Silver Fire in California spreads to 1,200 acres, prompts evacuations
A vegetation fire in California rapidly spread to 1,000 acres on Sunday, prompting evacuations of parts of Inyo and Mono counties. (Cal Fire)
(BISHOP, CA) — A vegetation fire in California rapidly spread to 1,250 acres on Sunday, prompting evacuations of parts of Inyo and Mono counties.
The fire was first reported just after 2 p.m. PT near Highway 6 and Silver Canyon Road north of Bishop, California, a city east of Fresno, according to Cal Fire.
Officials named the fast-moving blaze the Silver Fire.
It remained at 0% containment as of 9 a.m. Monday.
Cal Fire said Sunday evening that the blaze crossed Highway 6, threatening multiple structures and power lines.
There are no known injuries associated with the fire, officials said.
Fighting the blaze was impacted by strong winds, with gusts reaching up to 35 mph at Bishop Airport, according to Cal Fire, which noted extreme turbulence grounded some firefighting aircraft.
The National Weather Service forecasts continued windy conditions for the region, with a High Wind Warning in effect through Monday evening.
ABC News’ Timmy Truong and Tristan Maglunog contributed to this report
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
The two nuclear reactors at FPL Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, in Homestead, Florida. (D.A. Varela/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Like a radioactive hot potato, a solution to America’s growing stockpile of nuclear waste keeps getting passed around.
The issue lands before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in a dispute from Texas over the federal government’s authority to allow temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel at privately owned facilities far from reactors.
The justices are being asked to reject the arrangement, even though it’s far from clear where the highly toxic waste would go.
Congress remains at an impasse over plans first approved more than 40 years ago to hold all of the country’s nuclear waste at a single permanent, underground federal facility, which has never been completed.
There are more than 91,000 metric tons of radioactive waste from U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, according to the Energy Department. The waste remains dangerous for thousands of years and must be carefully managed.
Plaintiffs in the high court case, including the state of Texas and a group of landowners, are seeking to block Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval of a private nuclear waste storage facility in the Permian Basin, an area rich with oil deposits and limited sources of safe drinking water near the New Mexico border.
Congress in 1954 gave the commission near exclusive control over the possession and transfer of nuclear material in the U.S., including the ability to issue licenses to private entities to store it in its various forms.
In 1982, lawmakers authorized creation of a federal nuclear waste site, later designated as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and encouraged interim waste storage by private energy companies at power plants while construction moved forward.
Texas argues that because neither law makes explicit mention of storing nuclear waste at private facilities, far from the reactors where it was generated, the commission lacks the authority to issue a license.
A federal appeals court agreed, blocking construction.
“What to do with the nation’s spent nuclear fuel implicates a host of difficult technological, environmental, and political considerations. Thankfully, that policy debate is not this Court’s concern,” Texas argues in its brief to the high court. “Because Congress has decided how to handle spent nuclear fuel, all that matters is that Yucca Mountain is not in Texas and [a private storage company] is not the federal government.”
The commission insists its broad power includes a clear right to authorize temporary, privately run nuclear storage sites and that they are an imperative for the nation.
Roughly 20% of the energy consumed in the U.S. is nuclear powered, resulting in more than 2,000 metric tons of radioactive waste every year. It all has to go somewhere.
“Such storage is essential to continued operations because no currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades,” the government argues in court documents.
The contested site in Texas, which would be run by Interim Storage Partners, had been approved by the commission to accept up to 5,000 metric tons of nuclear waste per year for 40 years.
The company told the justices in its legal brief that invalidating government authority to send nuclear waste to privately owned sites would be “destabilizing and potentially devastating to a critical industry at a critical time.”
“Utilities are forced to deal with spent nuclear fuel storage issues on a larger scale than anyone would have liked or anticipated,” the company wrote.
A ruling in favor of the government would allow the Texas storage facility to move forward. A decision in favor of the state could scuttle the plan and upend previously approved licenses for at least a dozen other privately owned nuclear waste storage locations.
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision by the end of June.
The NYPD is searching for a man who allegedly tried to rape a woman in Brooklyn on Feb. 11, 2025. NYPD
(NEW YORK) — Authorities in New York City are searching for a man who allegedly impersonated a federal immigration enforcement agent before trying to rape a 51-year-old woman in broad daylight, according to police sources.
The victim was waiting for a cab outside a Brooklyn CityMD just before 11 a.m. Tuesday when the suspect approached and said he was an ICE agent and needed to talk to her, according to police sources.
The man allegedly forced her into a basement stairwell, punched her and tried to rape her, the NYPD said.
He took her phone, her purse and a chain before fleeing the scene, police said.
The woman suffered lacerations to her face, bruising and scratches, and was hospitalized in stable condition, police sad.
The suspect never showed any identification, according to police sources.
(WASHINGTON) — A Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee meeting that was set to discuss what flu strains to include in next season’s flu vaccine has been canceled, multiple sources told ABC News, leaving some to wonder if the meeting cancelation will delay next year’s flu vaccine delivery schedule.
The meeting was canceled in an email sent from the FDA to members who were planning to attend the annual meeting in about two weeks.
The high-profile, public meetings of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee are where independent experts review scientific data and vote on a variety of vaccine related issues. Members of the March 13 meeting were set to vote on which flu strains would offer the most protection in next season’s flu shot.
“Influenza vaccines aren’t perfect and to get the best influence vaccine each year requires predicting the strain as best we can,” said Dr. Andrew Pavia, professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Utah and a spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “There’s a lot of complex data that needs to be reviewed and having a number of experts do it gives us the best chance of making the best prediction.”
The meeting typically takes into consideration recommendations from WHO. It also receives input and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Defense and vaccine manufacturers.
The timing of this meeting aligns with the six-month lead time typically required for vaccine manufacturing to ensure vaccines are ready for distribution in the fall — before peak flu season hits in the United States.
“I can’t think of any rational reason to do this other than to throw a hand grenade into vaccine production,” Pavia said. “The impact is going to be felt in terms of our ability to reduce flu hospitalizations and flu deaths.”
Earlier in the week, officials and specialists at the CDC virtually joined the annual WHO meeting to discuss the upcoming flu vaccine strain for next year, despite being previously ordered to halt all communication with the global health organization.
Typically, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meets after the WHO meeting to finalize recommendations.
It remains unclear what impact the meeting cancellation may have on next season’s flu vaccine. But experts are concerned about the timing because flu vaccines are made using chicken eggs to grow and harvest the virus before processing it into a vaccine.
“It’s a very very tight timeline because it takes a long time to create the template viruses and then grow them in eggs,” Pavia said. “It is a many months long process and any delay means it will be difficult to have vaccine in time for the next season.”
U.S. vaccine strains are usually picked by April. Manufacturing is completed over the summer and delivered for vaccination starting in September.
Sanofi, one manufacturer of flu vaccines, told ABC News the company has already started the initial steps of manufacturing.
“Just as every year, we have already begun production for the 2025-2026 flu season in the Northern Hemisphere and will be ready to support final strain selections in time for the season,” a spokesperson for Sanofi told ABC News.
However, the FDA must approve the final strains for the shots to be legally marketed and distributed in the U.S.
ABC News has reached out to both the FDA and Health and Human Services for comment.
Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s independent committee who was planning on attending the meeting said, “Who canceled this meeting? Why did they cancel it? Will the vaccine makers turn to the World Health Organization to determine which strains to include in this year’s vaccine?”
“It’s very concerning with regard to the ability to produce enough vaccine in time for next year’s flu season,” Pavia added. “Hopefully, there will be workarounds that could be developed. But what they are — we don’t know yet.”
