(NEW YORK) — Dangerous, record-breaking heat is ongoing in the West, with the temperature in Phoenix reaching the triple digits every day for the last three weeks.
Phoenix climbed over a scorching 110 degrees on 80 days in 2024 — shattering the record set last year with 55 days of temperatures over 110 degrees.
The heat spreads across the Southwest and the South this weekend, with temperatures soaring to the 90s in cities including Las Vegas, Austin, Dallas and Little Rock, Arkansas.
There are hundreds of deaths each year in the U.S. due to excessive heat, according to CDC WONDER, an online database, and scientists caution that the actual number of heat-related deaths is likely higher.
Meanwhile, as Florida cleans up from the devastation left by Hurricane Milton, lingering river flood warnings are ongoing for parts of Florida and Georgia.
Choppy seas are also keeping the rip current risk high for many beaches in Georgia and Florida’s east coast.
(CLEVES, Ohio) — Officials in Hamilton County, Ohio, on Wednesday, lifted the evacuation order that was put in place the night before over a chemical leak from a railcar.
Hamilton County’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency previously told anyone within half a mile of the rail yard to leave the area immediately.
Authorities confirmed Tuesday night that the leak was styrene, a flammable liquid used to make plastics and rubber, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
“The risk of an explosion is our primary concern,” an official said at a Tuesday night news conference. “We are asking residents within a three-quarter-mile radius to shelter in place as a precaution. Experts have assured us that this is well within the safety norms.”
By Wednesday morning, the rail car was no longer “venting,” officials said at a brief press conference.
No one, including train employees, was injured in the incident, officials said.
Officials said 210 homes in Cleves and Whitewater Townships were located in the designated evacuation zone, though how many people were impacted was not immediately known.
The train consisted of 29 cars, some of which were also carrying styrene, officials said.
“Our first priority upon arriving at the scene was removing anything in close proximity to the leak,” an official confirmed Tuesday.
Only one car was found to have leaked styrene, they said.
Cleves Township is almost 17 miles from Cincinnati, while Whitewater Township is about 22 miles away.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urged those in the area to follow the directions of officials in a social media post on Tuesday.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were briefed on the incident, White House officials said in a statement.
“The President has directed his team to provide any resources that may be needed,” the official said. “We urge residents to heed the warnings of emergency personnel, especially those instructed to evacuate.”
Ohio senator and vice presidential nominee JD Vance said in a statement on X that he and his team were monitoring the incident.
“My team and I are closely tracking a potentially hazardous chemical leak coming from a railcar near Cleves, Ohio,” Vance said. “Local authorities are working diligently to keep everyone safe. We will continue to monitor the situation until it has been resolved.”
(NEW YORK) — A Staten Island man who ran a large-scale marijuana smuggling operation and whose 10-year federal prison sentence was commuted by then-President Donald Trump has been arrested for domestic assault in Atlantic Beach.
Jonathan Braun, 41, is charged with punching his father-in-law Tuesday after the elderly man came to the assistance of Braun’s wife, whom he was chasing after an argument, according to prosecutors.
Braun pleaded not guilty. The judge released him on his own recognizance over the objection of the Nassau County District Attorney’s office, which requested bail.
At the time Trump granted Braun clemency, on his last day in office, the White House said Braun “will seek employment to support his wife and children.” Braun has assaulted his wife numerous times since his release, according to court records.
Braun also has a history of violence and threats.
At the time of his clemency, Braun still faced investigations related to his role in an operation that made predatory loans to small-business owners.
According to a lawsuit by the New York attorney general’s office, Braun called business owners and insulted, swore at and bullied them, demanding payment and making threats.
“You have no idea what I’m going to do,” the lawsuit quoted Braun as allegedly saying. “I will take your daughters from you.”
Braun also threatened that he would come to one merchant’s synagogue in Brooklyn and physically beat him and “publicly embarrass him,” stating, “I am going to make you bleed.”
He threatened another, “Be thankful you’re not in New York, because your family would find you floating in the Hudson,” according to the lawsuit.
Braun was granted clemency, along with dozens of others, on Jan. 19, 2021, his last day in office before Joe Biden took over as president.
(NEW YORK) — There was once a magma-filled ocean on the south pole of the moon, scientists recently discovered after analyzing lunar soil that revealed ancient information about the moon’s origin.
The study of soil taken from a less-studied region of the moon suggests the presence of remnants of a former ocean of magma, according to a study published Wednesday in Nature.
The researchers analyzed lunar soil extracted from high-latitude regions on the southern portion of the moon — taken as part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission when India’s Vikram lander module made a historic touchdown near the south pole of the moon in August 2023. The mission is the southern-most landing that has ever taken place on the moon — a difficult feat considering the lack of sunlight, which can create visibility and communication issues, Anil Bhardwaj, director of Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad and co-author of the study, told ABC News. Most lunar landings, especially human landings, have taken place in the equatorial or low-latitude regions.
The mission embarked the use of new technology — a particle access spectrometer — an instrument aboard the rover that was able to make observations and collect data very close to the lunar surface, M. Shanmugam, the lead engineer of the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer at the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, told ABC News.
The composition of the soil found on Vikram’s landing site is consistent with an ancient magma ocean, the authors conclude.
When analyzing the soil, the researchers found a relatively uniform elemental composition among 23 measurements at various spots along the lunar surface, primarily containing the rock-type ferroan anorthosite. The spectrum of elements also included all of the major and minor elements of the presence of magma, including sodium, aluminum, magnesium, carbon, silicon, sulfur, potassium, iron, titanium, chromium and manganese, Bhardwaj said.
The moon is believed to have formed after a body the size of Mars struck Earth about 4.24 billion years ago, Bhardwaj said. The material that formed as a result of the volatile impact was likely magma that was thrown into space that remained within the Earth’s gravitational pull and eventually began forming a planetary-mass object.
The magma ocean is likely to have existed for tens to hundred million years, Santosh Vadawale, a professor in the Physical Research Laboratory and lead author of the study, told ABC News.
Researchers believed the magma disappeared as the moon cooled throughout its formation, hypothesizing that, less dense ferroan anorthosite floated to the lunar surface while heavier minerals sank to form the mantle during the cool-down — forming the lunar highlands as a result of the floatation of lighter anorthositic rock.
Previous research into the Moon’s geology has primarily relied on samples taken by missions to lunar mid-latitudes, such as the Apollo program, giving scientists a more nuanced look into the history of the moon’s formation, according to the paper.
While the lunar magma ocean hypothesis has existed for decades, ever since the Apollo mission placed humans on the moon in 1969, the new research has allowed researchers to confirm the evolutionary history of the moon from billions of years ago, Vadawale said.
“Our next mission, we would like to try to go as close as possible to poles, where there are these permanently shadowed regions where there is water is supposed to be there,” he said.