Sky's the limit
Meet the 29-year-old St. Jude hospital worker who's set to become the youngest American to ever go to space. ABC's Will Ganss spoke with Hayley Arceneaux.
At least six people were injured on Saturday night during an exchange of gunfire in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee, police said. Chattanooga Police officers were patrolling downtown at about 10:48 p.m. local time when they "observed multiple parties exchanging gunfire and numerous people fleeing the area" near 100 Cherry St. "Our Officers began rendering aid to the victims as well as assisting others to safety," a police spokesperson said.
Days after the shooting massacre at a Texas elementary school, the National Rifle Association is gathering this weekend in Houston as the debate over gun control heats up. The annual convention has also drawn protesters calling for greater gun reforms in the wake of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. One attendee said she has struggled with the debate over gun reform as both a Texas gun owner and a grandmother of 13.
Two people are dead and three remain missing after two boats collided on a river in Georgia over Memorial Day weekend, officials said. Nine people were aboard two boats -- six in one, three in the other, officials said. Three men remained missing in the wake of the incident -- a 37-year-old man and two men in their early 20s -- last seen wearing board shorts and no shirts, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
The parents of one of the victims killed in the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, earlier this week told ABC News they turned down an invitation to meet with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Felix and Kimberly Rubio, the parents of Alexandria "Lexi" Rubio, said they have no interest in meeting Abbott, her mother saying, "my Lexi doesn't even like him." "It's not what Lexi would have wanted," Kimberly Rubio said.
The final victim of the supermarket shooting massacre in Buffalo, New York, was laid to rest Saturday, as the country reels from another mass shooting. Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff attended the memorial service for Ruth Whitfield Saturday afternoon at Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Buffalo. Whitfield, 86, was one of 10 people killed at Tops Friendly Market on May 14 in what authorities are calling a "racially motivated hate crime."
The week-long Summit of the Americas, slated to start June 8 in Los Angeles, is a big deal for the Western Hemisphere -- bringing together leaders from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean. Several leaders are threatening to boycott the summit because the U.S. has decided to not invite the governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua. "If all of the countries are not invited, I am not going to attend," Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reiterated Friday.
Two months before Tuesday's mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two adults dead, the Uvalde school district hosted an all-day training session for local police and other school-based law enforcement officers focused on "active shooter response." "First responders to the active shooter scene will usually be required to place themselves in harm's way," according to a lengthy course description posted online by the Texas agency that developed the training. Now relatives of victims and neighbors of Uvalde's Robb Elementary School are raising questions over how police officers who first arrived on the scene handled the situation -- including whether they followed their own training.
The list of mass shootings in Texas in recent years goes on and on. Latino anti-gun violence advocates in Texas say they are exhausted following the most recent school shooting in Uvalde. Abbott said he will attend the conference virtually.
As car travelers embark on trips over Memorial Day weekend, gas prices may shock them — even if they went to the pump just a few weeks ago. The average price of a gallon of gas on Friday reached nearly $4.60, up some 46 cents since a month ago, according to data compiled by AAA. Gas prices could rise even higher over the coming weeks as the summer travel boom brings more people to the pump, industry analysts told ABC News.
The burqa mandate is back in Afghanistan, and, with it, a wave of disappointment and distress taking over the lives of millions of people in the country who do not believe in hijab. Earlier this month, on May 7, the Vice and Virtue Ministry of the Taliban issued a decree saying all women in the country have to cover themselves head to toe. The decree says it is to protect the women's "dignity" and called for those women who do not follow the hijab in government agencies to be dismissed.
As the nation reels from the tragedy, politicians and pundits have been pointing fingers as to who and what is to blame for these relatively rare but increasingly common public mass casualty events. At the forefront of the debate is the role of mental health in these incidents, with some legislators asserting that such atrocities are the result of the nation’s mental health crisis. "We have a problem with mental health illness in this community," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on Wednesday.
Cases of monkeypox continue to rise as a recent outbreak reaches countries in North America and Europe, where the disease is not commonly found. Of those cases, one is confirmed and seven are suspected in the U.S. across six states, Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a media briefing Monday. Monkeypox is a cousin of the smallpox virus and causes similar, but milder, symptoms in humans, according to the CDC.
After the latest massacre in America -- this time in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two adults were killed -- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed his chamber would again take up legislation to address gun violence despite Republican opponents arguing the regulations are misguided. While Democratic lawmakers have at various times urged more federal gun reforms -- mostly focused on assault-style or military-grade weapons and munitions and expanding the screening process for who can and cannot have a gun -- Republicans say the focus should be elsewhere, on increasing public security and awareness of mental health and social issues. Areas of focus and possible agreement include expanding background checks on gun sales -- which has been voted down in Congress multiple times -- and so-called "red" and "yellow flag" laws that would prevent someone from possessing a firearm if they have certain histories of concerning behavior.
Months into the brutal war in Ukraine, hospitals in the besieged areas of the country are overcoming incredible obstacles to treat patients who need them now more than ever. With thousands of people injured, there’s been a dire need for medical supplies and non-profit organizations like the North Zulch, Texas-based Arlene Campbell Humanitarian Foundation. “I see resilience,” said Lena Denman, president of the foundation.
For awards buffs, there’s a buzzy Elvis biopic starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks as the King’s devious manager, a fresh scarefest from “Get Out” Oscar winner Jordan Peele, and a film version of that mega-bestseller about murder in the Deep South where the crawdads sing. Tom Cruise will turn 60 over this July 4th weekend, but he doesn’t age. Body-horror maestro David Cronenberg steps into the future where surgery is the new sex and a couple, played by Viggo Mortensen and Lea Seydoux, turn organ removal into performance art, that is until detective Kristen Stewart starts snooping.
A middle school teacher in Texas is making sure no student has to miss class time due to or feels ashamed of their menstrual cycle. Kylie DeFrance, an English as an additional language (EAL) teacher at a charter school in Austin, keeps "pad bags" filled with feminine hygiene products at her desk in her classroom so that any student can take them at any time. It's a practice she said she began in her first year of teaching eight years ago when she saw female students, or, as she calls them, scholars, missing instruction time due to their periods.
"The monster who committed this crime is pure evil, pure cruelty, pure hatred -- absolute pure hatred," Trump said after reading the names of the victims killed at Robb Elementary School. Cruz railed against "elites" calling for gun control, telling the crowd: "It is far easier to slander one's political adversaries and to demand that responsible citizens forfeit their constitutional rights than it is to examine the cultural sickness giving birth to unspeakable acts of evil."
For every one person killed in a mass shooting event, a new study estimates that roughly six additional people are seriously injured. The study, published in medical journal JAMA Open on Friday, is a dark reminder that mass public shootings have a cost beyond lives lost, including immense physical and financial burden for those who have sustained injuries and survived. Amid the recent wave of gun violence seen in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, many are dealing with the immediate pain and grief.
Five people were killed and two others were hurt in a house explosion in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Thursday night, officials said. Four of the five victims killed were children, ABC Philadelphia station WPVI reported. One of the injured is in critical but stable condition, while the second surviving victim is in surgery for unknown injuries, Pottstown Borough Manager Justin Keller said at a Friday press conference.
The head of law enforcement in Texas revealed a cascading series of police missteps in the response to one of the deadliest school shootings in the nation's history. A visibly shaken Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, admitted that mistakes were made on the ground during an active shooter incident at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed by a heavily armed gunman. The missteps began before the shooting, when a Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police officer responding to a 911 call of a man with a gun on the school campus drove past the suspect, who was "hunkered down" behind a car in the school parking lot, McCraw said.