National

LordRunar/iStockBy IVAN PEREIRA, ABC News(LOS ANGELES) -- Thousands of California firefighters Tuesday continued to brave harsh weather conditions in their attempt to fight over two dozen wildfires across the state.The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, aka Cal Fire, said that 650 wildfires have now burned over 1.25 million acres in the state since Aug. 15."The significant acreage burned makes the fires collectively larger than the state of Delaware," […]

ABC NewsBy KARMA ALLEN and MAX GOLEMBO, ABC News(NEW YORK) -- Residents in Galveston and Port Arthur, Texas, were ordered to evacuate as Hurricane Laura strengthens in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm is forecast to make landfall Wednesday night as a major Category 3 hurricane with winds of up to 115 mph in eastern Texas.The mandatory evacuation order was signed at 6 a.m. as the storm headed toward Houston. […]

Ovidiu Dugulan/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ABC News(NEW YORK) -- A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 813,000 people worldwide.Over 23.6 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, […]

kali9/iStockBy BILL HUTCHISON, ABC News(DETROIT) -- A 20-year-old Michigan woman who was declared dead by paramedics and placed in a body bag for nearly three hours was discovered alive when a funeral home employee unzipped the bag and found her staring up at him, a lawyer for the woman's family said.Timesha Beaucamp, who's suffered from cerebral palsy since birth, was in critical condition and on a respirator Tuesday afternoon at […]

wellesenterprises/iStockBy KYRA PHILLIPS, IVAN PEREIRA and JON HAWORTH, ABC News(LYNCHBURG, Va.) -- After a daylong back and forth, Jerry Falwell Jr. officially resigned from Liberty University Monday night, he told ABC News.The embattled religious leader told ABC News he submitted his resignation letter to the school late Monday night.The move came hours after the school said that he agreed to resign as its president, after which Falwell reversed his decision […]

AntonioGuillem/iStockBy TERI WHITCRAFT, MATT GUTMAN and ALYSSA PONE, ABC News(TUCSON, Ariz) -- When the University of Arizona opened its doors Monday, more than 8,300 students, faculty and staff had been tested for COVID-19 and everyone on campus was wearing a mask. The school had even begun sampling its wastewater to quickly detect a potential hot spot.But the centerpiece in the school's preemptive battle against COVID-19 was the "Covid Watch" smartphone […]

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesBy BILL HUTCHINSON and SABINA GHEBREMEDHIN, ABC News(KENOSHA, Wis.) -- Defying the governor's curfew order, hundreds of protesters outraged over police shooting a Black man in the back in front of his children took to the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, again on Monday and into Tuesday, breaking patrol car windows, setting fires to buildings and converging at police headquarters, where officers in riot gear fired […]

ABC NewsBY: MIKE GUDGELL, JIM VOJTECK and MEREDITH DELISO, ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- The California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty sentence for Scott Peterson, who was found guilty of murdering his pregnant wife in a highly publicized case, based on judicial error.Scott Peterson, 42, was convicted in 2004 of one count of first-degree murder for killing his wife, Laci Peterson, who was nearly 8 months pregnant at the time, and […]

iStock/josemoraesBY: BILL HUTCHINSON, ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Firefighters battling a barrage of ferocious wildfires across California say they got a break from the weather when a forecasted dry lightning storm in the northern part of the state failed to materialize overnight. That gave them a chance to make progress in containing the three biggest conflagrations.“Mother Nature’s helped us quite a bit,” said Billy See, an incident commander for the California Department […]