.
The other major difference is federal approval 22 years ago of the drug mifepristone. Used in combination with another drug, misoprostol – commonly prescribed for stomach ulcers — the Food and Drug Administration says the pills can be used to induce an abortion so long as a woman is within 10 weeks of pregnancy.
The FDA also says those drugs can be prescribed through a telehealth appointment and mailed to the person’s home, although anti-abortion states have restricted access. A group called Just the Pill and Abortion Delivered said Friday that it’s now launching new mobile clinics in Colorado — one that will offer surgical abortion for patients over 11 weeks, and another equipped entirely for telehealth appointments for medication abortion.
Another group, called Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equality, is training local activists on how to “self-manage” an abortion, including when and how to take mifepristone and misoprostol. Several anti-abortion rights lawmakers and activists say this could potentially violate state laws that prohibit “aiding and abetting” abortion.
Kimberly Inez McGuire, head of URGE, said she believes their work will be protected as free speech.
“Before Roe (v Wade), we did not have safe and effective abortion pills like we do now. We didn’t have the internet. And so it really is a different circumstance,” she said.
This grassroots movement also is looking overseas. Among the options the website Plan C points people towards is Aid Access, an international organization that prescribes the abortion pill to women in the U.S. even if their state law prohibits it.
Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, founder of the organization, told ABC that she will personally conduct a telehealth appointment online with American patients and prescribe the pills to them for 95 euros; the pills are then filled from a pharmacy in India and mailed to the U.S. address. Gomperts said she believes state laws only apply to residents of that state, whereas she works out of Amsterdam and Austria.
The FDA though warns getting medications overseas from sites not regulated by the U.S. could be dangerous. Under federal rules, the abortion pill can only be prescribed by certified clinicians and provided from FDA-inspected manufacturers.
Another drawback: The medication can take as long as three weeks to arrive – posing a risk that patients may take the medication too late in their pregnancy.
Gomperts said she is confident in the quality of the product and will continue to offer the service. She predicted other doctors in the U.S. and around the world will follow suit as states ban abortion.
“What will happen (in the U.S.) is what happens everywhere in the world and that is that there will be huge underground markets,” she told ABC’s “Nightline.”
One of the many celebrity moments at Britney Spears‘ wedding to Sam Asghari earlier this month came when she and her wedding guest Madonna re-staged their famous MTV VMA kiss. Britney posted a photo of them smooching at the wedding on Friday night, drawing a cheeky comment from Sam.
Britney captioned the photo of herself, “Kissing the one and only Madonna,” adding, “Weird that @madonna is extremely short and I was shorter than her … do we shrink as we get older…am I becoming short like my mom ???”
In the comments, Sam replied, “minutes after we got married you cheated on me” with mock angry-face emojis.
Britney went on to say of the Queen of Pop, “I didn’t know Madonna has almost as many number-one singles as The Beatles !!! So honored she came to my wedding… perspective …The Beatles have 20 and miss thang has 12 !!! Wow wow wow !!!”
Of course, that’s just on the Billboard Hot 100. On the Dance charts, Madonna has had 50 number ones, which she’s celebrating in her new compilation of dance remixes, Finally Enough Love.
Britney also posted a photo of herself, Sam and her puppy getting into a private jet — perhaps they were jetting off on their honeymoon, which Britney said a few days ago they had yet to take.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law the gun safety package passed by Congress this week.
“Time is of the essence,” Biden said as he delivered remarks in the Roosevelt Room alongside first lady Jill Biden. “Lives will be saved.”
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act broke a nearly 30-year stalemate on Capitol Hill, becoming the first major piece of federal gun reform to clear both chambers since the Brady bill.
“At a time when it seems impossible to get anything done in Washington, we are doing something consequential,” Biden said.
A bipartisan group of senators began crafting the legislation in the aftermath of a tragic mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 young children and two teachers dead.
In heartbreaking testimony, lawmakers heard directly from a fourth grader trapped inside her classroom as the rampage unfolded. She testified that she smeared herself with her classmate’s blood and played dead to survive as the shooter terrorized the school for more than an hour.
The House passed the Senate-backed legislation on Friday — exactly one month after the Uvalde massacre.
Following the historic vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a bill enrollment ceremony where she said Congress was “honoring a promise in honor of all those who have lost loved ones to gun violence.”
The law includes $750 million to help states implement “red flag” laws to remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, as well as other violence prevention programs. It also provides funding for a variety of programs aimed at shoring up the nation’s mental health apparatus and securing schools.
It will enhance background checks for gun buyers under the age of 21 by giving authorities up to 10 business days to review the juvenile and mental health records of young gun purchasers, and makes it unlawful for someone to purchase a gun for someone who would fail a background check.
Another key provision is closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole” so individuals in “serious” “dating relationships” who are convicted of domestic abuse will be prevented from purchasing a gun.
But the law doesn’t go as far as Democrats — and Biden — wanted, excluding measures such as universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
The House has passed several bills with stricter gun regulations, but none have been taken up in the Senate.
“I know there’s much more work to do, and I’m never going to give up,” Biden said on Saturday. “But this is a monumental day.”
The signing of the gun safety bill comes just days after a major Supreme Court decision expanding gun rights.
The court’s conservative majority struck down a 100-year-old New York law that restricted the concealed carry of handguns in public to only those with a “proper cause.” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the opinion that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.
The high court on Friday also delivered a ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision legalizing abortion access nationwide for the past 50 years.
When asked about the Supreme Court on Saturday, Biden said he thought the court has “made some terrible decisions.”
(SEVIERVILLE, Tenn.) — A black bear has died after accidentally locking itself inside a hot car while authorities say it was most likely scavenging for food.
The incident occurred at a rental cabin in Sevierville, Tennessee — approximately 30 miles east of Knoxville — when authorities from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) say the owner of the vehicle the bear was found had left the property in a different vehicle at around 10 a.m.
But when the owner returned to the home approximately nine hours later at 6:45 p.m., they found the bear dead inside the vehicle with the car doors shut.
“It appears that the bear got inside the car by using its teeth or paws to open the unlocked door and was trapped inside after the door shut behind it,” the TWRA said in a post on social media. “We believe that heat likely killed the bear as outside temperatures exceeded 95 degrees [on Wednesday] meaning the vehicle’s interior possibly reached over 140 degrees.”
Pictures released by the TWRA show the bear slumped between the driver’s seat and the front passenger’s seat as a soda can and food waste can be seen on the floor of the car.
Citing the incident, authorities implored the public to be extra cautious and vigilant when it comes to dealing with and disposing of food in areas where bears might be.
“Here is a good example of how garbage kills bears … Notice the empty soda can and food package on the floorboard,” warned the TWRA. “Bears have noses 7 times better than a bloodhound and can smell even the faintest odor of food inside a vehicle. Lock your doors, roll up your windows, and never leave food or anything that smells like food inside! Empty food containers, candy wrappers, fast food bags, and even air fresheners can attract bears.”
(OSLO, Norway) — Two people were fatally shot and 10 were injured early Saturday in a nightclub in Oslo, Norway, in what Oslo police now suspect was a terror attack.
Authorities say the gunman, identified as a 42-year-old Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, was arrested after opening fire at three locations in downtown Oslo at approximately 1 a.m., including at a nightclub that is popular within the LGBTQ community called The London Pub.
Police attorney Christian Hatlo confirmed that the unnamed suspect was being held on charges of suspicion of murder, attempted murder and terrorism, and that the suspect’s mental health was also being investigated.
“Our overall assessment is that there are grounds to believe that he wanted to cause grave fear in the population,” Hatlo said. “We need to go through his medical history, if he has any. It’s not something that we’re aware of now.”
Authorities said they were able to seize two weapons following the suspected terror attack, including a handgun and an automatic weapon which Hatlo described as “not modern” but gave no further details.
Two of the shooting victims were killed, Oslo police inspector Tore Soldal said. He also confirmed that the other 10 victims were being treated for serious injuries but that all 10 were expected to survive.
“I saw a man arrive at the site with a bag. He picked up a weapon and started shooting,” said Olav Roenneberg, a journalist from Norwegian public broadcaster NRK who said he witnessed the attack. “First I thought it was an air gun. Then the glass of the bar next door was shattered and I understood I had to run for cover.”
Following the shooting, Oslo Pride confirmed that it has been advised by authorities to cancel the annual Pride parade and other Pride events that had been scheduled for this weekend.
“Oslo Pride therefore urges everyone who planned to participate or watch the parade to not show up. All events in connection with Oslo Prides are canceled,” Oslo Pride organizers said on the official Facebook page of the event.
“The shooting outside London Pub in Oslo tonight was a cruel and deeply shocking attack on innocent people,” said Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoer in a Facebook post following the attack.
Store added that the mass shooting had caused immediate fear and grief within Norway’s LGBTQ community.
“We all stand by you,” Store wrote.
ABC News’ Rashid Haddou, Lama Hasan, Ahmad Hemingway and Will Gretsky contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Ali Alexander, the conservative activist behind the “Stop the Steal” movement, appeared Friday before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Alexander’s attorney confirmed to ABC News.
Alexander provided nearly three hours of testimony to one of the grand juries impaneled in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., as part of the Department of Justice’s criminal probe into the events of Jan. 6, Alexander’s attorney, Paul Kamenar, said.
The appearance came six months after Alexander testified before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
In a written statement on Friday, Alexander said that several months ago he received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office “requesting essentially the same documents I turned over to the January 6 Committee and to testify.”
“I was assured that I was not a target but a fact witness,” Alexander said in the statement. “I provided the documents requested and suggested they obtain my full transcript of my testimony from the January 6 Committee. They responded then that they cannot obtain those transcripts due to separation of powers and thus, they needed me to repeat my testimony here today.”
Alexander, who organized a series of “Stop the Steal” rallies in the months leading up to Jan. 6, was at the U.S. Capitol during the attack but has said he was only there to de-escalate the conflict, and that his comments at rallies and on livestreams leading up to the riot have been taken out of context and misconstrued as encouraging violence.
“I did not plan or participate in any illegal activity, and in fact, pleaded with protestors not to enter the Capitol,” he said in Friday’s statement.
On Dec. 9, Alexander spent eight hours taking questions from the House Jan. 6 committee on everything from his organization’s finances to his communications with Republican officials. Afterward Alexander described the tone of the questions as “absolutely adversarial,” but said he was “truthful” with the committee.
Later that month, ABC News reported that Alexander had told congressional investigators that he had communicated with several House Republican lawmakers ahead of the Jan. 6 rally and Capitol riot, along with at least one member of the Trump family’s inner circle. Alexander disclosed his communications in a lawsuit he filed challenging the panel from obtaining his phone records from Verizon.
Alexander disclosed his communications in a lawsuit he filed trying to prevent the panel from obtaining his phone records from Verizon.
“I am challenging in court the Select Committee’s unlawful subpoena to Verizon to fish through my phone records and those of one of my volunteers whose only ‘crime’ was to exercise her First Amendment rights to pass out a few signs at the rallies, sing patriotic songs, and pray,” Alexander said in Friday’s statement.
Twenty One Pilots, Bring Me the Horizon and Biffy Clyro were among the winners at the 2022 Kerrang! Awards, which took place Thursday in London.
Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun were named the Best Live Act, and Oli Sykes and company took home the Best Song prize for “DiE4u.” Biffy, meanwhile, won Best British Act.
As previously reported, Green Day was honored with the Kerrang! Icon Award. Their Hella Mega tour mates, Weezer and Fall Out Boy, received the Kerrang! Hall of Fame and Inspiration awards.
The Kerrang! Awards are hosted annually by the British rock magazine Kerrang! The ceremony returned this year after missing 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elton John, Genesis and The Eagles are among the artists who are raking it in at the box office in 2022, according to the latest installment of Pollstar‘s annual midyear rankings.
In terms of worldwide tours, Genesis’ The Last Domino? Tour — the final outing for Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford — earned $72 million globally, second only to Latin superstar Bad Bunny. Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour was next with $70 million.
Also making the top 10 was The Eagles’ ongoing Hotel California trek, which was in seventh place with $55 million.
When it comes to North American tours, Elton lands at #2 behind, yes, Bad Bunny. The Eagles and Genesis also made the top 10, at #6 and #8, respectively.
Pollstar‘s midyear lists actually cover concert grosses from November 18, 2021, to May 18, 2022.
Here’s the full top 10 of Pollstar‘s 2022 worldwide tours midyear list:
1. Bad Bunny, $120.1 million
2. Genesis, $72.0 million
3. Elton John, $70.0 million
4. BTS, $69.3 million
5. Morgan Wallen, $58.3 million
6. Eric Church, $56.3 million
7. Eagles, $55.0 million
8. John Mayer, $51.8 million
9. Coldplay, $44.7 million
10. Garth Brooks, $44.3 million
And here’s the top 10 of Pollstar‘s North American tours 2022 midyear rankings:
1. Bad Bunny, $120.1 million
2. Elton John, $70.0 million
3. BTS, $69.3 million
4. Morgan Wallen, $58.3 million
5. Eric Church, $56.3 million
6. Eagles, $55.0 million
7. John Mayer, $51.8 million
8. Genesis, $46.5 million
9. Garth Brooks, $44.3 million
10. Dua Lipa, $40.1
