Phoenix set to break record for 110-degree days as extreme heat plagues West Coast
ABC News
(PHOENIX) — Extreme late-season heat is plaguing the West Coast from Los Angeles to Seattle with heat alerts issued for more than 65 million Americans across six states.
Phoenix has surpassed 110 degrees 55 times this summer, tying the record set just last year. Phoenix is expected to break that all-time record Thursday as temperatures are forecast to reach near 114 degrees.
Over the last 30 years, Phoenix has seen an average of just 21 days a year over 110 degrees.
There have been 177 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and its suburbs, from January through August, according to the Maricopa County Department of Health. The deaths of 436 other people are being investigated as to whether they are heat-related.
Last year, 645 heat-related deaths were recorded in the county, according to the Maricopa County Department of Public Health.
Phoenix reached 111 degrees on Wednesday, extending its record for the most consecutive days at 100 degrees or higher to an even 100. The previous record was 76 days at 100 or above.
Elsewhere in the West, record temperatures of 106 degrees are possible in Medford, Oregon; 102 is possible in Portland, Oregon; and 91 degrees is possible in Seattle.
In addition to record heat, a red flag warning has been issued for Washington state, where very low humidity and hot temperatures could help spread wildfires.
Numerous wildfires have been burning in Oregon and some evacuations have been issued.
The hot weather will continue for the West through this weekend.
Long Beach, California, could get close to a record 100 degrees on Saturday and Boise, Idaho, could approach a record 95 degrees on Sunday.
(NEW YORK) — A chemical leak from a railcar prompted officials to issue an evacuation order for residents in the Cleves and Whitewater Township areas in Hamilton County, Ohio, authorities said Tuesday.
Hamilton County’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency told anyone within half a mile of the rail yard to leave the area immediately.
Authorities confirmed the leak was styrene, a flammable liquid used to make plastics and rubber, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
“The risk of an explosion is our primary concern,” an official said at a Tuesday night news conference. “We are asking residents within a three-quarter-mile radius to shelter in place as a precaution. Experts have assured us that this is well within the safety norms.”
Officials said 210 homes were located in the designated evacuation zone, though how many people have been impacted was not immediately known. Those needing shelter were advised to go to the Whitewater Township Center, officials said.
Although authorities said at an 11 p.m. ET news conference that the leak had been contained, people were still urged to avoid the area.
“We feel we’ve made significant progress by separating the affected rail car from the rest of the train,” an official said. “Monitoring and mitigation teams are working diligently to ensure everyone’s safety. In the meantime, we urge residents to stay out of the area.”
Authorities are closely monitoring air quality for styrene but said at the earlier news conference that they haven’t yet determined the exact levels.
The train in question consisted of 29 cars, some of which were also carrying styrene, officials said.
“Our first priority upon arriving at the scene was removing anything in close proximity to the leak,” an official confirmed.
Only one car was found to have leaked styrene, they said.
In response to questions on Tuesday night about when residents can return home, officials urged patience.
“We’re not going to rush this. Once it’s absolutely safe, we’ll let everyone know. For now, we encourage residents to monitor social media and news outlets for updates,” an official said.
In a post on Tuesday night X, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urged those in the area to follow the directions of officials.
Cleves Township is almost 17 miles from Cincinnati, Ohio, while Whitewater Township is about 22 miles away.
(NEW YORK) — Missouri death row inmate Marcellus Williams was executed by lethal injection Tuesday for the 1998 murder of Lisha Gayle, a former newspaper reporter who was found brutally stabbed in her suburban St. Louis home.
Williams, 55, died after 6:00 p.m. CDT at a Missouri state prison in Bonne Terre in Francois County, approximately 60 miles southwest of St. Louis, Williams’ lawyer confirmed to ABC News.
The capital punishment case saw national attention with Williams maintaining his innocence, the victim’s family opposing the execution and his prosecution submitting motions for appeals at every level.
“Marcellus Williams should be alive today. There were multiple points in the timeline when decisions could have been made that would have spared him the death penalty. If there is even the shadow of a doubt of innocence, the death penalty should never be an option. This outcome did not serve the interests of justice,” Wesley Bell, chief prosecutor for St. Louis County, said in a statement after the execution.
The United States Supreme Court denied two separate appeals to spare Williams’ life on Tuesday an hour ahead of his execution, despite the objection of Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
Williams’ attorney Tricia Rojo Bushnell released a statement after SCOTUS’ decision, saying, “Tonight, Missouri will execute an innocent man Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams.”
“As dark as today is, we owe it to Khaliifah to build a brighter future. We are thankful to the St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney, for his commitment to truth and justice and all he did to try to prevent this unspeakable wrong. And for the millions of people who signed petitions, made calls, and shared Khaliifah’s story,” Bushnell said.
On Monday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and the state’s Supreme Court rejected a bid to halt the execution.
In a statement to ABC News, Parson said, “No jury nor court, including at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams’ innocence claims.”
“At the end of the day, his guilty verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld. Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in Mr. Williams’ innocence,” Parson added.
Williams was charged with first-degree murder in 1999 for the killing of Gayle, a social worker and former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He was found guilty in 2001.
Prosecutors in Williams’ original trial alleged he broke into Gayle’s home in August 1998 and stabbed her 43 times with a large butcher knife, according to court documents. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen after the attack.
The kitchen knife used in the killing was left lodged in Gayle’s body, according to court documents. Blood, hair, fingerprints and shoe prints believed to belong to the perpetrator were found around the home.
Williams’ defense claimed that his DNA was never found on the murder weapon and two unidentified sources of DNA would lead investigators to the actual killer.
In DNA evidence discovered in August, it was found that the former prosecutor and investigator who litigated the original trial failed to wear gloves when handling the murder weapon, leaving their DNA on the knife, revealing the sources of the unidentified DNA, which did not belong to an unidentified killer.
In his statement Monday, Parson accused Williams’ attorneys of trying to “muddy the waters about DNA evidence” with claims that have previously been rejected by the courts.
“Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in Mr. Williams’ innocence,” Parson said.
Williams’ execution marks the third in Missouri this year and the 100th since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1989.
(NEW YORK) — Colleges and universities are seeing mixed results in the diversity of their incoming freshman classes after the Supreme Court set new limits on the use of affirmative action in college admissions.
For example, the Yale University class of 2028 saw no difference from the class of 2027 when it came to the percentage of African American students and Native American students. The Hispanic/Latino and International student populations remained roughly the same, dropping and rising, respectively, by 1%. However, the Asian American population dropped by 6%, the white population rose by 4%.
When comparing Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s class of 2027 to 2028, the Black population dropped from 15% to 5%, the Hispanic/Latino population dropped from 16% to 11%, and the white population decreased by 1%.
The Asian American population increased from 40% to 47% and both the American Indian/Alaskan Native and international populations increased by 1%.
Affirmative action policies allowed institutions to take into account an individual student’s race or ethnicity as one factor of many during the college admissions selection process. It rose to popularity in the 1960s to address racial inequities in access to higher education.
Researchers previously told ABC News that societal injustices – such as economic inequality, segregation and academic inequity in K-12 schools – as well as the lasting impact of historical exclusion from colleges and universities against Black and brown students have led to the continued underrepresentation in four-year institutions.
A landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1978 – in the case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke – cemented affirmative action policies in college and university admissions for decades and led to an increase in diversity on campuses.
However, the 2023 decision by the Supreme Court sided in part with Students for Fair Admissions, a conservative group that challenged race-related admissions policies. Members argued that the affirmative action policies at the schools were discriminatory against white and Asian students.
Now, as a new class of students head back to campus, many are looking at how schools might feel the impact of the required policy change.
Here’s a look at the difference in student diversity at several other institutions that have published their class breakdown:
Princeton University saw a decrease in its Asian population and International incoming populations, both of which dropped by about 2%. The Black or African American incoming population saw a .1% dip, and the Hispanic/Latino population saw a 1% dip.
However, at least 7.7% of the class’ racial or ethnic identity is unknown. Princeton did not publish the percentage of white students in its class of 2027, but noted that 31.3% of students in the class of 2028 are white.
Amherst College in Massachusetts reported larger drops in the Black and Latinx incoming student population. The incoming Black student population decreased from 19% to 9% and the Latinx population decreased from 14% to 10%, the American Indian or Alaska Native incoming population dropped by 1%.
The percentage of white students rose by 2% and the Asian student percentage increased by 1%.
