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Tag: Indiana

  • More than three people killed by tornadoes in US

    More than three people killed by tornadoes in US

    Following a storm system that delivered tornadoes and thunderstorms to the midwest and southeast on Sunday, one person died in Indiana and two people died in Arkansas.

    Following a string of severe storms that moved east across the country, hundreds of thousands of people are without power from Louisiana to Michigan.

    The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a tornado watch for the majority of Indiana, as well as smaller portions of Michigan and Ohio, on Sunday afternoon.

    The storm system was also expected to bring damaging winds and ‘very large hail’ to an even greater area across the Midwest, stretching across Ohio into parts of northern Kentucky.

    Nearly 500,000 people are without power across the Southeast and Ohio Valley after tornados slam into the region, killing at least one person: Northeast is set to be hit by thunderstorms and heavy flooding
    A tornado strikes a row of houses (Picture: Twitter/ @thrillsbill)
    Debris is lifted into the air by a possible tornado during severe weather near Greenwood, Indiana, U.S., June 25, 2023 in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. Eric Ford via TMX/via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES.
    A tornado devastates a neighborhood in Greenwood, Indiana (Picture: via REUTERS)

    Around 4.30pm, a tornado struck a two-storey log cabin in rural Martin County, Indiana, killing one occupant and seriously injuring a second, who was airlifted to a local hospital.

    Martin County Emergency Management Director Cameron Wolf described the storm damage as both ‘random’ and ‘widespread’ in the rural parts of the county.

    Closer to Indianapolis, officials reported damage from fallen trees and large pieces of hail.

    Another tornado struck Johnson County, causing damage to about 75 houses in the city of Bargersville. No deaths or injuries have been reported from the twister as of Monday morning.

    Debris is left behind after a reported tornado touched down in several areas of Greenwood, Ind., Sunday afternoon, June 25, 2023. (Jenna Watson/The Indianapolis Star via AP)
    Remains of a home in Greenwood, Indiana (Picture: AP)
    In this image taken from video, a man surveys a roof of a home severely damaged after a tornado touched down on Sunday, June 25, 2023, in Johnson County, Ind. Authorities said up to 75 homes were damaged. (WRTV via AP)
    A man surveys the damage to a home in Johnson County, Indiana (Credits: AP)
    Nora Stoner, 9, her mom, Jackie Stoner, and brother, Christian Stoner, 15, survey tornado damage in front of their home Sunday, June 25, 2023, in Greenwood, Ind. Jackie and her husband Adam took shelter in the lowest room of their home as the tornado blew open the front doors, shattered windows and damaged the house and surrounding property. Their two children were not home at the time. (Jenna Watson/The Indianapolis Star via AP)
    A family surveys the damage to their home in Greenwood, Indiana (Picture: AP)

    ‘This is a very dangerous scene for the area,’ Bargersville Fire Chief Erik Funkhouser said at a news conference. ‘We have power lines that are down all throughout that 3-mile area.’

    Meanwhile in the southeast, severe storms swept through parts of Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

    In Arkansas, falling trees killed two people and injured a third in the town of Carlisle, located about 35 miles east of the state capital in Little Rock.

    Large portions of both Arkansas and Tennessee also lost power, with over 100,000 customers in each state reporting outages on Monday.

  • Father slain and two kids hurt as a grenade explodes

    Father slain and two kids hurt as a grenade explodes

    An explosion caused by a hand grenade discovered among a relative’s possessions resulted in the death of a father and the injury of his two children.

    On Saturday night in Lakes of the Four Seasons, Indiana, a gated neighbourhood just outside of Gary, Bryan Niedert, 47, was emptying up the house of a family grandfather with his two teenage children.

    The group discovered the hand grenade at the house at 6.30 p.m. According to the investigators, the weapon’s pin was pulled, which set it off.

    Sheriff’s deputies rushed to the scene after the explosion rocked the quiet neighborhood.

    Niedert was killed in the blast, the Lake County Coroner’s Office said. His exact cause of death will be determined by an autopsy.

    His two children, a 14-year-old boy and 18-year-old girl, were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds.

    The Porter County Bomb Squad responded to the scene as well to search the home for any other explosives.

    Investigators with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office are ‘looking into whether the device may have self detonated due to its age or other factors, whether the pin was pulled or whether any other circumstance may have been involved,’ the department said in a news release.

    This is not the first incident involving an unexploded grenade this year.

    In East Devon, a nine-year-old boy dug up a grenade dating back to World War II in his family’s garden.

    The child, George Peniston-Bird of Yarcombe, found the explosive while digging for bones. His mother initially didn’t believe him until he brought her a photo of the grenade taken on his iPad.

    An ordnance disposal squad from the Royal Logistics Corps investigated the finding and confirmed that not only was the grenade from the 1940s, it was still live.

    The bomb squad was able to safely detonate the grenade in a nearby field. Luckily, no members of the Peniston-Bird family were injured by the explosive.

  • Toxic smoke from a recycling factory fire forces many to relocate

    Toxic smoke from a recycling factory fire forces many to relocate

    With the release of hazardous black smoke into the air, a large fire at a recycling factory in Indiana drove thousands of people to flee the area.

    At Richmond, a city on the Ohio border that is roughly 70 miles east of Indianapolis, a fire broke out at a former factory site that was being used to store recyclable plastics.

    Authorities now think that the fire started in a semi-trailer carrying plastics before spreading to the building, which was ‘wall to wall’ with plastic storage.

    Indiana State Fire Marshal Steve Jones said the fumes from the blaze were ‘definitely toxic’ at a press conference on Tuesday.

    Smoke rises from an industrial fire, Tuesday, April 11, 2023, at 358 NW F Street, in Richmond, Ind. (Zach Piatt/The Palladium-Item via AP)
    Toxic smoke from the Indiana fire are seen blocks from the facility (Picture: AP)

    ‘There’s a host of different chemicals plastics give off when they’re on fire,’ he said.

    No injuries have been reported as of Wednesday morning, but the city ordered evacuations for homes within a half-mile radius of the facility. About 2,000 people have been evacuated.

    The evacuation area may change if wind patterns change before the fire is extinguished, officials said. Winds have already blown some of the toxic fumes across the border into Ohio.

    Part of the facility is owned by the city, but most was owned by a private business owner, who had multiple citations for improper storage, officials said.

    ‘They were under a city order to clean up and remediate that site,’ Richmond Mayor Dave Snow said. ‘We knew that was a fire hazard the way they were storing materials.’

    ‘He had been warned several times,’ Richmond Fire Chief Tim Brown told Fox 59. ‘We knew it wasn’t a matter of it, it was a matter of when.’

    At another press conference on Tuesday, city officials blamed the fire on the

    ‘The business owner is responsible for this mess,’ Snow said. ‘This person has been negligent and irresponsible, and it’s led to putting a lot of people in danger.’

  • TikTok is a wolf in sheep’s clothing: Indiana sues company over security and safety concerns

    The popular social media app TikTok has been sued by the state of Indiana in the United States.

    Its attorney general, Todd Rokita, has accused TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, of violating consumer protection laws in the state.

    On Wednesday, two lawsuits were filed. According to the first, the app exposes young users to inappropriate content.

    In the other complaint, Mr. Rokita claims TikTok fails to disclose the Chinese government’s ability to access sensitive consumer data.

     

    “TikTok is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” according to court documents.

    “As long as TikTok is permitted to deceive and mislead Indiana consumers about the risks to their data, those consumers and their privacy are easy prey.”

    The complaint says the app’s algorithm promotes a variety of inappropriate content, “depicting alcohol, tobacco, and drugs; sexual content, nudity, and suggestive themes; and intense profanity.”

    It also claims that deceives young users with age ratings of 12 and above on Apple and Google app stores.

    Indiana is seeking an injunction against its practices and civil penalties against the company for its “unfair and deceptive conduct.”

    Mr Rokita said the lawsuits are the first launched by a US state against ByteDance.

    ByteDance and TikTok have not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

    The announcement of the lawsuits come after other US states have drafted legislation to ban TikTok. Texas, South Dakota and South Carolina have prohibited the use of TikTok being used on state government devices.

    Last month, the head of the FBI has said that TikTok poses a national security concern.

    Its director Chris Wray told a the US House Homeland Security Committee said Chinese law essentially requires companies to “do whatever the government wants them to in terms of sharing information or serving as a tool of the Chinese government.”

    The Biden administration have been in talks with TikTok officials for months as they try to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of its hundreds of millions of users in the US.

    TikTok is also facing legal challenges elsewhere. In the UK, the social media company could face a £27m ($29m) fine for failing to protect children‘s privacy when they are using the platform.