Hawaii’s Tamayo Perry surfs while practicing for Da Hui Backdoor shootout at the Pipeline Masters on Oahu’s North Shore, Hawaii on January 2, 2019. (Brian Bielmann/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The widow and close friend of Tamayo Perry, a renowned surfer, actor, and lifeguard, shared their heartfelt memories and reflections following his tragic death in a shark attack off the coast of Hawaii.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News on Good Morning America on Wednesday, Emilia Perry spoke with sorrow about the life and legacy of Tamayo Perry, a man celebrated for his deep faith and exceptional surfing talent.
“The world knew Tamayo as a surfer and an actor, but to those who knew him best, he was a man of deep faith … now taken too soon,” said Perry. “I feel so upset and devastated. But I also have a weird calmness in my heart knowing that he’s in a better place.”
Perry was known for his roles in Pirates of the Caribbean as well as Blue Crush and was a beloved figure in the community.
“It was like I went on the best 25-year vacation of my life with him. And now it’s over. Now I got to come back to reality,” Emilia told ABC News’ Matt Rivers in an interview.
Jesse King, a close friend and coworker, recounted Perry’s familiarity with the waters where he met his untimely end, saying that he knew the area where he died like the back of his hand, paddling out on Sunday in the waters off Goat Island like he always did.
“There was nothing out of the ordinary that would indicate that something bad would happen to him versus anybody else. A regular day,” King recalled.
Perry’s death marks only the ninth fatal shark attack in Hawaii in the past 30 years but despite the tragedy, his friends believe Perry would have encouraged others to continue enjoying the ocean.
“For people that are surfers and avid ocean users, we do it because we love it,” King said.
Emilia, who shared over two decades of her life with Perry, added that he always had profound impact on those around him.
King said he showed people “how to be a better human, to love everybody when you have them, because you never know when they’re going to be taken away.”
Perry’s devout Christian faith remained a source of strength and comfort in his final days, even texting his family, “I can’t wait to meet the King. I’m excited. Not scared. We got to pray and forgive and love.”
Perry, 49, had been a lifeguard with Honolulu Ocean Safety since 2016. He was a local surf coach and competed for years in the Pipeline Master Trials, according to his official bio on his coaching site.
High water levels at the Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River in Mankato, Minn., June 24, 2024. (Ben Brewer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — As southern Minnesota battles an onslaught of rain and severe flooding, the fate of the Rapidan Dam hangs in the balance, with officials saying the dam is in “imminent failure condition.”
The Rapidan Dam, built in 1910, is located on the Blue Earth River, which begins in Iowa and runs outside Mankato, Minnesota, about 85 miles southwest of Minneapolis.
The Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office reported the dam was in precarious standing amid the overflow of the river, which has caused “erosion and slope-cutting” to the dam as well as a buildup of debris in the area.
The sheriff’s office reported a “partial failure” of the dam on the west abutment on Monday.
“We do not know if it will totally fail or if it will remain in place, however, we determined it was necessary to issue this notification to advise downstream residents and the correct regulatory agencies and other local agencies,” the office wrote in an alert on Facebook Monday.
“Public Works, Emergency Management and Sheriffs Offices are implementing steps outlined in the Rapidan Dam Emergency Action Plan for Imminent Failure of the Dam including notification of potentially affected residents, impacted regulatory agencies and other local agencies,” the office said.
On Monday, river levels peaked at 34,800 cubic feet per second and have lowered to 33,000 cubic feet per second as of Tuesday while officials continue assessment and evaluation of the dam.
An Xcel Energy substation, which supplies power to 600 customers, was swept downriver during the overflow Monday, according to the company.
“Our teams have been working diligently since floodwaters knocked out the Rapidan substation this morning to bring power back to homes and businesses in the area — more than 170 Xcel Energy employees arrived at the scene to assist,” Ryan Long, president of Xcel Energy–Minnesota, said in a press release Monday.
“We know people depend on electricity, especially during warm days and severe weather,” Long said, adding, “We urge residents to stay safe as our crews work by avoiding any damaged electrical equipment and following all flooding precautions.”
In April 2023, the National Inventory of Dams gave Rapidan Dam a “poor condition” rating with the hazard potential classification as “significant.”
Minnesota has faced over 18 inches of rain over the last few weeks, affecting 40 counties, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said during a press conference Monday, warning forecasts for more rain could lead to further damage.
“We’re making sure, first and foremost, people are safe, protecting property and protecting public infrastructure,” Walz said.
Walz signaled he would request a presidential disaster declaration if the damage in the state reached the federal threshold.
Blue Earth County Road 9 bridge that crosses the river remains closed to traffic for public safety, according to the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office update on Tuesday.
At this time, the department has not issued any mass evacuation plans.
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft launches from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on June 5, 2024. (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)
(NEW YORK) — Two NASA astronauts have no set date to return to Earth and are stuck waiting aboard the International Space Station (ISS) due to several mechanical issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
Starliner launched on June 5 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, with flight commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and flight pilot Sunita “Suni” Williams onboard, arriving at the ISS one day later.
The mission is part of the larger Commercial Crew Program at NASA, which was testing if Boeing’s spacecrafts could be certified to perform routine missions to and from the ISS.
The pair were originally scheduled to return on June 14 but have since had their return delayed multiple times, and currently do not have a planned date to return to Earth.
“We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. “We are letting the data drive our decision making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking.”
Boeing and NASA have said the crew is currently not in danger because they are aboard the ISS with plenty of supplies in orbit, and the station’s schedule is relatively open through mid-August.
NASA and Boeing say Wilmore and Williams are “integrated” with the Expedition 71 crew aboard the ISS and are helping the crew with station operations as needed as well as completing “objectives” needed for NASA’s possible certification of Starliner.
“The crew’s feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and they know that every bit of learning we do on the Crew Flight Test will improve and sharpen our experience for future crews,” Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Starliner program, said in a statement.
Starliner has been plagued by issues even before launch. The flight test was originally tentatively scheduled for May 6, but was scrubbed after a problem with an oxygen valve on a rocket from United Launch Alliance (ULA), which manufactures and operates the rockets that launch spacecraft into orbit.
A new launch date had been set for May 25, but a small helium leak was discovered in the service module, which contains support systems and instruments for operating a spacecraft.
Helium leaks and a thruster issue then threatened to delay Starliner’s docking. Five days after docking at the ISS, NASA and Boeing said the spacecraft was experiencing five “small” helium leaks and, at the time, said enough helium was available for the return mission.
(NEW YORK) — Nearly 10 years ago, Lorina Bourne and Jason Troy say their children were taken from them when a flawed investigation by child protective services led Texas state officials to wrongfully accuse them of abusing their youngest son.
Now, they are seeking justice. Bourne and Troy have filed a federal lawsuit against several members of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), and Ascension Health, the private health care system that operates Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas. The latter is the children’s hospital where, according to the suit, Bourne and Troy’s youngest son, Jason Jonathan Troy, was improperly assessed in 2015 to have suffered from shaken baby syndrome at five months old.
According to the suit, which was filed in April in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas Austin Division, and records obtained by ABC News, at about four months after his birth, Jason presented with an enlarging head circumference and vomiting. He subsequently had brain imaging done and was investigated for shaken baby syndrome. The fluid in his brain required surgery to drain.
Two-and-a-half years later, the family’s attorney hired a doctor to review Jason’s medical records. That doctor concluded that “Jason did have a chronic fluid collection in between his brain and inner skull. The fluid accumulates due to a medical condition of infancy called benign external hydrocephalus. In this condition there is a backup of fluid circulating around the brain’s surface.”
The cause of benign external hydrocephalus is unknown but research states it may be due to a problem with the cells that function to reabsorb cerebrospinal fluid, causing it to build up around the brain. The suit also states that Jason’s birth records show that he was “born with a collection of blood between his scalp and skull” that “was due to birth-related trauma.”
Bourne told ABC News that the hospital where Jason was born, Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin, didn’t inform her that Jason had “suffered a birth injury,” and that she and Troy didn’t learn of it until an attorney reviewed Jason’s birth records. While the lawsuit does not allege medical malpractice, it does state that had Dell Children’s Medical Center reviewed Jason’s birth records, the review would have contradicted the shaken baby syndrome conclusion. Bourne told ABC that if she had known about the birth injury, she feels she would have been able to better advocate against the child abuse allegations early on.
Following Jason’s surgery, officials at Dell Children’s Medical Center reported their suspicions of shaken baby syndrome to the DFPS, which immediately investigated Bourne and Troy for child abuse, according to the lawsuit. Troy, who lives in Hutto, Texas, just north of Austin, was charged in 2015 by the Travis County District Attorney’s office with two felony counts of injury to a child. Troy turned himself in to authorities and was booked and released on his own recognizance while his attorney worked to get the charges dismissed, which they ultimately were in 2018, according to court records reviewed by ABC News.
In the meantime, the DFPS removed then-five-month-old Jason and his older brother, Kainoa, who was 4 years old at the time, from their parents’ custody on July 20, 2015 and placed them into foster care, according to the lawsuit.
“It made me feel horrible. As a parent, you try to do everything you possibly can to take care of your children. And you’re taking them to the doctors to get answers … and they misdiagnosed him.” Bourne told ABC News. “It was just so heartbreaking and shocking and devastating for it to be turned around on me and wrongfully interrogated and investigated, promptly investigated for child abuse.”
According to the lawsuit, Jason and Kainoa were removed “based on false pretense,” and that the defendants who worked for DFPS “knew that [Jason] had not been abused or neglected,” yet still proceeded to remove him and his brother from their parents’ custody and place them in foster care for a total of 150 days, rather than place them with other family members or relatives while the issue was resolved. Bourne says Texas DFPS did not provide an explanation for why the kids were not able to stay with family.
The Texas DFPS declined to comment on the case in response to an ABC News request.
“It was so heartbreaking not having them,” Bourne told ABC News. “I had to go to court several times with our attorneys to fight to get them back. And we were only able to see them twice a week for only two hours in the [child protective services] visitation center. And it was just so heartbreaking because every time that they would have to take them back to foster care, they would cry and ask us why we can’t go home.”
Jason and Kainoa were reunited with their parents on Dec. 21, 2015, just two weeks before Jason’s first birthday. Though they were reunited, it wasn’t until Jan. 26, 2018, some three years later, that the felony child injury charges against Troy were dismissed.
In the process, Bourne and Troy sold their house to pay attorney’s fees, Bourne told ABC News, while Troy also lost his job, though he’s since gotten a new one.
Their story is featured in the 2023 Netflix documentary, Take Care of Maya, which follows a family in Florida fighting a similar battle to regain custody of their daughter after being accused of child abuse by hospital officials. Bourne told ABC she hopes that the lawsuit, like the documentary, will bring attention to the topic of wrongful family separations, and may help other families going through a similar situation feel less alone.
In response to an ABC News request for comment, a spokesperson for Ascension said they had not yet been served with the suit and so could not speak to it specifically.
“At Dell Children’s Medical Center, our highest priority is the safety and health of children in our community,” the Ascension statement to ABC News continued. “As a healthcare provider in Texas, our doctors, nurses and care teams who have reasonable cause to believe that a child has been affected by abuse or neglect by any person must immediately report this to the appropriate authorities as required by law. We have a duty to work with authorities during their investigation as they make their decision on what is in the best interest of the child.”
Bourne, who is Filipino, said she felt that their experience was also different because she’s a person of color.
“I felt like we were targeted. And they wanted to take my children from me at all costs,” Bourne said. “We just hope and pray that changes can be made so that this doesn’t continue to happen to so many families.”
A satellite truck is parked in front of a sign advertising the CNN presidential debate outside of their studios on June 25, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will face off in-person Thursday for the first of two presidential debates this year, offering the two a high-profile opportunity to try to gain an edge in a race characterized by persistently narrow polling margins.
The debate, moderated by CNN, is occurring unusually early in the election cycle and features the atypical combination of a president and a former president both having to defend their White House records. They will also be clashing under unique circumstances — CNN will have the ability to mute candidates’ microphones when they’re not talking, and there will be no studio audience.
Debates in the past have produced signature moments that helped alter the course of the presidential race, while others have failed to make a dent. Biden and Trump both come into the debate with widespread worries over the fitness for office and character, as well as universal name recognition — and thus hardened voter opinions — that leave few opportunities for fluctuations in the White House contest.
Here are five things to watch Thursday:
Do any gaffes or knockout punches break through?
Traditionally, most parts of debates are forgotten by the time voters head to the polls in November. But marquee moments have the potential to break through.
Gaffes — think Rick Perry’s “oops” moment in a 2011 GOP primary debate — or knockout punches — think Ronald Reagan citing his opponent’s “youth and inexperience” in 1984 — have been able to pierce the national consciousness and live on throughout history, even beyond the years in which those elections took place.
Radars for such moments will be particularly high in Thursday’s debate, as worries over the two candidates’ fitness for office are staples in the race.
Biden, the country’s oldest president ever at 81 years old, is the target of ceaseless attacks over his mental acuity from Trump and his allies, who at times disseminate misleadingly edited videos to appear as if he’s lost during public appearances.
Trump, meanwhile, has made a series of flubs on the trail, including confusing or forgetting people’s names, though polls show worries over his mental fitness for office aren’t as widespread over concerns about Biden.
Strategists said a bad gaffe could damage either campaigns’ chances of victory in November, but that a strong performance, especially for Biden, could help mitigate worries over his age.
Biden “can’t stumble around words. He can’t drift off into these incoherent little tangents that he occasionally does because all he has to do is screw up once, and that’s going to be the thing that lives,” said veteran GOP strategist David Kochel. “I just think there’s a huge opportunity for him to put a lot of things to rest. But it’s also a minefield.”
Character or policy?
Both candidates have ping ponged back and forth between hitting each other on character and policy, still searching for the playbook that’ll put their opponent away.
Biden has repeatedly cast Trump as a threat to democracy, citing his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill and his vow to be a “dictator” on his first day in office — a comment Trump’s allies say was made in jest. He also more recently began highlighting Trump’s recent conviction on 34 felony counts in New York.
He’s also sought to knock the former president on abortion, a key animating policy issue for Democrats, COVID-era economic slumps and for helping dash a bipartisan immigration bill in Congress earlier this year.
Trump, meanwhile, has focused on the president’s age and dubbed him the head of the “Biden crime family,” citing both unfounded allegations of corruption and the president’s son’s recent conviction on gun charges.
Trump also has spoken to voter frustrations over inflation and the border.
“If he says the word reproductive rights or abortion less than 100 times over the course of the 90 minutes, he’s probably failing. But I expect he’ll raise that in almost every answer. If they ask him about tax policy, he’s going to talk about abortion,” GOP strategist Alex Conant said of Biden. “I think beyond that, he’s going to want to remind people about Jan. 6.”
“Trump’s obviously gonna try to talk about inflation as much as possible,” he added.
Whichever tact the candidates take — an emphasis on character or policy — could indicate where they think their opponents are most vulnerable.
Offense vs. defense
The unique nature of a president clashing with his predecessor also leaves it unclear who will be able to seize the offensive.
Traditionally during a presidential reelection campaign, debates are characterized by the president defending his record in the White House, while a challenger is on the offensive while also defending a record in the Senate or governor’s mansion — less impactful and relatable to everyday voters.
Now, though, both candidates will have White House records to back up, leaving it unclear whether either will be able to seize the offensive — and if one or the other will end up stuck on their back foot for the 90-minute tete-a-tete.
Already, millions of dollars have been dumped into ads tearing into the candidates’ respective records — but being seen as a superior attacker on stage could pay dividends for either contender.
Early timing
Thursday’s debate is happening atypically early for a general presidential election, the impacts of which are unclear.
On the one hand, strategists speculated, the timing of the debate has a chance to set the tone for the race in voters’ minds before they truly start tuning in.
“I think it makes the debate more important, because it’s it’ll set the tone for the rest of the campaign. For Biden, who is desperate to make this a choice, not a referendum, it frames the race early on in a way that his campaign wants to frame it. And I think Trump is looking for a knockout punch,” Conant said.
However, the debate will be taking place months before Labor Day, the unofficial day highlighted by politicos as the earliest that most voters start paying attention to the race in earnest. And five months is a political lifetime, meaning the debate could be flushed from voters’ minds by ever-changing news cycles.
“It’s hard to see how there is a big shift or a big thing in this race where there’s also a lot of fairway left to play,” Republican pollster Robert Blizzard said.
Who does the novel format help?
The new format for the debate — which both campaigns agreed to — marks a significant departure from past clashes.
Recently dominated by crosstalk and crowd appeals, this Thursday’s event will in theory be tamer. Microphones will be turned off when candidates are not answering questions, and no audience will be present to cheer or jeer.
The conventional wisdom among operatives in both parties is that the new rules favor Biden by robbing Trump of the ability to feed off an audience or devolve the event into inaudible crosstalk.
“[Trump] is the king, undisputed, undefeated king of crosstalk at a debate. Rewrote the rules basically about it. But he also likes to feed off of a crowd. And so, you take away the feeding off the crowd, you don’t know how President Trump’s going to react to not having that instant feedback from a crowd,” said Chip Saltsman, a strategist who worked on former Vice President Mike Pence’s now-suspended presidential campaign.
However, Republicans also said they hope that limiting crosstalk could make Trump appear less like a bully — at least to the audience at home. There’s still nothing to stop the former president from at least talking during Biden’s answers.
President Joe Biden speaks at an event in the East Room at the White House, June 18, 2024, in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he has pardoned U.S. veterans who were convicted by the military under a regulation that allowed people to be kicked out for being gay.
The White House said in a statement announcing the pardons that the decision will impact thousands of veterans, though officials declined to give a specific number.
“Today, I am righting an historic wrong by using my clemency authority to pardon many former service members who were convicted simply for being themselves,” Biden said in the statement, calling it a “full, complete and unconditional pardon.”
“Despite their courage and great sacrifice, thousands of LGBTQI+ service members were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” Biden added. “Some of these patriotic Americans were subject to court-martial, and have carried the burden of this great injustice for decades.”
Biden’s clemency of LGBTQ veterans is a symbolic effort to correct for an era when the military prosecuted people under Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibited gay sex. It was in place from 1951 to 2013.
An estimated 100,000 service members since World War II have been kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation, officials say, including more than 13,000 under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy between 1994 and 2011.
The practical impact of offering clemency to people who were convicted is that it could allow veterans to take advantage of benefits they’ve been denied, such as military pensions, home loans and college tuition benefits.
But veterans will not automatically have their convictions wiped – they have to apply and go through a military approval process.
“Once they apply for that certificate of pardon, they can then use that certificate of pardon to apply to have their discharge characterization changed with the relevant military branch. And that for many of them should unlock, down the road, access to critical benefits,” a senior administration official said on a call with reporters on Tuesday.
Asked if the administration is doing outreach to contact veterans who might’ve been discharged from the military decades ago and are unaware they can have their charges wiped, an official was sparse on details but said the White House and the Department of Veterans Affairs are working on plans.
Wednesday’s announcement comes on the heels of multiple other efforts since Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed to address the injustices endured by LGBTQ service members.
Since 2012, for example, service members who were kicked out have been able to apply to a military board for a chance to have official records upgraded to remove references to sexual orientation and qualify for more benefits.
But only one-in-four eligible veterans has done so, according to the Pentagon.
And in 2023, the Biden administration announced that the military would for the first time begin proactively reviewing discharge records to identify and help those who were kicked out and have not come forward. But that, too, required veterans to apply for their records to be altered.
Veteran advocates have criticized application-based relief as too obstructive, putting the onus on veterans to fix the military’s wrongs and limiting the reach of the policy.
ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and Sarah Herndon contributed to this report.
