National

(DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif.) — An ancient lake that once existed at Death Valley National Park has reemerged after record rainfall in the region.

Several inches of water have formed in Badwater Basin, which lies at 282 feet below sea level, the lowest point in North America, according to a press release from the National Park Service.

During the Ice Ages, the basin — colloquially known as Lake Manly — was once a lake with depths of up to 700 feet.

Ice covered the Sierra Nevada between 128,000 and 186,000 years ago, allowing rivers to flow into a long valley that fed into Lake Manly, according to NASA. At the time, the lake measured nearly 100 miles long.

In modern times, the basin typically lies bare, without any significant moisture.

Death Valley just experienced its wettest fall on record, according to the National Weather Service. Between September and November, 2.41 inches of rain fell — more than what typically falls in the desert landscape in one year. November alone recorded 1.76 inches — breaking the record set in 1923 at 1.7 inches.

The lake is much more shallow than the one that formed in 2024 in the aftermath of Hurricane Hilary — an event that prompted the first tropical storm watch in California’s history.

On Aug. 20, 2024, alone, more than 2 inches of rain fell in Death Valley, according to the NPS.

This year’s rainfall will allow those who missed the last emergence of Lake Manly to see the rare phenomenon once again.

The water can’t drain out, since the basin is contained and at such a low elevation, said Andrew Heltzel, chief commercial officer of the Xanterra Travel Collection, an operator of lodges, restaurants and excursions at several of the most iconic national parks in the U.S., including Death Valley, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon.

“It’s almost impenetrable,” Heltzel told ABC News, describing the outskirts of the basin as “like a seal.”

The only way for the water to escape is through evaporation, which could take months.

When the water is present, it creates a stunning reflection of the surrounding mountain peaks.

“My advice would be to, if you are interested in seeing this, not to delay to get there,” Heltzel said. “It is getting smaller through evaporation every day.”

The “most exciting” aspect of the way the rain fell this time is that it could spark a superbloom of wildflowers in the spring, Heltzel said.

The pace and amount of rain that fell made for the “perfect ingredients” for a significant display of wildflowers to emerge, Heltzel said.

In 2024, too much rain fell too fast, and the soil was unable to absorb the moisture, Heltzel said.

“With the November rains, they came in gently enough that it was able to get into the ground and potentially give us those flowers as well as a second chance to see Lake Manly,” he said.

The last time a superbloom occurred was in 2016, according to the NPS.

The recent storms caused numerous road closures across the parks, with several paved roads covered in flood debris, according to the NPS. However, many of the park’s most popular sites remain open, including Zabriskie Point, Dantes View, Badwater Basin, and Mesquite Sand Dunes.

The National Park Service advised visitors to be aware that unpaved roads may be impassable due to storm damage and to be prepared for self-rescue when traveling on backcountry roads.

In February, Death Valley National Park will host the Dark Sky Festival, which can give visitors opportunities to sky gaze while also seeing Lake Manly, Heltzel said.

Death Valley has been designated as a Gold Tier Dark Sky Park, which signifies the highest rating of darkness, according to the NPS.

“The stargazing opportunities in Death Valley are second to none,” Heltzel said.

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(LOUISIANA) — Officials are raising concerns about the conditions in a Louisiana jail as investigators continue to search for a man who authorities said escaped the facility with two others last week by scaling down a wall.

St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz released new photos and a video Monday of the Dec. 2 escape, when authorities said three detainees, Johnathan Jevon Joseph, Keith Eli and Joseph Allen Harrington, allegedly used sheets to scale the St. Landry Parish Jail’s outer wall, before dropping onto a first-floor roof and fleeing.

At a news conference, Guidroz criticized the conditions of the jail, located 130 miles northwest of New Orleans, and noted that there was ongoing construction he alleged that may have given the detainees a way to escape.

“[The] Parish government had a contracting crew out there fixing some of the water leaks of the roof, and they left extension cords, they left rope and they left any inmate an opportunity to just slide on out,” Guidroz said during the news conference Monday.

Two of the three escapees were found last week. One of the inmates, Harrington, took his own life Thursday after officers tracked him to a home and ordered him to surrender, police said.

Joseph surrendered to police the next day after authorities said they followed a tip and found him in another home.

Eli remains on the loose as of Tuesday and there is a reward for his capture.

Guidroz, meanwhile, has criticized St. Landry Parish President Jessie Bellard over the incident, claiming Guidroz has been asking for funding to repair the 43-year-old jail’s deficiencies.

Bellard said in a Facebook post that the claims of “crumbling walls and rusted out cell door locks were inaccurate.”

“The security incidents that have occurred are primarily due to a shortage of deputies and a lack of training for current staff,” he said.

“The Sheriff must take responsibility for improving deputy pay to ensure we are competitive with surrounding parishes, properly compensating those who risk their lives daily,” Bellard added.

Guidroz dismissed Bellard’s claim, contending that the pay was “competitive.”

“The pay for a non-post-certified corrections officer is $18 and some change [an hour]. If you get post-certified, it’s $19.15, and we’re fixing it to go up to $20,” the sheriff said.

Bellard told ABC affiliate KATC Monday that he disagreed with the sheriff’s characterization of the jail.

“The bricks and mortar are fine, and I have everything to back it up,” he told KATC.

“I have an architect coming from Baton Rouge tomorrow — a corrections specialist — to help design ways to fix the cinder block issues and prevent escapes. If I have to spend the money myself to protect the public, I will. But this only applies to the third floor — that’s where the mortar is weakening. The other floors have brick and mortar on the outside protecting them,” Bellard added.

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(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — Multiple people were injured in a shooting Tuesday at Kentucky State University in Frankfort, according to the university and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

A suspect is in custody, according to Beshear and local police.

The Frankfort Police Department said it responded to an incident on the school’s campus Tuesday afternoon “regarding an active aggressor.”

“At this time, we are aware of some injuries,” Beshear said on X. “Let’s pray for all those affected.”

The campus is on lockdown until further notice, police said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(SANTA MONICA, Calif.) — A Grammy-nominated opera singer was stabbed to death inside a California residence, and the 71-year-old’s son has been arrested in connection with the killing, police said.

Jubilant Sykes was killed in a home in Santa Monica on Monday, police said. Officers responded to the residence after a 911 caller reported an assault in progress and found Sykes with “critical injuries consistent with a stabbing,” the Santa Monica Police Department said in a statement on Tuesday.

Sykes’ son, 31-year-old Micah Sykes, was found in the home and taken into custody without incident, police said. He will be booked for homicide, police said.

“The circumstances surrounding the incident remain under investigation,” police said.

Officers responded to the home around 9:20 p.m. on Monday and the 911 caller directed them inside, police said.

First responders with the Santa Monica Fire Department pronounced Sykes dead at the scene, police said.

Police said the weapon was recovered at the scene, though did not provide additional details.

The case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

“This appears to be an isolated incident occurring within a private residence, and there is no ongoing threat to the community,” police said.   

Sykes performed on the Grammy-nominated 2009 recording of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass,” with the Morgan State University Choir and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Tuesday granted the Justice Department’s motion to release grand jury materials and other nonpublic evidence from the criminal case of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in order to comply with Congress’ directive to publicly release materials from the government’s files on the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019.

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer determined in his 24-page order that the Epstein Transparency Act, passed last month, “unambiguously applies” to the discovery materials provided by prosecutors to Maxwell’s defense team in connection with her criminal trial.

The ruling grants the Trump administration’s request to modify the protective order in the case to allow for the Justice Department to publicly release materials subject to certain exemptions delineated by Congress. 

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted in 2021 on five counts of aiding Epstein in his abuse of underage girls. A substantial subset of the government’s evidence against Maxwell was made public during her three-week trial in federal court in New York.

The Epstein Transparency Act was passed by Congress last month and signed by President Donald Trump following blowback the administration received from MAGA supporters seeking the release of the materials. The law requires the Justice Department to make public all Epstein-related materials in its possession within 30 days of the bill’s passage. 

The act allows the DOJ to withhold or redact records to protect the privacy of alleged victims. It also allows the attorney general to withhold records that could jeopardize an ongoing federal investigation or prosecution.

Judge Engelmayer’s order puts in place a protocol to protect victims from the inadvertent release of materials “that would identify them or otherwise invade their privacy.”

“Nothing in this Protective Order shall prohibit the Government from publicly releasing materials whose disclosure is required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act,” Engelmayer wrote. “The restrictions of this Protective Order, however, remain in place with respect to the segregable portions of records that ‘contain personally identifiable information of victims or victims’ personal and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.'”

Emphasizing the privacy concerns of the alleged victims, Engelmayer also added a provision to the protective order that will require the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York to “personally certify in a sworn declaration” that such records have been rigorously reviewed for compliance,” according to the order.

Engelmayer noted in his order that the alleged victims’ concerns about inadvertent disclosure of their names and other identifying information “have a basis in fact.”  He noted that in its two applications to the court to disclose records, the Justice Department acted without prior notice to the victims. 

The DOJ, Engelmayer wrote, has paid “lip service” to the victims but has “not treated them with the solicitude they deserve.” 

“The certification requirement that the Court is adding to the Protective Order assures that an identifiable official within DOJ takes ownership of the sensitive and vitally important process of reviewing discovery to be publicly released. It will help assure that victims’ statutory privacy rights are protected,” the judge wrote.

Following the ruling, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garica, called on the DOJ to immediately provide those records to the committee, which has an existing bipartisan subpoena to the DOJ for all its Epstein/Maxwell investigative files.

“These files are now part of the Epstein files held by the Department of Justice, and must be turned over to the Oversight Committee in response to our subpoena, and to the public under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The DOJ must comply immediately,” Garica said in a statement.

“In addition to this new ruling, a federal judge in Florida has also granted the DOJ’s request to unseal Epstein-related grand jury records from the mid-2000s, and the Committee looks forward to receiving those materials as well,” the statement said.

The DOJ previously indicated to the court that the discovery materials it seeks to make public could include, among other things, search warrant applications, financial and travel records, photographs and videos of relevant properties, immigration records, forensic reports from extractions of electronic devices, materials produced by Epstein’s estate, and reports and notes of interviews of victims and third parties.

Attorneys for Maxwell told the court last week that she took no formal position on the DOJ motion, but argued that the release of nonpublic materials would impact her ability to get a fair retrial if she were to succeed in her forthcoming habeas petition, a longshot bid for a new trial. 

“Ms. Maxwell respectfully notes that shortly she will be filing a habeas petition pro se. Releasing the grand jury materials from her case, which contain untested and unproven allegations, would create undue prejudice so severe that it would foreclose the possibility of a fair retrial should Ms. Maxwell’s habeas petition succeed,” her lawyers wrote. 

Regarding the grand jury materials, Engelmayer ruled that the Epstein Files Transparency Act overrides the federal rule of criminal procedure that governs grand jury secrecy.  He also determined the act does not exempt grand jury materials from disclosure.

Engelmayer is the second judge to grant a DOJ motion to unseal grand jury testimony and other previously restricted Epstein materials, after U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith last week granted the administration’s request to lift restrictions over grand jury material related to the first federal investigation of Epstein in Florida in the mid-2000s, which ended in his non-prosecution agreement, which was widely criticized.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman is currently considering a similar request from the DOJ to allow the government to disclose materials associated with the 2019 criminal case against Epstein in Manhattan federal court.   That case ended with Epstein’s death in August of 2019.

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(NEW YORK) — Authorities have released new photos of Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympian snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin who is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

Wedding, 44, is wanted for “allegedly running and participating in a transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada, and other locations in the United States,” the Los Angeles FBI office said Monday on X while releasing a newly obtained photo of the fugitive.

“Additionally, it is alleged that Wedding was involved in orchestrating multiple murders in furtherance of these drug crimes,” the statement continued.

The FBI said the photo is believed to have been taken in Mexico during the summer of 2025.

In it, he is seen lying in a bed shirtless, with a prominent tattoo of a lion on his chest.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico also shared a photo on Monday of Wedding that hadn’t been previously released. In the photo, released on social media, he is wearing a green shirt and has a different haircut and facial hair. The post did not say when or where that photo was taken.

Wedding has been on the run for several years. He is believed to be in Mexico, being protected by the Sinaloa cartel, authorities said.

The Department of State is offering a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Wedding, whose aliases include James Conrad King, Jesse King, “Giant”, “Public Enemy,” “Boss,” “Buddy,” “Grande,” “El Jefe,” “El Guerro” and “El Toro,” according to the FBI.

FBI Director Kash Patel has called Wedding a “modern-day” Pablo Escobar.

The fugitive was previously indicted in Los Angeles federal court on multiple charges, including running a continuing criminal enterprise, committing murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise and assorted drug crimes.

He and his alleged second-in-command are accused of ordering the murders of multiple people in Canada to achieve the aims of the criminal organization, the FBI said.

New charges announced last month allege he ordered the killing of a witness in the federal case. The victim was shot in the head multiple times at a restaurant in Colombia in January, according to U.S. Attorney for the Central District of Los Angeles Bill Essayli.

Wedding and 18 others, including his lawyer, were charged in the new indictment with orchestrating the murder, according to the DOJ.

Wedding competed for Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, where he placed 24th in the parallel giant slalom, before allegedly running the billion-dollar cocaine operation from Mexico for more than a dozen years, officials said.

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(NEW YORK) — At least four rivers in Washington state are now at major flood stage — the highest level — and 11 others are forecast to reach the same level in the next day or two as an atmospheric river delivers heavy rain in the Pacific Northwest

The multiday event from Washington to Oregon is swelling rivers to near-record levels.

The event is forecast to bring up to 7 inches of rainfall in parts of Washington.

Stampede Pass, at an elevation of 3,600 feet in Washington’s Cascade Mountains, recorded more than 7 inches of rain on Monday. Usually, this would be snow, but due to the well-above-average temperatures plaguing the West, it’s been all rain so far.

More than 1 inch of rain has fallen at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport and more than 1.5 inches was recorded at Portland International Airport in Oregon.

Some rivers may break records. Already, overnight into Tuesday, the Naselle River near Naselle, Washington, has gone from its normal 5 foot depth to nearly 20 feet deep, growing by 10 feet in 12 hours and coming within less than 1 foot of the historical record.

While Washington was the hardest hit on Monday, the atmospheric river has shifted slightly south on Tuesday and will hit Oregon the hardest.

The atmospheric river is expected to retreat north again Tuesday night and into Wednesday and deliver more rain to Washington state.

The rain will continue Thursday and Friday, but it will be much lighter for western Washington and Oregon.

Total rainfall accumulation through the event is still expected to reach over a foot of rain at high elevations and 3 inches or more at some of the lowest elevations.

Midwest winter storm

The Midwest will see a break in the brutal cold over the next couple days until the next shot of Arctic air plunges into the Midwest by Friday and digs in through the weekend. It will reach the Northeast by Sunday morning.

A strong low pressure system is moving through the Upper Midwest and creating dangerous wind and snow conditions on Tuesday. 

A widespread area of damaging wind has led to high wind warnings across at least seven states from Montana to Minnesota to Colorado where gusts up to 65 mph are generally expected Tuesday. Higher elevations in the mountains of Colorado could have gusts up to 90 mph.

This could dislodge even hardened snow on the ground and create ground blizzard conditions.

Anyone driving in these areas should use extreme caution. High-top vehicles like semis can be overturned in these conditions. Power outages are also possible. Plus, there will be low visibility with any blowing snow.

Meanwhile, some areas will see falling snow, too.

A winter storm warning is in place with 2 to 7 inches of snow possible from parts of North Dakota through parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Minneapolis could see 2 to 4 inches of snow and gusts up to 35 mph Tuesday afternoon and overnight.

A winter storm warning is in place for parts of South Dakota, southern Minnesota and central Iowa because gusts up to 60 mph Tuesday night and Wednesday could lead to blizzard conditions by dislodging snow already on the ground, along with minor new snow accumulations.

On Wednesday, this storm will bring rain and snow to the Northeast.

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(NEW YORK) — One year after his arrest on Dec. 9, 2024, the pretrial hearing in the case of accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione is in its fifth day in a lower Manhattan courtroom.

Attorneys for Mangione, who is accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk last December, are seeking to exclude from trial critical evidence that they say was illegally seized from his backpack without a warrant after officers apprehended him in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s five days after the shooting.

Tuesday’s first witness, Altoona police officer Stephen Fox, participated in the backpack search and is heard on body camera footage saying it was a “search incident to arrest” — the term that authorizes the search of an individual upon arrest in Pennsylvania.

After officers formally placed Mangione in custody, Fox is heard asking Mangione, “Anything in that bag we need to know about?”

Fox testified that he suspected the backpack contained a weapon.

“We were dealing possibly with the New York shooter,” he said on the witness stand. 

Fox said he and his colleagues commenced the search of Mangione, consistent with “every arrest I make.” When asked by the prosecutor, Joel Seidemann, if he ever asked for a search warrant, Fox replied, “No.”

When his colleague, patrolman Christy Wasser, pulls out a loaded magazine wrapped in gray underwear, Fox is heard in the body camera video uttering, “It’s f—— him, dude.”

Fox expressed familiarity with the fatal shooting of Thompson. 

“It appeared to be a clear, targeted assassination of an individual in the hierarchy of healthcare,” Fox testified. “I knew it was a violent act of cowardice that targeted a defenseless human being.”  

Fox is seen in the footage patting down Mangione, whose back is to the officer with his hands against the wall. 

“I felt uneasy based on the way he was sitting there. He wasn’t making eye contact,” Fox testified. “This was most likely the New York shooter we were dealing with. I wanted to make sure he was clear of any weapons.”

Fox read Mangione his Miranda rights and handcuffed him at the restaurant.

Nearly a dozen witnesses have testified in the hearing’s five days so far. Their testimony will help Judge Gregory Carro determine what evidence is allowed at trial and what, if any, evidence should be omitted. 

The McDonald’s manager who called 911 said her customers recognized the young man seated in the back corner eating a Steak McMuffin and hash brown because of the distinctive eyebrows, which were visible even as a surgical mask and hood concealed much of his face. 

On a slip of paper police said they pulled from his backpack, Mangione had reminded himself on Dec. 5, 2024, to “pluck eyebrows.”

On the reverse side of the paper is a crudely drawn map and a reminder to “check Pittsburgh red eyes, ideally to Columbus or Cincin (get off early).”  Another reminder said, “keep momentum, FBI slower overnight.”

The piece of paper had not been seen publicly until it was shown during the ongoing hearing at which Mangione’s attorneys are trying to exclude everything taken from the backpack, including the alleged murder weapon, two loaded magazines, a silencer and a cell phone in a Faraday bag designed to conceal its signal.    

They argue that officers from the Altoona Police Department skipped steps and violated Mangione’s constitutional rights against illegal search and seizure because they were eager to help crack a big case. 

The district attorney’s office said the officers legitimately feared the backpack could contain something dangerous and their search complied with Pennsylvania law.

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(LOS ANGELES) — Charges have been upgraded to murder against a man who allegedly attacked and repeatedly stabbed a social worker last week inside a San Francisco hospital after first allegedly threatening a doctor, according to prosecutors.

The charges against Wilfredo Jose Tortolero Arriechi, 34, were amended from attempted murder to murder on Monday after the victim died on Saturday, two days after he was stabbed repeatedly inside Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, according to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Office described the victim as a 51-year-old University of California, San Francisco, social worker. The victim’s age was initially reported by police as 31.

Arriechi is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday afternoon at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice, according to the District Attorney’s Office, which said it will move to have the suspect held without bail pending a trial.

The attack unfolded around 1:39 p.m. local time on Thursday in the hospital’s Ward 86, which, according to the medical facility’s website, is an HIV/AIDS clinic on the facility’s sixth floor.

Before the attack, a sheriff’s deputy was called to the hospital after the suspect, who was at the hospital for a scheduled appointment, allegedly threatened a doctor, according to an earlier sheriff’s department statement.

“While providing security for the doctor, our sheriff’s deputy heard a disturbance unfolding in the hallway involving the suspect, who was attacking a social worker,” according to the sheriff’s office statement. “The deputy intervened immediately, restraining the suspect and securing the scene.”

The District Attorney’s Office released new details about the attack on Monday, alleging Arriechi went to the hospital with a concealed knife.

“Allegedly Mr. Tortolero Arriechi appeared calm and engaged in a in a conversation with a social worker and was advised to leave. Allegedly he and the victim walked to the elevator together when he suddenly grabbed the victim from behind and stabbed him numerous times,” the District Attorney’s Office said in their statement.

The victim, according to he sheriff’s office, suffered multiple stab wounds to the neck and shoulder.

A five-inch kitchen knife believed to have been used in the attack was recovered at the scene, according to the sheriff’s office.

UPTE-CWA 9119, the union representing professional and technical employees at the University of California, released a statement on social media Saturday, demanding a “full investigation and reliable, consistent, and transparent safety protocols that ensure every worker comes home safely at the end of their shift.”

“We at UPTE-CWA 9119 are devastated to learn of the death of a remarkable, compassionate, and dedicated social worker, who was beloved by their family, friends, colleagues, and fellow union members,” Dan Russell, UPTE president, said in the statement.

The San Francisco Deputy Sheriff’s Association union also released a statement, criticizing the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), which runs the hospital, for recently reducing the number of deputy sheriffs assigned to the hospital and shifting to a “response-only” security model.

“This was not a random unforeseeable incident,” Ken Lomba, president of the deputy sheriff’s union, said in a statement.

Lomba added that the hospital’s own data shows “years of serious assaults and weapons on campus.”

In a statement to ABC News on Sunday, the San Francisco Department of Public Health said, “Keeping our staff, patients, and community safe is our highest priority.”

DPH said it has taken steps to bolster security at the hospital, including adding more security officers, limiting access points and speeding up the installation of weapons detection systems.

“We are also conducting a full investigation and are committed to making both immediate and long-term safety improvements at all our facilities,” DPH said. “This tragic event underscores the urgency of our ongoing efforts to strengthen protections for every member of our workforce.”

The agency added, “We are committed to doing everything necessary to ensure that no one fears for their safety while providing care to the people of San Francisco.

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(WASHINGTON) — For several years, as U.S. authorities have struggled to stop online extremist networks like “764” from pushing teens to livestream acts of violence or self-harm, including their own suicide, the Justice Department has faced what authorities and victims both say is a vexing challenge: Such coercion is not a federal crime.

That could change if the Republican chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, have their way. 

Ahead of a committee hearing Tuesday on the evolving threat of online predators, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, introduced a first-of-its-kind piece of legislation that would explicitly criminalize the intentional coercing of minors to physically harm themselves or others, including animals.

Under their proposal, called the Ending Coercion of Children and Harm Online Act, some perpetrators could face life in prison.

“When offenders are eventually caught by law enforcement, prosecutors charge them with the most appropriate charges,” Grassley said in the hearing. “However, there are no specific laws to address the terrible and shocking acts conducted by gore groups such as 764 and those engaged in sextortion.”

Grassley and Durbin’s proposed legislation comes in the wake of several recent reports from ABC News about the growing threat of 764, including an extended interview with the parents of Jay Taylor, a 13-year-old from outside Seattle who in 2022 took his own life — and aired it live on social media — after allegedly being manipulated by a member of 764 in Germany.

“It’s almost biblical in its definition of evil, what happened,” Jay’s father, Colby Taylor, said in the ABC News interview. “Ten minutes of murder.”

That’s why the U.S. needs “to have something in our actual laws that allows us to prosecute” cases as “digital homicides,” he said.

The FBI has described 764 as one of the greatest current threats to teens online, with members finding vulnerable victims on popular platforms, eliciting private information and intimate sexual images from them, and then using that sensitive material to blackmail victims into mutilating themselves or taking other violent action — all while streaming it on social media so others can watch and then disseminate recordings of it.

According to authorities, Jay Taylor is just one of many victims pushed to suicide.

German law explicitly criminalizes such coercion, so the young man allegedly behind Jay Taylor’s death — calling himself “White Tiger” online — has been charged in Germany with murder, along with 203 other offenses involving more than 30 other victims.

According to former FBI agent Pat McMonigle, who helped uncover “White Tiger” and what he allegedly did, making online coercion a federal crime in the United States “would be very helpful.”

“This is truly a bipartisan thing that … could effect some change,” he recently told ABC News.

According to Grassley’s office, the Ending Coercion of Children and Harm Online Act — or “ECCHO Act” — would “specifically go after” networks like 764, creating a penalty of up to life in prison for those who intentionally coerce someone into even just attempting to die by suicide or who coerce someone into taking action that results in the death or killing of another person.

The bill would also create a 30-year maximum penalty for other harmful conduct that does not involve a death, Grassley’s office said.

“Because of modern technology, child predators from anywhere in the world can target American kids online,” Durbin, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate as the Democratic whip, said in a statement. “As technology has evolved, so have online child predators.”

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says it received more than 2,000 reports of abuse tied to 764 or similar networks in the first nine months of this year.

As ABC News has previously reported, the FBI is investigating more than 350 people across the United States with suspected ties to 764 or similar networks. And the Justice Department has already publicly charged at least 35 such people in recent years.

Their victims have been as young as nine years old, according to authorities.

FBI Director Kash Patel recently called 764 “modern-day terrorism in America.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Tuesday will include testimony from an executive director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a former federal prosecutor who retired from the Justice Department earlier this year, and the mother of a teenage son who was victimized by sextortion and then took his own life, unrelated to 764.

Some states have enacted laws aimed at helping to protect children online. And in May, President Donald Trump signed into law the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which prohibits the nonconsensual publication of sexually-explicit images and pushes online platforms to remove violative material.

Several lawmakers — from both sides of the aisle — have introduced additional pieces of legislation in both the House and Senate that could help fight online predators.

But those laws and proposals don’t specifically address the coerced self-harm that is emblematic of 764 and similar online networks.

On Tuesday, Grassley and Durbin are expected to introduce two other pieces of legislation to help protect children online, including the Stop Sextortion Act, which would amend existing laws to address offenders who use threats to distribute sexually-explicit material to extort and coerce minors, according to Grassley’s office.

“I’m proud to introduce these bills to protect children from online abuse, hold dangerous criminals accountable and secure much needed justice for victims and their families,” Grassley said in his statement.

Durbin similarly said he was “proud to join” Grassley’s effort.

At least one other top Democrat in the Senate, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Virginia, has previously expressed support for such legislation, recently telling ABC News that online coercion is “a total crime,” even if “it’s through a digital connection.”

Still, it’s unclear how successful Grassley and Durbin’s effort will be.

One high-profile piece of legislation aimed at protecting children online, the Kids Online Safety Act, passed overwhelmingly in the Senate last year — by a vote of 93 to 1 — only to languish in the House, largely due to First Amendment concerns.

“This is a problem that is going to continue to morph, and if we don’t do something, potentially could get worse,” Sen. Warner told ABC News.

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