(HOT SPRINGS, Va.) — Four adults and one juvenile were killed when a small plane crashed near Ingalls Airport in Virginia, the Virginia State Police said Sunday.
The plane — a twin-engine IAI Astra 1125 — crashed near the airport in Bath County around 3 p.m. local time, according to the FAA. The plane, described by police as a private jet, crashed into the woods in the 6200 block of Airport Rd. It caught fire on impact, the authorities said.
The Bath County Sheriff’s Office said its 911 Center received a call about a crash at 2:58 p.m. at Ingalls Field Airport in Hot Springs, Virginia. The Sheriff’s Department, Virginia State Police, and Hot Springs Fire and Rescue were dispatched to the scene.
The FAA and NTSB are investigating the cause of the crash.
No further details were immediately available.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Sinead Hawkins contributed to this report.
(PONTIAC, Mich.) — James Crumbley’s trial continued on Monday in its third day of testimony. The prosecution has sought to place blame on him, claiming he could have prevented the shooting if he had not ignored the warning signs exhibited by his son leading up to the November 2021 shooting.
The father of a Michigan school shooter is facing four counts of involuntary manslaughter for his alleged role in the shooting. His son Ethan Crumbley, who was only 15 years old at the time of the shooting, killed four of his classmates and injured seven others.
Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17, were killed in the shooting.
James Crumbley’s trial comes weeks after Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty of the same four charges. She will be sentenced in April. Their cases are a rare instance of parents being held criminally responsible in connection with a shooting carried out by their child.
Ethan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without parole in December after he pleaded guilty to 24 counts including first-degree premeditated murder and terrorism causing death.
The parents had bought their son the gun used in the shooting just days before. Prosecutors have argued that the parents ignored warning signs raised against the shooter which could have prevented it from happening.
Among the signs was a meeting called by school officials the morning of the shooting after concerning and violent drawings were found on their son’s math test. After a school counselor spoke with Ethan Crumbley, they expressed concerns that he may harm himself.
School officials called the Crumbley parents to the school and told them their son needed immediate mental health care, offering them a list of facilities that could have provided him care that day. But, the parents allegedly told school officials they needed to return to work and could not take their son home.
The shooting happened that afternoon.
During Jennifer Crumbley’s trial, she admitted on the stand that she would have been able to leave work for the day on the morning of the shooting to care for her son. Her former boss had revealed she could have also brought her son to work with her if she needed to.
Last week, prosecutors argued that James Crumbley set his own hours and could have taken his son with him while he worked that day, since he was a DoorDash driver. Prosecutors also presented evidence that he had not yet signed onto work for the day before the meeting at the school, only logging on at 11 a.m.
James Crumbley also made a 911 call to police after news of the shooting had spread after he had discovered that the gun he purchased for his son was missing from their home. He identified his son as the suspected shooter, despite police not making that information public yet.
James Crumbley’s communications from prison have been limited by Judge Cheryl Matthews until the jury reaches a verdict after he allegedly made threats from prison toward an undisclosed person. He will be allowed to conduct research and communicate with his attorney on matters related to his defense.
Opening statements in the trial began on Thursday after the jury was seated on Wednesday. The jury consists of nine women and six men.
(PONTIAC, Mich.) — James Crumbley’s trial continued on Monday in its third day of testimony. The prosecution has sought to place blame on him, claiming he could have prevented the shooting if he had not ignored the warning signs exhibited by his son leading up to the November 2021 shooting.
The father of a Michigan school shooter is facing four counts of involuntary manslaughter for his alleged role in the shooting. His son Ethan Crumbley, who was only 15 years old at the time of the shooting, killed four of his classmates and injured seven others.
Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17, were killed in the shooting.
James Crumbley’s trial comes weeks after Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty of the same four charges. She will be sentenced in April. Their cases are a rare instance of parents being held criminally responsible in connection with a shooting carried out by their child.
Ethan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without parole in December after he pleaded guilty to 24 counts including first-degree premeditated murder and terrorism causing death.
The parents had bought their son the gun used in the shooting just days before. Prosecutors have argued that the parents ignored warning signs raised against the shooter which could have prevented it from happening.
Among the signs was a meeting called by school officials the morning of the shooting after concerning and violent drawings were found on their son’s math test. After a school counselor spoke with Ethan Crumbley, they expressed concerns that he may harm himself.
School officials called the Crumbley parents to the school and told them their son needed immediate mental health care, offering them a list of facilities that could have provided him care that day. But, the parents allegedly told school officials they needed to return to work and could not take their son home.
The shooting happened that afternoon.
During Jennifer Crumbley’s trial, she admitted on the stand that she would have been able to leave work for the day on the morning of the shooting to care for her son. Her former boss had revealed she could have also brought her son to work with her if she needed to.
Last week, prosecutors argued that James Crumbley set his own hours and could have taken his son with him while he worked that day, since he was a DoorDash driver. Prosecutors also presented evidence that he had not yet signed onto work for the day before the meeting at the school, only logging on at 11 a.m.
James Crumbley also made a 911 call to police after news of the shooting had spread after he had discovered that the gun he purchased for his son was missing from their home. He identified his son as the suspected shooter, despite police not making that information public yet.
James Crumbley’s communications from prison have been limited by Judge Cheryl Matthews until the jury reaches a verdict after he allegedly made threats from prison toward an undisclosed person. He will be allowed to conduct research and communicate with his attorney on matters related to his defense.
Opening statements in the trial began on Thursday after the jury was seated on Wednesday. The jury consists of nine women and six men.
Some teachers in Oklahoma say they are afraid to teach a book that is the foundation of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” one the most talked about films of the year.
Nominated for 10 Oscars, the movie depicts the true story of white settlers who systematically murdered wealthy members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma in the 1920s. The Native Americans became rich after oil was discovered on their land.
In northern Oklahoma, just minutes from the Osage Nation, high school English teacher Debra Thoreson says because of new laws in the state she is too nervous to teach the popular book on which the movie is based.
“If I were teaching that book, we’d get to what in society allowed that story to happen.” Thoreson told ABC News’ MaryAlice Parks on “This Week.” “What were the laws at the time? What were the social dynamics between races and genders? And you cannot get into that without people being uncomfortable.”
She says she’s worried having an in-depth conversation about that chapter in Oklahoma state history could put her teaching licenses and school at risk.
In 2021, the state’s Republican-led legislature passed House Bill 1775 which bans diversity training and limits discussions around race and sex in schools. Among other concepts it bans teaching that “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex,” according to the Oklahoma state Legislature.
Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, signed HB 1775 into law in May 2021.
“We can and should teach this history without labeling a young child as an oppressor or requiring he or she feel guilt or shame based on their race or sex,” Stitt told ABC News in a statement at the time. “I refuse to tolerate otherwise during a time when we are already so polarized.”
Some of the penalties for running afoul of this law include teachers losing their license and accreditation for schools being revoked, according to the law.
State educators and leaders of the Osage Nation are worried the law silences teachers and halts progress toward teaching a fuller, more accurate version of state history.
“Feel good history doesn’t help anybody,” Jim Gray, former chief of the Osage Nation, told Parks. “They don’t want to feel bad about what happened in the past. Well, I’m sorry to say that to my great grandfather who was taken out in the country and shot in the head. I owe it to him to tell that story.”
Gray and the author of the book “Killers of the Flower Moon,” David Grann, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that “at stake in these fights is not only factual accuracy. It is also how new generations will be taught to record and remember the past.”
Grann and Gray point out that in the 1920s members of the Osage tribe were forced to have white guardians to watch their money, calling the system abhorrently racist and part of a history that needs to be revealed.
“HB 1775 threatens to derail the progress tribes have made in recent years to provide an accurate history of our country and our state’s complex relationship with Native Americans in schools,” the inter-tribal council of five tribes in Oklahoma said in a joint statement when HB 1775 first passed.
Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters insists the Osage murders can and should be taught in schools.
“We have had a major misinformation campaign from the radical left and the teachers union on this issue,” Walters told Parks. “What we have said is very specifically, you can’t tell somebody that they should be ashamed or feel that way about their skin color or their background.”
Oklahoma’s law curtailing discussions around race and sex is part of a national trend, according to Education Week. A total of 18 Republican-led states around the country have passed similar new legislation or bans.
The Oklahoma Board of Education has already punished Tulsa Public Schools for what it says were violations of the law by demoting its accreditation status back in 2022 because it said a training session for teachers included the concept of implicit bias — that people can carry prejudices sometimes without recognizing them.
Regan Killackey, a high school English teacher outside of Oklahoma City, is a plaintiff in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit targeting the state law.
“To understand someone else’s experience, they have to be able to see things from their perspective and if we do not allow students to actually step into someone else’s shoes … and understand the pain that they actually suffered, we’re doing them a disservice,” Killackey said.
Thoreson said she encourages any parent worried about how topics are taught to get involved and get to know their kids’ teachers. But until she feels less of a threat around potentially losing her license, she won’t teach “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
“It feels like we are regressing. It feels like we’ve had progress and some people are uncomfortable,” Thoreson said. “I’m not sure what they hope to gain from that. Except those who don’t know history are bound to repeat it. So — so, it’s terrifying.”
(CLARK COUNTY, Wisconsin) — Nine people were killed and one was injured after a semi-trailer truck collided with a van at a highway intersection in Wisconsin, authorities said.
The incident occurred in Dewhurst Township in central Wisconsin on Friday, at the intersection of Highway 95 and County Road J, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
The tractor-trailer was traveling eastbound on Highway 95 and the van was traveling northbound on County Road J when the crash occurred shortly before 8 a.m. local time. The van was struck by the semi as it entered the intersection, according to preliminary reports, the sheriff’s office said.
Eight people in the van, including the driver, and the driver of the semi were pronounced dead at the scene, the sheriff’s office said. The lone survivor, a passenger in the van, was transported to a local hospital for their injuries, the sheriff’s office said. Their condition was not released.
The names of those involved are not being released pending family notification.
“Kathy and I are saddened today by the fatal crash that occurred in Clark County, tragically taking nine lives,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said on X. “Our hearts and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of all those involved, as well as the first responders who worked quickly to provide support at the scene.”
Aerial footage of the scene from ABC Twin Cities affiliate KTSP showed extensive damage to both vehicles following the crash, with the semi lying in a ditch off the side of the highway and the van on its side nearby. The scene has since been cleared.
The investigation remains ongoing. The sheriff’s office said the Wisconsin State Patrol is assisting.
(LONDON) — Former President Donald Trump’s escalating legal penalties are a little larger after a judge in the United Kingdom ordered him to pay more than $380,000 to a firm run by Christopher Steele, the ex-British spy who penned the infamous 2016 dossier accusing Trump of harboring close ties to the Russians.
Trump sued Steele’s firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, in a London court in 2022 over claims that the series of memos known as the “Steele Dossier” harmed his reputation and violated British data privacy laws.
But in February, Justice Karen Steyn tossed the suit — without determining whether the allegations in the dossier were true or false — and ordered Trump to compensate Steele for his legal fees.
According to the judge’s order, which was made public Thursday, the judge gave Trump 28 days to execute the payment of GBP 300,000, which equates to roughly $384,000.
Last month Trump was fined a total of $464 million in disgorgement and interest in his civil fraud case brought by the New York attorney general, and this week he posted a $91 million bond to cover the judgment plus interest in writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case while he pursues an appeal.
Neither Trump’s U.K.-based attorney nor Orbis Business Intelligence responded to a request for comment from ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has filed a lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James after she threatened legal action over the county’s recent anti-transgender sports ban.
The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday by Blakeman, a Republican, who said he believes the designation of separate athletic teams or sports based on sex assigned at birth “is necessary to maintain fairness for women’s athletic opportunities.”
“On behalf of the hundreds of thousands of women and girls in Nassau County, I have filed a federal lawsuit against @NewYorkStateAG to protect women’s sports and ensure a safe environment for women,” Blakeman said in a post on X.
In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office called the executive order “transphobic and discriminatory.”
“Our laws protect New Yorkers from discrimination, and the Office of the Attorney General is committed to upholding those laws and protecting our communities,” the statement said. “This is not up for debate: the executive order is illegal, and it will not stand in New York.”
Last week, James’ office issued a cease-and-desist letter against his Feb. 22 executive order that bans transgender women and girls from competing in events aligning with their gender identity in county-run facilities.
The executive order states that sports leagues, organizations, teams and other entities in Long Island County must expressly designate teams based on an athlete’s sex assigned at birth for all sporting competitions or events.
Under the executive order, permits will not be given to any event or competition that allows transgender women or girls to compete in girls’ or women’s sporting events. These restrictions were set to go into effect immediately, according to Blakeman’s office.
Blakeman’s lawsuit argues that the executive order is not a ban on transgender athletes competing in sports: “The Executive Order invites transgender biological males to compete except in teams and leagues that advertise or identify as exclusively all-girls or all-women.”
“Women and Girls hard work, on-field achievements, and athletic futures deserve to be fostered, nurtured, and celebrated,” Blakeman stated in the executive order.
The attorney general’s office argues that the order is “in clear violation of New York State anti-discrimination laws and demands that it be immediately rescinded.”
“The Order’s immediate effect is to force sports leagues to make an impossible choice: discriminate against transgender women and girls, in violation of New York law, or find somewhere else to play,” said the letter. “In addition to violating basic civil and human rights, the executive order will impose undue increased scrutiny on women’s and girls’ teams and leagues and will also subject all athletes on women’s and girls’ sports teams to intrusive and invasive questioning and other verification requirements.”
Blakeman’s lawsuit claims James’ order violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and asks the court to enjoin James’ office from taking action against the county and Blakeman for implementing the executive order.
In his response to the cease-and-desist letter, he said his executive order “stops the bullying of women and girls by transgender males who have many outlets to compete without putting the safety and security of females in danger.”
The executive order goes against guidelines from local and national sports associations.
The New York State Public High School Athletic Association’s transgender policy states that it is “committed to providing all students with the opportunity to participate … in a manner consistent with their gender identity and the New York State Commissioner of Education’s Regulations.”
The governing bodies of several national and international sports leagues, including the International Olympic Committee, require transgender women to meet certain hormone levels in order to play on sports teams with cisgender women.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association transgender guidelines vary from sport to sport. Transgender student-athletes typically need to document sport-specific testosterone levels at the beginning of their season and a second documentation six months later, and then another documentation four weeks before championship selections.
Restrictions on hormone levels have impacted athletes with differences in sex development, including track star Caster Semenya, who was born intersex and has naturally high testosterone levels.
There is no clear data on whether transgender women have an advantage physiologically, according to health experts.
Experts wrote in a recent JAMA Pediatrics editorial that preventing trans youth from participating in school sports could be bad for the mental and physical health of an already at-risk population because they lose out on the developmental benefits of sports participation.
Local civil rights advocacy groups, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, argue that the executive order is illegal.
“Requiring girls who are trans to compete on boys’ teams effectively bars them from sports altogether,” NYCLU said in a statement to ABC News. “Participating would mean being outed and being denied the same opportunities other girls enjoy: to challenge themselves, improve fitness, and be part of a team of their peers.”
(NEW YORK) — Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was convicted Friday in a Manhattan federal court on drug trafficking charges.
Hernandez, who served as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022, had been charged by U.S. authorities with drug trafficking and weapons offenses that linked him to tons of cocaine imported into the United States over the last two decades.
Two co-defendants pleaded guilty, including a former Honduran police chief, Juan Carlos Bonilla, and Hernandez’s cousin Mauricio Hernandez.
Hernandez claimed the prosecution was the result of drug traffickers smearing him to get revenge for his crackdown on the drug trade. According to federal prosecutors, Honduras became a narco-state under his leadership.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(PONTIAC, Mich.) — James Crumbley’s manslaughter trial continued Friday with multiple witnesses taking the stand testifying about his alleged activity in the days leading up to the shooting, including purchasing the firearm that his son later used in a school shooting.
As the trial continues, Judge Cheryl Matthews has limited the communications he can make from prison at the prosecutor’s office request on Thursday. It was revealed late Thursday that James Crumbley allegedly made threats to an undisclosed person from prison.
James Crumbley’s communications from prison have been limited except with regard to his defense until a jury reaches a verdict.
James Crumbley is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter for his alleged role in the November 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in which four students were killed and seven others were injured. Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17, were killed in the shooting.
His trial comes weeks after his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, was found guilty of the same four counts of involuntary manslaughter over their role in the 2021 school shooting. Their cases are a rare instance of parents facing criminal charges in relation to a shooting carried out by their child.
After the prosecution questioned former Oakland County Detective Edward Wagrowski Thursday, in which he revealed James Crumbley had not signed on to work for the day before he met with school officials the morning of the shooting, the defense prompted him to reveal that James Crumbley began working within minutes of leaving the school.
The school had called the Crumbley parents in for a meeting the morning of the shooting after a teacher discovered he had made concerning drawings on a math test. A school counselor then spoke with Ethan Crumbley and was concerned he was having suicidal thoughts. School officials advised the parents to get their son immediate mental health care, offering them facilities that could provide him care that day.
Wagrowski’s testimony hit back at the prosecution’s argument on Thursday that the Crumbley parents said they could not take their son home because they needed to return to work, presenting evidence that James Crumbley had not yet begun working for the day. During her trial, Jennifer Crumbley and her former employer both testified that she could have left work for the day or brought her son to work with her if she needed to.
Upon choosing to leave their son at school rather than have him return home alone, the parents said they would work to arrange care for him. Hours later, the shooting occurred.
Cammy Back, an employee at the firearm store where James Crumbley purchased the gun used in the shooting, testified about selling him the gun just days before the shooting. Back testified that his son was with him at the time of the purchase and that James Crumbley told her he had had his eye on the gun before buying it.
The Crumbley parents had bought the gun for their then-15-year-old son.
But, Back testified that despite Crumbley telling her he had his eye on the gun that he ultimately purchased, she did not witness any communication in which his son pointed out or said he wanted the gun.
With their line of questioning, the prosecution pointed to a safety pamphlet and gun lock that were handed to the Crumbleys when they made the purchase, ultimately highlighting that it was James Crumbley’s responsibility—as the purchaser—to secure the gun and ensure that his son did not have access to it.
Part of the prosecution’s argument rests on the shooter having access to the gun and James Crumbley not properly securing it, enabling the shooting to occur.
Other evidence presented during the trial included a video taken by Ethan Crumbley at home days before the shooting in which he loaded the gun. According to cell phone evidence collected by police, James Crumbley was at home at the time the video was taken.
(CHEVY CHASE, Md.) — A Russian state-backed group that Microsoft said hacked into its corporate email accounts was able to gain access to its core software systems, the company announced on Friday.
Microsoft said its security team detected the attack in January and identified the group responsible as Midnight Blizzard, “the Russian state-sponsored actor also known as Nobelium.”
“In recent weeks, we have seen evidence that Midnight Blizzard is using information initially exfiltrated from our corporate email systems to gain, or attempt to gain, unauthorized access,” Microsoft said in a blog post update on Friday. “This has included access to some of the company’s source code repositories and internal systems.”
The company said it has found no evidence that Microsoft-hosted customer-facing systems have been compromised due to the breach.
As of Friday, the incident has “not had a material impact” on Microsoft’s operations, the company stated in an SEC filing.
“The Company has not yet determined that the incident is reasonably likely to materially impact the Company’s financial condition or results of operations,” the filing stated.
Midnight Blizzard is apparently attempting to use “secrets” that it has found in the hack, according to Microsoft.
“Some of these secrets were shared between customers and Microsoft in email, and as we discover them in our exfiltrated email, we have been and are reaching out to these customers to assist them in taking mitigating measures,” Microsoft said.
The volume of some aspects of the ongoing attack has intensified, increasing as much as 10-fold in February compared to January, Microsoft said. That includes “password sprays,” in which a user uses a single common password against multiple accounts on the same application, the company said.
“Across Microsoft, we have increased our security investments, cross-enterprise coordination and mobilization, and have enhanced our ability to defend ourselves and secure and harden our environment against this advanced persistent threat,” Microsoft said Friday. “We have and will continue to put in place additional enhanced security controls, detections, and monitoring.”
The attack began in November, Microsoft said. The company was able to remove the hacker’s access to the email accounts on Jan. 13, according to a company filing with the SEC.
The company said in its SEC filing on Friday that it continues to coordinate with federal law enforcement on the ongoing investigation into the incident.
