Taxi cab strikes several pedestrians in NYC’s Herald Square
WABC
(NEW YORK) — Three people were hospitalized after a New York City taxi cab jumped the curb and struck multiple pedestrians in Herald Square on Christmas Day.
The incident occurred on the Midtown Manhattan sidewalk at 4:03 p.m. as the taxi driver was northbound on Sixth Avenue, a New York City Police Department spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.
There were six pedestrians struck by the cab, and the three individuals that were transported to area hospitals included a 9-year-old boy, and two women aged 41 and 49, according to officials.
All of the impacted pedestrians suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Officials say the driver suffered a possible medical episode, but the investigation into the incident is ongoing.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Shenghua Wen was allegedly moving items to North Korea by concealing them in shipping containers; FBI
(LONG BEACH, Calif.) — An undocumented Chinese national living in the U.S. has been charged with procuring and shipping guns, ammunition and electronics to North Korea, according to federal prosecutors.
Prosecutors say Shenghua Wen was allegedly moving items to North Korea by concealing them in shipping containers from Long Beach, California, through Hong Kong and then to North Korea.
Federal agents in August seized two devices from Wen’s home that he had allegedly planned to send to North Korea for its military use — a chemical threat identification device and a handheld broadband receiver, according to a criminal complaint.
In September, over 50,000 rounds of ammo were found in Wen’s vehicle that he allegedly admitted were heading to North Korea, the complaint says.
Wen entered the United States on a student visa in 2012 and never left, according to the complaint.
He allegedly met North Korean officials in China before he came to the U.S., the complaint alleges. He was then directed to procure goods on behalf of North Korea.
Being in the U.S. illegally, Wen knew he could not buy the goods so he allegedly used other people to purchase the guns through straw purchases, prosecutors say.
(WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.) — A suspect is in custody after allegedly killing a man on a Florida golf course with his own golf clubs on Monday in what police said appeared to be a “random act of violence.”
Junior Boucher, 36, faces first-degree murder charges for the death of the man, identified by police as 65-year-old Brian Hiltebeitel, at Sandhill Crane Golf Club in West Palm Beach.
A witness said he heard the victim yelling “he’s trying to kill me” while running away from Boucher, who was allegedly brandishing a golf club, according to a Palm Beach Gardens Police Department affidavit.
Boucher allegedly began beating Hiltebeitel with the golf club, striking him in the head, and then chased him toward a pond on the golf course’s first hole, according to police.
He allegedly continued beating Hiltebeitel in the pond, and while in the water, “jumped on top of Hiltebeitel and appeared to be choking him,” the police report stated.
After Hiltebeitel was no longer moving, Boucher allegedly struck him several more times in the head, police said in the affidavit, then got out of the water and “stripped his clothes off.”
Officers pulled Hiltebeitel out of the pond, where he was observed with “multiple deep lacerations to the back of his head and on his person.”
He was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
Palm Beach Gardens Police Chief Dominick Pape said Boucher was taken into custody “after a short foot pursuit,” and was found “unclothed.” According to the affidavit, Boucher attempted to flee from police and was arrested “only after the use of an electronic control weapon.”
Pape said police are not currently aware of any connection between the suspect and victim, and are still working to determine a motive.
“At this time, it does not appear that Boucher had any legitimate purpose for being at the golf course. This appears to be a random act of violence where Boucher used the victims’ golf clubs as weapons and viciously attacked the victim, ultimately killing him,” Pape said.
About an hour before the incident, police said Boucher’s family reported him missing.
Boucher has an extensive criminal history, including arrests on drug charges and domestic battery.
Photography by Keith Getter (all rights reserved)/Getty Images
Meteorology may have come a long way since its inception, but it is not possible for anyone — whether it be the government, scientists or billionaires — to control the weather, according to experts.
The desert region of Dubai received a record-breaking amount of rain — two year’s worth in 24 hours — in April. Ever since, every time a flash flooding event occurs, ABC New Chief Meteorologist and Managing Editor of the ABC News Climate Unit Ginger Zee has been receiving messages on social media from people who claim the sharp increase in precipitation is not the result of nature.
“They are making it rain” is the overall theme of the conspiracy theories Zee keeps hearing about.
The commenters are often referring to cloud seeding, a weather modification technique currently used in the United Arab Emirates and several places in the U.S., mostly in the Western U.S., a region notorious for its pervasive droughts. The geoengineering technology involves injecting microscopic particles — sometimes silver iodide — into the atmosphere to encourage rain and snowfall.
The particles then act like magnets for water droplets and bind together until they are heavy enough to fall as rain or snow, amplifying the amount of precipitation. But the water droplets can’t be made out of nothing — it has to be already raining or snowing for cloud seeding to take effect.
For the last several decades, there have been investments in small-scale cloud seeding operations in pockets in the West, both ground-based and in the air, Brad Udall, senior water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University, told ABC News.
Despite feats in geoengineering, humans have no capability whatsoever to control the weather, Andrew Dessler, director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies, told ABC News.
“Until recently, we weren’t even sure it worked,” Udall said. “But there’s some new science that suggests, yes, you can slightly increase the precipitation out of storms due to these, usually ground-based, but sometimes air-based efforts.”
A 10-year cloud seeding experiment in the Snowy Range and Sierra Madre Range in Wyoming resulted in 5% to 15% increases in snow pack from winter storms, according to a 2015 report from the Wyoming Water Development Office. In the region around Reno, Nevada, cloud seeding is estimated to add enough water to supply about 400,000 households annually, according to the DRI.
While humans can enhance existing weather, it is not possible to control it, Dessler said.
“We humans are not powerless,” Udall said. “But, unfortunately, in the weather realm, our ability to affect things is pretty minor.”
Cloud seeding can’t make it rain. It can’t even make a cloud, according to Zee. And it certainly is not being used to create storms with enough precipitation to cause flash flooding.
If humans could control the weather, then the megadrought in the West would probably never had persisted at the level that it did for decades, Udall said.
In late September and early October, Google searches for cloud seeding ramped up again as Hurricanes Helene and Milton caused severe destruction far beyond the storm’s direct impact, including flash flooding in the mountain region near Asheville, North Carolina, previously considered a climate haven.
While there is some evidence that cloud seeding can enhance precipitation, it’s impossible for humans to create or steer a hurricane, Dessler said.
“It’s amazing we’re even having this discussion because, of course, humans can’t control the weather in ways to create a hurricane,” Udall said.
However, there has been a larger-scale climate modification that has been ongoing for the past two centuries, Zee said.
“We’re doing that right now with green with enormous greenhouse gas emissions on a scale that humanity has never, ever done before,” Udall said.
Since the Industrial Revolution began in the late 1800s, the greenhouse gases emitted from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels have been causing global temperatures to rise at unprecedented rates, according to climate scientists.
The amplification of Earth’s natural warming has actually increased hourly rainfall rates — a key factor in flash flooding — across much of the U.S. by 10% to 40%, according to Climate Central.
“We have all contributed to making it rain more and heavier as we warm the planet,” Zee said.
Dessler likened global warming to “steroids” for extreme weather events.
“Steroids don’t hit a home run, but if you give steroids to a baseball player, he’s gonna hit more home runs,” Dessler said. “And that’s essentially, you know, the way to think about humans and the weather.”
The experts urged people to not believe rumors on the possibility that the weather can be controlled, chalking up the conspiracy theories as machinations of intrigue but nothing more.
“It’s yet one more example, right, of unbridled social media doing irreparable social harm,” Udall said.
ABC News’ Daniel Manzo contributed to this report.
