Year: 2017

Mario Tama/Getty Images(SAN JUAN, P.R.) -- Three weeks after Hurricane Maria made landfall, only 16 percent of Puerto Rico's residents have electricity, the Department of Defense said Wednesday. But the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority said the number is more like 10 percent after an outage at one nuclear plant. Power continues to be a top priority for Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), […]

Becky Schmidt(KATY, Texas) -- Becky Schmidt and Michelle Donahue did not know each other in August as Hurricane Harvey, the most powerful storm to hit Texas in over a decade, dumped rain and wind on their hometown of Katy, Texas.Now the two, both mothers, speak multiple times a day as they work together to make sure children affected by Harvey have a chance to celebrate Halloween this year. Schmidt, 35, […]

JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images(SANTA ROSA, Calif.) -- Massive wildfires sweeping through California have killed at least 21 people and damaged thousands of homes, businesses and other buildings, authorities said. Firefighters were still battling 22 wildfires in multiple California counties Wednesday morning. Intensified by strong winds, the flames have charred about 170,000 acres of land, damaged or destroyed at least 3,500 structures and forced nearly 20,000 residents to evacuate, according to the […]

Dana Romanoff/Getty Images(BOULDER, Colo.) -- Federal investigators conducting covert surveillance and other secret operations successfully breached security at two secure U.S. government facilities in Maryland and Colorado, according to a new government report. One of the facilities contained a nuclear research reactor.“Our covert vulnerability testing identified security vulnerabilities,” warns a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which sent undercover agents to two campuses of the National Institute of Standards […]

Tom Pennington/Getty Images(IRVING, Texas) -- The Boy Scouts of America will now allow girls to join the ranks of its Cub Scouts program, as well as create a Scouting program for older girls, the organization announced on Wednesday.Cub Scout "dens," as they are referred to, will be single-gender, allowing the organization "to maintain the integrity of the single-gender model while also meeting the needs of today’s families," the Boy Scouts […]

ABC News(BATON ROUGE, La.) --New documents reveal details about the night of alleged hazing at Louisiana State University's Phi Delta Theta fraternity -- including members allegedly yelling at pledges and forcing them to drink alcohol -- that authorities say led to the death of a freshman. Arrest warrants have been issued for 10 people in connection with last month's death of 18-year-old pledge Maxwell Gruver, LSU said today. Ten people […]

iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Wednesday is National Coming Out Day, dedicated to raising awareness of civil rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said National Coming Out Day is meant to help create an environment where living openly and honestly is possible.“Coming out is one of the most courageous acts any LGBTQ person makes, and on this National Coming Out Day, that […]

iStock/Thinkstock(SANTA ROSA, Calif.) -- Charlie Yates awoke to the smell of smoke around midnight on Monday -- just two weeks after moving cross-country from Virginia to call California home again.Hours later, the 26-year-old had packed everything he could into a truck and was fleeing for his life, surrounded by walls of fire on both sides of the road.Yates and his girlfriend, Taylor Walden, were living in Virginia when they realized […]

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(SALT LAKE CITY) -- The Salt Lake City police officer featured in a widely viewed video aggressively handcuffing a hospital nurse who refused his request to draw blood from an unconscious patient without a warrant was fired on Tuesday.The Salt Lake City Police Department said it fired Det. Jeff Payne after an internal investigation found he violated department policy when he arrested University of Utah Hospital nurse Alex Wubbels on […]