Category: News

NEW YORK — The driver of a speedboat that capsized in New York Harbor over the weekend, killing a 27-year-old woman and her infant daughter, was charged Monday with causing their deaths through misconduct or neglect.

Manuel Hernandez, 46, of Manville, N.J., wiped his eyes with his hand as he arrived for his initial appearance in Manhattan federal court, his feet shackled. He was not required to enter a plea and was released on $50,000 bail.

Sara Sanchez and her 5-month-old daughter, Antonella Garcia, died after the 22-foot Yamaha AR210 speedboat overturned late Saturday near the Statue of Liberty in an accident authorities blamed on an overcrowded boat, poor decisions by Hernandez, a lack of appropriate licenses, and the failure to put a life vest on a 5-month-old child. Twelve others were rescued and are in stable condition, authorities said.

As Hernandez left the hearing, his court-appointed attorney, Amy Gallicchio, guided him to a waiting vehicle. Both declined to comment.

The vessel was pulled from the water and taken to the New York Police Department’s harbor unit facility on Randall’s Island.

After state charges were lodged against Hernandez over the weekend, prosecutors said Monday that he will be tried in federal court, not state court. He was transferred to federal custody on Sunday.

In a criminal complaint, federal prosecutors brought two charges alleging that Hernandez, as the boat’s pilot and operator, engaged in negligent actions and omissions that caused the capsizing and deaths in a boat that exceeded its maximum capacity of 10 people, with 14 on board.

They said he also knowingly operated the boat with an infant on board without ensuring that the child was wearing a life vest and with the awareness that the boat didn’t have any child- or infant-sized life vests.

The boat tour, which began at 7 p.m. Saturday, was more than three hours into its journey when Hernandez was piloting the boat toward the Statue of Liberty and made a U-turn that brought it into a swell, possibly caused by a larger passing vessel’s wake, according to the complaint.

Hernandez tried to accelerate to pass through the swell, but the swell swamped the bow of his boat and immediately capsized it, prosecutors wrote.

Hernandez told investigators that he had worked for the company on a freelance or contract basis since last year, starting as a limousine driver, they wrote.

He stated that twice recently he used his personal boat, a slightly larger Yamaha AR250, for charter tours organized by Zeus Luxury Rentals Inc., according to the complaint.

He said that on Saturday, he used a friend’s boat because his own needed repairs, but he didn’t tell the friend that he was using it for a charter tour, prosecutors wrote.

Hernandez admitted to investigators that he had never sought the required licensing and claimed he was unaware it was needed, they wrote. He also admitted that he agreed to conduct the tour with the 5-month-old on board despite the vessel not having any child or infant-sized life vests, prosecutors said.

Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said the “tragedy could have been prevented, and now a family is left to grieve the unimaginable loss of a mother and her 5-month-old daughter because of his negligence.”

In a news release, U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said Hernandez flouted federal regulations and maritime safety protocols when he transported paying customers on a commercial boat without appropriate licenses.

“We mourn the tragic drowning deaths of the infant and her mother and urge would-be tour operators and the public to observe all safety protocols for commercial vessels,” he said.

Capt. Doreen McCarthy, the Coast Guard Sector New York commander, credited the rescue of survivors to “heroic, swift actions” by those who responded from various agencies, along with a good Samaritan vessel.

Meanwhile, a GoFundMe campaign that began Sunday to help Andres Garcia pay for the funeral and other expenses for his partner, Sanchez, and their daughter had topped $25,000 by Tuesday afternoon. Garcia was also on the boat when it capsized.

Antonio Russo, general manager at Il Punto Ristorante, said Garcia is an “amazing guy” who has been working long hours each week as a waiter, driver, and food-runner to provide for his family here and in Colombia.

Diego Naranjo, a neighbor of Sanchez in Queens, said he first met her last spring when her son threw a ball into their backyard. After recovering the ball, Naranjo invited her son to play on a trampoline with his children.

“They were really nice people. You can see when a person is noble,” Naranjo said.

He said he last saw Sanchez last Tuesday as she brought groceries into her home. He said he was shocked by the deaths.

KENSINGTON, Maryland — The contiguous United States sizzled to its hottest month ever last month, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

July averaged 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit across the Lower 48 states, eclipsing the Dust Bowl’s July 1936 by an eighth of a degree. Records go back to 1895.

“It’s not good when you’re breaking records from the Dust Bowl, which we are in this case,” said meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections. “And that was a crazy sort of situation where you put tens of millions of people in motion. You had this great migration because of the drought and the heat that hit the center of the U.S. — just a cataclysmic event in U. S. history. If we’re exceeding records from the Dust Bowl, that says that we’re in deep trouble.”

Although it was unusually cool in Alaska, hotter-than-normal conditions blanketed the Lower 48, with the most excessive heat in the Mountain West, Southwest, Northern Plains, and Southeast. The heat was so widespread that every one of the Lower 48 states was at least 1 degree F warmer than the 20th century average, said Russ Vose, chief of monitoring at NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information.

The heat in the Dust Bowl years was more concentrated in parts of the Midwest and was aggravated by agricultural practices at the time, Vose said.

What’s happening now is due to the burning of coal, oil, and gas, scientists said.

“Extremely high temperatures across the continental U.S. this summer, along with intense drought and fire conditions, are absolutely consistent with the climate change signal,’ said Katharine Jacobs, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona.

The biggest driver of the record heat was nighttime lows that smashed the old mark for hottest minimums by 0.7 degrees, NOAA said. Hotter nights are a classic sign of human-caused climate change, according to scientists and several studies in peer-reviewed literature. NOAA’s calculation is based on averaging 24 hours of temperature, not just highs or lows.

“If you’re talking heat waves, that nighttime low is incredibly important for determining total heat stress,” Masters said. “So if it doesn’t cool off at night, your body doesn’t have time to readjust to all the heat.”

As nighttime temperatures increase, more people die and even more lose sleep, studies show.

The years 2021 and 1936 tie for America’s hottest summer, which is June through August. Through July, 2026 is a shade cooler than 2021, which was powered by record heat in June.

Because of climate change, Masters said, “This may be one of the coolest years we’re going to experience for the rest of our lives.”

What’s needed, Masters said, is “to stop burning so many fossil fuels. We also need to be spending money to adapt to the new climate that we’ve put in place.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations that promote his long-held but discredited theory that childhood shots should be spaced out into separate medical visits.

The order advocates separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three different single-disease shots and administering all childhood immunizations at separate appointments whenever possible. It also directs the nation’s health department to improve research on vaccines, which are already extensively studied, and present a plan to offer separate measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines for children, since that is not currently an option in the United States.

The renewed focus on vaccines marks a departure from the Trump administration’s recent efforts to emphasize less controversial health policies related to healthy eating, drug price negotiations and medical fraud crackdowns ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Public health experts have raised concerns that spacing out shots as Trump suggests can lead to an increased risk that children become infected with a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. Childhood vaccines — and how and when to give them in combination — go through rigorous studies, and safety tracking continues for years as the shots are used.

Trump called the announcement a “major victory for parents rights, religious and constitutional rights, and for the gold standard science.”

Speaking about the order at the Oval Office on Monday, Trump repeatedly suggested the number or timing of vaccines could play a role in rising rates of autism spectrum disorder, even as scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link. The order also includes several changes to the childhood vaccine schedule that his health department has already attempted, but that have been blocked by a federal judge. A White House official who insisted on anonymity to brief reporters said Trump was within his right to provide his own recommendation through the executive order and said the lawsuit blocking the health department’s schedule was a separate issue.

Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the announcement spreads uncertainty, fear and confusion where “there doesn’t need to be any of that.” He disputed Trump’s recommendations and said previous ones should stand.

“Science about vaccines and their efficacy has not changed,” he said. “The distribution of viruses and other pathogens in our environment has not changed. Children in this country have not changed in the last 48 hours.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican chair of the Senate health committee, slammed the executive order in a social media post, saying vaccines are safe and do not cause autism.

“I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong,” the Louisiana senator wrote. “The President does not have the expertise to make these changes.”

Who is in charge of vaccine policy?

Even as the order calls for revised vaccine recommendations, states, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren. The order advises states with school vaccine mandates to consider updating their laws to reflect the administration’s preferred schedule, according to a White House fact sheet.

Last December, Trump ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to review how peer nations approach vaccine recommendations and consider revising U.S. guidance accordingly. The department responded by cutting the number of vaccines it recommends for every child, a move that has since been blocked in court.

Changes to federal childhood vaccine recommendations customarily require approval from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The newly Senate-confirmed CDC director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, oversaw policies promoting vaccination of service members while in a leadership position at the U.S. Coast Guard.

However, public health law expert Lawrence Gostin at Georgetown University said the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Trump’s power may allow him to supersede Schwartz if she does not agree to new recommendations.

“This is clearly the first test for Dr. Erica Schwartz,” Gostin said in an email. “The President is placing her in an untenable position.”

Asked on a call with reporters why the president was advocating splitting MMR into three single-disease vaccines, the White House official did not provide any studies supporting the decision. They said that was Trump’s long-held view and that some countries provide individual measles vaccines in certain circumstances.

Kush Desai, a Trump spokesperson, told The Associated Press that the president is “one of countless parents who have voiced questions and concerns about the combined MMR vaccine” and said the plan to develop single-disease vaccines would “give parents more options on timing and frequency for their children,” ultimately increasing vaccine uptake.

Studies of babies and toddlers in the U.S. have shown that the use of combination shots for childhood vaccines, rather than single ones, increased the likelihood of completing all recommended vaccinations by the age of 2.

Announcement follows other Trump administration vaccine actions

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist before he entered politics, set out to overhaul immunization guidance at DHS in the first year of Trump’s term. He fired an entire 17-member vaccine advisory committee, installing replacements who made far more restrictive recommendations that have since been halted by a federal judge. He also personally directed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying any new evidence to support the change.

Throughout his second term, Trump has been fixated on connecting autism to vaccines. He has recently ramped up pressure on Kennedy to identify the cause of autism, something Kennedy had pledged to do with new research unveiled last year. Trump publicly prodded the health secretary for an update on autism research in a Cabinet meeting last month.

“How are you doing on the autism research?” Trump asked.

“We will have an answer for you,” Kennedy said.

Scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link between childhood vaccines and autism. Racine reiterated that point on Monday, noting that the potential link had been studied in “over 40 methodologically well-designed studies in over seven countries involving over 5 million children.”

“I’m not sure that there is anything that has been as thoroughly looked at as this question,” he said. “And the answer is unequivocally no.”

In the Oval Office, Kennedy repeated his assertion that he believes an unknown environmental factor is to blame for rising autism diagnoses and said that his department will deliver research findings “as soon as they are ready.”

Monday’s order comes as students are returning to classrooms around the country and the nation contends with a measles outbreak that experts say could result in the U.S. losing its measles elimination status.

Doctors have raised concerns that Trump’s falsehoods on vaccines could stoke vaccine hesitancy. Federal data shows U.S. kindergarten vaccination rates have been dropping, with the share of children with exemptions rising to an all-time high in the 2024-25 school year.