TEWKSBURY, MASS. (WHDH) – The father of a 23-year-old man who was shot in a random attack at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire before the shooter turned the gun on himself spoke with 7NEWS Thursday about his son’s recovery.

On July 5, officers responded to a reported shooting in the area of 29 Ocean Boulevard at approximately 1:20 a.m. and found a 23-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman suffering from gunshot wounds, according to a joint statement issued by Attorney General John M. Formella, New Hampshire State Police Colonel Mark B. Hall, and Hampton Police Department Chief Alexander J. Reno. Both were taken to a nearby hospital.

Robert Perault said his son Chase was shot three times while he was walking with his 25-year-old girlfriend at the beach.

“Bullet was lodged in his left arm, and then two in the lungs,” Perault said. “It just blows your mind that this happens. I can’t explain any other way, it’s just a random act of violence.”

Soon after, at the intersection of P Street and Ashworth Avenue, officers encountered the suspect, Tyshawn Cooper, 21, of Taylors, South Carolina, who pulled a handgun, raised it, and shot himself in the head as an officer fired at him, officials said. Cooper was a sailor in the United States Navy.

After an autopsy, Cooper’s cause of death was determined to be suicide.

Perault said his son and his girlfriend have both been released from the hospital but are continuing to recover from their injuries.

“The fact that he was threatening, so they say, people – to shoot somebody prior to that was kind of an indication that this was something going on,” Perault said.

He said his biggest questions are what Cooper was doing with the gun, and how he got the gun in the first place. He said he has received “not a word” from the Navy in the wake of the attack.

Chase graduated from Tewksbury High School, loves fishing, and now works in construction with his father. Perault said his son has only had one question on his mind since he first woke up at the hospital.

“‘Why did he shoot us?’ That was the very first thing to come out of his mouth,” Perault said.

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On the morning of July 16, 2024, an ultrabright meteor streaked across the sky above New York City. It exploded midflight, and part of it smashed through the roof of a home in Hillsborough, New Jersey.

“I heard an immense crash and felt the house shake,” one of the homeowners, who wanted to remain anonymous for privacy, tells Robin George Andrews at the New York Times. He then went to the source of the sound: the main bedroom. “I open the door, and I see a hole in the ceiling above my bed.”

The crime scene smelled like rotten eggs and was covered in black soot. Scattered about were several dark rocks—fragments of a meteorite, a space rock that reached Earth’s surface. Together, the recovered pieces formed a roughly three-pound object dubbed the Hillsborough meteorite.

Now, scientists have analyzed the Hillsborough meteorite and determined that it belongs to a rare class of primitive meteorites and contains certain building blocks of life and evidence of salty water. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances on July 15, provide a new window into our solar system’s past and clues about the origins of life on Earth.

AMS event #3491-2024 caught from Wayne US

The Hillsborough meteorite fortunately caused no injuries and landed in the home of a couple that was eager to safeguard the space-faring debris for scientists. They quickly contacted study co-author Mike Hankey, an amateur astronomer at the American Meteor Society, who guided them through the process of properly preserving the samples, reports Ashley Strickland at CNN. The homeowners donned gloves and carefully collected the fragments using aluminum foil and glass containers.

The rock fragments were then brought into a lab for analyses involving high-powered microscopes and investigations into its mineral and chemical composition. The work revealed that the meteorite was a CM carbonaceous chondrite, a carbon-rich class of meteorite that may have delivered water to Earth during its youth.

“These are primitive meteorites,” says Peter Brown, a meteor physicist at Western University in Canada who was not involved in the study, to the Times. “They resemble the chemistry that made the planets.”

CM carbonaceous chondrites are usually classified as either CM1 or CM2, largely depending on how much water changed their composition when they were attached to their parent asteroid. But curiously, the analyses hinted that the Hillsborough meteorite sits in between the classes. While scientists have been able to witness 22 CM-type meteorites fall to Earth, only two, including Hillsborough, have been intermediate CM1/2-types.

“Thanks to the homeowner’s quick reaction, these are the most pristine CM1/2 [meteorite pieces] we know of,” says study co-author Peter Jenniskens, a planetary astronomer at the SETI Institute, in a statement.

This exceptional state of preservation meant the Hillsborough meteorite retained much of its original composition. The rock contains microscopic fractures filled with sodium-rich material, the team found, which suggests that the parent asteroid once had salty water moving through it. The meteorite also holds a plethora of amino acids, the units that build proteins, most of which don’t occur naturally on Earth.

“One of the big surprises for me when we analyzed a small chip of the Hillsborough meteorite was the complexity of amino acids and other organic compounds,” says study co-author Danny Glavin, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in a NASA statement.

What’s more, cameras across New Jersey recorded the trajectory of the blazing meteor—considered a fireball since it outshone Venus—as it zipped through the atmosphere, which helped the scientists figure out where in the solar system the space rock came from. The team suspects that the rock was once part of the 45-mile-wide asteroid 163 Erigone in the inner asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. A huge object slammed into it about 155 million years ago, creating a family of asteroids. Then, around six million years ago, “a smaller collision destroyed one of these asteroids, from which a piece ended up in near-Earth orbit,” writes Jenniskens in an email to CNN.

“That piece experienced heat/cold cycles from spinning in the sunlight and fragmented about 200,000 years ago,” he adds. Eventually, it entered Earth’s atmosphere at 32,000 miles per hour, most of it getting vaporized on the way to the house in New Jersey.

Jenniskens says that people shouldn’t fear a home visit from a celestial rock. It’s unlikely to happen, and even if it does, a meteorite is a “treasure,” he tells Lisa Grossman at Science News. “I think you are very lucky if it happens to you.”

• Pittsburgh was under a Code Red air quality alert on Thursday, July 16 due to wildfire smoke.
• The smoke originated from wildfires burning in Canada and Minnesota.
• A Code Red alert indicates unhealthy air quality, while a Code Orange alert means it is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

Pittsburgh was under a code red air quality alert on Thursday, July 16 as wildfire smoke from Canada and Minnesota settled across the city.

The city’s air quality was expected to deteriorate as smoke concentration at ground level increased throughout the day, with the day’s overall air quality forecast as unhealthy due to fine particles carried in smoke, according to Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Here’s what to know about Pittsburgh’s air quality.

What’s the air quality in Pittsburgh today?

The morning of July 16, the air quality was moderate, with an Air Quality Index reading of 55, according to AirNow. But it was expected to hit unhealthy levels later in the day, with the overall daily air quality anticipated to reach dangerous levels with an AQI of 175, prompting Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to issue a Code Red air quality alert. The alert is based on the day’s expected overall air quality and not individual hour-to-hour readings.

Smoke was likely to continue to impact Pittsburgh into the weekend, with a forecast overall daily AQI of 140 on July 17, with the state department of environmental protection issuing a Code Orange air quality alert. This indicates that the air quality may be unhealthy for sensitive groups.

July 18 was likely to see improved conditions, with moderate air quality.

What does a Code Red air quality alert mean?

A Code Red air quality alert indicates that the overall air quality within a day is likely to be unhealthy, with an AQI reading of 151 to 200.

Because the alert is based on the overall air quality for the day, there may be periods of time with better air quality. It’s a good idea to check the current air quality before going outside.

If you have to go outside while the AQI is at unhealthy levels, AirNow recommends avoiding strenuous activities or limiting your time outdoors. It may be a good idea to move outdoor activities indoors.

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection also encouraged residents to avoid using gas-powered lawn and garden equipment, reducing the use of fireplaces or wood stoves and avoiding the open burning of leaves, trash or other materials in an effort to reduce fine particulate matter air polution.