(BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.) — The wife of a famed music executive was killed during a possible home invasion in Beverly Hills.
Officers from the Beverly Hills Police Department responded to the 1100 block of Maytor Place just before 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, where they found a victim with a gunshot wound to the head, according to the department. The suspects were no longer on the scene, police said.
The victim was identified by a source close to the family as Jacqueline Avant, the wife of music executive and film producer Clarence Avant. Jacqueline Avant was transported to the hospital, where she later died, police said.
Jacqueline Avant, 81, may have been killed as the result of a home invasion, the source told ABC News. A back sliding glass door was shattered, Beverly Hills Police Chief Mark Stainbrook told ABC News.
It is unclear if anything was taken from the home, Stainbrook said. It is unclear who broke into the home, how the events unfolded and how long the suspects were there.
Clarence Avant, who is featured in the 2019 Netflix documentary “The Black Godfather,” was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in October. Clarence Avant, 90, was popular among A-list celebrities such as Oprah, Jay-Z and even former President Barack Obama.
Police read a statement from the Avant family Wednesday afternoon during a press conference, which described Jacqueline Avant as “an amazing woman, wife, mother, philanthropist, and a 55-year resident of Beverly Hills.”
Beverly Hills Police detectives will use all available investigative methods to follow up on leads, Stainbrook said.
Additional information surrounding the incident were not immediately available.
(OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich.) — The teenager who allegedly gunned down three classmates and injured eight others took his father’s gun with him to his Michigan high school, officials said.
The suspected gunman, a 15-year-old boy, was taken into custody after the Tuesday afternoon shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township. The semiautomatic handgun, a 9mm Sig Sauer pistol, was confiscated, officials said.
Three students ages 14 to 17 were killed and eight others, including a teacher, were injured.
The suspect’s father purchased the weapon on Black Friday and officials are looking into how the family stored its guns and how much access the teen had to them, according to a source briefed on the investigation. The suspect had apparently used the gun prior to the school shooting, the source said.
Detectives are also examining the suspect’s writings and devices, the source said.
It has not yet been announced if the 15-year-old will be charged as an adult.
Out of the eight injured, three were in critical condition Tuesday night: a 15-year-old boy shot in the head; a 14-year-old girl shot in the chest; and a 17-year-old girl shot in the chest, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said.
A 14-year-old boy was in serious condition with jaw and head wounds.
Three students were in stable condition: two 17-year-old girls and a 15-year-old boy. The teacher, a 47-year-old woman, was treated and released from the hospital with a graze wound to the shoulder, Bouchard said.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.2 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 780,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 59.4% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Dec 01, 8:57 am
South Korea confirms 1st cases of omicron variant
South Korea on Wednesday confirmed its first cases of the omicron variant.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said the new variant was initially detected among three people — a couple who arrived from Nigeria on Nov. 24 and their friend who drove them home from the airport. Since then, the variant was found in two other people who also traveled to Nigeria and returned to South Korea on Nov. 23, bringing the total of confirmed cases to five.
Health authorities are conducting genetic sequencing tests on the couple’s child and relatives of the friend who drove them home to determine if they were also infected, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
In an effort to fend off the omicron variant, which was first identified in southern Africa last week, South Korea has banned foreign short-term travelers from eight southern African nations. South Korean citizens arriving from those countries must quarantine for at least 10 days, regardless of their vaccination status.
South Korea’s daily tally of newly diagnosed COVID-19 infections exceeded 5,000 on Wednesday for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The surge, which officials attributed to the highly contagious delta variant, has pushed COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in the country to record highs.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said most of the 5,123 new cases were reported in the capital, Seoul, and its surrounding metropolitan region, where officials said earlier that more than 80% of intensive care units designated for COVID-19 patients were already filled.
-ABC News’ Joohee Cho
Dec 01, 8:07 am
Nigeria confirms 1st cases of omicron variant
Nigeria confirmed on Wednesday its first cases of the omicron variant.
The new variant was detected among three people with a recent history of travel to South Africa who tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, according to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control.
“These cases were recent arrivals in the country in the past week,” Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, director-general of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, said in a statement Wednesday. “Follow up to ensure isolation, linkage to clinical care, contact tracing and other relevant response activities have commenced. Arrangements are also being made to notify the country where travel originated according to the provisions of the International Health Regulations.”
Following confirmation of the variant on Nigerian soil, the national travel advisory was revised and now requires all inbound travellers to present proof of pre-booked day 2 and day 7 COVID-19 tests as well as a a negative test result that was taken no more than 48 hours before departure. All outbound passengers, regardless of the requirements of the destination countries, are expected to present evidence of full COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test result done no later than 48 hours before departure.
“The NCDC assumes Omicron is widespread globally given the increasing number of countries reporting this variant,” Adetifa said. “Therefore, it is a matter of when, not if, we will identify more cases.”
The cases of omicron in Nigeria are also the first to be confirmed in West Africa.
-ABC News’ James Bwala
Nov 30, 9:41 pm
CDC working to modify international travel testing guidelines
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday it is working to change its international travel guidelines to require COVID-19 testing one day before departure to the U.S. in light of the omicron variant.
“CDC is working to modify the current Global Testing Order for travel as we learn more about the Omicron variant; a revised order would shorten the timeline for required testing for all international air travelers to one day before departure to the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “This strengthens already robust protocols in place for international travel, including requirements for foreign travelers to be fully vaccinated.”
The CDC continues to recommend that all travelers get a COVID-19 viral test three to five days after arrival in the U.S. and that unvaccinated travelers quarantine for seven days even if they test negative.
(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) — Investigators may have found the source of the live bullet fired by actor Alec Baldwin on the Rust set in New Mexico last month that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, according to a new search warrant.
Longtime Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, the father of the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, said in a statement to investigators that ammunition once in his possession “may match the ammunition found on the set of Rust,” according to a search warrant issued Tuesday by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office as part of the ongoing investigation.
The new warrant authorized the search of an Albuquerque prop house, PDQ Arm and Prop LLC, owned by Seth Kenney. According to the search warrant affidavit, Kenney told detectives that he was hired to supply Rust with guns, as well as dummy rounds and blanks from a manufacturer identified as Starline Brass.
In his statement, Reed told investigators that he worked with Kenney on another production in August and September, according to the affidavit. During that time, Kenney reportedly asked Reed to bring live ammunition to a training session with actors on a firearms range, “in case they ran out of what was supplied,” according to the affidavit.
Reed told investigators he brought an “ammo can” with 200 to 300 live rounds to the range, according to the affidavit. “This ammunition was not factory made rounds,” the affidavit stated.
After production ended, Reed told investigators that Kenney took the ammo can and remaining ammo back to New Mexico and told Reed to “write it off” when the armorer tried to get it back, according to the affidavit.
Through his attorney, Kenney denied providing live ammunition to the set.
“Mr. Kenney is fully-cooperating with the authorities, as he has been since the tragic incident took place,” Kenney’s attorney, Adam Engelskirchen, told ABC News in a statement. “Neither Mr. Kenney nor PDQ Arm & Prop, LLC provided live ammunition to the Rust production.”
Engelskirchen said the search warrant affidavit “includes material misstatements of fact, particularly with regard to statements ascribed to Mr. Kenney.”
“Reports in other media outlets that Mr. Kenney was part of the crew of Rust or was employed by the production to provide any sort of supervisory services are patently false,” he added.
Albuquerque ABC affiliate KOAT captured footage of the search warrant being served at the facility Tuesday afternoon. It is unclear at this time what, if anything, may have been seized from the business.
Authorities were looking for several items, including live or spent ammunition; all boxes that may hold ammunition with the “Starline brass” logo for “evidence comparison”; documents related to products, equipment and ammunition supplied to Rust; and “any record documented on any media, which establishes and/or tends to establish the state of mind(s), motive(s), action(s) or intention(s) of any person(s) with knowledge or apparent knowledge of a crime(s),” including diaries or videotapes.
Gutierrez-Reed’s attorney, Jason Bowles, called the execution of the latest search warrant “a huge step forward today to unearth the full truth of who put the live rounds on the Rust set.”
“We trust that the FBI will now compare and analyze the ‘live rounds’ seized from the set to evidence seized in the search warrant to conclusively determine where the live rounds came from,” Bowles told ABC News in a statement. ” The questions of who introduced the live rounds onto the set and why are the central questions in the case.”
The fatal shooting occurred on Oct. 21 at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe. Rust director Joel Souza was also wounded in the incident.
The film’s first assistant director handed a Colt .45 revolver to Baldwin while proclaiming “cold gun,” to let the crew know a gun with no live rounds was being used, according to an earlier search warrant affidavit. The assistant director told investigators he did not know there were any rounds in the gun he gave to Baldwin, according to the affidavit.
As the film’s armorer, Gutierrez-Reed was in charge of all weapons on set. Her attorney has stated that Gutierrez-Reed had no idea where the live rounds came from.
Kenney was present on set six days after the shooting to give authorities access to a gun safe on the prop truck, according to the latest search warrant.
Speaking with detectives on Oct. 29, Kenney “advised he may know where the live rounds came from,” according to the search warrant affidavit. “Seth described how a couple years back he received ‘reloaded ammunition’ from a friend” with the Starline Brass logo on it, the affidavit stated.
Investigators initially seized 500 rounds of ammunition from the set — a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and what appeared to be live rounds. Industry experts have said live rounds should never be on set.
No charges have been filed in the case. Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies has previously said, “everything is on the table” and any decision to bring charges could take weeks or months.
ABC News’ Vera Drymon and Doug Lantz contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.2 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 779,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 59.4% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-Variant-specific vaccine could be completed in about 3 months: White House
-Greece to mandate vaccines for people 60 and older
-Global case count of omicron variant tops 200
-Omicron variant was in the Netherlands earlier than thought
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Nov 30, 5:50 pm
Merck pill now awaiting FDA authorization after adviser endorsement
Advisers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have narrowly approved an endorsement of the Merck COVID-19 pill, voting 13 to 10 in favor of the authorization.
If authorized, it would be the first easy-to-take antiviral pill for COVID-19. Pfizer is also working on a COVID-19 pill, which it hopes will be authorized early next year. The FDA typically takes the advice of its advisers but will make its own final decision.
During Tuesday’s meeting, advisers spoke positively on Merck’s pill, even though it was not found to be quite as effective in the final analysis as it was in an early, preliminary analysis.
However, the advisers expressed doubt about whether it would be safe for pregnant people to use Merck’s pill because of the potential risk of harm to the fetus as well as its use in children due to lack of data and similar concerns as in pregnancy.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman
Nov 30, 2:45 pm
Variant-specific vaccine could be completed in about 3 months: White House
If a variant-specific vaccine is needed, the process, including FDA and CDC authorization, would take about three months, White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said at Tuesday’s White House briefing.
The omicron variant has still not been detected in the U.S. Delta “remains the predominant circulating string representing 99.9% of all sequences sampled,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said.
Walensky said the CDC is also working on expanding a surveillance program through JFK International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport that would conduct more tests on international arrivals.
Walensky added, “To be crystal clear, we have far more tools to fight the variant today than we had at this time last year.”
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Nov 30, 2:13 pm
Blanket travel bans won’t prevent international spread of omicron: WHO
The World Health Organization praised South Africa and Botswana on Tuesday for the “speed and transparency” in which they reported on the new omicron variant.
The WHO stressed that “blanket travel bans will not prevent the international spread, and they place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods.”
“In addition, they can adversely impact global health efforts during a pandemic by disincentivizing countries to report and share epidemiological and sequencing data,” the WHO said.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, while on a plane to Nigeria, told reporters Tuesday that South Africa should not be “punished” with travel bans for being transparent.
“These bans must be removed,” he said.
“We have advanced in the world to a point where we now know when people travel, they should be tested, like I was tested last night and I’m happy to be tested when I arrive again,” he said.
“And for us, the tourism industry is one of the key industries. … This is discriminatory against us, and they are imposing a very unfair punishment,” he said.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Nov 30, 1:35 pm
80 million eligible Americans remain unvaccinated
About 100 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated, according to federal data. Nearly 80 million of those people are over the age of 5 and therefore eligible to get the shot.
Since the beginning of November, hospital admissions have jumped by 20%, while emergency department visits have increased by 27%, according to federal data.
Minnesota and Michigan currently hold the country’s highest case rate, followed by Wisconsin, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Puerto Rico, Florida and Louisiana currently have the nation’s lowest infection rate, according to federal data.
(NEW YORK) — Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate of serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, came face to face with her first accuser in a Manhattan federal court on Tuesday.
A woman prosecutors have referred to as “Jane,” one of the three alleged minor victims whose allegations against Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell are detailed in a federal indictment, testified on the second day of her trial, telling her story publicly for the first time.
She told the jury that she met Maxwell and Epstein while attending summer camp at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, the beginning of what prosecutors earlier called “a nightmare that would last for years.”
After returning home to Palm Beach, Florida, “Jane” said, she began visiting Epstein at his seaside mansion, where she testified that she had her first sexual encounter with Epstein in 1994 when she was just 14. According to “Jane,” Epstein abruptly took her to his pool house, pulled down his pants and “proceeded to masturbate on me” while she remained “frozen in fear.”
The abuse escalated to include explicit massages, “Jane” said, during subsequent visits to Epstein’s house, and she identified Maxwell as the person (other than Epstein) most often in the room. Maxwell contributed, she alleged, by “leading me to a massage table and showing me how Jeffrey likes to be massaged.”
Maxwell faces a six-count indictment for allegedly conspiring with and aiding Epstein in his sexual abuse of underage girls between 1994 and 2004. She has been held without bail since her arrest in July 2020 and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Over the next several years, “Jane” said, she travelled with Epstein and Maxwell “maybe 10 times,” sometimes on Epstein’s private plane and sometimes on commercial flights. She visited both Epstein’s New York residence and his New Mexico ranch, she said, where she suffered further sexual abuse by Epstein. It was Maxwell, she said, who typically arranged for her travel.
Earlier in the day, Epstein’s former pilot, Larry Visoski, testified that he met “Jane” in the cockpit of Epstein’s plane, though he later acknowledged he did not know how old she was at the time and could not recall whether she had actually taken a flight.
“Jane” also described frequent orgies with Epstein and other women, the details of which, she said, are “hard to remember,” because they started to “seem the same” and she became “numb to it.”
She never told anyone about her experience, she said, until many years later.
“How do you tell or describe any of this,” she asked, “when all you feel is shame and disgust and confusion and you don’t know how you ended up here?”
It’s unclear whether Maxwell will take the stand during her trial, which is expected to last six weeks. If convicted, she could spend decades in prison.
(OXFORD, Mich.) — Three students were killed in a shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford, Michigan, on Tuesday, authorities said.
They were a 16-year-old male student and two female students, ages 14 and 17, authorities said.
Eight others were shot and injured, including a teacher, authorities said. They were transported to three different local hospitals. Two were in surgery and six in stable condition with varied gunshot wounds, Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe said during a briefing Tuesday evening.
All parents of the victims have been notified, he said.
The suspected shooter, a 15-year-old male student, was taken into custody within five minutes, authorities said. A semiautomatic handgun has been confiscated, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said.
The student lives in the Village of Oxford and attended school Tuesday, authorities said.
Authorities said they believe he acted alone. The teen has not mentioned a motive, authorities said.
He is being held at the Oakland County Children’s Village and is lodged as a juvenile, McCabe said. The county prosecutor could choose to charge him as an adult, he said.
The suspected shooter’s parents have not granted him permission to talk to authorities and have hired a lawyer, the undersheriff said. Authorities are executing a search warrant at his house, he said.
Over 100 calls poured into 911 as the shooting unfolded, authorities said.
The shooting occurred primarily in one area of the school and there is a “fairly large crime scene,” McCabe said.
Oxford is about 40 miles north of Detroit.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer attended an evening briefing on the shooting, saying she wanted to be there “because I think this is an important moment for us to support one another, to support this community. And I want to thank our first responders.”
She called the incident a “uniquely American problem that we need to address,” and got visibly emotional discussing the tragedy.
“I think this is every parent’s worst nightmare,” she said, crying.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday afternoon, “My heart goes out to the families during the unimaginable grief of losing a loved one.”
(DENVER, Colo.) — Denver is making weather history this year as the city patiently waits to receive its first measurable snow of the 2021 winter season. This is the latest the city has ever waited for snow, according to the National Weather Service.
For a snowfall to be considered measurable by the weather service, it must be greater than a tenth of an inch.
Denver will begin the month of December without any snowfall for the first time in history — and there’s still no snow in sight for the near future. The previous record for the latest first snowfall in the city was set on Nov. 21, 1934.
The Mile High City has now gone 223 consecutive days without snow as of Tuesday, and is just 12 days away from passing the all-time record of 235 snowless days, a record that was set in 1887, 134 years ago.
“With no snow expected for the next several days, a move up to second place is certainly possible by next weekend,” the weather service said of the consecutive snowless streak on Monday. Currently, this year ranks as the fourth longest without snow, just behind a 224-day record set in 1889.
Sitting on the downslope of the Rocky Mountains at 5,500 feet above sea level, dry weather isn’t exactly abnormal for Denver. This is partially because during the winter months, weather systems, which generally form west to east, precipitate higher up in the mountains. As the system moves down the mountains toward the city, much of the leftover moisture evaporates.
Additionally this year’s Pacific jet stream, a high altitude wind current that can affect weather, is following a La Nina pattern, which could also be contributing to the region’s lack of snow and precipitation.
But the West has also seen the effects of climate change over the years as weather has gotten drier and winters have shortened.
The underwhelming snow figures come amid an ongoing drought in the western United States, where about 49% of the region is under extreme or exceptional drought conditions, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
In Colorado, 40% of the state is in a severe drought, and Denver has received between zero and 25% of its normal precipitation in the last 30 days, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System.
These conditions have led to increased fire danger in Boulder, where county authorities ordered stage one fire restrictions to be put into effect on Tuesday over the lack of moisture and above-average seasonal temperatures.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office added in a press release that “moderate to severe drought conditions” and low resource availability could impact the ability to obtain “vital suppression resources” if a fire were to erupt.
The abnormally warm and dry weather has also begun to impact the famous Colorado ski season, which typically starts in the late fall.
One hundred fifty miles northwest of Denver, the Steamboat Springs Ski Resort has also seen less than average snowfalls. Crews were forced to generate more than 20 acres of snow across five trails using artificial snow blowers after the mountain initially delayed its season’s opening by one week, citing an “unseasonably warm” fall and little snow.
“Normally this time of year we’ve had more than 20 inches of snowfall, a 10-20-inch mid-mountain base and 200 hours of snowmaking under our belt,” Dan Hunter, vice president of resort operations, said in a statement. “This year we haven’t been able to capitalize on extended snowmaking temperatures and windows.”
Loryn Duke, director of communications for Steamboat Springs Ski Resort, noted that snowmakers this season have now logged just over 100 hours of snow production, with the resort now open to skiers. Duke said that the mountain would have been well on its way to 300 hours of production in past seasons by this point, with mild temperatures this year hampering snow generation efforts.
“Even though temperatures will continue to be on the warm side (for Steamboat and Colorado),” Duke said, “our crews will continue to work around the clock taking advantage of conditions prime for snowmaking and opening new terrain and lifts as soon as possible.”
(NEW YORK) — Two Iowa 16-year-olds accused of murdering a high school Spanish teacher in early November have pleaded not guilty, according to documents filed Monday.
Willard Noble Chaiden Miller and Jeremy Everett Goodale were charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of 66-year-old Nohema Graber on Nov. 2.
The defendants appeared in court for individual bond review hearings on Nov. 23. Each asked for his bond to be reduced from $1 million to $100,000 cash or surety.
District Court Judge Joel Yates is expected to issue a written ruling on the bond reduction requests later this week.
The teens are being charged as adults in the death of the teacher who worked at Fairfield High School, which they both attended, according to Jefferson County authorities.
Law enforcement officials said they received a tip from an associate of the two teenagers that included social media messages between Miller and Goodale allegedly sharing details of their motive and plan for killing Graber, according to a criminal complaint filed against Miller.
Graber had taught Spanish at Fairfield High School in Fairfield, Iowa, since 2012. According to online court documents, Graber was reported missing on Nov. 2 by family members.
Multiple law enforcement agencies reportedly started to search Chautauqua City Park, where Graber was known to take walks during the afternoon.
Officials later found Graber’s body in the park “concealed under a tarp, wheelbarrow and railroad ties,” according to the complaint.
Authorities determined Graber had “suffered inflicted trauma to the head.”
Miller and Goodale are set to appear for individual pre-trial conferences on March 21, and are scheduled to face a jury on April 19.
(NEW YORK) — The wife of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for conspiring to distribute cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana for import into the U.S; money-laundering and helping run the Mexican drug cartel in which her husband was the boss.
Emma Coronel Aispuro will also serve 48 months of supervised released.
The Justice Department initially asked for four years in prison.
In June, she pleaded guilty, and voluntarily forfeited $1.5 million to the government.
She was arrested in February 2021 at Dulles International Airport, just outside the nation’s capital.
She was also accused of conspiring with others to assist El Chapo in his July 2015 escape from Altiplano prison and prosecutors said she also planned with others to arrange another prison escape for the drug kingpin before his extradition to the U.S. in January 2017.
“The defendant was not an organizer, leader, boss, or other type of manager” a Justice Department prosecutor told the judge during sentencing on Tuesday, calling her the “cog” in a very large criminal machine.
Aispuro, through an interpreter begged for forgiveness, vowing she will teach her daughters right from wrong.
“I beg you to not allow them to grow up without the presence of a mother,” she said.
Guzman was found guilty in February 2019 of running an industrial-sized drug trafficking operation, the Sinaloa cartel, one of the world’s largest, most profitable and most ruthless drug smuggling organizations.
He was sentenced to life in prison, and has since tried to appeal the conviction.
