COLUMBUS (WJW) - Federal prosecutors are pushing for former Speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder to receive a near-max sentencing for his involvement in the state's biggest bribery scandal.

Back in March, Householder and former state Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges were found guilty of accepting a $60 million bribe from FirstEnergy to pass a bailout bill for its nuclear plants.

Now, in court documents filed Thursday, federal prosecutors are requesting the court to sentence Householder to 16 to 20 years in prison.

"Such a sentence reflects the seriousness of the offense, will provide deterrence, and is consistent with the sentences imposed by other courts for similar conduct," court documents said. "Such a sentence also will communicate to the public that the rule of law applies to everyone, including prominent public officials."

He's scheduled for sentencing on June 29.

Some doctors are reporting a rise in cases involving the drug Ozempic.

“We typically find with a lot of the ER visits and there are a lot of them, they are typically people who have gotten some telemedicine (prescription) for Ozempic and haven't gotten much guidance about how to use it, what to look out for, etc.,” said Dr. Terry Simpson.

The California-based and renowned weight loss surgeon and researcher says the drug has been gaining in popularity because of many Hollywood stars taking it before red carpet events, but that is not how the medication is intended to be used.

“People get the idea that this is just sort of a benign drug,” he said, “But it's not a benign drug. It's a drug meant to be used for a lifetime. It's a drug that has serious side effects.”

According to the manufacturer's website, side effects will impact 1 in 10 people and include problems with the digestive system such as diarrhea, vomiting and nausea.

“Those are most of the emergency room visits that are seen,” said Dr. Simpson. “Pancreatitis is fortunately exceedingly rare, but it does happen.” 

At the Cleveland Clinic, the emergency department directors have not seen an increase in those cases but a spokesperson confirmed to FOX 8 News that, “They have seen a few patients with persistent vomiting while taking Ozempic and Wegovy. A small number of these patients have needed to be admitted for observation.”

Dr. Scott Butsch, director of obesity medicine in the Bariatric Metabolic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, said, “There obviously are those individuals who are being treated who may not have indications for these medications.” 

However, when the medications are used properly under a doctor's care, he said the serious side effects are a small percentage and no greater than any other medication.

“For people considering these medications, they should think about the knowledge and experience of the provider just like they would for any other disease or condition,” he said. “Also, don't think the higher the dose, the more weight loss.”

“To understand this is a serious drug, not to just lose 10 or 20 pounds to get ready for the next class reunion. But this is a drug used to treat a condition of morbid obesity,” said Dr. Simpson. “I think if it's given with care and not with the usual quick fix doctor, it’ll be just fine.”

FOX 8 reached out to Novo Nordisk the creators of Ozempic, for comment, but we have not received an immediate response.

PARMA, Ohio (WJW) -- The founder of a local animal rescue who owns a Mantua home in which 146 dogs were found dead Friday has been charged with a felony count of animal cruelty.

Barbara A. Wible, of Parma, the founder of the nonprofit Canine Lifeline Inc., remains hospitalized after suffering what she said was a fall at her home along West Ridgewood Drive, Parma police Lt. Dan Ciryak wrote in a Thursday news release.

An Amazon delivery driver on June 2 told Parma police that packages had been piling up at Wible's address -- possibly for more than a week.

The worker also told dispatchers: "The lights are on and there appears to be a bunch of flies inside the house. He could see them through the window," according to the incident's dispatch log.

Officers who came for a welfare check found Wible, 68, on the floor, and helped her up. She was able to walk out of the home on her own, and taken to a hospital. She told officers she didn't know how long she was on the floor, Ciryak wrote.

An animal control officer who came to the home found 24 dogs alive inside the home, and another 12 that were dead, according to the log. All of the dogs were of small to medium size, and all were in cages, according to the log.

Three of the living dogs went to an emergency veterinary clinic, one of which survived. The other two had to be euthanized, Ciryak wrote.

"The remaining 22 dogs are all rehabilitating after being neglected," he wrote.

The dispatch log shows officers requested a visit from the city building department, to determine whether the home needed to be condemned. Officers were unable to speak with Wible in the hospital on June 2, and instead left a note informing her she wouldn't be able to return to the home.

The evening of June 2, Parma officers notified the Portage County Sheriff's Office, which sent deputies to a Mantua home which Wible owned for other animals. There, they found another 146 dogs -- all dead, and most of them confined to crates.

Watch previous FOX 8 News coverage in the player below:

Canine Lifeline in a statement Friday said its volunteers didn't know there were that many dogs at Wible's home, or about the conditions.

"Please know that the volunteers of Canine Lifeline are grieving this tragedy and are cooperating with the appropriate authorities," the statement reads.

Workers said Wible was a "very private person who appeared, to us, to be devoted to these rescue animals; it appeared to be her life’s passion, and we are sickened and blind-sighted to learn this was a facade."

FOX 8 News caught up with Wible in 2012 at an adoption event in Macedonia while recording a "Hometown Hero" news segment.

At the time, FOX 8 News was told that the charity was bringing in dogs from as far away as southern Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, hoping to find them good homes. The charity said it has helped rescue more than 6,000 animals since it was founded in 2009.

Wible's case is pending before a Cuyahoga County grand jury, where additional charges are expected, Ciryak said.

Wible's Parma Municipal Court proceedings are on hold, records show. No future court dates have been set.

Coast Guard officials said during a news conference Thursday that they've notified the families of the crew of the Titan, which has been missing for several days.

Debris found during the search for the vessel “is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District.

“The outpouring of support in this highly complex search operation has been great appreciated. Our most heartfelt condolences go out to the friends and loved ones of the crew,” Mauger said.

OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement that all five people on board, including company CEO Stockton Rush, are believed to be dead. Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet “have sadly been lost,” OceanGate said in a statement.

OceanGate did not provide details when the company announced the “loss of life” in a statement or how officials knew the crew members perished. The Titan's 96-hour oxygen supply likely ended early Thursday.

OceanGate has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.

The Titan was estimated to have about a four-day supply of breathable air when it launched Sunday morning in the North Atlantic — but experts have emphasized that was an imprecise approximation to begin with and could be extended if passengers have taken measures to conserve breathable air. And it’s not known if they survived since the sub’s disappearance.

Rescuers have rushed ships, planes and other equipment to the site of the disappearance. On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard said an undersea robot sent by a Canadian ship had reached the sea floor, while a French research institute said a deep-diving robot with cameras, lights and arms also joined the operation.

Authorities have been hoping underwater sounds might help narrow their search, whose coverage area has been expanded to thousands of miles — twice the size of Connecticut and in waters 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) deep. Coast Guard officials said underwater noises were detected in the search area Tuesday and Wednesday.

Jamie Pringle, an expert in Forensic Geosciences at Keele University, in England, said even if the noises came from the submersible, "The lack of oxygen is key now; even if they find it, they still need to get to the surface and unbolt it."

The Titan was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as it was on its way to where the iconic ocean liner sank more than a century ago. OceanGate Expeditions, which is leading the trip, has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.

By Thursday morning, hope was running out that anyone on board the vessel would be found alive.

Dr. Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey, emphasized the difficulty of finding something the size of the submersible, which is about 22 feet (6.5 meters) long and 9 feet (nearly 3 meters) high.

“You’re talking about totally dark environments," in which an object several dozen feet away can be missed, he said. "It’s just a needle in a haystack situation unless you’ve got a pretty precise location.”

Newly uncovered allegations suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during the submersible’s development.

Broadcasters around the world started newscasts at the critical hour Thursday with news of the submersible. The Saudi-owned satellite channel Al Arabiya showed a clock on air counting down to their estimate of when the air could potentially run out.

Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District said a day earlier that authorities were still holding out hope of saving the five passengers onboard.

“This is a search-and-rescue mission, 100%,” he said Wednesday.

Retired Navy Capt. Carl Hartsfield, now the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, said the sounds detected have been described as “banging noises,” but he warned that search crews “have to put the whole picture together in context and they have to eliminate potential manmade sources other than the Titan.” Frederick acknowledged Wednesday that authorities didn’t what the sounds were.

The report of sounds was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar.

The U.S. Navy said in a statement Wednesday that it was sending a specialized salvage system that’s capable of hoisting “large, bulky and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels."

The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds (9,000 kilograms). The U.S. Navy’s Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is designed to lift up to 60,000 pounds (27,200 kilograms), the Navy said on its website.

Lost aboard the vessel is pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate. His passengers are: British adventurer Hamish Harding; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman; and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.

In the first comments from Pakistan since the Titan vanished, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said Thursday that officials have confidence in the search efforts.

“We would not like to speculate on the circumstances of this incident and we would also like to respect the wishes of the Dawood family that their privacy be respected,” she said.

At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the Titanic shipwreck.

One of the company’s first customers characterized a dive he made to the site two years ago as a “kamikaze operation.”

“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”

During the 2 1/2-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.

The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10 1/2 hours.

The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon.

Nick Rotker, who leads underwater research for the nonprofit research and development company MITRE, said the difficulty in searching for the Titan has underscored the U.S.'s need for more underwater robots and remotely operated underwater vehicles.

“The issue is, we don’t have a lot of capability or systems that can go to the depth this vessel was going to,” Rotker said.

Nicolai Roterman, a deep-sea ecologist and lecturer in marine biology at the University of Portsmouth, England, said the disappearance of the Titan highlights the dangers and unknowns of deep-sea tourism.

“Even the most reliable technology can fail, and therefore accidents will happen. With the growth in deep-sea tourism, we must expect more incidents like this.”

Turning scattered through the afternoon and evening tomorrow.

Mild as cloud build into the area tonight. Heavier rain will move in after midnight into the early hours of Friday. No severe storms anticipated.

Rain will turn more scattered through the afternoon tomorrow. Chance for a few general thunderstorms. Cool with temperatures climbing into the low 70s during the day.

Looking ahead this weekend, Saturday’s coverage will be smaller, on and off and mainly in the morning. A few spotty storms will develop in the afternoon with small coverage/sun in between. Eastern areas of northern Ohio much better chance. Drier west.

Humidity pulses north on and off this week with more consistently humid air Sunday/Monday.

Temperature forecast:

Here’s how we wrap up the month heading into July:

Check the latest 8-Day Forecast above.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are ready to fight, offline.

In a now-viral back-and-forth seen on Twitter and Instagram this week, the two tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a “cage match” face off.

It all started when Musk, who owns Twitter, responded to a tweet about Meta reportedly preparing to release a new Twitter rival called “Threads.” He took a dig about the world becoming “exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options" — but then one Twitter user jokingly warned Musk of Zuckerberg's jiu jitsu training.

“I’m up for a cage match if he is lol,” Musk wrote late Tuesday.

Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms, soon responded — and appeared to agree to Musk's proposal.

“Send me location,” Zuckerberg wrote on a Wednesday night Instagram story, which showed a screenshot of Musk's tweet alongside another user's response urging the Twitter owner to “start training.”

Zuckerberg is actually trained in mixed martial arts. The Facebook founder posted about completing his first jiu jitsu tournament last month.

In response to Zuckerberg’s location request on Wednesday, Musk proposed the Vegas Octagon. He then joked about his fighting skills and workout routine, suggesting that the fight may not be serious.

“I have this great move that I call ‘The Walrus’, where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing,” Musk wrote.

Whether or not Musk and Zuckerberg actually make it to the ring has yet to be seen — especially as Musk often tweets about action prematurely or without following through. But, even if their cage match agreement is all a joke, the banter gained attention. An endless chain of memes and posts to “choose your fighter” have sprung up in response.

“The story speaks for itself,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to The Associated Press. Zuckerberg has not commented further.

Despite the uncertainity of a cage match actually happening, bids are already being placed for a projected winner. DraftKings' projected odds stood at 140+ for Musk and -160 for Zuckerberg on Thursday.

The Associated Press also reached out to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which owns the Octagon, and Twitter for statements. Twitter's press email responded with a poop emoji, its standard automated response to reporters.

The Navy went back and analyzed its acoustic data after the Titan submersible was reported missing Sunday. Coast Guard officials on Thursday announced that the craft suffered a catastrophic implosion, killing all five aboard.

That anomaly was “consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the TITAN submersible was operating when communications were lost,” according to a senior Navy official.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive acoustic detection system.

The Navy passed on the information to the Coast Guard, which continued its search because the Navy did not consider the data to be definitive.

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday first reported the Navy’s involvement.

The five people on board when the ship imploded were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding; Pakistani investor Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman; and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

On Thursday, OceanGate issued the following statement:

These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans. Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew. 

This is an extremely sad time for our dedicated employees who are exhausted and grieving deeply over this loss. The entire OceanGate family is deeply grateful for the countless men and women from multiple organizations of the international community who expedited wide-ranging resources and have worked so very hard on this mission. We appreciate their commitment to finding these five explorers, and their days and nights of tireless work in support of our crew and their families. 

This is a very sad time for the entire explorer community, and for each of the family members of those lost at sea. We respectfully ask that the privacy of these families be respected during this most painful time.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) — Victor Wembanyama is the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, headed to San Antonio with enormous expectations to become basketball's newest sensation.

The selection of the 19-year-old from France that had been a foregone conclusion for months was announced by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver on Thursday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, followed by chants of “Wemby! Wemby” from a group of Spurs fans waving signs from the first row of seats.

Wembanyama arrives with far more height and hype than most No. 1 picks. Listed at 7-foot-4, he dominated his French league in his final season there, leading all players in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots.

Now he makes the move to the NBA, perhaps as the best prospect since LeBron James came out of high school in 2003. Wembanyama brings a package of skills that seem perfect for the modern NBA and too vast for one player, with the size of a center and the shooting and ballhandling ability of a guard.

“Hearing that sentence from Adam Silver, I’ve dreamed of it so much,” Wembanyama said, tears in his eyes as he left the stage with his Spurs cap on and hugged his siblings. “I’ve got to cry.”

Wembanyama was the center of attention throughout the draft process and sat in the middle of the green room — for the short time he was there, anyway. He smiled for young fans who screamed “Victor!” as he walked around the arena, even encouraging one to throw him a basketball that he signed and tossed back up into the stands.

The Charlotte Hornets took Alabama freshman forward Brandon Miller with the No. 2 pick.

Scoot Henderson of the G League Ignite, whose bling-filled jacket stood in sharp contrast to Wembanyama's solid green look, was the No. 3 pick by the Portland Trail Blazers.

It was during a two-game series between teams featuring Wembanyama and Henderson last October in Las Vegas that Wembanyama solidified himself as the main man in this draft, scoring 37 and 36 points in front of scouts and some future opponents. His highlights, such as a follow dunk of his own missed 3-pointer, became can't-miss content for basketball fans during the past season.

Wembanyama is the Spurs’ third No. 1 pick and the first since Tim Duncan in 1997, which led to a stretch of five NBA championships through 2014 before they struggled in recent seasons.

(WJW) -- The wife of one of the missing passengers on the Titanic tourist submersible has a historic connection with the wreckage.

The Titan was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as it was on its way to where the iconic ocean liner sank more than a century ago. Thursday afternoon, the U.S. Coast Guard said it imploded, killing all five people on board.

The New York Times, which cited archival records, reports Stockton Rush, who was the pilot of the Titan sub, was married to Wendy Rush, a great-great-granddaughter of a couple who died on the Titanic. What's more, a scene in the hit movie, "Titanic," was loosely based on the couple's story.

That couple, Ida Straus and her husband, Isidor Straus, who was a co-owner of Macy's, were two of the wealthiest people on the Titanic, according to the New York Times.

Back in 2017, the couple's great-grandson, Paul Kurzman, told TODAY their story as he knows it. He said when the ship began to sink, women and children were ushered to the lifeboats.

He said Ida did step into a lifeboat. Isidor was told that due to his status and age, he could also enter. But Isidor refused to, unless every woman and child was saved first, Kurzman told TODAY.

Ida got out of the lifeboat and joined her husband. Kurzman told TODAY Ida was wearing a mink coat that day. After stepping off the lifeboat, she gave it to her maid, as she got to safety.

In the movie, the couple was shown holding each other in bed as the Titanic went down.

Kurzman told TODAY that a locket found in Isidor's watch pocket when his body was recovered was seen in the movie. Ida's remains were not found.

Stockton Rush was also the CEO of OceanGate. His passengers were: British adventurer Hamish Harding; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman; and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.

At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022.

OceanGate Expeditions, which is leading the trip, has been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

(WJW) -- A mistake that "paralyzed" some of a local waste collector's truck fleet could delay trash pickups in five Northeast Ohio counties this week.

Rumpke Waste & Recycling on Thursday morning notified customers that a supplier error caused its trucks fuel supplies to become contaminated, "which has temporarily paralyzed a portion of Rumpke's fleet."

Trash collection in Cuyahoga, Summit, Portage, Geauga and Medina counties may be delayed this week, according to an update on the company's website.

"We are asking customers to leave items curbside as our crews work around the clock to revive our fleet and resume collection service," reads a notice shared by North Royalton Council President Paul Marnecheck.

"We apologize for this situation. Please know that our team will not stop working until this issue is resolved. We greatly appreciate your assistance, patience and business as we overcome this challenge and work to ultimately deliver the service our customers expect and deserve."

Delayed Thursday pickups would happen Friday and Friday pickups would be on Saturday, according to the notice.

According to its website, the company offers residential garbage pickup and recycling across the state, including in several Northeast Ohio communities:

• Broadview Heights and Newburgh Heights, Cuyahoga County
• Painesville, Lake County
• Seville, Medina County
• Mansfield and Shiloh, Richland County

FOX 8 News has reached out to the company for more information.

Ohio kindergarten teachers complete a standardized Kindergarten Readiness Assessment for each student at the beginning of every school year to show the child's level of readiness.

Students' skills are evaluated in a variety of categories, including academic, social-emotional and physical.

Scores fall into one of three categories of readiness: Demonstrating is the highest, Approaching is the middle tier, and Emerging is the lowest.

In the 2022-2023 school year, 35.4% of kindergarten students demonstrated readiness, according to the test scores. 34.5% scored as "approaching" readiness, and 30.1% of scores fell into the "emerging" category, meaning nearly two-thirds of kindergarteners were not ready for the classroom.

“Kids who are ready at the kindergarten level, who have access to quality early childhood experiences, have higher attainment, earn more and have better health. Not just right out of school, but through their life course,” said Lynanne Gutierrez, Chief Policy and Operating Officer at Groundwork Ohio, a Columbus nonprofit that advocates for Ohioans five and younger.

Gutierrez points to the lack of affordable, quality early childcare available to a growing number of families, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. The ODE data shows 21% of children from economically disadvantaged families demonstrated readiness on the KRA in 2022. Results were similar for Black and Hispanic students, according to the data.

“The more trauma that’s in a child’s life, the more we see behavior challenges," said Meredith Schilling, a team lead Pre-K teacher at the Ohio State University's A. Sophie Rogers School. "Given that everyone’s had this trauma because of the pandemic, and most of the children in our classrooms don’t have a working memory before the pandemic, they’re all experiencing a level of trauma to some degree.”

Schilling has taught at the school for 17 years, and says her job has become more challenging in recent years as students respond to the trauma of the pandemic in different ways, and her colleagues leave for higher-paying jobs.

"I think it's very concerning," Schilling said. "I think we need to invest more in children and teachers and in families."

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ohio's Pre-K teachers are among the lowest-paid in the country, making an average salary of $24,540 to $32,220 in 2022.

“There are so many challenges to overcome, and the expectations on professionals who make on average $12 an hour is almost insurmountable,” Gutierrez said.

The biannual state budget that lawmakers are still finalizing includes more money than in years past for early childhood programs. The most recent version as passed by the Senate includes less than the versions proposed by Governor Mike DeWine and passed by the House.

Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy spoke out and called himself a whistleblower, but he refused to answer questions from the I-Team.

Garfield Heights Municipal Court Judge Deborah Nicastro recently said officials with Newburgh Heights were breaking the law since they stopped filing Interstate 77 speed camera tickets in Court.

Now, the Chief says to blame the Newburgh Hts. Mayor, not him.

"I am seeking whistleblower protection for violations of law committed by Mayor Gigi Traore,” Police Chief John Majoy said during Wednesday’s Newburgh Heights Village Council meeting.

He said he was unaware the tickets were not being filed in court

"I did not have anything to do with the decision to not file the citations in court," Majoy said.

The chief said when he found out what was going on, he emailed officials at the company that processes the camera tickets. He instructed the company to file the tickets with the Court. But, Chief Majoy said the Mayor blocked him.

The I-Team’s Ed Gallek pressed the chief for answers, asking how he didn’t know the tickets were not being filed in court. Especially since he is the top cop in the Village, and administers the camera ticket program.

"I am not authorized to speak to you, so my statement stands right up there (motioning to where he spoke at the meeting),” Majoy said. "What part of that don't you understand? I'm not allowed to speak on that, Ed.  I spoke in a public forum."

Tens of thousands of drivers receive camera tickets from Newburgh Heights. In March, the Village stopped filing the tickets in court. The Court said, that way, the Village did not give up any money in filing fees.

The Mayor did not show up at the Council meeting. We found her a few feet away from Council chambers, sitting in a locked office. We tried to talk to her through a glass window, but she refused to respond.

Weeks ago, Judge Nicastro ordered the village to file all camera tickets in court and pay more than $25,000 in fees. The I-Team learned late Thursday that the village has paid the fees, and it has begun the process of getting the tickets filed.

The vessel, officials said, suffered a “catastrophic implosion” during its journey to the wreckage, the cause of which is still under investigation.

On Thursday afternoon, just hours after experts estimated the oxygen on the Titan would have run out for any surviving passengers, Coast Guard officials confirmed that at least five pieces of the vessel had been found during search-and-rescue efforts.

The pieces, found approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, included the nose cone, pieces of the hull, and the front and aft end bells, according to Paul Hanken, an undersea expert who spoke at Thursday afternoon’s news conference.

“That was the first indication there was a catastrophic event,” Hanken said.

Rear Admiral John W. Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard, speaking to the press Thursday, could not say when exactly the Titan suffered the implosion but indicated that sonar equipment used by search teams did not pick up the sound of anything “catastrophic” since they were first used in the rescue efforts.

“Right now, it is too early to tell,” Mauger said, responding to a question on whether he believed the implosion regarding the time of the implosion.

“We’ve had sonar buoys in the water, nearly continuously, and have not detected any catastrophic events when those sonar buoys have been in the water.”

Mauger added that the buoys had been working to detect undersea noises since at least Monday afternoon.

When asked if time was a factor in a possible recovery of the Titan and its crew, Mauger again said the Coast Guard’s listening devices “did not hear any signs of catastrophic failure” after they were put into the water, suggesting the implosion occurred prior to the deployment of the buoys.

Coast Guard officials said they would continue the search as part of their investigation.

OceanGate, the company that operated the submersible, released a statement shortly before the press conference saying the crew of the Titan “have sadly been lost.”

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” the company wrote of its CEO and submersible pilot Stockton Rush and passengers Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time.”

(WJW) – About 7.5 million Baby Shark toys are being recalled due to a risk of impalement, lacerations and punctures.

According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, this recall includes full-size Robo Alive Junior Baby Shark Sing & Swim bath toys and Mini Baby Shark Swimming bath toys.

The recalled full-size toys have a hard plastic top and were sold in yellow, pink and blue. They were sold individually and in packs of three. They have tracking label information on the bottom that states model number “#25282” and a date code in the date range from DG20190501 through DG20220619.

The recalled mini toys also have a hard plastic top fin and were sold in yellow, pink and blue. They were sold individually, in packs of two or three and as part of a Baby Shark Music Water Park playset.

The recalled mini-size bath toys have tracking label information that states model numbers “#7163,” "#7175,” “#7166,” or “#25291” and a date code in the date range from DG2020615 through DG2023525.

According to the CSPC, when using the toys, a child can slip and fall or sit on the hard plastic top fin of the shark, causing injury.

Consumers are asked to immediately stop using the recalled toys and contact Zuru for a full refund of $14 for each full-size bath toy or $6 for each mini-size bath toy.

Zuru is aware of 12 reports of children falling or sitting onto the recalled full-size Baby Shark bath toy, resulting in impalement injuries, lacerations and puncture wounds. Nine of the incidents required stitches or medical attention, according to the CSPC.

There have been no reported incidents or injuries involving the Mini Baby Shark bath toys.

The recalled toys were sold at Walmart, CVS Pharmacy, Dollar General Corp., Family Dollar Services, HEB Grocery Company, Meijer, Target, TJX Companies, Ross, and Walgreens stores nationwide and on various online websites.

The full-size Baby Shark bath toys were sold from May 2019 through March 2023 for between $13 and $15.

The Mini Baby Shark bath toys were sold individually and in multi-unit packs from July 2020 through June 2023 for between $6 and $20.

NBC revealed that Dan + Shay are the news judges on season 25 of The Voice.

The Grammy-winning country duo will now be a coaching duo alongside returning coaches Reba McEntire, John Legend and Chance the Rapper.

Dan + Shay posted the announcement to their Instagram page with the caption, "So excited to announce that we will be joining @nbcthevoice in 2024 as the first coaching duo! 🤠🤠"

Season 25 will be the second season of judging in a row for Legend and McEntire. Chance the Rapper is also returning for his second season of The Voice after his first appearance in season 23. 

Dan and Shay first appeared on The Voice as Blake Shelton's battle advisors in season 20, but now they will have their very own team.

ROME (AP) — Exactly 40 years after the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee disappeared, the Vatican said Thursday that new leads “worthy of further investigation” had surfaced hopes of finally getting to the bottom of one of the Holy See’s enduring mysteries.

Emanuela Orlandi vanished June 22, 1983, after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See. Over the years, her disappearance has been linked to everything from the plot to kill St. John Paul II, a financial scandal involving the Vatican bank and Rome’s criminal underworld.

The Vatican's criminal prosecutor, Alessandro Diddi, said Thursday he had recently forwarded to prosecutors in Rome all the relevant evidence he had gathered in the six months since he reopened the investigation into Orlandi's disappearance. In a statement, he vowed to keep pursuing the case.

Popular interest in the case was renewed last year with the four-part Netflix documentary “Vatican Girl,” which explored the various scenarios suspected in her disappearance and also provided new testimony from a friend who said Orlandi had told her a week before she disappeared that a high-ranking Vatican cleric had made sexual advances toward her.

After the documentary aired and with the 40th anniversary of her disappearance nearing, Orlandi’s family — backed by some lawmakers — pressed for an Italian parliamentary commission of inquiry. Separately, the Vatican and Rome prosecutor’s offices reopened the investigation.

Rome's previous chief prosecutor who archived the case within the Italian legal system, Giuseppe Pignatone, is now the chief judge of the Vatican’s criminal tribunal, where Diddi is the chief prosecutor.

In the statement, Diddi said his office had collected “all the evidence available in the structures of the Vatican and the Holy See.”

He said his office had also interrogated people who held Vatican positions 40 years ago.

“It has proceeded to examine the material, confirming some investigative leads worthy of further investigation and transmitting all the relevant documentation, in recent weeks, to the Prosecutor’s Office in Rome, so that the latter may take a look at it and proceed in the direction it deems most appropriate,” the statement said.

He expressed solidarity with the Orlandi family.

Pietro Orlandi, who has fought for 40 years to find the truth about his sister, is planning a sit-in protest Sunday near the Vatican. He has long charged that the Vatican has never come clean with what it knows about the case.

The voluntary recall comes from Sunrise Grower's Inc and includes specific frozen fruit products linked to pineapple that may be contaminated with listeria monocytogenes.

Listeria monocytogenes can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in children, elderly people, and others that may have weakened immune systems.

Symptoms in healthy people may only be short-term and could include high fever, headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea. However, the infection can cause pregnant women to have miscarriages or stillbirths.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, these products were distributed to the following retailers:

• Walmart: Great Value Mixed Fruit, Great Value Dark Sweet Cherries, and Great Value Mango Chunks sold at stores in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming from Jan. 19, 2023, to June 13, 2023
• Whole Foods: 365 Organic Tropical Fruit Medley, 365 Organic Pineapple Chunks, 365 Pineapple Chunks, 365 Organic Whole Strawberries, 365 Organic Slice Strawberries and Bananas, and 365 Organic Blackberries distributed to select stores throughout the U.S. from Nov. 1, 2022, to June 21, 2023
• Trader Joe’s: Trader Joe’s Organic Tropical Fruit Blend distributed to select distribution centers or stores in Alaska, Alabama, Connecticut, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Delaware Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, and Wisconsin from March 28, 2023, to April 11, 2023

• Target: Good & Gather Organic Cherries and Berries Fruit Blend, Good & Gather Dark Sweet Whole Pitted Cherries, Good & Gather Mango Strawberry Blend, Good & Gather Mixed Fruit Blend, Good & Gather Mango Chunks, Good & Gather Blueberries, and Good & Gather Triple Berry Blend distributed nationwide from Oct. 14, 2022, to May 22, 2023
• Aldi: Season’s Choice Tropical Blend distributed to select distribution centers or stores in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, and West Virginia from Oct. 11, 2022, to May 22, 2023
• AWG (Associated Wholesale Grocers): Best Choice Pitted Red Tart Cherries Unsweetened distributed to select distribution centers or stores in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma from April 5, 2023, to May 4, 2023

To see all stores, brands, lot codes, and expiration dates, click here.

So far, no illnesses have been reported, the FDA said.

Consumers with these products should not consume them. Instead, they should either throw them away or return them to the store of purchase for a full refund.

Saying "our commitment to food safety remains our utmost priority," Sunrise Growers has ended all future business transactions with the third-party supplier.

(The Hill) — James Cameron, the director of the 1997 film "Titanic," said on Thursday that he was “struck” by the similarities between the sinking of the actual ship in 1912 and the recent “catastrophic implosion” of the Titan submersible during a dive to see the wreck.

“I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result,” Cameron told ABC News. 

“For a very similar tragedy, where warnings went unheeded, to take place at the same exact site with all the diving that’s going on all around the world, I think is just astonishing,” he added. “It’s really quite surreal.”

Cameron, who has himself made 33 dives to the wreck of the Titanic, noted that several people had previously expressed concerns about the Titan submersible’s tourist expeditions.

“A number of the top players in this deep-submergence engineering community even wrote letters to the company, saying that what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers and that it needed to be certified,” he said.

The Titan went missing on Sunday during a visit to the wreck, spurring a frantic search and rescue effort. The U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday that a remotely operated vehicle had found a debris field near the Titanic that was “consistent with catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”

The five passengers on board the submersible — OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British adventurer Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman, and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet — are believed to be dead.

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate said in a statement. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time."

"We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew," the company added.

"The number of these is apparently huge, huge. And that is something that the government has, the best I can say about it, downplayed, if not kept from the public, for a long, long time," said Hawley.

While he acknowledged that he can't assess the truth of David Grusch's allegations, Hawley pointed to government reports that indicated there were UAP sightings that remain "unaccounted for."

"I don't have any basis to evaluate them but do some of the details that he's alleging, do they sound plausible? Yeah, sure. They sound plausible, based on what I've seen this government do in other instances," Hawley said.

Hawley said his remarks concerned the government's response to the Chinese spy balloon spotted over the U.S. back in January.

"What we learned from the Chinese spy balloon incident is that one part of the government actively concealed it from other parts of the government," Hawley explained. "Because that's what they do all the time."

A House oversight committee has vowed to hold open hearings to address the whistleblower's allegations.

David Grusch, an Air Force veteran and former member of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, alleged the U.S. government has recovered non-human craft for decades. He recently filed a whistleblower complaint, stating he gave what he referred to as classified “proof” to Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General.

Hawley said he felt that Grusch's claims track with what he alleges to have heard in briefings.

"He's saying that the government knows more about this than they have previously let on. That doesn't really surprise me. Because it looks to me like the government has been tracking these UAPs for a long time now, and has not been saying much about it," said Hawley.

Not all lawmakers are convinced, however.

"If we'd really found this stuff, there's no way you could keep it from coming out. … My gut belief is if there's a physical piece of a spacecraft or an intact spaceship, we would've known about it by now," said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Hawley doesn't buy that argument, saying the government is good at keeping secrets when it wants something to stay hidden.

Unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), formerly referred to as UFOs, in theory, could include alien spacecraft, but the two aren't synonymous.

The Defense Department's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) considers a UAP "anything in space, in the air, on land, in the sea or under the sea that can't be identified and might pose a threat to U.S. military installations or operations."

In a statement to NewsNation, the Pentagon said, to date, that “AARO has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.”

However, Grusch is claiming very few people are aware of the alleged secret UAP program, saying even those at the Pentagon who respond to UAP reports are in the dark.

“I have plenty of senior, former intelligence officers that came to me, many of which I knew almost my whole career, that confided in me that they were part of a program," Grusch claimed. "They provided me documents and other proof, that there was in fact a program that the UAP Task Force was not read into.”

AVON, Ohio (WJW) - A teenager stocking fruit was knocked off his feet and pushed through a storefront when a car slammed into him and the crate of fruit he was loading Wednesday.

Avon police released surveillance video that shows an 83-year-old driver crashing into the display of melons outside the Pickering Hill Farms on Detroit Road.

The crash happened at about 2:30 p.m.

In the video, you can see the 19-year-old employee, Aidan Reilly, being knocked to the ground and pushed into the store. Another camera inside the store shows him standing up before another man comforts him.

The employee was taken to the hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries. The elderly driver was not injured.

“Fortunately, he’s doing okay,” owner Jay Pickering said. “We were in contact with the family this morning. They’re expecting him to be let out of the hospital today.”

Pickering said he was shocked to see the accident caught on security footage. He considers his employee lucky.

“He doesn’t seem to have any serious injuries. He’s pretty banged and bruised up, and maybe a little bit of a foot injury,” he said. “Very pleased that Aidan is okay. Last night we were all on pins and needles all night long until we really heard this morning that appears everything is okay.”

Alcohol is not believed to be a factor, and charges are pending the outcome of an investigation.

To make sure this doesn’t happen again, Pickering said he will be installing parking barriers along the storefront.