(NEW YORK) — George Santos is expected to plead guilty in his fraud case during a hearing Monday in federal court on Long Island, sources familiar with the case told ABC News, while cautioning the erratic former Republican congressman could always change his mind.
A guilty plea would avoid a trial that is scheduled to begin next month. Hundreds of potential jurors had already been summoned.
Calls seeking comment to Santos, his attorney and federal prosecutors with the Eastern District of New York were not returned.
Santos, who was expelled from the House of Representatives, faces 23 felony charges that accuse him of defrauding donors, lying about his finances and needlessly accepting unemployment benefits among other things.
It was not immediately clear to which charges Santos is expected to plea or what sentence would be imposed.
Santos allegedly misrepresented elements of his background and biography during his campaign to represent parts of Queen’s and Nassau County, but the criminal charges to which he has pleaded not guilty to mainly involve money.
Two associates, including Santos’ former campaign treasurer, have pleaded guilty to charges over their role in his alleged fraud.
(AUSTIN, TEXAS) — A 78-year-old man has now been charged with a murder committed over 40 years ago after genetic genealogy helped investigators identify him as a suspect.
Deck Brewer Jr., a man already imprisoned in Massachusetts, has been charged with the 1980 murder of 25-year-old Susan Leigh Wolfe, according to the Austin, Texas, Police Department.
Wolfe had just enrolled as a nursing student at the University of Texas at Austin when she was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed on Jan. 9, 1980, according to police.
Wolfe was kidnapped one block from her home while walking to a friend’s house at around 10 p.m. A witness saw a car stop before the driver exited and grabbed Wolfe in a “bear hug,” placed a coat over her head and forced her into the back of the car, police said.
Wolfe’s body was found the next morning in an alley in Austin. Her body had evidence of ligature strangulation and the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, police said.
During an autopsy, a pathologist found evidence of a sexual assault by one of two unknown suspects seen in the car, police said.
For a year after the murder, investigators followed dozens of leads and tracked down dozens of cars that fit the witness’s description. Police said over the years they had over 40 persons of interest and conducted interviews with at least six suspects.
In April 2023, detectives submitted evidence related to Wolfe’s sexual assault to the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory, where forensic experts evaluated it and determined it was suitable for testing, police said.
In February, Austin police received the test results — which produced a male profile for the suspect — and eliminated the six suspects who were not a genetic match with the evidence police had, police said.
Police then entered the profile into the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, which operates local, state and national databases of DNA profiles from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence and missing persons, police said.
In March, Austin police received a notification for a possible match in Massachusetts, where Brewer is currently incarcerated on unrelated charges, police said.
Detectives conducted a short interview with Brewer in which he said he had been in Austin and San Antonio, Texas, around the time of the murder, police said. Brewer asked for his right to a lawyer when he was told DNA was found at the scene of a murder, police said.
After the DNA comparison was conducted, an Austin court found probable cause to charge Brewer in the murder of Wolfe, police said.
(TALLAHASSEE, FL) — The New College of Florida is under fire after what appears to be hundreds of books that have been wiped from its collection and discarded on the street.
Social Equity Through Education Alliance (SEE), a local activist group, was alerted on Thursday by a New College student who reported seeing what they believed was up to “thousands” of books being “shoved into a dumpster” behind the college’s library.
“We basically tried to communicate to officials that there were educational nonprofits and shelters that were immediately willing to bring trucks and save all of the books … and officials refused,” said Zander Moricz, executive director at SEE.
Moricz continued, “There were Bibles, there were stories of Black authors, of Latin authors, female stories, there were LGBTQ+ and queer stories, or trans stories, all thrown into a dumpster. It sends the message that New College of Florida wants to send stories of gender and diversity to the dump, and it was so heartbreaking and also very frustrating.”
In a statement to ABC News, a New College spokesperson said it’s following “longstanding annual procedures for weeding its collection, which involves the removal of materials that are old, damaged, or otherwise no longer serving the needs of the College.”
“The images seen online of a dumpster of library materials is related to the standard weeding process,” the statement read. “Chapter 273 of Florida statutes precludes New College from selling, donating or transferring these materials, which were purchased with state funds. Deselected materials are discarded through a recycling process when possible.”
Some of the books found on the street were associated with the school’s discontinued Gender Studies program that were primarily donated and were not part of any official college collection or inventory, according to New College’s statement. When the books were not claimed for pickup from the program’s former room, the college also left them on the street, the college told ABC News.
The New College, a public liberal arts school in Sarasota, has been a target of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-“woke” policy efforts, who has said he hopes to shed the institution’s liberal reputation.
DeSantis overhauled the Board of Trustees and touted the “replacement of far-left faculty with new professors aligned with the university’s mission” with a slate of terminations in recent years as well as the elimination of positions aligned with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) standards.
“The New College Board of Trustees is succeeding in its mission to eliminate indoctrination and re-focus higher education on its classical mission,” said DeSantis in an August 2023 statement.
Some of the books that have been discarded, according to a spokesperson for New College, were from the school’s gender studies programs — which were terminated under DeSantis’ appointed Board of Trustees.
Florida officials have long been under scrutiny for restrictions and bans on books in the state amid legislation that is aimed at restricting certain topics regarding race, gender, sex and more in higher education and K-12.
The Parental Rights in Education Bill and the Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act restrict content on LGBTQ identities and race in schools, respectively.
Florida law also allows parents and residents to object to books and have them reviewed and potentially removed from schools.
Since the implementation of these laws, Florida has seen a rise in book-banning attempts across the state, according to the American Library Association (ALA) and free speech advocacy group PEN America.
In the first half of the 2023-2024 school year alone, PEN America found that Florida experienced the highest number of cases focused on banning materials, with 3,135 attempts across 11 school districts.
Critics — including parents, studentsand local activists — have instead led banned book campaigns to encourage the reading and distribution of booksthat have been targeted.
DeSantis later signed a bill in April he hoped would limit the amount of book objections that can be made by people who don’t have a child with access to school materials.
Parents of children in the school districts or using district materials will still be able to object to an unlimited amount of material.
DeSantis’ office said the change to these policies “protects schools from activists trying to politicize and disrupt a district’s book review process.”
Moricz and other activists were able in the end to take several books: “These were readable books. These were books that did not have tears in the pages. Have clean covers. These are books that could have been used, and it’s truly unforgivable.”
(OCALA, FL) — A jury began deliberating Friday in the case of Susan Lorincz – the Florida woman who is charged with first-degree felony manslaughter in the fatal shooting of her neighbor, Ajike “AJ” Owens, through a closed door on June 2, 2023, in Ocala, Florida.
The six-person panel was seated on Monday and began deliberating on Friday shortly after 12:00 p.m. ET after prosecutors and the defense presented their closing arguments in a case that gained national attention.
Lorincz shot Owens, a Black mother of four, through a closed door in the presence of her now 10-year-old son after she went to speak with Lorincz about a dispute over Owens’ children playing near her home, according to a June 6, 2023, statement from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).
Lorincz, who is white, was arrested on June 6, 2023, and charged with first-degree felony manslaughter for fatally shooting Owens on June 2, 2023, in Ocala, Florida. She pleaded not guilty on July 10, 2023, and was held on a $150,000 bond. If convicted, Lorincz faces up to 30 years in prison, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Anthony Thomas, attorney for the family of Owens, told ABC News in a statement after the jury was sworn in on Monday that the family is “disappointed in the all-white jury that was selected to determine the outcome” of this case.
“We would have wanted the jury to be more diverse. But we believe in equal justice, so we are going to see what happens,” added family attorney Ben Crump in a statement to ABC News.
“Historically, jurors in America have not reflected the diversity of America,” Crump continued. “We want to believe in our heart that any juror looking at this situation will administer justice. We must make sure that AJ Owens’ death is not in vain. We keep the faith that the American justice system works for people like AJ Owens, as well.”
How the trial unfolded
A host of neighbors, including two children, sheriff’s deputies, a 911 dispatcher and operator, crime scene investigators and forensic experts were among those who testified during the trial.
Prosecutors argued that Lorincz should be found guilty because she fatally shot an “unarmed” Owens through a “locked” door.
“Ms. Owens was banging on the door telling the defendant to come out,” state attorney Rich Buxman said in his closing argument. “Belief that there was an immediate or imminent danger, such that deadly force was necessary at that time, was simply unreasonable because there was no imminent danger. And that word imminent is very important. It’s included in the law for a reason… If Miss Owens would somehow have managed to bust through this locked, dead bolted metal door, entered her house and started coming at her, the defendant may have had a right to shoot because that danger would have then been imminent.”
The defense argued that Lorincz should be found not guilty because she was acting in self-defense because she feared for her life.
“The law says you should only convict someone if you’re convinced they’re guilty beyond a reasonable doubt…. If you’re back there and you’re deliberating and you’re thinking, ‘Man, she had some medical issues. She did live alone. She had these prior run-ins with Ajike, I could see how she could be scared of her.'” Amanda Sizemore, Lorincz’s attorney, said in her closing argument. “And if you have reasonable doubt, you should find Ms. Lorincz not guilty because that is what the law says. And each and every one of you took an oath to follow the law.”
A focus of the state’s argument was on the first 911 call that Lorincz made to report “trespassing” on June 2, 2023 – minutes before she ended up shooting Owens.
“No matter the outcome, I am committed to honoring my daughter Ajike’s memory by continuing to seek justice, not only for her but for every family who has faced a similar loss,” Pamela Dias, Owens’ mother, told ABC News through a statement sent by her attorneys. “This trial has been an incredibly difficult journey, but I believe in the power of truth and justice.”
Susan Lorincz’s attorney did not respond to ABC News’ request for a statement.
According to witnesses, including the sheriff’s deputies who responded to the shooting, law enforcement was already on their way to Lorincz’s home when the shooting occurred because she had called 911 to report three children – one Latino and two Black – were “trespassing” on her property.
During the trial the locked door became a focus of the state’s argument and the subject of cross examination during the testimony of various witnesses.
The defense claimed that Owens told Lorincz that she was going to “kill” her and was trying to “break” in Lorincz’s front door that they argued was “damaged.”
The state zeroed in on this claim during the testimony on Tuesday of Lorincz’s former landlord Charles Gabbard.
Gabbard testified that, prior to the shooting, he had repaired a jam on Lorincz’s front door. He said that her door was “structurally sound” after he repaired it, despite some cosmetic damage. He said that the door was sturdy and had a chain, a deadbolt and a lock.
During cross-examination, Gabbard said that Lorincz did not tell him how the door was damaged but that “it was clear that someone slammed” the door. He said that after repairing it, he was planning to replace Lorincz’s door at some point. Asked by Lorincz’s attorney if the crack in the door was “substantial,” Gabbard said, “Yes.”
“Susan Lorincz told detectives, ‘I really thought she was going to break my door down,'” Sizemore said. “‘I really thought that I saw the door moving.’ And I really believe that. I honest to God believe that is what she said. She reasonably believed that. We heard Susan tell the detectives, ‘I heard Ms. Owens say, ‘I’m going to [expletive] kill you.’ … I heard the door crack, and when I heard that door crack, I fired.'”
(NEW YORK) — In an encore “20/20” airing August 16 at 9 p.m. ET, the show, which originally aired in 2020, revisits the case of Pamela Smart, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for being an accomplice in her husband Gregg’s murder in 1990.
Smart, whose murder trial was the first in U.S. history to be broadcast on television gavel-to-gavel, maintained her innocence for 30 years. But this summer, in a stunning turn of events, she admitted to her role in her husband’s murder for the first time. “20/20” looks at the series of events that led to Gregg Smart’s murder and its aftermath and offers the latest news in what could be Pamela Smart’s last chance at freedom.
After nearly three decades behind bars for plotting to kill her husband at their home, Pamela Smart is still proclaiming her innocence.
“I have been portrayed as [an] ice princess, a black widow, a killer, and none of those things could be further from the truth,” Smart told “20/20” in a new interview.
Smart’s story made national headlines in the 1990s when she went to trial on charges she coerced her teenaged lover Billy Flynn into a plot to kill her 24-year-old husband Gregg Smart.
Pamela Smart’s trial took place before the high-profile trials of the Menendez brothers, John and Lorena Bobbitt and O.J. Simpson.
The trial was broadcast live on TV and it subsequently launched a media frenzy. A local New Hampshire TV station preempted daytime soap operas for trial coverage. The sensational event led to a made-for-TV movie, features in various true crime TV series in the U.S. and abroad, as well as the 1995 feature film “To Die For,” starring Nicole Kidman.
Watch the full story on “20/20” Friday, Jan. 10 at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
In March 1991, Pamela Smart was convicted of witness tampering, conspiracy to commit murder and being an accomplice to first-degree murder. Under New Hampshire law, the accomplice charge carried a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole. She was 23 years old at the time.
Smart, now age 52, has spent the last 29 years incarcerated and is currently at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in Westchester County, New York.
“I wanted to be [a] mother and now I’ve lost all my years,” she said. “It seems like the whole world’s passing by and, you know, I’m still here.”
Over the years, Smart has filed numerous appeals and lost each time. With all her appeals exhausted, she said it’s difficult to hope she’ll ever leave prison alive.
Through it all, her mother, Linda Wojas, has continued her crusade to fight for her daughter’s freedom.
“I just hope God lets me live long enough to see her free,” Wojas said in a new interview with “20/20.”
Pamela Smart’s time in prison was difficult from early on. In 1996, she was beaten by two inmates who left her with injuries so severe that she needed a metal plate to be inserted into the side of her face.
Since then, Smart has earned two master’s degrees. She said she participates in a leadership team for the prison’s church and that she’s the director of its “praise dance” group. She said she also works as a liaison between inmates and the prison superintendent.
Wojas, who firmly believes in her daughter’s innocence, said she once asked Smart to apologize for her husband’s murder in hopes that it would help get her out of prison. Pamela Smart has consistently denied for decades she had any involvement in her husband’s murder.
In February 2018, Smart’s legal team submitted a petition for her sentence to be commuted, including testimonials from people she knew in prison.
“I was struck by the letters of support. I was struck by how well Ms. Smart has conducted herself in prison. And then I got to the memo that she personally wrote,” New Hampshire Executive Council member Andru Volinsky told “20/20.”
“In the very first paragraph, she claimed she had no involvement with his death,” Volinsky said. “That is at great odds with the evidence in the case. The failure to recognize her own culpability was what convinced me to vote against the hearing. How do I trust someone who hasn’t even come to terms with her own responsibility for the death of her husband?”
Smart was ultimately denied a sentence reduction hearing.
A life in prison is a world apart from the life Smart imagined for herself as a newlywed making a home in Derry, New Hampshire, in 1990.
“I was only 21 years old when I got married. I was very much in love with my husband,” Smart told “20/20.” “I thought that Gregg and I, that we would have a fulfilling future. That we would have a family and children.”
Pamela Smart, who goes by Pame, worked at a local high school as a media and journalism coordinator while her husband went into the insurance business with his father.
On May 1, 1990, Smart said she came home from work to find her husband dead from a gunshot wound to the head inside their condominium.
“What happened to Gregg is the most horrible thing I’ve ever gone through in my life, and I’m still haunted every day by memories of what must have happened to him inside our house before he was killed,” Smart said in her most recent interview. “Although I wasn’t there, I feel that because of that I’ll never know how Gregg was feeling at the time. I keep thinking of how afraid he must have been and how senseless this whole tragedy was. A lot of the times, I still can’t even believe that he’s gone.”
Police were investigating the case for six weeks before they got their first break. Vance Lattime Sr. went into the Seabrook Police station with his .38 caliber revolver, telling authorities that one of his son’s friends had told him it may have been used to kill Gregg Smart.
Once ballistics results confirmed a match between bullets fired from the gun and the bullet that killed Gregg Smart, police brought in Vance Lattime Jr.’s friend, Ralph Welch, for questioning.
Welch told police he had a conversation with Lattime Jr., and Patrick “Pete” Randall in the Lattime home, who talked about how Gregg Smart was killed.
He said he heard the boys discuss how Lattime Jr., Randall, and two other boys, Raymond Fowler and Billy Flynn were there that night. Welch said Lattime Jr. and Randall said that Lattime Jr. drove the group to the Smarts’ condo, and that Flynn and Randall went inside while Fowler remained in the car.
“They [Flynn and Randall] went there, and they broke into the place. They set it up to make it look like a burglary. I guess the guy tried to run or something, they grabbed him, they threw his dog in the cellar,” Welch said. “Pete said he held the guy’s head while Bill shot him.”
Welch told police that he’d also heard Pamela Smart had promised his friends $500 each out of a life insurance policy, which investigators later learned totaled $140,000.
Investigators were at a loss for how these high schoolers were connected to Pamela Smart. Then, police got an anonymous tip about Cecilia Pierce.
Pierce, another high school student who was interning for Smart, provided the link police were missing: Pierce said Smart was not only hanging out with the high schoolers she worked with but she had also begun an affair with Flynn, the young man who Welch claimed pulled the trigger.
Pierce told police that Pamela Smart was “kinda like a big sister” to her. She told them she knew Smart and Flynn were having sex, because one night, the three were watching a movie together when Smart and Flynn went off to have sex, and Pierce “walked in on them,” Pierce said.
Smart admitted to “20/20” that her relationship with Flynn “was totally wrong.”
“It was actually very difficult because I had feelings for my husband. I loved him and I also had developed feelings for Bill, and I knew that I couldn’t continue like this,” Smart said. “It wasn’t, you know, gonna work like this forever. It was only a short relationship.”
In July 1990, Pierce wore a police-monitored body wire that recorded Pamela Smart’s apparently telling Pierce to lie to investigators.
“I’m just telling you, you know, if you tell the truth, you’re gonna be an accessory to murder,” Smart said to Pierce in the recording. “Now, you know you’re gonna be on the witness stand…and then he’ll say, ‘Did you know?’ And you’re gonna say ‘no.’ ‘Did Pame do it?’ ‘No.’”
Smart argues, however, she was only pretending to be involved, hoping it would make Pierce give her information about what police knew.
“All I wanted to know was did [Flynn] really kill my husband,” she said. “More than anything I wanted this not to be true…because I felt responsible.”
“I thought there was no way, because the person I knew, I never saw him violent, or anything like that,” Smart said of Flynn.
Smart says that her attorney had even warned her not to trust Pierce before this conversation took place.
“Let me tell you how out of whack I was,” Smart told “20/20.” “The day before this [conversation with Pierce], I had a lawyer, and he calls me up and he says, ‘Whatever you do, don’t talk to her…because she’s coming in and she’s gonna be wired.’”
Smart was arrested in August 1990. She said that at the time, she “was not really worried about it.”
“I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I’m thinking this is gonna get straightened out,” Smart said.
But the young man Smart said she had developed feelings for decided to cooperate. Flynn told investigators she coerced him to commit the murder.
“I meet Pame Smart and she’s beautiful, she’s intelligent, you know, she’s an adult…and she likes me,” Flynn told police. “She said the way she sees it, the only alternative…is to kill him.”
Flynn told police she would bring up the plan to kill her husband “almost every day… She said she hated him.”
“She had told Billy something along the lines that [Gregg Smart] mistreated her, and trying to give Billy some motive…[that he] was a bad guy and deserved to die,” Paul Maggiotto, the former New Hampshire assistant attorney general who prosecuted Smart’s case, told “20/20” in a new interview.
“She had used her sexual powers to influence Bill Flynn,” Maggiotto added. “But I can’t tell you that she didn’t legitimately love him.”
Flynn, Randall, Lattime Jr. and Raymond Fowler eventually confessed to their roles in the murder and pleaded guilty to various charges. They later cooperated with authorities in their prosecution against Smart.
Randall testified that he asked her to go over “the plan” ahead of Gregg Smart’s murder. Pamela Smart gave herself an alibi by being at a work meeting while the boys killed her husband.
“I wanted to make sure everything was gonna work. And she told me she was leaving the backdoors unlocked, we could go in, make sure we didn’t turn on any lights,” Randall said on the stand. “[She said] not to hurt her dog, and that we could ransack the apartment, the condo, take what we wanted. And wait for Gregg to come home. And when Gregg came home we were to kill him.”
When Gregg Smart walked in, Flynn and Randall said they jumped him and forced him to kneel down on the floor. Randall said he held a knife in front of his face but it was Flynn who fatally shot him. Meanwhile, Fowler and Lattime Jr., the latter of whom was driving the getaway car, were waiting in the car outside.
Mark Sisti, Pamela Smart’s defense attorney, said there was “a tsunami” of media attention around Smart’s trial. He told “20/20” in a new interview that “most of it was over-the-top drama.”
“We did not have a jury that was sequestered. So, naturally, we were concerned that they were going to be affected,” Sisti said.
Sisti argued at Smart’s trial that the prosecution “made a deal with the devil.”
“Like any other wild animals, they’d chew off their own arm if they were caught in a trap,” Sisti said during Smart’s trial, referring to the four teens who cooperated with the prosecution.
During the trial, Flynn took the stand and emotionally recounted how he’d been convinced that he and Smart could only be together “if we killed Gregg. Because she can’t divorce him.”
Flynn testified at trial how he paused just before shooting Gregg Smart in the head.
“A hundred years, it seemed, and I said ‘God forgive me.’ [Then] I pulled the trigger,” Flynn said.
“I didn’t want to kill Gregg. You know, I wanted to be with Pame. And that’s what I had to do to be with Pame,” he said.
Smart said that when she sensed the jury empathizing with Flynn, she “wanted to scream.”
“I wanted to get up and say, ‘Stop lying!’” she said.
Smart told “20/20” that she “absolutely” believes Flynn lied to get a lesser sentence.
“I know he lied,” she said. “There’s only two people — three — that know the truth: me, him and God.”
“I was a woman. This happened in a small New England town and it seemed like the whole Salem witch trial thing all over again,” Smart said. “The media latched on. I was like the proverbial woman with the scarlet letter. You know, everybody could project everything on me and hate me.”
Wojas also believes her daughter did not receive a fair trial.
“When you have publicity…1,200 newspaper articles screaming her guilt, [then] you’ll put in safeguards,” Wojas said. “Stay the trial while the publicity abates. You change the venue. And you sequester the jury.”
The jury was not sequestered and the venue was not changed.
Flynn and Randall each served 25 years in prison for second-degree murder and both men were paroled in June 2015. Lattime Jr. served 15 years in prison and was paroled in August 2005. Fowler served 12 years in prison and was paroled in 2003.
When ABC News’ Diane Sawyer interviewed Flynn in 1995, she asked him what the one question he would ask Smart, if given the chance, would be.
“Whether or not she really ever loved me,” Flynn said at the time. “In hindsight, that might not seem like a very big deal to most people, but knowing that she had me do this and that I did go through with it and that she never really loved me would probably kill me.”
In a separate interview with Sawyer in 1995, Smart told her, “Yes… I think I did really love him.”
Even today, Smart says she loved Flynn.
“I loved him,” she told “20/20.” I cared for him. I had feelings. People act like I just used him and went lurking through the school looking for somebody to manipulate. And it was just really wasn’t even like that.”
(KIMBERLING CITY, MO) — A Missouri woman was arrested Friday morning in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud Elvis Presley’s family out of millions of dollars and the ownership of Graceland, the Justice Department announced.
Lisa Findley is alleged to have orchestrated the scheme to conduct the sale of Graceland by falsely claiming that Presley’s daughter, prior to her death, had pledged the estate as collateral for a loan she hadn’t repaid, prosecutors said.
“As part of the brazen scheme, we allege that the defendant created numerous false documents and sought to extort a settlement from the Presley family,” the head of DOJ’s criminal division, Nicole Argentieri, said in a statement announcing the arrest.
Findley, 53, of Kimberling City, Missouri, was charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, the DOJ said. She is scheduled to make her first appearance later Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri. She does not yet have any attorney listed as representing her in online court records.
The criminal complaint, which was unsealed Friday, outlined the alleged scheme, which prosecutors said involved a fake private lender, forged documents and signatures and a fraudulent foreclosure notice for the Graceland estate in Memphis in an attempt to get millions from the Presley family.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — A hurricane warning has been issued for Bermuda as Ernesto strengthened to a Category 2 storm overnight.
Ernesto had maximum sustained winds of 100 mph Friday morning.
The hurricane is forecast to strengthen on Friday, but will remain a Category 2 storm as it passes Bermuda. Flash flooding covers a roadway after Tropical Storm Ernesto moved through the area in Dorado, Puert…
The hurricane will approach Bermuda Friday night as the eye wall — with its strongest winds — passes over Bermuda early Saturday morning.
Damaging winds near 90 mph and rainfall of up to 15 inches are possible.
While it won’t threaten the U.S. with landfall, a high rip current risk and large waves are reaching Florida on Friday and the Northeast from Saturday through Monday.
In the Northeast, waves could be 6 to 9 feet close to the shore and over 10 feet away from the coast.
After Bermuda, Ernesto will move northeast and brush Newfoundland with winds up to 80 mph early next week.
Mayor Eric Adams speaks to the media at City Hall on July 30, 2024, in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Federal prosecutors in New York served another round of grand jury subpoenas on Mayor Eric Adams as part of a corruption investigation that has lasted nearly a year, sources familiar with the investigation confirmed to ABC News.
The new batch of subpoenas, first reported by The New York Times, were issued last month and sought communications and documents, the sources told ABC News.
Adams confirmed receipt of the subpoenas during a taped interview with WABC anchor Bill Ritter for his “Up Close” program.
“Like previous administrations that have gone through subpoenas, you participate and cooperate,” Adams said. “You see the subpoena, and you respond. At the end of the day, it will show there is no criminality here.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
Mayor Adams has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
“As a former member of law enforcement, the mayor has been clear over that last nine months that he will cooperate with any investigation underway. Nothing has changed. He expects everyone to cooperate to swiftly bring this investigation to a close,” Fabien Levy, the deputy mayor for communications, said in a statement provided to ABC News.
As ABC News has previously reported, the investigation, at least in part, involves whether Adams and his campaign sought illegal donations from Turkey in exchange for pressuring the fire department to rush an inspection of the new Turkish consulate. Investigators also examined whether Adams received upgrades on Turkish Airlines flights.
Attorneys for Adams, Brendan McGuire and Boyd Johnson, said they have conducted their own investigation of the areas federal prosecutors are reviewing and have concluded the mayor did nothing wrong.
“Our investigation has included an evaluation of campaign documents, an analysis of tens of thousands of electronic communications, and witness interviews. To be clear, we have not identified any evidence of illegal conduct by the Mayor. To the contrary, we have identified extensive evidence undermining the reported theories of federal prosecution as to the Mayor, which we have voluntarily shared with the US Attorney. We continue to cooperate with the investigation and are in the process of responding to the recently issued subpoenas. We continue to look forward to a prompt and just resolution of this investigation,” McGuire and Johnson said in a statement provided to ABC News by their firm, WilmerHale.
(VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.) — An alleged abduction of three Virginia Beach children ended in a car crash Thursday morning that left the youngest dead, according to police.
Virginia State Police responded to a stabbing Wednesday night in an incident they said they believe to be “domestic-related.”
Two female victims — one adult and one juvenile — were transported to the hospital with multiple stab wounds, and are currently in stable condition, police said.
The suspect, Dana Plummer, 36, is believed to have stabbed the two victims and then fled the scene with his children, police said.
The three children were identified as 7-year-old Zayin Plummer, 5-year-old Zayir Plummer and 1-year-old Za’riyah Plummer.
An AMBER Alert — which has since been canceled — was issued Thursday morning for the children.
Law enforcement identified the suspect’s vehicle thanks to a tip from a member of the public and attempted to initiate a traffic stop, but the vehicle refused to stop and fled north on the highway into Maryland, police said.
While fleeing, the driver lost control of the car and crashed, police said.
The three missing children were located at the scene. The 1-year-old was transported to a hospital, but later succumbed to her injuries, police said.
Police apprehended Plummer at the scene.
He has been charged with two counts of aggravated malicious wounding, three counts of parental abduction, four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and domestic assault, police said.
“Our hearts go out to the family and loved ones who are grieving this morning,” Virginia State Police Chief Paul Neudigate said in a statement. “This is an unimaginable tragedy, and on behalf of the VBPD, I extend our deepest sympathies to those affected by this loss.”
(NEW YORK) — On the heels of the Perseid meteor shower earlier this month, August is offering another great astronomical sight — the rare combination of a supermoon and blue moon.
Beginning on Aug. 19, the super blue moon will reach peak fullness at 2:26 p.m. ET. Since that’s daylight hours in the U.S., Americans will have to wait for the evening to see the moon slightly past its peak, while still being noticeably larger and brighter than a typical moon view.
The super blue moon will appear full for three days, according to NASA.
A supermoon coinciding with a blue moon is exceptionally rare, the space agency reports, with the next pairing happening in January and March 2037.
What is a supermoon?
Supermoons are the biggest and brightest lunar views of the year, they occur when the moon’s orbit is within 90% of its closest approach to Earth, according to NASA.
During the moon’s closest approach to Earth, it can appear approximately 14% larger and shine 30% brighter than when at its farthest point in the orbit, approximately 226,000 miles away.
The term “supermoon” was originally coined by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979.
Supermoons appear three to four times annually and always appear consecutively, according to NASA, which notes starting this month, the next three full moons will be supermoons.
The next supermoons will occur on Sept. 17, Oct. 17 and Nov. 15.
What is a blue moon?
Despite its name, blue moons have little to do with color and everything to do with timeliness. There are two types of blue moons – seasonal and monthly – and the blue moon on Aug. 19 will be seasonal.
A seasonal blue moon is the third full moon in an astrological season with four full moons, while a monthly blue moon refers to the second of two full moons in the same month.
The next seasonal blue moon is expected in May 2027, according to NASA.
While the super blue moon Aug. 19 won’t be blue, on rare occasions the moon has appeared blue. NASA reports that this occurs when tiny particles in the air, typically of smoke or dust, scatter away red wavelengths of light and cause the moon to appear blue.
How rare is a super blue moon?
While supermoons and seasonal blue moons are more common in the night sky individually, the combination of the two is quite irregular, according to NASA.
The time between super blue moons can be as long as 20 years but 10 years is the average. However, 2023 also saw a super blue moon in August.
Following Aug. 19, the next super blue moons will occur in a pair, in January and March 2037.
