LONDON — Brenda Fricker, who became the first Irish woman to win an Academy Award for her role as Bridget Fagan Brown in the 1989 film My Left Foot, has died. She was 81.
The Irish character actor died Thursday night in Dublin after a period of ill health, her agent, Phil Belfield said in a statement.
Ms. Fricker won the Academy Award in 1990 for best supporting actress for her portrayal of the determined mother of Christy Brown, a writer and painter who was born with cerebral palsy and could control only his left foot. Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Brown, won the award for best actor.
“She was just an amazing actress, amazing character, forceful personality, great writer,” the movie’s director, Jim Sheridan, told Irish national broadcaster RTE. “She could be obsessive — in everything she did — life, work, love. But no real malice or anything, she was just a very strong personality and a good laugh.”
Ms. Fricker said she was stunned when she won the Oscar, never thinking it was possible. In her acceptance speech, she thanked Brown “just for being alive” and paid tribute to his mother, saying “anybody who gives birth 22 times deserves one of these.”
She later spoke of how the award doomed her to being typecast to forever playing roles as mothers. Later in life, she said she used the weighty statuette to prop open her bathroom door.
Ms. Fricker, who appeared in more than 90 films and television shows between 1964 and 2024, was known for her role as the “pigeon lady” in the 1992 film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, in which she played a homeless woman who befriended Macaulay Culkin’s character in New York’s Central Park.
She also featured in the original cast of the BBC medical drama Casualty and appeared alongside Cate Blanchett in Veronica Guerin,” the story of an Irish investigative journalist who was murdered in 1996.
“We will never see her like again and the world is lesser for the lack of her,’’ Belfield said. “I was honored to know, love, and work with her and she will always have a place in my heart and in the heart of so many film and TV fans the world over.”
Born in Dublin in 1945, Ms. Fricker received the city’s highest honor earlier this year when she was awarded the Freedom of the City.
In her autobiography She Died Young: A Life in Fragments, Ms. Fricker describes both happy childhood escapades with her sister Grania and her struggles to overcome sexual violence and mental health issues, which caused her to be institutionalized several times. Published in September 2025, the book appeared on the Irish Sunday Times bestseller list.
Simon Harris, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, said the country had lost a national treasure.
“She truly was among the greatest exports this country has ever produced and an ambassador for Irish talent on the world stage,’’ he said. ”Quite simply, we will never see the like of her ever again.
Ms. Fricker was married to director Barry Davies from 1979 until they divorced in 1988. She became pregnant several times but suffered miscarriages, which led to severe depression much of her life.
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Friday warned that state officials could lose funding or face investigations if they fail to go along with President Donald Trump’s election security demands, part of the Republican president’s longstanding attempt to undermine Americans’ confidence in the vote.
Experts said the threats — issued just months before midterm elections that will determine control of Congress — were likely hollow because Trump’s voting initiatives have been stalled by judges and the Constitution gives states control over how elections are run.
Nevertheless, Mullin’s remarks, delivered from the White House complex one day after Trump’s primetime address on the topic, could further doubts about election processes and create headaches for states as they prepare for November.
“We absolutely can build confidence in the American people, but the states have to do their part,” Mullin said.
Trump continues to falsely claim that Democrat Joe Biden won only because of fraud in 2020, and he’s tried to marshal the powers of the federal government to rewrite that history since he returned to office last year — even though judges and his own attorney general in his first term concluded the election was legitimate.
Mullin insisted that the president was not relitigating the 2020 election, “although he definitely could at this point.”
“This is just about exposing what took place and making sure it never happens again,” he said.
Mullin’s claims of noncitizen voters rely on incomplete data
During his remarks, Mullin advanced an unsubstantiated claim Trump made Thursday that the federal government had found 250,000 noncitizen voters on the rolls in California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. He said the Department of Homeland Security’s investigation was conducted using public data, which election experts say is insufficiently detailed and updated to properly identify whether a registered voter is a noncitizen.
Election officials in California and Pennsylvania said they would review the Trump administration’s findings but noted that they conduct their own voter list maintenance and noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare. Research has supported that finding.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, responded to Mullin’s threats with a post on social media.
“California has free, fair, and secure elections and we will fight for them,” he wrote. “Try us.”
In Nevada, Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, also a Democrat, said he was confident in the integrity of the state’s voter file.
“We are constantly looking at the information to figure out how many registered voters in Nevada don’t have a Social Security number on file,” he said. “We have done significant work to make sure our voter rolls are as clean as possible.”
Mullin also pledged to aggressively monitor public voter lists to pursue potential voter fraud cases before and after the 2026 election.
“If you are an illegal or you are voting illegally, we will hunt you down, we will find you, and we will prosecute you,” he said.
He urged states to participate in DHS’ recently overhauled SAVE program, a federal tool central to the Trump administration’s efforts to nationalize elections. At least 25 states have used it to check their voter rolls since April 2025, after the Trump administration significantly expanded its search abilities, and the Trump administration has demanded that states submit their sensitive voter data to the program to fully audit their voter lists.
Mullin said if state officials don’t participate in SAVE, they could face fines, penalties, or prison time.
But the overhauled program’s use was recently blocked by a federal judge over concerns about privacy and wrongful purges of eligible voters. The case included voters whose registrations were wrongly flagged by the program, temporarily threatening their place on the rolls.
David Becker, the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, said Mullin was making empty threats.
“Every court to consider the DOJ’s demands — 15 of them to date, six of those judges appointed by President Trump — have confirmed that the federal government cannot legally demand access to states’ sensitive voter data,” he said. “What he’s suggesting is illegal.”
In addition, Trump’s efforts to pass the SAVE Act, federal legislation that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration, has stalled in the Senate. Republicans don’t have enough votes to change the filibuster rules and pass it without Democratic support.
Cybersecurity support for election officials diminished
Mullin also elevated Trump’s concerns about vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines — which voting experts have long acknowledged. While Trump suggested Thursday that these risks make it possible to “rig” the vote, election officials say there are numerous safeguards in place to prevent that, including physical security, voting machine tests, postelection reviews, and paper ballot backups in most of the country.
To address the concerns, Mullin said the nation’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which sits under DHS, would release an updated election infrastructure plan within 30 days and provide cyber threat resources to election officials if they participate in SAVE.
CISA was largely absent from its long-held role assisting states in last year’s elections after the Trump administration conducted a review of its election work, placed more than a dozen election-focused staffers on administrative leave, and slashed $10 million from two cybersecurity initiatives, including one dedicated to helping state and local election officials. The agency is also still without a Senate-confirmed director and has cycled through a series of acting leaders.
Aguilar said his state has stepped up and will protect its own elections in the absence of federal help.
“The fact that they think they’re going to come in prior to the general election in November and provide us infrastructure, that’s nuts,” he said. “Actions speak louder than words, and in their case, it’s all been talk.”
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on a funeral in the Gaza Strip on Friday killed at least seven people and wounded another 22, according to a local hospital.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
The Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp confirmed the number of casualties, saying people were struck at the funeral for a Palestinian killed in a strike earlier on Friday.
Israel and the Hamas militant group agreed to a ceasefire deal in October aimed at halting a two-year-long war.
The heaviest fighting has subsided but at least 1,123 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
The ministry, which has been part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants but says women and children make up most of the dead.
Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to that and other violations. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire.
The war began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,264 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
ATLANTA — Federal health officials have identified lettuce from Mexico served at Taco Bell locations across five U.S. states as a source of a widespread outbreak of diarrhea-causing parasite cyclospora.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Thursday warned consumers not to eat shredded iceberg lettuce from Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia. A record number of cyclospora cases have been reported in more than 30 states, and experts have said not every recent U.S. illness might be caused by a single source.
A Food and Drug Administration investigation so far has identified a single supplier of the lettuce. The federal warnings to consumers did not identify the company, but Taylor Fresh Foods, of Salinas, Calif., said FDA testing indicated it was “a specific independent farm” affiliated with the company.
The FDA was working with the supplier “to determine if potentially contaminated shredded iceberg lettuce remains on the market,” including in other states, the CDC said. “Taco Bell has committed to stop using any lettuce from the supplier identified by FDA’s traceback investigation.”
Taylor Farms has been tied to foodborne outbreaks in the past. The company said in a statement Friday afternoon that it was voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market.
“As a family owned and operated company, we are deeply concerned for those who became ill, their families, and the many Americans whose trust in the safety of their fresh produce has been shaken,” the statement said.
The illness is not usually life threatening and is typically treated with antibiotics.
On Thursday, ahead of the federal government’s confirmation, Taco Bell issued a statement saying that it had taken “immediate action to voluntarily remove potentially impacted lettuce from a supplier in select states. The affected ingredient from our supplier is being indefinitely removed from our supply chain nationwide and will be replaced within 24 hours in select states.”
It’s possible other businesses could be linked to outbreak
In a statement, federal health officials stressed that other “brands, restaurants, retailers, or distribution channels” could be tied to the outbreak as the investigation continues.
Michigan investigators are trying to figure out if the lettuce went to other restaurants or stores because many of the ill people said they didn’t eat at Taco Bell, state health officials said Friday.
There is no evidence the outbreak “is related to poor food handling or preparation at any single restaurant or fast-food chain,” Michigan health officials said in a statement.
For that reason, they continue to recommend that consumers purchase whole heads of lettuce instead of pre-washed, bagged lettuce or premixed salad kits. Taylor Fresh Foods said in its statement that no Taylor Farms-branded salad kits contain iceberg lettuce.
Some past outbreaks linked to the company involved products sold under different brand names.
North Carolina health officials on Friday reported their count has now surpassed 300 cases, but said the recent illnesses there are not considered to be linked to the outbreak in and around Michigan. They said the most commonly reported foods include parsley, cilantro, and lettuce, but it’s not clear if those ingredients were the source of the infections, they said.
Cyclospora cases have been rising for years
Cyclospora is a microscopic, spherical parasite that commonly causes watery diarrhea “with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the CDC. Outbreaks tend to occur most often in the late spring and summer.
The heat-loving parasite infects the bowels and spreads through feces. In the past, people have been infected by consuming fruits or vegetables that were exposed to feces-contaminated irrigation water.
The illness, called cyclosporiasis, is less common than foodborne illnesses caused by other germs, including salmonella and E. coli. Many cases are never linked to a specific food or other source and, for years, few U.S. cyclospora outbreaks were reported. But the number started rising about a decade ago, with a particularly notable spike in 2018 and 2019.
Previously, 2019 saw the most reported U.S. cyclosporiasis cases, with about 4,700. The current surge has far surpassed that. Michigan — the apparent epicenter of the current outbreak — is reporting more than 5,000 cases, and more than 2,000 additional probable and suspected cases have been reported in other states.
No deaths have been reported. But Michigan officials say more than 100 people in that state have been hospitalized, and health officials say dozens more have been hospitalized in other states.
Experts attribute the increasing trend in cases to climate change and better detection. They also say it’s likely that cyclospora cases historically were underreported, for several reasons.
Some common tests used to check for food poisoning have not been geared to detect cyclospora. Technicians aren’t able to grow the parasite in labs, making it hard to draw evidence from contaminated produce. And it can be hard to figure out what food sick people had in common because sometimes it’s a single ingredient that might be common in multiple recipes — like basil or cilantro.
Taco Bell, Taylor Farms have been tied to past outbreaks
The FDA’s traceback investigation identified a single supplier of iceberg lettuce from Mexico used by the Taco Bell locations where people who got sick ate, federal officials said.
The Mexican food chain is among the restaurants linked to foodborne illness outbreaks in the past.
VENICE, Italy — The billionaire U.S. ambassador to Italy faced protests when he arrived in Venice on Friday aboard his luxury yacht as part of a coastal diplomacy tour marking the 250th anniversary of American independence.
Activists described hospitality mogul Tilman Fertitta’s arrival as an unwelcome display of American wealth and influence for many Italians at a time when they see the Trump administration as upending the post-World War II international order.
The so-called Coastal Diplomacy 250 tour of 13 Italian coastal regions on a super yacht is intended to celebrate “our shared history, our economic partnership, and the cultural bonds that make the U.S.-Italy relationship so special,” Fertitta said in a social media post.
In Venice, many of the same groups that protested the wedding last year of Jeff Bezos to Lauren Sanchez are mobilizing against Fertitta’s arrival aboard the 384-foot luxury yacht, Boardwalk, which features two helipads, a pair of swimming pools, and a fully equipped spa and gym.
On July 4, protest organizers unfurled a banner reading “Venezia non si USA,” which is a play on words combining the Italian phrase “Venice is not to be used” with the acronym USA. The banner was as long as Fertitta’s yacht to illustrate what the protesters called “the dimensions of his arrogance.”
“It’s arrogant to think he can do what he wants in a city that is ever more sold to the single culture of tourism,’’ organizer Stella Morion told the Associated Press. She said protesters are also opposed to President Donald Trump’s international politics, including U.S. strikes on Iran, which she said have prompted a spike in energy prices.
“It is the umpteenth slap in the face of a city and all of the people in Venice who struggle to reach the end of the month due to an increase in prices caused by Trump’s war,” she said.
Fertitta has declined a request for an interview to discuss the tour and the planned protest.
The billionaire owner of Fertitta Entertainment was sworn in as ambassador to Italy in 2025. He made his fortune in the hospitality industry, including restaurants, hotels, and casinos. He also owns the NBA’s Houston Rockets. His official biography puts his net worth at $11.3 billion, while Forbes ranks him among the 100 wealthiest Americans.
Details of who Fertitta will meet while in Venice have not been released, but he was expected to attend the famed Redentore festival on Saturday, which commemorates the end of the plague in 1576 culminating with celebratory fireworks over St. Mark’s Basin.
He has already stopped over in the Sicilian port town of Cefalu, where his family’s roots trace back to 1566, and met with the governor in Palermo. He has also stopped at the Calabrian port of Le Castella and sailed along the coast of Puglia and up the Adriatic coastline to Venice.
Fertitta’s tenure includes navigating a cooling in the once warm relationship between Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and Trump, who has made a series of social media attacks against her. Meloni, who was once seen as a close political ally in Europe with similar views on such issues as immigration, did not attend 250th celebrations at the U.S. Embassy.
AUGUSTA, Maine — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told the Associated Press.
David Brouillette has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, according to those relatives. They accuse him of attacking women in his life over the years, and one shared a voicemail with the AP from last winter in which he told her that he thought someone should slit her throat.
At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, including 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who was shot and killed by Brouillette on Monday while in his car near his home in the coastal Maine city of Biddeford.
DHS, which hasn’t released the name of the officer who killed Durán Guerrero, has said the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”
Brouillette didn’t respond to text messages or an email seeking comment. Three relatives who said they had spoken to him since the shooting, including an ex-wife and daughter, said he told them he acted in self-defense.
When reached for comment about Brouillette’s record and his role in Monday’s shooting, ICE spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement, “We will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,” and that “The ICE officer in question has nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience with required training including use of force training.”
The White House referred all questions about the shooting and Brouillette to ICE.
A new career in ICE
Brouillette, 37, told his ex-wife Ashley Brouillette late last year that he had been hired by ICE. She said that because of his long history of psychiatric issues, she thought he was having a mental health episode and she didn’t believe him. She didn’t realize he’d been telling the truth until this week, when videos began circulating online of the moments surrounding the shooting.
Ashley Brouillette told the AP that she spoke to her ex-husband in a Facebook audio call, and he acknowledged that he had killed Durán Guerrero. Their 18-year-old daughter, Madison Brouillette, also told the AP that her father called her Wednesday and said that he shot and killed Durán Guerrero.
David and Ashley Brouillette were high school sweethearts who got married in 2007. She said she divorced him in 2009 because he had become physically violent with her, which began after she got pregnant with their daughter.
According to Ashley Brouillette, he once threw boiling water at her while she was holding their child — an incident her mother Avis Collins also recounted.
The abuse continued after she left him, she said.
Ashley Brouillette said her marriage to David Brouillette ended after he became physically violent.Mike Householder
David Brouillette doesn’t appear to have a criminal record in Maine, as a check with the Maine Department of Public Safety returned no records for him.
But hundreds of family court records obtained from the Augusta District Court clerk’s office detail years of allegations of physical and verbal abuse raised by his second ex-wife on behalf of herself and his daughters.
The ex-wife — whom the AP is not identifying because she fears retaliation — alleged that he had stalked and harassed her and physically and verbally abused his daughter, according to multiple requests for temporary protection orders. Brouillette tackled his teenage daughter and smashed spaghetti in her hair, and during another outburst, he dragged his daughter around the house as she cried, she said.
“Dave needs counseling or something for his PTSD & depression,” she wrote in an application for a temporary protective order on behalf of his teenage daughter which a judge granted in 2021.
In court filings, David Brouillette said that his second ex-wife had slandered him.
His oldest daughter, Madison Brouillette, said she also witnessed her dad’s volatility.
“I watched my dad struggle a lot with a lot of things,” she told the AP. She said she came home from school once and he told her he had been sitting on a tree stump with a gun to his head.
“If you don’t really, truly take care of yourself, there’s no way you can protect other people. And with my dad, he never wanted to get help,” she said.
An immediate relative of David Brouillette who spoke on the condition that their name not be used said he was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder as a child — a diagnosis that Ashley Brouillette confirmed. The immediate relative described him as “extremely mentally ill” and said he attempted suicide twice at age 12 and was hospitalized multiple times.
The relative said they’ve been estranged for years, after they broke off contact because they feared he would harm them. He did not respond to their outreach this week, the relative added.
A military deployment and law enforcement aspirations
Growing up in Gardiner, a city of about 6,000 people roughly 60 miles northeast of Biddeford, where Monday’s shooting occurred, David Brouillette was enchanted by law enforcement and the military, his relatives said.
High school yearbook photos show he was a member of the school’s Naval Junior ROTC, and he wrote that he planned to go to college and become a police officer.
Brouillette was initially rejected by military recruiters because of his mental health diagnoses, but recruiters encouraged him to go off his medications for a year and reapply, which he did, his immediate relative said.
He was eventually able to enlist.
According to U.S. military records, Brouillette enlisted as a chemical equipment repairer in the Maine Army National Guard but then changed jobs to be a medical logistics specialist. He was in the Guard from November 2007 until January 2010, according to records provided by the Pentagon.
A 2009 article in the Kennebec Journal listed Brouillette as a private in the Maine Army National Guard’s 152nd Maintenance Company in Augusta.
In January 2010 he joined the regular Army as a human intelligence collector. Brouillette deployed to Afghanistan from May 2012 to February 2013 and eventually left the Army as a sergeant in December 2015.
His immediate relative believes Brouillette’s time abroad worsened his emotional struggles: “Afghanistan destroyed him — trained him to be a killing monster, a machine. They took someone who was extremely mentally ill and turned him into a killing machine.”
Life after the Army
After his discharge, Brouillette held a hodgepodge of jobs — some in or adjacent to law enforcement — and was injured in an accident while training to become a firefighter, public records and court documents show.
Brouillette worked for the Maine Correctional Center — a medium-security prison — and for the state’s Health and Human Services Department, spending less than a year at each.
In 2019, court documents show, he was a police officer at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center near the state capital, Augusta. A Veterans Affairs Department spokesperson on Thursday referred questions about Brouillette’s employment to DHS.
But by the end of 2021, he wrote in a text message included in court filings, he was broke, going to school full-time, and making money delivering food for DoorDash.
Brouillette was enrolled in a firefighting program at Southern Maine Community College and was struck in the head by a steel beam while unloading a trailer at a training facility, according to a lawsuit he filed over his injury.
He sustained a concussion and post-concussive syndrome, with symptoms including impaired memory, cognitive deficits, headaches, vertigo, and light sensitivity, and was unable to complete the program, according to the lawsuit, which was settled out of court.
In recent years, court filings show, he was collecting disability pay through the VA. He also drove a truck, but quit in January 2025, citing health issues.
In March 2025, Brouillette passed an exam to become a real estate sales agent. His license was active until December. In a Facebook post, Realty of Maine announced Brouillette would be working in the firm’s Bangor office.
“David lives in Maine after retiring from the United States Army,” said the post, which has since been deleted. Brouillette is no longer listed as an agent on the firm’s website. Messages seeking comment were left for Realty of Maine.
In March, the Maine agency that handles child support matters filed a lien against him, public records show. The filing suggests that Brouillette may have been in line for a permanent impairment or disability settlement.
‘I don’t think he sees himself as a killer’
In late 2025, around the time he joined ICE, his ex-wife Ashley said he left a three-minute voicemail mocking her for taking out a restraining order against him. According to the message she shared with AP, he repeatedly called her “disgusting” and suggested that she and the other women and girls in her “bloodline” should die.
“And all of you should have your f — throats cut,” the voicemail said. “Yeah, you should. Am I threatening that I’m gonna do that? Nope. Nope. But do I think that you should have your f — throats cuts? Or should have had them cut? Yep.”
She said she cut off contact with him until Wednesday, when his picture began circulating online.
Ashley Brouillette reached out to his current wife on Facebook and they spoke on the phone for several minutes. Her ex-husband spoke with her, according to cell phone screenshots of the phone exchange she shared with the AP. He acknowledged he had fatally shot Durán Guerrero.
“He was asking if I could tell them that he was a good person and not to talk about the abuse and stuff that I had endured while with him and he said that the most important thing is his character right now,” she said.
She said he told her he is now hiding in protective custody.
“I asked him why he did it,” she said. “He said it was a justified shooting. The guy was trying to run him over with a car.”
His daughter also said he told her it was justified.
“I don’t think he sees himself as a killer,” Madison Brouillette said.
“I think he thinks that he genuinely did the right thing,” she added. “All he said was that he did what he had to do. He said that he had to protect himself.”
UVALDE, Texas — Catastrophic flash floods in Texas have killed two people and forced hundreds of rescues in areas still reeling from devastating floods a year ago, Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday.
Rescuers aboard boats and helicopters have saved more than 200 people, including stranded drivers and people trapped in homes, Abbott said.
The governor said the hardest-hit areas are expecting more rain into Friday and are not out of danger yet, with some rivers expected to reach historic levels.
After days of pounding rain, the National Weather Service said a “large and deadly flood wave” barreled down the same river wrecked by flash floods last summer when two dozen children and counselors were killed at Camp Mystic.
Much like last year, the floods came in the middle of the night. But this time some residents in the Texas Hill Country said they received more warnings.
Forecasters urgently warned, “Move to higher ground now!” as rivers rose hour by hour, turning them into fast-moving seas of white water. Some spots of the Guadalupe River rose by more than 30 feet.
The governor said more than 1,300 first responders were deployed.
As much as 28 inches of rain fell over the past three days in Uvalde County, which was spared from the worst flooding a year ago, the weather service said Thursday. Other areas saw roughly a foot of rain with more expected going into Friday.
“This is hopefully the last real batch of rain,” said Jason Runyen, a meteorologist with the weather service.
Victim in Texas floods was swept away
While authorities have not released the name of the person who died, Jennie Steward said the body of her husband, 65-year-old John Mark Steward, of Kerrville, was found Thursday.
She was visiting her parents when a neighbor called overnight, saying her husband was missing after water had risen to the door of their mobile home, which stood about 8 feet off the ground.
The entire home was swept off the platform and floated down Goat Creek on the Guadalupe River, she said.
“It’s really hard that I wasn’t there with him,” she said. The two were married three years ago and last spoke by phone Wednesday to celebrate their anniversary.
Hill Country residents say they were better prepared for floods
The unfolding crisis brought back haunting memories of last summer’s unimaginable Hill Country floods that killed more than 100 people over the July Fourth holiday.
“It’s crazy happening two times in one year,” said Josiah Rodriguez, who awoke to the sound of heavy rain around 2 a.m. Thursday in Kerrville. He navigated flooded roads to help evacuate relatives.
“Last year there was no warning of it,” he said. “It just kind of happened overnight and it took everyone by surprise. This year, a lot more alerts have gone into place, a lot more safety measures.”
The storms and flooding this time threatened multiple counties close to the Mexico border and in the Hill Country near San Antonio. Roughly 6 million residents across Texas were under a flood watch this week, and some were expected to remain in effect through Friday evening.
Several agencies sent rescue helicopters to the flood zone, including Travis County in the state capital of Austin.
“My understanding is people were mostly trapped in trees and on rooftops,” said Travis County Judge Andy Brown, who said one caller warned 10 people were trapped on a barn roof.
Residents rush animals and campers to higher ground
At a wild animal rescue, Katie Buck evacuated several dozen animals to higher ground in the dark Thursday as the normally dry Lazy Creek overflowed. She had to quickly grab a porcupine despite having no gloves.
She got all of the animals to safety, but flooding destroyed several enclosures at the Buck Wild Animal Rescue and Wildlife Rehab near Ingram in Kerr County.
“We were just starting to get back on our feet again,” Buck said. “To have to go through this again is just devastating.”
Residents at an RV park in Comfort moved their trailers as sirens sounded, said manager Duke Earwood.
Water rose over the hoods of vehicles parked near the river at the Comfort RV Resort. Markers showed the flooding already matched last July’s big flood.
“Too familiar for sure, and too soon,” Earwood said.
Uvalde residents isolated by floodwaters
Floodwaters also overran the city of Uvalde overnight, cutting off most outside routes. The Leona River, normally dry most of the year, filled streets with water.
“People really can’t get anywhere,” said Carmen Rodriguez, who nervously watched water engulf her neighborhood as a helicopter roared overhead. “We have a place to go, but all the streets are closed.”
Rodriguez said authorities seemed to be well prepared, ordering mandatory evacuations and notifying people directly.
Texas Game Wardens rescued close to 150 people by the afternoon, according to a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesperson. Video released by the agency showed crews hoisting children from a house surrounded with water into a helicopter.
Flooding hasn’t reached last year’s deadly high
So far, the heavily swollen Guadalupe has remained below the record levels reached in 2025. Gauges showed it rose by more than 30 feet in some spots over just a few hours.
Close to Camp Mystic, which hasn’t reopened since last year’s tragedy, the Guadalupe near Hunt reached about 20.5 feet, which is enough to cause flooding, according to U.S. Geological Survey and National Water Prediction Service data.
In Kerr County, where summer camps dot the river’s shores, the sheriff’s office said all campers were safe. Several camps said the children were staying inside, with one camp reporting normal flooding.
Towns still rebuilding are hit by new floods
While the water didn’t rise as high as a year ago in Ingram, Mayor Claud Jordan believes this round of flooding was more widespread in his city. “The rural part of Ingram, all the roads are just trashed,” he said.
“There are a bunch of businesses that haven’t reopened from last year,” Jordan said. “This doesn’t help.”
The Hill Country is especially prone to flash floods because the area’s signature limestone is covered by just a thin layer of soil. During heavy rains, water can quickly shoot downhill before filling the narrow river basins.
The remains of several geese were found on a New York City sightseeing helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River last year and killed 6 people, investigators said Thursday, strong suggestions that multiple bird strikes contributed to the tragedy.
Reports from the National Transportation Safety Board were not final and do not identify a definitive cause of the crash. But they describe evidence that supports bird strikes before the helicopter plummeted into the river on April 10, 2025.
The Federal Aviation Administration has said that helicopters are especially vulnerable to bird strikes because they fly at low altitudes. Strikes can be devastating.
“It seems pretty clear to me that the breakup of that helicopter was precipitated by several bird strikes,” said aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, who read the key findings. “Not just one but several — and birds of a different feather.”
He noted damage to the aircraft’s horizontal stabilizer, a key part of the helicopter.
“Without it, the helicopter could become very unstable and difficult to fly,” Guzzetti said.
The victims of last year’s accident included a Siemens business executive from Spain, his family and the pilot, Seankese Johnson, 36, a U.S. Navy veteran who received his commercial license in 2023.
Passengers Agustin Escobar, 49; his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, 39; and their three children, Victor, 4; Mercedes, 8; and Agustin, 10, all died.
The crash renewed safety concerns about the popular sightseeing flights and prompted New Jersey’s governor to ask for additional restrictions on nonessential helicopter flights.
Remains of several geese were found on the helicopter’s rotors and left horizontal stabilizer. One witness told the NTSB that just minutes before the crash a large flock of geese took flight in the area.
“The geese were big and there were many of them. When the helicopter went bang, I immediately thought it was a bird strike,” the witness told NTSB investigators.
The Smithsonian Institution’s Feather Identification Lab identified remains from different breeds of geese on the wreckage, including a female Canada goose, which can average nearly 8 pounds.
Guzzetti said it’s reasonable to conclude “the pilot is not culpable here.”
“Birds are everywhere, and pilots have limitations with their eyesight,” he said.
The report, however, noted that a control panel switch to turn on pulsing lights to help deter birds was missing. The tour company’s former chief pilot said the light system was not mandatory during daylight rides, according to investigators.
The NTSB has investigated 24 helicopter bird-strike crashes in the past 25 years, including three fatal ones. Helicopter pilots are encouraged to try to avoid areas where birds are known to be present and fly slower to minimize the potential damage from an impact.
The “Miracle on the Hudson” highlighted the danger of bird strikes when a US Airways jet hit a flock of birds and lost power in both engines shortly after takeoff in 2009. Pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was hailed as a hero after he landed the powerless plane in the Hudson River and all 155 people on board were rescued.
In last year’s crash, the helicopter took off from a downtown heliport that afternoon and flew north along the Manhattan skyline before heading south toward the Statue of Liberty. Less than 18 minutes into the flight, parts of the aircraft were seen tumbling into the water.
Rescue boats circled the submerged aircraft within minutes of impact and recovered the bodies from the water. Later recovery crews hoisted the mangled Bell 206L-4 helicopter out of the river for investigators to examine.
New York Helicopter Tours shut down after the crash, and the FAA issued an emergency order to ground all the company’s flights after learning it had fired its operations director minutes after he had agreed to suspend flights during the investigation.
The FAA said at the time that it suspected the firing was retaliation for a safety decision.
ATLANTA — President Donald Trump’s teleprompter operator is on unpaid leave after reports that he used his inside knowledge to make bets about the president’s speeches on the online prediction market Kalshi, the White House said Thursday.
The firm’s enforcement chief said Kalshi contacted federal regulators about bets allegedly made about what the president would say in public addresses.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president is aware of the situation, which she described as “unfortunate” and “a disgrace.”
“The White House has extremely strict ethical guidelines with respect to issues like this,” Leavitt told reporters, saying the aide is on unpaid leave.
ABC News reported Thursday that Gabriel Perez, who has been operating Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, used his inside knowledge to win more than $100,000 betting on what the president would say in big speeches, including the State of the Union address earlier this year.
Robert Denault, Kalshi’s lawyer and head of enforcement, said on X that the “Kalshi surveillance team promptly flagged, investigated and referred these trades” to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission that has regulatory authority over such matters.
His statement did not name Perez.
“We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided all evidence that we collected, as we do with any referral,” Denault added.
ABC based its report on multiple sources who have knowledge of the matter but spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the details.
The ABC report described suspicious activity on Kalshi’s “Mentions” market, in which users can place bets on what phrases and specific words might be used in public speeches. Kalshi recently began requiring users to disclose their place of employment, and the platform’s policy prohibits betting based on information that users gain because of their job.
On Thursday, his media company announced it would charge for special high-speed access to Truth Social posts, including possibly his own affecting national security and financial markets.
In his most recent financial disclosures, Trump reported making $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses in 2025, raking in profits while his investors suffered losses in marketplaces that Trump has sought to shield from tighter federal regulation.
Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling new crypto products, including “governance tokens,” according to the required annual disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics. It also showed another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face. Both the tokens and the coins have plunged in value since the sales.
The president has also profited from merchandising deals and high-dollar political and official events at his properties, significantly increasing his net worth since returning to power.
Trump’s aides have stood by his personal and family business practices.
“The president is abiding by all conflict-of-interest laws that are applicable to the president,” Leavitt said earlier this year. It’s “absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.”
WASHINGTON — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was expected to meet Thursday with accusers of Jeffrey Epstein after a key Republican senator said it was necessary to earn his support for Blanche’s nomination to lead the Justice Department.
Sen. Thom Tillis had indicated during Blanche’s confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he was leaning toward backing Blanche, who has been leading the department in an acting capacity since April. But after an Epstein accuser testified a day later, Tillis said he expects a meeting to occur before he’s “willing to vote out of this committee.”
Shortly after Tillis’ remarks, Blanche — who had been meeting with senators on Capitol Hill — told reporters he had tried to meet the Epstein accusers in a Senate office building but “it didn’t work out” and they were working to coordinate schedules. The Justice Department said later that the meeting was rescheduled for Thursday afternoon, adding: “He looks forward to their discussion.”
“The Department of Justice will always meet with victims or their representatives, and if those victims or their representatives have evidence that anybody committed a crime — whether it has to do with Jeffrey Epstein or anybody else — we will of course move forward and investigate and prosecute,” Blanche told reporters.
Epstein’s case and the Justice Department’s handling of millions of files related to his sex trafficking investigation have been a persistent political headache for the Trump administration.
After missteps by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi that enraged Trump’s base, Blanche as deputy attorney general oversaw a massive review and release of millions of files related to the investigation into the disgraced financier with connections to wealthy and powerful people.
Without Tillis’ support, Blanche’s nomination won’t make it through the Senate Judiciary Committee, which questioned Blanche for hours on Wednesday about the Epstein files as well as the creation of a fund to compensate Trump’s allies, a tax immunity deal for the president and a slew of other issues.
Another Republican on the committee who says he has not made up his mind whether to support Blanche — Sen. John Cornyn — conveyed concerns that the Trump administration has yet to commit in writing that the fund is dead and could therefore conceivably be resurrected.
One Epstein accuser, Dani Bensky, told lawmakers earlier Thursday that women harmed by Epstein repeatedly asked to meet with Blanche “through multiple channels and he never responded.”
“We deserve to be heard directly, not dismissed and ignored,” Bensky said.
Blanche has pushed back on suggestions that the Justice Department has been dismissive of the late financier’s accusers, saying Wednesday that officials have spoken with more than 30 representatives of the women over the course of its sweeping review of the files.
Blanche has also defended the department’s staggered release of the Epstein files, a process beset by problems, including redaction errors that left exposed nude photos showing the faces of potential victims.
Blanche said during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he takes responsibility for mistakes that were made, but noted that department lawyers were given a “herculean task” to quickly review millions of files for release. Blanche said department lawyers took pains to protect the women involved, and quickly fixed any errors that were found.
“I am sorry that in about 1% of the documents mistakes were made,” Blanche said Wednesday. “But what I will say on top of that is we put tons of resources to rectifying those mistakes immediately, including pulling down documents within minutes of being informed that there were mistakes.”
The political firestorm over the Epstein files dogged the Trump administration for much of last year, with lawmakers eventually passing a measure that compelled the release of a massive trove of documents in the government’s possession related to its investigation.
The Justice Department began releasing the documents in late December, which included photos, call logs, grand jury testimony, and interview transcripts. The release did little to tamp down skepticism from conspiracy theorists and online sleuths, who have long pushed allegations of a government cover-up, without evidence.
