(NEW JERSEY) — Multiple wildfires have erupted across New Jersey amid windy and dry conditions
A large brush fire broke out on the Palisades Interstate Parkway in Bergen County in northern New Jersey, near New York City. The fire covers 19 acres and is 30% contained, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said. No structures are threatened.
On Friday, “conditions will be extremely dangerous for more brush fires and rapid fire spread,” the Englewood Fire Department warned.
New York City Emergency Management said New Yorkers may smell smoke on Friday.
Another wildfire is threatening over 100 structures in Burlington and Camden counties in southern New Jersey, outside of Philadelphia. The blaze spans 360 acres and is 75% contained, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said.
In Jackson Township, in central New Jersey, the Shotgun Wildfire has burned through 350 acres and is 80% contained, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said. No structures are threatened.
A fourth fire, the Pheasant Run Wildfire, covered 133 acres in the Glassboro Wildlife Management Area, a wildlife park in southern New Jersey. It’s 50% contained and isn’t threatening any structures.
Fire danger has increased in the Northeast due to the combination of a historically dry fall, gusty winds near 30 mph and relative humidity down to 25%. A red flag warning has been issued from Boston to New York City and Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, the Mountain Fire in Southern California has exploded in size, blazing through 20,000 acres, destroying homes and prompting mass evacuations.
Police investigate a shooting spree near I-40 in Raleigh, North Carolina, Nov. 7, 2024. Via WTVD
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — A North Carolina State student has been arrested for a string of apparently random shootings at cars on multiple highways in Raleigh.
Since Monday, police have received 12 reports of shots being fired at vehicles and buildings in the vicinity of Interstates 40 and 440, according to Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson. Among the incidents, eight vehicles were fired into, resulting in one person being injured, she said.
Andrew Thomas Graney, 23, has been charged with one count of assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and 11 counts of firing a weapon into an occupied vehicle or dwelling, police said. Graney is a senior at NC State, majoring in anthropology and has been enrolled since fall 2019, the school confirmed to Raleigh ABC station WTVD.
A second person was taken into custody alongside Graney, but was released without charges, police said.
“At this time, we do believe that the 12 incidents are related,” Patterson said at a press briefing Thursday. “I can also confirm that we have identified a person of interest, and this person has been detained. However, we will continue to pursue all leads.”
The investigation led authorities to a residence in Raleigh on Thursday, where they detained the person of interest, police said. A second person who was also in the residence at the time was additionally detained, police said.
Police have urged drivers in the Raleigh area to remain vigilant following reports of vehicles being fired into during the early morning hours on I-40.
In one incident, on Monday, a woman was shot in the leg, suffering a non-life-threatening injury, police said.
Patterson said it is unclear at this time if shots were being fired from a vehicle or on foot.
Police previously said they believe a handgun was used in the shootings.
The shootings remain under investigation. Patterson urged anyone with surveillance or dashcam footage to come forward.
A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible, she said.
Teen believed to be armed stopped from entering Wisconsin elementary school. Via Kenosha Police Department
(KENOSHA, Wis.) — Authorities in Wisconsin say an armed 13-year-old carrying a backpack and duffel bag was stopped from entering an elementary school Thursday morning after being confronted by school staff and taken into custody several hours later.
“We narrowly missed a tragedy,” Kenosha Police Chief Patrick D. Patton told reporters Thursday.
The 13-year-old, who previously attended Roosevelt Elementary School, attempted to enter the building at about 9 a.m. local time, Patton said.
The suspect tried to enter through other doors to the school building, but was not able to get in, Kenosha Unified School District Superintendent Jeffrey Weiss told reporters at a news conference. He then approached the front entrance and was buzzed into a vestibule area. Two school employees confronted the student, who got nervous and then fled, Weiss said.
“I can’t stress … really how heroic our office staff was,” Weiss said, adding “They helped avert a disaster.”
Police later identified the teen suspect, thanks to tips from the community.
“We can confirm that this was not just a suspicious individual, we believe that this was actually an armed suspect with a firearm and there was no legitimate reason to enter the school,” Patton said at a later news conference.
Police took the suspect into custody shortly after 2 p.m. local time. During the earlier news conference, police played a video they said depicted the suspect with a firearm and said the suspect looked up school shootings online and made comments to fellow students for weeks leading up to the incident.
Kenosha is located about 40 miles south of Milwaukee.
(LOS ANGELES) — A wind-whipped Southern California brush fire that exploded to over 20,000 acres in about 24 hours, destroying homes and prompting mass evacuations, remained out of control Thursday as Gov. Gavin Newsom rallied state and federal resources to battle the blaze.
The governor declared a state of emergency in Ventura County as firefighters struggled to gain an edge on the Mountain Fire, which had burned 20,484 acres and destroyed an undetermined number of homes since starting near the town of Camarillo. The blaze was 5% contained Thursday evening.
The November fire came amid unseasonably warm temperatures and strong Santa Ana winds. The National Weather Service issued red-flag warnings for Ventura and Los Angeles counties that are to remain in effect through at least Friday morning.
Aerial footage from ABC Los Angeles station KABC showed what appeared to be row after row of destroyed homes in the towns Camarillo, Moorpark and Somis.
Multiple people were taken to the hospitals to be treated for smoke inhalation and other injuries, Ventura County emergency officials said. Some victims became trapped in their cars as they raced from the fast-moving flames, officials said.
In a press conference Thursday evening, Ventura County Fire officials said 88 structures has been damaged and 132 structures were destroyed, the majority of which were homes.
Offcials said there were 10 confirmed injuries, most due to smoke inhalation and all were deemed non-life threatening.
At least 14,000 people were ordered to evacuate, said Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff.
Newsom announced on Wednesday that he has mobilized statewide resources to help battle the fire and has secured a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to make vital resources available to extinguish the fire.
The California Office of Emergency Services said it had prepositioned 48 pieces of firefighting equipment, nine helicopters and over 100 personnel in 19 counties across California in advance of dangerous fire weather forecast in many parts of coastal and inland California.
“This is a dangerous fire that’s spreading quickly and threatening lives,” Newsom said in a statement. “State resources have been mobilized to protect communities, and this federal support from the Biden-Harris Administration will give state and local firefighters the resources they need to save lives and property as they continue battling this aggressive fire.”
The Mountain Fire is one of two wind-driven fires that broke out in Southern California, leading the NWS to issue rare November red flag warnings for Los Angeles and Ventura counties alerting of an “extreme fire risk” from Malibu into the San Gabriel Mountains, north of Los Angeles, where winds could gust near 100 mph.
“A very strong, widespread, and long-duration Santa Ana wind event will bring widespread extremely critical fire weather conditions to many areas of Los Angeles and Ventura counties Wednesday into Thursday,” according to the NWS warning.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation Thursday.
Due to extreme wind conditions, fixed-wing aircraft are unable to assist in firefighting efforts, according to the Ventura Fire Department, which said ground crews, helicopters and mutual aid resources are “actively working to protect lives and property.”
Broad Fire
A second wildfire erupted in Los Angeles County’s Malibu area Wednesday — named the Broad Fire — and has burned at least 50 acres southwest of South Malibu Canyon Road and the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) in Malibu, according to CAL Fire.
The fire was 15% contained Wednesday evening, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Local fire officials have warned residents to prepare for potential evacuations and the PCH has been closed in both directions between Webb Way and Corral Canyon.
Santa Ana wind conditions
Named after Southern California’s Santa Ana Canyon, the region’s Santa Ana winds bring blustery, dry and warm wind that blows out of the desert, drying out vegetation and increasing wildfire danger.
The long-duration Santa Ana wind event was expected to peak late Wednesday, becoming moderate on Thursday, then tailing off to light offshore winds on Friday.
Northeast winds moving 20 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph are expected across the canyons and passes of Southern California, with higher winds in the more wind-prone areas.
Another surge of wind is expected to peak through Thursday morning with widespread northeast winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 50 mph before weakening considerably by Thursday afternoon.
Police investigate a shooting spree near I-40 in Raleigh, North Carolina, Nov. 7, 2024. Via WTVD
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — Two people have been detained in connection with a spate of shootings that occurred in Raleigh this week, authorities said Thursday.
Since Monday, police have received 12 reports of shots being fired at vehicles and buildings in the vicinity of I-40 and I-440, according to Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson. Among the incidents, eight vehicles were fired into, resulting in one person being injured, she said.
“At this time, we do believe that the 12 incidents are related,” Patterson said at a press briefing Thursday. “I can also confirm that we have identified a person of interest, and this person has been detained. However, we will continue to pursue all leads.”
The investigation led authorities to a residence in Raleigh on Thursday, where they detained the person of interest, police said. A second person who was also in the residence at the time was additionally detained, police said.
Police have urged drivers in the Raleigh area to remain vigilant following reports of vehicles being fired into during the early morning hours on I-40.
In one incident, on Monday, a woman was shot in the leg, suffering a non-life-threatening injury, police said.
Patterson said it is unclear at this time if shots were being fired from a vehicle or on foot.
Police previously said they believe a handgun was used in the shootings.
The shootings remain under investigation. Patterson urged anyone with surveillance or dashcam footage to come forward.
A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible, she said.
A still from body-camera footage of the suspect talking to an officer in Edmonds, Washington, Nov. 4, 2024. Via Edmonds Police Department
(EDMONDS, Wash.) — An 82-year-old white woman was arrested for a suspected hate crime and assault following an altercation with Trump supporters in which she confronted one about voting for the former president based on her skin color, according to a police report.
The incident occurred on Monday, a day before the general election, at an intersection where several Trump supporters were gathered in Edmonds, Washington, located about 17 miles north of Seattle.
The suspect, who was not publicly identified by police, is accused of pushing and punching a 55-year-old female Trump supporter after getting into a verbal altercation, Edmonds police said. She is accused of then punching in the chin a 66-year-old female Trump supporter who intervened while demonstrating how she pushed the initial supporter, according to the probable cause statement.
“Neither victim suffered significant injury nor required medical treatment,” the Edmonds Police Department said in a press release on Wednesday.
The suspect has not been charged in the incident, a Snohomish County prosecutor’s office spokesperson told ABC News on Thursday. The case will be reviewed by the prosecutor’s office for any charging decision.
The suspect, who was wearing a Harris-Walz pin, told a responding officer that she approached the first supporter and said, “I want to know why you’re voting for Trump,” according to body camera footage obtained and reviewed by ABC News. “And I said, ‘Because you’re brown-skinned.'”
“I hate the racism in this country, I hate how people are treated,” the suspect continued. “And so I’m wondering, why would somebody with brown skin support this man? And that was my question.”
She told the officer the Trump supporter “immediately started screaming ‘racist'” in her face.
“And my response was to push her away, and I put my hand to her chin, and I pushed on her shoulder,” the suspect said. “And it wasn’t hard. But I did do that.”
“I didn’t help the situation,” she added.
“I said why? Because of my skin color? I said, ‘You’re a racist,'” she said. “Then she came up and she pushed me. And then she hit me in the frickin’ chin.”
“She obviously didn’t hurt me,” she continued. “But it’s like, you know what, we have freedom of speech, you can say whatever you want. You can’t touch me.”
When asked if she wanted to press charges, the woman said yes. “That makes me nervous, you can’t do that,” she said.
The second Trump supporter said the suspect hit her face while demonstrating the initial altercation. “It was pretty forceful,” she told the officer.
The suspect told an officer at the scene that she has been wanting to talk to people of color who are supporting Trump.
“I am definitely not a racist,” the suspect said. “But I definitely want to flag people with brown skin or other color skins that, ‘Hey, you realize what’s gonna happen?'”
“That’s kind of racist if you’re targeting certain individuals,” the officer responded.
“I’m not targeting them,” she responded.
The suspect was booked into the Snohomish County Jail for an alleged hate crime and assault, police said. She was released on personal recognizance following a probable cause hearing on Tuesday, according to the Snohomish County prosecutor’s office spokesperson.
There is no timeline on the case or any scheduled hearing dates, the prosecutor’s office spokesperson said.
ABC News was unable to reach the suspect for comment.
The Trump supporter who was initially approached in the incident told Seattle ABC affiliate KOMO she was still in “shock.”
“She made it very clear it was my skin color,” the woman told the station.
Edmonds Police Chief Michelle Bennett said in a statement that the officers “properly determined that this was more than just an assault and arrested the suspect for the appropriate charge.”
“The constitution protects peaceful rallies in our community, and community members should never be met with violence while exercising those rights,” she said.
Edmonds Mayor Mike Rosen said he was “disheartened that this violence has occurred in our community.”
“Community members peacefully showing political support should not be subject to hateful violence,” he said in a statement. “I’m thankful there were no serious injuries, and the suspect was held accountable.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden does not plan to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on federal gun charges, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated during a press briefing on Thursday.
Hunter Biden is scheduled to be sentenced next month on the gun charges as well as federal tax-related charges in a separate case.
When asked Thursday whether the president has any intention of pardoning his son, Jean-Pierre responded, “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.”
Jean-Pierre said she didn’t have comment on pardons the president intends to make at the end of his term, including any administration officials or people threatened by President-elect Donald Trump with legal action.
“I know pardons is going to be a big part of the questions that I get here over the next several weeks and a couple of months that we have,” she said. “I don’t have anything to share or any thought process on pardons. Once we have something to share, we certainly will share with that.”
No son of a sitting president has faced a criminal trial before.
President Biden told ABC News anchor David Muir during an interview in June amid the Delaware trial in the gun case that he would not pardon his son.
Hunter Biden was ultimately found guilty that month on three felony counts related to his purchase of a firearm in 2018 while allegedly addicted to drugs. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 12.
In a separate case, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty in September to nine federal tax-related charges in Los Angeles, where he is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 16.
(NEW YORK) — Drew Spiegel was preparing to march in the 2022 Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park when gunfire rang out.
“In that short time span, seven people died, 48 more [were] injured,” the 19-year-old told ABC News. “I texted my parents that I might not be coming home from the Fourth of July parade. And my life forever changed.”
For more than a year after the shooting, Spiegel didn’t talk about it. That changed when he got to college and encountered the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.
“They asked me straight up like, ‘Are you a survivor of gun violence?’ ” he said. “And I was like, no, but technically I was at a mass shooting. And they were like, so then yes.”
The U.S. sees 43,000 fatal shootings every year, and 120 people are fatally shot every day, according to Angela Ferrell-Zabala, the executive director of Moms Demand Action, an Everytown subsidiary group.
“If Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, is not safe from gun violence, then nobody is,” he said.
Now, Spiegel is sharing his story with people who may have different opinions than him.
“The change we’re fighting for, is not mutually exclusive with the Second Amendment. They can coexist,” he told ABC News. “We can have a country where people are allowed to have guns and also a country where you don’t have to worry about going to school.”
But he isn’t just thinking in terms of the next four years — he’s looking at how the laws made in the coming decades could save lives.
He’s found an ally in Rep. Maxwell Frost, who won election in Florida’s 10th Congressional District in 2022 and won reelection on Tuesday. The 27-year-old Democrat is also a survivor of gun violence and was previously the national organizing director for gun control advocacy group March For Our Lives.
That movement didn’t result in gun control legislation getting passed, but Frost accepts that change takes time.
“The way you measure the success of a movement is, you see the seeds are planted in people,” Frost told ABC News. “I’m the first person from that movement to be in Congress. That’s a win, right? And then we got the Office of Gun Violence Prevention[in 2023]. That’s a win.”
However, Frost warned ABC News in August that he foresees this progress being rolled back.
“If Donald Trump wins this election, one of the things he’s going to do on Day One is get rid of the office completely. Get rid of it,” he said. “This office is helping to save lives across the entire country. So getting rid of the office literally means more people will die due to gun violence.”
With Trump returning to the White House in January, it’s unclear how much progress gun control will make. In 2018, the Trump administration banned bump stocks, which allow guns to essentially operate as automatic weapons. However, the Supreme Court struck down that ban in June.
Despite this, Spiegel is hoping people will keep fighting for gun violence prevention laws, to prevent stories similar to his own from happening all over again.
“I think our rights and freedoms will be under a higher attack than ever before. But I don’t think it’s completely over,” he told ABC News. “I think there’s still a country and, more importantly, our friends and family in the country that are worth fighting for. And we just put our heads down and get back to work. You just keep fighting.”
(WASHINGTON) — Claiming superior leadership and casting himself as the true agent of change were keys to Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, per ABC News exit poll results.
He also prevailed by a wide margin among the small group of so-called “double haters” — voters with an unfavorable opinion of both candidates.
In a list of four candidate qualities, 30% of voters nationally rated “has the ability to lead” as most important to their vote, and about as many, 28%, chose “can bring needed change.” Fewer picked “has good judgment” (20%) or “cares about people like me” (18%).
These choices were closely tied to candidate preferences. Among those who cited leadership ability as the top candidate attribute, Trump beat Kamala Harris by 2-1, 66-33%. On bringing about change, the gap widened to 3-1, 74-24%.
That huge gap on change reflects Harris’ difficulties distancing herself from the unpopular Biden administration, a dynamic covered in ABC News/Ipsos pre-election polling. Seventy-four percent of Americans said they wanted Harris, if elected, to take a new direction from President Joe Biden’s. Only 33% thought she would.
Harris pushed back with big leads among voters who picked judgment or empathy as most important — but there were fewer of them.
Taken another way, among Trump supporters, 41% chose “can bring needed change” as the most important candidate attribute in their vote and 40% chose leadership, totaling to eight in 10 of all his voters.
By contrast, about six in 10 Harris supporters chose judgment or caring as top qualities to them. Compared with Trump, half as many cited leadership and a third as many picked the ability to bring change.
Personal favorability was another factor.
In 2020, Biden was seen favorably by 52%, 6 percentage points above Trump’s 46%. This year, Harris ended up rated essentially as unfavorably as Trump — 47-52%, favorable-unfavorable, for Harris, and 46-53% for Trump. (This is a change from preliminary exit poll results, in which Trump was 11 points underwater in favorability, Harris just 2 points.)
Notably, Trump won the 8% of voters who rated both candidates unfavorably, by 26 points, 56-30%.
Look also at assessments of how extreme the candidates’ views were: 47% said Harris’ views were too extreme; 54% said that of Trump. But among those who said both were too extreme, again 8% of voters, Trump won by a broad 42 points, 63-21%.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Thursday raised the possibility of holding Rudy Giuliani in contempt if he fails to turn over property by next week to the two Georgia poll workers he defamed after the 2020 election.
A 90-minute hearing devolved into what the judge called “griping” after a lawyer for former election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss accused Giuliani of “game playing” and an attorney for Giuliani accused the two women of being “vindictive.”
A federal jury last year ordered Giuliani to pay Freeman and Moss nearly $150 million for defaming them with false accusations that the mother and daughter committed election fraud while the two were counting ballots in Georgia’s Fulton County on Election Day in 2020.
Earlier this week, Freeman and Moss’ attorney claimed that Giuliani had “secreted away” his property after the receivership controlled by the two election workers accessed Giuliani’s apartment, only to find it virtually empty.
The former New York City mayor was given a Nov. 14 deadline to turn over the shares in his Upper East Side co-op apartment, valuable sports memorabilia, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, and luxury watches — including one that belonged to Giuliani’s grandfather.
When defense lawyer Ken Caruso complained that forcing Giuliani to relinquish his grandfather’s watch was “vindictive,” an exasperated Judge Lewis Liman said, “Oh come on!”
“The law is the law and I don’t apply it differently to your client,” Liman said. “Don’t come to me and say something is vindictive.”
The judge was equally unmoved by the defense argument that Giuliani’s car, a blue Mercedes-Benz convertible once owned by the actress Lauren Bacall, was exempt from the judgment because it’s worth less than $4,000.
“Monday the title and keys will be delivered as well as the physical location of the car,” Judge Liman said.
Giuliani also balked at relinquishing about $2 million dollars he is owed for legal worked performed for Donald Trump.
“They wanted that money to make a political statement,” Caruso said.
Liman did not budge and reminded Giuliani of the consequences.
“He is under an unqualified order to deliver all the receivership property to the receiver,” Liman said. “If he doesn’t comply then I’m sure I’ll get a motion for contempt. If he hasn’t delivered, and there is a way in which he could have delivered, he’ll be subject to contempt sanctions.”
Outside court, Giuliani accused Freeman and Moss of bringing a “political vendetta” that was “financed by the Bidens.”
When ABC News asked whether he regretted defaming Freeman and Moss, Giuliani answered “No” before his lawyer stepped in to say the case was on appeal.
