Rep. Adam Smith joins list of lawmakers who received letter with ‘suspicious substance’
Adam Smith for Congress
Washington State Democratic Congressman Adam Smith received a “suspicious letter containing a powdery substance” on Monday, according to a statement from the congressman’s office, making the lawmaker the latest in a growing list of politicians who have received similar letters.
“Earlier today, my district office received a suspicious letter containing a powdery substance, like others sent to Congressional offices across the country,” Smith said in a statement to ABC News. “My staff has been safely evacuated, and I thank the Kent Police Department and the Renton Fire Department for their quick action.”
At Smith’s office in Kent, Washington, hazmat units from both Puget Sound Regional Fire Authority and Renton Regional Fire Authority, along with Puget Sound Fire’s battalion chief, were dispatched at 2:45 p.m. local time, according to Puget Sound Fire Division Chief Pat Pawlak.
In recent days, several other lawmakers across the country have received suspicious letters, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic senators Chris Murphy, Kirsten Gillibrand and Lisa Blunt Rochester, according to previous ABC reporting.
ABC previously reported that preliminary information suggests there are over 100 letters circulating in the US mail system that apparently contain white powder, according to law enforcement sources.
It’s unclear if this incident is connected to the other letters, but in a statement, the FBI told ABC News: “The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are investigating a series of suspicious mailings sent to various addresses nationwide, including Secretary of State offices and their related election offices.”
“Some of the letters contained an unknown substance, and we are working closely with our law enforcement partners to respond to each incident,” the FBI said.
The Pentagon is seen from a flight taking off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on November 29, 2022 in Arlington, Virginia. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon went into a shelter-in-place Thursday as officials locked down multiple floors and hallways in response to a potential air hazard situation, according to three officials.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said building monitoring systems detected an air-quality issue, prompting precautionary measures while officials work to determine the source and extent of the problem.
“The Pentagon has sophisticated systems to ensure the safety of the building and its occupants. Those systems have detected an air quality issue necessitating precautionary measures until we determine its significance,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. “The Department is executing standard protection protocols, including a shelter-in-place order for the affected area. Response teams are in place and ready to support building occupants.”
The Arlington County Fire Department said its hazardous materials team responded to the Pentagon in support of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency’s Hazmat Team “during a hazardous materials incident.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Flint Hills, Kansas near Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. (Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — America has lost about half of one of its most prominent and iconic landscapes, and protecting what’s left is key to ensuring healthy ecosystems and biodiversity in the future, experts told ABC News.
The continental U.S. has lost about half of its historic grasslands prior to European settlement, according to a press release from America’s Grasslands Coalition, a network of conservation organizations, researchers and government agencies that aims to restore North America’s native prairie and grassland ecosystems. An estimated 98% of native tall grass prairies has been eradicated, Ryan Sensenig, a grassland ecologist at the University of Notre Dame, told ABC News.
While grasslands are typically associated with the Great Plains, they used to exist in nearly every region of the U.S., Dwayne Estes, co-founder and executive director of the Southeastern Grasslands Institute told ABC News.
Grasslands were common everywhere from the Atlantic coastlines to the Mississippi River and into the Rocky Mountains and the West Coast, according to experts. Regions that are not typically associated with grasslands, including New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, were covered in them, Estes said.
They are part of the very fabric of North America’s natural heritage, “from sea to shining sea,” Patrick Keyser, director of Tennessee’s Center for Native Grasslands, told ABC News.
Grasslands continue to be threatened, experts say
Today, grasslands continue to disappear at an “alarming rate,” the coalition said.
Invasive plant species have infiltrated many of the natural grasslands, said David Wedin, director of the University of Nebraska’s Center for Grassland Studies. And most recently, development of housing, shopping malls and interstate highways — and now data centers — are popping up in areas that would have been grasslands, Keyser said.
Currently, grasslands cover about 1 million square miles in the continental U.S., according to America’s Grasslands Coalition. This includes savannahs and shrublands.
The most prominent pockets of native grasslands that still exist today are in the Flint Hills of Kansas, which contains about 4.5 million acres of grasslands, and the Nebraska Sandhills, which has about 12 million acres of grasslands.
The area of Nebraska is still an intact grassland. Much of the land is privately owned cattle ranches, but there is still a lot of native grassland and species left there, Wedin said.
Central Montana also contains scattered patches of native grasslands, Keyser said.
There are more than 1,000 native grasses that have been documented in the U.S. The two species of dominant native grasslands in the U.S. include the big bluestem, a robust grass that can grow to 10 feet tall and make for “excellent” cattle forage, and the little blue stem, a much smaller plant that is common on sandier, drier soils, Keyser said.
When US grasslands began to vanish
Indigenous communities relied on grasslands to survive, Sensenig said. They would practice prescribed burning to maintain the grasslands and enhance its biodiversity, Sensenig said. Native Americans would use the plant species for basket-weaving and currency and feed on the grazers, such as bison, elk and deer, Sensenig added.
“Eastern Massachusetts was historically dominated by grasslands before European settlement, and in that area people used to eat these things called prairie chickens regularly,” Keyser said, adding that prairie chickens require extensive grassland for their habitat.
Other evidence of grasslands on the East Coast includes thousands of insect and plant species that are tied to grasslands that still exist in the region, Estes said.
Grasslands east of the Mississippi River have been gone for “a very long time,” Estes said.
As early as the 1690s, grasslands began to disappear from places like Philadelphia and Baltimore, even before the nation was founded, Estes said.
In the 1700s and 1800s, pioneers began to clear land where there were fewer trees to create their farms. They tended to prioritize semi-open areas, Keyser said.
“Eastern grasslands were lost so long ago that basically they’ve been erased from society’s collective memory,” Estes said. “They were lost before the camera was invented.”
Grasslands continued to be eradicated as settlers migrated West.
The Transcontinental Railroad later brought settlers into the Great Plains in the 1870s, and gasoline-powered tractors led to widespread plowing of the native grasslands in the region, Keyser said.
“So, consequently, what had been a grassland ecosystem became a cornfield,” Keyser said.
Why grasslands are so important
Grasslands play a vital role in supporting wildlife, storing carbon, sustaining food systems and maintaining ecosystem balance, according to America’s Grasslands Coalition.
Grasslands also store huge amounts of carbon, which helps to regulate the atmosphere, Sensenig said. It is important for soil conservation, water regulation and wildlife habitat, Wedin said.
Grasslands are thought to store 30% of the world’s soil-based carbon — and 80% of that carbon is beneath the ground in the soil, Sensenig said.
Keystone herbivore species such as the American bison, elk and mule deer live in grasslands and help to regulate the rich plant biota for other creatures to thrive, Keyser said. Birds, pollinators and smaller mammals, such as prairie dogs, also depend on the open, grassy ecosystem and assist in maintaining the biodiversity, Estes said.
Grassland ecologists are concerned about the gradual degradation of grasslands due to lack of management and climate change and other changes to the environment, such as intensive modern agriculture, Wedin said.
“These sorts of chronic, low-level threats have a cumulative impact on our grasslands,” Wedin said.
Nearly half of 2,014 Americans surveyed are unfamiliar with grasslands, according to findings released Wednesday by America’s Grasslands Coalition.
Increasing appreciation and awareness of America’s grasslands is key to accelerating conservation action, according to the coalition.
The upcoming 250th birthday of America is an integral time to raise awareness of the importance of grasslands, Ginette Hemley, senior vice president of wildlife conservation at the World Wildlife Fund, said in a statement.
“As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, this is a moment to recognize the landscapes that have shaped the nation,” Hemley said. “From iconic species like bison to the communities that depend on them, grasslands are part of that heritage — and protecting them is part of our shared future.”
Sincere Camps, 14, has been arrested in the murder of a pizza delivery driver. He is charged with murder, robbery, VUFA and related offenses. (Philadelphia Police Department)
(PHILADELPHIA) — A 14-year-old has been arrested and charged in the murder of a pizza delivery driver in Philadelphia in what police say was an attempted robbery.
Sincere Camps, 14, is facing 10 charges, including murder, robbery and carrying a firearm without a license, according to the Philadelphia Police Department and court records. He is being charged as an adult.
On June 5, officers responded to a report of a person with a gun to find an unresponsive man lying on the highway, according to police.
The man, identified as 28-year-old Anshul Kuncha, had suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head. He was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly after, according to police.
Police said the motive behind the killing was robbery.
Camps was arrested on Friday following an investigation, police said.
He is currently being held without bail and is scheduled to appear in court on July 21.
No attorney information for Camps was listed in court records.
