Long Island farm forced to euthanize more than 100,000 ducks after bird flu detected
(AQUEBOGUE, N.Y.) — A commercial poultry farm on Long Island, New York, is being forced to kill thousands of ducks after health officials detected cases of bird flu.
The owner of Crescent Duck Farm in Aquebogue — about 66 miles west of New York City — reportedly first saw signs that his flock was ill last week, according to the Suffolk County Department of Health. Tests confirmed the detection of bird flu on Jan. 17.
The farm, which is the last commercial duck farm on Long Island, was forced to cease operations and begin the process of euthanizing its entire flock of more than 100,000 ducks, according to ABC-owned station WABC. The process will reportedly take a little over a week.
“Unfortunately, when you have a situation like this where you have a flock that’s infected, the remedy is to put the entire flock down,” Suffolk County Health Commissioner Dr. Gregson Pigott told WABC.
As of Friday, no farm workers were reported ill and health officials have begun interviewing potentially exposed workers as well as providing testing and preventive medications to high-risk individuals, according to the release from the health department. Pigott told WABC the medications include Tamiflu and Tamivir.
The health department said it is also providing education to the farm owner on preventative measures such as proper hand hygiene and the use of appropriate personal protective equipment.
“The risk to public health is minimal as the virus at this point is not transmissible among humans,” Pigott said in a statement. “A full investigation is underway because there is some potential for transmission of the H5N1 bird flu from the infected birds to individual farm workers who had high-risk exposures.”
SCDH did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment. ABC News left a message requesting comment with Crescent Duck Farm.
Bird flu, or avian influenza, has been causing outbreaks in poultry and dairy cows in the U.S. with recent human cases among poultry and dairy workers.
Human cases have been diagnosed across the country since April 2024, with 67 confirmed in 10 states so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of Thursday, no human cases have been reported in New York.
Most human cases have been mild with patients fully recovering. So far, just one death has been recorded in Louisiana in a patient over age 65 who had underlying medical conditions.
The CDC and other public health officials say there is currently no evidence of human-to-human transmission and the risk to the general public is low.
(OHIO) — Four Chilean nationals were arrested in connection with the burglary that occurred at Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow’s home in December, according to court records.
On Jan. 10, 2025, a special agent with the Ohio State Highway Patrol spotted suspicious luggage being carried into a vehicle outside of a hotel in Fairborn, Ohio, according to court records.
When the agent pulled the car over, Alexander Chavez, Bastian Morales, Jordan Sanchez and Sergio Cabello, allegedly showed the agent fake identification. The car smelled of marijuana and it was later confirmed that the four men were in the country illegally, court records filed in Clark County, Ohio, say.
When police searched the car, they say they found “two Husky automatic center punch pools wrapped in a cloth towel behind the glove box.”
Police say these tools are used by South American theft groups to break glass and enter houses.
The affidavit says that in the vehicle police found an “old LSU shirt and Bengals hat believed to be stolen from the December 9, 2024 burglary in Hamilton County, Ohio.”
On Dec. 9, Joe Burrow’s home in Hamilton County, Ohio, was burglarized, according to police records.
The affidavit says the men were brought to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office for further questioning. When a detective called one of the cell phone numbers that was placed at the scene via cellphone data, Morales’ phone started ringing, according to court records.
Morales was also seen allegedly carrying a Louis Vuitton style bag and was previously identified “as a male possibly involved in a burglary offense” on the day of the burglary at Burrow’s home.
“This is an ongoing investigating involving multiple burglaries across the United States of America, specifically targeting multi-million dollar residences and your affiant and brother investigators have arrested at least six different South American burglary groups, five of which were Chilean nationals,” a criminal complaint says.
(MEMPHIS, Tenn) — Graceland, the iconic Memphis home of the late Elvis Presley, is one of America’s most recognized residences, only second to the White House. That’s why the announcement of its public auction in May caused shock and confusion among the legendary musician’s fans.
Ultimately, this incident highlighted the rising issue of alleged deed fraud.
The scandal began last spring when Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC filed a lawsuit and announced a foreclosure sale for Graceland, claiming that Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ daughter who died in 2023, had borrowed $3.8 million and used the property as collateral.
The actor Riley Keough, Lisa Marie’s daughter, responded by filing a countersuit, seeking to enjoin the auction alleging fraud and claiming that Naussany Investments was nonexistent and had no rights to the property. This allegedly criminal plot to steal Graceland from under America’s nose caused outrage among Elvis fans.
The Memphis mansion is significant and widespread because it has been hallowed ground for generations of Elvis fans, from lovestruck teenagers in the 1950s to those inspired by his legacy today.
“People have been trying to take from Elvis since Elvis was Elvis,” Joel Weinshanker, managing partner of Elvis Presley Enterprises, told “GMA3” co-anchor Eva Pilgrim. “Elvis was a human being. He was a really good human being. He treated people really well. He lived here. He loved it here. He died here. He’s buried here. His parents are buried here. His daughter is buried here. Pick on somebody else. Have a heart, have a conscience. And even if you don’t have a heart or have a conscience — know that you won’t get away with it.”
The mansion was also home to Lisa Marie, Elvis’ only child. Her life in the spotlight and tragic death have fascinated the public since the day she was born — as the King of Rock and Roll’s princess.
Shortly after Elvis died in 1977, Lisa Marie became the sole heir to her father’s financially troubled estate, which at the time included only a few million dollars in cash and Graceland. Lisa Marie’s life seemed to stabilize when she married musician Danny Keough at the age of 20.
They had two children, Riley and Benjamin Keough. However, that stability didn’t last. She struggled with drug addiction, marriages to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage, and the tragic 2020. suicide of her son Benjamin.
“We could all feel it coming,” Riley Keough said in Lisa Marie memoir “From here to the Great Unknown.” “We all knew my mom was going to die of a broken heart.”
Lisa Marie fiercely defended her family’s legacy. One of her last actions was to approve director Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated 2022 film “Elvis,” insisting that it highlight how her father’s musical success was rooted in his appreciation for Black culture.
“He loved gospel music and would sit outside of the blues bars,” Lisa Marie said in an interview with ABC News. “He was influenced by and raised by this. We had this conversation with Baz that it was, you know, shown that that is — that’s where he got his influence from, that’s where it started for him.”
Lisa Marie made her final public appearance at the Golden Globes on Jan. 10, 2023, when Austin Butler won the best actor award for his portrayal of Elvis. Two days later, she died. Her cause of death was reported as complications from bariatric surgery she had undergone several years earlier.
Her funeral was held at Graceland with fans lining the streets, hauntingly reminiscent of how they grieved her father more than 45 years earlier.
“She was buried alongside her father and alongside her son at Graceland,” ABC’s Chris Connelly said. “You know, the home that she loved best.”
In a shocking revelation last May, a secret entity known as Naussany Investments claimed that Lisa Marie used Graceland as collateral to take out a $3.8 million loan and had not repaid it.
Consequently, the mysterious company announced its intention to auction the property off.
“It was not thoroughly implausible to imagine that Graceland might be on the block because of something that Lisa Marie had done when she was in arrears,” Connelly said.
Keough took her role as trustee of the estate seriously, with her lawyer Bradley Russell who filed a countersuit.
In the countersuit, Riley claimed that her mother did not borrow anything and that the loan documents are forgeries.
The investigation into the alleged fraud ranged far from the iconic mansion to Florida, where they an unlikely savior in notary Kimberly Philbrick lives. An alleged fake notary seal emerged as the potential smoking gun.
“We sent our private investigator out to find the notary public who allegedly notarized these documents in 2018 to interview her and to get an affidavit from her saying that this never happened, she never notarized anything,” Russell said.
When a private investigator approached Philbrick at her workplace in Holly Hill, Florida, Philbrick said she was shocked to discover fraud had been committed in her name. She alleged that she knew right away something was off; she swore in an affidavit that it wasn’t her signature.
“Had I ever met Lisa Marie Presley? Did I sign the document? Did I notarize it? No, no, no,” Philbrick said.
Based on Philbrick’s affidavit, Keough’s lawyers hurried into court to prevent the sale of Graceland. A judge issued a temporary injunction the day before it was scheduled to be auctioned.
It took nearly three months longer to locate the alleged mastermind. In mid-August, Lisa Findley was arrested in the Ozarks. She was apprehended on Aug. 16, the 47th anniversary of Elvis’ death. Federal prosecutors charged the Missouri woman with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft.
They alleged that Findley exploited the public and tragic events in the Presley family for her personal gain.
Investigators allege that Findley used aliases to create fraudulent loan documents and that she published a fake foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper, announcing plans to auction off Graceland to the highest bidder. Findley has pleaded not guilty and is in jail awaiting trial. She and her attorneys did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Keough expressed her intention to preserve Graceland as both a museum and a home, just as her mother would have wanted.
“Still to this day, people going through the house, and there’s just this, like sort of love that just doesn’t stop,” Keough said on WABC’s Live with Kelly and Mark in 2023. “And I really love that.”
ABC News Studios’ “IMPACT x Nightline: Stealing Graceland” streams on Hulu beginning Thursday, Oct. 31.
ABC News’ Ely Brown, Sasha Pezenik, Jared Kofsky and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A man has sustained serious injuries after leaping to the rescue of his wife who was ambushed by a polar bear in an early morning attack, police said.
Members of the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service working out of the Fort Severn First Nation detachment in Ontario, Canada, were dispatched to a residential address in the early morning hours of Tuesday to reports of gunfire, according to a statement from the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service.
When authorities arrived, they discovered during their investigation that an adult male and adult female “had exited their home before 5 a.m. to find their dogs. While in the driveway of their home, a polar bear lunged at the woman,” police said.
“The woman slipped to ground as her husband leapt onto the animal to prevent its attack. The bear then attacked the male, causing serious but non-life-threatening injuries to his arm and legs,” Nishnawbe Aski Police Service continued.
During the attack, a neighbor reportedly arrived with a firearm and was able to shoot the bear several times before it retreated to a nearby wooded area and subsequently died from its injuries.
When police arrived on scene, they located the deceased polar bear and learned “an adult male had been transported to the community nursing station to have his injuries assessed and treated,” police said.
Officials continued to patrol the area to ensure no other bears were roaming the community following the attack.
The unnamed man is now recovering from serious injuries to his arm and legs, but is expected to survive.