43 primates on the loose in South Carolina town after escaping from research lab
Yemassee Police Department via Meta
(YEMASSEE, S.C.) — At least 43 primates were on the loose Thursday in a South Carolina town where authorities “strongly advised” residents to keep their doors and windows locked after the animals escaped from a research laboratory.
“At this point, none have been captured,” the Yemassee Police Department said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
Traps were being set around the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center in Yemassee, where the Rhesus Macaque monkeys escaped en masse around 9:45 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
Yemassee police officers were searching for the furry fugitives, which can grow to up to 21 inches tall and weigh 17 pounds, using thermal imaging cameras, according to the sheriff’s office.
“Residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes,” the sheriff’s office said. “If you spot any of the escaped animals, please contact 911 immediately and refrain from approaching them.”
Police said they are working with staff of Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center to find the escapees.
“We want to assure the community that there is no health risk associated with these animals,” police said.
Representatives of the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center could not be immediately contacted for comment.
According to its website, Alpha Genesis “provides the highest quality nonhuman primate products and bio-research services world-wide,” including serum, plasma, whole blood and tissue samples.
(WASHINGTON) — The crew of the Titan’s support ship felt a “shudder” around the time they lost contact with the submersible during its doomed dive to the Titanic shipwreck, the Coast Guard said Friday.
U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation Chair Jason Neubauer revealed during the last day of a two-week hearing on the implosion that the master of the Polar Prince told them that in hindsight, he believes he felt the ship “shudder” around the time when communications with the sub were lost during the June 2023 expedition.
The statement was provided to the board in October 2023, when the unidentified master was asked if he or crew members heard anything indicating the OceanGate submersible imploded, Neubauer said.
“The answer from the master was, ‘With the benefit of hindsight, I now believe I felt the Polar Prince shudder at around the time communications were reportedly lost, but at the time, we thought nothing of it. It was slight,'” Neubauer said.
Capt. Jamie Frederick with U.S. Coast Guard Sector Boston, who testified Friday on the Titan search and rescue mission, said if that information had been reported immediately to the Coast Guard, that could have had a “drastic impact on the search efforts.”
“My initial reaction is, if that was information they have, to me personally, it would be unconscionable that they would not share that with the unified command,” Frederick said.
Neubauer added that from the crew’s perspective, the shudder was “not immediately connected to the event” so wasn’t reported to the Coast Guard.
Frederick detailed during his testimony the complex, international search and rescue response, which culminated with a remotely operated vehicle able to go to a depth of 6,000 meters finding the Titan debris on June 22 on the ocean floor.
“They discovered the tail cone first. And then as we continued to find additional debris, it became apparent that it had been a total loss,” he said.
The implosion killed all five passengers, including Stockton Rush, the co-founder and CEO of the sub’s maker, OceanGate. French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, were also killed.
Frederick said the responders understood the Titan had survival systems on board and that they “never even got to the point to have the discussion of suspension.”
“I wouldn’t even want to speculate on when that would happen,” he added.
Frederick also addressed knocking noises detected by sonar buoys in the vicinity of the search location the day after the Titan imploded. He said the data was given to the U.S. Navy, which determined two days later it was not anyone knocking on the hull of the Titan. “They were 100% certain that it was not human in nature,” he said.
He also addressed an “anomaly” consistent with an implosion that was detected by the U.S. Navy in the general vicinity of where the Titan was at the time communications were lost. He said he was informed of the data a day after the Titan was lost and the information was classified at the time.
“It was one piece of data. It wasn’t definitive,” he said. “The Navy couldn’t tell us that it was 100% definitive, that it was an implosion.”
Rush said he would ‘buy a congressman’ to make Titan problems go away: Ex-employee
A former OceanGate employee testified during the hearing on Friday that he resigned from the submersible company after Rush told him he would “buy a congressman” to make problems with its Titan vessel go away.
Matthew McCoy was an active duty member of the U.S. Coast Guard prior to joining OceanGate as an operations technician in April 2017 as the company was building the first Titan prototype, which was never used on Titanic dives. He said he quit six months later, in September 2017, a day after his conversation with Rush.
McCoy said he told Rush he was concerned about operating the experimental Titan vessel without a certificate of inspection and that it would not be inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard. He said Rush responded that the Titan would be operating in the Bahamas and launch out of Canada and would not fall under U.S. jurisdiction.
“I think I had expressed to him that still taking U.S. passengers on there for hire at any point in time, if they touched the U.S. land, you know, U.S. port, that would also be of consideration,” McCoy said.
He said the conversation became “tense” and ended with Rush saying that “if the Coast Guard became a problem, he would buy himself a congressman and make it go away.”
“That will stand in my mind for the rest of time,” McCoy said. “I’ve never had anybody say that to me directly, and I was aghast. And basically, after that, I resigned. I couldn’t work there anymore.”
Asked by the Marine Board of Investigation if he felt like Rush was trying to intimidate him or if it was “more like bluster,” McCoy said he felt like Rush was trying to “either intimidate me or impress me.”
McCoy, a member of the Coast Guard Reserve, said he wasn’t clear on the regulations for the sub but was concerned about potentially violating U.S. law. He said he considered whether to notify the Coast Guard but OceanGate hadn’t done any dives in the U.S. with Titan.
He said he subsequently learned of a complaint OceanGate whistleblower David Lochridge filed in 2018 with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration following his termination. McCoy said he thought there would be a “deeper investigation” into OceanGate at that point. Lochridge’s whistleblower retaliation case was closed in late 2018 after he and OceanGate entered a settlement agreement in their respective lawsuits, OSHA said. Lochridge’s safety allegations regarding the Titan were referred to the Coast Guard, OSHA said.
McCoy said there was an “alarm bell” before he quit that made him concerned about OceanGate’s operations and the production of the Titan’s carbon-fiber hull.
When he started, he said, it was “made very clear” OceanGate was working with the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory and Boeing, “so they had a lot of what sounded like legitimacy behind them, as far as the engineering.”
But he said he soon learned the company had broken ties with the laboratory and Boeing wasn’t going to be doing the layup for the carbon fiber. He said he felt OceanGate’s engineering department “didn’t seem overly qualified” and there were mostly “college interns” during the summer he was there.
He said after he left OceanGate he didn’t keep tabs on the company for long.
“I just kind of quit following the company, not thinking that they would ever actually dive the Titan,” he said.
Coast Guard investigation continues into ‘unprecedented’ incident
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion.
The main purpose of the hearing was to uncover the facts related to the implosion and to make recommendations, the Coast Guard said.
At the conclusion of the two-week hearing Friday afternoon, Neubauer said the Coast Guard will conduct an analysis of the evidence collected and issue any recommendations to the commandant of the Coast Guard “to help ensure that nobody has to endure a future similar occurrence.”
Neubauer said that process can take several months but his priority is to “get this investigation done expeditiously, because I feel there are global issues at stake.”
Any determination on potential criminal acts will also be sent to the commandant of the Coast Guard, who would decide whether to make a referral to the Department of Justice, Neubauer said.
The National Transportation Safety Board will issue a separate report on its findings, including their official determination of the probable cause of the incident, at a later date, Marcel Muise, an investigator with the agency’s Office of Marine Safety, said at the conclusion of the hearing.
Neubauer offered his condolences to the families of those killed and thanked the more than two dozen witnesses who testified in the proceedings.
“It takes courage to testify in the public spotlight, especially in the aftermath of a traumatic event,” he said. “The subject matter covered during the sessions was often highly technical and emotionally charged, and I’m grateful to each witness who stopped and assisted in our efforts to fully understand this unprecedented incident.”
(NEW YORK) — With Election Day around the corner, American parents may be considering paying for childcare to ease the voting process. But in some states, heading to the polls while your child is being cared for can be free of charge.
In swing state North Carolina, 11-time Olympic track and field medalist Allyson Felix paired up with the nonprofit Chamber of Mothers to offer up to two hours of paid child care through Politisit.
In Western North Carolina, which was devastated by the impacts of Hurricane Helene, Politsit is offering parents reimbursement for up to a full day’s worth of childcare.
“You should never have to choose between your profession, your passions, and motherhood,” Felix said in a statement. “I’m honored to partner with Chamber of Mothers to tell moms that this election, you don’t have to choose between voting and motherhood. This election, you can do both.”
A Knight Foundation study released in 2020, which surveyed 12,000 non-voters, found that more than 60% of the most disconnected non-voters are women, and within that figure, many were single women with children.
For reimbursement, eligible parents can fill out this Politsit form and indicate how much the childcare will cost.
In California, the company Bumo, which offers education-based child care for children six months to six years of age, has donated $20,000 in free childcare services that are being offered in Los Angeles and San Francisco on Election Day.
Similarly, Los Angeles-based child care center Brella is offering up to a full day of free child care for kids three months to six years of age.
New York-based Vivvi child care centers are offering caregivers in New York City and Westchester who are headed to the polls a full day of free services.
Politisit and partner organizations are also offering free care opportunities in California, Houston, Texas, Chicago, Illinois, New York City and Brooklyn, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.
“Childcare is expensive and shouldn’t be a barrier to voting,” the organization said on its website, adding, “We believe that parents shouldn’t have to choose between voting and care for their children.”
Destroyed houses and buildings along the Broad River in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Oct. 1, 2024 in Bat Cave, North Carolina. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — At least 6,300 National Guard troops are racing to get aid to those in need — along with an army of volunteers — in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene as the death toll jumped to more than 160 across six states on Wednesday morning, with hundreds of people still reported missing.
New images from storm-ravaged areas are continuing to emerge on Wednesday in places like Erwin, Tennessee, where ambulances could be seen being towed away near where dozens of people were rescued from a roof of a hospital with dump trucks filled with trees and debris located nearby.
Elsewhere, in North Carolina, dramatic dashcam footage captured the moment a couple narrowly missed being swept up in a landslide in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with those landslides and flooding washing roads and bridges away and making it all but impossible to get access to some of the hardest hit areas.
“We have one suitcase, really,” North Carolina resident and Hurricane Helene survivor, Aaron Smith, told ABC News. “And so trying to figure out four people and a dog out of one suitcase, it’s the most, it’s just surreal.”
Another family in Hendersonville, North Carolina, became completely surrounded by floodwater, waiting for help in chest-high water and unable to get to dry land.
The Mirandas have been forced to use creek water to wash their clothes and have even had to find ice to keep insulin cold in coolers.
Jessica Meidinger said that she knows a witness who saw a neighbor’s house floating away down a river with them still inside — Rod Ashby was rescued Tuesday night but his wife, Kim, is still missing.
“Losing your most loved one when you had her in your arms and now you don’t there’s I don’t imagine there’s much that can compare to that,” Meidinger said. “She’s strong, she’s a breast cancer survivor. It’s hard not to hold on to that hope.”
