Deadly, catastrophic floods in Italy forced thousands to flee
More than 10,000 people fled their homes in Northern Italy and the death toll has reached at least nine.
More than 10,000 people fled their homes in Northern Italy and the death toll has reached at least nine.
Canada has announced that it will begin putting individual warning labels on cigarettes and other tobacco products in an effort to further reduce their appeal, becoming the world’s first country to use such a measure. Beginning on August 1, Canada will implement a phased approach that will force cigarette companies to put individual health warnings on their products starting with king size cigarettes by the end of July 2024 and all other products -- including regular size cigarettes and little cigars -- by the end of April 2025. “The new Tobacco Products Appearance, Packaging and Labelling Regulations will be part of the Government of Canada's continued efforts to help adults who smoke to quit, to protect youth and non-tobacco users from nicotine addiction, and to further reduce the appeal of tobacco,” Health Canada said in a statement announcing the new tobacco labelling policy.
German authorities said Thursday that "a number of items were seized" in Portugal during a renewed search for missing British child Madeleine McCann. "These will be evaluated in the coming days and weeks," the Braunschweig District Attorney's Office in Germany said in a statement. "It is not yet possible to say whether any of the items are actually related to the Madeleine McCann case."
With just days until a June 5 deadline, the Senate now is racing against time to pass the debt ceiling bill and avoid what would be an economically catastrophic default. As the drama plays out, there is almost no room for delay if the bill is to get to President Joe Biden's desk by Monday, the day Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned the U.S. could run out of money to be able to pay all its bills on time and in full. In addition to the deadline, it could help that that's also supposed to be the start of a three-day weekend for senators -- and getting out of Washington is a time-honored motivator for faster action.
Teenage birth rates have fallen to their lowest levels ever, new provisional federal data published Thursday found. The report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, showed the birth rate among 15- to 19-year-olds in 2022 was 13.5 per 1,000 females. Aside from an increase in 2006 and 2007, the teen birth rate in the U.S. has been continuously declining since 1991.
A beloved swan was reported missing from a New York state village's pond on Monday. Three teenagers are now accused of killing the mother swan, who was then eaten, authorities said. The three teens face felony charges in connection with the death of Faye, as well as the theft of her four cygnets -- fixtures at the Manlius Swan Pond in Manlius, a southeast suburb of Syracuse, police said Wednesday.
Federal investigators have in their possession an audio recording of former President Donald Trump from July 2021, on which he acknowledges he held onto a sensitive military document after leaving office, sources confirm to ABC News. The recording was made during a meeting at Trump's Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, that Trump held with people who were helping former chief of staff Mark Meadows with his memoir, according to sources. Trump indicated during the recording that he knew the document in question was secret, the sources said.
The House on Wednesday night approved a bill to raise the nation's debt ceiling while cutting some government spending over the next two years, in a major victory for both the White House and Republican leaders as the country tip-toes closer to a historic default on its bills. A majority of the GOP conference backed the legislation, with 149 votes, but it was 165 Democrats who helped ensure passage as 71 conservatives ultimately voted no, as did 46 Democrats. The proposal next heads to the Senate, where both Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have said they want to move quickly to approve it -- even as soon as Thursday or Friday.
A father and his four children were saved from an early morning house fire by a neighbor and a passerby who saw smoke coming from the home's garage and were able to alert the sleeping family, police said. The fire was reported around 5:35 a.m. Wednesday at a home in South Brunswick Township, New Jersey, local police said. A man who lives on the block told police he looked out his window at about 5:30 a.m. and "noticed puffs of smoke that looked like fog" over the corner of his neighbor's garage, the South Brunswick Township Police Department said in a statement.
The news of Cattrall's return as Samantha comes nearly six years after the actress told Piers Morgan in an interview that she and her fellow "SATC" co-stars have "never been friends" and that she wouldn't participate in a remake of the show. Last year, during an interview on The Hollywood Reporter's podcast, "Awards Chatter," Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Carrie Bradshaw on "SATC" and "AJLT" set the record straight about Cattrall and said that "there is not a fight going on."
A South Carolina gas station owner was charged with murder on Monday after allegedly shooting and killing a 14-year-old boy he wrongly believed had shoplifted several bottles of water, according to law enforcement. Rick Chow, 58, was arrested and charged in connection to the fatal shooting of Cyrus Carmack-Belton in Columbia, South Carolina, the Richland County Sheriff's Office said. In a news conference on Monday, Sheriff Leon Lott said the teenager did not shoplift from the Shell gas station, despite Chow's belief that he did.
Despite calling for a ban on foreign lobbying, in which Americans lobby lawmakers and the public for foreign interests, Republican 2024 presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has raised tens of thousands of dollars in political donations from foreign lobbyists, disclosure reports show. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under the Trump administration, Haley has recently been campaigning on her opposition to foreign lobbying, saying that embassies -- and not private consultants or lobbyist agents -- should represent foreign interests in the U.S. Banning foreign lobbying has been part of her stump speech against aid to foreign countries, especially money she suggests is going to countries whose interests seem to be at odds with those of the United States.
Digital mental health company BetterHelp is facing multiple potential class action lawsuits over claims from patients that it shared their personal information to advertisers — including Facebook. The lawsuits came soon after BetterHelp agreed in March to pay $7.8 million over charges from the Federal Trade Commission that it revealed sensitive patient data. "When a person struggling with mental health issues reaches out for help, they do so in a moment of vulnerability and with an expectation that professional counseling services will protect their privacy,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement.
A Los Angeles jury has found former "That '70s Show" actor Danny Masterson guilty of two counts of forcible rape in a retrial of a case involving three women. The third count against Jane Doe 3 has been declared a mistrial. Masterson, 47, pleaded not guilty to three counts of felony rape following accusations by three different women, including a former girlfriend.
Disney fans said goodbye this week to the iconic attraction Splash Mountain, which was officially closed on Wednesday, May 31, the company confirmed to ABC News. Disney announced in 2020 that the Splash Mountain ride at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort would be re-themed to Tiana's Bayou Adventure, to reflect the story of the 2009 film "The Princess and the Frog." "In many ways, Tiana's Bayou Adventure is a love letter to New Orleans," Charita Carter, executive producer of relevancy activations for Walt Disney Imagineering, said in a statement in December 2022.
For anyone who loves a sweet and salty snack or treat -- and also has a culinary torch in their kitchen -- this TikTok "creme brûlée-gle" recipe could be your perfect bite. Sami Schnur, aka The Naughty Fork on TikTok, regularly shares food and snack taste tests with her over 173,000 followers, but her latest concoction is getting people fired up. "I really love sweet cream cheese flavors -- honey nut, strawberry -- but I didn't have any at home, so I thought about mixing sugar into the cream cheese, and then I had the idea to brûlée it instead," the self-taught home cook told "Good Morning America" of the inspiration for her recent creme brûlée-bagel creation, which she posted on TikTok on March 29.
Ring security cameras, the inexpensive security cameras that people can hook up in their houses or on their doors, were not fully secure for years, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The video doorbell company allegedly "gave every employee ... full access to every customer video" before 2017 and failed to patch bugs in the system that allowed hackers to access cameras and scare consumers, the FTC's federal complaint says. "Not only could every Ring employee and Ukraine-based third-party contractor access every customer's videos (all of which were stored unencrypted on Ring's network), but they could also readily download any customer's videos and then view, share, or disclose those videos at will," the civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday by the Justice Department on behalf of the FTC says.
A deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling is heading to a crucial vote in the House on Wednesday night, the next step in averting a potential default now just days away. The bill, titled the "Fiscal Responsibility Act," cleared its first major hurdle Tuesday when the House Rules Committee advanced the bill in a 7-6 vote. A subsequent vote to begin debate on the bill, on Wednesday afternoon, was approved by the House 241-187 when about three dozen Democrats joined a majority of Republicans in voting yes.
Work requirements for government safety net programs are back in the spotlight as the House readies for a key vote on the debt ceiling deal brokered by President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy. In a twist, a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office released late Tuesday found tougher rules for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that Republicans demanded would actually increase the number of people eligible for benefits, sometimes referred to as food stamps. The nonpartisan agency estimated the provisions relating to SNAP would add $2.1 billion in direct spending and 78,000 people would gain benefits in an average month.
Twelve years after competing in his first spelling competition in Virginia at just 2 years old, and just days after his 14th birthday, Akash Vukoti competed in the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee for a sixth time. Vukoti is now the only participant to compete in the spelling tournament six times in its 95-year history, with his first appearance in 2016 and follow-up appearances in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022. Vukoti was one of the 41 spellers who returned this year from the 2022 competition and had originally hoped to break his standing 2019 record of 42nd place in his last Scripps spelling tournament before he aged out.
Police have arrested 35-year-old Matthew J. Nilo, a former Boston attorney, in connection with several decades-old rapes that took place in Boston. Officials said they were able to identify the suspect using forensic genetic genealogy. Nilo has been charged with three counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping, one count of assault with intent to rape and one count of indecent assault and battery, according to Boston police.