In 1978, during Argentina’s dictatorship, a pregnant woman was kept alive at a death camp only long enough to give birth. Her family spent decades searching for her stolen baby.
Category: Houston, Texas Local News
Houston, Texas Local News | ReportWire publishes the latest breaking U.S. and world news, trending topics and developing stories from around globe.
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Trump threatens Chicago with apocalyptic force and Pritzker calls him a ‘wannabe dictator’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Saturday amplified his promises to send National Guard troops and immigration agents to Chicago by posting a parody image from “Apocalypse Now” featuring a ball of flames as helicopters zoom over the nation’s second-largest city.
“‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning,’” Trump wrote on his social media site. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
The president offered no details beyond the label “Chipocalypse Now,” a play on the title of Francis Ford Coppola’s dystopian 1979 film set in the Vietnam war, in which a character says: “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.”
In response to the post, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, called Trump a “wannabe dictator.”
Trump on Friday signed an executive order seeking to rename the Defense Department the Department of War, after months of campaigning to be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize. The renaming requires congressional approval.
The illustration in Trump’s post shows him against a backdrop of the Chicago skyline, wearing a hat matching that of the movie’s war-loving and amoral Lt. Col. Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall.
Trump’s weekend post follows his repeated threats to add Chicago to the list of other Democratic-led cities he’s targeted for expanded federal enforcement. His administration is set to step up immigration enforcement in Chicago, as it did in Los Angeles, and deploy National Guard troops.
In addition to sending troops to Los Angeles in June, Trump has deployed them since last month in Washington, as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital.
He’s also suggested that Baltimore and New Orleans could get the same treatment, and on Friday even mentioned federal authorities possibly heading for Portland, Oregon, to “wipe ’em out,” meaning protesters. He could have been mistakenly describing video from demonstrations in that city years ago.
Details about Trump’s promised Chicago operation have been sparse, but there’s already widespread opposition. City and state leaders have said they plan to sue the Trump administration. Pritzker, a possible 2028 presidential candidate, is also fiercely opposed to it.
The president “is threatening to go to war with an American city,” Pritzker wrote on X over an image of Trump’s post. “This is not a joke. This is not normal.”
He added: “Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”
Trump has suggested that he has nearly limitless powers when it comes to deploying the National Guard. At times he’s even touched on questions about his being a dictator.
“Most people are saying, ‘If you call him a dictator, if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants’ – I am not a dictator, by the way,” Trump said last month. He added, “Not that I don’t have – I would – the right to do anything I want to do.”
“I’m the president of the United States,” Trump said then. “If I think our country is in danger – and it is in danger in these cities – I can do it.”
Copyright © 2025 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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U.S. influencer pilot Ethan Guo released from Chilean air base in Antarctica 2 months after landing without permission
Ethan Guo, an American social media influencer who has been stuck in a Chilean airbase in Antarctica for two months after landing a plane there without permission, was released on Saturday back to the mainland, where he was to pay $30,000 in penalties.
In a statement to CBS News, Guo’s attorney said he’s doing “pretty well,” adding that he appeared to have been treated well on the air base.
“Of course, we do not agree with the legal process opened against him, but it has already been closed with a type of dismissal,” Jaime Barrientos Ramírez said.
Guo, who was 19 when he began his fundraising mission for cancer research, was attempting to become the youngest person to fly solo to all seven continents.
But he was detained after Chilean authorities said he lied to officials by providing authorities with “false flight plan data.” Prosecutors said he had been authorized to only fly over Punta Arenas in southern Chile, but that he kept going south, heading for Antarctica in his Cessna 182Q — a single-engine light aircraft known for its versatility.
Salvatore Di Nolfi / AP
After he landed in Chile’s Antarctic territory on June 28, he was detained in a military base amid legal negotiations between his lawyers and the government. Guo, who is originally from Tennessee and turned 20 in July, spent two months living in the base with limited communications and freezing Antarctic winter temperatures plunging below zero. The last video he posted to Instagram was on June 23, in which he flew from Davao City in the Philippines to Manila.
Guo said he hoped to become the first pilot to complete a solo flight across all seven continents in a small Cessna, a feat that simultaneously aims to raise $1 million for cancer research through St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. On his site, Guo cites his cousin’s 2021 cancer diagnosis as his source of inspiration.
He was released by a Chilean judge on the condition that he donate the money he has raised to a childhood cancer foundation within 30 days and leave the country as soon as possible. He is also banned from entering Chilean territory for three years.
The influencer’s lawyer told The Associated Press that Guo landed because he had to divert his aircraft due to poor weather conditions, and that he did receive authorization from Chilean authorities.
“To his surprise, when he was about to take off back to Punta Arenas, he was arrested, in a process that from my perspective was a total exaggeration,” Barrientos said.
Barrientos said he was happy with the agreement struck with authorities.
Guo landed Saturday at Punta Arenas aboard a navy ship wearing a Chilean national soccer team jersey and appeared friendly with the press after disembarking, describing his detention as a “mundane” experience with “limited freedoms”.
“The Chilean people have been incredibly hospitable; they’ve been fantastic people. They’ve taken care of me. They’ve taught me Spanish, and they’ve treated me like family,” he said.
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Employee shot in parking lot of Missouri City food manufacturer, company says
MISSOURI CITY, Texas (KTRK) — An employee of Rich Products, a food manufacturer, was shot in the parking lot of the facility Friday afternoon, according to a company spokesperson.
Aerial video from Skyeye showed police and a medical helicopter outside the building on Fairway Pines around 3 p.m.
According to the company, the suspect was taken into custody, and there was no ongoing threat.
“One of our associates was shot in our parking lot by a third party conducting business at the site,” Allison Conte with Rich Products said in a statement.
The statement said the employee went to the hospital for observation but didn’t elaborate on their condition, or what led to the shooting.
“This was an isolated and highly unusual incident in our company’s history, and we remain committed to providing a safe and secure environment for all our associates,” according to Conte.
Missouri City police haven’t responded to requests for comment by ABC13.
According to Rich Products’ website, the company makes products for brands including SeaPak, Farm Rich, and Carvel.
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Flawless Onegin Opens Houston Ballet Season
For the first time since 2008, Houston Ballet has mounted a production of John Cranko’s Onegin. After seeing the show, the only real question is, why so long?
The ballet opens with the young country girl Tatiana, nose in a book and thoroughly uninterested in the preparations for her upcoming birthday festivities. As more girls gather, they decide to play a game, where supposedly one sees their future love in a mirror. While peering into the mirror, Tatiana catches a glimpse of Onegin, a friend of Olga’s fiancé Lensky, who is visiting from St. Petersburg. Tatiana is immediately enamored with this stranger, but Onegin shows little interest in her or anything else. Undeterred, Tatiana pens a love letter to Onegin that night and dreams of them together.
Unfortunately for Tatiana, the letter has the opposite of its desired effect; the letter only annoys Onegin, who cruelly rips it up at her birthday party. Making things worse, Onegin turns his attention to Olga, flirting with her and stealing her away, repeatedly, to dance – none of which escapes Lensky’s increasingly offended eye.Honor insulted and pushed too far, Lensky challenges Onegin to a duel that leaves Lensky dead and Onegin horrified. It’s years before Onegin sees Tatiana again, and when he does, it’s in St. Petersburg, where Tatiana is now married to a prince. This time, however, Onegin is a little older, a little grayer, and very much in love with Tatiana.
Though certainly not the first adaptation of Alexander Pushkin’s 19th-century poem-novel, Eugene Onegin, Cranko’s 1965 ballet has proved to be one for the ages. It’s emotionally moving, resonant, and incredibly accessible. Though the show has a clear emphasis on acting and storytelling, Cranko devised some passages of dance and pas de deux that are not to be missed. The acting though…Houston Ballet Principal Connor Walsh as Onegin in John Cranko’s Onegin.
Photo by Alana Campbell (2025). Courtesy of Houston Ballet.
Houston Ballet is made of not only world-class dancers, but acting powerhouses, which is crucial to a ballet that requires a lot of character work, like Onegin. As usual, the company shines in works like these, and Onegin is no different. (It’s worth noting that aside from our main characters, there are also many funny little character moments throughout the group scenes to entertain you, like Kellen Hornbuckle’s angry pout across the stage or Riley McMurray’s partner indecision.) Across the board, the ensemble impresses, particularly during the first act.
There’s the fanciful play of the women’s group and the high-jumping, knee-dropping men, whose choreography is flavored with bits that harken back to Russian folk dance and simply fun to watch. And, of course, there’s a frolicking, rollicking group dance toward the end of the first scene of Act I, which culminates in the coupled-up ensemble crossing the stage, this way and then that, the women in leaping jetés with support from their partners. It’s as exciting a display as one can see and well deserving of the enthusiastic round of applause it elicited.
As the titular character, Connor Walsh strikes quite the imposing figure. Onegin appears dressed in all black, back ramrod straight and nose turned up, the expression on his face that of a man in the midst of an existential crisis and not panicked by it, but resigned. But though the show bears his character’s name, make no mistake about it: This ballet is all about Tatiana, a role beautifully played by Karina González.
As Tatiana, González brilliantly captures both the girlish longing in Tatiana’s youth – exhibited with heartbreaking clarity during her Act II solo, her eyes repeatedly straying to Onegin, begging for his attention and visibly disheartened when it’s not received – and the harder-earned maturity of her adulthood. She takes the first step toward that maturity at the close of the second act, the tables turned as she is now the one standing up straight and looking at Onegin head-on, rose-colored glasses off, as he falls apart following his duel with Lensky.Houston Ballet Principals Karina González as Tatiana and Connor Walsh as Onegin in John Cranko’s Onegin.
Photo by Alana Campbell (2025). Courtesy of Houston Ballet.
González’s success at playing the naïve country girl is apparent in Act III, when Tatiana and Onegin meet again, though this time he is the one begging for her affections. Desperation spills from Walsh, contorting his face and coloring every sweep and pass across the stage as Onegin tests Tatiana’s resolve. At one point, he literally holds her back as she takes giant, trudging steps forward only to fall back into his arms after each. It’s a far cry from Tatiana and Onegin’s slight and distracted (on Onegin’s part) partnering earlier, though reminiscent, and even further from the mirror pas de deux, where the two come together with equal passion to a frenzied score.
(Famously, for reasons, Cranko was unable to use the music Tchaikovsky composed for the operatic adaptation, so instead Kurt-Heinz Stolze culled works from Tchaikovsky’s oeuvre, all of which were masterfully played by Houston Ballet Orchestra under Conductor Simon Thew.)
The mirror pas de deux is almost aggressively physical, with Walsh lifting, sliding, carrying, catching, and spinning González all around the stage. It’s dramatic and exciting, especially in moments such as when González dives into his arms or when Walsh lifts her high and straight above his head. Considering Tatiana’s dream at the start, the moment when she finally banishes Onegin from her life for good hits especially hard. On González’s crumpled face and trembling body, it’s clear Tatiana still loves him and rejects him at a cost, but it’s all the meaningful for it.Houston Ballet Soloist Sayako Toku as Olga and Principal Angelo Greco as Lensky with Artists of Houston Ballet in John Cranko’s Onegin.
Photo by Alana Campbell (2025). Courtesy of Houston Ballet.
Sayako Toku danced the role of Tatiana’s sister, Olga, with a spring in every step. As Olga, Toku is so light one thinks she may float away. That head-in-the-clouds quality might help explain why she couldn’t see how dismissing her fiancé might be big trouble later. But before things go wrong, Toku dances a sweet, exuberant pas de deux with Angelo Greco’s Lensky. Greco also has a moody, thoughtful solo as he mentally prepares for the duel, an unexpected but lovely emotional beat for the audience.
Finally, Syvert Lorenz Garcia played Prince Gremin, who is mostly ignored by the Onegin-obsessed Tatiana before returning in Act III as her husband. Together they dance a rather stately pas de deux which, though devoid of passion, is not without connection or affection. It’s a line he and González traversed well.
It would be a crime not to mention how easy on the eyes this production is. Santo Loquasto’s sets and costumes are gorgeous, from the country dresses and gold-toned garden and pavilion, with its flower-adorned chandeliers, in the first two acts, to the opulence of the blood-red ballroom and Tatiana’s matching dress in the third. The stick-thin trees that populate the garden return in a much more sinister fashion in the second act, the moodiness enhanced by James F. Ingalls’s often dramatic lighting choices.
As far as season-openers go, it’s hard to imagine Houston Ballet choosing a better one. Cranko’s show is a classic, and the production is flawless. So, what else do you need to know?Natalie de la Garza
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‘It will save lives’: Senate Bill 1164 targets gaps in responses to mental health crisis
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A new Texas law now allows police to detain people during a mental health crisis, even if they don’t pose an immediate threat.
Senate Bill 1164, which recently went into effect, changes the threshold for when law enforcement can intervene. Under the previous law, police needed to see an imminent danger to act.
Now, officers can detain individuals they believe are suffering from severe mental illness that they are not able to see for themselves.
It’s called anosognosia, and Eric Smith is very familiar with it.
“I was driving down the highway at 90 miles an hour, thinking spies from another country were chasing me,” he said.
SEE ALSO: Texas suicide-prevention hotlines buckle as mental health crisis increases
Smith, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, told ABC13 that he was very ill but could not recognize it. It took getting arrested years ago, he said, for him to get meaningful help.
“There was this crack, this gap we fell through. We are too sick to recognize the need for treatment,” Smith said. “It took forced, coercive treatment to get me to a point where I never needed that treatment.”
Smith, now a mental health advocate and state commissioner with the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health, supports the new law. “I don’t think it can save lives. I think it will save lives.”
Ted Isensee also supports SB 1164, though his family’s experience was different. In 2013, his son Sean, who had struggled with bipolar and anxiety disorders, experienced a violent mental health episode. Armed with a gun at his parents’ home, Sean was shot and killed by police after threatening his father.
“I thought the police would come, and he’d end up being disarmed,” Ted recalled. “We heard the two shots fired. The second one was the one that killed our son.”
In the aftermath, Isensee created the Isensee Foundation for Safe Police Response to train law enforcement on de-escalating mental health crises.
Isensee, who is also a board member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Greater Houston, says the new law provides police with clearer guidance.
“This is a good step forward,” he said. “It helps ease some of the burdens on them (officers) and makes it clear what the rules are, what they can do and what they can’t do.”
SEE HERE: Relative of man suspected of gunning down SW Houston grandparents says he battled mental illness
Prosecutors say a 24-year-old man killed two grandfathers in what police call an ambush-style attack. The suspect’s relative spoke exclusively with ABC13 about his mental health.
Not everyone sees the law as progress. Houston City Council Member Tiffany Thomas feared the law could be utilized to remove unhoused people from public spaces unjustly.
“There can always be abuses to any law. It cannot be enforced or poorly enforced,” Isensee acknowledged. “But I don’t think that means we should not pass a law that offers a better path forward.”
Smith agrees the law must come with safeguards. “I’m terrified of the prospect of people’s freedoms being infringed upon,” he said.
The Houston Police Department says it has already begun briefing officers on the new policy, both through memos and at roll call, and the department is incorporating it into required annual training. However, questions remain about how the law will be implemented, particularly in a state that ranks near the bottom for mental health bed availability.
Advocates say that continued oversight, proper training, and the involvement of medical professionals and judges will be essential to ensuring the law works as intended, without violating civil rights.
For more on this story, follow Jessica Willey on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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Experts work to ID remains of Revolutionary War soldiers found in woods:
Deep in the pine forests of South Carolina, the trees stretch endlessly across the horizon. To the untrained eye, it’s just another patch of wilderness. But beneath the sandy soil of Camden lies something sacred: the long-forgotten remains of Revolutionary War soldiers.
“I was completely blown away every time we found one,” said archaeologist Jim Legg. “It’s kind of stunning.”
The remains weren’t discovered by police detectives, but by South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology archeologists, Steve Smith and Legg, who had spent decades combing Camden’s historic battlefields for artifacts. What they found was more than history — it was humanity.
The Battle of Camden
On Aug. 16, 1780, Camden’s grounds witnessed one of the most brutal clashes of the American Revolution. The Continental Army, led by General Horatio Gates, faced off against British forces under General Lord Cornwallis. The result was devastating: nearly 2,000 American troops were killed, wounded, or captured.
“It was really brutal,” Legg explained. “All parties fought stubbornly and exchanged musket fire at close range. It was a disaster for the Americans.”
The Battle of Camden is mentioned in history books and even films like “The Patriot,” but the precise location of much of the fighting remained unclear until Legg and Smith began their archaeological survey in the 1990s. Years later, a simple uniform button led to an extraordinary discovery: a shallow grave containing five sets of human remains. Soon after, nine more were found nearby.
The evidence suggested these were hastily dug battlefield burials. Among them were Continental soldiers, a Scottish Highlander from the British side, and even a Native American fighter. Yet their identities were lost to time.
A Revolutionary War cold case
Today, Camden and its historic foundation are working to bring these forgotten soldiers back into the light. To do so, they’ve turned to an unexpected source: forensic genealogy.
“This is the ultimate cold case,” said President of FHD Forensics, Allison Peacock. “It belongs to the whole country.”
Peacock, who specializes in identifying unknown remains by combining DNA analysis with family tree research, was asked if it could be done on bones more than 240 years old. Her answer? Maybe.
So far, her team has built genetic profiles for two sets of remains, nicknamed 11A and 9B. Astonishingly, each profile shows more than 25,000 living genetic matches, far more than a typical unidentified remains case.
“In a typical John Doe case, I might get 3 or 4,000, 5,000 at the most,” Peacock said.
One soldier, 9B, has already revealed key details.
“He was a teenager,” said FHD Forensics Senior Investigative Genetic Genealogist Valerie Kemp. “We know for sure his family came from the Anne Arundel area.”
The team has narrowed the search to a handful of family names including Warfield, Griffith, and others, and is now asking possible descendants to submit their own DNA through the Revolutionary War Forensic Institute.
“My dream would be that a Warfield or a Griffith reaches out,” Peacock said. “We’ll send them a cheek swab and pay for it.”
Honoring the forgotten
In 2023, the city of Camden gathered to formally bury twelve of the discovered Continental soldiers with full military honors. For many, it was a moving reminder that America’s earliest soldiers should not be forgotten.
“These are the first Americans,” said Smith. “The first American soldiers.”
Yet their names remain unknown, and for Peacock, that work is far from finished.
“When you see someone getting the respect they deserve, that maybe they had been forgotten about, it matters,” she said. “These men were just left to the elements. Nobody knew their names. But we want to change that.”
The battle to restore their identities has just begun.
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This Italian teenager was known as “God’s Influencer.” He’s about to become the first millennial saint.
Millions of young Catholics flocked to the small central Italian town of Assisi to pay tribute to Carlo Acutis – the Italian teenager informally known as “God’s Influencer.” On Sunday, the 15-year-old will become the first millennial saint.
Dressed in jeans, Nike sneakers and a sweatshirt, with his hands clasped around a rosary, Acutis has generated a near rock star-like fame among young faithful the likes of which the Catholic Church hasn’t seen in ages.
Those who can’t make it in person can watch the comings and goings on a webcam pointed at his tomb, a level of internet accessibility not afforded even to popes buried in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Who was Carlo Acutis?
Acutis was born on May 3, 1991, in London to a wealthy Italian family. They moved back to Milan soon after he was born, and according to reports, he enjoyed a typical, happy childhood that was marked by his increasingly intense religious devotion.
Gregorio Borgia / AP
He launched and managed a website for his local parish and later a Vatican-based academy. He also used his computer skills to create an online database of Eucharistic miracles around the world, available in nearly 20 languages. The site provides information about the 196 seemingly inexplicable events in the history of the church related to the Eucharist, which the faithful believe is the body of Christ.
“Carlo was well aware that the whole apparatus of communications, advertising and social networking can be used to lull us, to make us addicted to consumerism and buying the latest thing on the market,” the late Pope Francis wrote in a 2019 document. “Yet he knew how to use the new communications technology to transmit the Gospel, to communicate values and beauty.”
Acutis was known to spend hours in prayer before the Eucharist each day, a practice known as Eucharistic adoration.
“This was the fixed appointment of his day,” his mother, Antonia Salzano, said in a documentary that is airing Friday night at the U.S. seminary in Rome.
In October 2006, at age 15, he fell ill with what was quickly diagnosed as acute leukemia. He died in Monza, Italy, within days of his diagnosis. His body was entombed in Assisi and is on full display alongside other relics linked to him.
Fast track to sainthood
Acutis’ road to sainthood started more than 10 years ago at the initiative of a group of priests and friends, and formally took off shortly after Francis began his papacy in 2013.
Acutis was named “venerable” in 2018 after the church recognized his virtuous life, and his body was taken to a shrine in the Santuario della Spogliazione in Assisi, Italy. It was a major site linked to St. Francis’ life.
The teenager was beatified in 2020 – the first step to sainthood – after Acutis was credited with healing a Brazilian child of a congenital disease affecting his pancreas.
Grzegorz Galazka/Archivio Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
Last year, Francis approved the second miracle needed for Acutis to be made a saint. The second miracle involved the healing of a university student in Florence who had a brain bleed after suffering head trauma in a bicycle accident.
Francis and the cardinals residing in Rome formally approved his canonization in July 2024.
The canonization – the first for Pope Leo XIV – was initially scheduled for earlier this year but was postponed following Francis’ death in April. Leo will declare Acutis a saint alongside another popular Italian, Pier Giorgio Frassati, who also died young.
An appeal to the youth
For his admirers, Acutis was an ordinary kid who did extraordinary things: a typical Milan teen who went to school, played soccer and loved animals. But he also brought food to the poor, attended Mass daily and got his less-than-devout parents back to church.
“When I read his story for the first time, it was just like shocking to me, because from a very early age, he was just really drawn to Jesus Christ and he would go to Mass all the time,” Sona Harrison, an eighth grader at the St. John Berchmans’ school, which is part of the Blessed Carlo Acutis Parish in Chicago’s Northwest Side, told the Associated Press. “I feel like he’s a lot more relatable, and I definitely feel like I’m closer to God when I read about him.”
Jessie Wardarski / AP
During Mass this week before the canonization, students processed into the chapel under an Acutis banner carrying things he might have carried: a soccer ball, a laptop and a knapsack.
“He fed the poor, he cared for the poor,” said 9-year-old David Cameron, who called Acutis “a great man.” Cameron, a fan of Sonic, Minecraft and Halo, also found inspiration in Acutis’ love of video games — and awe at Acutis’ restraint.
“He played video games for like only one hour a week, which I don’t think I can do,” he told the AP.
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Surfer dead after mauling by large shark off Australia beach
A surfer at a popular Sydney beach was mauled to death by a suspected “large shark” on Saturday, Australian police said, in a rare fatal attack.
The 57-year-old man was surfing with friends in the Pacific waters off northern Sydney’s adjoining Long Reef and Dee Why beaches when the attack happened, authorities said.
The man – an experienced surfer with a wife and a young daughter – lost “a number of limbs”, New South Wales police superintendent John Ducan told reporters.
“I do understand that both him and his board disappeared underwater,” he said. “The body was found floating in the surf.”
AFP via Getty Images
A couple of surfers saw him in the water and got him to shore, Duncan said.
“Unfortunately, by that time, we understand he lost probably a lot of blood and attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful,” he said.
SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images
People nearby saw the ocean predator, according to police, who earlier said they believed a “large shark” attacked the man.
Government experts will examine the remains of the surfboard and the man’s body to help them determine the species of shark involved, police said.
There are about 100 shark species in Western Australia, according to SharkSmart, a website run by Australian officials that warns about shark activity and gives tips on how to stay safe. Most of the species are capable of injuring humans, but an “overwhelming majority of them are not aggressive under most circumstances.” Most serious shark bites in ocean-loving Australia are from great whites, bull sharks, and tiger sharks.
After the incident, nearby beaches were closed for at least 24 hours. Drones and surf lifesavers on water skis were patrolling the beaches for shark activity.
Fatal shark attacks are rare. In 2024, there were only seven fatal attacks, including four unprovoked attacks, around the world, according to research by the International Shark Attack File, a database run by the Florida Museum of Natural History and the University of Florida.
Overall, shark attacks decreased dramatically in 2024 and were far below the annual average.
This was the first fatal shark attack in Sydney since 2022, when a 35-year-old British diving instructor was killed off Little Bay. The previous fatal attack in the city was in 1963. Australia’s last deadly shark attack was in March, when a surfer was taken off the remote Wharton Beach of Western Australia.
Another surfer was presumed dead after a shark attack in South Australia in early January. A witness who saw the attack rode into the sea and retrieved the man’s surfboard, but officials said there was “no sign” of the surfer afterwards.
There have been more than 1,280 shark incidents around Australia since 1791, of which over 250 resulted in death, according to a database of the predators’ encounters with humans.
contributed to this report.
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Disturbance at high school football game in SE Houston sends people running from stands
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Houston police responded to an incident that broke out at Barnett Stadium during a high school football game in southeast Houston on Friday evening.
HPD confirmed a fight sent people running from the stands and onto the field during the Yates vs. Madison game.
Lt. Larry Crowson told Eyewitness News there was “stomping” on the metal bleachers which people thought were gunshots. He said no weapons or shell casings were found.
Crowson said several other fights broke out during the chaos, and that HISD police took several people into custody. He said nobody was taken to the hospital.
Players from both schools were seen shaking hands after the game was called.
Eyewitness News is continuing to gather facts on this story.
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Harris Co. deputy fired month after she was caught on camera pulling gun on sister’s ex, Pct. 1 says
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A Harris County Precinct 1 constable’s deputy has been fired a month after she was caught on camera pulling a gun during a family dispute.
Brittany Brown was seen in uniform approaching a car with her weapon drawn in the Aug. 5 video.
She can be heard demanding that the man recording the video, her sister’s ex-boyfriend, return her sister’s phone.
The constable’s office opened an internal affairs investigation and reassigned Brown to desk duty the very same day.
She was fired at the conclusion of the investigation.
“Her actions violated policy and were unacceptable,” Precinct One Constable Alan Rosen said in a written statement Friday.
Rosen said the results of his office’s investigation are being forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office for possible criminal charges.
Brown’s attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.
She previously told Eyewitness News that Brown pulled the gun because she believed the victim had kidnapped her sister.
For news updates, follow Luke Jones on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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Maps show Hurricane Kiko’s path and forecast in Pacific as it moves west toward Hawaii
Hurricane Kiko, a powerful Category 4 storm, is swirling in the Pacific Ocean and heading west in a direction toward Hawaii.
Forecasters warned that swells from the storm could reach the Hawaiian Islands by the end of the weekend and cause life-threatening surf and rip currents.
As of 11 p.m. Eastern Time Friday, the storm was located some 1,130 miles east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii, and 1,335 miles east-southeast of Honolulu, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center reported in its latest advisory. Its maximum sustained winds were topping 140 mph, and it was moving west-northwest at around 12 mph.
The storm is expected to continue strengthening into Saturday before a “gradual weakening” begins Sunday, forecasters said.
No coastal watches or warnings were in effect as of Friday.
NOAA/NESDIS/STAR
Maps show Hurricane Kiko’s forecast path
While Kiko is traveling slowly, Hawaii is becoming more in its line of sight for potential direct impacts such as winds and rainfall starting Monday. The main threats are forecast for Tuesday, according to Nikki Nolan, a meteorologist for CBS News and Stations.
Acting Hawaii Gov. Sylvia Luke on Friday declared a state of emergency due to the possible inclement weather posed by Kiko. “We urge residents and visitors to monitor updates, follow official guidance and prepare accordingly,” Luke said.
The National Weather Service in Honolulu is monitoring Kiko’s possible impacts and anticipating heavy rainfall leading to potential flooding — along with high surf — early next week.
This map details the forecast path of the storm, showing it moving closer to the Hawaiian Islands this weekend:
CBS News
Another map, from the National Hurricane Center, shows that tropical-storm-force winds could start affecting Hawaii on Monday.
NOAA
As the CBS affiliate in Honolulu notes, however, it is too soon to tell where exactly the storm will go in relation to Hawaii, as the forecast track can change.
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ABC13 Athlete of the Week: Meet Stratford’s Foard Polley, who shines in & out of the football field
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Stratford Senior Foard Polley stands out wherever he goes and whatever he does.
“I love being me, and I love being big. I stick out, but I’m used to sticking out,” he said.
He first caught ABC13’s Joe Gleason’s eye as a 13-year-old working out at BME, then at summer camps, where he continued to improve his craft.
“This is just a stepping stone to help me improve my game,” Polley said.
All that work has led the 6’5” offensive tackle to earn All-District honors the last two years.
“If I’m having a bad game, we can’t have a good game,” Polley said. “But if I have a good game, then I trust my guys, and it’s all up to them to get us down there and score.”
He also stands out in the classroom with a 6.3 GPA on a 6.5 scale. He’s committed to furthering his athletic and academic career at the University of Pennsylvania next year.
“One thing I couldn’t pass up about Penn was their business school, which is where I intend to major in business. It is the number one business school in the country,” he said.
In the spring, when football season is over, he stands out on a different stage — doing school, theater, and choir.
“I love cracking people on a football field, but the theater is just it’s a different thing,” Polley said. “I was always in choirs, because my dad forced me to, and then in middle school, I was ‘half forced’, ‘half recommended’ to audition for the musical. We did 47th Street in my sophomore year. I got looped into it, and I was like, ‘Wow.’ Last year, we did The Little Mermaid, which I was King Triton, which is Ariel’s father, and that was a blast. I’ve always been comfortable with who I am in my own shoes, no matter where I am, if it’s on the stage or if it’s on the football field.”
Congratulations to Foard Polley — student-athlete, singer, and thespian. And we can add one more thing: our ABC13 Athlete of the Week.
SEE MORE: ABC13 introduces Athlete of the Week, highlighting achievements of high school Houston-area athletes
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The Last Yiddish Speaker a Timely and Scary Warning
In a little wooden house in upstate New York, three crosses decorate the wall. They are centrally placed, impossible to ignore, and perfect to obscure the fact that the residents of this little house are, in fact, Jewish.
In Deborah Zoe Laufer’s The Last Yiddish Speaker, the year is 2029, eight years after the successful attack on the U.S. Capital on January 6, 2021. In the years following the insurrection, there have been brutal and concerted efforts to “get rid of the wrong kind of people.” For those left, home inspections are the norm. We learn of a wall that may now exist between the U.S. and Canada, a repopulation mandate, and a recent edict that forbids women from going to college.
Paul and his daughter Sarah, who goes by the name Mary, have fled their New York City home. They are now living in Granville and passing as Christian. Paul, a former city planner, now works at the local Walmart. Sarah is a high school senior, struggling to hide who she is and what she believes amongst the people of her new town and especially in front of her 17-year-old boyfriend John, a Granville local and inspector, tasked with searching Sarah’s home with a gun at his side.
Complicating matters is a mysterious woman who is dropped off at Paul and Sarah’s doorstep, a well-worn suitcase in her hand and a note pinned to her shawl.
“This is your Great Aunt Chava. It’s your turn to hide her. Good luck.”
For Laufer, Chava is a touch of magical realism in her worthy, and sadly necessary, addition to a subgenre of dark and dystopian works, warnings in the form of intellectual exercises in alternate history by folks like Sinclair Lewis and Philip K. Dick. We learn that Chava is 1,000 years old – “give or take” – and traces her own history back to the Crusades. She has since found herself everywhere from Kentucky to Yemen, encountering Nazis, Cossacks, and the Ku Klux Klan. She quite literally gets dropped “wherever something bad is happening to the Jews.”The Last Yiddish Speaker is aching and funny, and thought-provoking above all else. And this production, from Mildred’s Umbrella in collaboration with the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston, is directed by Rhett Martinez with perfectly paced precision. Martinez navigates the play’s potentially tricky tone with ease, letting us feel the weight of this world and its stakes without overwhelming us.
And whether by necessity or design, Martinez’s traverse staging is quite clever and dynamic. Edgar Guajardo’s set is woody and rustic and perfectly evoking its rural locale, as do Samantha Hyman’s costumes. The set runs from wall to wall, audience members looking on from either side. Guajardo favors bold lighting choices, the color blue particularly prominent, likely for its moody feel and symbolic meaning.Equally moody and ominous is Guajardo’s sound design. Several sound cues, however, were interestingly abrupt and (if intentional) unnecessarily distracting. And if there’s one thing you wouldn’t want to risk distracting from, it’s the terrific performances from Martinez’s four-actor ensemble.
Deborah Hope is a treasure, so it should be no surprise that she can play a character carrying the weight of an entire culture, its history, and language, on her proverbial back. Hope carries not only that weight, but Chava’s own – centuries of husbands and children long gone – in her hunched-over shoulders and little, shuffling steps, in eyes too knowing and sudden bouts of weakness and breathlessness that suggest she’s not immune to its effects. But most affecting is the way Hope balances “ancient being with a magical charge” with “Great Aunt Chava,” a motherly figure with such warmth, an irresistible twinkle in her eye, and a wicked sense of humor that leads to an incredibly funny exchange between Chava, Sarah, and a translation app.
(It’s worth mentioning, though probably unnecessary, that I’m no expert on Yiddish. But I was thoroughly convinced and impressed, so props to Dr. Mina Graur, the production’s Yiddish consultant.)As Sarah, Olivia Knight is electric. Sarah is whip-smart and understandably bristling at the restrictions she’s forced to live under. Even when she pushes farther than she should, risking her own life and that of her father, it’s painfully clear why and where she’s coming from. (There’s a particular monologue about a Hawaiian bird that is bound to bring tears to your eyes.) The heart of the play is Sarah’s growing connection with Chava, and Knight’s scenes with Hope are incredibly sweet and tender. Knight also has a great rapport with Jason Duga, who plays Sarah’s father, Paul.
Paul is frustrating by design. He is disconnected from Judaism and motivated by fear, his only real goal (protecting his daughter in the best way he can see) making him a foil to Sarah and, albeit briefly, a threat to Chava. His fear colors his exasperated back-and-forths with Sarah and his ingratiating comments to John and eventually explodes in his outbursts. Duga, however, is excellent at keeping Paul from slipping into one-note territory. Though his desperation may be at the fore, he never lets us lose sight of the internal conflicts that have brought him here.
The fourth member of this ensemble is Austin Brady, who tackles the role of John, Sarah’s small-town boyfriend. John reads as smarmy at the top, with Brady’s approach to him noticeably more performative than his castmates. It may have been to up the suspense on just how sincere John’s love for Sarah would prove to be when push came to shove. Still, Brady excelled in matching Knight’s energy and in portraying John’s growing discomfort as Sarah continually challenged him.
To say that The Last Yiddish Speaker is timely doesn’t quite do it justice, as we’re living in a moment where the timeline could still easily branch off in a direction like the one Laufer envisions in her play. It adds a certain bit of unease, but it’s that tension that tells you just how necessary works like this are and makes it more than worth seeing.Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Saturdays, and 11 a.m. Sundays through September 21 at the Joe Frank Theatre, Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston, 5601 South Braeswood. For more information, call 713-729-3200 or visit mildredsumbrella.com. $18-$29.
Natalie de la Garza
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Man charged in 2022 fatal shooting of 2 men found dead 2.5 miles away from Hobby Airport, HPD says
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A man is facing charges in the fatal shooting of two men who were found dead near Hobby Airport in southeast Houston in 2022, police say.
The suspect, 24-year-old Andre Medlock, is charged with capital murder.
Authorities say both victims, identified as Courtney Glaze, 32, and Miles Everette, 30, were found near 6300 Scarlet Drive, about 2.5 miles from Hobby Airport.
RELATED: Houston police uncover 2nd body in area where another victim was found 2.5 miles from Hobby Airport
According to HPD, officers were called to the Scarlet Drive address for a welfare check at about 3:45 p.m. on Jan. 5, 2022, where Glaze was found shot to death inside a vehicle.
Police said they returned to the Scarlet Drive location on Jan. 6, 2022, to continue investigating the original scene when they found Everette fatally shot in a nearby wooded area.
Investigators say Medlock was initially a person of interest, but was identified as a suspect after further investigation. He was charged Aug. 28 and is currently in the custody of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for a criminal conviction unrelated to this incident.
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Watch Live: Trump signs Department of War order, makes announcements at White House
Judge rules Trump administration’s termination of temporary protected status for Venezuelans and Haitians is illegal
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen ruled that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s move to revoke the temporary protected status (TPS) designation for roughly 1 million Venezuelans and Haitians was illegal.
The order restores protections for those TPS holders, allowing them to live and work in the U.S.
Chen said that Noem exceeded her authority when she ended the protections and must be set aside under the Administrative Procedure Act.
“This case arose from action taken post haste by the current DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem, to revoke the legal status of Venezuelan and Haitian TPS holders, sending them back to conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries,” the judge wrote. “The Secretary’s action in revoking TPS was not only unprecedented in the manner and speed in which it was taken but also violates the law.”
Trump signs executive order to change “woke” Department of Defense to Department of War
The president signed an executive order renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War, and changing the title of secretary of defense to secretary of war.
The president said it was a “woke” decision after World War I and World War II in 1947 to rename the department previously known as the Department of War to the Department of Defense.
“We’re going Department of War,” Mr. Trump said, asking his “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth for his remarks.
Hegseth said the U.S. “hasn’t won a war since” World War II, though he added he did not intend to malign veterans of more recent wars.
“It’s gonna fight to win, not to lose. We’re gonna go on offense, not just on defense,” Hegseth said, adding the U.S. will “raise up warriors, not just defenders.”
The president also signed a bill to protect home buyers and sellers from having their personal information sold.
“That’s going to help the homeowners of our great country,” he said.
Trump threatens to impose additional tariffs on European Union after it fines Google
The president took to social media to threaten Europe with tariffs over the European Union’s decision to fine Google $3.5 billion, citing anticompetitive tech ad practices. The EU imposed the penalty Friday, Google’s fourth from the EU in roughly a decade.
“Europe today ‘hit’ another great American company, Google, with a $3.5 Billion Dollar fine, effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American Investments and Jobs,” Mr. Trump wrote.
Mr. Trump’s comments, posted shortly after the announcement of the fine, also came a day after he dined with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other top tech executives at the White House.
“We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these Taxpaying American Companies,” the president continued.
Section 301 authorizes the Trade Act of 1974 permits the U.S. trade representative to impose tariffs or other import restrictions in an effort to fix an unfair foreign trade practices.
Eric Trump announces he’s writing a book
Eric Trump, the president’s son, announced that he’s writing a book about major events in his and his father’s life, including the July 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the 2022 search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago by the FBI. Eric Trump is the executive vice president of the Trump Organization.
The president’s son said the “most painful moment” for him was when his “childhood home” of Mar-a-Lago was “raided” by federal authorities, as a part of the investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents.
The president wrote the foreword. The book, “Under Siege,” will be released Oct. 14.
Pentagon sending F-35 fighter jets to Caribbean amid tensions with Venezuela
The Pentagon is sending 10 F-35 fighter jets to the Caribbean as tensions with Venezuela rise over the drug trade and the strike on narco-terrorists, a person familiar with the plans tells CBS News.
Reuters first reported the U.S. deployment of the jets, which will be deployed in operations targeting drug cartels.
On Tuesday, a U.S. military strike sank a Venezuelan boat and killed 11 people. The president and top officials said the vessel was transporting illegal drugs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strike was just the start of a campaign against Venezuelan drug cartels.
By Willie James Inman, Jennifer Jacobs
Senate Democrats to probe DOJ firings of those who worked for special counsel Jack Smith
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are launching an investigation Friday into the firings of Justice Department attorneys and employees who investigated President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified records.
In a letter obtained by CBS News, the panel’s Democrats are asking Attorney General Pam Bondi to hand over records about at least 20 Justice Department staff fired last month.
The senators said they’re seeking information regarding the justification “for any of these draconian personnel actions,” in reference to the terminations. They said of Justice Department leaders, “Firing career administrative staff who lack decision-making authority because they were doing their jobs is a petty but pernicious abuse of power.”
White House acknowledges disappointing jobs numbers
The U.S. only added 22,000 jobs in August, falling short of forecasts. Some sectors, including manufacturing and professional services, lost jobs.
Economists had forecasted payroll gains of 80,000. The unemployment rate also ticked up slightly, from 4.2% in July to 4.3% in August.
Top White House officials acknowledged the numbers did not meet expectations. Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, called it a “little bit of a disappointment number,” but said he expects that 22,000 figure to be “revised up.”
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said jobs “underperformed just a bit,” but said the economy as a whole is “still in the positive.”
By Kristin Brown, Kathryn Watson
Trump says it’s “time to end” the “Epstein hoax”
In a long Truth Social post, the president said it’s “time to end” the “Epstein hoax,” again blaming Democrats for pushing for answers that many of the president’s supporters are also demanding.
“The Department of Justice has done its job, they have given everything requested of them,” the president wrote. “It’s time to end the Democrat Epstein Hoax, and give the Republicans credit for the great, even legendary, job that they are doing.”
Mr. Trump has in recent weeks voiced frustration that members of Congress, including some in his own party, have not given up on pursuing more transparency about the details of the Epstein case.
Democrats are hoping to gain a sufficient number of votes, including from a handful of Republicans, to advance legislation forcing the Trump administration to release all federal Epstein files.
Trump expected to issue order on punishing countries that illegally detain Americans
The Trump administration is expected to issue an executive order as early as Friday establishing a designation for state sponsors of wrongful detention, CBS News has learned, in a move that would allow the U.S. to punish countries that illegally detain U.S. nationals or take them hostage.
Modeled after the designation of state sponsors of terrorism, the measure would provide tools for the State Department to penalize nations that use detained Americans as political leverage and potentially issue geographic travel restrictions on where a U.S. passport can be used.
Read more here.
By Camilla Schick, Olivia Gazis
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Closings increase 12.9% in Houston as new listings dip for first time since January – Houston Agent Magazine
Closed Houston home sales jumped 12.9% year over year during the week ended Sept. 1, according to the Weekly Activity Snapshot from the Houston Association of REALTORS®.
Houston buyers purchased 2,022 homes, up from 1,796 during the same week in 2024. Pending home sales, however, decreased 9.9% year over year with 1,750 listings going under contract.
Meanwhile, new listings dipped below 2024 volumes for the first time since January: Realtors added 3,126 homes to the MLS, a 1.1% decline year over year.
Property showings rose 9.5% annually, indicating strong consumer interest.
Emily Marek
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Tail of comet that’s visiting from another star is growing, new telescope image shows
A new image shows the growing tail of a comet from another star system streaking across our solar system.
The image of comet 3I/ATLAS was captured on Aug. 27 using one of the telescopes at the International Gemini Observatory in Chile during a public outreach event allowing students to work with astronomers.
The comet is only the third-known interstellar object to pass through our solar system. It poses no threat to Earth, NASA previously said.
Comet 3I/ATLAS has been photographed multiple times since its discovery in July. In early August, NASA and the European Space Agency released photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It was about 277 million miles away from Earth when the telescope captured it.
The new image from the Gemini Observatory shows the comet’s broad coma, or a cloud of dust and gas that forms around its nucleus as it gets closer to the sun, astronomers said in a news release. The tail spans about 1/200th of a degree in the sky. One degree is about the width of a pinky finger, according to the news release. The tail also points away from the sun.
NOIRLab
The features are “significantly more extended than they appeared in earlier images,” according to astronomers. This means that the comet has become “more active” as it travels through the inner solar system.
The main purpose of the observatory session, which allowed students and members of the public to remotely join astronomers in the control room, was to look at the wavelengths of light that emit from the comet. The wavelengths, also called a spectrum, can give scientists information about the comet’s composition and chemistry, helping them understand how the comet changes while passing through the solar system, the news release said.
NASA previously said the comet is expected to make its closest approach to the sun in late October and pass between the orbits of Mars and Earth. The comet is expected to remain visible through September, then get too close to the sun to observe until it reappears on the other side of the solar body in early December.
NOIRLab
Interstellar comets are very rare, astronomers said. Only two other examples have ever been confirmed: 1I/’Oumuamu in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019.
“As 3I/ATLAS speeds back into the depths of interstellar space, this image is both a scientific milestone and a source of wonder,” said Karen Meech, astronomer at the University of Hawai’i Institute for Astronomy and leader of the observation program, in a statement. “It reminds us that our Solar System is just one part of a vast and dynamic galaxy — and that even the most fleeting visitors can leave a lasting impact.”
