Trump turning to campaign events, talking to voters to prepare for Harris debate

(CODY, Wyo.) — A 60-year-old woman was walking off-trail in Yellowstone National Park when she suffered burns from scalding water in a thermal area by Old Faithful, park officials said.

The woman was walking with her husband and their dog in a thermal area near Mallard Lake Trailhead on Monday afternoon “when she broke through a thin crust” over the extremely hot water, suffering second-degree and third-degree burns to her leg, the National Park Service said.

The woman, who was visiting Yellowstone from New Hampshire, was taken to a park medical clinic and later flown to a hospital for further treatment, officials said.

Her husband and dog were not hurt, park officials said.

“Visitors are reminded to stay on boardwalks and trails in hydrothermal areas and exercise extreme caution,” Yellowstone National Park said in a statement. “The ground in these areas is fragile and thin, and there is scalding water just below the surface.”

Park spokesperson Linda Veress urges visitors to “follow the beaten path.”

“In thermal areas, boardwalks take you to amazing places, protect the park, and keep you safe,” Veress told ABC News. “People have been severely burned and killed after leaving the boardwalk or reaching into hot water.”

Pets aren’t allowed on boardwalks or hiking trails, or in thermal areas, park officials noted.

The incident is under investigation, park officials said.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(KENOSHA, Wis.) — Authorities in Wisconsin say an armed 13-year-old carrying a backpack and duffel bag was stopped from entering an elementary school Thursday morning after being confronted by school staff and taken into custody several hours later.

“We narrowly missed a tragedy,” Kenosha Police Chief Patrick D. Patton told reporters Thursday.

The 13-year-old, who previously attended Roosevelt Elementary School, attempted to enter the building at about 9 a.m. local time, Patton said.

The suspect tried to enter through other doors to the school building, but was not able to get in, Kenosha Unified School District Superintendent Jeffrey Weiss told reporters at a news conference. He then approached the front entrance and was buzzed into a vestibule area. Two school employees confronted the student, who got nervous and then fled, Weiss said.

“I can’t stress … really how heroic our office staff was,” Weiss said, adding “They helped avert a disaster.”

Police later identified the teen suspect, thanks to tips from the community.

“We can confirm that this was not just a suspicious individual, we believe that this was actually an armed suspect with a firearm and there was no legitimate reason to enter the school,” Patton said at a later news conference.

Police took the suspect into custody shortly after 2 p.m. local time. During the earlier news conference, police played a video they said depicted the suspect with a firearm and said the suspect looked up school shootings online and made comments to fellow students for weeks leading up to the incident.

Kenosha is located about 40 miles south of Milwaukee.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(ATMORE, Ala.) — Alabama carried out the second-ever nitrogen gas execution in the United States on Thursday.

Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was sentenced to death for the 1999 murders of his then-coworkers Lee Holdbrooks and Christoper Scott Yancy, and his former supervisor Terry Lee Jarvis.

Miller was executed after 6 p.m. CT at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility, a state prison in Atmore, Alabama. His time of death, according to Gov. Kay Ivey’s office, was 6:38 p.m.

“Justice has been served,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement. “After two decades, Alan Miller was finally put to death for a depraved murder spree that cruelly took the lives of three innocent men.

“I ask the people of Alabama to join me in praying for the families and friends of the victims, that they might now find peace and closure,” Marshall’s statement concluded.

Miller was initially sentenced to be executed in September 2022 via lethal injection, but it was called off after officials had trouble inserting an intravenous line to administer the fatal drugs and were concerned they would not be able to do so before the death warrant expired.

Prior to the botched execution, the state had considered carrying out the death sentence via nitrogen hypoxia, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that provides data and analysis on capital punishment.

In November 2022, Alabama officials agreed not to execute Miller by lethal injection again but said if they made a second effort, the state would use nitrogen hypoxia as the method, the DPIC said.

In May 2024, the Alabama State Supreme Court agreed to let the Department of Corrections carry out Miller’s death sentence by nitrogen hypoxia.

It comes after Alabama became the first state to execute a prisoner, Kenneth Eugene Smith, by nitrogen gas in January of this year.

Nitrogen hypoxia is the term for a means of death caused by breathing in enough nitrogen gas to deprive the body of oxygen — in this case, intended to be used as a method of execution.

The protocol in Alabama calls for an inmate to be strapped to a gurney and fitted with a mask and a breathing tube. The mask is meant to administer 100% pure nitrogen, depriving the person of oxygen until they die.

About 78% of the air that humans breathe is made up of nitrogen gas, which may lead people to believe that nitrogen is not harmful, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

However, when an environment contains too much nitrogen and the concentration of oxygen becomes too low, the body’s organs, which need oxygen to function, begin shutting down and a person dies.

State officials have argued death by nitrogen gas is a humane, painless form of execution and that the person would lose consciousness within seconds of inhaling the nitrogen and die within minutes.

Three states — Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma — have approved nitrogen gas as a form of execution and Ohio lawmakers introduced a bill earlier this year to allow execution by nitrogen gas.

However, medical and legal experts have told ABC News that nitrogen gas as a method for execution is untested and there’s no evidence the method is any more humane or painless than lethal injection.

Dr. Joel Zivot, an associate professor in the department of anesthesiology at Emory University School of Medicine, said he reviewed Smith’s autopsy which showed blueness of the skin, pulmonary congestion and edema, which he says indicated that he died from being asphyxiated “slowly and painfully.”

“If that’s what Alabama thinks is a job well done, well then there seems to be a wide disagreement on what a job well-done means,” he told ABC News. “So, if this is again, what they intend, then they intend to kill him cruelly, and they will intend to kill Alan Miller in the same cruel way.”

Zivot has previously reported analyzing autopsies after lethal injection cases and reports finding that many show signs of pulmonary edema. In 2020, NPR said it expanded this work by analyzing over 200 autopsies after lethal injection and reported that signs of pulmonary edema were mentioned in 84% of the cases it reviewed.

Attorney General Steve Marshall described Smith’s execution as “textbook” but Zivot said it’s hard to describe nitrogen hypoxia as “textbook” and that it’s a “proven method” when it’s never been a tested method.

“I recognize that [people were] murdered and that what is at stake here is a very, very serious problem,” he said. “We’re not saying that Kenneth Smith or Alan Miller have become saint-like men as they have been incarcerated. It doesn’t matter whether they’re good or bad at this point with respect to how their punishment should be delivered. That doesn’t give us license to torture them.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.