(ATLANTA) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, in a court filing Friday, is requesting a start date of Aug. 5, 2024, for the trial of former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case.
Willis had originally sought to have all 19 defendants in the case stand trial together last month, but Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee severed the case, calling the move “a procedural and logistical inevitability.”
In Friday’s filing, the DA said the August date “balances potential delays from Defendant Trump’s other criminal trials,” as well as the other defendants’ constitutional speedy-trial rights.
Willis recently said in an interview that she expected the trial to last “many months” — meaning a trial with an August start date could still be underway at the time of the 2024 presidential election.
The DA also requested that the judge set a final plea date of June 21, 2024, as the final date that prosecutors would make negotiated plea deals. After that date, the filing says, defendants would only be able to take non-negotiated deals, in which the state would recommend the maximum sentence.
Willis also asked the judge not to sever the case again until that final plea date, and asked that all defendants remain together for one trial.
“The State clearly retains the logistical and prosecutorial capabilities to try all of the remaining Defendants together,” the DA wrote.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty in 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. Defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jena Ellis and Scott Hall subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
In Friday’s filing, the DA noted that “more Defendants could choose to enter guilty pleas in the future.”
(CONCORD, N.H.) — The suspect is dead and the situation has been “contained” following a shooting at New Hampshire State Hospital in Concord, New Hampshire, according to the state’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Office.
State police said earlier that there were “multiple victims.”
“The scene remains active,” the Homeland Security and Emergency Management office said.
The shooting occurred in the lobby of the hospital, according to New Hampshire State Police Director Col. Mark Hall. All patients are safe, he said.
“The scene remains active as one suspicious vehicle has been located,” Hall told reporters during a briefing Friday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(CONCORD, N.H.) — Multiple victims have been reported in a shooting at New Hampshire State Hospital in Concord, New Hampshire, state police said Friday afternoon.
The number of victims was not immediately clear.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — When Francis Galicia, a student in Rockland County, N.Y., arrives at their high school for class each morning, they cannot help but notice that something vital is missing.
“We don’t have access to running water,” Francis said, referring to the lack of drinkable water from fountains.
Francis’ high school is part of the East Ramapo Central School District, which shut off many drinking water fountains in 2016 after lead was detected. The problem was traced to the school’s water fixtures. Francis was in fourth grade at the time, but seven years later the water fountains in question remain inoperable.
The district says the issue is being addressed and that they are working to replace water fountains. In the interim, the students are being provided with bottled water on a daily basis.
But Francis says the water coolers sometimes run out as the temperature rises.
“They don’t acknowledge the fact that we’re struggling,” Francis told ABC News. “But now I’m here telling you that we are struggling.”
East Ramapo is not the only school system that has experienced issues with lead in its water. For years, concerns have surfaced over lead in water pipes and fixtures in public schools across the country.
“Lead in water is everywhere,” said Paul Schwartz, a community organizer with the group Campaign for Lead Free Water. “Unless the state or local school districts are on top of it and prioritizing it, most folks don’t know what’s going on out of any of the taps of their schools.”
And despite increased awareness of this issue, some advocates and medical professionals say more needs to be done to actually solve the problem since children are often considered to be particularly vulnerable to lead’s toxic effects.
“If a child is exposed to lead over a longer period of time, it can cause brain damage. It can cause these irreversible long-term changes that can affect things such as behavior, attention [and] learning,” said ABC News medical contributor Dr. Alok Patel. “The list goes on and it’s devastating.”
Just how prevalent the issue of lead in school drinking water is across the country today is not known for certain since there is no national database that keeps track of every school’s lead levels.
“Unfortunately, school regulation is mostly voluntary,” said Schwartz. “Unless the states or local districts are prioritizing it, mostly folks don’t know what’s going on.”
There is no federal law requiring schools to test for lead if, as is the case for the majority of U.S. schools, their water comes from a public water system.
Schools that operate on their own water systems, a much smaller number, do have some requirements to test and disclose their lead data. An ABC analysis of 7,758 school water systems (those that are regulated by EPA) that were reported as “active,” or operating, during the third quarter of 2023, revealed that 77% of test samples taken had some level of lead contamination, 16% were in the double digits and 6% exceeded the EPA’s recommended maximum threshold. While the data represents reports as of the third quarter 2023, the findings come from tests that were done over the past 30 years.
“In thinking about the fact that there is no safe level of lead for consumption and that we should be avoiding it at all costs to protect those developing brains, it’s really important that the public is paying attention to potential sources of lead,” Patel said.
With so little information available for parents and students regarding lead exposure at many schools nationwide, as part of “The American Classroom” initiative, ABC News Investigates, ABC Owned Television Stations and several ABC affiliates requested lead information from districts that serve a total of nearly 2.7 million students.
Of the more than 130 districts that were contacted, 75 did not respond to the requests, seven declined to answer questions altogether and 41 would only answer questions by phone or email.
“The real problem is that water authorities and schools don’t want the political heat. They don’t want the transparency or the accountability,” Schwartz said.
Fifteen districts agreed to interviews about this issue. Several acknowledged the need to keep students and employees safely hydrated through actions like testing their water.
Some districts, including Jersey City Public Schools in New Jersey, pointed to the high cost of addressing aging water infrastructure. JCPS Superintendent Dr. Norma Fernandez said her district received a federal grant worth nearly $5 million for water remediation.
“It’s about another $5 million to finish this project,” Fernandez told WABC-TV, noting that this additional cost is being covered by the American Rescue Plan and will cover improvements in 14 buildings. “It’s very expensive.”
Advocates like Schwartz say that in the long run, a solution schools can use is called Filter First, a strategy that has been adopted by schools in Flint, Michigan, in the time since the city’s infamous water crisis. Lead and Legionella bacteria leached into the tap water of nearly 100,000 Flint residents between 2014 and 2015. The Legionella bacteria, a type of pneumonia-causing bacteria, killed 12 people, according to data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The strategy involves lead-removing filters being installed at all designated drinking and cooking water outlets, with ongoing sampling and testing.
Filter First will soon be found in even more districts, with a new law requiring it to be implemented in schools throughout Michigan.
In New York’s East Ramapo Central School District, officials say many water fountains that are currently out of service due to lead concerns will be replaced by the time the next school year begins.
“East Ramapo educates students in schools built decades ago,” Superintendent Dr. Clarence Ellis told ABC News by email. “They have been and continue to be upgraded and renovated.”
The problems in East Ramapo and the delayed response in fixing the water fountains have prompted the New York Civil Liberties Union to liken the situation to “environmental racism,” because the majority of students in the school district are students of color. The NYCLU has called for the state to intervene and take over.
“This is 21st century Jim Crow, 40 miles from New York City,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman told ABC News, comparing East Ramapo to Flint, a predominantly Black community.
“What went on in Flint was that people were put at risk,” Lieberman said. “What’s going on in East Ramapo is that children are being put at risk because they’re going to school. And that’s comparable. It is not exactly the same, but it is comparable.”
The East Ramapo Central School District, its school board and the state did not respond to questions from ABC News about these allegations of environmental racism.
The New York State Education Department said it is working with the district, noting in a statement that “the majority of these fixtures will be replaced within a years’ time as part of the district’s NYSED-approved plan to use $91 million in Federal COVID-response funds to address critical capital needs.”
For Francis, the completion of this work cannot come soon enough.
“I try my best to get the education that I need so I can succeed,” Francis said. “I want the water contamination to go away.”
ABC News’ Charlotte Greer, Alexandra Myers, Mark Nichols and Evan Simon contributed to this report.
(BALLSTON SPA, N.Y.) — Craig Ross Jr., the man accused of kidnapping a 9-year-old girl riding her bike in Moreau Lake State Park in September, was charged with several new crimes Friday in Saratoga County Court, including sexual assault.
Authorities arrested Ross, 47, on Oct. 2, after a two-day manhunt, which led authorities to a camper van in Ballston Spa, New York, where Ross was living on his mother’s property.
In addition to the original kidnapping charge, Ross is now facing four charges of predatory sexual assault against a child, two counts of first-degree sexual abuse, one count of second-degree assault and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.
The victim was found in a cupboard in his camper van and in good health, police said.
Search teams were led to the property after discovering a ransom note in the mailbox of the kidnapped girl’s home on which they discovered Ross’ fingerprints. His fingerprints were in the system due to a prior arrest for a DWI in 1999.
The child, from Greenfield, New York, disappeared while on a bike ride at the campground where she was staying with family and friends, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference.
Hochul said the fourth grade girl was doing one last lap around the park alone when she went missing.
An Amber Alert was issued for the missing child that same evening and an intense search involving up to 400 local, state and federal law enforcement officers and firefighters was conducted at the sprawling park.
The day after his arrest Ross appeared in Milton Town Court where he was charged in relation to the kidnapping.
(NEW YORK) — A search is underway in Big Bend National Park for a hiker who has been missing for over a week, according to to authorities.
Christy Perry, 25, has been missing since Nov. 9 when she did not show up to her camping reservation, according to the National Park Service.
Perry traveled from Houston to Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas. She picked up a rental car in Midland, Texas, and arrived at the park on Nov. 9, according to the NPS.
She did not show up at her campsite that evening in the Chisos Basin Campground, according to the NPS.
Perry’s last known location was the beginning of the park’s Lost Mine Trail. Her vehicle was located at the trailhead, according to the NPS.
Big Bend National Park’s Lost Mine Trail is closed due to the search.
Search teams made up of NPS employees, U.S. Border Patrol, Texas Game Wardens with two K-9 teams and Los Diablos fire crew are combing through the surrounding canyons and ridges. U.S. Customs and Border Protection will also be conducting an aerial search by helicopter, according to the NPS.
Lost Mine Trail, which climbs steeply though the woodlands of the Chisos Mountains, is 4.8 miles round trip.
Perry is 5 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs 100 pounds. She has brown hair and a fair complexion, according to the NPS.
“If you were in the area of the Lost Mine Trail on November 8th or 9th and saw Christy, please call the TipLine at 888-653-0009, or email nps_isb@nps.gov,” the NPS said.
(NEW YORK) — Prosecutors have dropped a weapons charge against New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, who showed up to counter protest a pro-Palestinian rally at Brooklyn College last month with a gun strapped to her hip, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.
The gun was not loaded and was determined to be inoperable, prosecutors said.
“Peaceful protest is the right of every American, but bringing a gun to a protest is illegal and creates an unacceptable risk of harm that has no place in our city,” a spokesman for Gonzalez said. “The firearm recovered by the NYPD in this case was unloaded and missing the recoil spring assembly, rendering it inoperable, according to the NYPD’s lab report. In order to sustain this charge, it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the weapon in question was capable of firing bullets. Absent such proof, we have no choice but to dismiss these charges.”
Vernikov, a Republican who represents the south Brooklyn neighborhoods of Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach, was filmed at the Oct. 12 rally with a handgun in her pants. Although the councilwoman has a concealed carry permit, she violated the recently passed city law that prohibits civilians from bringing firearms to protests, police said.
The 39-year-old lawmaker was contacted by police the following day and she surrendered to police at the 70th Precinct. She was charged with criminal possession of a firearm.
“At no point in time was anyone menaced or injured as a result of her possessing the firearm at the earlier protest,” the NYPD said in a statement at the time.
Vernikov, a Ukrainian immigrant who has been a staunch opponent of Palestinian rallies, posted a video of herself at the rally on X, formerly known as Twitter, claiming, “If you are here, standing today with these people, you’re nothing short of a terrorist without the bombs.” She still has the video pinned to the top of her account.
Her arrest had been referred to the City Council’s Standards and Ethics Committee, of which she happens to be a member, for possible disciplinary action. Under New York law, a person convicted of a felony or misdemeanor can be barred from elected office.
(NEW YORK) — After the pandemic hit, many schools across the country faced a growing problem of teacher shortages.
Around 300,000 public school teachers and other staff members left the field as the pandemic took hold between February 2020 and May 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Kaetlynn Ruiz became a kindergarten paraprofessional, or what’s also known as a teaching assistant, in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, Texas during the pandemic – one of the thousands of teachers in the Mesquite Independent School District, which serves more than 38,000 students in 51 schools.
She says there are many reasons why teachers say they have been leaving the field in recent years.
“I hear that teachers aren’t being as supported when it comes to behavior in the classroom,” Ruiz told “ABC News Live Prime.” “A lot of them are leaving because of the pay. They just say it’s very hard to live on a teacher’s salary.”
Mesquite District Superintendent Dr. Ángel Rivera said the pandemic also put additional stress on educators.
“We had to have teachers work on two platforms, the face-to-face while simultaneously doing a virtual piece. And so pretty much it doubled up their work… and it probably expedited people leaving the profession,” Rivera said. “If the teachers were stressed before, they probably doubled their level of stress at that particular time.”
But the district says it has worked on combating problems facing educators by implementing new strategies that they say have been successful to retain more teachers.
Last year, voters passed a tax measure leading to $16 million in new revenue annually for the district – critical funding used in part to boost teacher salaries.
“This money will be paid on safety and security, teacher compensation along with paraprofessionals, and then programming for kids. Those were my three points,” Rivera said.
In addition, the district implemented new programs such as the Pathways Advancing Certified Educators or “PACE,” which helps teaching assistants pay for school as they fill vacancies, while working toward becoming fully certified teachers.
Ruiz is a member of the PACE program, which she used to move from being a kindergarten teaching assistant to now being in her first year as a full-time fourth grade teacher at Tosch Elementary School in Mesquite, where she herself was once a student.
“So many of us want to go into teaching,” Ruiz said of Mesquite’s paraprofessionals. “We just didn’t have the means to get there. And so this program truly helped us get our foot in the door. It’s pretty special to be able to do what I love, and also be able to earn that certification and degree.”
Long before the pandemic, the district also instituted its “Excellence in Teaching” incentive program, which gave a financial boost to veteran teachers to stay in the classroom. Teachers in the program get a salary stipend after two years of additional training, and receive additional stipends if they pursue advanced degrees while teaching.
“They were trying to figure out a way that we can, the district can, grow better teachers. And that takes time. And it takes additional instruction and training just like any other profession,” said Jeffrey Blackwell, who teaches high school speech, debate and academic decathlon classes at his alma mater Poteet High School in Mesquite.
As the pandemic waned, the district said it was able to cut teacher vacancies from 145 at the start of last school year to just 16 this year.
Blackwell was once a practicing attorney, but the 20-year teaching veteran says he can’t see himself in a profession outside of the classroom.
“There’s always going to be compelling arguments not to be a teacher, in terms of the marketplace,” Blackwell said. “But being a teacher, it’s, it’s a calling. That’s what teaching is. That’s who we are.”
(NEW YORK) — Maria Cristina Benavides is still haunted by the chilling premonition she said her daughter shared in August 2018, just two weeks before her murder.
“She told me, ‘They’re going to kill me with a gun,'” Benavides told ABC News in Spanish. “It’s like she saw the future.”
Melissa Ramirez, Benavides’ 29-year-old daughter, was found dead on the side of a dirt road in a remote part of Webb County, Texas. The mother of two small children had been shot at close range several times.
Ramirez was one of four victims found murdered in a span of 12 days on the outskirts of Laredo, Texas, in September 2018.
The murders shook the border town, especially after learning the identity of the serial killer. Police arrested Juan David Ortiz, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Supervisor, who had been tasked with aiding investigators in the case.
“The shock of it all! It was something out of a movie,” said Maria Salas, who covered the case for the Laredo Morning Times. “It was crazy to think that the person that was supposed to help you solve this case, is the one responsible for it.”
During Oritz’s nearly nine-hour interrogation, he confessed to murdering all four women – Ramirez, Claudine Luera, Guiselda Hernandez, and Janelle Ortiz who was of no relation to the killer. At his trial last year, Ortiz was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Investigators at the crime scenes recovered .40 caliber shell casings, as well as distinct tire marks that helped connect the murders. But their big break in the case came from a woman who reported to police she escaped an attack by Ortiz.
Erika Peña, then 26, testified at trial that Ortiz picked her up in his truck in September 2018, went to his house, and later took her to a gas station where he pointed a gun at her. She said she then ran out of Ortiz’s truck and located a state trooper who was pumping gas nearby.
“She was scared that she could have possibly been the next victim,” Trooper Francisco Hernandez told “20/20.”
All of the murder victims in this case were Latina women who frequented La Sanber, an area along San Bernardo Avenue known for sex work which ultimately became Ortiz’s hunting ground.
“20/20” correspondent John Quiñones visited La Sanber in August and spoke with a sex worker who had worked on the same street where Ramirez was picked up by Ortiz. On the night of Ramirez’s murder, the woman, who does not wish to be named, said she was at home.
“I was going to be out here. Thankfully, I was asleep,” she told Quiñones.
“How dangerous is it?” Quiñones asked. “Very,” she said.
Sex workers are particularly vulnerable to physical and sexual violence at work. Globally, sex workers face a 45% to 75% chance of experiencing sexual violence on the job, according to a 2014 study published in the American Journal of Public Health. This systematic review was commissioned in part by the Department of Reproductive and Research of the World Health Organization. The Gender Policy Report, published in December 2022 by the University of Minnesota, detailed how several “studies of sex work in the U.S. confirms high rates of violence, often from law enforcement.”
Ciara Munguia said her mother, Claudine Luera, deeply loved her children and turned to sex work as another way to provide for her four children.
“I would cry, pray to God because she was on the streets,” Munguia said. “I always had that worry in the back of my head.”
Despite any of her concerns with her work, Munguia said her mom “was perfect” and was “always reminding me how much she loved me.”
Rose Ortiz described how her older sister, Janelle Ortiz, “was never a bad person.”
“She would light up the room,” Ortiz said. “That’s the kind of person she was. That’s why we loved being around her.”
Ramirez’s best friend, Erika Quiroz, remembered her as someone who “was loved” and “didn’t have any enemies.”
“Everybody loved being around her,” Quiroz said, “because she was such a goofball. She was always joking around, singing and dancing.”
At Ortiz’s trial last year, Joey Cantu gave a tearful statement about his younger sister, Guiselda Hernandez.
“She will always be the six-year-old girl who will wake up in the middle of the night and walk her eight-year-old brother to the restroom because I was scared of the dark,” Cantu said in court. “My sister was empathetic, and she was compassionate.”
Five years after their murders, the community of Laredo has found ways to remember and honor the four women.
Munguia is now a clerk at the Webb County Sheriff’s office and works alongside the same investigators who helped solve her mother’s case.
“I’ve learned the blood, sweat, and tears that go into the investigation,” Munguia said. “I never wanted to be in law enforcement…it’s kind of the silver lining. It was the light at the end of the tunnel. Now, I’ve met some of the greatest people.”
(LOS ANGELES) — Los Angeles has a new timeline for the opening of the I-10 freeway, which was damaged by fire last weekend. The 10, a major east-to-west artery for the city, will reopen by Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday afternoon.
Earlier this week, Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass said it was going to take between three and five weeks for repairs to be completed.
“Our timeline has changed,” Newsom said at Thursday’s press conference, crediting those who have been working to repair the damage for speeding the timeline up.
Newsom said they had “doubled down” on crews, efforts and supplies, with around 250 people working on freeway repairs presently. The number is expected to go up, the governor said.
Newsom said they will be opening five lanes in each direction.
“Trucks, passenger vehicles in both directions will be moving again,” he told reporters.
Bass thanked the public for heeding officials’ requests to try and reduce traffic by taking the Metro or telecommuting, and for staying off the side streets and on the highways.
“The last few days have been difficult, but everybody has cooperated, and I want to thank you, thank you, thank you,” Bass said.
The fire broke out underneath the I-10 just after midnight last Saturday, ripping through numerous wooden pallets, trailers and vehicles stored below the raised interstate, officials said previously. The fire sent thick smoke and towering flames into the sky and dealt a challenge to more than 160 firefighters who responded to put out the blaze.
The out-of-control fire burned for three hours and spread over what authorities described as the equivalent of six football fields before it was extinguished. About 16 people living underneath the highway were evacuated to shelters, officials said.
Authorities said earlier this week they are investigating arson as the cause of the fire.
