(ATLANTA) — A Fulton County judge on Thursday denied a motion from former President Donald Trump and several of his co-defendants seeking to have the Georgia election interference case thrown out based on First Amendment challenges.
Trump and others had argued, in part, that the Fulton County indictment violated their First Amendment right to challenge the 2020 presidential election results.
In his order denying the motion, Judge Scott McAfee wrote that “Even core political speech addressing matters of public concern is not impenetrable from prosecution if allegedly used to further criminal activity.”
The judge, in his ruling, said that the indictment alleges more than just political statements.
“The State has alleged more than mere expressions of a political nature,” the judge wrote. “Rather, the indictment charges the Defendants with knowingly and willfully making false statements to public officers and knowingly and willfully filing documents containing false statements and misrepresentations within the jurisdiction of state departments and agencies.”
McAfee also wrote that he was unable to find “any authority that the speech and conduct alleged is protected political speech.”
The protection afforded specifically by the Petition Clause of the First Amendment — which allows the ability to communicate with government officials — “does not extend to allegedly fraudulent petitions,” McAfee wrote.
“In other words, the law does not insulate speech allegedly made during fraudulent or criminal conduct from prosecution under the guise of petitioning the government,” he wrote.
In a statement, Trump attorney Steve Sadow said they “respectfully disagree” with the ruling, but took note of McAfee allowing them to raise the issue later.
“It is significant that the court’s ruling was without prejudice, as it made clear that defendants were not foreclosed from again raising their ‘as-applied’ challenges at the appropriate time after the establishment of a factual record,” Sadow said.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty last August to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia. Four co-defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
The former president has blasted the district attorney’s investigation as being politically motivated.
(NEW YORK) — A Minnesota candy maker has voluntarily recalled a limited quantity of its boxed chocolate candies due to an incorrect ingredient label which could be harmful for those with an almond allergy.
Abdallah Candies of Apple Valley, Minnesota, has voluntarily recalled its Abdallah Candies 8-ounce Sea Salt Almond Alligators because the products bear a chocolate-covered cherries label but actually “contain sea salt almond alligators with an incorrect ingredient label,” the company stated.
“Sea salt almond alligators contain almonds as an ingredient, which was not declared on the ingredient label,” the candy maker stated in a company announcement posted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website. “People who have an allergy or severe sensitivity to almonds run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume these products.”
According to the company, the affected products were distributed nationwide and sold in “specialty retail stores, grocery stores, and other retail outlets.”
“The recalled products were distributed from [March 1, 2024, to March 29, 2024],” the company stated in its announcement. “Retail products are packaged in candy boxes with a label on the bottom of the box containing nutrition and ingredient information. The code 0315 is found in a box at the bottom center of the ingredient label.”
Abdallah Candies said it has not been notified of any illness associated with the recalled products.
Consumers who may have purchased the product with the code listed in the recall have been advised not to eat any of the affected products and return it to the place of purchase or discard it.
No other Abdallah Candies products are affected, the company said.
Abdallah Candies did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for additional comment.
(NEW YORK) — The calendar says it’s spring, but a nor’easter is pounding the Northeast with heavy snow, torrential rains and dangerous winds.
Up to 13 inches of snow has been reported near Killington, Vermont, and up to 1 foot of snow fell north of Portland, Maine. The snow will continue Thursday morning and afternoon.
More than 2 feet of snow is possible in the mountains of New Hampshire and Maine.
Low visibility is expected and travel is discouraged, Maine Gov. Janet Mills said.
“Folks need to be prepared at home for the possibility of an extended power outage with emergency supplies, alternate power sources, and should charge their mobile devices in advance,” Pete Rogers, director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said in a statement.
The nor’easter is also slamming the Northeast with torrential rains, which wreaked havoc on roads in New York and New Jersey on Wednesday.
Dangerous winds gusts reached 64 mph on Long Island, New York, and in Stamford, Connecticut.
In Armonk, New York, near the New York-Connecticut border, a tree fell on a car Wednesday evening, killing the driver, local police said.
Two people in cars were also killed by downed trees in separate incidents near Philadelphia, according to Philadelphia ABC station WPVI.
On Thursday, coastal flooding remains a threat from the Mid-Atlantic to coastal New England.
Meanwhile, another storm over the Great Lakes has dumped more than 14 inches of snow in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia saw more than 5 inches of rain and significant flooding.
(NEW YORK) — As schools across the United States continue to rebound from pandemic interruptions, more than half of teachers still say their profession is a difficult job and public education is in decline, according to newly released Pew Research Center data.
Pew conducted two surveys last fall, one of 2,531 public K-12 teachers and a second survey of 5,029 U.S. adults, the findings of which were published Thursday. Pew also published a data essay titled “What Public K-12 Teachers Want Americans To Know About Teaching.”
Of the teachers surveyed, 51% said they want the public to know teaching is a difficult job and that teachers work hard.
“We know that they’ve [teachers] been facing a lot of challenges from, you know, COVID learning loss, from all of these political issues that we’ve been hearing about, so that’s our drive in conducting this survey,” Luona Lin, lead author of the K-12 teachers report, told ABC News.
Of the teachers surveyed, 54% said in five years the American education system will be worse than it is now, and 51% of adults surveyed said public education is going in the wrong direction, according to Pew.
The survey of teachers also found that about four in five teachers (82%) believe the overall state of public education has gotten worse compared to five years ago.
Pew released findings from the K-12 survey in February that focused on the ongoing scrutiny placed on classroom curricula, mainly regarding race and LGBTQ identities.
The data out Thursday comes as education staffing shortages persist across the country, with 70% of teachers who participated in the latest survey saying their schools are understaffed, according to Pew’s report.
In its survey, more than three-quarters of teachers said the job was often stressful, according to Pew.
New York City special education teacher Traci Tucker told ABC News that special ed vacancies have made the job “overwhelming,” but she said she doesn’t want her students to “fall through the cracks.”
“It’s been extremely hard to find licensed, qualified, certified staff to fill those vacancies,” Tucker said. “Making sure that their [the students’] needs are met is both mentally and physically taxing.”
Difficulties include work-life balance, compensation and students
More than 80% of teachers are at least somewhat satisfied with their jobs, according to Pew’s K-12 teachers survey, but the survey found there are still challenges.
Teachers find it difficult to balance work with their personal life 53% of the time, according to the Pew report, with 84% of those surveyed saying they didn’t have enough time to do regular school tasks — such as grading, lesson planning and other paperwork — throughout the day. Four in five teachers said it’s just too much work, Pew found.
“Time is always an issue and it has gotten worse” since the pandemic, Minnesota social studies teacher Rich Rosivach told ABC News. “It’s all-consuming. It’s all the time.”
Despite yearly step increases and federal initiatives to raise teacher salaries, half of teachers are not satisfied with their pay, according to the survey.
Nearly three-quarters of the American adults surveyed by Pew also believe teachers should be paid more.
At least 91% of teachers said their students have anxiety and depression, experience poverty or are chronically absent, the survey found. Virtually all teachers see these issues daily, according to Pew’s survey and interviews conducted by ABC News.
“Anxiety is very high and a variety of other student mental health issues,” Rosivach said, adding: “Where you might in the past have had 30 to 35 students, you might have had one or two students [with these issues] — now you’ll have four or five. And for some of them, it’s debilitating and it causes them to not be able to come to class.”
Education experts and researchers said chronic absenteeism, defined by federal data as a child missing at least 10% of the school year, existed before COVID. Now, it has been exacerbated, making it harder for instructors to teach consistently, according to FutureEd Policy Director Liz Cohen. Teachers build on material in order for students to accumulate knowledge in the way they need, Cohen told ABC News. If students rarely show up, Cohen said, there is no foundation to build on.
“It’s like trying to play Jenga with all the foundational pieces missing,” she said. “That tower is going to fall.”
Pew also found that other top problems for teachers remain: Students are still disinterested and being disrespectful at school — something educators who have spoken with ABC News have also consistently said.
Optimism in public education is down
Overall optimism in public education is down across the board, according to the Pew surveys and ABC News’ interviews.
Teachers believe the political climate — like challenges to school curricula — is a major factor, as well as the impact of the pandemic. But nearly 70% of adults say not enough emphasis in schools is being placed on teaching core academic subjects, according to the survey. Another major reason, according to the survey of adults, is that teachers have brought their personal political views into the classroom.
As for the future, more than half of teachers lack confidence in the recruitment of the next generation, with 52% saying they wouldn’t recommend their profession to a young person, according to Pew’s data.
“I worry very much about my younger colleagues — people who are entering the profession,” Rosivach said. “I think that we’re in a situation where we’re not creating opportunities for people to enter this profession, to do it in a way that is sustainable or is going to be really building strong institutions.”
Most of the teachers surveyed have been in the profession for more than a decade, according to Pew, like Tucker of New York and Rosivach of Minnesota. However, Lin with Pew said their survey found that newer teachers showed more positivity than their peers.
“Newer teachers, you know, those who have been in the profession for under six years, are more likely to recommend a person starting out today to become a teacher than teachers with longer tenure,” she said.
Tucker said she is less concerned with the future of public education, but said she does worry that technology could outpace the current school structure.
“I think that things need to happen faster in public education as far as integrating technology and equipping teachers with the skills that they need so that they can prepare students,” Tucker said.
Rosivach said he is worried, too. Before anything else, he said he hopes to save students who are struggling the most.
“Add more mental health services for young people … because I think it leads to other things, it leads to chronic absenteeism, it leads to higher rates of depression, it leads to less completion of school,” he said. “A lot of the things that we need to get to are going to be about finding kids help with their mental health.”
Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, are seen in undated photos released on March 31, 2024, by the Texas County Sheriff’s Department. (Texas County Sheriff’s Department)
(NEW YORK) — Two missing mothers in Oklahoma appear to be victims of “foul play,” according to authorities, who are investigating why the women never appeared to pick up children as planned.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said earlier in the week it is looking into the “suspicious disappearance” of Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, after their vehicle was found abandoned over the weekend in a remote part of the state near the Kansas border.
“Based on the information obtained from the victim’s vehicle, our investigators believe there was evidence to indicate foul play,” the bureau said in an update on Wednesday.
The women were traveling together to pick up children when they went missing, the bureau said in a statement.
“They never made it to the pickup location,” an earlier law enforcement advisory said. “Their car was located abandoned on the side of the road.”
Their vehicle was found on Saturday in Texas County in Oklahoma — south of Elkhart, Kansas, near Highway 95 and Road L — the bureau’s statement said. The local sheriff’s office located the vehicle, OSBI spokesperson Hunter McKee told ABC News.
“There’s every reason to believe that they could be in danger,” McKee said. “It was a very rural area. They’re nowhere to be found. … The fact that we’ve had no contact with them for this long.”
Both women are involved in church communities in Hugoton, Kansas, according to Butler’s pastor, Tim Singer.
Kelley is the wife of a pastor at Hugoton First Christian Church, according to Singer.
Singer described the two mothers as “acquaintances” and said that they were picking up Butler’s children to attend a birthday party when they went missing.
(LOS ANGELES) — Los Angeles, like other major cities, has seen a surge in crime committed on buses, trains and stations’ transit hubs, according to statistics compiled by ABC News, and now transit officials are working to find a solution.
Crimes reported on Los Angeles MTA properties increased by 65% since 2020 and, between March 2023 and February 2024, average monthly violent crimes on MTA properties rose more than 15%, according to LAPD data compiled by ABC News.
“We’ve had drivers where machetes have been pulled. Urine has been thrown on them. Feces, you name it, whatever they can get their hands on,” Christine Ivey, a Los Angeles bus operator for 30 years, told ABC News.
Ivey currently works for the Santa Monica Municipal Bus Lines and said the same concerns of assaults on drivers in the southern California have been ongoing for years.
As the city has struggled to find solutions and deal with staffing issues concerning security officials who handle transit, riders and operators have been pleading for help.
City and transit officials said they have been working to combat crime while also addressing concerns about homelessness in the mass transit hubs, mental health issues and repeat violent offenders.
LA Metro said in a statement that it has instituted a “multi-layered safety plan, which includes a combination of unarmed care-based personnel, transit security officers and law enforcement, to best serve a diverse customer base with differing views on safety.”
In addition, the agency’s metro ambassador program — a three- to five-year pilot — is one part of their multi-layered plan. According to L.A. Metro, ambassadors are present to support riders from providing directions to resources available for people experiencing homelessness.
But Andrew Black, the former deputy chief of security for the LA Metro, told ABC News that other security measures need be implemented to curb crime in LA’s mass transit system.
Black said he felt tackling fare evasion is key to keeping commuters safe.
“Lacking control of who gets onto the system was the root of the majority of the problems. It wouldn’t solve all the problems, but by controlling access, non-paying individuals, non-paying members of the public, you could dramatically decrease crime on the metro,” he said.
Black had proposed hiring more officers to patrol the city’s mass transit, but five months into his job at the end of 2022 he was terminated. Black sued the LA Metro claiming in court documents that a top metro executive told him “not to speak to bus operators, further, about the need for increased staffing.”
LA Metro denied all of Black’s allegations in a response to his suit. The agency has come under fire following its recent dismissal of another security official.
Last week Gina Osborn, the MTA’s chief security officer, was fired two days after she filed a report with the agency inspector general’s office, according to her attorney. Her attorney said the report dealt with a “safety issue.”
Osborn was named in Black’s lawsuit, which alleges she told him “she had gotten in trouble herself … for having spoken honestly in the past.”
LA Metro told ABC News in a statement, “Any claims of retaliation are categorically untrue. Metro will not comment further on this personnel matter, litigation, or speculative litigation.”
While LA Metro addresses security leadership concerns, some mass transit employees in southern California have been pushing for their own solutions.
As chair and legislative representative with the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transporation Workers, Ivey said her assault prevention and safety committee is “looking at ways of making sure that the company is doing their due diligence, to make sure that the customers know that they are not tolerating the assaults on their personnel.”
“We have various ideas that we’re trying to entertain. One is extending jail time for assailants who assaulted drivers in the commission of their duty, either inside that bus or outside that bus,” she said.
ABC News’ Alex Stone and Talisa Treviño contributed to this report.
A partial solar eclipse is seen in San Salvador, El Salvador, Oct. 14, 2023. (SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Excitement is mounting for one of nature’s most unique spectacles, the total solar eclipse, set to cast a historic shadow across a path through the United States on April 8, 2024.
The track of the moon’s shadow across Earth’s surface is called the path of totality, and to witness the April 8 total solar eclipse in totality, viewers must be within the 115-mile-wide path.
But for anyone outside the path of totality, eclipse day will still offer a celestial spectacle worth getting eclipse glasses for.
“The entire contiguous United States, Hawaii and Alaska will see at least a partial eclipse,” Michael Zeiler, expert solar eclipse cartographer and founder of Greatamericaneclipse.com, told ABC News. “The closer you are to the path of totality, of course, the deeper the eclipse will be.”
To discover when to see the solar eclipse in totality or the partial eclipse in locations across the U.S. outside of the path, check out NASA’s Eclipse Explorer tool.
What is the difference between a total and partial solar eclipse?
A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth and, for a short time, completely blocks the face of the sun, according to NASA.
A partial solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the sun and Earth, but the celestial bodies are not completely aligned, according to the agency.
During a partial solar eclipse, the sun appears to be a crescent shape, according to NASA.
“The difference between a total and a partial solar eclipse is literally night and day,” Zeiler said, adding that unless you are within the path of totality, the chance to see the sun’s corona disappears.
“Even if you stand just a little bit outside the path of totality, even if you are in the zone of 99%, the sunlight is still 10,000 times brighter than the Sun’s corona,” Zeiler said. “So it’s impossible to see the corona unless you are truly inside the path of totality.”
Despite missing the total solar eclipse, Zeiler encourages all Americans to “step outside” on eclipse day.
“Enjoy the spectacle of the partial eclipse,” Zeiler said. “Because that’s still very interesting and brings you closer to the movements of the sun and moon — seeing the solar system in motion.”
Using Los Angeles, California, as an example, during the maximum of the partial solar eclipse, at 11:12 a.m., local time, 58% of the sun will be occulted by the moon.
“So it’ll be noticeably dimmer than normal, but not exceptionally,” Zeiler said, adding, “In fact, you might not even realize that an eclipse is happening unless you are paying attention to it.”
Partial solar eclipse path, magnitude and time in the US
Below is a list of some American cities where the April 8 partial solar eclipse will be most visible — pending weather forecasts — the magnitude of the eclipse in those locations and what time, locally, the partial eclipse view will be at maximum, according to Space.com.
The magnitude is the fraction of the sun’s diameter covered by the moon during the partial eclipse.
Atlanta, Georgia: 3:04 p.m., 0.846 magnitude
Boston, Massachusetts: 3:29 p.m., 0.931 magnitude
Chicago, Illinois: 2:07 p.m., 0.942 magnitude
Cincinnati, Ohio: 3:09 p.m., 0.993 magnitude
Denver, Colorado: 12:40 p.m., 0.715 magnitude
Helena, Montana: 12:40 p.m., 0.474 magnitude
Honolulu, Hawaii: 7:12 a.m., 0.286 magnitude
Houston, Texas: 1:40 p.m., 0.943 magnitude
Juneau, Alaska: 10:33 a.m., 0.064 magnitude
Los Angeles, California: 11:12 a.m., 0.58 magnitude
Miami, Florida: 3:01 p.m., 0.556 magnitude
New Orleans, Lousiana: 1:49 p.m., 0.844 magnitude
New York City, New York: 3:25 p.m., 0.91 magnitude
Seattle, Washington: 11:29 a.m., 0.311 magnitude
St. Louis, Missouri: 2:00 p.m., 0.988 magnitude
Tucson, Arizona: 11:19 a.m., 0.749 magnitude
Washington, D.C.: 3:20 p.m., 0.89 magnitude
Total solar eclipse live stream
For those outside of the path of totality, NASA will be streaming the view of the total solar eclipse live on April 8, 2024.
“Tune in for live views from across the path, expert commentary, live demos, and more,” according to the agency’s official broadcast.
(NEW YORK) — Your chance at winning a billion dollars isn’t over. No ticket matched Wednesday night’s winning Powerball numbers, and the prize has now ballooned to $1.23 billion for the next drawing.
The winning numbers on Wednesday night — one of Powerball’s largest jackpots in the game’s history — were: 11, 38, 41, 62, 65 and red Powerball 15. The power play was 3.
The next drawing is on Saturday night. The cash value is $595.1 million
Wednesday’s drawing comes after a Mega Millions player won the eighth-largest jackpot ever last week. A ticket in New Jersey claimed the $1.128 billion Mega Millions prize.
If a player wins, they can choose between a lump-sum, pre-tax payment of $527.3 million or annual payouts of $1.09 billion, also pre-tax — starting with one immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments that increase by 5% each year.
The Powerball jackpot crossed the billion-dollar threshold last week. There have been 39 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner. The last winner was on Jan. 1, when a ticket in Michigan won $842.4 million, according to the lottery.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, according to Powerball.
Powerball tickets are $2 per play. Tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
(LOS ANGELES) — The Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI are investigating a multi-million dollar theft on Easter Sunday, sources told ABC News.
The money went missing Sunday from a money storage facility in Sylmar, in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, law enforcement sources said. The company that owns the building noticed the money had been stolen on Monday morning.
The thieves managed to break into the facility undetected, sources said.
They went through the roof and into the area where the money is kept, which may have been a vault, according to officials briefed on the investigation. Sources said the sophistication level of the operation indicates a crew of some kind is responsible.
There are no suspects at this point.
The LAPD and FBI are working together on the case.
Sources said the exact amount that was stolen is not known, but it is believed to be in the tens of millions.
The LA Times was first to report news of the heist.
(NEW YORK) — The calendar says it’s spring, but winter storm warnings are in effect in the Midwest and the Northeast as snowstorms slam both regions.
In the Northeast, heavy snow will blanket the mountains and ski resorts of upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine.
Some of the higher elevations in New England could see more than 2 feet of snow.
The snow will pick up in intensity late Wednesday night and continue through Thursday.
In Maine, low visibility is expected and travel is discouraged, Gov. Janet Mills said.
“Folks need to be prepared at home for the possibility of an extended power outage with emergency supplies, alternate power sources, and should charge their mobile devices in advance,” Pete Rogers, director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said in a statement.
In the Midwest, Wisconsin is buried under more than 1 foot of snow and facing winds up to 35 mph.
A blizzard warning was issued for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where gusty winds combined with snow could cause very low visibility.
