California wildfires maps show evacuations, power outages, air quality
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(LOS ANGELES) — Wildfires are tearing through thousands of acres in Los Angeles County in California, as strong Santa Ana winds stoke the blazes.
The Palisades Fire has impacted more than 2,920 acres, the Eaton Fire has impacted more than 2,200 acres, and the Hurst Fire has spread over more than 500 acres.
Each of the fires is 0% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CalFire.
Evacuation alerts
Evacuation orders from CalFire have been issued in the areas surrounding the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires.
Orders to evacuate in the Pacific Palisades, Topanga and eastern Malibu region reach to the Carbon Beach Terrace on the west side of the blaze. To the east and southeast, evacuation orders cover the Riviera, Rustic Canyon and Wilshire Montana regions, stretching to San Vincente Boulevard.
Orders to evacuate from the Eaton Fire are stretching through Altadena, La Cañada Flintridge, and large swaths of Pasadena and Glendale.
Orders to evacuate from the Hurst Fire are stretching through the suburban neighborhoods of Sylmar in Los Angeles, Whitney Canyon Park and Elsmere Canyon.
Residents can check for evacuation zones on CalFire’s interactive, updated map here: here.
Power outages
Roughly 319,493 customers are without power in California, according to poweroutage.us. Los Angeles County residents alone represent 226,245 of the customers facing outages.
About 27,184 customers in San Bernardino County; 24,840 in Riverside County; 14,965 in Orange County, 13,418 in Ventura County and 9,248 in San Diego County are affected.
Smoke and air quality
Across Southern California, residents are facing air quality conditions deemed hazardous by the U.S. Air Quality Index from the Environmental Protection Agency.
From Los Angeles to Pasadena, near the Eaton blaze, air sensors are picking up “hazardous” to “very unhealthy” conditions. Other surrounding areas — including near Redondo Beach, Torrance, and some parts of Los Angeles are also deemed “unhealthy.”
The EPA urges residents to wear N95 respirators to protect their lungs from smoke, limit time spent outdoors in the open air, and use an air purifier to reduce smoke particles indoors.
(OHIO) — Jurors heard contrasting theories during opening statements in the murder trial of former Columbus, Ohio, police officer Adam Coy who is accused of killing Andre Hill, an unarmed Black man, in December 2020.
While a prosecutor on Thursday painted the defendant’s actions as “reckless” and “unreasonable,” a defense attorney contended Coy was “justified in using deadly force.”
Coy, who is white, is facing charges of causing Hill’s death, felonious assault and reckless homicide stemming from the Dec. 22, 2020, shooting. Prosecutors said the 47-year-old Hill was holding a cell phone in one hand and a set of keys in the other when he was shot dead in the garage of a home belonging to a friend.
In her opening statement, Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Renee Amlin said Hill was complying with Coy’s orders to step out of the garage when he was shot four times.
“The state of Ohio expects that at the end of this case, it will have proven to you beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant Adam Coy is guilty of all three of those crimes,” Amlin told the jury seated in Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.
Amlin said that among the prosecution witnesses slated to testify is Columbus police Officer Amy Detweiler, who was with Coy when the shooting erupted around 1:30 a.m. Both officers responded to a neighbor’s 911 call complaining about a suspicious SUV parked on the street with its engine running.
She said that before the shooting, Coy approached Hill who was seated in the running SUV and that Hill explained he was waiting for a friend to come out of her home. She said Hill showed Coy a text message on his phone from his friend, reading, “I’ll be right out.”
Amlin said that when Coy went back to his patrol car, Hill exited the SUV and entered the open garage of his friend’s home. She said that when Ditweiler arrived separately at the scene, the two officers approached Hill and instructed him to step out of the garage and that Hill was shot when he complied with Coy’s orders.
The jury, according to Amlin, will also be shown Coy’s body-worn camera video that captured the shooting.
Amlin told the jurors that the state would prove beyond reasonable doubt that Coy was “reckless” and that his use of deadly force was not justified.
“The evidence will show that Andre Hill was not armed. He did not have a firearm,” the prosecutor said.
But defense attorney Kaitlyn Stephens told the jury that Coy was following police training when he perceived Hill as a threat.
“You are going to hear from the state’s own witnesses that actual possession of a weapon is irrelevant, that police officers are allowed to be mistaken,” Stephens said.
She told the jury that Coy believed a “mass of keys” Hill had in his right hand was a revolver and that the officer was forced to make a split-second decision to open fire in self-defense.
“You are going to hear that on Dec. 22, 2020, my client believed he was going to get shot. He yells ‘gun, gun,’ steps off the line, draws his weapons and fires at what he honestly believed was a revolver being leveled at his direction,” Stephens told the panel. “You are going to hear that he was mistaken, that it was not a revolver, but instead that glint of steel turned out to be a metal mass of keys.”
Stephens said the defense plans to call two Ohio veteran officers to testify as experts on police training and to counter the testimony of the state’s police training expert.
“You are going to hear that officers do not have to wait until they see the glint of steel, that what matters is how the hand was being presented because an action is faster than a reaction,” Stephens said.
Stephens added, “The evidence will show that our client was not reckless. He did what he was trained to do, and what he was trained to do was shoot to stop the threat.”
Coy was fired from the Columbus Police Department about a week after the shooting.
About a month after the shooting, Coy was arrested and indicted in the killing of Hill. Coy has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has not made any public comments on the case.
If convicted, Coy, who is free on $1 million bail, could face a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Neither Coy nor Detweiler turned their body-worn cameras on until after the shooting, but Coy’s camera had a “look-back” function that automatically activated and recorded 60 seconds of the episode without sound, including capturing the shooting.
The body camera footage also showed that as Hill lay dying on the floor of the garage, none of the officers who responded to the incident appeared to immediately provide first aid, officials said.
National civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing Hill’s family, alleged that the officers waited up to 15 minutes before before they started giving Hill first aid, citing his review of the body camera footage.
After officers on the scene turned their body cameras on, a woman came out of the house and told officers that Hill was a guest and said, according to body camera footage released in the case, “He was bringing me Christmas money. He didn’t do anything.”
In May 2021, the City of Columbus agreed to a $10 million wrongful death settlement with Hill’s family, the highest amount ever paid by the city.
The indictment of Coy came just days after the Columbus City Council also passed Andre’s Law, which was named after Hill and requires Columbus police officers to turn on their body cameras when responding to calls and to immediately render first aid after a use-of-force incident.
ABC News’ Olivia Osteen contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Donald Trump’s impending inauguration as the next president does not impact his $454 million civil fraud judgment, a lawyer for New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a letter to the president-elect’s lawyer Tuesday.
Trump and his adult sons liable owe approximately $490 million including interest in their civil fraud case after a judge ruled last year that they repeatedly inflated Trump’s net worth to secure better loan terms over a decade of business dealings. Trump has appealed the ruling.
Because presidents do not have immunity from civil litigation, James plans to continue defending her judgment against Trump during his appeal of the case, the letter said.
“The ordinary burdens of civil litigation do not impede the President’s official duties in a way that violates the U.S. Constitution,” New York Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale wrote in a letter to D. John Sauer, Trump’s appellate lawyer and nominee for solicitor general.
Last month, Sauer requested that James drop her civil case against Trump to “cure” partisan divides and improve “the health of our Republic.”
“In the aftermath of his historic election victory, President Trump has called for our Nation’s partisan strife to end, and for the contending factions to join forces for the greater good of the country. This call for unity extends to the legal onslaught against him and his family that permeated the most recent election cycle,” Sauer wrote, citing the recent dismissal of Trump federal election interference and classified documents cases.
Vale rejected the request, saying in her letter that there is “no merit to your claim that the pendency of defendants’ own appeal will impede Mr. Trump’s official duties as President.”
Because the New York attorney general’s case is civil, James faces no restriction in continuing to pursue her case as Trump returns to the White House.
“Accordingly, the various actions taken by the Special Counsel’s office or the District Attorney’s Office of New York County in the respective criminal cases brought by those offices against Mr. Trump are irrelevant here,” Vale’s letter said.
A ruling on Trump’s appeal of the judgment could come at any time.
(NEW YORK) — Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is charged in a four-count federal criminal complaint with stalking, murder through the use of a firearm and a firearms offense involving a silencer.
He waived extradition on Thursday morning and was transported via plane and helicopter from Pennsylvania to New York.
Mangione is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court in lower Manhattan Thursday afternoon.
A special edition of “20/20” airing Dec. 19 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC looks at the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the manhunt that led to the arrest of Luigi Mangione, who went from the Ivy League to alleged killer.
Mangione agreed to be extradited during an appearance in court in Blair County, Pennsylvania, on Thursday morning.
Mangione stood as the judge read him his rights. The Ivy League graduate answered “yes” when asked if he understood and answered “yes” when asked if he wanted to waive extradition.
NYPD officers sat in the front of the courtroom and took custody of Mangione after his appearance.
Spectators gathered outside the courthouse as Mangione was taken inside.
One person held a sign reading “Deny, Defend, Depose,” echoing the words written on shell casings and a bullet at the murder scene.
Adam Giesseman, who had a sign that said “Free Luigi” and “Murder for Profit is Terrorism,” told ABC News, “Our country is broken.”
Another waiting spectator, who only gave her first name, Natalie, voiced frustration that the insurance system is “set up for profit over people’s health.”
“It’s unfortunate that this happened, and I’m not glorifying it in any way — but it’s brought attention to the issue that affects all Americans,” she said.
The federal charges could make Mangione eligible for the death penalty. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of the state charges.
Mangione’s New York lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said in a statement, “The federal government’s reported decision to pile on top of an already overcharged first-degree murder and state terror case is highly unusual and raises serious constitutional and statutory double jeopardy concerns.”
“We are ready to fight these charges in whatever court they are brought,” Agnifilo added.
Danielle Filson, a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, said, “The state case will proceed in parallel with any federal case.”
Mangione, 26, is accused of gunning down Thompson outside a Hilton hotel on Dec. 4 as the UnitedHealthcare CEO headed to an investors conference. Prosecutors alleged Mangione waited nearly an hour for Thompson to arrive.
A Manhattan grand jury upgraded charges against Mangione to include first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
The killing in the heart of Midtown Manhattan was “intended to evoke terror,” Bragg said.
In New York, Mangione is also charged with two counts of second-degree murder, one of which is charged as killing as an act of terrorism; two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree; four counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree; one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree; and one count of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree.
In Pennsylvania, where Mangione was arrested on Dec. 9 after nearly a week on the run, he faces charges including allegedly possessing an untraceable ghost gun. Mangione had a 9 mm handgun with a 3D-printed receiver, a homemade silencer, two ammunition magazines and live cartridges when apprehended, prosecutors said.
Mangione’s case in Pennsylvania will be kept active; at the conclusion of his trial in New York, prosecutors would determine how to proceed, Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks said on Thursday.
Mangione’s next hearing in Pennsylvania is scheduled for Feb. 24. This hearing may get postponed or be conducted as a remote Zoom appearance given the impracticality of returning Mangione to Pennsylvania for an in-person hearing, Weeks said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
