FBI raids Polymarket founder’s home in criminal probe of election betting platform

(LOS ANGELES) — At least one person is dead after a Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus was hijacked with the driver being forced to drive at gunpoint before police were able to apprehend the suspect, according to authorities.

The incident began at approximately 12:45 a.m. when the Los Angeles Police Department received radio calls to a disturbance on a bus in the area of Manchester Street and Figueroa Street in southern Los Angeles, said Deputy Chief Donald Graham in a briefing to the media Wednesday morning. Initial reports said that there was a potential assault with a weapon before officers discovered the bus stopped at 117th St and Figueroa St.

However, when the LAPD tried to make contact with the people on the bus, the bus started to pull away from the responding officers which led to an hourlong pursuit into the downtown area, officials said.

The bus eventually ended at Alameda St. and 6th Street at approximately 2:10 a.m. after police deployed multiple spike strips and were able to puncture a tire on the right side of the vehicle. On the bus there were two passengers, the driver and suspect.

A SWAT team was immediately called in to assist in the hostage situation and were able to get on the bus and rescue two people, the driver and a passenger, Graham said in his briefing to the media.

The suspect surrendered immediately and was brought into custody. However, when police were clearing the bus, a fourth person was found on with multiple gunshot wounds.

The victim was taken to a local hospital where he later died from his injuries. Two other patients declined treatment, authorities said.

The investigation is currently open and ongoing.

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(TAMPA, Fla.) — It has been more than 100 years since Florida’s Tampa Bay area – a region especially vulnerable to storm surge and flooding – faced a direct hit by a hurricane.

But Hurricane Milton is now heading straight for Florida’s Gulf Coast, with landfall and a 15-foot storm surge possible in Tampa by late Wednesday night, meaning residents are racing to evacuate ahead of the storm even as they continue to clean up the damage from Hurricane Helene.

Here’s why Hurricane Milton is posing such a threat to the Tampa Bay region:

Why is Tampa susceptible to flooding and storm surge?

The two major surrounding bodies of water – the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding bays – as well as the low-lying coastline make the Tampa Bay area especially susceptible to storm surge, according to experts.

The continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico extends far offshore, up to 150 miles in some spots, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. When water gets “shoved” onto the coast from tropical systems, it has nowhere to go but onto the land, Marshall Shepherd, director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia and former president of the American Meteorological Society, told ABC News.

Additionally, when it comes to storm surge, it isn’t the strength of the storm that matters, but rather the size, Shepherd noted. That’s because the larger is the storm system, the longer water gets pushed onto shore, according to Josh Dozor, general manager of medical and security assistance at International SOS, a risk mitigation company, and former deputy assistant administrator of FEMA.

“When you have a large storm, it enables the gradual, continuous buildup of storm surge as it approaches,” Dozor told ABC News. ” … That 10 to 15 feet of storm surge could result in 10 to 15 feet over what is normally dry land.”

It isn’t uncommon for rising waters from Hillsborough Bay, which comprises the northeast arm of Tampa Bay, to spill onto Bayshore Boulevard, a scenic waterfront roadway in South Tampa that serves as recreation for residents, as well as a common route for drivers. Bayshore Boulevard flooded ahead of and during Hurricane Helene, when the storm surge was less than is currently forecast for Hurricane Milton.

Hurricane Helene’s impact is still fresh

The Tampa Bay region is nowhere near done with recovery and cleanup from Hurricane Helene, which made landfall Sept. 30 and brought six feet of storm surge to the Tampa area’s coastlines. The storm’s size allowed for that surge to infiltrate homes and businesses along the Gulf Coast from Cedar Key to Fort Meyers – each of which is about two hours north and south of Tampa, respectively – residents told ABC News.

In Dunedin, Florida, located on the Gulf Coast at the northernmost tip of Tampa Bay, mountains of debris still litter the streets and people were still airing out their belongings when evacuation orders for Hurricane Milton were issued, Dunedin resident Candace Allaire, 39, COO of the Crown & Bull restaurant, told ABC News.

While the restaurant’s newly renovated kitchen weathered the brunt of Helene’s damage, the rest of the neighborhood was destroyed, Allaire said. Many homes for Allaire’s family and employees, as well as neighboring restaurants, had four feet of standing water in them for hours as Helene barreled through, she said.

The emotional toll of Helene less than two weeks ago, and Hurricane Ian two years ago, is still pervasive in the community. Rebecca Kuppler, mother to a 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter, lost everything in Hurricane Helene. The family had evacuated to Orlando ahead of the storm and heard from neighbors that the water line was rising higher and higher, she told ABC News.

“It’s not stuff,” Kuppler said of the loss. “It’s our home, it’s the memories, it’s the love, the time you put into that, and that’s what’s been really hard.”

The pile of debris outside of Kuppler’s home was still there as the forecasts for Hurricane Milton began, prompting the family to evacuate yet again.

The back-to-back storms are reminiscent of the 2004 hurricane season, when Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne all struck Florida within a six-week period.

“It’s an extreme amount of stress, and if it happens once in a while, I think people can weather it,” Dozor told ABC News. “But when it happens a couple times a year or a couple times every few years, it takes a great toll on people.”

How climate change is increasing the storm risk in the Tampa Bay region

The extreme threat from hurricanes that the Tampa Bay region faces is also likely being influenced by our changing climate.

Human-amplified climate change is the primary cause for present-day rising sea levels, according to a consensus of climate scientists. It’s also triggering more frequent and more intense extreme rainfall events, experts say.

While many factors contribute to the magnitude and impact of storm surge and coastal flooding, average sea levels for many Gulf Coast communities are more than six inches higher today than they were just a few decades ago, data shows.

Human-amplified climate change also likely affected how fast Hurricane Milton intensified as it tracked over the warmer than average waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico, according to researchers. The record-high sea surface temperatures observed in this region over the past two weeks were made up to 400 to 800 times more likely by climate change, according to a rapid attribution analysis by Climate Central.

Warm ocean waters provide the energy hurricanes need to form and intensify. The warmer the water, the more powerful the storms typically are.

While a link has been established between the unusually warm sea surface temperatures and human-caused climate change, it is not yet known to what degree that climate change may have influenced Hurricane Milton’s development.

How Tampa Bay is preparing for the storm

Mandatory evacuations are in place for six counties in Florida, with Tampa at the center of the threat. Airports, businesses and schools from Tampa to Naples, some 170 miles south, are closing in preparation for Milton.

The Tampa area is one of the top five places for evacuations due to potential storm surge, Dozor said. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor issued a dire warning, urging those in the evacuation zones to heed evacuation mandates.

“If you choose to stay in one of the evacuation areas, you are going to die,” Castor said in an interview with CNN Monday night.

While FEMA and emergency management at the state and local levels report that they are adequately prepared for Hurricane Milton, it is incumbent upon residents to follow instructions and get themselves out of harm’s way in a timely manner, Dozor said. In highly populated cities along the Tampa peninsula, like Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, it is important for people to leave early because of the limited roadways.

“There are a lot of bottlenecks that hinder quick and efficient movement of populations to be able to leave the peninsula of Tampa,” he said.

It appears that residents are heeding the warnings, Dozor noted. Beginning on Monday, standstill traffic could be seen for miles on I-75 and the Sunshine Skyway, the bridge that spans the Tampa Bay, as residents embarked on a mass exodus to safety.

At 4 a.m. on Tuesday, Candace Allaire and her fiancé evacuated north to Destin, in Florida’s panhandle, to ride out the storm. Fuel was hard to come by in preparation of their road trip, she said.

In addition, hotel availability is most major Florida cities to which residents might evacuate – such as Fort Lauderdale, Gainesville and Jacksonville – is already extremely low, Dozor said.

“All the hotels are reserved for people who’ve obviously been evacuated,” he said.

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(MOSCOW, Idaho) — Parents of the University of Idaho victims are speaking out on the two-year mark of the gruesome quadruple homicide as they await the trial for their children’s suspected killer.

For victim Kaylee Goncalves’ parents, one of the devastating milestones this year is Kaylee’s younger sister, Autumn, turning 21 — the age Kaylee was when she was killed.

“Early on, [Autumn] just said, ‘What am I going to do when I’m older than Kaylee?'” Kristi Goncalves recalled. “You should never be older than Kaylee, but yeah, you will be and, and that’s coming.”

“It should be an exciting, fun time for her to go out with all of her sisters and go do something fun. But somebody does this to your family, it robs you of all kinds of different things. And birthdays are a huge part of that,” Steve Goncalves told ABC News on Tuesday.

For the mom of 20-year-old victim Ethan Chapin, two years “seems like a long time ago,” but “also feels like yesterday.”

Ethan Chapin was a triplet and his sister, Mazie, and brother, Hunter, also attend the University of Idaho.

“The two will graduate college in May, and we could not be prouder of everything they’ve accomplished,” Stacy Chapin said in a statement.

“We continue to heal and miss Ethan as we work diligently to find the silver linings in the worst circumstances,” she said.

Bryan Kohberger is accused of fatally stabbing Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle at the girls’ off-campus house in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022. Chapin, Kernodle’s boyfriend, was sleeping over at the time.

Kohberger, who was a criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University, was arrested in December 2022. His trial date has been pushed back to Aug. 7, 2025.

For the Goncalves, the last two years felt like a “standstill” in the courts.

Two months ago, Kohberger’s trial was moved from Latah County, where the crime took place and the defense argued jurors wouldn’t be as impartial, to Idaho’s capital city, Boise.

Kristi Goncalves said, “I feel like now that we’ve moved it down to Boise, as much as we didn’t want that, that was the right choice. And I’m glad that it, you know, in hindsight that it happened, and I feel like things are going to start moving, although it still seems very slow.”

Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf.

If convicted, Kohberger could face the death penalty, though his defense is arguing for the death sentence to be taken off the table.

The Goncalves family said they support the death penalty in this case, highlighting the limitations that sentence would pose on Kohberger’s life in prison.

“It’s more about, honestly, the 23 hours of confinement, and not being able to be enrolled in college education and being able to further his career and his influence on society,” Steve Goncalves said.

On Wednesday night, the University of Idaho community will gather for a vigil to honor the four slain students.

“Together, we’ll honor their legacy by sharing memories, writing notes, and gathering in a place dedicated to all Vandals we’ve lost,” the student government said.

ABC News’ Kayna Whitworth contributed to this report.

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