6-month-old boy dies in hot car after parent forgot to drop him off at day care: Sheriff
(EAST BATON ROUGE, La.) — A 6-month-old boy died after being left for hours in a hot car in Louisiana, authorities said.
The baby was found dead in the backseat by his parent at about 5:46 p.m. Tuesday, according to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office.
When the parent went to pick up the baby from day care after work, they realized they forgot to drop him off at day care that morning, the sheriff’s office said.
The heat index — what temperature it feels like with humidity — reached a scorching 112 degrees in Baton Rouge on Tuesday.
The investigation is ongoing. The coroner will conduct an autopsy to determine how long the baby was in the car, according to the sheriff’s office.
At least 16 children have died in hot cars across the U.S. so far this year, according to national nonprofit KidsAndCars.org.
Since 1990, at least 1,100 children have died in hot cars — and about 88% of those kids were 3 years old or younger, according to KidsAndCars.org.
Click here for hot car safety tips to keep in mind this summer.
(WASHINGTON) — D.C. police officer Wayne David died on Wednesday evening after he suffered an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound while trying to recover a weapon from a storm drain, police have announced.
Officers were responding to reports of a suspicious vehicle when a man jumped out of a car, ran onto the I-295 highway and placed the gun inside a storm drain, ABC News has learned. The suspect then fled the scene on the back of a motorcycle.
When police then tried to retrieve the weapon, it went off, striking David — a 25-year veteran of the police force — in the upper torso. Other officers rendered aid and David was transferred to a local hospital.
Executive Assistant Chief of D.C. Police Jeffery Caroll told reporters earlier in the day that David — a crime scene search officer — was “trained to recover evidence and firearms,” and had recovered “hundreds of guns” in his career.
Pamela A. Smith, the D.C. chief of police, said in a statement: “Our hearts are heavy tonight after the tragic loss of one of our own.”
“Investigator Wayne David, a veteran MPD officer, lost his life while serving in the line of duty. There are few words to express the hurt and pain that Officer David’s family and the entire MPD is feeling right now,” Smith said.
“Investigator David was the epitome of a great officer. He was a dedicated and highly respected member of the department, and this is a tremendous loss for all of us,” she continued.
“For more than 25 years, Investigator David dedicated his life to protecting and safeguarding the District of Columbia. He served with passion and honor and had the utmost respect of his peers,” Smith added.
“I will be forever grateful for Investigator David’s service to the Metropolitan Police Department and his life will never be forgotten,” the statement read.
Police are still searching for the suspect who ditched the gun, and said there is no indication that the man knew the motorcyclist whose vehicle he escaped on. The department has released an image of the suspect.
(NEW YORK) — For the second year in a row, summer in the Northern Hemisphere ranked as the warmest on record with extreme heat bringing persistent, dangerously hot conditions across several continents, according to a new report by Copernicus, the European Union’s Climate Change Service.
Summer 2024 (June through August) was the warmest summer on record for the Northern Hemisphere, beating the previous record set in 2023 by .66 degrees Celsius, or 1.19 degrees Fahrenheit, the report found. The Northern Hemisphere’s top 10 warmest summers on record have all occurred within the past 10 years, according to Copernicus.
Last month also registered as the joint-warmest August on record globally, tying the value observed in 2023, the report, released Thursday, found.
As the planet continues to set new global temperature records, parts of the West Coast continue to experience record-breaking heat. While much of the region typically experiences the warmest temperatures of the year on average during the month of September, the current round of hot weather impacting millions is reaching dangerous levels.
Extreme last-season heat is impacting major cities up and down the West Coast. Heat alerts were in effect across parts of six western states, from Arizona to Washington on Wednesday, including more than 65 million Americans. Several major cities could see records challenged in the coming days.
This latest round of extreme heat comes as major cities in the West such as Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada, experienced their hottest summers on record, according to the National Weather Service.
“The temperature-related extreme events witnessed this summer will only become more intense, with more devastating consequences for people and the planet unless we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said in a statement.
Researchers at Copernicus said that it remains likely that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record, beating out the new record set just last year. The year-to-date global average temperature anomaly through the end of August currently ranks .23 degrees Celsius, or .41 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than the same period in 2023.
The average anomaly for the remaining months of this year would need to drop by at least .30 degrees Celsius, or .54 degrees Fahrenheit, for 2024 not to be warmer than 2023. This has never happened in the organization’s ERA5 dataset.
The last time Earth recorded a cooler-than-average year was in 1976, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization (NOAA).
August 2024 ended up tied with August 2023 as the warmest August on record globally, registering an average surface air temperature of 16.82 degrees Celsius, or 62.28 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the report. This is .71 degrees Celsius, or 1.28 degrees Fahrenheit, above the 1991-2020 average for the month.
The global average temperature over the past twelve months, September 2023 through August 2024, was 1.64 degrees Celsius, or 2.95 degrees Fahrenheit above the pre-industrial average, the report found.
The Paris Agreement goals aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels.
Scientists say that it is important to note that exceeding the 1.5 degree Celsius warming threshold temporarily is not seen as a failure under the Paris Agreement since the agreement looks at the climate average over multiple decades. However, short-term breaches of the threshold are an important signal that those higher averages are likely to happen in the next decade if emissions aren’t reduced significantly.
Global daily sea surface temperatures across most of the world’s oceans remain well above average. The average global sea surface temperature for August 2024, between the latitudes of 60 degrees south and 60 degrees north, was 69.64 degrees Fahrenheit, the second-highest value on record for the month and just slightly below the record value set last year, the report found.
Persistent marine heatwaves are keeping sea surface temperatures at near-record levels across parts of the globe, including the Atlantic Basin. These unusually warm conditions were one of the primary factors that led NOAA to forecast a very active Atlantic hurricane season this year.
While the season got off to an impressive start with storms like record-breaking Hurricane Beryl and weeks of above-average activity earlier in the summer, the Atlantic Basin is now seeing a stretch of remarkably quiet conditions with the peak of the season just days away.
The past three weeks in the Atlantic Basin have been notably quiet with no named storm formations since Ernesto on Aug. 12.
However, toward the middle of September, large-scale environmental conditions look to become more favorable for tropical cyclone activity. This is particularly concerning for forecasters tracking the tropics because as many of the factors that have been inhibiting tropical activity begin to ease, any potential systems that begin to develop will have an ample supply of fuel to not only form but potentially go under rapid intensification.
Antarctic sea ice extent dipped to its second-lowest value on record for the month of August, 7% below average. Arctic sea ice extent was 17% below average for the month, ranking as the fourth lowest value on record and noticeably lower than the August values observed in the previous three years, according to Copernicus.
(NEW YORK) — A 76-year-old man has been arrested in an alleged attack on the owner of a New York City clothing boutique who says confrontation erupted last month over a large poster of Vice President Kamala Harris she displayed in her window, according to police.
The New York City Police Department confirmed to ABC News that the suspect, Juan Bernal of New York City, was arrested on Saturday and charged with assault in the third degree — a class A misdemeanor.
Williams, the owner of Tanya’s Luxury Fashion Boutique on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and alum of the VH1 series “Basketball Wives,” told ABC News the attack unfolded outside her store on Aug. 30. She said she was standing in the doorway of her store around 1:30 p.m. when a man walked by her and then came back after apparently noticing the large poster of the Democratic presidential nominee displayed in her window along with T-shirts supporting Harris’ run for the White House.
“He said, ‘You should have this in your window,'” Williams said of the man who allegedly pointed to his T-shirt touting Harris’ opponent, former President Donald Trump. “I moved toward him to keep him sort of out of the store and said, ‘I’m supporting Kamala.'”
Williams, who opened her store in February, said she initially thought she and the man would engage in friendly banter over the presidential campaign. But then things quickly escalated, she said, when he told her why she and other Black voters should support Trump.
“I knew there was no benefit to engaging him because there was no conversation to be had. Because I would not do that, he spits towards me,” Williams said. “And at that moment, I had a decision to make: Should I knock him the hell out, which I could have, or do I try to get hold of him and call the police.”
She alleged the suspect spat at her again, in her face, and she reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders and told witnesses gathered around them to call the police.
Williams said she became distracted and the man allegedly pushed her, causing her to injure herself when the back of her head hit her door.
As the man backed away, she said she ripped off a piece of his shirt that contained a button reading, “We stand with Israel.” Williams showed ABC News the torn section of clothing and button, which she said the man left behind, and she later showed police officers who responded to the 911 calls reporting the incident.
A New York Police Department spokesperson told ABC News that the department launched an investigation of the alleged crime as an assault in the third degree. The incident, which happened in the 20th precinct, is not being investigated as a hate crime but could be escalated depending on the evidence uncovered, the spokesperson said.
Williams alleged the suspect yelled racial slurs at her, but an NYPD incident report does not mention the racial element alleged by Williams.
Williams said Tuesday that she is “at a loss” as to why the information she relayed to a police officer was not in the incident report. She said she has not yet been interviewed by District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office but plans to urge prosecutors to upgrade the charges against Bernal to a hate crime.
ABC News has reached out to the district attorney’s office and is awaiting a response.
Williams is the ex-wife of former NBA star Jayson Williams, who pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in the 2002 accidental shooting of a limousine driver.
“The outpouring of support from the NYC community and even people driving from NJ, Pennsylvania and Maine to express their anger and support for me has been humbling and greatly appreciated,” Wiliams said Tuesday, adding that political differences are part of the American culture but “physical attacks because of our differences can’t be tolerated.”
Reached by phone on Monday, Bernal told ABC News he is in the process of finding an attorney to fight the charges.
“The only story I can tell you [is] everything she said is false. It’s not like that. I’m now trying to get lawyers to help me with this,” Bernal said.
Bernal said he went to the police on Saturday after hearing of the allegations made against him. He declined to speak specifically about what happened in the alleged confrontation, saying that he needed to speak to a lawyer first.
“I went to the police precinct on my own, hopefully for them to listen to my side,” Bernal said. “Nobody came to look for me. I went there. They appreciated that I showed up. But right now I’m trying to get out of this situation.”