New York Fire Department to honor 39 members killed by 9/11-related illnesses this year
The moon rises behind the skyline of lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center as the Tribute in Light is tested ahead of the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York City on September 8, 2025. Gary Hershorn/ABC News
(NEW YORK) — The Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack on the World Trade Center is still killing New York City firefighters 24 years later.
On Tuesday, the New York City Fire Department will remember 39 members who died in the past year of illnesses related to their work during the rescue and recovery efforts at what was then known as The Pile.
Their names will be added to the FDNY World Trade Center Memorial Wall during a Tuesday afternoon ceremony at the department’s Brooklyn headquarters. The inscription on the wall says, “Dedicated to the memory of those who bravely served this department protecting life and property in the City of New York in the rescue and recovery effort at Manhattan Box 5-5-8087 World Trade Center.”
The FDNY has lost more than 400 members to World Trade Center illnesses, surpassing the 343 firefighters killed on 9/11 itself.
Overall, 2,753 people were killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Thursday will mark 24 years since the terror attacks. The annual commemoration ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan will begin at 8:40 a.m. Thursday.
Stock image of police lights. Douglas Sacha/Getty Images
(DETROIT) — Police are looking for a man they said shot and killed his ex-wife at a hospital in Detroit and then fled the scene.
The shooting occurred before 10 a.m. local time Friday in the basement of Henry Ford Hospital, where the victim worked, according to Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison.
The suspect allegedly fired multiple shots from a handgun after getting into a “verbal altercation” with his ex-wife, Bettison said during a press briefing.
The suspect — identified as 53-year-old Mario Green — then fled the hospital in a 2011 white Dodge Charger, Bettison said. He was captured on video leaving the facility at approximately 9:55 a.m., the chief said.
“He is presumed to be armed and dangerous,” Bettison said. “We expect to have him in custody very, very shortly, but we’re asking for the community’s help.”
Bettison said there is no longer an active situation at the hospital, but it remains a crime scene. No other victims were located following a sweep of the hospital, police said.
Police did not release the name of the victim, who was approximately 40 years old. Bettison said he did not know what she did at the hospital or how Green was able to access the basement.
About a month ago, the victim had filed for a personal protection order against her Green, according to Detroit Assistant Police Chief Charles Fitzgerald.
“Unfortunately, it was not served on her ex husband, so it almost brings us here today, ” Fitzgerald told ABC Detroit affiliate WXYZ.
Green has an address in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and is described as being approximately 6 feet 4 inches.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(DELAWARE) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom is suing Fox News for $787 million for defamation.
Newsom’s allegations stem from Fox News host Jesse Watters’ coverage of the battle between the governor and President Donald Trump when the Trump administration sent the California National Guard to Los Angeles earlier this month.
Watters allegedly reported on Fox News that Newsom lied about a phone call with Trump, and the governor claims in his lawsuit that Watters’ show misleadingly edited a video of Trump to support the claim.
Trump, asked by a reporter on June 10 when was the last time he had spoken to Newsom, replied, “A day ago. Called him to tell him, got to do a better job, he’s doing a bad job” — even though, according to Newsom, the last time they had spoken was three days prior to that, at 1:28 a.m. ET on June 7, and Newsom said they had not discussed the riots in question.
After Newsom asserted on X that the two had not spoken on June 9 as Trump appeared to have said, Watters, according to the lawsuit, accused Newsom of lying and played the video clip of Trump telling the reporter the two had spoken — but edited out the start of the clip where Trump said “a day ago.”
“If Fox News wants to lie to the American people on Donald Trump’s behalf, it should face consequences — just like it did in the Dominion case,” Newsom said in a statement Friday, referring to the 2023 settlement Fox reached with Dominion Voting Systems — also for $787 million — after the voting machine company accused Fox News of knowingly pushing false conspiracy theories that Dominion rigged the 2020 presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor.
“I believe the American people should be able to trust the information they receive from a major news outlet,” Newsom said in his statement. “Until Fox is willing to be truthful, I will keep fighting against their propaganda machine.”
In a letter sent to Fox, Newsom’s attorneys said that unless Fox News issues a retraction and an on-air apology, “we will proceed with the lawsuit so that a jury can determine Fox News’s culpability and assign a monetary value to its ‘blatantly unethical’ conduct.”
Fox News, in a statement, said, “Gov. Newsom’s transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him. We will defend this case vigorously and look forward to it being dismissed.”
A sign marks the U.S. Department of Energy Headquarters Building on April 13, 2025, in Washington, DC. (J. David Ake/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A group of more than 85 climate scientists released a critical review of a recent U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) report on climate change, finding it “biased, full of errors, and not fit to inform policymaking.”
The DOE report, compiled by the agency’s “2025 Climate Working Group,” a five-person panel hand-picked in March by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, was released in late July alongside a proposed regulatory repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Endangerment Finding.”
In 2009, the EPA issued an Endangerment Finding determining that human-amplified climate change poses a threat to human health and safety, which became the basis for its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
“The rise of human flourishing over the past two centuries is a story worth celebrating. Yet we are told, relentlessly, that the very energy systems that enabled this progress now pose an existential threat,” Wright said at the time of the report’s release.
The Climate Working Group, which is at the center of a lawsuit against the Trump administration alleging it was improperly formed, operated without transparency and engaged in unlawful activities, began preparing its findings in early April and compiled the report in about two months.
The conclusions in the report are a stark contrast to well-known climate assessments, such as those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and U.S. National Climate Assessment, which include contributions from thousands of scientists around the world and undergo a rigorous years-long process of open and independent review.
The IPCC found that “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming.” The U.S. National Climate Assessment determined that “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming” and that “without deeper cuts in global net greenhouse emissions and accelerated adaptation efforts, severe climate risks to the United States will continue to grow.”
The release of the DOE report met swift backlash from veteran climate scientists who were critical of the findings, the process and the people selected for the working group. Dozens of members of the climate science community then got together to prepare a detailed, public rebuttal of the DOE report.
“This report makes a mockery of science. It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes, and confirmation bias. This report makes it clear DOE has no interest in engaging with the scientific community,” Andrew Dessler, a climate researcher at Texas A&M University, who helped organize the effort, said.
Experts involved in reviewing the report said that it includes “biased assessments” and “fundamentally flawed” arguments. They pointed out that the DOE report was produced by a small, hand-picked group, often writing outside their expertise, which led to basic factual errors. The report lacked peer review, was developed in secret, and showed no accountability to public input, these experts said in their review.
According to the rebuttal report, the DOE team “selectively cites outdated or discredited studies” and “misrepresents mainstream sources” of climate science. Reviewers also raised concerns that the report was purposely designed to support a predetermined policy agenda, particularly to undermine the EPA’s Endangerment Finding, rather than to offer an objective scientific assessment.
The DOE report claims that climate models used by scientists overestimate warming trends, that long-term trends for disasters generally don’t show much change and the economic impacts of carbon emissions are “negligible.” The DOE report also said there are advantages to a world with more carbon, like increased plant growth.
“The DOE report is not a neutral scientific assessment, it is a policy-driven document that selectively presents information to support a predetermined narrative. Rather than engaging with the full body of climate science, it highlights isolated findings that, when removed from context, give the misleading impression that rising CO₂ levels are broadly beneficial,” said Becca Neumann, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington and head of the hydro-biogeochemistry research group.
In a statement to ABC News, a DOE spokesperson said, “Unlike previous administrations, the Trump administration is committed to engaging in a more thoughtful and science-based conversation about climate change and energy.”
The report was reviewed internally by DOE scientific researchers and policy experts from the Office of Science and National Labs and is open to wider peer review from the scientific community and general public via the public comment period, the DOE spokesperson said.
“The purpose of this report is to restore an open and transparent dialogue around climate science,” the DOE spokesperson concluded. “Following the public comment period, we look forward to reviewing and engaging on substantive comments.”
The benefits from rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are among the key points made in the DOE’s report, emphasizing that higher carbon dioxide levels can enhance photosynthesis and boost crop yields and aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Neumann acknowledges that this effect is real and well-documented, but said it’s already factored into the climate and agricultural models the report seeks to discredit.
“What the report fails to acknowledge is that these benefits are offset by the broader impacts of climate change: rising temperatures, altered rainfall patterns, and more extreme weather—all of which pose serious challenges to agriculture. For most regions in the U.S. and globally, the net effect of climate change on food production is projected to be negative. Yet the report repeatedly suggests the opposite,” said Neumann.
The DOE report not only criticizes numerous climate science findings but also attempts to cast doubt on the reliability of the weather and climate data being collected for analysis, claiming that urbanization effects, like the Urban Heat Island, significantly bias global temperature observations.
However, the scientific consensus, reflected in IPCC assessments, finds that these effects have a minimal to negligible impact on global warming trends. Climate scientists explain that standard data homogenization techniques effectively identify and correct non-climatic biases, and these adjusted datasets are independently validated by rural-only networks and satellite observations.
The critical review, which totals more than 400 pages, was submitted to the Department of Energy during the report’s public comment period.
The DOE report is already facing legal challenges. In August, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Environmental Defense Fund filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts, contesting the Trump administration’s use of a secretly convened group to undermine established climate science and regulations. The suit names Secretary Wright, the DOE, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the EPA, and the Climate Working Group as defendants.
The lawsuit cites the Federal Advisory Committee Act, enacted in the aftermath of Nixon-era scandals, which requires that federal government advisory committees operate transparently, make their materials publicly available, and maintain balanced membership.
“Decades of rigorous scientific analysis shows burning fossil fuels is unequivocally contributing to deadly heat waves, accelerating sea level rise, worsening wildfires and floods, increased heavy rainfall, and more intense and damaging storms across the country. We should all relentlessly question who stands to gain from efforts to upend this unassailable and peer-reviewed scientific truth,” Dr. Gretchen Goldman, the president and CEO of UCS, said at the time the lawsuit was filed.
The EPA told ABC News regarding the lawsuit, “As a matter of longstanding practice, EPA does not comment on current or pending litigation.”
