(NEW YORK) — Two students have been arrested for allegedly supplying THC edibles and psilocybin mushrooms that sent at least seven students to the hospital for observation when they all ingested the drugs during the school day, police said.
Last Friday, at approximately 12:33 p.m., Cabarrus County Schools contacted the Concord Police Department after a number of students at C.C. Griffin Middle School — located some 20 miles northeast of Charlotte, North Carolina — had what police say were “negative reactions to ingesting an unknown substance,” according to a statement from the Concord Police Department describing the incident.
“Police investigators recovered a sample of the rice krispy treat eaten by students, and it tested positive for THC,” police said. “The sample has been sent to a lab for additional testing, and it will likely take several months before those results are returned. Police also recovered illegal psilocybin mushrooms.”
In total, seven students were taken to Atrium Health Cabarrus for observation after ingesting the drugs, police said.
“Working with the school system, police investigators interviewed several students and learned that this was a planned activity,” according to the Concord Police Department. “Two students shared with classmates that they had access to THC edibles, and in advance of Friday, some students made an agreement to buy some of those edibles.”
As a result, the THC edibles were brought to school on Friday and shared among a group of students, some of whom also admitted to ingesting psilocybin mushrooms, before several of them had negative reactions to ingesting the illegal substances, police said.
“The investigation also revealed that students knowingly ingested the edibles,” authorities said. “All the students who ate a piece of the rice krispy treat and who spoke with police admitted to knowing that they were eating a THC edible.”
The Concord Police Department subsequently filed petitions through the North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice for the two students who brought the edibles to school so that they could be held responsible for the incident.
“One student is being charged with two counts of possession with intent to deliver a Schedule VI drug,” said the Concord Police Department. “One student is being charged with one count of possession with intent to deliver a Schedule I drug.”
The Concord Police Department is continuing to investigate this incident, including the original source of the THC edibles and psilocybin mushrooms, and their investigation is currently ongoing.
(NEW YORK) — A teacher has been arrested after allegedly knocking out a 12-year-old student’s tooth with his elbow and throwing a basketball at him in a fit of rage, police say.
The alleged assault took place at the Putnam Academy of Arts and Science School in Palatka, Florida — some 60 miles south of Jacksonville and 100 miles north of Orlando — sometime during the school day on Monday, according to a statement from the Palatka Police Department in the aftermath of the incident.
Police first learned about the alleged assault at approximately 4:20 p.m. on Monday when they were called to a residence on Belmont Drive in reference to a report of battery which took place at the school earlier in the day.
“When the officers arrived, they made contact with [the boy’s mother]. [She] informed the officers her 12-year-old son had been struck earlier in the day by a teacher identified as James Bellamy,” the Palatka Police Department said in their statement. “[She] had been shown a video of her son and Bellamy playing basketball. The video showed Bellamy throwing the ball at her son and then later elbowing him in the mouth which knocked the child’s tooth out.”
Officers subsequently talked with the 12-year-old boy who was able to confirm to them what his mother had said and said that “Bellamy had gotten angry at him because Bellamy believed he had intentionally struck his arm or head while they were playing,” according to authorities.
“The child told Officers Bellamy called him back out onto the court and then threw the ball at him, but he was able to duck and not get hit by it,” the statement continued. “The child said he and Bellamy then started playing and then Bellamy struck him in the face with his elbow which knocked his tooth out.”
Authorities subsequently relocated to a residence on Napoleon Street where they made contact with Bellamy, who was advised of his rights and questioned by the Palatka Police Department about the incident.
“Bellamy informed the officers he was playing basketball with some students. He said the victim had hit him while playing so he called him back out onto the court. He said he threw the ball at the victim but when his elbow hit the child it was not intentional,” read the Palatka Police Department statement.
Bellamy was then placed under arrest for child abuse and battery and booked into the Putnam County Jail and is currently being held on no bond.
No court date has been announced yet and the investigation into the alleged assault is currently ongoing.
(NEW YORK) — An off-duty pilot accused of trying to shut down engines mid-flight on an Alaska Airlines plane in October was indicted on 84 charges — though the grand jury declined to go for attempted murder.
Joseph David Emerson, 44, was charged with one count of endangering aircraft in the first degree and 83 counts of recklessly endangering another person in connection with the Oct. 22 incident, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.
He is being held at the Multnomah County Detention Center and is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday.
Emerson was initially charged with 83 counts of attempted murder after he allegedly tried to shut off the engines by pulling the fire extinguisher handles. He pleaded not guilty in October.
His attorneys previously said he “suffered a panic attack” while on the flight and was in a dream-like state during the incident. They also said he had taken “a small amount of psilocybin,” which is found in mushrooms, two days prior to the flight.
In a statement on the grand jury indictment, his attorneys said the attempted murder charges “were never appropriate in this case because Captain Emerson never intended to hurt another person or put anyone at risk — he just wanted to return home to his wife and children.”
“Simply put: Captain Emerson thought he was in a dream; his actions were taken in a single-minded effort to wake up from that dream and return home to his family,” the statement continued.
His attorneys said they were “disappointed” that the grand jury indicted Emerson on the 84 counts.
“Captain Emerson had no criminal intent, and we look forward to being able to present a fulsome defense at trial and bring forth all the facts and circumstances to a jury,” his attorneys said. “Captain Emerson’s defense team is crafting a release plan and expect that he will finally return home to his family by the end of this week.”
At the time of the incident, off-duty captain Emerson was sitting in the flight deck jump seat, which is in the cockpit, Alaska Airlines said.
The flight was en route from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco when it diverted to Portland, Oregon, the airline said. Emerson was scheduled to be on a flight crew of a 737 leaving San Francisco, according to a federal official.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — A house in Virginia exploded Monday night shortly after officers were executing a search warrant at the residence for reports of a person discharging several rounds with a flare gun, officials said.
The suspect, who was inside the Arlington duplex at the time of the explosion, is presumed dead, authorities said.
Police responded to the residence on the 800 block of North Burlington Street at approximately 4:45 p.m. Monday with reports of possible shots fired, said Ashley Savage, public information officer with Arlington County Police Department.
Police said in a statement that a preliminary investigation indicated the suspect “discharged a flare gun approximately 30-40 times from inside his residence into the surrounding neighborhood.”
Following the discharge, police were attempting to make contact with the suspect and draw him out when the house exploded at approximately 8:25 p.m., police said.
Police officers sustained minor injuries and were treated on scene and the fire has since been extinguished.
Fire crews had evacuated other residents of the duplex and surrounding homes starting at around 7 p.m. as a precaution, which “saved lives,” Arlington County Fire Department Assistant Chief Jason Jenkins told reporters.
The cause of the explosion is under investigation and authorities are working to collect evidence from the scene.
The fire department had turned off the gas at the residence prior to the explosion, according to Jenkins, who said he could not speculate on any cause or origin of the explosion at this time.
Arlington County Police Chief Andy Penn said human remains were recovered from the scene but have not yet been identified.
The suspect — identified as 56-year-old James Yoo — was the only person inside the residence at the time of the explosion and is presumed to be dead, Penn said.
“There is no ongoing threat to the community related to this incident and no outstanding suspects,” Penn said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
Penn said police are aware of “concerning social media posts made by the suspect,” though did not elaborate.
The suspect had been in touch with the FBI over the years via phone calls, online tips and letters with complaints about “alleged frauds he believed were perpetrated against him,” David Sundberg, assistant director in charge with the FBI Washington Field Office, told reporters.
The complaints did not lead to the FBI opening any investigations, according to Sundberg, who did not provide any further details on the alleged frauds.
Before the explosion, Savage said that a barricade situation took place after attempts to make contact with the suspect were unsuccessful.
“During the early parts of it, after we had obtained a search warrant, we were attempting to make contact with the individual. Our SWAT team was on scene at that point, we would determine that the incident would be a barricade because the suspect had not exited the residence,” she said. “We were attempting to make contact with the individual when shots were discharged inside the residence.”
Right before the explosion, police were using “nonflammable” chemical munitions to draw the suspect out of the home, Penn said.
“Officers began to deploy nonflammable less lethal chemical munitions to multiple areas within the residence where the suspect was believed to be hiding. The purpose of this type of deployment is to cause irritation and hopes of compelling the suspect to surrender,” Penn said.
About 10 households were impacted by the incident, authorities said.
Witnesses described seeing flares in the sky emanating from the area of the blast prior to the blast.
Neighbors several blocks away described feeling the concussion from the blast in their homes.
The investigation remains ongoing.
ABC News’ Tia Humphries contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced it will examine its rules on pilot mental health.
The move comes after years of calls from industry and government leaders, and the high-profile case of an off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot who allegedly tried to crash a commercial flight in October, and who claimed he suffered from mental health issues.
The pilot, Joseph Emerson, allegedly told officers he believed he was having a “nervous breakdown,” according to a criminal complaint. Emerson also stated he became depressed about six months prior to the incident, the complaint said.
An Oregon grand jury on Tuesday indicted Emerson on one count of endangering an aircraft in the first degree and 83 counts of recklessly endangering another person — one count for every other person onboard the aircraft — in connection with the Oct. 22 incident, according to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. He pleaded not guilty to initial charges in October.
The FAA said Tuesday it would establish a rulemaking committee to “identify and break down any remaining barriers that discourage pilots from reporting and seeking care for mental health issues.” The committee will also examine the same issues for air traffic controllers.
Current regulations mandate that pilots undergo a medical examination with an aviation medical examiner (AME) every six months to five years, depending on their age and the type of flying they do, including whether private or commercial. AMEs determine the pilot’s mental health and fitness to fly.
Pilots are also required to disclose any physical and psychological conditions, as well as any medications they may be taking. Many pilots and air traffic controllers have expressed concern about revealing mental health information, for fear of it adversely affecting their careers.
“This is quite a challenge for the FAA but a very appropriate one because if there is anything that we can do to lower the barriers of people reporting mental health problems, then we need to research it,” ABC News contributor and former commercial pilot John Nance said.
The FAA says it “encourages” pilots to seek help if they have a mental health condition “since most, if treated, do not disqualify a pilot from flying.” Certain conditions do, however, disqualify pilots from flying, such as “psychosis, bipolar disorder and some types of personality disorder,” according to the agency.
The committee must submit its recommendations to the FAA by March 2024.
(NEW YORK) — A transgender athlete’s spot on a girls’ high school volleyball team that resulted in Florida school employees being reassigned and led to student walkouts is now at the center of an investigation to determine whether the school violated a 2021 state law that governs sports and gender.
Jessica Norton, the mom of the transgender athlete and one of the employees at Monarch High School under investigation, is speaking out.
Norton and several other school employees, including the principal and assistant principal, have been reassigned to non-school sites pending the outcome of a district investigation into allegations of improper student participation in sports, Broward County officials told ABC News.
“We will continue to follow state law and will take appropriate action based on the outcome of the investigation,” the district said in a statement. “We are committed to providing all our students with a safe and inclusive learning environment.”
A 2021 law, the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, prohibits transgender girls from playing on girl’s sports teams.
Norton said she and her family have received an “outpouring of love and support” from the community following her reassignment.
“Watching our community’s resistance and display of love has been so joyous for our family — the light leading us through this darkness. I want everyone to know that we see you, and we are so grateful for you,” Norton said in a statement via her legal representatives at the Human Rights Campaign.
However, Norton said the controversy about her daughter’s participation has ripped away her family’s “privacy, sense of our privacy, sense of safety, and right to self-determination.”
“There is a long history in this country of outing people against their will — forced outing, particularly of a child, is a direct attempt to endanger the person being outed,” Norton said.
Norton and her family are behind a lawsuit filed against the 2021 transgender sports law. Norton and her husband only use their first names in the lawsuit, and their daughter was identified by her initials.
The law states that an athletic team or sport for women and girls at a public school or college may not be open to students who were assigned male as stated on their birth certificate.
Supporters of such restrictions on trans sports participation argue that biological differences between the sexes is necessary to maintain “fairness” in women’s athletic activities. At least 23 states have implemented restrictions on trans participation in sports, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
“As a father of two daughters, I want my girls, and every girl in Florida, to compete on an even playing field for the opportunities available to young women in sports,” said DeSantis at the signing of the bills.
Critics of trans sports restrictions say that these laws ostracize and discriminate against transgender people and that the biology of sports performance is complicated and not easily flattened by sex.
The governing bodies of several national and international sports leagues, including the International Olympic Committee, require transgender women meet certain hormone levels to play on sports teams with cisgender women.
Norton’s daughter was playing on the girl’s soccer team in middle school at the time of the lawsuit, according to the complaint, and playing in girl’s volleyball leagues as well.
“It is a source of pride for her, and is also the major source of her social and friendship network,” the complaint read, highlighting the positive impacts that sports can have on students’ lives.
At age 11, at the recommendation of her endocrinologist, the athlete began hormone blockers that would pause the developmental impacts of testosterone and prevent her from going through male puberty.
The student later began taking estrogen for feminizing hormone therapy “and will continue to do so for the rest of her life. This will allow her to live as the girl/woman that she is,” the complaint read.
There is no clear data on whether transgender women have an advantage physiologically.
One study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that trans women had a 9% faster mean run speed after a one-year period of testosterone suppression.
A different study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine found that there is no direct or consistent research suggesting transgender women have an athletic advantage at any stage of their transition.
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.
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman rejected the legal challenge from the Nortons, citing physiological differences between sexes, but the plaintiffs have the ability to file an amended complaint by mid-January.
Students walked out of their classes on Nov. 28 in support of the athlete and school employees being investigated.
A student at Monarch, who is trans and asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons, told ABC News that the laws restricting transgender students are “scary.”
She said it is “affecting how other people perceive us on a day-to-day basis.”
Another student at Monarch High, who asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons, told ABC News that the situation is “heartbreaking.”
“It’s been something that has just been progressively getting more intense in the last few years,” the student said, referencing legislation that impacts the LGBTQ community in the state.
She continued, “The queer and trans community here, and our city, and our county is so, like, beautiful, and so large … This situation has rocked many students here, a lot harder than it might seem on the surface.”
District officials declined to comment further.
ABC News has reached out to the other school employees who have been reassigned.
(NEW YORK) — An atmospheric river will continue to impact the West Coast over the next 24 hours.
A record amount of moisture is hitting the Pacific Northwest as the powerful system continues to bring heavy rainfall to the region.
Up to a half foot of rain has already fallen in parts of Washington, with several cities reporting daily record rainfall on Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
Atmospheric rivers are essentially rivers in the sky that collect moisture from tropical areas and redistribute the water to other latitudes.
The weather phenomenon occurs frequently around the globe, but they cause 80% of flood damage at an average estimated cost of $1.1 billion annually on the West Coast of the United States, according to researchers at Phys.org.
The current plume of moisture in the Pacific Northwest will continue into Washington on Tuesday morning and then will move into Oregon in the afternoon and evening, bringing an additional 4 to 6 inches of rain, forecasts show.
The National Weather Service has issued flood alerts for Washington, Oregon, Northern California and Idaho for river and stream flooding.
By Wednesday morning and afternoon, some of the rain is expected to move into northern California and the San Francisco Bay area. Major flooding is not expected in California.
More storms are expected to hit the West Coast on Thursday and then again on Saturday, with more rain at the coast and lower elevations.
With the storms later in the week, the air mass will be colder, so the snow will fall in lower elevations, possibly covering I-90 and I-80 in snow, which could make commutes dangerous.
(NEW YORK) — The number of nations where paraquat, an agricultural herbicide, is allowed to be used continues to dwindle, yet paraquat continues to receive stamps of approval from federal regulators in the United States.
“Contrary to these dozens of countries, which have looked at the exact same data and have found that paraquat is too dangerous [and] too toxic to continue using, the United States Environmental Protection Agency reached the exact opposite conclusion,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney with Earthjustice, a non-profit environmental law firm.
Paraquat, which is often distributed under the name Gramoxone in the U.S. by Syngenta, is a restricted use herbicide known for its effectiveness in killing weeds.
Farmers across the country are only allowed to use paraquat if they have been trained and certified, and when applying it to farmland, they are told to wear protective gear and not ingest any amount of the herbicide due to its toxicity.
Frank Garcia didn’t think twice about using paraquat on his Arizona farm in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He says that he got the necessary certification to use paraquat, but does not remember whether he or his wife Maria wore respirators when using the herbicide.
“You could see the results in a few hours,” Garcia said. “In a day or two, [the weeds] would be shriveled up pretty well.”
Decades later, Maria Garcia is battling Parkinson’s disease, and she believes it’s because she was exposed to paraquat during her time on the farm. She is one of more than 4,000 people who have sued Syngenta and Chevron, alleging negligence and failure to warn of a product liability.
Syngenta rejects these concerns, telling ABC News, “In short, the hypothesis that paraquat causes Parkinson’s is not accepted in the medical community or peer-reviewed science, nor has it been accepted at any time in the past.”
‘They continue to sell it here’
The use of paraquat tripled in the U.S. between 2008 and 2018, with estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey showing that in 2018, the use of the herbicide was particularly common in areas such as California’s Central Valley, Iowa and the Mississippi River Valley.
In 2019, Thailand issued a ban on paraquat, with Brazil, Chile, Malaysia, Peru and Taiwan each following with various prohibitions. China also banned the domestic use of paraquat, despite a state-owned Chinese chemical company acquiring Syngenta in a record $43 billion deal in 2017.
“The Chinese government essentially owns Syngenta, but doesn’t use [paraquat] in their own country,” Peter Flowers, co-lead counsel in the multidistrict litigation against Syngenta and Chevron involving more than 4,000 plaintiffs, told ABC News.
“They continue to sell it here,” he continued. “We as Americans should be outraged by this.”
Paraquat bans now apply to more than 50 countries, an ABC News analysis found.
To use paraquat products like Gramoxone, the EPA says that Americans must be certified pesticide applicators and complete an hour-long online safety training every three years.
“EPA’s assumption that existing regulations would be sufficient to protect people is just not grounded in reality and not supported by science,” said Kalmuss-Katz.
Syngenta says that Gramoxone does not pose a danger when used properly.
Chevron, which distributed Gramoxone in the U.S. between 1966 and 1986 before ceasing its involvement in the paraquat market, has also denied liability. They told ABC News in a statement that they quit selling paraquat for commercial reasons due to increased competition, not health concerns.
“To this day, and despite hundreds of studies being conducted in the past 20 or so years, a causal link between Paraquat and Parkinson’s disease has not been established,” Chevron’s statement said.
‘This would be really bad for them’
The EPA has insisted that its most recent thorough review of scientific studies on paraquat has found no clear link between the herbicide and Parkinson’s.
Both the agency and Syngenta have pointed to a 2020 Agricultural Health Study sponsored in part by the National Institute of Health, which found “that there was no evidence of an association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson’s disease.”
But in their petition, Earthjustice argued that the EPA “misinterpreted the evidence” when they dismissed the connection between paraquat and Parkinson’s disease, and that their risk assessment was “flawed” and “one-sided,” which could leave more people “likely to develop Parkinson’s disease.”
Dr. Deborah Cory-Slechta, a widely respected University of Rochester neurotoxicologist, conducted several of her own paraquat studies on mice and reached a conclusion that was different from what the EPA found.
“We saw things that were convincing to us that paraquat could indeed be a risk factor for Parkinson’s disease,” Cory-Slechta told ABC News.
Cory-Slechta’s work examining what effect paraquat has on the brains of mice is frequently cited as evidence suggesting a link between paraquat and Parkinson’s.
“The human studies … show links between paraquat and Parkinson’s disease over and over again,” she said. “The animal studies continue to show those links including the loss of dopamine neurons, so you have a correspondence between the human and the animal studies that’s very compelling.”
Cory-Slechta was being considered by the EPA as a potential candidate nearly 20 years ago for a scientific advisory panel regarding pesticides, but Carey Gillam, a contributor to The Guardian and the managing editor for The New Lede, an environmental news website supported by the Environmental Working Group, said the internal Syngenta communications she obtained showed that Syngenta did not want that to happen.
“Syngenta got wind of this and realized that this would be really bad for them,” Gillam said, pointing to a 2005 email in which Syngenta asked “what action can be taken” to keep Cory-Slechta off the EPA panel. “You can see through the emails how they develop this plan that they want to convince the EPA to kick her off or to not appoint her to any of their panels.”
Syngenta maintains that it “acted appropriately with regard to Dr. Cory-Slechta.”
In other internal communications obtained by Gillam, the company asked industry lobbying group CropLife America to, “in such a way that they cannot be attributed to Syngenta,” tell the EPA that Cory-Slechta was unwilling to “enter into objective scientific debate with industry regarding her data.”
When ABC News reached out to ask about Cory-Slechta, Syngenta said they continue to stand by this position.
“I think Syngenta’s efforts are very similar to what I’ve seen over the years from many chemical companies whose efforts are to either discredit the science or to mitigate its potential impact,” Cory-Slechta said.
Federal lobbying disclosures show CropLife America spent almost $2 million last year on lobbying efforts. Some of that money was associated with legislation like the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act, which would ban pesticides like paraquat from the U.S.
CropLife America told ABC News that it “routinely represents our members by reflecting their views in our comments on these nominees, as we do on dozens of other regulatory matters on which EPA requests public comment.”
A reconsideration by regulators
In 2021, the EPA issued an interim decision to allow for paraquat’s continued use in the U.S. for another 15 years while requiring additional safety precautions.
Since then, after being sued by Earthjustice, which is representing The Michael J. Fox Foundation and other organizations in this effort, the EPA said that they would reconsider their decision.
“Now [the] EPA has a chance to go back to fix the mistakes that it made during the prior risk evaluation, to reject Syngenta’s interference and to provide the protections law requires,” Kalmuss-Katz of Earthjustice said. “We’re waiting to see whether [the] EPA lives up to that.”
In the meantime, more than 2,300 miles away from EPA headquarters, each day continues to be a challenge for Maria Garcia as she copes with the effects of Parkinson’s in her Arizona home.
Tricia, Maria’s daughter-in-law, is hoping that the agency will take action.
“I would urge the EPA and any other decision makers to please ban this product from being used in the United States and save the lives of the future farmers,” she said.
(LONDON) — At least 63 people have died and 116 have been injured after torrential rains triggered deadly flash floods and landslides in northern Tanzania, Tanzania’s prime minister has announced.
“We have received the blessing of heavy rain in the Katesh area, Hanang district, Manyara region which unfortunately has also brought a flood disaster,” said Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hasan writing on X — formerly known as Twitter. “I have directed our disaster response agencies in this area where they have already started work to help rescue and prevent more disasters from happening.”
Zuhura Yunus, spokesperson for Tanzania’s president’s office, said that at least 1,150 households and 5,600 people have been affected and at least 750 acres of farmland destroyed.
Footage broadcast on local media showed vehicles and debris being swept down roads by currents of water, civilians wading through water and cars stuck in thick mud.
Tanzania’s Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa visited the Manyara region on Monday to assess the situation and meet victims and local officials.
On Tuesday paying a temporary camp in the Manyara Region where victims of the flooding, many of whose houses were damaged in the flood disaster, were seeking shelter.
Tanzania’s President Samia Sululu Hasan, who was in Dubai attending the COP28 climate conference, cut short her trip to attend to the crisis following the disaster.
Speaking at the climate conference, she warned that implementing a global goal on adaptation framework is a “matter of urgency, not choice.
“The decision is therefore ours to adhere to science or face the consequences,” said Saluhu.
Tanzania, which has one of the smallest carbon footprints in Africa, has suffered increasing climate-related disasters with at least 15,700 people having died so far in extreme weather disasters in Africa in 2023, according to Carbon Brief.
U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania Michael Battle said he is “deeply saddened” by the mudslides that occurred in Tanzania’s Manyara region.
“We grieve with Tanzanians across the country at this tragic loss of life and livelihoods. The thoughts and prayers of the entire U.S. Mission to Tanzania are with all those impacted by this natural disaster,” said Battle.
Tanzania’s Prime Minister’s Office announced that search and rescue operations will continue and that Tanzania’s defence forces and rescue teams are searching for survivors and the bodies of those killed as damaged roads and bridges are complicating rescue efforts.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump is on trial in New York in a $250 million civil lawsuit that could alter the personal fortune and real estate empire that helped propel Trump to the White House.
Trump, his sons Eric Trump and and Donald Trump Jr., and other top Trump Organization executives are accused by New York Attorney General Letitia James of engaging in a decade-long scheme in which they used “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate Trump’s net worth in order get more favorable loan terms. The trial comes after the judge in the case ruled in a partial summary judgment that Trump had submitted “fraudulent valuations” for his assets, leaving the trial to determine additional actions and what penalty, if any, the defendants should receive.
The former president has denied all wrongdoing and his attorneys have argued that Trump’s alleged inflated valuations were a product of his business skill.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Dec 05, 9:36 AM EST
Defense focusing on value of Mar-a-Lago
Donald Trump’s lawyers plan to call two experts, Lawrence Moens and John Shubin, to testify on Trump’s valuation of his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida.
Moens is a well-known real estate broker in Palm Beach, and Shubin is an expert on deeds and land restrictions.
The value of the property has been bitterly contested by Trump’s lawyers since the start of the trial, after Judge Arthur Engoron, in his pretrial partial summary judgment determined that Trump overvalued the property by at least 2,300%. When Trump testified in the trial in November, he repeatedly lashed out at Engoron for what he called a “crazy” assessment of the property.
“He said in his statement that Mar-a-Lago is worth $18 million and it’s worth 50 times to 100 times more than that, and everybody knows it. And everybody is watching this case. He called me a fraud and he didn’t know anything about me,” Trump said on the stand.
According to evidence shown at trial, Trump agreed in a 2002 deed to “forever extinguish [his] right to develop or use the Property for any purpose other than club use.” While Trump Organization executives were aware of the limited use of the property, they allegedly valued the property as a residence in Trump’s financial statements while treating it as a social club for tax purposes, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James.
In Trump’s statements of financial condition, he valued the property between $426 million and $612 million, despite a local tax assessor appraising the market value of the property between $18 and $27 million. Engoron, in his summary judgment ruling, wrote that James had proven that Trump was liable for a false valuation of the property.
Trump has repeatedly argued that Engoron misunderstood the purpose of a tax assessment, going as far as to call Engoron’s finding “fraud.”
“Are you paying taxes on an $18 million valuation of Mar-a-Lago or $1.5 billion?” state attorney Kevin Wallace asked Trump during his direct examination.
“You know that assessments are totally different from the valuation of property,” Trump responded.
