5 killed, 34 hurt in massive crash between bus, 6 vehicles on I-95 in Virginia: Police
A Virginia State Police car. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
(STAFFORD COUNTY, Va.) — Five people were killed and 34 were injured in a massive crash between a bus and six vehicles on Interstate 95 in Virginia early Friday morning, according to state authorities.
The accident unfolded at about 2:35 a.m. on I-95 south in Stafford County, about 45 miles south of Washington, D.C., the Virginia State Police said.
As traffic slowed for a work zone, a bus did not slow down and struck six vehicles, killing five people in the cars, police said.
Thirty-four people were taken to hospitals, including three with critical injuries, police said.
The crash initially closed all lanes of I-95, Virginia’s Department of Transportation said, causing massive delays for the Friday commute. Northbound lanes have since reopened.
Charges are pending, police said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Created by CDC microbiologist Frederick A Murphy, this transmission electron micrograph (TEM) revealed some of the ultrastructural morphology displayed by an Ebola virus virion. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).
(NEW YORK) — The American doctor infected with Ebola said he is “cautiously optimistic” about his health improving amid more severe symptoms.
Dr. Peter Stafford contracted the disease while working with patients in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was evacuated to Germany to receive specialty care and is currently hospitalized at Charite University Hospital in Berlin.
“Before I was evacuated I was feeling really concerned I wasn’t going to make it, and now I’m cautiously optimistic,” Stafford said in a press release from Serge, the international Christian missionary group that employs him.
His colleague, Dr. Scott Myhre, Serge area director for East and Central Africa, said Stafford is critically ill but feeling better than he did on Wednesday, and is able to eat small amounts of food.
Stafford initially experienced what are known as “dry” symptoms such as fever, aches and fatigue.
However, he is currently experiencing “wet” symptoms including vomiting and diarrhea. Myhre said Stafford’s laboratory reports are “trending slightly in the right direction.”
“Peter has also received two intravenous treatments designed to improve Ebola outcomes,” Myhre said in the press release. “The German care teams rotate in three-hour shifts since they must wear full-body hazmat suits as they care for him. We’re thankful for their dedication and expertise.”
On Wednesday, Stafford’s colleague, Matt Allison, executive director of Serge, told ABC News that the doctor has been receiving monoclonal antibodies during his hospitalization.
Stafford’s wife, Dr. Rebekah Stafford, and their four children landed in Berlin at 10 p.m. local time Wednesday and have been moved into a separate space at Charite University Hospital. All are asymptomatic and will continue to isolate and be monitored, according to Serge.
The organization added that Stafford’s family is able to see him through a window.
Meanwhile, another Serge missionary physician, Dr. Patrick LaRochelle, is currently at Bulovka Hospital in Prague. He is quarantine and remains asymptomatic, Serge said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday announced new arrival restrictions for flights carrying people who were recently in Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda or South Sudan amid the Ebola outbreak in the region.
Flights will be ordered to land at Washington-Dulles Airport in Virginia, the notice said, where “enhanced public health measures are being implemented.”
The Ebola outbreak in the eastern DRC had caused 139 suspected deaths with nearly 600 suspected cases as of Wednesday, according to an update from World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Tedros said cases of Ebola have been reported in several urban areas of the eastern DRC amid the ongoing outbreak, including the major cities of Goma and Bunia, and that at least two cases and one death have been recorded in neighboring Uganda’s capital, Kampala. Cases have also been reported among health workers, according to Ghebreyesus.
At least 51 cases have so far been confirmed in the ongoing outbreak.
The DHS flight restriction notice said that while South Sudan has not reported any confirmed cases in the current outbreak, “It is considered at high risk because of its close border with affected areas in eastern DRC and Uganda, limited healthcare infrastructure and cross-border population movement.”
The outbreak was first detected in the DRC’s northeastern province of Ituri, with cases officially confirmed by the health ministry on May 15. It marks the 17th outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the DRC, which is Africa’s second-largest country and its fourth-most populous nation.
The WHO convened an emergency committee on Tuesday night, following Tedros’ declaration of a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday — one level below a pandemic in the United Nations agency’s alert system.
It was the first time a WHO chief had declared such an emergency before convening the emergency committee. After the meeting, the committee agreed that the outbreak did not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency, which was applied to the global COVID-19 outbreak.
Anais Legand, the WHO’s technical officer for viral hemorrhagic fevers, said on Wednesday that the Ebola outbreak may have started a couple of months ago and that investigations are ongoing.
“Our priority is really to cut the transmission chain by implementing contact tracing, isolating and caring for all suspects and confirmed cases,” she said.
The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare variant of Ebola for which there are no approved vaccines or therapeutics and which requires different diagnostics than other variants. Case fatality rates for previous Bundibugyo outbreaks have ranged from 30% to 50%, according to the WHO.
Dr. Satish K. Pillai, incident manager for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Ebola response, confirmed at a CDC press conference on Tuesday that genetic testing from this outbreak shows it is similar to the “genetic fingerprints” from outbreaks in 2007 and 2012, meaning there are diagnostic tools available that can detect this strain of Ebola.
Pillai said on Monday that the agency had activated its Emergency Operations Center through its country offices in the DRC and in Uganda, and is deploying technical experts that have been requested from Atlanta headquarters.
The risk to the U.S. general public remains low, Pillai said.
Also on Monday, the CDC introduced entry restrictions on non-U.S. passport holders that had been in Uganda, the DRC or South Sudan in the previous 21 days before attempted entry into the U.S.
ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss, Mary Kekatos and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stand guard in front of protesters outside Delaney Hall, which is being used as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center, May 27, 2026, in Newark, New Jersey. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(NEWARK, N.J.) — Tensions continue to rise outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, as activists and Democratic leaders clash with the federal government over conditions there.
A hunger strike inside the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall detention center has been ongoing since Friday after detainees alleged they are not being well fed or provided sanitary living conditions, according to activists.
“They’re given rotten frozen food, or in the case of last week, they found live worms in their food. We’re also hearing of people being denied toilet paper,” activist Catalina Adorno told New York ABC affiliate WABC on Tuesday.
Several protests have taken place outside the facility since the strike began, and ICE agents were filmed using pepper spray and batons against protesters who have gotten close to them, according to WABC.
The Department of Homeland Security has denied the allegations of a hunger strike and inhumane conditions inside Delaney Hall, which is currently holding 300 detainees. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that there were “only a handful of individuals that was refusing to eat” because they allegedly wanted their “ethnic right food.”
“Well, they can go back to their country and get whatever food they want,” he told reporters. “The fact is, we’re giving them the calories they want. This isn’t Holiday Inn.”
Activist groups and several New Jersey Democratic Congress members, including Rep. Rob Menendez Jr., and Sen. Andy Kim, have pushed back against DHS claims and have participated in protests since Friday.
Menendez and Kim went inside the Delaney Hall detention center Saturday after repeated asks and said they saw the poor conditions and treatment of detainees firsthand.
“These are not the people that Donald Trump keeps saying that they were trying to lock up. You know, there is a woman that was pregnant that says she’s not getting full, OB-GYN care,” said Kim, who has called for Delaney Hall to be shut down.
“There is a woman that had a miscarriage that said that she did not get the care that she needed and was left to be able to manage that on her own,” he added.
Kim joined protesters again on Monday along with New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who said she was denied access to the facility multiple times over the past couple of weeks.
The governor spoke with some of the protesters, which included families of the detainees, and joined calls for the facility to be closed.
“My request for access to Delaney Hall was formally denied this morning, raising serious questions about what they are trying to hide from public view,” Sherrill said in a statement Monday, in part.
“I have long opposed private detention facilities and will continue to advocate for the closure of Delaney Hall and against any expansion of mass detention facilities in New Jersey,” the statement continued.
“I came today to hear from families and advocates, and what I heard from them was heartbreaking. I will continue to hold ICE accountable,” the statement further said, adding that Sherrill would continue working with Menendez, Kim and others “to demand answers, protect constitutional rights, and ensure humane conditions.”
“The people inside Delaney Hall are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, and members of our community. In New Jersey, we believe in the rule of law and that everyone deserves to be treated with basic dignity. We have a duty to safeguard the rights, health, and well-being of everyone within our borders,” the statement said.
Shortly after Sherrill left the rally on Monday, things became more tense between the protesters and federal agents. ICE agents deployed pepper spray and fired rubber bullets into the crowd as they clashed with agents, who were moving vehicles in and outside the facility, according to WABC.
Several people were hit with the spray including Kim, who was seen trying to de-escalate the situation.
“Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire,” the senator said on social media Monday.
Mullin decried the Memorial Day protest and told reporters Wednesday that Congress members “probably shouldn’t have been there.”
Lauren Bis, DHS acting assistant secretary, accused the New Jersey lawmakers of conducting a “political stunt.”
“We need these sanctuary politicians to stop peddling this garbage and cooperate with us to get these criminals out of their state,” she said in a statement Monday.
The protests and clashes continue, with federal agents deploying pepper spray against protesters who formed a human barricade outside the facility.
Mullin alleged in a social media post Tuesday night that law enforcement agents were sprayed with “an unknown chemical substance.”
“Two individuals were arrested for assaulting, resisting, and impeding federal officers,” Mullin said.
Sherrill did not immediately have a comment about Mullin’s claims.
Protesters showed up to Delaney Hall Wednesday but the demonstrations were peaceful as of the afternoon.
Massachusetts State Police said at least one person was left wounded after a gunman began shooting into traffic in Cambridge on Monday afternoon. (ABC News)
(CAMBRIDGE, Mass.) — Two people were shot and left with life-threatening injuries after a gunman began shooting into traffic in Cambridge on Monday afternoon near Harvard University, according to officials.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said during a press briefing after the incident that a gunman with an assault-style rifle was “actively firing in an erratic fashion at various vehicles.”
The shooting occurred in the vicinity of Memorial Drive and River Street before 1:30 p.m.
A trooper and a civilian, a former Marine, fired their weapons and struck the gunman, who was later identified as Tyler Brown, multiple times, according to the DA. Brown is under arrest and is hospitalized, Ryan said.
Brown is now facing six new felony charges, including two for assault with intent to murder.
He was under probation supervision for a previous crime, according to the DA.
Brown was sentenced to five to six years in state prison and three years of probation in August 2021 after he fired at Boston Police. Brown pleaded guilty to eight charges, including armed assault with intent to murder and attempted assault and battery by means of discharging a firearm, according to a 2021 statement from the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office.
Brown was also previously required to undergo a mental health evaluation and treatment, according to the DA’s office.
Brown was also on probation at the time of the 2021 incident for a 2014 assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (knife) and witness intimidation conviction, according to the DA’s office. He was sentenced to four to five years in state prison for violating his probation to be served concurrently.
The DA’s office had recommended Brown be sentenced 10 to 12 years, criticizing the lower sentence.
“My office recommended a significant sentence for Mr. Brown given the nature of his offenses and the trauma andharm he inflicted. I am disappointed in the sentence that was imposed,” then-District Attorney Rachael Rollins said in a 2021 statement.
The two people who were struck by gunfire were in their vehicles at the time.
Aerial footage from ABC News’ Boston affiliate WCVB showed the gunman being apprehended by police at the scene.
WCVB footage also showed a black Dodge sedan off the side of the road after an apparent crash.
A rifle was seen on the grass in the area, according to WCVB.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said in a statement that there is no ongoing threat to the public, but asked that residents “avoid the area to allow public safety personnel to do their work.”
Lisa Schill, a witness to the shooting, told WCVB she was in a school van on the way to pick up kids at school. She said she left the van and began running from the incident on foot.
“I was running for my life,” Schill told the publication.
