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(NEW YORK) — Brown University is moving forward with a series of safety and security steps following the deadly shooting on campus this month that left two students dead and nine others injured.

The Ivy League university’s announcement comes the same day the Department of Education announced it would be reviewing the school for potential Clery Act violations.

Brown University’s review includes putting Rodney Chatman, the vice president for public safety and emergency management for the school on leave, effective immediately, the university’s president announced on Monday.

The former chief of police of the Providence Police Department, Hugh T. Clements, will serve as interim chief.

In a message to the campus community, President Christina H. Paxson said the university will first focus on immediate safety measures through a rapid response team working to ensure the campus remains secure during winter break and ahead of the Spring 2026 semester.

The university will also hire outside experts to conduct an after-action review of the shooting. That review will examine campus safety conditions leading up to the incident, how the university prepared for and responded on the day of the shooting, and how emergency response efforts were handled afterward.

The Department of Education said on Monday its Office of Federal Student Aid will investigate if Brown violated Section 485(f) of the Higher Education Act, otherwise known as the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act, which requires institutions of higher education to meet certain campus safety and security-related requirements as a condition of receiving federal student aid.

“The Department is initiating a review of Brown to determine if it has upheld its obligation under the law to vigilantly maintain campus security,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a statement. “Students deserve to feel safe at school, and every university across this nation must protect their students and be equipped with adequate resources to aid law enforcement.”

“The Trump Administration will fight to ensure that recipients of federal funding are vigorously protecting students’ safety and following security procedures as required under federal law,” McMahon added.

The Clery Act requires colleges and universities receiving federal student aid to annually share a report on campus crime and details about the efforts taken to improve campus safety, “including timely issuance of campus alerts and safety procedures to the campus community,” according to the Dept. of Education

The Department said it can fine universities that have violated the Clery Act and “may require them to make policy changes to come into compliance with the law.”  

In the statement on Monday, Brown University also announced it will launch a comprehensive external safety and security assessment of its campus. The review will look at existing policies, procedures, training and security infrastructure, including building access, cameras, and other safety technology. The assessment will build on security improvements already underway.

Both reviews will be overseen by a committee of the Corporation of Brown University, which will approve the outside organizations conducting the work. University leaders said they plan to share key findings with the campus community and the public.

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(NEW YORK) — The Justice Department on Monday released additional documents from its files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Following a congressional mandate to release all of its Epstein files by Friday, the Justice Department on Friday released thousands of documents — ranging from investigative material to photos taken by Epstein and his friends — but said it was unable to fully release all the files by the deadline due to the vetting process required to protect Epstein’s victims.

A group of alleged Epstein victims on Monday accused the Justice Department of missteps, including violations of the law, in releasing what they said was “a fraction of the files,” which were “riddled with abnormal and extreme redactions with no explanation” while “numerous victim identities were left unredacted, causing real and immediate harm.”

Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019.

The Epstein Transparency Act, passed last month by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump following blowback the administration received from MAGA supporters seeking the release of the materials, contains exemptions to protect victims’ identities, as well as exemptions for records that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary.”

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(NEW YORK) — This year is expected to be the busiest on record for holiday travel, but rough weather can make getting to your Christmas destination even harder.

Here’s a look at the Christmas week weather forecast:

Tuesday

The Northeast will get some pre-Christmas snow on Tuesday. New York City will see snowfall from about 6 a.m. to noon, while Boston will get hit from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

About 1 inch of snow is expected along the Interstate 95 corridor and about 3 to 6 inches of snow is possible in the inland Northeast.

On the West Coast, those driving to their Christmas destination should try to head out the door during the day on Tuesday, because a storm will move in Tuesday night, bringing heavy rain and strong winds.

Wednesday

On Christmas Eve, the weather will be calm across most of the country — but not on the West Coast.

Heavy rain is forecast to fall on burn scar areas in Southern California, prompting a level 3 out of 4 risk for excessive rain and flash flooding.

Some parts of Southern California could see 9 inches of rain just on Tuesday night and Wednesday. Debris flows and landslides are also possible.

Thursday

On Christmas Day, record high temperatures are possible for millions from the Midwest to the South.

Temperatures are forecast to soar to record highs of 66 degrees in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Rapid City, South Dakota; 79 degrees in Midland, Texas; 77 degrees in St. Louis, Missouri; and 75 degrees in Atlanta.

While not record highs, temperatures could also jump to 80 degrees in Austin and Houston, 79 degrees in Miami and Orlando, Florida, and 72 degrees in Memphis, Tennessee. It’ll even warm up to 53 degrees in Washington, D.C.

One of the only parts of the country that has a good chance for a white Christmas is inland New England, where the snow from Tuesday could linger on the ground through Christmas Day.

Some mountainous areas in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Colorado and California will also see a white Christmas.

Meanwhile, the rough weather will continue on the West Coast, with another round of rain and mountain snow moving in on Christmas Day.

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(NEW YORK) — The Powerball jackpot has soared to one of the largest in the lottery game’s history.

The current jackpot is estimated to be $1.6 billion ahead of Monday night’s drawing. That would make it the fourth-largest in Powerball history and the fifth-largest among U.S. lottery jackpots.

The estimated cash value of the current jackpot is $735.3 million.

Both figures are before taxes.

A player who wins the Powerball jackpot can choose between the lump sum payment or an annuity option, in which one immediate payment is received followed by 29 annual payments that increase by 5% each year.

The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, according to Powerball.

The game’s jackpot was last won in September, when two tickets in Missouri and Texas split the $1.787 billion prize — Powerball’s second-largest jackpot ever.

The game’s largest prize ever was $2.04 billion, won on Nov. 7, 2022, in California.

Tickets are $2 per play and are sold in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Monday night’s drawing is at 10:59 p.m. ET.

Top 10 Powerball jackpots and winning locations

1. $2.04 billion — Nov. 7, 2022 — California

2. $1.787 billion — Sept. 6, 2025 — Missouri, Texas

3. $1.765 billion — Oct. 11, 2023 — California

4. $1.6 billion (current estimated jackpot)

5. $1.586 billion — Jan. 13, 2016 — California, Florida, Tennessee

6. $1.326 billion — April 6, 2024 — Oregon

7. $1.08 billion — July 19, 2023 — California

8. $842.4 million — Jan. 1, 2024 — Michigan

9. $768.4 million — March 27, 2019 — Wisconsin

10. $758.7 million — Aug. 23, 2017 — Massachusetts

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(NEW YORK) — The federal judge overseeing Salvadoran native Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s immigration case is scheduled to hear arguments Monday over whether ICE should be allowed to re-detain Abrego Garcia while the government attempts to deport him to Liberia or another country.

Abrego Garcia was released on Dec. 11 after the judge, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, found the government had detained him “without lawful authority.” 

In part, Judge Xinis said he had not been issued a formal order of removal during his immigration proceedings in 2019, when a judge also barred the government from deporting him to his native El Salvador due to his fear of persecution.

Following Abrego Garcia’s release, an immigration judge “corrected” the error and added a removal order to his record, finding that it “was erroneously omitted.” 

Abrego Garcia, who had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, despite the 2019 court order barring his removal to that country, after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he denies.

He was brought back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee, after which Judge Xinis released him from ICE detention while he awaits trial. He is scheduled to go to trial on the Tennessee charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty, in January.

On Friday, his attorneys filed a motion seeking sanctions against the Trump administration for allegedly violating a court order that barred officials from making extrajudicial statements that could impact the case. After Abrego Garcia’s release from ICE detention, Chief Border Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino called him an “alien smuggler” and “wife beater” on national TV, his attorneys said. 

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(NEW YORK) — A group of alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein accused the Department of Justice of missteps, including violations of the law, in its partial release of files related to the disgraced financier’s abuse of young women and girls. 

The DOJ faced a Friday deadline imposed by Congress to release a massive cache of records gathered during government investigations into the sex offender, who died in jail in 2019. 

Justice officials released thousands of files — ranging from investigative documents to grand jury testimony to snapshots taken by Epstein and his friends — but said it would fail to fully release all the files by the deadline.

“Instead, the public received a fraction of the files, and what we received was riddled with abnormal and extreme redactions with no explanation,” a group of 19 women, including two Jane Does, said in a statement released on Monday. “At the same time, numerous victim identities were left unredacted, causing real and immediate harm.”

The statement, which was released early Monday by attorneys representing the women, also pointed to what they said was missing from the files. Omissions by either redactions or unreleased pages amounted to a failure, they said.

“No financial documents were released,” the statement said. “Grand jury minutes, though approved by a federal judge for release, were fully blacked out — not the scattered redactions that might be expected to protect victim names, but 119 full pages blacked out. We are told that there are hundreds of thousands of pages of documents still unreleased.”

“These are clear-cut violations of an unambiguous law,” the statement added. 

Some documents disclosed on Friday with significant redactions were reposted early Saturday with some or all of the redactions lifted, according to a review of the files by ABC News.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on social media on Friday, as the initial files were being released, that “[a]dditional responsive materials will be produced as our review continues, consistent with the law and with protections for victims.” The DOJ on Sunday released a similar statement, adding that reviews of the material would continue “as we receive additional information.”

President Donald Trump in November had signed a bill that gave the Justice Department 30 days to release the materials.

The statement from alleged victims noted that DOJ officials had structured the release of documents in a way that made it “difficult or impossible” for Epstein’s alleged victims to find information that may be important to their cases. And they said they hadn’t been contacted about potential redactions or withholdings prior to the documents’ release. 

“It is alarming that the United States Department of Justice, the very agency tasked with upholding the law, has violated the law, both by withholding massive quantities of documents, and by failing to redact survivor identities,” the women’s statement said. 

The women called for “immediate” oversight from Congress “to ensure the Department of Justice fulfils its legal obligations.”

Separately on Sunday, Brittany Henderson and Brad Edwards — attorneys who represent more than 200 survivors of Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell — had told ABC News that since the Epstein files were posted on Friday, they had been hearing from clients who have seen their names or other identifying information un-redacted documents in the DOJ’s disclosure.

Henderson and Edwards said they had been working through the weekend with federal officials in New York and D.C. to take down documents containing personal information of alleged victims, many of whom have never had their names disclosed in any context connected to Epstein.  

In one instance, Henderson and Edwards said, a sealed document from settled civil litigation containing the names of more than two dozen alleged victims — was posted without redactions. That document was among those that have been removed from the DOJ’s site, the lawyers said.

The attorneys said that about 15 documents had by Sunday been pulled from the site — at least temporarily — as a result of their consultations with the government.

DOJ officials said in a social media statement on Sunday afternoon that they had “received incoming from individuals alleging to be victims and their lawyers, requesting that certain information be removed. Out of an abundance of caution, the material is temporarily removed for review and will be released again with appropriate redactions, if legally required.”

Blanche said earlier on Sunday in an interview on NBC News that the DOJ would be responsive to concerns raised by victims about potential exposure of identifying information and insisted, despite the slow release of materials, that DOJ is complying with the law.

“The statute also requires us to protect victims and—and so the reason why we are still reviewing documents and still continuing our process is simply that to protect victims,” he said. “So the same individuals that are out there complaining about the lack of documents that were produced on Friday are the same individuals who apparently don’t want us to protect victims.”

“The reality is anybody, any victim, any victim’s lawyers, any victim rights group, can reach out to us and say, ‘Hey, Department of Justice, there’s a document, there’s a photo, there’s something within the Epstein files that identifies me,'” he added. “And we will then, of course, pull that off and investigate.”

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(MONTEREY, Calif) — A search is ongoing in California for a missing swimmer who may have been attacked by a shark, officials said.

The swimmer was reported missing just after noon on Sunday at Lovers Point in Pacific Grove in Monterey Bay, according to a joint statement from the Coast Guard and the cities of Pacific Grove and Monterey.

Two witnesses said the swimmer – who is a 55-year-old woman, according to ABC Fresno station KFSN – “may have encountered a shark,” the statement said. The swimmer’s family has been notified, officials said.

Boats and helicopters were deployed for Sunday’s search, which lasted until 8 p.m., officials said. The search will resume on Monday.

Lovers Point Beach in Pacific Grove and McAbee Beach and San Carlos Beach in Monterey are closed through Tuesday, the officials said.

ABC News’ Tristan Maglunog and Amanda Morris contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — A former South Carolina pastor has been indicted on federal charges of cyberstalking his wife, including allegedly posting a nude photo of her online, before she died by suicide in 2024, authorities said.

A federal grand jury in Columbia, S.C., returned a two-count indictment on Thursday, charging 46-year-old John-Paul Miller with cyberstalking and making false statements to federal investigators, stemming from the investigation into his wife’s death.

“This case underscores the seriousness of domestic violence abuse and related offenses and serves as a reminder that such behavior has no place in our society,” Robeson County, North Carolina, Sheriff Burnis Wilkins said in a statement posted on his office’s Facebook page, along with photos of both John-Paul and Mica Miller.

Miller is scheduled be arraigned on Jan. 12 in federal court in Florence, S.C., according to the sheriff’s office.

Miller and his 30-year-old wife were estranged and in the process of getting a divorce at the time of her death.

Mica Miller’s remains were discovered on April 27, 2024, at Lumber River State Park in Robeson County, N.C., about an hour north of Myrtle Beach, S.C., according to the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office.

Robeson County sheriff’s deputies went to the park to conduct a welfare check on Mica Miller after she contacted the Robeson County 911 Communications Center, expressing concern that she might harm herself, according to the sheriff’s office.

Deputies found Mica Miller at the park, “deceased in the water with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” according to the sheriff’s office, which also said a firearm was found near her body.

The North Carolina Medical Examiner’s Office ruled her death a suicide.

“During the course of the investigation, Detectives identified information that, while not directly related to the actual cause of death, warranted further review regarding Miller’s husband, John-Paul Miller. That information was believed to be relevant in understanding the broader circumstances surrounding Miller’s death,” according to the sheriff’s office statement.

On May 6, 2024, Wilkins formally requested that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Carolina “investigate allegations that were reported to have occurred outside the jurisdiction of the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office,” according to the statement. The FBI also joined the investigation, according to the sheriff’s office.

According to the indictment, federal prosecutors said the investigation found that beginning in November 2022 and up to his wife’s death, John-Paul Miller allegedly sent his wife “unwanted and harassing communications.”

“The harassing behavior included Miller posting a nude photo of the victim online without her consent, causing tracking devices to be placed on her vehicle, and in one instance, contacting her over 50 times in a single day,” the indictment alleges.

The indictment also alleges that John-Paul Miller “interfered with [his wife’s] finances and her daily activities and on one occasion damaged her vehicle tires.”

“Federal investigators interviewed Miller about these allegations and Miller lied in his responses,” the indictment alleges. “Miller said he did not damage the victim’s tires, when in fact he purchased a tire deflation device online and sent messages to others regarding the victim’s vehicle.”

The indictment further states that Miller’s alleged cyberstalking put his wife in “reasonable fear of death and serious bodily injury,” and that his conduct “would be reasonably expected to cause [Mica Miller] substantial emotional distress.”

ABC News attempts to reach John-Paul Miller for comment were unsuccessful. It is unclear if he has hired an attorney.

If convicted, Miller faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison on the cyberstalking charge and two years in prison for allegedly making false statements to investigators, according to the Department of Justice. He could also face a fine of up to $250,000.

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(NEW YORK) — Dramatic police body-camera video released by officials captured the moment an accused shoplifter allegedly pulled a handgun on a police officer inside a Canton, Ohio, Walmart before he was tackled by a store employee.

The incident unfolded on Thursday after the suspect, identified as 21-year-old Shane C.L. Newman, and a female companion were being held in a back office by an off-duty Canton police officer, who was a working security detail at the store, officials said.

“This incident is a reminder of the ever-present threat of violence against police officers and the gracious provision of God’s protection. Thank you to all who regularly pray with me for our offices and our community,” Canton Police Chief John Gabbard said in a statement.

Police body-camera video showed store employees stopping Newman and a woman he was with on Thursday afternoon at the front door of the Walmart and then escorting them to the store’s loss prevention office.

Inside the office, a police officer, according to the security video, conducted a partial pat-down search of Newman, asking, “Nothing on you that’s going to poke me or stab me?”

After conducting a search, the officers told Newman and his female companion to sit on a metal bench inside the office, the video showed.

As the officer radioed in the names of Newman and the woman to confirm their identities, Newman is seen on security video turning to his side and reaching into a pouch he had on him that the officer apparently missed in his search.

Newman is seen in the video pulling out a handgun and pointing it at the officer, but the gun didn’t fire.

The footage showed a Walmart loss prevention employee lunging for the gun and tackling Newman before he could open fire. After a brief struggle, Newman was handcuffed by the police officer, who immediately called for backup.

In the aftermath of the incident, the officer told a sergeant who responded to the store that the suspect allegedly “pulls out a gun and points it at my head and pulls the trigger. It doesn’t go off. I draw. He ends up giving up,” the officer said, according to the video.

The officer, according to the video, told the sergeant he patted him down, but “didn’t get his pouch he had.”

The officer, according to the video, added, “I was going to release them, that was the thing, like it was just going to be a summons.”

Newman was arrested on charges of attempt to commit murder, felonious assault of a peace officer and possession of drugs.

The 23-year-old woman was taken into custody along with Newman and charged with complicity to commit robbery.

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(LOS ANGELES) — Heavy rain and dangerous flooding left one person dead in Redding, California, the mayor announced on Sunday.

It comes as flood watches are in effect for more than 30 million across California due to the threat of heavy rain and flash flooding in the coming days.

Redding Mayor Mike Littau said in a post on Facebook that local police and fire crews have been out doing water rescues while Public Works and Redding Electric Utility have been working to clear roads and restore power to customers.

Cities across Northern California on Sunday saw roadways inundated with flooding, leaving vehicles stranded.

The deadly flooding is due to repeat atmospheric rivers that continue to swamp the West Coast.

A Flood Watch was announced for much of Northern California, including Redding and Sacramento, on Saturday, with some areas expected to get 4 to 6+ inches.

On Christmas Eve Wednesday, another coastal storm will set its sights on the West Coast, but this time Southern California will bear the brunt.

There is growing concern for potentially significant flash flooding, mudslides and debris flows impacting portions of SoCal, as heavy rain sweeps across the region. The greatest concern will be across wildfire burn scars.

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