Tropical Storm Francine tracker: Storm forecast to become hurricane as it approaches Gulf Coast
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Francine was forecast to strengthen into a hurricane early Tuesday ahead of its expected landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said.
The storm’s winds remained at about 65 mph just after midnight, the center said in its 1 a.m. CT update on Tuesday.
“Francine will likely become a hurricane today, with significant strengthening expected before it reaches the coast,” the update said.
Weather officials issued a series of hurricane warnings and watches for coastal areas as the storm has churned in the Gulf of Mexico. Strong winds are extending about 140 miles outward from the storm.
Francine is expected to make landfall Wednesday afternoon in southwestern Louisiana as a Category 2 storm with 100 mph winds.
A Storm Surge Warning was in effect for High Island, Texas, to the mouth of the Mississippi River and Vermilion Bay in Louisiana. A Hurricane Warning was in effect for the Louisiana coast from Sabine Pass eastward to Morgan City, officials said.
The storm is expected to bring rain to much of the coast from northeastern Mexico through Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Most areas in the storm’s path will see between 4 inches and 8 inches of rain, with a few areas getting as much as 12 inches.
“This rainfall could lead to considerable flash and urban flooding,” weather officials said.
(NEW YORK) — The trial for Andrew Lester, the Kansas City man charged in the shooting of Ralph Yarl after the teenager mistakenly went to the wrong house, was delayed indefinitely on Monday after a judge ordered a mental evaluation for the 85-year-old to determine if he is fit to stand trial.
Lester appeared in court Monday morning for a preliminary hearing ahead of the trial, which was set to begin on Oct. 7. ABC News reached out to Lester’s attorney, Steven Salmon, for additional comment. The next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 8.
Lester, a white man, was charged with one count of felony assault in the first-degree and one count of armed criminal action, also a felony, in the April 2023 shooting of Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who mistakenly went to Lester’s home after arriving at the wrong address to pick up his twin brothers from a play date. Lester has pleaded not guilty.
Yarl was shot in the head and in the right arm on the evening of April 13, 2023, by Lester, a homeowner in Kansas City, Missouri, according to police. The teenager suffered a traumatic brain injury, his family previously told ABC News.
The delay in this case comes after Salmon filed a motion in the Clay County Circuit Court on Aug. 27, requesting a mental evaluation to determine if Lester is fit to stand trial, according to court documents obtained by ABC News.
The motion, which was reviewed by ABC News, argued that Lester is facing health conditions that could impair his ability to understand legal proceedings or assist in his defense. According to court documents, Lester has lost more than 50 pounds, experienced issues with his memory and has exhibited confusion surrounding the details of the case.
“Over the course of this case, Counsel has noticed a significant decline in Defendant’s overall physical health, as well as his mental acuity,” Salmon said in the motion.
“The frailty of Defendant’s physical health has, in part, been because of a broken hip, heart issues and hospitalization he has suffered during the pendency of this matter,” he added.
Salmon also said that Lester, who pleaded not guilty in April 2023 and was released on a $200,000 bond, has faced “stress” due to “overwhelming media attention, as well as death threats and other unwanted attention, making it difficult for him to interact socially with anyone.”
Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson responded to the motion requesting a mental health evaluation in a filing on Aug. 28, saying, “the State respectfully moves this Court to make a determination regarding whether reasonable cause exists to believe that the accused lacks mental fitness to proceed prior to deciding whether to order a mental evaluation.”
ABC News has reached out to the Yarl family for comment.
The trial was initially set after a Clay County judge ruled during a preliminary hearing in August 2023 that there was enough probable cause that a felony has been committed.
“The binding over of a defendant from a preliminary hearing is fairly normal. The prosecutor simply needs to provide probable cause to bind the case over,” Salmon told ABC News after the August 2023 ruling.
Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
(HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS) — Robert Roberson — whose murder conviction in the death of his 2-year-old daughter has come under scrutiny — did not testify Monday before the Texas House committee as previously planned.
Committee members decided against having Roberson address the hearing via video call. However, they did not state whether Roberson would or would not testify before the committee.
“Robert is a person with autism who has significant communication challenges, which was a core issue that impacted him at every stage of our judicial of our justice system,” said state Rep. Joe Moodie. “He’s also spent most of the last two decades alone, locked away from the modern technology we now take for granted. Video conference is poorly suited for Robert specifically to provide his testimony and would only further the harm he’s already suffered.”
Still, the committee continued its hearing on a law that Roberson himself attempted to use to challenge his conviction based on a clinical diagnosis that could be related to different causes.
“I was one of the 12 jurors on the case of Robert the trial, and I took that position very seriously,” a juror on the case told to the House committee on Monday:
“Everything that was presented to us was all about ‘shaken baby syndrome,’ That is what our decision was based on,” she continued. “Nothing else was ever mentioned or presented to us to consider. If it had been told to us, we would have now, I would have had a different opinion. And I would have found him not guilty.”
Among the witnesses speaking before the committee was Dr. Phil McGraw, the talk show host and forensic psychologist. He argued that if legislators execute Roberson, “the death penalty could come under real attack.”
“When we talk about due process and fair trial, that means that all the evidence, everything that is relevant and pertinent to that trial, gets before the trier of fact, whether it be a judge or a jury, and that there’s fair representation and I certainly don’t think that standard has been met here that that high standard by which we would deprive someone of their life has been met,” McGraw said.
Roberson was set to become the first person to be executed in the U.S. based on a death attributed to “shaken baby syndrome,” although several lawmakers, scientists and public figures have cast doubt over the cause of death.
He was set to be executed on Oct. 17. The U.S. Supreme Court had previously decided not to intervene in the case, the Texas Supreme Court issued a temporary stay in the case in what were supposed to be his final hours.
Roberson was found guilty of the 2002 murder of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, in part, based on the testimony from a pediatrician who described swelling and hemorrhages in her brain to support a “shaken baby syndrome” diagnosis.
However, evidence not shown to the jury at the time states that Nikki had chronic interstitial viral pneumonia and acute bacterial pneumonia at the time of her death and had been prescribed respiratory-suppressing drugs by doctors in the days leading up to her death, and had fallen from her bed the night before her death.
Additionally, Roberson’s autism affects how he expresses emotion — a concern that was also presented against him in his arrest, according to his legal team.
(NEW YORK) — E-cigarettes in kid-friendly flavors are driving retail sales and contain more addictive nicotine than ever, according to a new report from the nonprofit CDC Foundation and advocacy group Truth Initiative.
The report showed a 47% increase in e-cigarette sales at U.S. retail outlets between 2019 and 2023, with flavors like fruit, candy, mint, menthol and desserts accounting for more than 80% of those sales.
Most flavored products are not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and are therefore on the market illegally, according to Truth Initiative.
Vaping among youth is declining in the U.S., but more than 1.6 million children still vape, and nearly 90% of them report using flavored products, according to the report.
States that have implemented strong enforcement policies have seen a dramatic drop in sales. Massachusetts, for example, saw an 86% drop in overall e-cigarette sales in brick-and-mortar stores, the report said.
The proliferation of kid-friendly flavored vapes is not authorized by the FDA to be in stores, making the booming sales technically illegal — but that could change if the industry succeeds in a major case before the U.S. Supreme Court next month.
Vape makers have sued the FDA, which has blocked the sale and marketing of most flavored products, alleging the agency is stonewalling good science and common sense. They claim flavors like “Jimmy the Juice Man” and “Iced Pineapple Express” are ideal for helping adult smokers quit a cancer-causing habit.
The Supreme Court will delve into the science during arguments on Dec. 2 and decide next year whether the FDA analysis has been flawed and unfair, potentially opening the flood gates to widespread legal production and sale of flavored nicotine products.
There has been a major decline in the number of students who reported current e-cigarette use, according to federal data released last month from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey.
The number of users was 2.13 million in 2023 compared to 1.63 million in 2024, the report found. Usage among high school students in particular dropped to 1.56 million from 1.21 million over the same period.
ABC News’ Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
