15 injured after Brightline train collides with fire truck in Florida
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(DELRAY BEACH, Fla.) — A Brightline train collided with a fire truck on Saturday morning in Delray Beach, Florida, injuring three firefighters and 12 train passengers, city officials said.
The three injured Delray Beach firefighters were transported to a local hospital, where they are currently in stable condition. Two of the firefighters were initially listed in critical condition, but their status has since been updated.
In addition to the firefighters, 12 individuals from the train were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, assisted by Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. There have been no reported fatalities.
The accident occurred at around 10:45 a.m. on the East Atlantic Avenue tracks near Railroad Avenue, according to authorities.
According to Delray Beach Fire Rescue, the firefighters were en route to a call when the accident took place.
An active investigation into the cause of the collision is being led by the Delray Beach Police Department, Brightline officials and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Authorities are looking into whether the crossing gates were functioning properly at the time of the incident and have not yet confirmed details regarding the specific cause of the crash.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Judge Maxwell Wiley has dismissed the top charge of second-degree manslaughter against Daniel Penny in the death of Jordan Neely at the request of prosecutors after considering declaring a mistrial after jurors reported they continue to be deadlocked on the charge.
He said he will encourage the jury to continue deliberating on Monday the lesser charge of whether Penny committed criminally negligent homicide in the death of Neely, a homeless man, on the New York City subway last year.
Defense attorney Thomas Kenniff opposed the move, arguing the move could lead to a “coercive or a compromised verdict.” He again encouraged the judge to declare a mistrial.
This leaves the jury to deliberate the lesser count of criminally negligent homicide.
“Whether that makes any difference or not I have no idea,” Wiley said.
Penny, a 25-year-old former Marine, put Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man, in a six-minute-long chokehold after Neely boarded a subway car acting erratically, according to police. Witnesses described Neely yelling and moving erratically, with Penny’s attorneys calling Neely “insanely threatening” when Penny put Neely in a chokehold.
The city’s medical examiner concluded Penny’s chokehold killed Neely.
He was initially charged with both manslaughter and negligent homicide charges. He pleaded not guilty to both.
The jury sent two notes repeating that they could not come to a unanimous conclusion on the count.
Wiley suggested giving the jury a second Allen charge, and he gave the lawyers more time to think about next steps.
In its first note of the day, the jury in Penny’s manslaughter and negligent homicide trial reported that it is “unable to come to a unanimous vote” on whether Penny committed second-degree manslaughter.
“We the jury request instructions from Judge Wiley. At this time, we are unable to come to a unanimous vote on court one,” the note said.
Wiley gave the jury an Allen charge, which refers to the jury instructions given to a hung jury that encourages them to continue deliberating despite the deadlock. He is giving the lawyers time to consider the next steps.
Penny’s lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, unsuccessfully moved for a mistrial, arguing that the Allen Charge would be “coercive.”
Wiley disagreed, saying that it was “too early” to declare a mistrial before encouraging the jury to continue their deliberations.
The verdict form asks the jury to decide the first count – second-degree manslaughter – before potentially moving to the second count of criminally negligent homicide. Only if it finds Penny not guilty on the first count, can it consider the second count of criminally negligent homicide.
The second-degree manslaughter charge only required prosecutors to have proven Penny acted recklessly, not intentionally.
“It would be a crazy result to have a hung jury just because they can’t move on to the second count?” prosecutor Dafna Yoran said.
Yoran also told Wiley that a new trial would “ultimately [be] the case if they hang the case.”
Wiley left unanswered the question about whether the jury could move onto the second count if they are unable to reach a verdict on the first count. He said he believed the jury moving to the second count is possible but needs to find the legal authority to do so.
“I think ultimately we are going to have to answer the question of whether they can move to count two,” he said.
Twenty minutes after the judge encouraged them to continue deliberating despite their deadlock, the jury sent back another note requesting more information about the term “reasonable person” in their instructions.
“Ultimately, what a reasonable person is up to you to decide,” Wiley told the jury in response to their note, referring them to a two-part test in jury instruction.
“Would a reasonable person have had the same honestly held belief as the defendant given the circumstances and what the defendant knew at that time?” Wiley asked, referring to the second part of the test.
Before the jury entered, Wiley noted how the “reasonableness” standard was established in People v. Goetz – another high-profile New York trial after Bernhard Goetz shot four teenagers on a New York subway in 1984 after they allegedly tried to rob him. A New York jury convicted Goetz for one count of carrying an unlicensed firearm but acquitted on the more severe charges, and the trial sparked a nationwide debate about race and crime that has echoed forty years later in Penny’s case.
(NEW YORK) — Public health officials are continuing to monitor an outbreak of avian influenza, also known as bird flu, as it spreads across the U.S.
The strain, known as H5N1, sickened several mammals this year before infecting dozens of Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There is no evidence of person-to-person transmission of bird flu, and the risk to the general public is low, the CDC said.
But public health experts have also said it’s important to be alert during the respiratory virus season and to be aware of risks that could come from exposure to infected animals and from drinking raw milk.
Here’s the latest information on the outbreak in the United States:
What is the status of the bird flu outbreak? Avian influenza, or bird flu, is an infectious viral disease that primarily spreads among birds and is caused by infection with Avian Influenza A viruses.
These viruses typically spread among wild aquatic birds but can infect domestic poultry and other bird and animal species, according to the CDC. In the U.S., the virus infected dairy cows.
“What’s made this year’s outbreak interesting is the association with dairy cows, which is not an association that’s been seen before,” Michael Ben-Aderet, an infectious disease physician and associate director of hospital epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told ABC News.
“H5N1 has been known for many, many years. It’s not a new strain of bird flu, but we haven’t seen it cross over into dairy cows and have this association with dairy cows and dairy workers,” he continued.
As of Thursday, 58 human cases have been confirmed in seven states, according to CDC data. California has the highest number of cases with 32.
Almost all confirmed cases have had direct contact with infected cattle or infected livestock.
So far, all bird flu cases in the U.S. have been mild, and patients have all recovered after receiving antiviral medication.
“There has been another strain in Canada that caused really severe disease in a teenager who ended up in critical condition in the hospital,” Dr. Meghan Davis, an associate professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News. “So yes, these [strains] are highly related, but not quite the same.”
What are the risks associated with raw milk? In April reports emerged of bird flu fragments found in samples of pasteurized milk.
However, the fragments are inactive remnants of the virus; they cannot cause infection because the commercial milk supply undergoes pasteurization.
“The good news is that pasteurization inactivates [the virus], and so, when you do that test to look at fragments of the virus, although we find it in milk, the pasteurization process ensures that live virus is not transmitted,” Albert Ko, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, told ABC News.
However, the Food and Drug Administration has previously warned of the possible dangers associated with drinking raw, unpasteurized milk due to elevated risks of foodborne illness.
On Tuesday, all of Raw Farm’s raw whole milk and cream products that were still on store shelves in California were being voluntarily recalled by the company, following multiple detections of bird flu virus in its milk and dairy supply within the past week, according to public health officials.
The CDC said it considers exposure to raw milk without personal protective equipment a “high-risk exposure event.”
“Raw milk consumers need to be aware that even handling the product itself could be a kind of exposure,” Davis said. “So, if you’re pouring it, you spill a little milk, get that on your hands, touch your eyes. You could get the same kind of exposure as someone who works in a dairy farm.”
Are we at risk of a bird flu pandemic? Experts said the U.S. is currently not experiencing a bird flu pandemic, nor is the country presently at risk of a bird flu pandemic.
However, they said with each new human case, it offers a chance for the virus to mutate, theoretically enabling human-to-human transmission to occur at a point in the future.
“I think the warning sign is just, because there’s so much transmission in birds and there’s transmission now in our cattle, particularly we really are concerned about the possibility that there may be a mutation that enables person to person or human-to-human transmission,” Ko said.
Ben-Aderet said there is also concern as the U.S. heads into the winter respiratory virus season that the seasonal flu — which has the ability to exchange parts of its genome with other influenza viruses — could do the same with bird flu.
Health officials are taking proactive measures to prevent such a situation from occurring.
The World Health Organization announced in July that it has launched an initiative to help accelerate the development of a human bird flu vaccine using messenger RNA technology.
In October, federal health officials announced they are providing $72 million to vaccine manufacturers to help ensure available non-mRNA bird flu vaccines are ready-to-use, if needed.
There are currently no recommendations for anyone in the U.S. to be vaccinated against bird flu.
ABC News’ Youri Bendjaoud contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Snow and rain are in the forecast for some parts of the U.S. as travelers hit the road and head to the airport for Thanksgiving.
Here’s your weather forecast for the holiday week:
Wednesday
Heavy snow is hitting the Colorado Rocky Mountains on Wednesday.
Avalanche danger is high due to the combination of heavy snow and strong winds gusting up to 55 mph.
Rain is targeting the Interstate 70 corridor in Kansas and Missouri on Wednesday.
The rain will move into Illinois and Indiana in the afternoon. By the evening, the rain will push into Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.
This storm will be expanding overnight as it heads east for Thanksgiving.
Meanwhile, the entire South is enjoying well above average temperatures in the 70s and 80s. Houston could near its daily record high of 84 degrees.
Thanksgiving
Spectators heading to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City should bring umbrellas and raincoats, as the parade will be rainy with temperatures in the 40s. The breeze could reach 15 mph.
The rain will stop in Washington, D.C., by noon and in New York City by 4 p.m. The rain will continue in Boston until about 9 p.m.
Meanwhile, snow will be falling Thursday morning in Ohio, Pennsylvania and upstate New York.
By the afternoon and evening, the heavy snow will reach Maine and the Green and White mountains in Vermont and New Hampshire.
The rain and snow from this storm will be done by Friday morning.
Friday
Friday will be dry and tranquil across the country.
But temperatures will fall below average across the Northeast, the Midwest and the South — and it’ll stay chilly through the weekend and into next week.
Saturday and Sunday
Weekend snow is possible in Missouri and Kentucky, while lake effect snow is forecast for the Great Lakes.
Some parts of upstate New York could see 1 to 3 feet of snow through Monday morning.
About 6 to 12 inches of snow is possible at the Buffalo Bills’ Orchard Park, New York, stadium by the time the Bills host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
