4 relatives, including 3 Americans, shot in Mexico; 3 adults dead, child in critical condition
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(DURANGO, Mexico) — Four family members, including three Americans, were shot in an attack in Durango, Mexico, that left three of the four relatives dead, officials said.
The three adults were all killed: two brothers who are U.S. citizens, Vicente Peña Rodríguez and Antonio Fernández Rodríguez, and their relative, who is a local resident, Jorge Eduardo Vargas Aguirre, the Durango Attorney General’s Office said.
Vicente Peña Rodríguez’s son, a minor, survived, and is in critical condition, the attorney general’s office said.
The attack unfolded on Friday night as the family was traveling in a GMC Yukon with an Illinois license plate, officials said. The SUV was found on the side of the Francisco Zarco highway.
Authorities are investigating whether robbery was a motive, according to the attorney general’s office.
(LONDON) — Several people were killed in a “terrorist attack” at Turkish Aerospace Industries facilities near the capital of Ankara on Wednesday, according to Turkey’s interior minister.
At least four people were killed and 14 injured, including three who are in critical condition, in the attack, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
Two attackers — a man and a woman — were killed and Turkish authorities are working to identify them, he said.
“I condemn this heinous attack,” Yerlikaya said in a post on X. “Our struggle will continue with determination and resolve until the last terrorist is neutralized.”
Yerlikaya said they will be releasing which terrorist organization is allegedly behind the attack.
Security camera footage from the attack showed two armed attackers approaching the entrance of the facility carrying backpacks.
The Turkish Aerospace Industries site is about 25 miles outside Ankara.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called the incident “deeply concerning.”
“NATO stands with our Ally Turkey. We strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms and are monitoring developments closely,” he said in a statement on X.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian, Morgan Winsor and Trisha Mukherjee contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday morning for his third visit to the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.
The Pentagon said in a statement that Austin “will meet with Ukrainian leadership and underscore the U.S. commitment to providing Ukraine with the security assistance it needs to defend itself from Russian aggression on the battlefield.”
Austin will end his fourth visit to Ukraine as defense secretary with an address on Kyiv’s successes, American commitment to supplying its troops and — with just over two weeks until the U.S. presidential election — “why Ukraine’s fight matters for U.S. security,” the Pentagon said.
A senior defense official told ABC News that Austin’s visit is intended as an opportunity to consider the overall status of the war, plus to underscore the U.S. role in defeating Moscow’s strategic objectives and inflicting “astronomical casualties” on Russian forces.
Austin will meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, the official said, with the former’s “victory plan” among the planned topics of conversation.
Ukraine, the senior U.S. official said, is in a stronger position now than one year ago, although battlefield conditions are difficult.
Kyiv’s forces are being slowly pushed back in the east of the country, while Russian counter-offensives are chipping away at Ukraine’s pocket of seized territory in the western Russian Kursk region.
Meanwhile, Russian drone and missile attacks continue across the country. The strikes have been particularly punishing for the country’s battered energy grid in the lead up to winter.
Manpower also remains a constant strain, and conversations continue in Ukraine about lowering the minimum conscription age from 25 to 18 to bolster available troop numbers.
Conscription is a politically sensitive topic, and April’s decision to drop the minimum age from 27 to 25 followed almost a year of debate.
Ukraine, the defense official said, should be able to take advantage of strategic opportunities as they arise. The challenge is in how to best its synchronize forces and prioritize its goals, they added.
Austin arrived shortly after Zelensky said Ukraine had “clear data” showing that North Korea is supplying Russia with military personnel.
“A new threat has emerged — the malign alliance between Russia and North Korea,” Zelensky said in a video statement posted to social media on Sunday evening.
“These are not just workers for production, but also military personnel,” the president said. “We expect a proper and fair response from our partners on this matter.”
“If the world remains silent now, and if we face North Korean soldiers on the front lines as regularly as we are defending against drones, it will benefit no one in this world and will only prolong this war,” Zelensky said.
Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov — the head of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence — said there are now “nearly 11,000 North Korean infantry troops training in eastern Russia to fight in Ukraine.”
Budanov said the troops will be ready to join battle by Nov. 1, the first group of around 2,600 soldiers earmarked for the fighting in Kursk.
South Korea’s spy agency warned last week that 1,500 North Korean soldiers were already inside Russia, in what it described as a “grave security threat.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed foreign concerns about deepening bilateral ties. “There is a lot of contradictory information, and that is probably how it should be treated,” he said, describing North Korea as a close neighbor and partner.
“This should not cause anyone any concern, because this cooperation is not directed against third countries,” Peskov added.
ABC News’ Britt Clennent, Lauren Minore, Yulia Drozd and Guy Davies contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The climate crisis is not a distant threat; it’s happening right now and affecting what matters most to us. Hurricanes intensified by a warming planet and drought-fueled wildfires are destroying our communities. Rising seas and flooding are swallowing our homes. And record-breaking heat waves are reshaping our way of life.
The good news is we know how to turn the tide and avoid the worst possible outcomes. However, understanding what needs to be done can be confusing due to a constant stream of climate updates, scientific findings, and critical decisions that are shaping our future.
That’s why the ABC News Climate and Weather Unit is cutting through the noise by curating what you need to know to keep the people and places you care about safe. We are dedicated to providing clarity amid the chaos, giving you the facts and insights necessary to navigate the climate realities of today — and tomorrow.
The US just experienced its warmest autumn on record
Another season, another climate milestone. According to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), persistent above-average to record-warm conditions across much of the United States made meteorological autumn, which lasts from September to November, the warmest ever recorded.
The record-warm fall season makes it more likely that 2024 will end up as one of the nation’s warmest, if not the warmest, years on record. As of November 2024, the contiguous U.S. year-to-date temperature was 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit above average.
Despite December’s chilly start for much of the country, with widespread below-average temperatures in many regions, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says that the cold will ease during the second half of the month with above-average temperatures favored from the West to the Northeast.
The stretch of abnormally warm temperatures was accompanied by extremely dry weather across much of the country, fueling dangerous wildfire conditions in regions like the Northeast. A very dry start to the season brought drought conditions to more than half of the lower 48 states by late October.
Fortunately, several significant rainfall events in November brought notable drought relief to large swaths of the country, reducing overall drought coverage by nearly 10.5% and suppressing the wildfire danger.
-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck
Nearly one-third of the planet’s species risk extinction because of climate change
Nearly one-third of the world’s species could be at risk for extinction because of climate change if the world does nothing to reduce global warming, according to a new analysis from Science.
University of Connecticut researcher and biologist Mark Urban found that while some species are adapting to climate change, 160,000 species are already at risk. Many are now facing declining populations because of changes in our climate.
According to the study, with current global temperatures at 1.3 degrees Celsius above industrial levels, 1.6% of species are projected to become extinct. As the temperatures warm even more, Urban found the extinction rate would also increase, with the most severe scenario included (5.4 degrees Celsius of warming) putting the extinction risk at 29.7%.
“The increased certainty of predicted climate change extinctions compels action,” Urban wrote. “Extinction represents just the final endpoint of a species’ existence; even when extinction is avoided, declining abundances and shrinking ranges can strongly affect many other species, including humans.”
Urban defines the risk of extinction as the probability that any one species will go extinct without mitigation efforts. Urban found that extinction rates could increase dramatically if global temperatures rise over 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to industrial levels.
1.5 degrees Celsius is the warming limit set by the world’s nations under the Paris Agreement after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that crossing that benchmark would lead to more severe climate change impacts.
Risks varied across geographic areas in the study, with Australia/New Zealand and South America facing the highest risks (15.7% and 12.8%, respectively) and Asia facing lower risks (5.5%).
-ABC News Climate Unit’s Kelly Livingston
Antarctic sea ice hits new low during Earth’s 2nd warmest November on record
Imagine you have a swimming pool with ice cubes filling it. Now, measure the total area of the pool that has ice on the surface, even if the ice cubes don’t cover it completely. Because ice often spreads out unevenly, leaving water between the chunks, scientists count areas where at least 15% of the surface is covered. So, because your pool is loaded with ice cubes, it would be considered ice covered. In the real world, scientists call it sea ice extent.
While you can add ice to your pool, you can’t to the ocean. And according to a new report by Copernicus, the European Union’s Climate Change Service, the sea ice extent in the Antarctic has dipped to its lowest value on record for the month of November. It is 10% below average. This occurred during a stretch of near-record global land and sea surface temperatures.
Last month ranked as the second warmest November on record globally, with an average temperature of 14.10 degrees Celsius, or 57.38 degrees Fahrenheit.
Copernicus noted the new data not only makes it virtually certain that 2024 will surpass 2023 as Earth’s warmest year on record, but it will likely be the first year to be 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) than the pre-industrial average of 1850-1900.
The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change.
As of November 2024, the average global year-to-date temperature was 0.14 degrees Celsius (or 0.25 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than it was in 2023, which is the warmest year ever recorded.
