Fires and Firefighters

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    Palm Springs Bombing Kills 1 and Damages Fertility Clinic, Officials Say

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    The explosion on Saturday morning, which occurred in or near a vehicle less than a mile from downtown Palm Springs, Calif., was “an intentional act of terrorism,” the F.B.I. said.The mayor of Palm Springs, Calif., said it was unclear how or whether the victim was connected to a blast that damaged a fertility clinic.Kyle Grillot for The New York TimesOne person is dead and at least four are injured in the desert oasis of Palm Springs, Calif., after a bomb exploded on Saturday morning outside a fertility clinic, damaging buildings and leaving windows shattered across several blocks in what authorities called a terrorist attack.“This explosion was significant,” said Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s Los Angeles Field Office. “Make no mistake, this is an intentional act of terrorism.” He added that officials believed the clinic was specifically targeted. Mr. Davis said that the bureau had begun one of the largest bombing investigations ever in Southern California and that it was not yet clear whether the event had been an act of domestic or international terrorism. Authorities have identified a person of interest but did not name the person on Saturday afternoon. They also did not say whether the person who died was connected to the blast. Mr. Davis said that “we are not actively out searching for a suspect.”The explosion was in or near a vehicle parked by the clinic, according to the mayor, Ron deHarte. But many other details were unclear, including the vehicle’s make and model. All that was left of it at the scene was an axle, authorities said. The bombing was an isolated incident and the community was no longer at risk, Andy Mills, the Palm Springs police chief said.Reports of a loud boom and images of broken glass and billowing smoke began to be shared on social media around 11 a.m. local time. The blast area extended for blocks, and some buildings were severely damaged, with shattered windows visible in many restaurants, shops and apartment buildings throughout the city’s downtown.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Before the Fire, L.A. Tried to Restore Second Reservoir in Palisades

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      Water supplies ran dry in the Pacific Palisades fire, in part because a reservoir was shut down for repairs. Records show the city had tried and failed to prepare an alternative reservoir.Seven months before fire swept through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, the city’s water managers were formulating a plan to revive an old reservoir to temporarily boost the area’s limited water capacity.The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was exploring the option because the neighborhood’s main reservoir — the Santa Ynez Reservoir — had been taken offline as a result of a torn cover, which officials had begun preparations to repair early in 2024. The repair project was still months away from completion this January when the fire broke out, and with the reservoir empty, firefighters ran short of water in fighting the blaze.Emails released to The New York Times under public records law show that the city had searched for solutions to rectify the monthslong supply shortage but, despite lengthy discussions and preliminary preparations, failed to correct the problem in time.In early June 2024, crews spent several days cleaning the Pacific Palisades Reservoir, a facility that was about three miles away from the larger Santa Ynez site, and that was retired in 2013. The work, officials wrote, was “in preparation for temporarily placing the Pacific Palisades Reservoir back into service while the Santa Ynez Reservoir is out of service.”After the cleaning was completed, the crews planned more work, including disinfection of the area and installation of new pipes.But the plan to bring the old reservoir back online was never completed. Ellen Cheng, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said in an email on Friday that the city ultimately determined that bringing the reservoir back online could have posed a risk to workers and residents of nearby homes because of structural and other safety issues.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      White Supremacist Is Charged in 2019 Arson at Tennessee Civil Rights Landmark

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      Regan Prater set fire to the main offices of the Highlander Research and Education Center and took credit for it in encrypted messages, prosecutors said.A Tennessee man with ties to several white supremacist groups has been charged with setting a fire in 2019 that destroyed the offices of a social justice center connected with Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., according to court records.In a federal criminal complaint that was unsealed on April 24, the F.B.I. said that the man, Regan Prater, 27, set fire to the main offices of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tenn., near Knoxville, and spray-painted an Iron Guard cross on the pavement outside.The symbol originated with fascists in Romania in the 1920s and 1930s, according to the Anti-Defamation League. It has more recently been used by white supremacists, including one who murdered 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019.Investigators in Tennessee said that Mr. Prater, of Tullahoma, took credit for the arson while chatting with an informant on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app that he used to communicate with other white supremacists.“I didn’t admit that, but dots can be connected,” Mr. Prater wrote to the informant when asked if he had set the fire, according to the complaint.He then gave details about how he had started the blaze, telling the informant, “It was a sparkler bomb and some Napalm.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Patient Aboard an Ambulance Fatally Stabs a Firefighter Paramedic

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      The emergency worker in Kansas City, Mo., was stabbed in his chest while transporting a patient in what started as a routine call on Sunday, officials said.A member of the emergency medical services in Kansas City, Mo., died on Sunday after being stabbed by a patient who was being transported to a hospital in what officials said started out as a “routine medical call.”The patient stabbed the emergency worker, Graham Hoffman, a 29-year-old firefighter paramedic, in the chest, piercing his heart, city officials said in a news release.A suspect was in custody but had not been publicly identified. A motive for the attack was not immediately known.The episode began after Kansas City police officers were dispatched to a “routine medical call” early on Sunday to check on a woman who was reported to be walking along a section of highway near North Oak Trafficway, the police said.Officers found the woman and requested help from the emergency medical services for further unspecified treatment. While en route to the hospital, the patient “produced an edged weapon” and stabbed Firefighter Hoffman, the police said.Graham Hoffman, a firefighter paramedic, was fatally stabbed during a call in Kansas City, Mo., on Sunday.Kansas City Fire DepartmentFirefighter Hoffman’s partner called a crew emergency, and additional Fire Department and Police Department personnel responded. Firefighter Hoffman was taken to North Kansas City Hospital.“Despite the heroic efforts of KCFD paramedics, the hospital medical team, Firefighter Hoffman succumbed to his injuries in the intensive care unit,” the city said.Firefighter Hoffman had been a member of the Kansas City Fire Department since 2022, according to the news release.The police are working with the Clay County prosecutor on criminal charges, the city said.“We will demand accountability be applied not just to the suspect, but also for any steps in the system that fell short,” said Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City. More

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      Massive Iran Port Explosion Kills 4 and Injures Hundreds

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      There was no immediate indication that the blast was caused by sabotage or a deliberate attack. State media said it was likely caused by containers of chemicals catching fire.A massive explosion on Saturday at the Iranian port of Shahid Rajaee in Bandar Abbas killed several people and injured hundreds, according to state media. The exact cause of the blast was not immediately clear, although there was no suggestion of an attack or sabotage.Mohammad Rasoul Moradi/Islamic Republic News AgencyA massive explosion at a port in southern Iran on Saturday killed at least four people and injured more than 500, according to state media.The exact cause of the blast at the Shahid Rajaee port in the city of Bandar Abbas was not immediately clear. But Iranian authorities did not suggest it was sabotage or a deliberate attack.The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted an official as saying the ignition of containers of chemicals most likely set off the explosion. The blast sent up clouds of black smoke, according to footage from the scene distributed by an Iranian broadcaster and video from social media that was verified by The New York Times.Bandar Abbas is strategically located along the Strait of Hormuz, a busy Persian Gulf shipping lane for the world’s oil and natural gas.In 2020, Israel launched a cyberattack that hampered operations at the Shahid Rajaee port as part of its long-running shadow war with Iran.Israeli officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday’s explosion.The explosion came around the time that American and Iranian officials began meeting in the Gulf sultanate of Oman on Saturday for a third round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program.Last week, The New York Times reported that Israel had planned to attack Iranian nuclear sites as soon as next month, but it was waved off by Mr. Trump, who wanted to negotiate an agreement with Tehran instead. But Mr. Trump has also vowed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, including by military action if necessary. More

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      Wildfire Burns in 3,200 Acres of New Jersey Forest Area

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      The fire in the Pine Barrens led to the evacuation of 3,000 residents and the shutdown of a stretch of the Garden State Parkway.A fast-moving wildfire in the Pine Barrens section of southern New Jersey spread to 3,200 acres of the heavily forested area by the evening, prompting the shutdown of a 17-mile stretch of one of the state’s busiest highways, the authorities said.The smoky blaze, in Ocean County, threatened at least 1,320 structures, forced the evacuation of 3,000 residents of Ocean and Lacey Townships and caused the Garden State Parkway to be shut down between exits 63 and 80, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said in a statement.Embers from the fire, which began Tuesday morning, jumped over the parkway at about 6 p.m., sparking several small blazes near a defunct nuclear power plant known as Oyster Creek, according to state officials. The plant, owned by Holtec International, shut down in 2018 and is being decommissioned.Patrick O’Brien, a Holtec spokesman, said the fires closest to the facility had been “completely and safely extinguished.”Even if a blaze were to reach an area where spent nuclear material is stored in secure casks, it poses no risk, according to Mr. O’Brien and Shawn M. LaTourette, commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Protection.All the buildings at the Oyster Creek site are “designed and constructed to withstand fires,” Mr. O’Brien said in a statement.

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      3 Men Die in Fire in Overcrowded House in Queens

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      The house in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood had no working smoke detectors and was crammed with tenants, fire officials said.In a house on an affluent street in Queens, a tenant woke up early on Easter Sunday choking on black smoke.A fire had broken out on the first floor, where he lived in a cramped single room. “There were people screaming, jumping out the windows,” the tenant, Tony Rock, 40, said hours later. He described the scene in one word: “Hell.”Three men died in the fire, which started just after 1:30 a.m. on Chevy Chase Street in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood, a three-minute drive from the mansion where President Trump grew up.Firefighters arrived at the scene in less than four minutes, but the blaze ascended to the attic very quickly, fire officials said at a news conference on Sunday. The victims, men who were 45, 52 and 67 years old, died at the home, the police said. Eight other people were taken to area hospitals and were stable, the police said.The exact cause of the fire is still under investigation. But officials said that the house was overcrowded with people, with makeshift partition walls creating small rooms.Possessions also blocked the stairways, and there were too many extension cords, the fire commissioner, Robert S. Tucker, said at the news conference. There were no working smoke detectors, he added.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      More Than 400,000 Wireless Phone Chargers Are Recalled Over Fire Hazard

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      Casely, a company in Brooklyn, received 51 reports of lithium-ion batteries overheating, expanding or catching fire, resulting in six minor burn injuries.More than 400,000 Casely wireless phone chargers were recalled on Thursday over concerns that they could pose a fire hazard, officials said.Casely, a company based in Brooklyn, received 51 reports of lithium-ion batteries inside the power banks overheating, expanding or catching fire while consumers were charging their phones, causing at least six minor burn injuries, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a notice.Consumers who purchased Casely Power Pods 5000mAh portable MagSafe wireless phone chargers with model number E33A are urged to stop using them immediately and contact the company for a free replacement.The roughly 429,200 affected phone chargers have “Casely” engraved on the front and the model number on the back.The pocket-size power banks were sold at getcasely.com, Amazon and other e-commerce websites from March 2022 to September 2024, the commission said.The phone chargers should not be thrown in the trash or recycled in either the general recycling stream or the used-battery boxes commonly found at retail and home improvement stores, the commission said.That’s because the recalled lithium-ion batteries, which pose a greater fire risk than other batteries, must be discarded differently.Consumers can contact their local household hazardous waste collection center to see if it accepts recalled lithium-ion batteries. If it does not, the commission recommends contacting local municipal officials for more guidance.Lithium-ion batteries are rechargeable, last a long time and store a lot of energy in a small space. These features have made them a staple in common devices, including phones, laptops, toothbrushes, power tools and electric vehicles. However, the batteries require safe handling because of their potential to start fires.The U.S. Fire Administration advises consumers to stop using lithium-ion batteries if they emit an odor, put off too much heat, leak, make odd noises or if there is a change in color or shape.Before purchasing products, consumers should look for a “Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory” stamp, according to the administration. More

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      Suspect Arrested in Arson Attacks on New Mexico G.O.P. Office and a Tesla Dealer

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      Jamison Wagner, 40, of Albuquerque, faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted, the authorities said.An Albuquerque man was arrested on Monday in connection with the fire bombings of the Republican Party of New Mexico’s headquarters in March and a Tesla dealership in February, attacks that the federal authorities have designated as “domestic terrorism.”The suspect, Jamison Wagner, 40, had parked his white Hyundai sedan at both locations before the arson attacks and then drove away, according to security and traffic camera images released by the Justice Department.Federal prosecutors said that surveillance footage from the Tesla showroom near Albuquerque on Feb. 9 showed him carrying a box of supplies that he used to spray-paint graffiti on the building and several vehicles. Investigators said that he had scrawled the phrases “Die Elon,” “Tesla Nazi Inc” and “Die Tesla Nazi,” references to the company’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, who is leading the Trump administration’s cost-cutting program. Mr. Wagner was then observed breaking some car windows and throwing an incendiary device inside one of them, destroying it, a criminal complaint said.Several weeks after that arson attack, the authorities said, Mr. Wagner struck again, torching the lobby of the Republican Party of New Mexico’s headquarters during the early morning hours of March 30.Damage from a fire at the Republican Party of New Mexico’s headquarters in Albuquerque in March.New Mexico G.O.P.Investigators say that he left behind critical evidence each time, connecting him to both crimes: lids from a jar of Smucker’s jelly and a container of olives that they said he had filled with gasoline. Both lids had the letter “H” or “I” written on them with what appeared to be a marker, photographs showed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More