At least 11 injured in explosion at manufacturing plant in Louisville, Kentucky: Police
WHAS
(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — At least 11 people were reported injured in an explosion at a manufacturing facility in Louisville, Kentucky, police said.
A “hazardous materials incident” was reported Tuesday afternoon at the address of a Givaudan Sense Colour facility, according to the Louisville Metro Emergency Services.
The cause of the explosion, which occurred around 3 p.m. local time, is unknown at this time, officials said.
All those injured are employees of Givaudan Sense Colour, a natural food coloring plant, officials said.
One person who was trapped following the explosion was rescued, while several others were evacuated, officials said.
No fatalities have been reported in the incident.
Residents within two blocks of the facility, located at 1901 Payne St., have been 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.
Agents with Louisville’s division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are responding and assisting with the “critical incident,” the agency said.
Air monitoring is clear at this time, officials said.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear urged those in the area to follow guidance from local officials “while responders work to secure the area” and said he is “praying for the safety of all involved.”
Givaudan Sense Colour makes colors used in food, and other applications, according to its website.
ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(EAST LANSING, Mich.) Researchers from Michigan State University and Rutgers University say they will lead the first nationally funded study on the effects of structural racism on housing, aging and health.
The research – funded by an expected $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and National Institute on Aging – will examine the impact that “racist and discriminatory” policies over the last 100 years have had on a cohort of 800 Black and white Baltimore-based adults.
Most past research has had an “almost singular focus” on either residential segregation or historic redlining. This report will look at how factors such as redlining, gentrification, predatory lending, urban renewal, freeway construction, segregation and more have shaped the neighborhoods, homes, schools and stores Black residents engage with and how it has contributed to racial inequities, according to researcher Dick Sadler, an associate professor at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.
The lead researchers say that lifelong exposure to structural racism — the policies and processes causing race-based inequities — are key drivers behind disparities in health and accelerated aging for Black people.
Past research has found that Black residents are more likely to experience earlier onset and greater rates of aging-related cognitive, physical function decline, and frailty compared to other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.
Researchers say they will also look at how systemic racism impacts other racial and ethnic groups who live in these disinvested environments.
Understanding how divestment and discrimination happens “is critical to the development of strategies to disrupt racial inequities in communities,” according to the study announcement.
“We need to comprehensively document what the full constellation of tools, tactics and strategies look like in our urban landscapes to better contextualize why racial inequities emerge and persist across numerous health endpoints, for which all Americans ultimately suffer but for which Black Americans consistently take the largest hits,” said Sadler and Danielle Beatty Moody, associate professor at the Rutgers University School of Social Work, in the announcement.
Researchers hope the study can support advocacy and policy efforts to address such inequities.
The study comes as the majority of Americans — 65% — say that racism perpetrated by individual people is a bigger problem than racism in laws when it comes to discrimination against Black people in the U.S. today, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey. About a quarter — 23% — say that racism in U.S. laws is the larger problem.
However, Pew found that more than half of Black adults — 52% — say racism in U.S. laws is the bigger problem, with 43% arguing that racism by individuals is the larger problem.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House is set to see another history-making vice presidential spouse.
With Ohio Sen. JD Vance set to become the next vice president, his wife, Usha Vance, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, is set to be the first Indian American second lady in the White House. She will also be the first Hindu second lady.
That will follow Doug Emhoff’s history-making mark as the first second gentleman in the White House. He is also the first Jewish person in the role.
JD Vance thanked “my beautiful wife for making it possible to do this” on social media on Wednesday, after multiple news organizations, including ABC News, projected that former President Donald Trump will win the presidential match-up against Vice President Kamala Harris.
At 38, Usha Vance is set to be the youngest second lady since the Truman administration, when then-38-year-old Jane Hadley Barkley, wife of former Vice President Alben Barkley, assumed the role in 1949.
She was raised in a Hindu household in San Diego, where her parents are academics.
The Vances met during their time at Yale Law School and got married in Kentucky in 2014. They have three children together.
An attorney who once clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, she left her law firm, Munger, Tolles & Olsen, after her husband was formally announced as former President Donald Trump’s running mate on the Republican party ticket in July.
Usha Vance was in the spotlight at the Republican National Convention, where she introduced her husband.
“My background is very different from JD’s. I grew up in San Diego, in a middle-class community with two loving parents, both immigrants from India, and a wonderful sister,” she said at the convention. “That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country.”
She has since taken on a more behind-the-scenes role on the campaign trail, not delivering any remarks at a public campaign event since the RNC.
“Obviously, at the convention, I was asked to introduce JD, and so that was an active role,” she told NBC News in October. “But the thing that JD asked, and the thing that I certainly agreed to do, is to keep him company.”
She told NBC News at the time that she hadn’t given much thought to what causes or initiatives she might focus on if she became the second lady.
“You know, this is such an intense and busy experience that I have not given a ton of thought to my own roles and responsibilities,” she said.
“And so I thought, what would I do? See what happens on Nov. 5, and collect some information myself and take it from there,” she said. “There are certainly things I’m interested in, but I don’t really know how that all fits into this role.”
In her first interview after JD Vance was named Trump’s running mate, Usha Vance discussed with “Fox & Friends” how she and her husband share different political views and suggested that their opinions influence each other in a “nice give and take.”
“I mean, we’re two different people. We have lots of different backgrounds and interests and things like that, so we come to different conclusions all the time,” she said. “That’s part of the fun of being married.”
She was also asked to respond to her husband’s widely criticized “childless cat ladies” comment, which was directed at Harris and others in a recently resurfaced 2021 Fox News interview.
“He made a quip in service of making a point that he wanted to make that was substantive,” she said. “And I just wish sometimes that people would talk about those things and that we would spend a lot less time just sort of going through this three-word phrase or that three-word phrase.”
She told “Fox & Friends” that she never thought she’d be in politics, that they planned to be lawyers with a family, and that they have agreed to keep their children out of the spotlight.
“Through his Senate candidacy, we had a lot of serious conversations, because, you know, we do have three children, and giving them a stable, normal, happy life and upbringing is something that is the most important thing to us,” she said.
(REDINGTON BEACH, Fla.) — As Hurricane Milton churns closer, Floridians are still picking up the pieces from Hurricane Helene’s devastation late last month.
Debris left from Helene, still in the process of being removed, is likely to pose significant dangers as the next one prepares to make landfall, officials say.
On Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said 1,200 truckloads of debris had already been removed, but flood-ruined furniture and downed trees remain littered throughout Florida’s west coast.
In addition, officials with the Florida Department of Transportation said Wednesday morning that over 55,000 cubic yards of debris were cleared from barrier islands.
“Debris + high winds = dangerous combination,” the state’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said Monday in a post on X.
One man who evacuated his home Tuesday in Redington Beach — a barrier island west of Tampa — told ABC News the idyllic coastal neighborhood is nearly unrecognizable amid the detritus leftover from Helene.
“I’m looking out my window right now — I see five mattresses, bed frames, cabinets, refrigerators, anything you think of,” Brian Nguyen said as he and his family packed up their home of 30 years.
Nguyen said he was “very concerned” about the damage the strewn-about objects, including his now-totaled car, might cause to his and his neighbors’ homes.
“Our car has actually been totaled and it’s currently in our driveway. We weren’t able to get that towed out before we evacuate, so we’re concerned if it gets carried by the floodwater, it could run into our garage and damage the house — just additional damage,” he said.
Despite the threat, Nguyen said he’s grateful for the removal efforts so far.
“The county has honestly been doing as much as they can to expedite the debris removal, and they’re going to be working around the clock,” he said. “But, you know, it’s not just my neighborhood, but literally the entire coastline.”
Stephen Sommer, who lives in St. Petersburg, told Tampa ABC affiliate WFTS his family had lost many of their possessions in Helene, and are now preparing for more damage from Milton.
“About $30,000 in appliances, we lost all of our beds, we had to rip about four feet of drywall off in our house. We lost all of our family pictures,” Sommer said.
With high winds and storm surge expected, the lost and destroyed belongings that litter the streets are likely to cause even more destruction.
“With all of this around, it’s going to become projectiles,” said Sommer.
