Mardi Gras parades canceled due to extreme winds: Mother Nature ‘decided not to work with us’
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(NEW ORLEANS) — Parades on Mardi Gras day have been canceled due to the dangers posed by extreme winds that could reach 60 mph in the New Orleans area on Fat Tuesday.
“The range of where we consider it dangerous and we bring in our people is around 30 to 35 mph,” Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, President Cynthia Lee Sheng said at a news conference Monday, noting that transit buses stop operating when winds reach 35 mph.
The gusty winds will be severe enough that there’s “no other choice” but to cancel Tuesday’s scheduled parades, she said.
“These are not conditions where we would invite family, including the elderly and children, to stand on our streets out in the open,” Sheng said. “These are not conditions for people to be elevated on floats, God forbid, having a float tip over and there’s people on the street just under those floats.”
The winds also bring the danger of flying debris, like tents and chairs, she said.
“I know many, many people have planned all year long for tomorrow … and I know there are many, many scheduled parties for tomorrow. But Mother Nature has just decided not to work with us,” Sheng said.
“I have to look at the safety first,” she said.
Damaging winds are the biggest threat from the severe thunderstorms expected to strike Louisiana on Tuesday, but an isolated tornado and flash flooding are also possible.
“This is disappointing for all of us,” Sheng said, adding, “We still have a lot of festivities today.”
Mardi Gras celebrations ramp up one week before the day itself, with about five days of parades across the city culminating in a final day of parades on Mardi Gras Tuesday.
(WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.) — One person is dead and two others injured after Purdue University’s Boilermaker Special mascot collided with a vehicle on a highway in Indiana, authorities said.
The deadly crash happened Thursday afternoon on U.S. 52 at Wyandotte Road in southeastern Tippecanoe County, several miles southeast of the university.
The Boilermaker Special vehicle was traveling north on the highway when, for a currently unknown reason, it crossed the median and collided with a passenger car traveling south, according to the Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office.
The driver of the passenger vehicle died, the sheriff’s office said. The person’s identity has not yet been confirmed, authorities said. No one else was in the vehicle.
Two students who were on the Boilermaker Special were transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said. They have since been treated and released, according to Purdue.
“We can confirm our Boilermaker Special was involved in a serious multi-vehicle accident,” the university said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with all those impacted by the incident.”
The Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office crash reconstruction team is investigating, the sheriff’s office said.
The Boilermaker Special, a vehicle that resembles a Victorian-era steam locomotive, is Purdue’s official mascot. It travels to away football games and can drive up to 75 mph, according to the school.
(NEW YORK) — A 49-year-old man wielding a blood-covered meat cleaver was shot and critically injured by New York City police officers on Sunday after allegedly stabbing four young girls believed to be his relatives in their home, authorities said.
Two officers opened fire on the suspected attacker when they forced their way into the home and he allegedly ignored repeated orders to drop the bloody weapon and stepped toward the officers, NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference Sunday outside the home where the attack occurred.
Tisch said officers found a “horrific scene” with the walls and floors spattered with blood when they arrived at the apartment in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn.
The commissioner said officers went to the home when one of the victims, an 11-year-old girl, called 911 after running and hiding in a bedroom as the attack was going on.
“The 11-year-old caller stated that she and her siblings had been stabbed by their uncle,” Tisch said.
Tisch said the girl didn’t know her address and police used technology to trace the phone the child used to make the call to find the location of the assault in progress.
“Officers and EMS arrived at the door within minutes of receiving the 911 call. Their fast, decisive action pinpointing the location and taking down the door absolutely saved the lives of these young girls,” Tisch said.
The incident unfolded around 10:15 a.m., Tisch said. She said that once the attack began, a young boy who is related to the family ran to a neighbor’s apartment to get help and let police into the building when they arrived.
Tisch said officers were standing in a vestibule of the building when they heard screams coming from an apartment to their left. Officers then kicked open the door to the apartment, she said.
“Once they entered, they encountered a man standing near the entrance holding a large meat cleaver covered in blood and they could see blood on the floor and the walls of the home,” Tisch said.
She said the suspect was ordered several times to drop the weapon.
“He refused and advanced toward them,” Tisch said. “Two officers discharged their firearms, firing seven total rounds between them, striking the subject, ending the threat.”
The suspect was taken to Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, where he was in critical condition, police said.
Tisch said the victims — four sisters ages 8, 11, 13 and 16 — all suffered serious slash and stab wounds. They were also taken to Maimonides, where they were being treated. All of the victims are expected to survive.
A motive for the attack remains under investigation.
NYPD Chief of Department John Chell said detectives are attempting to confirm the relationship between the victims and the suspect. He said the mother of the children was not at home at the time of the attack.
Chell said relatives of the suspect told police he has a history of mental illness and lives at the home where the attack occurred.
He added that the preliminary investigation shows that the NYPD had received no previous calls for service to the address.
Besides the meat cleaver, police recovered a second kitchen knife from the scene that Tisch said was also covered in blood.
Tisch said the police shooting was captured on police-worn body cameras.
(BOSTON) — Karen Read’s second trial is set to begin Tuesday, seven months after a first prosecution in the alleged murder of her police officer boyfriend ended with the jury unable to reach a verdict.
Read is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, in January 2022. Prosecutors alleged Read hit O’Keefe with her vehicle and left him to die as Boston was hit with a major blizzard. Read has denied the allegations and maintained her innocence.
At least four jurors who served on her first trial last year confirmed that she was found not guilty of second-degree murder and leaving a scene of personal injury and death, according to Read’s attorneys.
Read was also charged with manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence.
She pleaded not guilty to all three charges.
Jury selection in the retrial begins on Tuesday. Jury selection could last weeks. Her first trial lasted more than two months, including deliberations, and drew widespread national coverage.
In a surprise twist this week, Read added one of the alternate jurors from her first trial to her legal team for the retrial. Victoria George, the alternate juror, is a licensed civil attorney in Massachusetts.
Last August, a judge declined to dismiss the two charges in her retrial, saying no verdict was announced in court so she was not acquitted of any charges — despite her attorneys’ claim the jury found her not guilty in deliberations. Read filed several appeals to state and federal courts to get the charges dropped, without success.
Read and O’Keefe met friends for drinks at a local sports bar before the storm and then went to another nearby bar, Read told ABC News.
Around midnight, O’Keefe and some others elected to leave after they were invited to the home of Brian Albert, a fellow Boston police officer, she said.
Read, who said she was tired, claims she dropped O’Keefe off outside Albert’s residence and then drove her SUV to O’Keefe’s house and fell asleep.
Albert and others who attended the gathering at his home say that O’Keefe never went inside the home.
Read said she awoke alone and anxiously called O’Keefe’s friends to say he never came home.
Read said she drove around Canton for 20 minutes before meeting up with two friends of O’Keefe — Kerry Roberts and Jennifer McCabe, sister-in-law of Brian Albert — and returning to O’Keefe’s house thinking he may have made his way home.
Not finding him at the house, the trio drove back to the home where Read said she dropped him off. They found his body lying motionless on the front snowbank, according to her.
He was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead that morning. An autopsy found that he died of hypothermia and blunt force injuries to the head.
Prosecutors have alleged Read hit O’Keefe with her car and left him to die in the middle of a snowstorm after the two got into an argument earlier that day.
Damning testimony during Read’s trial led to the suspension of Massachusetts State Police Officer Michael Proctor last July. Trial testimony revealed Proctor was communicating with Canton Police Officer Kevin Albert during the investigation ahead of Read’s murder trial.
Albert is the brother of Brian Albert, who hosted the party at the house where O’Keefe’s body was found outside.
Kevin Albert was also placed on administrative leave last July, according to Boston ABC affiliate WCVB.
ABC News’ Meghan Mariani contributed to this report.
