(PARKLAND, Fla.) — The attorney for Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz presented her opening statement to the jury on Monday, arguing for Cruz’s life to be spared during the penalty phase of his trial.
The jury will determine if Cruz will be sentenced to death for shooting and killing 14 students and three staff members at his former South Florida school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, on Feb. 14, 2018. The jury’s decision must be unanimous for the death penalty. Cruz pleaded guilty last year to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Defense attorney said in her opening statement that Cruz is responsible for the massacre, adding that “there is no defense to these crimes.”
However, she said, “We must understand the person behind the crime.”
“Some people say that the crime itself is enough to impose sentence. You are not those people. Those people that said the sentence can be imposed based solely on the crime were excused [during jury selection],” she told the jurors. “Each one of you said that life without the possibility of parole could be a severe enough punishment for those crimes.”
McNeill alleged that Cruz suffered lifelong developmental delays that traced back to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
Cruz’s birth mother was a drug and alcohol addict who drank and used drugs up until six weeks before Cruz was born, McNeill said. Cruz was “poisoned in the womb” and his “brain was irretrievably broken,” she said.
Cruz was adopted at birth by Linda Cruz, a 48-year-old Parkland woman. Cruz’s adoptive father was 62 years old, McNeill said.
Nikolas Cruz saw a psychiatrist for the first time at age 3 and the doctor called him a challenging child, McNeill said.
The Broward County School Board classified Nikolas Cruz as “developmentally delayed in all areas” and said he had “a language impairment,” McNeill noted. The district classified him as an “ESE” student, or a special needs child, she said.
“We don’t excuse the horrific acts of damaged and wounded people — we punish them,” McNeill said. “But we take into consideration their damage when we impose sentence.”
Victims’ parents, including Fred Guttenberg and Max Schachter, sat in court as McNeill spoke.
In prosecutor Mike Satz’s opening statement last month, he described the shooting as a “planned, systematic … mass murder.”
Satz said, “Three days before the massacre, Cruz made a video saying, ‘My name is Nik. I’m going to be the next school shooter of 2018. My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15 and some tracer rounds. It’s gonna be a big event and when you see me on the news you’ll know who I am. You’re all gonna die. … I can’t wait.'”
The victims’ families took the stand earlier this month to provide victim impact statements.
Dr. Ilan Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter Alyssa was among the 17 killed, said a piece of his heart was “ripped out of my damn chest.”
“I get to watch my friends, my neighbors, colleagues, spend time enjoying their daughters, all the normal milestones,” he said. “I can only watch videos or go to the cemetery to see my daughter.”
“To me, it was yesterday,” Ilan Alhadeff said of his daughter’s death. “Alyssa will always be 14.”
(ATLANTA) — Three people have been shot in an “active situation” in Atlanta’s Midtown neighborhood, Atlanta police said.
Officers are searching for the shooter, police said.
Police advised residents to stay off the streets in Midtown, specifically near 12th Street and Peachtree Street NE and 15th Street and W. Peachtree Street NW.
Additional information was not immediately available.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — The Columbus teachers union in Ohio is on strike after a vote on Sunday, just days away from the district’s first day of school on Wednesday.
Teachers began picketing outside over a dozen of the district’s schools on Monday morning. The union said it will gather outside schools from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day until a deal is reached.
The Columbus Education Association, with 4,000 members, reached a 94% majority on the vote Sunday.
“It is with a full understanding of the sacrifices that students, parents, and teachers will make together to win the schools Columbus Students Deserve that CEA members overwhelmingly rejected the Board’s last, best and final offer tonight and voted to strike,” Columbus Education Association spokesperson Regina Fuentes said on Sunday in statement.
The Columbus Board of Education called the decision to strike “incredibly disappointing” in a statement on Sunday.
Fuentes said Sunday the board has “tried desperately” to make the compromise about teacher salary, teacher professional development and teacher leaves.
“Let me be clear,” Fuentes said. “This strike is about our students who deserve a commitment to modern schools with heating and air conditioning, smaller class sizes, and a well-rounded curriculum that includes art, music and P.E.”
Jennifer Adair, Columbus Board of Education President, said in a statement on Sunday the board’s offer “put children first and prioritized their education and their growth.”
Adair said the board offered a generous compensation package for teachers and responded to the concerns raised by the teacher’s union during the negotiations process.
The union and board last met in a mediated discussion on Aug. 18, where the board offered guaranteed raises of 3% annually for three years and $2,000 per CEA member in retention and recruitment bonuses.
According to the board, by the end of the contract, a teacher with a current average salary of $74,000 will earn more than $91,000.
The board’s last offer also stated that it committed funds to install air conditioning in every school, with the exception of one that already has central air in about 50% of the building and is slated to be replaced by a new school in a proposed facilities master plan, the board said.
With the 2022-2023 school year scheduled to begin on Wednesday, the board has decided to make back-to-school virtual, led by substitute teachers, in order to begin instruction on time, according to their statement on Sunday.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said in a statement Sunday night that there needs to be another negotiation, in order to get students back in the classroom.
Ginther said the past few years have “underscored the value of our teachers, the resiliency of our kids and the need for Columbus City Schools to position itself for the future.”
He added the pandemic, “more than anything,” made clear that it is essential to get students back into the physical classroom.
“A responsible solution is within reach, but only if negotiations restart now,” Ginther said.
(DALLAS) — Flash flood warnings are in effect in Dallas Monday morning as three months’ worth of rain pounded the region overnight.
Eastern Dallas has been hit with more than 9 inches of rain within six hours — and more rain is on the way Monday morning. During an average summer, Dallas sees a total of 8 inches of rain.
At one point overnight, the rainfall rate was more than 5 inches per hour, forcing drivers to abandon their cars on roads.
Dallas Fort Worth International Airport issued a ground stop Monday morning due to thunderstorms.
Dallas’ school district warned that some buses may be delayed on Monday due to flooded streets.
The flood watch now stretches across central and northeastern Texas, where 2 to 5 inches of rain is expected. More than 8 inches is possible in isolated areas that see stalling, heavy rain.
The extreme rainfall has made this the third-wettest August on record for Dallas/Fort Worth area, based on records dating back to 1899.
This comes after the Dallas area faced an exceptional drought, the highest category assigned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
This rain will slowly push east; heavy rain and flooding will likely continue into the Shreveport, Louisiana, area for Tuesday morning.
ABC News’ Kenton Gewecke contributed to this report.
(MOAB, Utah) — Monsoon rains are causing a flash flooding threat to linger over a large swath of the Western U.S. following several flooding events overnight.
Flash flood events were reported over the desert Southwest Saturday night into Sunday morning, with Moab, Utah, experiencing flooding that spilled from streets to businesses and mud piling up on storefronts.
In New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park, more than 100 people were evacuated after being stuck for hours due to impassable roadways.
More than 12 million people from Arizona to Louisiana were under flood alerts on Sunday morning.
Drought conditions in the region are causing the sudden burst of rain to mix with the parched soil as if it were concrete, leading to flash flooding.
The megadrought combined with record heat is also increasing fire threats farther west.
Dry conditions and hot temperatures are continuing in the Pacific Northwest. Fire weather watches have been ordered for northeastern Oregon and southern Washington due to the potential for abundant lightning, and a fast-growing wildfire has sparked in the Klamath National Forest in Northern California.
Farther south, record highs were tied in Redding and Sacramento, California, on Saturday at 110 degrees and 106 degrees, respectively.
Hot temperatures are expected to continue in the region on Sunday.
(WASHINGTON) — As the climate crisis has worsened, experts have put forth numerous solutions to curb greenhouse gas emissions and stop rising temperatures. Could shaming be one of them?
Recently, celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Taylor Swift and Drake have been getting flack on social media for how often they fly their private jets.
But criticism of these individuals for their jet use is not enough, some say. When global transportation came to a halt in 2020, total emissions of carbon dioxide dropped 7%, the reduction needed per year to achieve the Paris Agreement’s climate goals by 2030 — keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels and ideally limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels.
Climate scientists have long contended that highlighting individual actions, rather than those of wider industries that contribute to the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions, is not the way to effectively mitigate climate change.
However, collective action across large scales can make a difference, experts say.
“You start influencing family members, coworkers and neighbors, and collectively that drives markets — that sets the social norms that tell us what society approves of,” Lise Van Susteren, a general and forensic psychiatrist who researched how climate change has affected the psychological health of young people, told ABC News.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed this month, is one example of a collective action geared towards climate change. The bill includes billions of dollars in consumer incentives to buy energy efficient vehicles and appliances, as well as tax credits and other incentives for cleaner energy production.
How can people be influenced to address the climate crisis? Here is what other experts had to say:
People default to focusing on individual action
With the uptick in extreme weather events, such as devastating wildfires, deadly flooding and more intense hurricanes, people are beginning to feel more anxious, Elisa Aaltola, a senior researcher in philosophy at the University of Turku in Finland, who authored a study last year on whether climate shame could be used as a method of moral cultivation, told ABC News.
Naturally, that anxiety will force people to seek responsibility and locate the people who should change their actions, she said.
Because the issues surrounding climate change are so complex, especially the doom and gloom that accompanies an uncertain future, people tend to gravitate toward individual actions rather than the necessary systemic change, Renee Lertzman, the founder of climate activism platform Project InsideOut, told ABC News.
People concerned about the climate crisis should remember that these systems already in place were set up for them and they are not to blame, Astrid Caldas, a senior climate scientist at nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News.
Empathy can be a constructive solution
For some people, depending on their temperament, current behaviors and general attitude toward the world, shaming might work effectively, Van Susteran said.
“When you are publicly shamed, what you are doing is you are confronting the fear that you will be ostracized,” she said.
But Lertzman believes that while shame can be productive in the short-term, it is difficult to base any kind of meaningful change and transformation on shame because it’ll eventually cause burnout.
“It takes us into an incredibly unproductive spiral,” which will then cause people on the receiving end to shut down and tune out, Lertzman said.
Beyond the shaming is the necessity for a space for people to be attuned and have empathy for other people’s lived experiences and identities.
“We need to openly and explicitly acknowledge the experience that people may be having — of vulnerability, of feeling destabilized, of feeling fear of feeling left out of the conversation, of feeling aggrieved, of feeling disenfranchised,” Lertzman said.
Who the shaming is directed at matters
In parts of Europe, the term “flight shame” was coined several years ago to shame ordinary people who are perceived to fly too much — or even just fly at all, Aaltola said.
The public discord has focused more and more on personal embarrassment regarding practices that could be contributing to the climate crisis, she said.
The criticism hurled at the A-listers is a result of the connection made linking the 1% and the climate crisis, Jennifer Jacquet, an associate professor of environmental studies at New York University, told ABC News. Flying on a private jet used to be a private, and now images of the conspicuous consumption of private jets are being plastered across social platforms, she said.
Focusing on those who have wealth and political power, as well as the corporations causing the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions, can be effective, some experts say.
Celebrities, with their millions of followers, are in a unique position to serve as a catalyst for the climate movement, Christy Denckla, an assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences at Harvard University, told ABC News.
Recent targets of criticism have offered various defenses for their use of private jets.
Drake defended a series of short flights on his jet, writing on Instagram that the plane was just being moved for storage during those flights. “This is just them moving planes to whatever airport they are being stored at for anyone who was interested in the logistics … nobody takes that flight,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for Taylor Swift recently told Rolling Stone in response to the criticism, “Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals. To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect.”
Kylie Jenner did not offer a public response after being criticized for posing in front of two jets with boyfriend Travis Scott.
ABC News could not immediately reach a representative for Jenner for comment.
But shaming works best when we don’t go and shame every person who does something that we deemed to be morally inadvisable,” Aaltola said.
Shame without solutions is fruitless
Discussions on celebrity extravagance should be leveraged as a conversation starter, experts say. The conversation should be on the impact of air travel, how to shift lifestyle changes to support a healthier environment and the complex dilemmas that would cause a wealthier individual to need to fly private.
The focus shouldn’t be on making the target feel terrible as a person but rather emphasizing what can be learned from the emotion — the “moral constructiveness” of shame, Aaltola said.
There’s a difference between shaming, leading by example and advocacy, Van Susteran said. Nuanced and sophisticated approaches that encourage unity, rather than shame, which provokes a primitive sense of survival, may be a better approach, she added.
Awareness of climate action psychology is needed
The cycle of transforming shame and guilt around the climate crisis to positivity can feel like “a bit of a swirl,” Lertzman said.
Massive change is often disruptive and unsettling, and people will need to learn how to navigate through the eventual lifestyle alterations needed to curb emissions, experts say.
One vital aspect of shame is the role it plays in defining humanity and how society wants to advance into the future, Aaltola said, adding that Western and industrialized nations tend to avoid the feeling of shame rather than viewing it as an educational tool.
“Shame comes with this benefit,” she said. “It can make us rethink who we are in relation to the rest of nature.”
(CHERRY HILL, N.J.) — Actor Gary Busey faces several sex offense charges in connection with incidents during a horror fan convention in New Jersey this month, according to police and media reports.
Police responded to a Doubletree Hotel near Philadelphia that was hosting the Monster Mania Convention “for the report of a sex offense,” the Cherry Hill Police Department said in a statement Saturday.
Busey, 78, known for his roles in the films “The Buddy Holly Story” and “Point Break,” was a featured celebrity at the convention, held from Aug. 12 to 14.
On Friday, Cherry Hill detectives charged Busey, of Malibu, California, with two counts of criminal sexual contact in the fourth degree, one count of criminal attempt/criminal sexual contact in the fourth degree, and one count of harassment, police said.
Court records indicate the alleged offenses occurred on the afternoon of Aug. 13.
No further information was provided by police.
ABC News has left messages with the Cherry Hill Police Department seeking further details.
The investigation is ongoing. Police urged anyone with additional information to contact the department.
Representatives of Busey’s did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
ABC News has reached out to the organizers of Monster Mania for comment as well.
(MIAMI) — U.S. authorities in South Florida are stepping up efforts to crackdown on a recent surge in weapons smuggling to Haiti and the Caribbean, according to Homeland Security officials.
An unusual uptick in the number of high-caliber weapons coming out of the U.S. is believed to be connected with spikes in violence driven by transnational criminal organizations.
“It’s been alarming and disturbing to see the spike of violence coincide with a spike in weapons trafficking out of Miami towards Haiti,” Anthony Salisbury, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations Miami, told ABC News.
HSI is actively pursuing dozens of open investigations in the region related to smuggling. Officials are hesitant to release exact numbers and specifics to avoid compromising prosecutions.
“We will push these investigations as far as we can,” Salisbury said. “It’s not just the people buying guns, it’s not just the people shipping guns — we will go after and, if we can, prosecute the individuals who are receiving the guns out of these countries. That does include both trying to extradite them back to the United States in some cases and working our foreign offices and our foreign counterparts to help prosecute them down in these countries.”
The enforcement crackdown has been coordinated through multiple federal agencies that are part of specialized teams including Customs and Border Protection, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Department of Commerce.
One area of particular focus is the Miami river, home to one of the most unique ports of entry in the United States due to the distance it spans into the interior of the United States.
The Haitian freighters that dock along the 3-4 mile stretch of river are different than the hyper-organized container ships typically seen at large ports. These smaller vessels that dock along the Miami river are more like giant tugboats. Individual packages are often loaded by hand, making it a prime situation for smuggling.
“We’re not going to tolerate this activity,” Salisbury said. “We’re not going to let South Florida willingly be a launching pad for weapons heading down to these countries.”
Last month marked one year since the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse which led to a scourge of gang violence that persists today.
Hurricane season, which runs from June to November in the Caribbean, also threatens to further destabilized the island nation. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecasted an increased likelihood of tropical storms turning into major hurricanes.
ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Back to school means back-to-school lunches, but this year they’re costing more with food prices increasing nationwide.
Pandemic relief funds that ensured free meals for all kids ran out in June and school nutritionists are blaming higher costs on inflation, supply chain problems and the lasting effects of the pandemic.
The national school lunch program serves 29.7 million children daily and, of those lunches, 20.2 million are free as of 2021, according to the Education Data Initiative”
“We know that families are struggling right now,” said Willow Kriegel, director of nutrition services for the West Des Moines Community Schools in Iowa. “Gas prices are high and food costs. We know that things are more expensive.”
Kriegel said that her school district had to raise prices by 25 cents per meal. While raising the costs helps somewhat, Kriegel said it’s still not enough to break even.
In Kriegel’s district alone, she said cafeterias are $109,000 in school meal debt.
To help counteract the growing debt, Kriegel said she applied for nine out of her 13 schools to get free and reduced lunches. Those requests were granted, but Kriegel said she knows many other schools aren’t as lucky.
Overall, the national public school lunch debt sits at $262 million a year. Still, a million-and-half students pay full price for lunches they can’t afford, according to the Education Data Initiative.
“I was really waiting for, you know, our legislators to come through and extend the free meals for all students, at least for one more year, while we’re all struggling.” said Kriegel who was president of the Iowa School Nutrition Association last year.
Congress increased federal reimbursements for lunches this school year with the Keep Kids Fed Act, which passed in June and provided 40 cents per lunch and 15 cents per breakfast.
But that extra funding is not enough to bring schools back to the Summer Food Service Program reimbursement rates as during the pandemic, said Diane Pratt-Heavner with the School Nutrition Association.
Alternative lunches, shaming over meal debt can have negative impacts on students’ psyches, experts say
“Even even with additional assistance from Congress, which we’re grateful for, schools will still see a slight drop in federal reimbursements,” said Pratt-Heavner.
Kriegel, in Iowa, said her school is facing staffing shortages and she and other managers are having to cook food themselves. Kriegel said her biggest concern is that she won’t be able to offer students the options and nutritious food that goes beyond state and national requirements.
“I treat them all like they’re my own little 5-year-old,” said Kriegel.
Kriegel’s daughter is starting school this fall and Kriegel says her daughter Olivia knows she’s not going to be a lunch-box kid.
But feeding kids can be a challenge when shipments are delayed.
“You know, when we make a menu change, it’s not as easy as just going to the store and buying a different chicken product,” said Kriegel.
“We spend hours a day extra hunting for products and getting outages and shortages and trying to adjust our menus and then that changes. It’s like a ripple effect.”
“School meal program budgets have very limited amount of funds to use for preparing and serving school meals,” said Pratt-Heavner.
She said taking on school lunch debt can limit nutritionists’ options and keep them from offering more choices to picky kids.
“We’re really trying to get out the word to families. Even if you don’t think you are eligible, go ahead and apply for free or reduced price meals,” said Pratt-Heavner.
Delaware has the highest average school lunch debt per student at $188.49. It also has one of the highest number of schools who belong to Community Lunch Programs, which makes meals free for entire schools.
Aimee Beam with the state’s School Nutrition Programs said Delaware is looking at various ways to reduce that debt. She said that school districts are using money from their school nutrition account to waive the cost of their reduced price breakfast and breakfast.
“The students that would normally have to pay up to 30 cents for breakfast won’t have to pay anything, so that can eliminate the potential for the debt in that area,” said Beam.
“Our biggest concern is the supply chain issues; to get the product that we need to serve the compliant meals,” said Beam.
Beam said the most important thing is to remind parents to fill out their meal eligibility form so that students won’t have to go into debt, and schools can afford to feed the children.
“No child should have to worry about whether mom and dad completed an application or put money on their lunch account,” said Pratt-Heavner.
(NEW YORK) — Officials at Yellowstone National Park discovered what appeared to be part of a human foot in a shoe in one of the deepest hot springs in the park.
The incident occurred on Tuesday when a park employee discovered part of a foot in a shoe floating in the Abyss Pool which is located in the West Thumb Geyser Basin in the southern part of Yellowstone National Park.
“Evidence from the investigation thus far suggests that an incident involving one individual likely occurred on the morning of July 31, 2022, at Abyss Pool,” Yellowstone National Park said in a statement. “Currently, the park believes there was no foul play.”
It is not clear who the foot belonged to but the park suggested that there may have been a death linked to the spare body part that was found though this has not been confirmed by Yellowstone or any authorities.
The Abyss Pool has a depth of more than 50 feet and, according to Yellowstone National Park, is one of the deepest hot springs in the park with an average approximate temperature of 140 degrees.
“Visitors are reminded to stay on boardwalks and trails in thermal areas and exercise extreme caution around thermal features,” the park said in a statement. “The ground in hydrothermal areas is fragile and thin, and there is scalding water just below the surface.”
After the discovery of the appendage, the West Thumb Geyser Basin and parking lot were closed to park visitors but has since been reopened.
An investigation by Yellowstone National Park law enforcement officers is currently ongoing.
