(WASHINGTON) — The five Marines who died when their helicopter crashed during a routine training flight this week have been identified, the Marine Corps said.
They were: Lance Cpl. Donovan Davis, 21, of Olathe, Kansas, a CH-53E helicopter crew chief; Sgt. Alec Langen, 23, of Chandler, Arizona, a CH-53E helicopter crew chief; Capt. Benjamin Moulton, 27, of Emmett, Idaho, a CH-53E helicopter pilot; Capt. Jack Casey, 26, of Dover, New Hampshire, a CH-53E helicopter pilot; and Capt. Miguel Nava, 28, of Traverse City, Michigan, a CH-53E helicopter pilot.
Alec Langen, 23, got married a few weeks ago, ABC San Diego ABC affiliate KGTV reported.
Langen’s dad, Steve Langen, was also a Marine and said he flew the same aircraft.
“I would give anything to be able to trade places and just have him come home,” Steve Langen told KGTV.
“He died with people he wanted to be with, doing what he loved and wanted to do,” he added.
The Marines had been reported missing when their CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter was “reported overdue” to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Tuesday night. The helicopter departed from Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas and was en route to Miramar, in the San Diego, California, area.
A search effort was launched and the helicopter was discovered Wednesday morning.
On Thursday morning, the Marine Corps announced that the five missing Marines had been confirmed dead. The families had been notified Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the Marines said.
An investigation is ongoing. The Marines called it a “tragic mishap.”
“We have been confronted with a tragedy that is every service family’s worst fear,” Lt. Col. Nicholas J. Harvey said in a statement Friday. “Our top priority now is supporting the families of our fallen heroes, and we ask for your respect and understanding as they grieve. The Flying Tigers family stands strong and includes the friends and community who have supported our squadron during this challenging time. We will get through this together.”
(FRESNO, Calif.) — Authorities in California’s Central Valley are asking residents to bee alert for stolen hives, which are a prime target this time of year, after nearly 100 were recently stolen from an open field.
Ninety-six beehives valued at nearly $34,000 were stolen late last month, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office said this week. The hives had been positioned in almond orchards in the Central Valley for the region’s famed almond blossom season.
“This type of crime consistently happens in Fresno County around January and February as beehives are set out for the almond bloom,” Fresno County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Tony Botti told ABC News. “Unfortunately, it is usually someone else in the industry behind it since they are familiar with handling bees. They will strike at night when the bees [are] dormant or in the rain when they are not active.”
The stolen hives, which are owned by South Dakota beekeepers, disappeared between 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 28 and 4 p.m. on Jan. 29 from a field located west of Mendota, the sheriff’s office said. They are multicolored and branded with the letters “MEB,” the sheriff’s office said.
There is no person or vehicle of interest at this time, Botti said.
A cash reward is being offered for information on the whereabouts of the hives, the sheriff’s office said.
Out-of-state beekeepers often contract with California growers to help pollinate their crops, including almond trees in the Central Valley, the sheriff’s office said.
Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Ryan Jacobsen said a hive theft can be “devastating” to a beekeeper.
“You’re looking at hundreds and hundreds of dollars invested in that single hive, and you just don’t make that up,” Jacobsen told Fresno ABC station KFSN. “You don’t just go buy another box, and all of a sudden have a colony.”
Jacobsen said beekeeping is a “very extensive process,” from acquiring a queen to keeping a hive healthy over several years. Some beekeepers are using GPS and other tracking devices due to the theft threat, he said.
“Because of the high value of these hives and relative ruralness and remote areas that they’re located, unfortunately the thefts are something that we deal with quite often,” Jacobsen told the station.
Botti told KFSN that people should be suspicious of hives being loaded onto a truck now.
“This is the time of year where you should be seeing forklifts offloading hives into orchards, not necessarily putting them back onto a truck,” he told the station. “So, keep your eyes peeled. If you see somebody loading bees onto a truck, call in law enforcement and let us go and check it out to make sure that it’s legit.”
Some 80% of all U.S. almonds are produced in the Central Valley, according to the Central Valley Almond Association. The bloom occurs in February and March.
(NEW YORK) — Police continue to search for a violent mugger who met his match in a 91-year-old man he tried to rob on a New York City street.
The victim, Hyman Silverglad, was transported to St. Luke’s Hospital Medical Center with multiple injuries last week after he fought off the mugger trying to steal his wallet.
The assault took place on Feb. 1 on East 86th Street between First and Second Avenues around 10:30 a.m., local time, according to police. The suspect was captured by surveillance cameras and was last seen fleeing the scene on foot.
The NYPD’s 19th precinct released a photo of the suspect on X Wednesday, asking the public for tips locating him.
A police spokesperson told ABC News Thursday that the suspect remains at large.
In an interview with WABC in New York on Wednesday, Silverglad, and his son, James, recounted the brutal assault.
Hyman Silverglad says he was walking home from the grocery store when the assailant violently pushed him to the ground and punched him while trying to take his wallet.
However, the retired attorney from Coney Island held firm onto his wallet until the suspect fled the scene.
“He said ‘I’m from Coney Island,’ he wasn’t going to get my wallet,’ that’s what he said,” James Silverglad said of his father remaining steadfast against the attacker.
Hyman Silverglad told WABC the several fractures he sustained in the attack have left him “in agony.”
“He threw me to the ground and I have suffered at least six fractures, very bad fractures and I’m in agony,” he said. “I cannot walk, I’m in never-ending constant pain.”
James Silverglad told the outlet that before his father retired from his legal practice, he was known for lending his law expertise to those who could not afford an attorney.
“He called himself the lawyer of last resort, that if you couldn’t get anybody else, you could get him, and that’s a direct quote,” his son said.
Despite the injuries sustained in the would-be mugging, the 91-year-old maintained, “I had to fight for my life. Who wouldn’t put up a good fight?”
(NEW YORK) — Six family members remain unaccounted for a day after a massive house fire engulfed a Pennsylvania residence where officers responding to an emergency call were met with gunfire, officials said.
Authorities presume that three adults and three children who lived in the house were inside during the shooting and subsequent fire and are dead, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer told reporters during a press briefing on Thursday.
The remains of a human torso and a rifle have so far been recovered from the house, which has been largely burned out, Stollsteimer said.
“There’s a lot more work to be done,” he said, adding that a timeline on the recovery effort is unclear as the scene is “very unsafe.”
While responding to the home Wednesday afternoon, officers were “immediately met by gunfire,” Stollsteimer told reporters during a press briefing Wednesday. Two officers were shot, he said.
The two male officers, who were with the East Lansdowne and Lansdowne police departments, each sustained a single gunshot wound, Stollsteimer said. They were pulled from the scene to safety by responding officers from the Upper Darby Police Department, he said.
The injured officers are in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries, according to Stollsteimer. One officer is expected to be released from the hospital Thursday afternoon, he said. The second suffered a “slightly more serious wound” and remains hospitalized, he said.
During the incident, the house became engulfed in flames while shots were still being fired from the home, Stollsteimer said. It is unclear how the fire started.
A 911 caller reported that an 11-year-old girl had been shot at the residence in East Lansdowne, according to Stollsteimer. It is unclear if an 11-year-old had been shot, he said.
Stollsteimer said he believes a family member who was not in the home may have called 911, but it is unclear if that was the 911 that “triggered the response.”
A neighbor, John White, told reporters at the scene he heard gunfire and sometime later, “13 or 15 more shots.” He said he “got low” during the incident, and SWAT members later evacuated him from his home.
(ELLSWORTH, Kan.) — For the first time in decades, prison inmates are eligible for the Pell Grant, a federal financial aid program that helps low-income students receive a college education.
Simon Garcia, 34, who graduated college last November from a state prison in Ellsworth, Kansas, is just one of the people whose life was changed due to a Pell Grant.
“I’ve been in prison and incarcerated all my life, since I was 12 years old,” Garcia told ABC News. “Initially, was just gang related and it was aggravated assault.”
While in prison, 10 more years were added to his sentence for hiding a homemade knife and shoving a corrections officer off a second-floor balcony.
“I thought that I was the king of my world, and I had it all going on,” Garcia said. “But I was so broken and messed up inside.”
The Pell Grant has given Garcia a new opportunity. With seven more years to go in prison, he has now earned his associate’s degree in general studies with honors, after being a full-time student taking five classes a semester. He is graduating along with a dozen other convicted men.
“I feel like education helped me gain the power to break free from the shackles of ignorance,” Garcia said. “Nobody’s too far past redemption.”
Former President Bill Clinton had removed Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated individuals through the Federal Crime Bill of 1994, as an answer to the crack cocaine epidemic of the early 1990s. Then-Delaware senator and current President Joe Biden co-authored the bill.
“I think the reason that people in prison lost eligibility for Pell Grants in 1994 was really just part of our larger tough-on-crime attitude at the time, as a country,” said Margaret DiZerega, the managing director of initiatives at the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice, a research organization. “And so, it was seen as another way to be punitive and to take this away from people who are in prison, even though less than 1% of all people accessing Pell at that time were people who were in prison.”
But in 2016, the Obama administration reintroduced the Pell Grants to incarcerated individuals. Through the Second Chance Pell experiment, selected pilot correction facilities offered fully funded Pell Grant college programs.
According to a 2018 study from the RAND Corporation funded by the Department of Justice, incarcerated individuals who participated in prison education were 48% less likely to return to prison within three years. RAND also estimated that for every dollar invested in prison education, up to $5 is saved on re-incarceration costs.
“That means there are fewer crime victims, there are more people living freely in the community,” said DiZerega.
At the end of 2020, the FAFSA Simplification Act was passed, restoring Pell Grants for students incarcerated in federal or state prisons, regardless of their conviction type or sentence length.
Roy Maney is a Pell Grant applicant at Ellsworth Correctional Facility. Maney, 42, was convicted of second-degree murder for killing 30-year-old Tiffany Mogenson when he sped away from a police officer and crashed into Mogenson’s car in 2013.
“The balance between punishment and rehabilitation is always tough for a victim’s family,” Mogenson’s father, Randy Long, wrote to ABC News. “I truly doubt that any continued education will assist [Roy Maney] in his life after prison. To me this is an additional slap in the face for all who supported Tiffany. They now get to pay for this government boondoggle.”
The state of Kansas says that Maney could be released in three years.
“Would you want someone that don’t have a degree to be your neighbor or a person with a degree?” Maney said. “These inmates that people just say, ‘oh, forget about them.’ These same people are going to the street. They can be in the grocery store with you. So why write them off? Everybody deserves a second chance.”
“Everyone’s made a mistake in their life,” said Don Langford, the prison warden at Ellsworth. “And by giving those GEDs and Second Chance Pell Grants, it gives men and women that opportunity to learn something that they may have never learned.”
Terrin Keith has directly experienced the benefits of the prison college program. Once a hard drug user, Keith, 35, has been in and out of state penitentiaries his whole adult life.
“In the past, when I would get released, and I would go apply for jobs,” said Keith. “But just having the felony checkmark on the application, it just seemed like I’d get no response. And so, then I’d fall back into my old habits.”
But this time, he was released from prison last summer with an associate’s degree in applied science with a 4.0 grade point average. He secured a job building windows while in prison.
“Being able to get that education and then landing that job while incarcerated was a big game changer,” said Keith. “It made the transition a lot easier.”
While most companies refuse to hire convicted felons, Keith’s new employer, Bob Holloway, needs skilled and educated labor to build architectural German windows. He has agreed to interview men at the prison for his company, Advantage Architectural Woodwork.
“I was skeptical that he would show up the first day,” Holloway said. “Ten years ago, two years ago, I would have never seen myself employing convicts. And yeah, so far so good.”
For others still in prison, a college degree brings hope for possibilities. Garcia feels that his newly earned degree has provided him the tools to become a better man. Before he leaves prison, Garcia plans to earn a master’s degree that he can use on the outside.
“I’ve never felt this happy in my life and I’m in prison and I still have seven years to go,” said Garcia. “I don’t feel negative at all. I don’t feel like anything bad is going to happen, and if it does, I’m ready for it.”
(BOSTON) — Two JetBlue planes clipped each other Thursday morning while on a deicing pad at Boston Logan International Airport.
The incident occurred when the two planes were on adjacent deicing pad lanes, JetBlue said in a statement. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the left winglet of JetBlue flight 777, an Airbus A321neo, struck the right horizontal stabilizer of JetBlue flight 551, which was an Airbus A321.
The impact damaged one aircraft’s winglet and the other plane’s tail section, according to JetBlue.
The FAA said the event happened on an area of the tarmac that is controlled by the airline. The agency will investigate the incident.
The incident occurred around 6:40 a.m. ET, according to the FAA and the flight tracking website FlightRadar24.
JetBlue said no injuries were reported by passengers or crew on either aircraft.
“We were hit by another aircraft,” the pilot of JetBlue flight 551 said on air traffic control audio, obtained through LiveATC.net.
A pilot of a nearby plane, who witnessed the event, told air traffic control: “We saw two aircrafts hit the tail and the wing.”
Dave Sauter was a passenger on JetBlue flight 777, headed to Las Vegas.
“You felt the brake when they stopped; you didn’t feel the collision,” he told ABC News. “It was too minor with that amount of weight moving.”
He said that the passengers weren’t scared, but frustrated.
JetBlue said both aircraft will be taken out of service for repairs and the two flights will operate on other planes. JetBlue 777 was scheduled to go to Las Vegas and JetBlue 551 to Orlando.
“Safety is JetBlue’s priority, and we will work to determine how and why this incident occurred,” JetBlue said in a statement following the incident.
Boston Logan has seen other wing clip incidents over the past 12 months. Last March, two United planes clipped wings while one was pushing back from the gate. And in June, a United plane’s wing clipped the tail of a Delta plane while the United flight was taxiing to a holding pad.
(NEW YORK) — A 22-year-old woman is missing after she went hiking alone in Southern California during this week’s massive, multiday storm, authorities said.
Lifei Huang left for a hike in the Mount Baldy area of the San Gabriel Mountains at about 2 p.m. Sunday, and she was last heard from about two hours later, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. She was reported missing Sunday night.
Crews started searching for Huang at about 2:30 a.m. Monday, the sheriff’s department said.
The search continued on Tuesday during very heavy snowfall, but the risk of avalanches impeded search efforts and the rescuers “were pulled off the mountain,” the sheriff’s department said.
Volunteers are at the trail heads on Thursday, but conditions on the mountain are still too unsafe for rescuers to hike in, a sheriff’s department spokesperson said.
“We will continue to assess the conditions to determine our course of action,” the spokesperson said Thursday.
Huang, who lives in El Monte, just outside of Los Angeles, went hiking amid an historic, multiday storm that pummeled California with heavy rain, flooding, snow and gusty winds on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
The sheriff’s department had said it “strongly urges everyone to stay away and refrain from mountain activities during this inclement weather.”
“The weather has effectively buried the mountain in snow and it is highly likely hikers will get into trouble,” the department said. “Resources are stretched to their limits and hikers who get lost may have to wait long periods of time before help is available.”
Former President Donald Trump arrives at the New York State Supreme Court in New York, on Oct. 2, 2023. (Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Federal authorities are currently investigating a series of threats made online to a potential witness related to special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, according to a new court filing from Smith’s team.
In the filing late Wednesday in federal court in Florida, Smith’s team asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge overseeing the case, to let them file an exhibit under seal because, they wrote, “The exhibit describes in some detail threats that have been made over social media to a prospective Government witness and the surrounding circumstances, and the fact that those threats are the subject of an ongoing federal investigation being handled by a United States Attorney’s Office.”
“Disclosure of the details and circumstances of the threats risks disrupting the investigation,” the filing said.
The targeted witness was not identified.
The three-page filing discussing the probe was submitted as part of a dispute between Smith’s team and Trump’s lawyers over how much information should be redacted — or totally withheld from public view — in certain court filings.
In their filing Wednesday, Smith’s team urged Judge Cannon to let them file the exhibit completely under seal because, they said, simply redacting names or other parts of the document could still “provide information to the suspect to which he/she may not otherwise be entitled.”
Last year, Smith indicted Trump in Florida for allegedly defying a federal grand jury subpoena and trying to hide classified documents from both the FBI and his own attorney. Smith then indicted Trump in Washington, D.C., for allegedly trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases and denied all wrongdoing.
In October, Smith’s team accused Trump of threatening his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, after an ABC News report detailed some of what Meadows allegedly told investigators about Trump and the 2020 presidential election, including that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks following the election that allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless.
After the ABC News report, Trump posted to his social media platform, Truth Social, that he wouldn’t expect Meadows to “lie about the Rigged and Stolen” election “merely for getting IMMUNITY,” but that “Some people would make that deal.”
“[T]hey are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future of our Failing Nation,” Trump wrote.
In a subsequent court filing, Smith’s team said Trump’s “harmful” post on Truth Social was trying to “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case.”
Smith’s team argued to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan that the alleged threat was just one more example of why a limited gag order in the case was needed. Such a gag order now remains in place.
A spokesperson for Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — Five missing Marines have been confirmed dead more than 24 hours after their helicopter crashed during a training flight, the U.S. Marine Corps said Thursday.
The Marines had been reported missing when their CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter was “reported overdue” to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Tuesday night. The helicopter departed from Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas and was en route to Miramar, in the San Diego area.
The Marines launched a search and asked for help from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and Civil Air Patrol.
The sheriff’s department said it received a call at 1:50 a.m. and sent its own helicopter to search, but the helicopter wasn’t able to reach the area due to the atmospheric river storm hitting the region. The sheriff’s department said it then sent off-road vehicles to navigate the rough terrain.
The Marines said the helicopter was discovered at 9:08 a.m. Wednesday.
Efforts are ongoing to recover the five victims’ remains, the Marines said Thursday, and an investigation is underway.
President Joe Biden said he is “heartbroken,” noting that the training mission was “routine.”
“As the Department of Defense continues to assess what occurred, we extend our deepest condolences to their families, their squadron, and the U.S. Marine Corps as we grieve the loss of five of our nation’s finest warriors,” Biden said in a statement. “I am deeply grateful to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary-Civil Air Patrol, and other federal, state, and local agencies for their professionalism and dedication in supporting search and recovery efforts.”
“We will forever be grateful for their call to duty and selfless service,” Maj. Gen. Michael J. Borgschulte said in a statement. “To the families of our fallen Marines, we send our deepest condolences and commit to ensuring your support and care during this incredibly difficult time.”
Photography by Keith Getter (all rights reserved)/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A storm sweeping through southern California overnight unleashed damaging winds and even more rain on an already saturated area.
A possible tornado hit a neighborhood of Grover Beach, south of Los Angeles, on Wednesday night. There was some property damage as well as downed power lines and trees in the area, but no reports of injuries, according to Five Cities Fire Authority Chief Steve Lieberman, who said his crews would fully assess the damage on Thursday morning.
The same weather system, which came on the heels of two back-to-back atmospheric rivers within a week, produced severe thunderstorm winds of up to 82 miles per hour in Ventura County and 75 mph in Los Angeles County. There were reports of trees being knocked down by the gusts.
Additional rain fell in downtown Los Angeles overnight, with a cumulative total of 9.03 inches in the last five days. Other parts of southern California got nearly 14 inches of rain during that same period — almost a year’s worth.
Mudslides and rockslides will remain a threat for southern California over the coming days.
Meanwhile, the mountains of southern California got up to 42 inches of snow, or 3.5 feet, in the last five days. The storm system will continue to move out of California, dumping even more snow on the southern Rocky Mountains on Thursday and Friday.
Drier weather is expected to settle into the Golden State by Friday, with just a few widely scattered and light rain showers in the forecast
The National Weather Service has issued storm alerts for 12 states, mostly for mountain snowfall and avalanche danger. Five states from Idaho to New Mexico are on alert for avalanches.
