Category: National

(NEW YORK) — As forests shrink and wildlife disappears, mosquitoes are increasingly turning to people for their blood meals, a shift that raises real concerns about the potential spread of diseases that affect humans.

A new study published in the journal Frontiers suggests these buzzing, biting insects are playing a growing role in the increased transmission of Zika, yellow fever, dengue and other diseases that mosquitoes pass on to people, thanks in part to disappearing habitats.

Deforestation, which is the widespread clearing of forests, and other human activity has vastly reduced local populations of plants and animals while increasing human populations in the same areas, according to the study.

“Mosquitoes that are normally feeding on other hosts within the habitat can shift to humans if the habitat is no longer suitable for those hosts and they leave,” Laura Harrington, a Ph.D.-level professor of entomology at Cornell University, told ABC News.

Human blood was widely found in nine types of mosquitoes in two formerly uninhabited areas in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, preliminary study results found. This area was once a part of the Atlantic Forest that covered 502,000 square miles. Today, it has shrunk to 29% of its original size as a result of deforestation and development, according to the final study.

The researchers point to past studies showing that areas with heavier deforestation have a higher mosquito abundance and higher rates of mosquito-borne disease because disturbed habitats favor species that thrive near people. At the same time, reduced biodiversity removes animals that can dilute disease transmission, making humans more likely to become the primary blood source.

Sérgio Lisboa Machado, a co-author of the paper and a professor at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, said mosquitoes are opportunists who don’t venture far to find food.

“So they start searching for humans because mosquitoes rarely fly very long distances,” he told ABC News. “They are not going to pay a lot of energy to find [other food sources].”

More than 17% of all infectious diseases are caused by vector-borne diseases, meaning a disease that’s transmitted to humans by a living organism, such as mosquitoes, ticks, and flies, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports. These biting insects cause more than 700,000 deaths globally.

Mosquitoes alone transmit dozens of serious diseases to humans, according to the WHO, which consequently considers them the deadliest animals on Earth.

Female mosquitoes are the culprit. They must drink blood to get the protein and iron they need to develop their eggs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There is a “reproductive drive for them to feed on blood, and if there’s no other host there, most mosquitoes would feed on a human,” Harrington told ABC News.

Male mosquitoes buzz, but they don’t bite, instead dining on nectar and plant sugars.

There are 3,500 mosquito species globally, Harrington said, noting that there are only a handful that truly prefer the taste of human blood over other animals. When given a choice, only a small fraction of mosquito species regularly seek out humans.

“It’s something that we’ve known for a long time,” Harrington said. “This notion that manipulating the landscape can alter mosquito feeding patterns and sometimes shift feeding patterns towards humans.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration took steps this week to reinstate hundreds of health and safety officials who had previously been dismissed in widespread layoffs, granting a major win for advocates of workplace safety.

The newly reinstated employees belong to the National Institute of Safety and Health, or NIOSH, a small federal office within the Department of Health and Human Services that’s focused on protecting coal miners from black lung respiratory disease. Critics of the Trump administration have accused the government of stripping away key protections for miners in its bid to reinvigorate the coal industry, ABC News has previously reported.

“This moment belongs to every single person who refused to stay silent,” Dr. Micah Niemeier-Walsh, an industrial hygienist at NIOSH and the vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees outpost in Washington, D.C., said Wednesday following news of the reinstatements.

In April 2025, hundreds of NIOSH officials were terminated as part of a so-called Reduction in Force, or RIF. Under pressure from lawmakers and labor organizers, the administration brought back some officials months later, and on Tuesday, hundreds more received an email saying the prior “notice is hereby revoked.”

“You are not affected by the RIF and remain employed in your position of record,” according to an email obtained by ABC News.

The reinstatement “ensures the continuation of critical programs that protect all working people, including mine safety research, chemical hazard assessment, and research on emerging occupational risks,” read a statement from AFGE, the federal workers union.

Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that “the Trump Administration is committed to protecting essential services — whether it’s supporting coal miners and firefighters through NIOSH, safeguarding public health through lead prevention, or researching and tracking the most prevalent communicable diseases.”

Nixon confirmed that the reinstatement applies to all NIOSH officials except those who voluntarily left government.

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(WASHINGTON) — The State Department is freezing immigrant visa processing for 75 countries in an effort to clamp down on applicants it deems likely to become a public charge.

The directive instructs embassies and consulates to halt decisions beginning Jan. 21 while the department reassesses its vetting procedures under existing immigration law, according to an internal memo first reported by Fox News Digital.

The effort comes months before the United States is set to co-host the 2026 World Cup with nearly 2 million tickets sold to fans around the world. The Trump administration previously said “any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling to the World Cup” would be exempt from travel bans.

The suspension of immigrant visas will not apply to applicants seeking non-immigrant visas, or temporary tourist or business visas, who make up the vast majority of visa seekers, the State Department said. As such, the suspensions announced would not apply for those seeking to travel to the World Cup in the U.S. this summer.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed the agency is pausing immigrant visa processing for the 75 countries.

“The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America’s immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people,” State Department principal deputy spokesman Tommy Pigott said in statement Wednesday. “The State Department will use its long-standing authority to deem ineligible potential immigrants who would become a public charge on the United States and exploit the generosity of the American people.”

Countries affected by the pause include Somalia, Russia, Afghanistan, Brazil, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, Thailand and Yemen, according to the internal memo. The full list of countries was not immediately available, but ABC News has reached out to the State Department for more information.

“Immigrant visa processing from these 75 countries will be paused while the State Department reassess immigration processing procedures to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who would take welfare and public benefits,” Pigott added Wednesday in the statement.

Notably, Somalia has drawn scrutiny from the Trump administration in recent days following reports of fraud in Minnesota’s social services system. A self-proclaimed independent journalist posted a video last month alleging child care fraud in Minneapolis’ Somali communities. Several state and local officials have disputed the accuracy of the video, and authorities said at the time none of the centers featured in the video were accused of fraud.

Federal authorities are investigating the allegations in the state’s social services system, while Minnesota officials have disputed the claims of fraud.

President Donald Trump recently criticized Somali immigrants, describing them as “garbage” and saying he doesn’t want them in the United States during a Cabinet meeting last month.

The Trump administration announced Tuesday it would end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalis in March, effectively forcing as many as 2,400 people out of the U.S., despite the president’s remarks last month that Somalia was “barely a country.”

In November, the State Department circulated a cable to consular offices worldwide directing staff to apply stricter screening measures under the “public charge” provision.

Under the guidance, officers are required to deny visas to applicants considered likely to depend on public assistance.

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(WASHINGTON) — In an 11-page court filing, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Acting U.S. attorney Lindsay Halligan blasted a federal judge Tuesday for what they called an “inquisition” against Halligan for continuing to represent herself as U.S. attorney for Eastern District of Virginia, after another judge found she was not legally allowed to serve in the role.

Halligan, a former White House aide who was appointed interim U.S. attorney by President Donald Trump, secured indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, only to have them thrown out when U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie determined in November that she had been unlawfully appointed without being either Senate confirmed or appointed by the federal judiciary.  

Last week, U.S. District Judge David Novak ordered the Justice Department to explain why Halligan was still using the title after her office issued an indictment in which she was identified as U.S. attorney in the document’s signature block.

In their court filing on Tuesday, Bondi, Blanche and Halligan slammed Judge Novak’s order.

“The Court’s thinly veiled threat to use attorney discipline to cudgel the Executive Branch into conforming its legal position in all criminal prosecutions to the views of a single district judge is a gross abuse of power and an affront to the separation of powers,” the filing said. “The bottom line is that Ms. Halligan has not ‘misrepresented’ anything and the Court is flat wrong to suggest that any change to the Government’s signature block is warranted in this or any other case.”

“Contrary to this Court’s suggestion, nothing in the Comey and James dismissal orders prohibits Ms. Halligan from performing the functions of or holding herself out as the United States Attorney,” said the filing. “Although Judge Currie concluded that Ms. Halligan was unlawfully appointed under Section 546, she did not purport to enjoin Ms. Halligan from continuing to oversee the office or from identifying herself as the United States Attorney in the Government’s signature blocks.”

The DOJ officials said Judge Novak had a “fixation” on Halligan’s signature block, which was “untethered from how federal courts actually operate.”

They argued that the court has no authority to strike her signature from the block. 

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(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) — Footage newly obtained by ABC News appears to show the moment that the man suspected of opening fire at Brown University in December fled the Ivy League campus following the tragic incident.

Officials believe Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, is seen on a dash camera video recorded from a Brown University shuttle vehicle on Dec. 13 around dusk, walking through a parking lot adjacent to Barus and Holley, the building that includes the Providence, Rhode Island, school’s physics department.

His right hand appears to be in his pocket as he then jaywalks nonchalantly across Hope Street toward an adjacent residential neighborhood.

The Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General confirmed to ABC News that the footage is believed to depict the shooter and that the video was recorded immediately following the shooting.

The video was released in response to a public records request filed by ABC News. Authorities are currently declining to release many additional records associated with the response to the incident.

Neves Valente, a former Brown graduate student suspected to have been motivated by a lengthy grudge, shot and killed students Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook inside a final exam review session, according to authorities.

Nine others were wounded in the shooting, officials said at the time.

At some point after the shooting, police say Neves Valente traveled to the Boston suburbs and killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno Loureiro near his Brookline home.

Neves Valente later crossed the New Hampshire state line by a few yards and took his own life at a self-storage facility as authorities sought to take him into custody, according to police.

The video recorded by the shuttle bus was referenced in a Providence Police criminal affidavit against Neves Valente that noted, “This was observed to be at 16:03, immediately after the shooting.”

The footage appears to indicate that the tragedy that occurred inside Barus and Holley was not evident to people on the street outside, with a handful of pedestrians seen casually walking nearby.

A Brown University police car can be seen parked on the curb. Around 25 seconds after Neves Valente fled the scene, another police car can be seen driving down Hope Street. Its blue emergency lights were flashing.

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(NEW YORK) — The NASA International Space Station (ISS) crew that includes a sick astronaut are on track to return to earth Thursday morning.

On Jan. 8, NASA said it was ending the current the ISS mission out of abundance of caution because of a medical situation involving one of the astronauts on board.

“I’ve come to the decision that it’s in the best interest of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said during a press conference on Jan. 8.

Crew-11 is scheduled to undock from the ISS at 5:05 p.m. ET Wednesday before splashing down off the coast of California around 3:41 a.m. Thursday, according to NASA.

On Tuesday, the crew prepared by packing cargo, reviewing return-to-Earth procedures and transferring hardware aboard the ISS, the agency said.

They will return to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endeavor — the same spacecraft that brought them to the station.

An emergency evacuation was not ordered because the astronaut was stable, Dr. James “JD” Polk said during the Jan. 8 conference. The astronaut remains in stable condition, NASA said.

The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which partners with private companies to deliver humans to and from the ISS.

Crew-11 includes two American astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a Roscosmos cosmonaut. They traveled to the ISS on Aug. 1 and were scheduled to stay until mid-to-late February.

It is the “11th crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation system and its 12th flight with astronauts,” according to NASA.

In November, the crew marked a historic milestone for the ISS — the 25th anniversary of the first crew that arrived at the station.

NASA did not say which astronaut was impacted nor did it describe the individual’s condition or symptoms due to privacy concerns.

It was the first time in 25 years that a medical evacuation was necessary, Polk said.

The unprecedented moves comes after NASA announced it had postponed planned spacewalk with the two American astronauts scheduled for the morning of Jan. 8.

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(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — A Robb Elementary School teaching aide testified that she repeatedly urged Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales to intervene in the shooting, but said he did “nothing” in those crucial moments. 

Melodye Flores testified on Wednesday that she saw gunman Salvador Ramos before he entered the school and tried to tell Gonzales his location. 

“I told him that he needed to get stopped before he went into the fourth-grade building,” she testified. 

“And what did he say?” prosecutor Bill Turner asked.  

“He, just, nothing,” Flores said. 

“Did you say it more than once?” Turner asked. 

“I did,” Flores said, telling jurors she urged Gonzales to intervene two or three times. 

Prosecutors allege Gonzales, who is charged with child endangerment, did not follow his training and endangered the 19 students who died and an additional 10 surviving students.

Gonzales, no longer an officer, has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers argue he is being unfairly blamed for a broader law-enforcement failure that day. It took 77 minutes before law enforcement mounted a counterassault to end the May 24, 2022, rampage.

Flores testified that she was eating lunch in her classroom when she learned about the shooter over a school radio. She said she ran outside because she knew that some students were on the playground and potentially in danger. 

After warning some students, Flores said she spotted the gunman near the south door of the school. 

“He was wearing all black and a hoodie … that’s when he started shooting,” she said.

Flores said she started running away and tripped, and incorrectly thought she was shot. 

She testified that she saw Gonzales drive up to her right after she tripped, and she tried to inform the officer about the shooter’s location. 

“I said that he was heading into the fourth-grade building, and we needed to stop him. We needed to go in and stop him before he went in,” she said. 

“I just kept pointing. ‘He’s going in there, he’s going to the fourth-grade building,'” she told jurors.

“Did you hear anything from this gunman while you were talking to the police officer?” Turner asked. 

“Just kept hearing shots,” she said. 

Flores said that Gonzales did not respond to her warnings.

“I kept telling him that he needed to be stopped,” she said.

“When you told the officer to go in, did he go in?” Turner asked. 

“No,” she said. 

“What did he do?” Turner asked. 

“He just stayed there,” she said. 

Flores said she left Gonzales and tried to help a teacher who had sheltered in her classroom.

On Tuesday, during the testimony of Texas Ranger Ricardo Guajardo, prosecutors played a lengthy interview Gonzales gave to state investigators after the shooting.

In the interview, Gonzales recalled arriving at the school as one of the first officers and learning about the shooting from a coach. 

“I was going over there towards her,” he said. “I see her fall in the dust cloud. So I get to her, and I realized she’s one of the coaches.” 

According to Gonzales, he learned the approximate location and a basic description of the shooter from the coach, though the shooting began before he could act.

Gonzales told investigators that he could not see the shooter, but he tried to notify others over his radio. 

“I notify everybody on the radio, the best I could. And then, you know, as soon as I start walking over there, I see the rounds come out of the window,” he said. 

Gonzales also described trying to enter the school with four other officers, though they retreated after two were hit by gunfire. 

“Everybody flew back, you know, so I think he got hit,” he said. “We kind of moved back.” 

Two months before the shooting, Gonzales taught a course about responding to active shooters, according to testimony from Teresa Zamarripa, the officer manager at Southwest Texas College Law Enforcement Agency.

ABC News’ Juan Renteria contributed to this report.

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(INVERNESS, Fla.) — Two teenagers, whose relatives said were best friends, have died after a sand hole they were digging at a Florida park collapsed and buried them for more than an hour, authorities said.

The incident occurred at Sportsman Park in Inverness, Florida, according to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office.

“Our hearts are with both families as they grieve the tremendous loss of their sons. We hope the community will continue to respect their privacy and unite in remembering and celebrating both boys,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

The two 14-year-olds were identified on Wednesday as George Watts and Derrick Hubbard, the Florida District 8 and District 5 Medical Examiners’ offices told ABC News.

The boys were playing in the park on Sunday when a five-foot-deep sand hole they were digging collapsed, trapping them, according to the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s office said the emergency was reported about 12:44 p.m. local time.

“The caller reported that two 14-year-old children were lost in the park, and there was a large hole; the caller thought the children were trapped inside the hole,” the sheriff’s office said.

Deputies, firefighters and emergency medical services personnel raced to the park and attempted to rescue the boys after one of their parents pinged their child’s cellphone and pinpointed their whereabouts underground, according to the sheriff’s office.

Rescuers pulled both boys from the sand hole around 1:15 p.m. and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation. They were taken by ambulance to HCA Florida Citrus Hospital in Inverness.

One of the boys, Derrick Hubbard, was pronounced dead on Sunday, authorities said. The sheriff’s office said George Watts was pronounced dead at the hospital on Tuesday afternoon.

“In a tragic accident, we lost our oldest son, George Watts, and his best friend, Derrick Hubbard,” Watts’ mother, Jasmine Watts, wrote on a GoFundMe page set up to raise money to cover the boys’ funeral expenses. “These two boys shared a bond that went beyond friendship — they were inseparable, full of life, curiosity, and dreams for the future.”

The boys were students at Inverness Middle School, the school said in a statement.

“This situation has deeply affected many within our school and district community,” the school said in a statement, adding that counselors, social workers and psychologists were made available to students this week “as we navigate this difficult time together.”

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(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — The family of slain Ohio couple Monique and Spencer Tepe is speaking out about Monique Tepe’s ex-husband, who is accused of shooting the young parents in their home.

“She just had to get away from him,” the Tepes’ brother-in-law, Rob Misleh, told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” of Dr. Michael McKee.

McKee, 39, is charged with premeditated aggravated murder for allegedly gunning down the Tepes at their Columbus home on Dec. 30, according to police.

Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant on Wednesday called it a targeted and “domestic violence-related” attack. She said multiple weapons were taken from McKee’s property and one of those weapons has preliminarily been linked to the crimes.

McKee appeared in court on Monday. He did not enter a plea but assistant public defender Carie Poirier told the judge he intended to plead not guilty. 

Misleh said that Monique Tepe told him that McKee was emotionally abusive.

“Myself and many others were well aware of, kind of, the negative impact that he had on her. And the abuse that he put her through, the torment that he put her through,” Misleh said. “She was willing to do anything to get out of there.”

“She was a very strong person,” Misleh added.

McKee and Monique Tepe were married in 2015 and divorced in 2017, according to divorce records obtained by ABC Columbus affiliate WSYX. They did not have any children together, according to the records.

Spencer Tepe, a dentist, married Monique Tepe married in December 2020, according to their obituary.

“They were some of the kindest and just most inviting people,” Misleh said. “… I think it speaks really loudly that their funeral had over 1,000 people there.”

The Tepes are survived by their two young children who were found safe inside the house on Dec 30.

“We just want justice,” Misleh said.

“We want this person that took so much from, not just us as a family, but so many more people. And obviously the kids, especially. We want this person to pay for what they did,” he said.

“Our hearts remain with Spencer and Monique and their loved ones, and especially the children impacted,” Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said at a news conference on Wednesday.

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