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(NEW YORK) -- Air quality alerts are in place on Thursday across at least 18 states, from Minnesota to New Hampshire to Virginia, as dangerous smoke continues to waft into the U.S. from Canadian wildfires, including more than 100 blazes burning out of control.

Smoke from at least 850 active wildfires in Canada is traveling more than a thousand miles to reach U.S. locations including New York City. At least another nine large fires are burning in northern Minnesota.

On Thursday afternoon, Minneapolis surpassed Detroit for having the worst measured air quality in the world among major cities, according to the air quality monitoring website IQAir.

Earlier Thursday, Detroit, which dropped to second on the list, reached an air quality index, or AQI, of nearly 570. IQAir rates the most dangerous air quality index, described as "hazardous," as 301 or above.

Chicago was third on the IQAir's AQI scale for the worst air quality on the planet while Toronto, Ontario, was sixth on Thursday afternoon. Toronto is more than 1,100 miles from where some 180 wildfires are burning in sparsely populated areas of Ontario province.

Meanwhile, all of New York State, including New York City, and parts of New Jersey are under an Air Quality Advisory on Thursday due to the wildfire smoke.

The extreme smoke will continue through Thursday evening in the Upper Midwest, including northern Wisconsin, northern Michigan, the New York City area and across the Northeast. Heavy smoke will also stretch from Chicago to Detroit and from Philadelphia to Boston. 

New York City could see orange skies on Thursday afternoon as dense plumes of hazardous smoke continues pour into the area.

According to the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System, 859 active wildfires are burning as of late Thursday afternoon, including 37 new fires that ignited Thursday. At least 109 of the wildfires were burning out of control Thursday afternoon, according to the agency.

So far this year, according to the agency, Canada has had 3,549 wildfires that have burned a total of 2.3 million hectares, or more than 93,000 square miles, which is roughly the size of the United Kingdom.

The smoke and ash from the Canadian wildfires was even affecting commercial air traffic. On Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was slowing arriving flights into the Philadelphia International Airport due to low visibility from wildfires smoke.

An American Airlines pilot told Philadelphia air traffic controllers on Thursday that ash was sticking the windshield of his aircraft, according to a recording of the communications provided by ATC.com.

"I've never seen it stick to the windshield like this," the pilot was heard telling air traffic controllers.

American Steve Ventling of Montana told ABC News that he witnessed the Canadian wildfires up close this week when a blaze began while he was on a fishing trip in Northern Ontario. Ventling shared photos with ABC News of billowing smoke and flames quickly spreading through a lakeside forest.

"I've seen plenty of fires in my lifetime. Nothing prepared me for this. The flames exploded through the treetops. Entire trees vanished in seconds," said Ventling, adding that he and others he was fishing with evacuated the area in a boat.

On Wednesday, the wildfire smoke cast a yellowish haze over New York City, leaving a strong stench of smoke in the air.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned that "a combination of dangerous heat and unhealthy air" will continue to be a serious threat to the health of New Yorkers on Thursday.

"This is very serious," Mamdani said at a news conference on Thursday morning. "We are reaching into a level of air quality that is dangerous for every single New Yorker."

In a social media post on Wednesday night, Mamdani advised New Yorkers to "stay somewhere cool with air conditioning, limit your time outdoors, drink plenty of water, and check on your neighbors – especially older New Yorkers and anyone with a health condition."

The mayor said the city is providing free masks to help people cope with the smoke.

By Thursday noon, air quality was rated as "unhealthy" in New York City, with air quality in the Long Island and Lower Hudson Valley regions forecast to also become unhealthy before the end of the day, according to the air monitoring site AirNow.

Air quality in the Central and Western New York regions and the Eastern Lake Ontario region of New York state were rated as "very unhealthy," according to AirNow.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said smoke will be thick on Thursday and spread across the rest of the state throughout the day.

“Distant wildfires have impacted New York State in recent years, and this week unfortunately will be no different with expected hazy skies and poor air quality," Hochul said in a statement on Wednesday. "We are now closely tracking these conditions and I strongly encourage New Yorkers to stay informed and take appropriate precautions to stay safe. Sensitive groups should take particular caution."

By Friday morning, the smoke is expected to push farther south, affecting areas through Ohio and Virginia, including Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, throughout the day. 

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(NEW YORK) -- A bird strike likely caused last year's tourist helicopter crash in New York City's Hudson River that killed all six people on board, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The more than 2,000 pages of information released by the NTSB is not the final report and does not state the probable cause, but the documents show the chopper slammed into multiple large birds before the crash.

The birds hit the rotor blades and the horizontal stabilizer, according to an analysis by the Smithsonian Institution’s Feather Identification Lab. Samples of “mixed species” of birds were found, including Canada Geese and black-backed Gull. Canadian Geese can sometimes weigh more than 10 pounds each.

Videos showed the rotors flying off the helicopter as it plummeted to the water. 

The chopper crashed into the Hudson in April 2025 while carrying a pilot and a family from Spain: Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife Merce Camprubi Montal, and their three children.

One witness told ABC News she watched the helicopter "fall out of the sky" from her apartment window.

"I heard five or six loud noises that sounded almost like gunshots in the sky and saw pieces fall off, then watched it fall into the river," she said.

Bird strikes are common; there were 20,876 bird strikes to civilian aircraft in the U.S. in 2024, according to the Wildlife strikes to Civil Aircraft report. 

It is not clear when the NTSB’s final report -- which will list the probable cause of the crash -- will be released.

ABC News has reached out to the helicopter company for comment. New York Helicopter Charter inc. shutdown following the crash.  

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(NEW YORK) -- At least one person has died as a result of the flash flooding emergency currently ongoing in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed on Thursday.

The death was reported overnight between Kerrville and Comfort, Texas, Abbott said. More than 70 people have been rescued so far, he added.

Rescue operations are underway for people stranded in homes and potentially larger facilities, with 1,300 emergency personnel responding, according to the governor.

For the third day in a row, torrential rain prompted flash flood emergency warnings for Texas Hill Country as water levels in creeks and rivers rose rapidly.

Three flash flood emergencies were issued Thursday across Texas Hill Country.

As of early Thursday morning, there were two flash flood emergencies, impacting Kerrville -- the city where the deadly Camp Mystic flooding occurred in July 2025 -- Hunt, Uvalde and Knippa.

Evacuations and water rescues were reported in all four areas, with warnings of life-threatening flash flooding and reports of water entering buildings.

The Guadalupe River at Hunt rose from 9 to 19 feet between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. CT, cutting off access to some roads and bridges. Just before 6 a.m., the Guadalupe River gauge measured 37 feet at Hunt, and more rise is possible, according to the Kerr County Sheriff's Office.

No camps along the river had sustained any damage as of Thursday afternoon, Abbott said. Warning sirens were activated and functioned properly.

The National Weather Service issued another flash flood emergency later Thursday morning along the Pedernales River, located just north of the Guadalupe River.

A large and deadly wave was moving down the Pedernales River -- with the gauge at Fredericksburg rising to more than 31 feet and counting, according to the NWS.

Engineers assessed the bridge over the Guadalupe River on Highway 87 into Comfort, Texas, due to fears that the force of the water may have made it unstable, Kendall County Judge Shane Stolarcyz told ABC News. The engineers concluded that the bridge is structurally sound for now, ABC News has learned.

The fast-moving water below the bridge could be seen carrying debris within the current. The water is starting to recede, but authorities anticipate there could be a second wave later Thursday. They do not believe it will be anywhere near the level seen in the morning. 

A "large and deadly flood wave" that began along the Guadalupe River around Kerrville moved downstream through Center Point onto Comfort and Waring, Sisterdale, Crown and Bergheim.

The river gauge at Center Point rose 32 feet in four hours and was expected to reach a crest similar to the catastrophic July 4, 2025, river flood.

A rainfall rate of 2 to 4 inches per hour was forecast for the region. Up to 20 inches of rain had fallen in the Uvalde area over the previous 48 hours -- more than six months' worth of rain for this area -- with 8 inches falling in 2 hours.

On Wednesday afternoon, the NWS issued a flash flood emergency warning for Boerne, located in Texas Hill Country about 55 miles southeast of Camp Mystic, urging residents to relocate to higher elevations immediately.

A rain gauge near Boerne measured 3.5 inches of rain within one hour Wednesday morning, according to the NWS. The Cibolo Creek rose 10 feet in just 90 minutes and measured at a record-high level of more than 22 feet.

A flash flood emergency was also issued Wednesday for D'Hanis, Texas, about 60 miles southwest of Boerne. The Seco Creek was rapidly rising, prompting local officials to advise those in flood-prone areas to move to higher ground without delay.

Intense rainfall began in parts of Texas Hill Country on Tuesday, where some areas received between 6 inches and 16 inches of rainfall in 24 hours.

The NWS had previously issued a high risk for flash flooding -- a level 4 out of 4 -- for the same region on Wednesday due to a forecast of an additional 6 to 12 inches of rain.

A "high risk" is a rare occurrence. It's only issued about 4% of days, but accounts for around one-third of all flood-related fatalities and 80% of all flood-related damages, according to the National Weather Service.

When will the heavy rain, flooding risk end

The flood watch across Texas Hill Country remains in effect through Thursday.

The same area faces a level 4 of 4 risk for flash flooding on Thursday, with the heaviest rain expected between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. Another round of heavy rain could occur Thursday night.

Isolated additional rain totals of more than a foot are possible through Thursday, forecasts show.

There is the potential for life-threatening flash flooding through Thursday night, with an additional 4 to 8 inches of rain possible on top of what has already fallen.

By Friday, the heaviest rain will start moving north of Texas Hill Country. The region will finally see drier conditions from Friday, lasting into next week.

Why Texas Hill Country is prone to flash flooding

Texas Hill Country is often referred to as "Flash Flood Alley," one of the most flood-prone regions in the U.S., because the weather and landscape in the south-central Texas allow for rapid flood events, according to the Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI).

The "alley," which stretches from Dallas to San Antonio and encompasses the Colorado and Guadalupe River basins, is highly susceptible to dangerous flood events due to its steep terrain, shallow soil and repeated high rainfall events.

Much of the region is situated on a floodplain between tall hills, funneling any rainfall into rivers and creeks, causing them to rapidly rise. In addition, the clay soil does not easily absorb water and triggers high water runoff once wet, the TWRI said.

Major floods have occurred over nearly all sections of the Guadalupe River Basin, according to U.S. Geological river streamflow records dating back to the 1800s.

High rainfall intensities are a common occurrence because the Gulf provides an infinite source of moist air, as does the Pacific, which produces monsoonal moisture as well as cool air masses from the north that converge to produce extreme rainfall events.

Last year, more than 100 people died, including 25 girls at Camp Mystic, as a result of catastrophic flooding along the Guadalupe River during the Fourth of July weekend.

The torrential rain that turned the river into a raging wall of water was fueled by unique atmospheric conditions, meteorologists and climate scientists told ABC News last year.

Heavy rain combined with slow-moving thunderstorms caused the Guadalupe River to rise 26 feet in less than an hour, officials said.

ABC News' Melissa Griffin and Faith Abubey contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) -- A new bill in Washington, D.C., would allow foster youth to help define their own families — and it's crafted by the very young people it seeks to serve.

Former and current foster youth helped create the Support, Opportunity, Unity and Legal Relationships Act, known as the SOUL Act. It's a Washington, D.C., bill that would allow teens -- ages 16 and up -- to legally enlist multiple guardians, blood relatives or other trusted adults for support without having to completely cut legal ties to their birth parents.

Five of the youth involved in the legislation process sat down with ABC News' Alex Presha in an exclusive interview for ABC News Live Prime.

The SOUL Act, which received unanimous support in the D.C. City Council, was signed by Mayor Muriel Bowser and sent to Congress where it has bipartisan support. It's expected to take effect in September.

Kay Kay, 26, was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and placed in the foster care system when she was eight years old. She and the other foster youth advocates did not want to give their last names to ABC News for privacy reasons.

Kay Kay said her mother -- who was raising her and her four sisters alone -- just didn't have the resources to care for them. "My mom did what she could," Kay Kay told ABC News. "We all knew we was in poverty."

She said she shuffled between foster homes and relatives until she turned 16 years old. Kay Kay learned to advocate for herself, figuring out her rights and speaking up as a teenager. She said she demanded that social workers include her in decisions about her own life.

"I was just speaking up for myself, like in an advocacy role," Kay Kay said. "I thought I just always was an advocate for myself, for people, for thing. ... I just always had that spirit in me." That experience is what motivated her to team up with other current and former foster youth to help make a difference for the next generation.

"This would be the first permanency plan embracing that social norms and a family dynamic look different for each and every person," Cierra, 28, a foster youth advocate and former foster child who worked on the bill, said to Washington, D.C., councilmembers during a council hearing she attended to advocate for the bill. Kay Kay, along with over 20 other youths who lived through D.C.'s foster care system, were enlisted by the Children's Law Center and Family & Youth Initiative to craft the legislation.

If successful, our nation's capital would be the second jurisdiction with a law like this on the books. Kansas passed similar legislation in 2024.

Through the SOUL Act, trusted adults who are chosen by youth and have been approved by the city, can aid them in making decisions about education, financial management, accessing health care and can even provide financial assistance and a home for them to live in.

"Your family can be your coach, your family can be your teacher, your family can be that auntie, uncle, cousin," Princess, 27, an advocate and former foster child who worked on the bill, said in an interview with Presha. "Your family can, should be, and will always be your choice, no matter what anybody tells you. And I hope that they carry that within their hearts."

Many D.C. teens choose to stay in the foster care system for resources, like education programs, housing placement and an assigned social worker after they age out, according to the Children's Law Center. And while some have family members who can support them in certain ways, not all can provide a stable place to live. Under the new law, teens would be able to build their "SOUL family" and maintain that stability.

Youths who age out of foster care without support are more likely to experience housing insecurity, incarceration, unemployment, or have children at an early age, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

According to federal data, between 15,000 to 20,000 young people a year exit the foster care system -- nationally -- without adoption, a legal guardian or reunification with their biological family. In D.C., 18% of foster youth age out of the system without that support -- twice the rate of the national average.

The estimated annual cost of a "SOUL family" in Washington, D.C., is about half of the price for a current foster care placement -- $24,000 per year vs. $45,000 per year — according to the Children's Law Center.

"I'm hoping that the youth can have something that I never had...Every child deserves a great childhood," said 19-year-old- Zaniya.

Cierra continued, "I believe that there is a youth who's coming after me who deserves a community...doesn't matter about your behavior, doesn't matter what you look like, it doesn't matter where you came from. You deserve to have a family."

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(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) -- A teenager has been arrested in the 2025 fatal shooting of three people outside of a DMV in Kentucky. Another shooter remains at large, police said. 

The unnamed teen, who was 17 years old at the time of the murders, has been charged with three counts of murder complicity, five counts of first-degree wanton endangerment and receiving stolen property, according to the Louisville Metro Police Department. 

The teen is now 19 years old, according to police. 

The teen was identified as one of the three shooters after police used a DNA profiles obtained from a stolen vehicle to tie him to the killings, according to the LMPD. 

Investigators believe a second shooter was killed in a separate incident and said they are working to identify the third shooter.

The February 2025 shooting happened outside the Driver's License Regional office in Valley Station, Kentucky, according to LMPD. 

The three shooters allegedly approached a line of people standing in line to go into the DMV and opened fire toward the line, fatally shooting three people, Louisville Metro Police Department Lt. Les Skaggs said at a press conference Thursday. 

Leslye Harbin Jr., 18, died at the scene while his mother, 33-year-old Antwanette Chillers, and another victim, 29-year-old Raysa Valdes, were taken to a hospital where they died, Skaggs said.

The three shooters fled the scene of the shooting in a vehicle, Skaggs said.

LMPD marked vehicles were parked near the scene while officers were at a business next door, according to Skaggs. By the time the officers reached the scene the suspects had fled, Skaggs said. 

Shortly after the shooting, police identified a suspect vehicle, enabling them to track the vehicle’s movements. Investigators were able to recover the vehicle the same day, police said. 

The vehicle was stolen from a dealership, but the dealership had not noticed the vehicle was missing until after the shooting had occurred, according to Skaggs. It had been stolen several days before the shooting, he said. 

Investigators obtained evidence from the vehicle, which was sent to DNA Labs International. DNA Labs International was able to get several DNA profiles from inside the vehicle, Skaggs said. 

In the last 17 months, detectives have written and served around 50 search warrants to obtain evidence that helped them identify the individual arrested Wednesday, Skaggs said. 

The DNA profiles have also helped investigators identify other people who may be involved in the murder, Skaggs said. 

One possible suspect identified by the DNA profile has since been murdered in a separate incident, police said.

Police are still working to identify the third suspect in this incident. 

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(WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump's longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on more than a dozen of Trump's speeches on the prediction market Kalshi, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to the president who has been operating Trump's teleprompter since 2016, is in talks with federal regulators to settle allegations he used his inside knowledge of the president's speeches to win more than $100,000, the sources said.

According to the sources, Kalshi alerted its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to the suspicious activity on its "Mentions" market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics are uttered during a public speech.

"Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC, and we are cooperating and assisting regulators," Kalshi's lead lawyer, Bobby DeNault, said in a statement provided to ABC News.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday afternoon, following ABC News' report, that Perez has been put on unpaid administrative leave. Leavitt said she spoke with President Trump about it, and he thought it was a "disgrace" and made the decision himself to put Perez on unpaid leave.

Leavitt said she was unaware of any other White House staffers who have made such trades.

"The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow," said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle when contacted by ABC News.

A spokesperson for the CFTC declined to comment.

In addition to February's State of the Union address, sources said CFTC investigators discovered that Perez placed bets on more than a dozen Trump speeches over a three-month period, including a December primetime address, a January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Trump's remarks in March during a Medal of Honor ceremony.

Later in March, the White House issued an internal memo warning staff against using nonpublic information to place bets on prediction markets, sources previously confirmed to ABC News.

Perez continues to serve as one of Trump's teleprompter operators -- a role he has served since Trump's first presidential campaign.

Of all Trump's closest aides, sources say Perez typically has the final eyes on nearly all of the president's prepared remarks -- and is often known to take last-minute edits from Trump himself. He previously came under scrutiny by congressional and federal investigators over the edits that were made prior to the delivery of Trump's remarks surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump is known to frequently deviate from his prepared remarks, as he himself often acknowledges.

"You know, when you go up here, you take a big chance, especially me because I go off teleprompter about 80% of the time," Trump said during remarks in January to the Detroit Economic Club, another speech federal investigators believe was among those Perez betted on.

In certain instances, investigators uncovered times when Perez would back out of certain bets mid-speech when Trump skipped over a portion of the speech that included a word he had previously bet would be mentioned, the sources said.

According to sources familiar with the investigation, Perez sat for an interview with regulators in recent months and acknowledged some of the trades. At some point during the investigation, the sources said the CFTC alerted federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who declined to open a criminal investigation.

Regulators at the CFTC have expressed a willingness to settle with Perez, and have discussed terms with him that would require Perez to give back his profits and refrain from making similar trades, according to sources familiar with the ongoing discussions.

Kalshi has a policy against users placing bets based on information obtained as part of their jobs.

Last month, the company updated its policies to require users to disclose their place of employment.

"If you have information by virtue of your job or your employment, something that you have a legal duty surrounding, and you have an obligation not to take that, misappropriate it for yourself," DeNault told ABC News in May.  

The Department of Justice in recent months brought the two first cases of insider trading on prediction markets, involving a special forces soldier who allegedly bet on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and, separately, a Google employee who allegedly bet on user searches using internal company data. Both pleaded not guilty.

President Trump has occasionally criticized prediction markets, but said in April that he supports them because the United States could be "left out in the cold" if the country does not allow companies like Kalshi and Polymarket to operate.

"Well the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino, and you look at what's going on all over the world in Europe and every place they're doing these betting things. I was never much in favor of it. I don't like it conceptually, but it is what it is," Trump told reporters.

Last October, Trump's social media company, Trump Media and Technology Group, announced it was looking into launching its own prediction market offering.

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