78-year-old woman dies from snake bites in Northern California: Sheriff
A captured rattlesnake is held with snake tongs by Jason Magee of OC Snake Removal in Mission Viejo on Tuesday, March 24, 2026. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
(MENDOCINO, Calif) — A 78-year-old woman has died from snake bites in Northern California, marking the third deadly snake bite victim in the state this year.
The woman was walking in a rural area in Redwood Valley on April 8 when she suffered three venomous snake bites, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said.
She was treated at a hospital but died on April 10, the sheriff’s office said.
While about 7,000 to 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes each year in the U.S., only about five of those people die from the bites, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But this already marks the third deadly snake bite in California this year.
A 25-year-old man died after he was bitten by a rattlesnake while mountain biking in Irvine in Southern California in February, according to ABC Los Angeles station KABC. In March, a 46-year-old woman died after she was bitten by a rattlesnake while hiking at Southern California’s Wildwood Regional Park, KABC reported.
Peak rattlesnake season is just getting underway. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said bites are most common between April and October.
United States President Donald Trump, right, speaks to Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a North Atlantic Council plenary meeting during the the NATO summit on June 25, 2025 in The Hague, Netherlands. (Photo by Kin Cheung – Pool/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will host King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the White House for a highly anticipated state visit this week as the “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom is under a microscope amid the war with Iran.
“I look forward to the dinner. We’re having King Charles come; he’s a friend of mine. We’re really looking forward to it, we’ve spoken, and we’re going to have a great time,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last week.
While Trump has repeatedly praised King Charles as a “friend” whom he’s known for years, his relationship with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been another story as the president has repeatedly assailed the U.K. and other NATO allies over the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran.
“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said of Starmer in March as he criticized the U.K. for not doing more to support the war.
Starmer has waved off concerns about the relationship between the two countries.
“The special relationship is in operation right now,” Starmer said in the wake of Trump’s comments last month. “We are working together in the region, the U.S. and the British working together to protect both the U.S. and the British in joint bases, where we’re jointly located and we’re sharing intelligence on a 24/7 basis in the usual way.”
Trump says visit could help repair damage
Amid his criticism of the U.K.’s support of the war with Iran, Trump said the Charles’ visit — the U.K.’s constitutional and ceremonial head of state — may help restore any damaged ties between the two allies.
“Absolutely. He’s fantastic. He’s a fantastic man. Absolutely the answer is yes,” Trump told the BBC in a phone interview on Thursday when asked if the visit could help repair the relationship.
But whether pomp and circumstance with the king will translate into real geopolitical gains remains to be seen. Trump told Reuters in a phone interview on Friday that he was “going to talk about everything” with the king, including Iran, NATO and the U.K.’s digital services tax.
“I like Starmer, but…”
While Charles will officially represent the U.K. on the visit, Trump has repeatedly attacked Starmer, the U.K.’s top elected official, since the start of the war with Iran on issues both foreign and domestic.
Amid rising global oil prices, Trump has renewed his call for Starmer to begin drilling for oil in the North Sea and criticized the prime minister for his handling of immigration.
“I like Starmer, but I think he’s made a tragic mistake in closing the North Sea oil. You see, your energy prices are the highest in the world. And I think he’s made a tragic mistake on immigration,” Trump told the U.K.’s Sky News on April 14.
The president has even gone as far as to compare Starmer to Neville Chamberlain — the British prime minister infamous for his appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany before World War II — over Starmer’s purported refusal to send the U.K.’s navy to the Middle East at the start of the war.
“He made a public statement that we will send equipment after the war is over. It was a — well, you know, that’s a Neville — Neville Chamberlain-type statement, and Germany, the same thing. He said, ‘We didn’t start this war.’ Well, we helped them with Ukraine,” Trump told Fox News on April 12 about efforts to arm Ukraine in its war with Russia.
I response to Trump’s comments, Starmer said, “We do have mine-sweeping capability, I won’t go into operational matters, but we do have that capability — that’s all focused, from our point of view, on getting the strait fully open.”
But he reiterated his position that the U.K. would not join the conflict.
“My decision has been very clearly that whatever the pressure — and there’s been some considerable pressure — we’re not getting dragged into the war. The U.K. is not getting dragged in,” he said. “That’s not in our national interest, because I’m not going to act unless there’s a clear, lawful basis and a clear thought-through plan.”
Trump expressed surprise in a meeting with his Cabinet on March 26 that Starmer did not do more to send support to the U.S. amid the war.
“I think he’s [Starmer] a lovely man, I do. I think he’s a lovely man, but I think he did something that was shocking; he didn’t want to help us. And maybe in particular that country, you know, the longest bond, the longest ally, Australia, too. Australia was not great,” he said.
Moments later, Trump questioned whether the U.S. would be there for the U.K. and NATO in the future.
“I mean, we’re always going to be there — at least we were, I don’t know about it anymore, to be honest with you, I have to be honest. We were always there when they needed help, we always would have been there when they needed help,” Trump said.
But asked whether the political fallout from the war would impact his visit with Charles, Trump said no.
“No, he’s a friend of mine. He’s a great gentleman. As you know, he honored me and our country; he really honored our country. But we had an amazing time. I’ve known him as Prince Charles; I know him as King Charles,” Trump said.
“I’m proud of him. He’s fighting a tough battle. He’s tough,” Trump added. “He’s going to be here very soon, as you know, we’re going to have a state dinner, it’s going to be great.”
Signage outside the US Department of Justice (DOJ) headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Feb. 17, 2023. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department is proposing a new policy that would seek to limit the ability of state bar associations to launch ethics probes into DOJ attorneys, according to a new document posted Wednesday in the Federal Register.
The proposal, which comes amid growing scrutiny of the department’s attorneys and whether they’re complying with ethical obligations in enforcing the Trump administration’s agenda, would seek to empower Attorney General Pam Bondi to request that state bar investigations be suspended pending a DOJ review of any originating complaint.
In the event the state bar authorities “refuse” to suspend their investigations, the proposal says, the Justice Department “shall take appropriate action to prevent the bar disciplinary authorities from interfering.”
It’s not immediately clear what “appropriate action” the department could take to influence state-level proceedings, and the proposed rule does not elaborate further.
The proposal argues that the bar complaint and investigation process has been “weaponized” by political activists in recent years to ensnare officials across DOJ’s ranks into costly and time-consuming proceedings.
“This unprecedented weaponization of the State bar complaint process risks chilling the zealous advocacy by Department attorneys on behalf of the United States, its agencies, and its officers,” the proposed rule said. “That chilling effect, in turn, would interfere with the broad statutory authority of the Attorney General to manage and supervise Department attorneys.”
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Dolores Huerta, the iconic civil rights leader and co-founder of the United Farm Workers, spoke to ABC News’ John Quiñones. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Dolores Huerta, the iconic civil rights leader and co-founder of the United Farm Workers, said she decided to speak out to support other women who have come forward after a New York Times report revealed accusations of sexual assault against the late labor leader Cesar Chávez.
“And to think that somebody that we looked at as our hero and our leader — you know, it’s pretty horrible,” Huerta said in a network exclusive with John Quiñones.
According to the Times, the late farmworker organizer, who became a national civil rights icon, used his position of power to exploit some of the women and minors who worked and volunteered in his movement for his own sexual gratification.
Chavez died in 1993 at age 66.
On Wednesday, Huerta said in a statement that she was “manipulated and pressured into having sex” with Chávez. Huerta, 95, stated she had two separate sexual encounters with Chávez in the 1960s — one in which she said she was pressured to have sex with him and the other in which she said she was forced against her will.
“Your first name, Dolores, in English translates into pain or aching. Have you been suffering in silence, holding these secrets all these decades?” asked Quiñones.
“It was very hard, it was very hard to keep this. But, you know, I think I am building on the courage of these young women — that they had the courage to come out and say what happened to them. And God knows what they’ve suffered,” Huerta said. “It was time.”
According to the Times, one of the women who spoke out alleged she was 12 years old when Chávez first touched her inappropriately and 15 when he raped her in California. Another woman alleged she was summoned for sexual encounters with Chávez dozens of times over a four-year period, starting when she was 13 and he was 45.
Huerta said Chávez “had an evil side to him.”
“Cesar spoke about and practiced the nonviolent movement,” Huerta said. “Well, what could be more violent than that?”
Huerta says both encounters she had with Chávez led to pregnancies that she kept secret, later arranging for the children to be raised by other families.
“I thought that abortion was a sin,” Huerta told Quiñones. “I have since changed my mind on those issues because I now realize that women have to have a right to abortion. And by the way, abortion was also illegal at that time.”
She told ABC News one of the children was raised by her brother and the other was raised by a family friend. When asked about Chavez’s legacy amid the allegations, Huerta said she hopes that “his legacy would live on in the things that were accomplished.”
Huerta’s career as an activist began in 1955 when she joined the Community Service Organization, where she met Chavez. Together, they founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, which later became the UFW.
Huerta played a pivotal role in the Delano grape strike of 1965 and led the subsequent national boycott of table grapes, which successfully pressured growers to improve wages and working conditions.
In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Huerta the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Huerta said she remains committed to her work, focusing on current threats to labor rights and the treatment of immigrants in detention centers.
“My intention is just to do the work, make lives better for women, make lives better for working people,” Huerta said. “We know that the job isn’t finished yet.”
“At my age, 96, as long as God gives me strength and the little energy that I have left, I want to just continue doing the work to make life better for women, for children, and of course, for farmworkers and workers in general,” she added.
“I know we have a long fight ahead of us, even in our country right now, because so many of the gains that have been won over the years are being taken away from us.”
