US Steel and Nippon Steel sue Biden administration over blocked merger

(NEW YORK) — The husband of the owner of a New York City day care where a 1-year-old child died of fentanyl poisoning was sentenced Wednesday to 45 years in prison.

Felix Herrera Garcia, 35, pleaded guilty in June to federal drug charges for trafficking fentanyl out of the day care center.

In September 2023, a 1-year-old boy attending the day care, Nicholas Dominici, died, and three other children, ranging in age from 8 months to 2 years, were hospitalized and treated with Narcan, police said.

In his sentencing, federal prosecutors said Herrera Garcia was seen fleeing the Bronx day care through a back alley, carrying two heavy shopping bags while children were suffering from the effects of fentanyl.

Herrera Garcia and others stashed more than 11 kilograms of fentanyl and heroin in secret compartments, or traps, located underneath the floor tiles in the playroom where the children played, ate and slept on a daily basis, prosecutors said.

“Felix Herrera Garcia operated a deadly fentanyl trafficking enterprise out of a day care, recklessly putting babies at risk of fentanyl exposure on a daily basis,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement Wednesday.

“This case demonstrates the deadly reach and scope of the fentanyl epidemic, and the tragic collateral damage it inflicts on American lives,” Williams added.

Herrera Garcia fled to Mexico after the death and was arrested after a weeklong manhunt. His wife, Grei Mendez, who worked at the day care has also been charged in relation to the drug trafficking scheme.

Mendez pulled her and Herrera Garcia’s 2-year-old son from attending the day care prior to the incident after she worried he was exhibiting signs of fentanyl exposure, law enforcement sources familiar with the case previously told ABC News.

Mendez never reported the suspected exposure to police and did not allow the boy to return to the facility, according to the sources. However, she kept the day care open for other children.

In September, a federal criminal complaint showed Mendez allegedly deleted more than 20,000 messages between her and her husband sent from March 2021 to the day the 1-year-old boy died from fentanyl exposure at her facility, on Sept. 15, 2023.

Before calling 911 about the unresponsive children, Mendez allegedly made three other phone calls: one to a day care employee and two to her husband, according to the federal court documents.

In addition to the 45-year prison term, Herrera Garcia was sentenced to five years of supervised release, prosecutors said.

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(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — Two people were killed and four remain in the hospital from an explosion at a manufacturing facility in Louisville, Kentucky, officials said.

The “hazardous materials incident” was reported Tuesday afternoon at a Givaudan Sense Colour facility, a natural food coloring plant, according to the Louisville Metro Emergency Services.

First responders were initially told by the business that all employees were accounted for, officials said Wednesday. But then a second victim was found buried in rubble late Tuesday evening after crews went back to the scene upon guidance from the business that someone was likely still there. It took three-and-a-half hours to remove that victim from the rubble, officials said.

“We are deeply saddened to share the news that two of our team members lost their lives in this accident,” Givaudan Sense Colour said in a statement.

The University of Louisville Hospital said it received seven patients with injuries including burn and blast wounds. All those injured are employees of the plant, officials said.

Four people remain hospitalized on Wednesday, all in stable condition, officials said.

The cause of the explosion remains under investigation, officials said.

Drone footage taken by Louisville ABC affiliate WHAS showed extensive damage to the facility.

Residents within two blocks of the facility were evacuated, officials said. A shelter-in-place order was also issued for those within a 1-mile radius of the facility but it has since been lifted, officials said.

Air monitoring is clear at this time, officials said.

ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway and Jessica Gorman contributed to this report.

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(MIAMI, FLORIDA) — As Election Day nears, Donald Trump is continuing his long-standing effort to recast the violent events of Jan. 6, 2021, now calling it a “day of love” even as he tries to distance himself from what happened.

A Republican audience member, during a Univision town hall on Wednesday, pressed Trump on his actions that day as thousands of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, temporarily disrupting the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

“I want to give you an opportunity to win back my vote,” the participant said, adding he found Trump’s actions and alleged inaction on Jan. 6 a “little disturbing” and wanted to know why some of Trump’s former top administration officials are no longer supporting him — some even calling him a danger to national security and democracy.

Trump quickly went on defense and in the process repeated some false or misleading claims that have been long disproved or debunked.

The former president said he “totally disagreed” with then-Vice President Mike Pence’s adamance to his constitutional duty to uphold the certification process and not unilaterally reject the election results. Pence has said he is not endorsing Trump this cycle.

Trump then claimed thousands of his supporters who traveled to Washington “didn’t come because of me,” despite his posting on social media in mid-December 2020 that there would be a “big protest” on Jan. 6.

“Be there, will be wild!” Trump famously wrote on Twitter, where he’d amassed some 88 million followers.

One man who admitted to illegally entering the Capitol that day, Stephen Ayres, testified in court documents and before the House Jan. 6 committee that he was influenced heavily by Trump’s activity on social media to come to Washington for the rally at the Ellipse.

“They came because of the election,” Trump said on Wednesday. “They thought the election was a rigged election, and that’s why they came. Some of those people went down to the Capitol but I said peacefully and patriotically. Nothing done wrong at all.”

Trump went on to say, “Ashli Babbitt was killed. Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there.”

Babbitt, a 35-year-old Trump supporter and Air Force veteran, was fatally shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer as one of a group of rioters who tried to break into the House floor through barricaded entrances near the Speaker’s Lobby.

She was one of several people who died during or after the riot of various causes. Four officers who responded to the Capitol attack later died by suicide. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was pepper sprayed by rioters, suffered strokes and died the next day. A Washington medical examiner determined he died of natural causes but said his experience that day played a role.

The Justice Department has noted that in court it has been proven that “weapons used and carried on Capitol grounds include firearms; OC spray; tasers; edged weapons, including a sword, axes, hatchets, and knives; and makeshift weapons, such as destroyed office furniture, fencing, bike racks, stolen riot shields, baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles, PVC piping, and reinforced knuckle gloves.”

More than 1,500 people have been federally charged with crimes associated with the Capitol attack, the Justice Department said earlier this year. That includes 571 charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement agents and 171 defendants charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon.

At least 943 individuals have pleaded guilty — including 161 who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement and 67 who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement with a dangerous or deadly weapon — and an additional 195 people have been found guilty at trial.

Approximately 140 law enforcement officers were injured during the riot, the DOJ has said.

Jan. 6 began with Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, in which he did tell supporters to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol, as he now likes to note, but also stoked tensions by saying they have to “fight like hell” or they wouldn’t have a country.

“But that was a day of love,” Trump said at the Univision town hall. “From the standpoint of the millions, it’s like hundreds of thousands. It could have been the largest group I’ve ever spoken to before. They asked me to speak. I went and I spoke, and I used the term ‘peacefully and patriotically.'”

The comments come as Trump and his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance continue to deny the 2020 election outcome and downplay what transpired on Jan. 6.

Vance on Wednesday when asked if Trump lost the election replied, “No, I think there are serious problems in 2020 so did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use.”

Vance has also said he wouldn’t have certified the election were he in Pence’s shoes in 2021.

The election denialism and Jan. 6 comments have prompted swift push back from Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris has cast Trump as a threat to democracy as the 2024 campaign enters its final weeks.

ABC News’ Jack Date, Soorin Kim, Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.

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