Man critically hurt in fall from bleachers at Pirates-Cubs game is identified
Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
(PITTSBURGH) — The baseball fan critically hurt in a 20-foot fall at PNC Park in Pittsburgh has been identified as Kavan Markwood.
Markwood fell from the bleachers onto the field during the seventh inning of the Pirates-Cubs game on Wednesday night, officials said. The game was briefly halted as emergency crews responded.
The Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety said the “incident is being treated as accidental.”
As of Thursday, Markwood remained in critical condition, according to the department of public safety.
Markwood previously attended Walsh University in Ohio.
“The Walsh University community was deeply saddened to learn about the tragic accident involving former student Kavan Markwood,” the university said in a statement. “Our thoughts and heartfelt prayers are with him, his family, and friends during this very difficult time. We are hoping and praying for a full recovery.”
After attending Walsh, Markwood transferred to Wheeling University in West Virginia, where he was a member of the football team in 2023.
“The Wheeling University Community is heartbroken,” the university said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with Kavan, his family, friends, and all his loved ones. The Cardinal family is praying for a full and speedy recovery.”
Pirates manager Derek Shelton said he saw the fall as it happened.
“The fact of how it went down. And then laying motionless, while a play is going on … it’s extremely unfortunate. I mean, that’s an understatement,” he told reporters after the game.
Shelton said he wanted to ask “everybody to keep him in their prayers.”
ABC News’ Matthew Holroyd and Victoria Beaule contributed to this report.
(ROCKINGHAM, N.C.) — A foster mother in North Carolina faces charges following the death of a 7-month-old baby who was allegedly left in a hot car on a 90-degree day, police said.
Djuna Bostick is charged with involuntary manslaughter and negligent child abuse after the infant was found unresponsive in her minivan in Hamlet, according to court documents.
Police responded to a medical emergency call on Charlotte Street around 6:04 p.m., court documents show. They note that officers found the baby unresponsive and immediately started life-saving efforts. The infant was rushed to a hospital but later died “due to excessive heat,” according to the court documents.
Bostick remains at Richmond County Jail on a $500,000 bond. Police say the investigation is ongoing.
This tragedy adds to the growing number of hot car deaths in recent years. According to advocacy group Kids and Car Safety, there were 29 deaths in 2023, 41 in 2024, and six so far in 2025.
The organization reports that these cases rarely lead to harsh punishments. They say 50% of hot car deaths don’t result in convictions, while 31% end in convictions of varying degrees. The remaining 19% of cases are either pending or have unknown outcomes.
Most of these deaths are unintentional and don’t involve abuse, neglect or substance use, experts say.
Janette Fennell, founder and president of Kids and Car Safety, said carmakers should install occupant detection technology in all vehicles.
“As we continue our advocacy, children are still dying — week after week. It’s beyond heartbreaking,” she said in a statement to ABC News. “Automakers don’t need to wait for a final regulation. They have the power — and the responsibility — to add this life-saving technology to their vehicles today.”
How to prevent hot car tragedies
Safety experts from Kids and Car Safety recommend these critical steps to protect children:
Create a reminder system: Place your phone, purse or work badge in the back seat next to your child’s car seat. This forces you to check the back seat when leaving the car.
Double-check your vehicle: Make it a habit to open the back door and check the back seat every time you park.
Keep cars locked: Always lock your vehicle and keep keys out of children’s reach to prevent them from getting into parked cars.
Act immediately if you see a child alone in a car: Call 911 and, if the child appears to be in distress, get them out as quickly as possible.
(Photo by Francesco Sforza Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Robert Francis Prevost, the Chicago-born man who became Pope Leo XIV on Thursday, has Black family roots in New Orleans, Louisiana, records show.
ABC News has obtained several records, including U.S. Census records from the early 1900s, demonstrating that the first American pope’s family tree reflects the complex racial history of this country.
Both of Leo XIV’s maternal grandparents, Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, are described as Black or mulatto in several census documents.
On their 1887 marriage license, Martinez listed his birthplace as Haiti, and birth records show that he was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Chris Smothers, professional genealogist for 15 years and historian studying at Simmons University, told ABC News that these were the same territories at the time. Baquié’s birth records show she was born in New Orleans.
Despite Martinez being born abroad, his father — the pope’s great-grandfather — was found to be from Louisiana, Smothers said, emphasizing the pope’s ancestry in the American South.
“It’s clear that the Pope has centuries-long ties to free people of color in Louisiana,” Smothers told ABC News.
On the 1900 census, while his family lived in New Orleans, both Leo XIV’s maternal grandparents and his aunts — Irma and Margaret — were identified as Black. However, in 1920, after the family migrated to Chicago and had the pope’s mother Mildred, that decade’s census reflected their race as white.
Like so many families fleeing the South at that time, they could have shifted their racial identity. Smothers called this a common “survival strategy” at the time.
“In that intervening period, they not only migrated from New Orleans to Chicago in the period between 1910 and 1912 but they also changed their racial identifiers, which is very common,” Jari Honora, a genealogist and family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, told ABC News. “Many families did this as a question of their livelihoods as an economic decision, they passed for white.”
ABC News also obtained photos of those grandparents from the local genealogists working on uncovering this lineage. The pope’s brother, John Prevost, recognized the photos and confirmed to ABC News that they depict their grandparents.
While John Prevost knew about his grandparents’ connection to Haiti and the family’s time in New Orleans, he told ABC News that their family never discussed racial matters.
Creoles in New Orleans have been a part of Louisiana history for almost as long as it has been a state and have contributed enormously to the culture of Louisiana. The word Creole commonly describes mixed-race people of color.
“To be, you know, Creole in Louisiana, to be a free person of color in New Orleans in that time really indicates that there was at some point an enslaved person that had to fight for their freedom,” Smothers said, though genealogists have yet to find direct evidence linking the pope’s ancestry to any enslaved individual.
In a statement released Thursday night, New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell said “the City of New Orleans is a melting pot of different religions and beliefs. We are thrilled to welcome Pope Leo XIV, who embodies morality, unity, and inclusivity.”
Genealogists continue to dig into the pope’s records to find out more information about his ancestry. For now, it seems that Pope Leo is not only the first American pope, but he also represents the melting pot of backgrounds in the U.S.
“They were a Creole of color family — Creole indicating their cultural background that they are rooted in this place in Louisiana, which, of course, has its origins of the French and Spanish colony with a significant West African population. And of color indicating that they were a racial mix. They were a combination of all of those ethnic backgrounds,” Honora said.
Honora also pointed to the symbolic nature of the pope’s ancestry.
“The story, the trajectory does not surprise me. But the fact that a descendant of that family … is the pope, you know, really adds the element of surprise,” he said.
Melissa and Mark Hortman attend at Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer Labor Party’s annual Humphrey-Mondale Dinner at the Minneapolis Hilton on Friday, June 13, 2025.(Minnesota House DFL Caucus)
(BROOKLYN PARK, MN) — State Rep. Melissa Hortman and State Sen. John Hoffman, who were targeted by a shooter on Saturday, were longtime members of Minnesota’s state legislature who spent years working to improve their communities, according to leaders who knew them.
Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed at their home in Brooklyn Park early Saturday by a suspect who posed as a police officer, investigators said. They left behind two children.
Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot earlier in the morning by the same suspect inside their home at Champlin. The couple, who have a daughter, were rushed to a hospital and underwent surgery, Gov. Tim Walz said.
Authorities said they’ve identified 57-year-old Vance Boelter as a suspect as they search for the gunman.
Both state leaders were members of Minnesota’s Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), a state party affiliated with the Democrats.
Hortman, 55, nee Haluptzok, had the most experience in the state legislature. She earned a BA in political science and philosophy at Boston University and worked as an intern for then-Sen. Al Gore and later Sen. John Kerry, according to her campaign biography.
Hortman went on to earn a law degree at the University of Minnesota Law School in 1995 and clerked with Judge John Sommerville. She later earned an MPA from Harvard in 2018.
Outside politics, Hortman worked as a private attorney and volunteered her time in the local school board and Sunday school at Saint Timothy Catholic Church in Blaine. She first ran for office in 1998, for the State House of Representatives seat, but lost.
After another defeat for the same seat four years later, Hortman was elected to the state’s District 47B in 2004.
Hortman quickly rose through the ranks of the House, serving as assistant majority leader from 2007 to 2010 and as minority whip from 2011 to 2012. She championed many causes, including reproductive rights and environmental issues.
She also pushed for stricter gun control and attended events with gun control advocates, including Everytown for Gun Safety.
In 2017, she was named minority leader and became speaker in 2019 after the DFL gained a majority in the House. Hortman spearheaded efforts to pass police reform in 2020 following the George Floyd protests.
During this year’s session, the state House Republicans and the DFL engaged in a tense standoff over leadership after Republicans gained seats. A DFL boycott ended in February with a power-sharing agreement where Hortman retained the title of minority leader until a March special election created a tie in the House.
Hortman and her husband were married for 31 years. Mark Hortman worked as a program manager for nVent Electric, a company that specialized in electronics, particularly green electronics, according to his Facebook and LinkedIn pages.
Mark Hortman frequently posted photos and updates about his family on his Facebook page.
“A couple of weeks ago, I posted a video showing off how we taught our dog how to ring the doorbell when he wants to come inside. Well, now that dog has figured out that if he wants to play he rings the doorbell and then ding dong ditches us just to get us to come outside and play!,” he posted in 2023.
The couple attended the DFL’s annual Humphrey-Mondale Dinner at the Minneapolis Hilton on Friday, according to the Minnesota House DFL Caucus.
They were killed on the same day as the birthday of Melissa Hortman’s father, her sister, Lieza Jean Haluptzok, told ABC News.
“We loved them dearly; they will be missed. It’s a horrible thing. I hope they catch him. And they get justice for what happened. It’s devastating,” she said Saturday afternoon.
Hoffman, 60, was elected to the State Senate in 2012.
A Wyoming native, Hoffman earned a bachelor’s degree from Saint Mary’s University and spent several decades working for various Minnesota businesses and non-profits, according to his campaign bio page.
He was the co-founder of Consumer Credit of Minnesota, a non-profit consumer assistance organization, and served on the Anoka Hennepin School Board starting in 2005, his bio said.
In 2012, he won the state senate seat for District 34 and would win reelection three more times.
He served as the minority whip from 2017 to 2020 and is on the Senate’s Human Services committee.
“Throughout my career, I have been afforded many opportunities to assume progressive management roles, which have allowed me to gain and implement a unique set of expertise,” he wrote on his campaign page.
ABC News’ Mark Guarino contributed to this report.
