Cristiano Ronaldo’s time at Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr might be done.
The 40-year-old Portugal striker posted a message on social media hours after the final round of the Saudi Pro League late Monday sparking speculation over the future of one of the most high-profile figures in sports.
“This chapter is over,” Ronaldo told his 115 million followers on X, above a picture of him in an Al-Nassr jersey. “The story? Still being written. Grateful to all.”
The five-time world player of the year joined Al-Nassr in late 2022 and his contract will expire at the end of June.
On Saturday, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said Ronaldo could play at the new-look, expanded Club World Cup starting on June 14 because of a unique transfer window created for the tournament.
“There are discussions with some clubs,” Infantino told online streamer IShowSpeed, whose YouTube channel has more than 39 million subscribers. “So if any club is watching and is interested in hiring Ronaldo for the Club World Cup, who knows. Still a few weeks time, will be fun.”
Al-Nassr, which finished in third place in the Saudi league this season, did not qualify for the Club World Cup — where Lionel Messi, Ronaldo’s great rival, will be playing with Inter Miami.
Ronaldo did not react on Saturday to Infantino’s speculation on his social media channels.
It’s the last day to book a flight on Southwest Airlines without being hit with a fee to check bags after the airline abandoned a decades-long luggage policy that executives had described last fall as key to differentiating the budget carrier from its rivals.
The airline announced the change in March, saying that the new policy would start with flights booked on Wednesday.
Southwest had built years of advertising campaigns around its policy of letting passengers check up to two bags for free. Under its new policy, people who haven’t either reached the upper tiers of its Rapid Rewards loyalty program, bought a business class ticket, or hold the airline’s credit card will have to pay for checked bags.
Southwest will continue to offer two free checked bags to Rapid Rewards A-List preferred members and customers traveling on Business Select fares, and one free checked bag to A-List members and other select customers. Passengers with Rapid Rewards credit cards will receive a credit for one checked bag.
People who don’t qualify for those categories will get charged to check bags. The airline said in March that it also would roll out a new, basic fare on its lowest priced tickets when the change takes effect.
In September, the airline estimated that charging bag fees would bring in about $1.5 billion a year but cost the airline $1.8 billion in lost business from customers who chose to fly Southwest because of its generous baggage allowance.
Southwest did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its new checked bag fees, but most major airlines typically charge between $35 and $40 for checked bags.
Another policy that will take effect on Wednesday is Southwest requiring passengers to keep their portable chargers in plain sight while using them because of concerns about the growing number of lithium-ion battery fires.
These aren’t the only changes at Southwest. The Dallas airline previously announced that it was leaving behind another Southwest tradition, the open-boarding system it has used for more than 50 years. Southwest expects to begin operating flights with passengers in assigned seats next year.
Southwest has struggled recently and is under pressure from activist investors to boost profits and revenue. The airline reached a truce in October with hedge fund Elliott Investment Management to avoid a proxy fight, but Elliott won several seats on the company’s board.
The airline announced in February that it was eliminating 1,750 jobs, or 15% of its corporate workforce, in the first major layoffs in the company’s 53-year history.
Venezuelans with temporary protected status fear being deported after Supreme Court ruling. Car crash at Liverpool parade is not being investigated as an act of terrorism. And weight loss drugs get more affordable.
Here’s what to know today.
A 10-year-old Venezuelan girl living in New York City with a special legal protection against deportation has repeatedly asked her mother the same question all week: “Mommy, what am I going to do if immigration comes?”
The girl, her two siblings and her parents are among the 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants who have been living and working in the U.S. with temporary protected status, better known as TPS, for the past two years. But a one-page Supreme Court order issued last week gave President Donald Trump and his administration the green light to continue their efforts to end the protections granted to these Venezuelans in 2023 by then-President Joe Biden.
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“That makes you feel very depressed, anxious and distressed,” the mother of the little girl said in her native Spanish. “This is all terrible.”
NBC News spoke with the mother and two other Venezuelan TPS holders, one in North Carolina and one in Los Angeles, about navigating changing immigration policies. Read the full story.
More politics news:
Obama White House and campaign alumni have been setting the course of the Democratic Party for years. After 2024, more Democrats want to see that change.
A double amputee who served in Iraq is pushing lawmakers to end the “wounded veterans tax.” It’s an issue that prevents around 50,000 injured veterans from receiving both their full retirement pay and disability compensation.
Charles Rangel, the former N.Y. congressman who represented Harlem for nearly five decades, died at 94. He was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the first Black chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino announced the bureau will probe unsolved Biden-era cases including the Supreme Court leak and cocaine at the White House.
Car hits pedestrians at a soccer win parade in Liverpool
As thousands of people lined the streets to celebrate Liverpool’s English Premier League title win, a car collided with a number of pedestrians, police said Monday.
At least 27 people, including four children, were hospitalized for their injuries, officials said. Of those people, one adult and one child have serious injuries. Twenty more people were treated at the scene for minor injuries and additional patients have shown up at local hospitals.
A 53-year-old British man believed to have been the driver was detained on the scene and taken into custody. The crash is not being investigated as an act of terrorism.
Weight loss drugs Wegovy and Zepbound, which both sell for a list price of more than $1,000 a month, have long been out of reach for people without insurance or whose insurance refused to cover them.
Over the past several months, however, drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have introduced lower-cost options. There are some caveats — people must pay out of pocket, or the medication is sold in a vial rather than a prefilled injector pen. And the financial barriers remain: $400 to $500 is a significant amount of money for many people.
“You’re talking $6,000 a year, and that is still probably more than insurers are paying right now” with discounts, said Dr. David Rind, a primary care physician and the chief medical officer for the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a group that determines fair prices for drugs.
“For all my complaining about the price, these are drugs that we should want to give to lots of people, but it’s been really hard to see how we can afford them.”
Harvard revoked tenure from a professor famous for ethics studies after data fraud allegations, the first such revocation since the 1940s.
Three more inmates who escaped from New Orleans’ main lockup in one of Louisiana’s biggest jailbreaks ever have been captured, leaving two at large.
Staff Pick: A (love) story about friendship
Eleanor Roosevelt walks with Lorena Hickok during a trip to Puerto Rico in 1934.Corbis via Getty Images
Before this weekend I had never heard of Lorena Hickok, a trailblazing journalist who started working as a reporter in 1912. It was that career that led her to someone who would change her professional and personal lives forever: Eleanor Roosevelt. While historians aren’t all in agreement about the nature of their relationship, author Sarah Miller uses about 3,500 of their personal letters to paint a deeply intimate picture in a new book, “Hick.” I’m not usually a fan of biographies, but after having read this review I’m tempted to add “Hick” to my lengthy to-be-read pile. — Jana Kasperkevic, deputy director of owned platforms
NBC Select: Online Shopping, Simplified
What exactly is retinol sandwiching? Our editors break down the latest trend and its benefits for your skin care routine. Also, have you been seeing a scary-looking plush toy all over social media? It’s a Labubu, and our editors break down its viral popularity.
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After Kamala Harris entered the presidential race last year, she reached out to Barack Obama campaign alum Jim Messina to help lead her White House bid.
But when Messina shared news of the vice president’s offer with a friend, he received a stern warning.
“I said ‘Jim, if you get involved in this, it’ll be political suicide,’” Democratic megadonor John Morgan, a longtime Harris critic, recalled of his conversation with Messina, who had served in Obama’s White House and managed his successful 2012 re-election campaign. “You’re going to be a loser. And your whole shine is you’re undefeated.”
Messina declined the job. And after Harris’ loss to Donald Trump, it may not have been a bad move.
David Plouffe, long hailed asthe brilliant architect of Obama’s 2008 victory, served in a key role in Harris’ campaign and is now among those tagged with a devastating defeat.
“The shine’s off Plouffe now. He was the golden boy,” Morgan said. “Now he’s just an old broken-down boy, who lost. Big.”
Messina did not comment on the exchange. Plouffe did not respond to a request for comment.
While many Democrats still admire Plouffe’s successes, the harsh words punctuated a growing sentiment across a party searching for a path forward: Team Obama’s bloom may be falling off the rose.
More Democrats are openly criticizing Obama strategists and consultants, who were long treated as the high priests of their party’s politics. Democratic National Committee officials at a news event last month blamed Obama’s lack of investment in state parties over his two terms for setting back local organizing, with the party still feeling the effects. The so-called Obama coalition of voters — less politically engaged voters, younger voters and voters of color — is no more. In 2024, each of those groups shifted toward Trump in high numbers.
Going forward, it could mark a clean slate for a party whose course for nearly two decades cascaded from decisions Obama had made. It was Obama who chose Biden as his vice president, offering him the elevated perch that set up his 2020 election and his aborted 2024 re-election. Obama selected Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state, then anointed her for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 race against Trump. The operatives Obama and his top aides empowered have carved out leading, decision-making roles at the top of the Democratic Party since then.
But after 2024, more Democrats want to see that change.
Obama himself remains a force in the party, filling stadiums and commanding the attention of major donors. Indeed, the DNC is in talks with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to host Obama for a fundraiser at his home, according to two people with knowledge of the planning, which is still in its early stages.
But even the former president’s luster was showing signs of fading last fall, a phenomenon that threatens to persist as the next crop of young voters ages into adulthood. When the 2028 presidential election arrives, it will be 20 years since Obama’s first victory. At that point, more voters will have come of age in the era of Donald Trump than in the era of Obama.
“One of the challenges the Democratic Party does have is that there is nostalgia for the Obama era, both in terms of Barack Obama being in the White House and what that meant for the country and the style of leadership that we have, but also like the style of our politics,” Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist, said. “There’s been a de-evolution of our politics over the last 10 years, and it’s just a very different era.”
Criticism flying within the party
Democrats point to myriad factors leading to Harris’ defeat in 2024 — with many focusing on a compressed timeline because Biden refused to step aside as the party’s candidate until 107 days before the election. Plouffe pointedly blamed Biden, saying “He totally f—ed us” in a newly released book.
David Plouffe during a meeting with Barack Obama and senior staff in the Oval Office in 2011.White House Photo / Alamy file
Plouffe’s verbal affront opened him and fellow Obama alums to their own criticisms. DNC Finance Chair Chris Korge lashed out at Plouffe in an interview with NBC News last week, saying he and other Obama alums shared the blame, chiding them as the “so-called gurus.”
“It’s time to re-evaluate the use of consultants and bring in new forward-looking people,” Korge also said in the interview. “The old Obama playbook no longer works.”
Jane Kleeb — the Nebraska Democratic Party chair, a DNC vice chair and the president of a national group of state party chairs — said Democrats need to get back to the basics of investing in and listening to local stakeholders and organizers. She said this realization crystalized during the recent Omaha mayoral election, when Republicans attacked the Democratic candidate on transgender issues. She said the party “screwed up” in 2024 by not pushing back on those attacks on candidates up and down the ticket.
This time, she said, she knew whom to get into a room to tackle the issue.
“I didn’t contact the Pod Save America guys or a New York press firm to say, ‘How do I handle this?’” Kleeb said. “Our team literally got into the conference room at our state party office and said, ‘Let’s throw out ideas on how we can push back on this, because we’re not going to let them take down John Ewing on this bulls— again.’”
They went basic, flipping the script in a new ad: Mayor Jean Stothert was “focused on potties;” Democratic candidate Ewing was “focused on fixing potholes.” Ewing ended up ousting the longtime incumbent by nearly 13 points, after Stothert had trounced her past opponents.
“And that resonated with voters,” Kleeb said, adding: “The reality for state parties on the ground is we don’t give a s— about what camp a political consultant cut their teeth in.”
As far as she’s concerned, she said, she welcomes any and all Democrats — those who worked for any Democratic president and beyond — to be in the room.
“Our party is looking at these philosophical questions and missing the point that we need to trust the people in the states who are on the ground, who are constantly in touch with voters, and just let this intraparty fighting and whose camp is better — let it go,” Kleeb said. “I want them all at the table.”
Other Democrats echoed the sentiment. One longtime Biden ally, Steve Schale, who also worked on Obama’s presidential campaigns, specifically defended Plouffe’s contributions to the party.
“David is one of the sharpest guys around. I was grateful he stepped up and joined the campaign, and anyone who thinks his voice isn’t needed, quite frankly, is an idiot,” Schale said. “David has also been clear-eyed about what we need to do going forward … He’s done enough in his life that he has earned the right to take his ball and go home, but for one, I am glad he remains engaged.”
Chuck Rocha, who worked on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential bid and consults on House and Senate campaigns, said that a small cluster of firms dominate the market for political operatives.
“Most of these same consultants have locked in these candidates before they ever announce, and so there’s never any opportunity for any new blood to be a part of these campaigns,” said Rocha, who helped freshman Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., win his seat in 2024.
He said the firms rise and fall, but the players who run them are the same — a sort of regeneration cycle that keeps the same people in place. “They’re all connected,” he said.
In 2024, Biden-Harris campaign chief Jen O’Malley Dillon tapped fellow Obama alumni for major roles. For example, Stephanie Cutter, managing partner of O’Malley Dillon’s old firm, Precision Strategies, was picked to help run the Democratic convention program and prep Harris for media interviews. 270 Strategies founding partner Mitch Stewart, who managed battleground states for Obama, was brought on to oversee a similar program for Biden. Rufus Gifford, the big-donor wrangler for Obama, acted as director of fundraising for the Biden campaign. The list goes on.
White House deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon arrives for a state dinner at the White House on April 26, 2023.Alex Brandon / AP file
Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist with experience on past presidential campaigns, said it’s time for the party to take a hard look at the same set of operatives, including Obama campaign alums, who have been running national Democratic campaigns.
“I’m sorry — I don’t want a surgeon who keeps killing patients,” he said.
Some victories, he noted, are a reflection of the skills of the candidate, rather than the operatives around them.
“It’s pretty easy to win with a guy like Obama,” Kofinis said, adding that Democrats tend to put too much emphasis on experience when they hire operatives, rather than “whether they’re any good” at their jobs.
Activist and DNC vice chair David Hogg said that just as some elected Democrats cling to power for too long, so too does the party’s operative class.
He sees an anti-establishment fervor that began with Obama and continues to this day, where candidates who are perceived to be going against the system will be more successful than those who pledge to uphold or defend it.
“It’s hard to imagine this now, because Obama is such a major figurehead, obviously he’s seen as part of the system, but when he ran, he ran, I would argue, as an anti-establishment candidate,” said Hogg, who has faced pushback for holding a DNC position while also advocating for primary challenges against some party incumbents. Aside from a unique, Covid-fueled election in 2020, he continued, “the challenge is, we are still in a moment where anti system candidates are going to be favored.”
What’s next for Democrats
But with political operatives who cut their teeth in the Obama years still wielding power in the party, there’s a disconnect between the leadership and younger electorates the party needs to win moving forward, Hogg added. Part of the issue is that those young voters barely have any memory of the nation’s first Black president.
“I don’t think they have one to be honest with you. That’s part of the challenge,” Hogg, 25, said, adding, “For many of these younger people who are under the age of 20, right now … they don’t remember much of what Obama talked about. They grew up in the political context of Donald Trump and him being normalized, because that was what politics was to them growing up.”
Ammar Moussa, a campaign aide to both Biden and Harris, noted that a natural changing of the guard is likely already underway. For starters, many of the governors filling up the short-list of leading contenders for the party’s 2028 nomination have their own longtime political hands, some of them incubated far from Democratic Party headquarters in Washington.
“We should always think about how we are elevating operatives and promoting their staff who understand the landscape and what it takes to win campaigns in 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028, because every cycle is different,” Moussa said. “It’s incumbent upon candidates and senior staffers and the senior consulting class to know what they don’t know.”
A 10-year-old Venezuelan girl living in New York City with a special legal protection against deportation has repeatedly asked her mother the same question all week: “Mommy, what am I going to do if immigration comes?”
The girl, her two siblings and her parents are among the 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants who have been living and working in the U.S. with temporary protected status, better known as TPS, for the past two years.
But a one-page Supreme Court order issued last week, which provided more questions than answers, jeopardized the legal immigration status of Venezuelans with TPS — eliciting uncertainty, anguish and a sense of betrayal for families at risk of losing their protections.
“That makes you feel very depressed, anxious and distressed,” the mother of the little girl told NBC News in her native Spanish. “This is all terrible.”
With no clear timeline, the Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump and his administration the green light to continue their efforts to end the protections granted to these Venezuelans in 2023 by then-President Joe Biden.
NBC News spoke with the mother in New York City and two other Venezuelan TPS holders, one in North Carolina and one in Los Angeles, about navigating changing immigration policies at a time when the Trump administration is rolling back temporary protections and other legal immigration programs for refugees and asylum-seekers — consequently expanding the pool of possible deportees as the president seeks to deliver on his campaign promise of mass deportations.
All three TPS holders requested their names not be published for safety reasons, as they expressed worries about their protections against deportation under TPS.
TPS is considered a humanitarian designation under U.S. law for nationals of certain countries experiencing war, natural disasters or other serious crises that would make it unsafe for them to return.
Beneficiaries are allowed to remain in the U.S. legally and get work authorization for up to 18 months — subject to extensions.
That is the case for a young political scientist who fled government persecution in her native Venezuela to settle in North Carolina. She has TPS andwas overcome with frustration after she saw the Supreme Court’s order Monday, she said.
“Being in that limbo feels like a right that you already acquired has been taken away from you,” she said, adding that TPS holders like her did everything right to meet requirements and paid hundreds of dollars in work permits and application fees.
After being persecuted for the nature of her work, the political scientist arrived to the U.S. in 2022 on a visa. Applying for and receiving TPS under the 2023 designation gave her much-needed “peace of mind,” she said. That meant, “I’m in a safe place and I’m legally here.”
“That changes everything in your daily life,” she said, adding the protections helped her shed the fears of persecution and human rights violations she faced in Venezuela and start a new chapter, personally and professionally.
Biden had extended TPS until October 2026 before leaving office. But the Department of Homeland Security rescinded that extension shortly after Trump took office, moving to end the program for Venezuelans under the 2023 TPS designation. Litigation is underway to determine whether the program stays until next year or ends earlier.
Venezuelans gather to celebrate the granting of TPS by President Joe Biden in front of El Arepazo restaurant in Miami in 2021.Eva Marie Uzcategui / AFP via Getty Images file
But what happens in the meantime? This is the nerve-racking question that has been circling in the mind of the Venezuelan mother in New York City all week. All five members of her family obtained TPS under the 2023 designation for Venezuelan nationals.
The mother said her husband, who has been recovering from an accident that injured his back, did not go to his follow-up appointments this week. Her three daughters attended their last week of school with renewed fears that they or their parents could be detained and deported.
Since having TPS, the mother landed a “decent job caring for elders” that allowed her to provide for her family and open a bank account to move toward a financially stable future, she said, adding that her family consistently complies with immigration appointments and requirements.
Because of this, she sees the Trump administration’s insistence on ending TPS for Venezuelans like her as unfair, she said.
The family not only fears the prospect of losing deportation protections and employment authorization if TPS ends, but also worries about “being denigrated and facing xenophobia again” in their everyday life following the Supreme Court order, the mother said.
From walking through the jungle to enduring cold temperatures and hunger on their trek to the U.S., she said she found herself reflecting back on everything her family has done “to reach a country where one is still searching for a better future.”
That’s why Niurka Meléndez, a Venezuelan asylum-seeker and the director and founder of Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid in New York City, has been leading volunteer and grassroots efforts to ensure her community is not “paralyzed by fear,” helping people seek trustworthy information and available legal resources.
‘I feel betrayed’
From making deliveries to working in a labor organization, another Venezuelan mother with TPS in Los Angeles works multiple jobs to support herself and her family in Venezuela.
She said the crisis in her homeland is so bad that her 30-year-old daughter, a dentist in Venezuela, can’t make ends meet. She sends money to help her and her aging parents survive and get basic goods they may not have due to shortages.
For her, returning to Venezuela would not just mean going back to a homeland riddled with ailments. It would also mean that her family in Venezuela would lose a source of financial support they depend on, said the TPS-holding woman in Los Angeles.
She, like many other Venezuelans, had believed Trump had what it took to stand against the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and pave the way for the possible return of those who have fled.
“But I was wrong,” she said in Spanish.
DHS said in a February memo announcing its intention to end TPS for Venezuelans under the 2023 designation that Venezuela has seen “notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health, and crime.”
The mother in Los Angeles said she knows that’s not true based on her conversations with relatives in Venezuela.
“Now, I feel betrayed,” she added.
In New York, immigration attorney Edward Cuccia was flooded with calls from hundreds of his TPS clients last week as they try to determine what to do next.
“You’re talking about a vast number of people who ran away from a terrible situation down in Venezuela, which has not gotten any better,” Cuccia said. “Their status is all in limbo.”
The Trump administration may attempt to strip protections from these Venezuelans to have them ready for expedited removal, Cuccia said. But if due process is followed, it may give people more time to figure out other pathways to remain in the U.S. legally.
He advises Venezuelans at risk of losing TPS to document everything they’re doing while in the U.S., keep proof of the troubles they and their relatives have faced in Venezuela, explore other immigration pathways andmake sure their applicationsare correctly submitted.
“Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark has suffered a left quadriceps strain and will be out a minimum of two weeks, the team announced today,” according to the team’s statement Monday. “Further updates will be provided, as available, following re-evaluation.”
Clark’s anticipated two-week break would mean missing four games: Wednesday’s at the Washington Mystics, a home game Friday with the Connecticut Sun, a home game against the Mystics on June 3 and a game at the Chicago Sky on June 7
In her one season and three weeks in a Fever uniform, Clark has already become the WNBA’s best-known player, with teams regularly drawing their biggest crowds when Indiana comes to town.
The Mystics, for example, normally play their home games at the 4,200-seat CareFirst Arena in Washington. But Washington’s two home dates against Indiana this year are set for CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore, with a seating capacity of more than 10,000.
Clark, 23, played in all 44 regular-season games for Indiana last season, earning her the Rookie of the Year honor.
She played in all 139 Iowa Hawkeyes games during her four-year run on campus and became the all-time leading scorer in the history of women’s college basketball.
A longtime New York City Department of Environmental Protection employee has been identified as the victim of the sewage-boat explosion Saturday morning on the Hudson River in New York City.
Chief Marine Diesel Engineer Raymond Feige, 59, died in the explosion at the North River Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility in West Harlem, the DEP said in a statement Monday. The incident occurred at around 10:30 a.m. Saturday on a boat carrying raw sewage that was docked.
“Ray was a respected engineer and a steady, beloved colleague who will be deeply missed,” DEP Commissioner Rohit T. Aggarwala said. “For more than three decades, he worked at DEP in a job that is largely unseen by most New Yorkers but is critical to keeping the City running, and we are grateful for his service.”
The DEP said Feige started at the agency in 1991 in the marine section, where he remained for the rest of his decadeslong career with a love for working on the water and bonding with shipmates.
He “brought deep technical expertise and unwavering dedication” to the city’s wastewater operations, the agency said.
The diesel engineer was pronounced dead at the scene after being found unconscious in the river. Another DEP employee was taken to the hospital, and a third at the scene refused medical treatment.
The DEP said the explosion was caused by an accident on the boat, which is still under investigation. The agency said there appears to have been no impact on plant operations or the environment.
A Southwest Airlines plane flying to Denver on Sunday was struck by lightning upon its descent as storms plagued the area over Memorial Day weekend.
Southwest Flight 168 was approaching Denver International Airport on Sunday evening from Tampa when it was hit by a lightning strike, the media team for the airport said in a statement.
Emergency crews responded to the plane, which landed and made it to the gate safely, the airport said. No injuries were reported.
Southwest said that it was “possible” lightning struck the plane and that the aircraft has been taken out of service so its maintenance teams can inspect it.
Video shared with NBC News from someone who was inside the the plane shows emergency vehicles responding to the aircraft once it was on the ground through windows streaked with raindrops.
The incident comes amid a stormy Memorial Day weekend in the region. On Sunday, Denver was one of many cities at risk for severe weather.
More than 2,700 flights were delayed in the U.S. on Monday and dozens more were canceled, according to FlightAware.com. Dallas-Fort Worth has been most impacted by these travel woes.
Monday also marked the first Memorial Day that U.S. travelers needed a REAL ID or a passport to board their domestic flights. The long-awaited requirement went into effect earlier this month.
According to AAA, a record 45.1 Americans were expected to travel at least 50 miles from home during this long weekend’s unofficial kickoff to summer, an increase of 1.4 million people from last year.
The incident was reported around 5:45 p.m. Monday near the New River Triangle, not far from the Lauderdale Yacht Club on Southeast 12th Court.
U.S. Coast Guard officials said there were 13 people on board the boat when there was an explosion.
“For reasons that we don’t know yet, a boat exploded, it tossed people into the water, good Samaritans came over right away and started rescuing them,” Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue spokesman Frank Guzman said. “It’s too soon to know how this happened. We have a fire investigator on scene, as well.”
Footage from a surveillance camera captured the moment the fireball erupted on the boat, and showed multiple people spilling into the water.
Guzman confirmed there were 11 patients, including two children, who were initially taken to Broward Health Medical Center.
“A number of the patients had significant burns and are being transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where they have a burn unit,” Guzman said. “A lot of them had burns to much of their body.”
Officials at Jackson Memorial said they received 10 patients, including eight adults who were in good condition and two children who were in fair condition. One patient had to be intubated.
Antonio Rivero said he was with family members on the boat when it went up in flames.
“Tried to fuel up the boat, and must have been a gas leak and, you know, spark went off and explosion,” Rivero said. “One of the guys’ pants were blown off, so it was bad.”
Rivero, 32, suffered burns to his arm, but his wife, Cassandra, and their two children remained hospitalized Monday night.
“They’re OK because they’re on a lot of meds, but other than that they’re fine,” he said.
At least one witness reported seeing an explosion and said they saw multiple people with burn injuries who were brought to the yacht club docks.
The victims had burned legs and bathing suits that appeared ripped and burned to shreds, the witness said.
Two other witnesses said they were on a dinghy at the sandbar when the boat exploded.
“When they went to start their boat up, it just exploded. There was a huge fireball and people were kind of falling off the boat,” Bret Triano said. “We were at the sandbar too and we just tried to go help out.”
Triano and Marisa Toomesn were able to rescue some of the victims.
“There were a couple boats trying to pick people up and one guy just didn’t get picked up so we went over to him,” Triano said. “He was screaming.”
“He was burned pretty badly,” Toomesn said.
“He was saying, ‘Save me. Please, don’t let me die. I’m so hot, I need water,’” Triano said. “He just kept repeating, ‘I want water, I want water.’”
Aerial footage from Chopper 6 showed Fort Lauderdale Police, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Broward Sheriff’s Office assisting Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue.
Crews were seen examining the boat involved, which was tied up to a nearby sea wall.
Guzman said crews also rescued a dog that had been on the boat that wasn’t injured.
The FWC and fire officials will investigate the cause of the explosion.
A Florida man who was apparently bitten while swimming in alligator-infested waters Monday morning was fatally shot after, officials said, he emerged from the lake and charged at sheriff’s deputies with garden shears.
Two deputies, including a trainee, opened fire on Timothy Schulz, 42, after they deployed a stun gun that appeared to have no effect and after Schulz tried to remove a firearm from their patrol cruiser, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told reporters.
“The fact that he was bitten by an alligator and still continued his rampage is shocking,” Judd said.
Authorities first responded to a call involving Schulz at 5:56 a.m., when he appeared at a racetrack shaking and asking to call his son, Judd said. Deputies who responded to the area could not find him, the sheriff said.
Nearly two hours later, a witness spotted Schulz in Lakeland, south of Orlando, and reported that the man was in a lake with “a lot” of alligators, Judd said.
“A witness actually took a life vest and tried to give it to him,” he said. “He wouldn’t take it.”
Another witness told authorities that Schulz growled when the person tried talking to him.
The witnesses reported that Schulz was treading water and that they could see only his head. At one point, an alligator appeared to bite his right arm, Judd said.
After he emerged from the lake, Schulz was seen walking between houses in a residential area, carrying a pair of garden shears. At one point he threw a brick at a truck, Judd said.
As deputies arrived, Judd said, they saw Schulz apparently trying to break into a vehicle and quickly got out of their cruiser.
When Schulz charged at them with the shears, Judd said, they ordered him to drop the tool, then deployed the stun gun when he did not.
Schulz climbed into the passenger side of the deputies’ patrol vehicle and appeared to try and remove a rifle or shotgun, Judd said.
“At that time our deputies shot multiple times,” Judd said. “As a result, Timothy is deceased.”
He said the deputies will remain on administrative leave while the state’s attorney’s office reviews the shooting, per department policy.
Judd said Schulz has faced several methamphetamine charges and was released from county jail most recently on May 20. An affidavit in that case says a deputy found a glass pipe in a backpack Schulz was carrying that tested positive for the drug.
