(NEW YORK) — All roads in and out of Death Valley National Park are closed after unprecedented amounts of rainfall caused substantial flooding in the area, park officials said Friday.
Approximately 500 visitors and 500 staff are currently unable to exit the park, which straddles the California-Nevada border, the officials said in a statement. No injuries to staff or visitors have been reported.
The California Department of Transportation expects it will take several hours to open a road on Highway 190 east of the park to allow an exit, park officials said.
Dozens of cars belonging to visitors and staff are buried in several feet of debris and many facilities are flooded including hotel rooms and business offices.
Additionally, the Cow Creek Water system, which provides water to the Cow Creek area for park residents and offices, has failed, according to park officials. A major break in the line due to the flooding is being repaired, officials said.
The park received at least 1.46 inches of rain in the Furnace Creek area, almost an entire year’s worth of rain in one morning, as the park’s annual average is 1.9 inches of rainwater, the park reported.
This was the second-highest amount of rainfall in a day at Furnace Creek, just behind 1.47 inches recorded on April 15, 1988.
The park is working with the California Department of Transportation, and state and county emergency services on assessing the situation and damage.
(NEW YORK) — Two people are dead and five are missing after a boat capsized near the Florida Keys, the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday night.
The boat, which was determined to have been carrying migrants, had 15 people aboard before it capsized south of Sugarloaf Key, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
Local search crews and good Samaritans rescued 8 people. Six were taken for medical evaluation, the statement said.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who lost their lives off the Lower Keys,” Rear Admiral Brendan McPherson, commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District, said in the statement. “Our search continues for others that may have survived this tragic incident.”
U.S. Border Patrol reported more than 130 migrants had been apprehended along the island chain in the last two days, according to Miami ABC affiliate WPLG.
“This situation highlights the risks these migrants face as they attempt to enter the United States illegally by sea,” McPherson said.
(WASHINGTON) — With the Senate Democrats’ last remaining holdout — Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — tentatively signing onto a $739 billion modified reconciliation deal, her party leaders are looking forward to a first procedural vote on their historic tax, climate and drug-pricing bill as early as Saturday.
The Senate is expected to eventually pass The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 through using a fast-track budget process known as reconciliation as early as this weekend. If all Democrats stick together, they’ll be able to clear the hefty legislative package by their razor-thin majority and avoid a Republican threat of a filibuster.
In a surprise move in late July, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin announced he had brokered a deal on a revised version of a Democrat-only spending bill with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer after it seemed the door was closed on negotiations.
After reviewing the legislation, Sinema on Thursday evening offered her essential but still conditional support for the bill. Her support was conditioned upon Democrats stripping from the bill a tax break favoring wealthy hedge-fund managers called the “carried interest loophole,” while adding instead a new excise tax on stock buybacks.
The current proposed text aims to increase job creation, raise taxes on large corporations and the mega-wealthy, allows the government to negotiate prices of prescription drugs to lower costs, expands the Affordable Care Act health care program and invests in addressing climate change with measure such as extending tax credits for clean energy initiatives.
Together, the climate and ACA provisions would cost the government roughly $433 billion, and Democrats plan to put at least $300 billion of that toward deficit reduction. The tax provisions, prescription drug-pricing reform and increased IRS tax enforcement would raise the estimated revenue the bill would produce to $739 billion.
Republicans have bashed the proposal, saying that any tax increases or spending package while the nation is falling into an economic recession is irresponsible.
“This is not about inflation reduction, this is all about Democrats spending on things they want to spend money on. I’m not going to support it. I don’t think any Republicans are going to support it. Why is that? Well, it’s another taxing and spending bill,” said Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah in response to the bill.
Tax analysts argue that the legislation would help American families who make less than $400,000. Democrats say it would reduce inflation at least in part by lowering the deficit, a key priority for Manchin.
The bill would reduce federal budget deficits by $102 billion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
“The legislation would either reduce or have no effect on the taxes due or paid by any family with income less than $400,000 and is fully consistent with the President’s pledge. In fact, the clean energy tax credits and the expanded premium tax credit will cut taxes for millions of Americans,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote in a letter to congressional leadership.
Sinema said she is still waiting to see the results of a scrub by the Senate’s non-partisan rule keeper before signing off, but if Schumer can keep his caucus together and pass this bill, it will be a big win for democratic leaders ahead of a hotly-contested upcoming midterm cycle.
“We have agreed to remove the carried interest tax provision, protect advanced manufacturing, and boost our clean energy economy in the Senate’s budget reconciliation legislation,” the Arizona senator said in a statement. “Subject to the Parliamentarian’s review, I’ll move forward.”
Details of the reconciliation bill were highlighted further Thursday as lawmakers continued to comb through the 700-plus pages of legislation ahead of this weekend’s votes. Once the Senate votes to begin debate on the bill, lawmakers will have the opportunity to offer an unlimited number of amendments, a cumbersome and time-consuming process.
Here’s what’s in the bill from the Democrats’ top-line priorities: the economy, the environment and health care.
Economy
The new proposal will invest $300 billion in “deficit reduction,” backers say, by making the “biggest corporations and ultra-wealthy pay their fair share,” and by providing funds to enhance IRS tax enforcement.
But some of Democrats’ most ambitious efforts to tax the ultra wealthy were sidelined by Sinema’s insistence that so-called “carried interest” tax breaks for wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity executives be retained.
The original bill aimed to close this carried interest loophole by extending the holding period and therefore forcing investors to hold onto assets for longer — a move Wall Street has adamantly fought.
Sinema sought changes to the Inflation Reduction Act specifically for the removal of the “carried interest” loophole provision.
“Sen. Sinema said she would not vote for the bill, not even move to proceed, unless we took it out. So we had no choice,” Schumer said during a press conference on Friday.
In her statement Thursday evening, Sinema left the door open to future discussions on modifying the carried interest tax.
“Following this effort, I look forward to working with Senator [Mark] Warner to enact carried interest tax reforms, protecting investments in America’s economy and encouraging continued growth while closing the most egregious loopholes that some abuse to avoid paying taxes,” she said in a statement Thursday night.
Changes to secure Sinema’s backing also included the lessening of a proposed 15% corporate minimum tax by preserving the ability of manufacturers to quickly deduct capital purchases. Proposed changes to depreciation policies had some Republicans concerned that the IRA would disproportionately hit manufactures.
“We remain skeptical and will be reviewing the revised legislation carefully,” National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons said in a statement. “We cannot afford to undermine manufacturing competitiveness.”
The proposed corporate minimum tax still apply only to large corporations.
But while Democrats took a loss in revenue to meet Sinema’s demands, they made up for it with the addition of a provision aimed at investors — a new 1% excise tax on stock buybacks that would make companies pay on the amount of stock that they repurchase.
Schumer has said that this excise tax would ensure that the package still reduces the federal deficit by as much as $300 billion, the same amount Democrats aimed for in the original deal and a key priority for Manchin.
“We’re adding in an excise tax on stock buy backs that will bring in $74 billion,” Schumer said.
Chuck Marr, the Vice President of Federal Tax Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in a Twitter thread called the tax an “excellent policy,” designed to correct tax policy inefficiency and “raises $125 billion over ten years.”
Climate
Most of the $369 billion the Inflation Reduction Act would spend on climate would go to renewable energy tax credits that would prop up clean energy technology such as carbon capture, hydrogen, renewables and energy storage. The climate provisions would also provide consumer tax credits for “home energy efficiency improvements” and for the purchase of clean vehicles.
Backers say the package would cut about 40% of the country’s carbon emissions by 2030.
The bill includes a methane emissions reduction program, an array of reforms that would have a dramatic impact on both the onshore and offshore federal oil and gas royalty rates and undo a 10-year moratorium on offshore wind leasing established by former President Donald Trump, among other provisions.
Democrats are also excited about the bill’s hefty funding initiative — $60 billion overall — for environmental justice projects.
Sinema sought a $5 billion boost to the bill’s spending on drought resiliency funding in addition to the $575 million already written in the bill that would go to the Bureau of Reclamation for drought response and preparedness and $13 million for drought relief for tribes.
On Friday, Sinema’s Arizona colleague Mark Kelly announced a deal to include $4 billion in resources to combat draught in the western U.S. in the bill.
Health care, prescription drug prices
Aside from climate spending, the reconciliation bill also would allocate $64 billion to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies by three years, through 2025.
It also aims to chip away at a long-held Democratic goal of lowering prescription drug prices for seniors by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly.
“The new negotiation policy will ensure that patients with Medicare get the best deal possible on high-priced drugs and pay cost-sharing for those drugs based on the Medicare negotiated price,” according to the bill’s summary.
The bill would also cap out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 for those who use Medicare drug plans, with the option to break that amount into affordable monthly payments. Currently, no cap exists.
It would also impose penalties on drug companies if they increase their prices faster than inflation, which would incentivize them to keep prices down and expand premium and co-pay assistance on prescription drugs for low-income individuals.
“While we’re not there yet, we’re on the cusp of passing the most important step we can pass to take — help Congress to help us lower inflation, the Inflation Reduction Act,” Biden said in remarks at the White House on Friday, touting healthcare wins for Democrats, among the other climate and tax victories.
Courtesy of Lauren Monroe; Larry Marano/Getty Images
Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen is featured on a new song by his wife, singer-songwriter Lauren Monroe. “Void of Course” was released Friday as an advance track from her forthcoming studio album, Messages from Aphrodite.
Allen is part of a two-drum attack on the tune, along with Beth Goodfellow, who has also worked with such artists as Iron & Wine and Boygenius. The track also features cellist/upright bassist Steve Uccello and Larkin Poe guitarist Tyler Bryant.
Explaining the meaning behind “Void of Course,” which was inspired by an astrological term, Lauren says, “This song is an expression of anger, fear, desperation and knowing what can heal you but choosing the opposite. A pattern of our soul choosing self-love but not being strong enough to stay the course alone.”
“Void of Course” is available now via digital formats, while an official music video for the tune will premiere soon.
Messages from Aphrodite will be released on September 9 and can be preordered now. Allen contributes to multiple tracks on the album, while longtime Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone plays on the recently issued advance track “Kiss Me Now.”
Meanwhile,Lauren recently announced a series of five West Coast shows to promote the album, running from a September 7 concert in Seattle through a September 22 concert in Venice, California. Allen will join his wife to perform at three of the shows — on September 19 in Mill Valley, California; September 22 in La Jolla, California; and at the September 25 gig in Venice.
Allen is currently on the road with Def Leppard on The Stadium Tour, which also features Mötley Crüe, Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. The trek runs through a September 9 show in Las Vegas.
(NEW YORK) — Alex Jones has been ordered to pay more than $45 million in punitive damages to Sandy Hook parents, a Texas jury found on Friday.
The development comes a day after the jury ordered Jones to pay them $4.1 million in compensatory damages.
The conspiracy theorist and Infowars founder was successfully sued by the parents of a 6-year-old boy who was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre after he claimed that the shooting — where 20 children and six adults were killed — was a hoax, a claim he said he now thinks is “100% real.”
The parents sued Jones for $150 million.
The punitive damages total $45.2 million, with total damages awarded amounting to $49.3 million.
A lawyer representing the Sandy Hook families had said in court on Thursday that he intends to hand over two years’ worth of Jones’ text messages to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, after they were inadvertently provided to him by Jones’ lawyers.
“I’ve been asked to turn them over. I certainly intend to do that unless you tell me not to,” Mark Bankston told the judge, saying he’s been asked by the Jan. 6 committee to turn them over.
A source familiar with the matter also told ABC News that the committee and Bankston have been in touch about receiving the messages.
Bankston revealed Wednesday that Jones’ lawyers mistakenly sent him two years’ worth of text messages.
Bankston referenced “intimate messages with Roger Stone” that he said were not “confidential” or “trade secrets.” He said that “various federal agencies and law enforcement” contacted him about the information.
“There has been no protection ever asserted over these documents,” Bankston said.
Cases involving Jones will go before two different judges in Connecticut next week, as more Sandy Hook families seek to hold him accountable for the lies he told about the 2012 massacre being a hoax staged by actors.
A federal bankruptcy court judge in Bridgeport agreed to hold an expedited hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion to proceed against Jones while his company, Free Speech Systems, goes through bankruptcy.
The plaintiffs, immediate family members of children and educators killed in the 2012 massacre as well as one first responder, successfully sued Jones for defamation and are now seeking to hold him financially liable for his comments on the shooting.
The damages phase was scheduled to begin Sept. 6, when 15 plaintiffs have said they would testify about the extreme emotional distress they suffered as a result of Jones’ claims about them.
The presentation of evidence in the trial on damages is estimated to take three to four weeks. The families have not specified an amount they are seeking.
The hearing is scheduled for Aug. 10 at 2 p.m.
Earlier that same day, a Connecticut trial judge will also hold a hearing on the conduct of Jones’ lawyer, Norm Pattis, who has been accused of violating confidentiality rules by sharing the medical and psychiatric records of the Sandy Hook families with Jones’ Texas attorney.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Matthew Fuhrman contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — An adult at an Illinois day care center has tested positive for monkeypox, and a number of children may have been exposed to the virus, health officials in Illinois announced on Friday.
At this time, officials did not disclose the number of children that may have been exposed to the virus. Screening of children and staff from the day care, which is located in the Rantoul area of Illinois, near Champaign, is currently underway, and no additional cases have been discovered as of yet.
“All available state, local and federal resources are being deployed to assist families,” state officials said during a press conference on Friday afternoon. “Pediatricians are on site, as we speak, to screen children for cases and they’re mobile testing and vaccines for their families. Health officials will continue to stay in contact with families and provide information and resources in the coming days.”
The day care has been cleaned, and it is still open, officials said.
“The people who have been exposed, potentially, do not need to be in quarantine, so they are being screened and assessed. Anyone with even a tiny little suspicion, we will put them in isolation pending any type of results, but they have the guidance for cleaning and they have done that probably a lot more than is even necessary,” officials said.
The individual with monkeypox “also works in a home health care,” and health officials have been in contact with the one client who has been impacted.
“The person with monkeypox is in isolation, is being medically monitored, and is doing well,” officials added.
The disease is typically spread through prolonged skin-to-skin contact with infected people’s lesions or bodily fluids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to lesions, which can appear like pimples or blisters, the most common symptoms associated with monkeypox are swollen lymph nodes, fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches.
Officials reported that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker had been in touch with the White House, and at the state’s request, “the Food and Drug Administration has authorized use of the vaccine for anyone under 18, without jumping through the normal hoops in this process.”
“That means that anyone with their guardian’s approval will be vaccinated today,” officials said.
ABC News has reached out to the FDA and the White House for clarity on whether a formal authorization has been made for children to receive the JYNNEOS vaccine.
On Tuesday, the FDA confirmed to ABC News that “numerous” children have been granted access through a special permission process that operates on a case-by-case basis.
If a doctor decides a person under 18 was exposed to monkeypox and the benefit of the vaccine is greater than any potential risk, they can submit a request to the FDA. In a statement, the FDA said numerous such requests have been granted, but did not say exactly how many.
At this time, the majority of monkeypox cases confirmed domestically and globally in the current outbreak have been detected in gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men. However, health officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus does not discriminate, and anyone exposed to monkeypox can contract the virus.
At least five children in the U.S. have now positive for monkeypox, according to state and local officials from across the country.
On Thursday, the Biden administration declared the current monkeypox outbreak to be a public health emergency in the U.S.
Globally, more than 28,000 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed across 88 countries, including 7,500 cases reported domestically.
(NESCOPECK, Pa.) — Ten people are dead, including three children, after an intense fire tore through a home in central Pennsylvania on Friday, authorities said.
Crews responding to the early morning fire in Nescopeck could not initially get inside the two-story home due to the flames and heat, according to Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Derek Felsman.
Three bodies were initially recovered in the fire, which was reported shortly after 2:30 a.m., according to police.
State police confirmed Friday evening that 10 bodies have been found dead in the home. The victims ranged in age from 5 to 79, police said. They included a 7-year-old girl and two boys, ages 5 and 6. Their names were not released.
The adult victims were identified by state police as Dale Baker, 19; Star Baker, 22; David Daubert, Sr., 79; Brian Daubert, 42; Shannon Daubert, 45; Laura Daubert, 47; and Marian Slusser, 54.
Three men were able to make it out of the home safely, police said.
Nescopeck volunteer firefighter Harold Baker, one of the first on scene, said 14 people were in the home, many of them his family members. He said he had not heard from 10 of them and expected that he lost his son and daughter as well as several grandchildren and his father-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law.
“When we came, pulled up, the whole place was fully involved,” Baker told Scranton ABC affiliate WNEP. “We tried to get into them; there wasn’t no way we could get into them.”
Mike Swank, who lives across the street from the home, told WNEP that he was watching TV when he heard a “pop” outside. When he looked out the window he saw the front porch of the house “almost totally engulfed.”
“There was a gentleman out here running around in the street and he was yelling, really upset, saying that not everybody made it out,” he told the station.
The Red Cross is on scene to provide grief counseling and other support.
The investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing.
ABC News’ Leo Mayorga contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Resurrection, a new psychological thriller starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth, is in theaters now. Directed by Andrew Semans, it follows a mother who is forced to confront her past. Roth tells ABC Audio what drew him to the project.
“I was traveling with my son. We were actually in France at the time,” he recalls. “And I read it and he was sitting across the way from me while I was doing my reading and my jaw sort of hit the floor. I was like what is this? And he read it and went, ‘Oh, you’re doing this.'”
The 61-year-old actor joined the cast after filming began, which completely changed his approach to the project, he thinks, for the better.
“Normally, you’d give yourself three weeks to sort of get your head around something…I didn’t really have any of that time,” he explains. “So maybe it was better for it in a way. It just, you know concentrate on having the conversations with Rebecca. Don’t think outside the box, just think in the moment.”
And Roth says it was made all the more easier by Hall, whom he believes has “some serious chops as an actor.”
“You actually feel that you’ve gotta bring your game to step up to her,” he continues. “One of the things that you don’t see on camera, but it happens immediately when [Semans] said cut was the amount of laughter that was going on. She is really funny.”
Madonna is gearing up for the August 19 physical release of her compilation album Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones and celebrated its impending arrival with a new, profane twist on “Material Girl.” She partnered with rapper Saucy Santanato remix his viral track based off her 1984 hit for “Material Gworrllllllll!”
The track is available now via streaming services. A music video for “Material Gworrllllllll!” will premiere this Monday, August 8.
In other news, Madonna will appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday, August 10, to talk about her new compilation album. The 50-track physical version of the record will feature all of Madonna’s #1 songs on the dance charts.
Willow Smith is sharing her thoughts on the Oscars slap involving her father, Will Smith, and fellow Hollywood star Chris Rock. In an interview with Billboard, she revealed she wasn’t as bothered as the rest of the world when the incident occurred at the 2022 Academy Awards. In fact, when media scrutiny followed, she said it didn’t “rock me as much as my own internal demons.”
In Willow’s eyes, the slap simply showed that her father was being human — a right that is not always afforded to celebrities, like her entire family.
“I see my whole family as being human, and I love and accept them for all their humanness,” she said. “Because of the position that we’re in, our humanness sometimes isn’t accepted, and we’re expected to act in a way that isn’t conducive to a healthy human life and isn’t conducive to being honest.”
Willow’s thoughts come days after Will issued another apology for his behavior at the Academy Awards.
“I apologize to you, my behavior was unacceptable, and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk,” he said in a message to Chris. “There is no part of me that thinks that was the right way to behave in that moment. There is no part of me that thinks that’s the optimal way to handle a feeling of disrespect or insult.”
Will also issued an apology to his fans, family, fellow nominees and Oscar winners, including Questlove, who accepted his Oscar for Best Documentary Feature shortly after the altercation.
