(LOS ANGELES) — A University of Southern California student will not face charges for the fatal stabbing of a homeless man he said was done in self-defense.
Ivan Gallegos, 19, was arrested on suspicion of murder Monday night in the death of 27-year-old Xavier Cerf.
Police said Gallegos saw Cerf breaking into his car in the parking lot behind his fraternity house on Monday night. According to police, Cerf told him he had a gun, at which point the student stabbed him.
On Thursday, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said the department had reviewed the incident and decided not to bring charges against Gallegos.
“We believe that Mr. Gallegos’s actions were driven by a genuine fear for his life and the lives of others,” Gascón said in a statement. “Our heart goes out to the deceased’s family, friends and everyone impacted by this tragic incident.“
Gallegos, who is from Los Angeles, had previously been booked into jail and held on $2 million bail.
He is a member of Delta Tau Delta, a woman who manages the fraternity house told ABC 7.
Last month, the school’s Annenberg Media put out a profile on Gallego, who they described as an up-and-coming musician and a student in the business school.
(NEW YORK) — The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Thursday moved to dismiss the charges against most of the pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at Columbia University and nearby City College, though prosecutors are moving forward with cases against a handful of protesters who allegedly assaulted police officers.
Prosecutors said they’re hamstrung by “extremely limited video or surveillance footage of what occurred inside Hamilton Hall” since most cameras were covered by the protesters.
Charges against 31 people will be dropped, though they’re still subject to discipline by Columbia University since they’re students or staff.
“In light of those disciplinary proceedings, the People move to dismiss these cases,” prosecutors said.
The district attorney’s office offered adjournments to 12 other defendants who are not employees or students at Columbia University provided they stay out of trouble.
The cases against six defendants who are charged with assaulting police officers at either Columbia or City College remain ongoing.
The protest movement connected to the Israel-Hamas war began in April at Columbia and swept across college campuses nationwide.
Hundreds of protesters were arrested at campuses across the country, while encampments were torn down and events canceled.
Columbia University canceled its large graduation ceremony on the main lawn where a protest encampment had been based before the NYPD dismantled it in May.
(ATLANTA) — Former President Donald Trump on Thursday urged the Georgia Court of Appeals to reject Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ effort to dismiss his appeal of the judge’s decision not to disqualify her from Trump’s election interference case in the state.
Calling Wills’ effort a “desperate bid to avoid disqualification,” Trump’s attorneys urged the appeals court to allow the issue to move forward.
The filing comes in response to Willis’ motion last week that asked the Court of Appeals to dismiss Trump’s appeal of a lower court’s decision to allow Willis to remain on the case.
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 defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
Willis was allowed to stay on the case after Judge Scott McAfee declined to outright disqualify her despite finding there was a “significant appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship between Willis and a top prosecutor on her team.
The election interference case has essentially been halted as Trump’s appeal of the disqualification ruling makes its way through the courts.
In his filing Thursday, Trump attorney Steve Sadow criticized Willis’ efforts to have Trump’s appeal dismissed, saying, “Simply stated, the State’s motion is a calculated, disingenuous attempt to mislead this Court for the obvious purpose of preventing interlocutory appellate review of the District Attorney’s misconduct.”
The Court of Appeals has already agreed to hear Trump’s appeal of the disqualification decision, and earlier this month it paused the election case pending the outcome — a move that experts said is likely to delay the election interference case until after the election.
Willis’ office last week sought to have the appeals court dismiss the appeal by claiming there was “lack of sufficient evidence” to support a reversal of the lower court’s ruling, in which Judge McAfee made a factual finding after multiple public hearings that Willis had no actual conflict of interest in the case resulting from her relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade.
The DA’s filing argued that only in “very rare circumstances” can appeals courts “disturb” a lower court’s factual finding unless the filing is “flatly incorrect.”
“The trial court’s careful and extensive evaluation of the resulting record, and its utter dismissal of the central evidence proffered by the Appellants, forecloses any possibility of reversal,” the filing from the DA’s office stated.
Trump’s attorney pushed back on the DA’s request by saying the DA’s office has “no proper procedural vehicle to relitigate this Court’s sound decision to hear the merits” of the appeal.
“Of course, as this Court well knows, that has never been, and is not now, the law,” Sadow wrote in his filing.
Sadow also said that most of the issues in Trump’s appeal involve legal issues, including what he called McAfee’s “misinterpretation of misapplication” of the legal standard for disqualification — not issues about the factual findings, as the DA’s motion states.
“The focus of these appeals will be the legal errors that the trial court committed below, errors that this Court has plenary authority to review and decide,” Sadow said.
(MASON, Ohio.) — A 38-year-old man was critically injured at a Mason, Ohio, amusement park Wednesday night after being hit by a roller coaster.
The man had entered a restricted, fenced area of the Kings Island theme park near the Banshee roller coaster “and is believed to have been struck by the ride” around 8 p.m., a spokesperson for the park said in a statement.
The park’s safety and first aid workers responded at the scene, and the man was transported to the hospital.
As of Thursday morning, police said the man remained in critical condition.
A witness said the man told a park employee he had lost something on the ride and needed to go back to get it, according to Cincinnati ABC affiliate WCPO.
The employee reportedly said he would not be able to do anything until the ride closed, but the man continued to wander in the ride’s vicinity and eventually passed through a restricted gate, WCPO reported.
The witness told WCPO the man had been dressed in clothing similar to park staff, so some had thought he was an employee.
The Banshee roller coaster will remain closed while officials investigate the incident, the park spokesperson said.
“Kings Island’s focus continues to be on the welfare of the guest and his family,” they said.
(BATON ROUGE, La.) — Several civil liberties groups say they are poised for a legal battle over Louisiana’s new law requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments one day after the law was signed by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.
The groups – including The American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation – said Wednesday that they plan to challenge the law in court.
The groups say the law violates the separation of church and state in public buildings and would impact students’ education and safety, according to an ACLU statement.
“The government should not be taking sides in this theological debate, and it certainly should not be coercing students to submit day in and day out to unavoidable promotions of religious doctrine,” the ACLU wrote.
HB 71 mandates public schools — from kindergarten to the collegiate level — to display the Ten Commandments, a religious set of rules from the Old Testament, in every classroom on “a poster or framed document that is at least 11 inches by 14 inches.”
“If you want to respect the rule of law, you gotta start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” said Landry Wednesday during the press conference where he signed the bills.
The bill also outlined a specific version of the Ten Commandments to be used for the display.
Public schools have until January 2025 to display the poster, which will be paid for by private donations and not state dollars, according to the law. The law does not state what would happen if a school does not comply with the order.
The bill is one of 18 signed by Landry as part of his “Dream Big” education plan that aims to “bring back common sense in our classrooms,” he said in a Wednesday statement.
Supporters of HB 71 argue that the law isn’t about religion: “This is not preaching a Christian religion. It’s not preaching any religion. It’s teaching a moral code,” Republican state Rep. Dodie Horton said during an April hearing, according to local news outlet WWL-TV.
The law argues that the Ten Commandments are also historically significant, reflecting “the understanding of the founders of our nation with respect to the necessity of civic morality to a functional self-government,” the text reads.
Opponents of the bill believe this is a violation of the First Amendment.
The ACLU pointed to the 1980 Supreme Court case Stone v. Graham, which found that Kentucky’s then-law requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms “had no secular legislative purpose” and was “plainly religious in nature,” the decision read.
“All students should feel safe and welcome in our public schools,” the ACLU said in a statement.
The statement continued, “H.B. 71 would undermine this critical goal and prevent schools from providing an equal education to all students, regardless of faith. We will not allow Louisiana lawmakers to undermine these religious-freedom rights.”
(LITTLE ROCK, Ark.) — The “armed and dangerous” suspect accused of four murders — three in Oklahoma and one in Alabama — as well as a slew of other crimes, was caught Thursday morning following a nearly two-day manhunt.
Stacy Lee Drake, 50, was taken into custody Thursday around 10 a.m., according to the Arkansas State Police.
He was found in a wooded area in Morrilton, Arkansas, and was captured without incident, according to investigators.
Drake was wanted in connection with three homicides in Oklahoma, stemming from two separate carjackings, according to Arkansas State Police. Following his arrest, it was revealed Drake was also wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of an Alcoholics Anonymous volunteer last month in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
“Drake is separately wanted on multiple felony warrants from multiple jurisdictions, with charges including aggravated robbery, carjacking, and murder,” investigators said in a statement.
The Morrilton Police Department, Arkansas State Police, the Conway County Sheriff’s Office, the Arkansas National Guard and the Arkansas Division of Community Correction assisted in the search.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation gave more details Wednesday about two of the homicides that took place in Sequoyah County. Officers discovered a man and woman dead inside a business Tuesday.
The victims’ identities were not immediately released.
Although the victims’ causes of death are still being determined by the medical examiner, Oklahoma investigators said, “both sustained injuries consistent with homicide.”
Drake’s crime spree goes back to May, according to authorities.
Capt. Jack Kennedy, of the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Sheriff’s Office, told reporters Thursday afternoon that Drake was wanted in connection with the death of Russell Andrews, whose body was found in an Alcoholics Anonymous building on May 14. Andrews worked as an AA volunteer for many years and was well-liked by its members, Kennedy said.
Kennedy alleged that Drake was a transient and was in Tuscaloosa, roughly 57 miles southwest of Birmingham, for at least a week before the discovery of Andrews’ body and used the AA’s services for food. Drake, who allegedly gave AA a phony name, stole Andrews’ car, according to Kennedy.
Kennedy said that Drake was a former federal inmate and had “an extensive criminal history,” including arrests for violent crimes in Alabama, Arizona and Oklahoma.
“We don’t know if he’s responsible for other homicides but that is being looked into,” Kennedy said.
Prior to his arrest, Drake had been last seen on foot outside a motel in Morrilton, Arkansas, according to police. Oklahoma investigators said a car he had allegedly stolen was found in Morrilton, which is roughly 130 miles east of where the bodies were found in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, on Tuesday night.
In this aerial image, vehicles drive through flooded neighborhoods on June 19, 2024 in Surfside Beach, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Alberto, the first named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, has made landfall in Mexico after pummeling Texas with rain.
A whopping 9.5 inches of rain has inundated Rockport, Texas, just north of Corpus Christi.
Alberto has already brought significant storm surge of more than 4 feet of water to the Texas coast.
As Alberto continues to move through Mexico Thursday, on-shore winds will continue to bring several feet of storm surge from Galveston to Corpus Christi.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 51 counties on Wednesday.
The worst of the rain is done for coastal Texas, from Galveston to Corpus Christi. The heaviest rain has now moved into the mountains of Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas-Mexico border.
(NEW YORK) — Heat alerts are in effect on Thursday for more than 70 million Americans in 16 states, stretching from Kentucky to Maine.
Maine on Wednesday saw blistering heat, including an all-time heat index record in Caribou, Maine. The city’s temperatures reached 96 degrees, with a heat index of 103.
Other cities who hit record highs on Wednesday, including Boston, Massachusetts, at 98; Manchester, New Hampshire, at 98; and Hartford, Connecticut, at 97.
New York’s Albany and Poughkeepsie both tied their previous record highs at 94 on Wednesday. Redding, Pennsylvania, also tied its record at 95 degrees.
More records were expected to be broken or tied across the Northeast and parts of the Ohio Valley on Thursday. Manchester, New Hampshire, is expected to hit 98; Hartford, Connecticut, will touch 97; Scranton, Pennsylvania, will hit 95; and Buffalo, New York, is expected to hit 91.
The heat dome is expected to move south and west, bringing record heat to Chicago, Illinois; Nashville, Tennessee; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
(OAKLAND, Calif.) — At least four people were injured on Wednesday night as gunfire erupted at an event on Lake Merritt, in Oakland, California, police said.
More than 5,000 people had flocked to the area for the day’s event, which was being monitored by 28 police officers and four sergeants, the Oakland Police Department said in a statement early Thursday.
The event had been peaceful until about 8:15 p.m., when “illegal sideshow involving vehicles and motorbikes occurred near Grand Avenue and Bellevue Avenue,” the police said.
“A short time later, a fight broke out, and as the crowd headed towards the altercation, multiple shots were fired,” police said in their statement.” Officers located several victims who were struck by the gunfire.”
Police said early Thursday that there were no known fatalities. Officers were investigating whether there had been additional injuries, police said.
“No arrests have been made in connection with the shooting,” police said. “It is currently unknown if there was a single shooter or multiple shooters involved.”
(NEW YORK) — This year’s summer solstice arrives as a dangerous heat wave affects millions across the country, with early-season extreme heat impacting parts of the Midwest and Northeast.
But the longest day of the year — which begins Thursday at 4:51 p.m. ET — is not typically associated with the hottest temperatures of the season in the U.S. The most scorching conditions typically occur much later in the summer, records show, with different regions of the country experiencing their warmest average temperatures at varying times. Brutal summer heat, however, will increase in frequency and duration for much of the country over the coming weeks and months.
The summer solstice marks the beginning of astronomical summer in the Northern Hemisphere, according to NASA. Astronomical seasons are determined by the Earth’s tilt on its rotational axis and its orbit around the sun and do not take into account temperature data, which is what determines meteorological seasons.
Solstices occur when the planet’s tilt is most pronounced. The summer solstice occurs when Earth’s tilt toward the sun is at a maximum, bringing the longest day of the year.
On the first day of astronomical summer, the sun is at its highest point in the sky and so delivers the most direct solar radiation to the hemisphere experiencing the summer season. However, it takes time for that solar radiation to begin warming the Earth’s atmosphere and surface, especially the oceans.
This time difference creates a lag between the first day of summer and when the Earth experiences the hottest temperatures of the year.
For the contiguous U.S., records show July is the hottest month of the year, on average, with the majority of the country — including much of the Northeast, Midwest, and West — experiencing the hottest temperatures of the year during the second half of July and first half of August. However, some regions of the country don’t typically experience their warmest average temperatures until August, or even September.
Much of the South typically experiences its peak average temperatures during the second half of August, while for some regions of the West Coast, the warmest temperatures of the year usually don’t occur until September.
For this summer, overall above-average temperatures are forecast across much of the country, with several significant heat waves likely for parts of the Northeast and Southwest.
Earth has experienced 12 months of record high temperatures, according to reports published earlier this month by the World Meteorological Organization and Copernicus, Europe’s climate change service.
The record-breaking trend is expected to continue through June and could potentially last through the rest of the summer, forecasts show.
