National

(MOSCOW, Idaho) — It has been four weeks since four University of Idaho students were killed at their off-campus home in Moscow. The Vandal family has since come together to heal and support one another over the past month.

Authorities have still not made any arrests or found a murder weapon in the deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, leaving some residents and students on edge. Despite the tragedy in the tight-knit community, students took a moment to celebrate over the weekend as the school held its winter commencement on Saturday.

Goncalves, who was 20 years old, was supposed to be one of those graduates.

“It’s been a tough few weeks for our community. And I want to acknowledge an enormous loss in our Vandal family,” said University of Idaho President C. Scott Green, who spoke Saturday before the crowd of graduates and parents who attended.

One University of Idaho alumna, Kerry Uhlorn, said she wanted to ensure students felt safe on campus following the tragic events. Uhlorn, a 2007 graduate and member of the Delta Gamma sorority, took to social media and created a page called “DO GOOD – UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO,” a saying and nod to her affiliation with Delta Gamma.

Together, Uhlorn and the group raised more than $20,000 and purchased 2,187 Birdies, a personal safety device, for the Vandal community, she told ABC News.

“I’ve had messages from people I’ve never met, people that […] weren’t even Vandals that just are so touched by this. It’s kind of like a bright light in this really dark situation,” Uhlorn said.

Even before the events last month, Uhlorn described the community as close and tight-knit — with these events bringing everyone closer together.

“I think this horrible thing has just made everybody realize how much more we are as a group and how much we can accomplish when we work together,” she said.

On campus, physical reminders of the losses are visible, as students start finals on Monday.

Greek Row is honoring the four students with flags and banners on their chapter houses throughout campus.

One chapter, Pi Beta Phi, which Mogen and Kernodle belonged to, set up a memorial angel tree on their porch. The women posted to their social media page inviting all members of the community to place an ornament to honor their members this holiday season.

Sigma Chi, the fraternity Chapin belonged to, has its flag at half-staff.

And in the festively decorated town of Moscow, business have adorned their windows with the names of those who were killed, and the tree at the center of town is decorated with notes of remembrance and roses to honor their fellow Vandals.

Despite the pain and darkness of the events, the community has given a new meaning to the phrase “Vandal Strong.”

“This whole thing just reminded me how proud I am to be a Vandal,” Uhlorn added.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday charged Sam Bankman-Fried, the embattled former CEO of cryptocurrency giant FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, with defrauding investors.

“FTX’s collapse highlights the very real risks that unregistered crypto asset trading platforms can pose for investors and customers alike,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a statement.

Bankman-Fried had been arrested Monday in the Bahamas after federal prosecutors in New York filed criminal charges contained in a sealed indictment, according to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.

Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said on Monday that specific charges were expected to be unsealed Tuesday.

In a statement, Williams said: “Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the U.S. government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.”

A source familiar with the charges told ABC News that Bankman-Fried is facing a multi-count fraud indictment that comes one month after FTX filed a $32 billion bankruptcy.

The arrest “followed receipt of formal notification from the United States that it has filed criminal charges against SBF and is likely to request his extradition,” the Bahamas Attorney General’s Office said.

Bankman-Fried is due to appear in a courtroom in Nassau, Bahamas, Tuesday morning before his eventual transfer to New York for prosecution. The exact timing of his extradition was not clear Monday night. He was also due to appear before Congress on Tuesday.

Since the collapse of FTX, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have been looking at Bankman-Fried, sources have told ABC News.

The Southern District declined to comment on the arrest.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it “has authorized separate charges relating to his violations of securities laws, to be filed publicly tomorrow in SDNY.”

In response to the arrest announcement, Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said, “The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law.”

“While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, the Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere,” he added.

FTX, once a crypto darling, filed for bankruptcy protection in November after a rival cryptocurrency exchange announced it was backing out of a plan to acquire it.

Bankman-Fried had been scheduled to appear before Congress Tuesday to testify before the House Financial Services Committee in a hearing titled “Investigating the Collapse of FTX, Part 1.” Rep. Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the committee, said in a statement Monday night that she was “surprised” to hear of the arrest.

“While I am disappointed that we will not be able to hear from Mr. Bankman-Fried tomorrow, we remain committed to getting to the bottom of what happened, and the committee looks forward to beginning our investigation by hearing from Mr. John Ray III tomorrow,” she added.

John Ray, FTX’s new CEO guiding the company through bankruptcy proceedings, is still expected to testify.

Bankman-Fried, in a series of tweets, had said he’s “willing to testify” after initially resisting the committee’s request.

“I still do not have access to much of my data — professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d like,” Bankman-Fried wrote. “But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th.”

Bankman-Fried, in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, denied that he knew “that there was any improper use of customer funds.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday charged Sam Bankman-Fried, the embattled former CEO of cryptocurrency giant FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, with defrauding investors.

“FTX’s collapse highlights the very real risks that unregistered crypto asset trading platforms can pose for investors and customers alike,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a statement.

Bankman-Fried had been arrested Monday in the Bahamas after federal prosecutors in New York filed criminal charges contained in a sealed indictment, according to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.

Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said on Monday that specific charges were expected to be unsealed Tuesday.

In a statement, Williams said: “Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the U.S. government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.”

A source familiar with the charges told ABC News that Bankman-Fried is facing a multi-count fraud indictment that comes one month after FTX filed a $32 billion bankruptcy.

The arrest “followed receipt of formal notification from the United States that it has filed criminal charges against SBF and is likely to request his extradition,” the Bahamas Attorney General’s Office said.

Bankman-Fried is due to appear in a courtroom in Nassau, Bahamas, Tuesday morning before his eventual transfer to New York for prosecution. The exact timing of his extradition was not clear Monday night. He was also due to appear before Congress on Tuesday.

Since the collapse of FTX, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have been looking at Bankman-Fried, sources have told ABC News.

The Southern District declined to comment on the arrest.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it “has authorized separate charges relating to his violations of securities laws, to be filed publicly tomorrow in SDNY.”

In response to the arrest announcement, Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said, “The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law.”

“While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, the Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere,” he added.

FTX, once a crypto darling, filed for bankruptcy protection in November after a rival cryptocurrency exchange announced it was backing out of a plan to acquire it.

Bankman-Fried had been scheduled to appear before Congress Tuesday to testify before the House Financial Services Committee in a hearing titled “Investigating the Collapse of FTX, Part 1.” Rep. Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the committee, said in a statement Monday night that she was “surprised” to hear of the arrest.

“While I am disappointed that we will not be able to hear from Mr. Bankman-Fried tomorrow, we remain committed to getting to the bottom of what happened, and the committee looks forward to beginning our investigation by hearing from Mr. John Ray III tomorrow,” she added.

John Ray, FTX’s new CEO guiding the company through bankruptcy proceedings, is still expected to testify.

Bankman-Fried, in a series of tweets, had said he’s “willing to testify” after initially resisting the committee’s request.

“I still do not have access to much of my data — professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d like,” Bankman-Fried wrote. “But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th.”

Bankman-Fried, in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, denied that he knew “that there was any improper use of customer funds.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Special counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed the secretary of state’s offices in Georgia and New Mexico for communications with or involving former President Donald Trump, his 2020 campaign aides, and a list of Trump allies involved in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

As ABC News has previously reported, Smith has also sent subpoenas to the secretary of state’s offices in Michigan and Arizona and to local election officials in Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin — battleground states targeted by Trump and his allies in their efforts to contest the election.

The subpoena sent to New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, which was obtained by ABC News, is dated Nov. 22 and is also signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Burke.

Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, was the recipient of Trump’s now-famous phone call in January 2021, in which has asked Raffensperger to “find” the exact number of votes he needed to win the state. Trump has repeatedly defended the call, calling it “perfect.”

Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor and former head of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, was tapped last month by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the DOJ’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election and Trump’s handling of classified materials after leaving office.

The appointment of the special counsel was triggered by Trump’s announcement last month that he is running for president for a third time, which created a conflict of interest, according to the DOJ special counsel guidelines.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(UVALDE, Texas) — When a gunman attacked an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, only 20% of the deputies in the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office had received training on how to handle an active-shooter situation, according to the findings of an after-action review announced Monday.

The lead investigator brought in by Uvalde’s county commissioners also reported the elected county sheriff, Ruben Nolasco, had not undergone active-shooter training in the nearly two years he’s held the post as the county’s top lawman. There were 16 sheriff’s officers among the nearly 400 law enforcement officers on scene during the rampage in May.

Former judge and police procedure consultant Richard Carter, retained in the wake of the school shooting, said he “conducted a forensic review of Uvalde sheriff’s office…I did not conduct an investigation of actions or inactions.”

Carter said one of his key recommendations is that all personnel in the sheriff’s department be trained on how to handle active-shooter incidents — something that was only added to the department’s policy manual four months after 19 students and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School.

Officials with the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to questions from ABC News, including how many deputies are currently employed by the agency and how many present on May 24 had completed active-shooter training.

Nolasco and his actions that day are being investigated by the Texas Department of Public Safety, and senior officials at DPS have reported to investigators that he acted like an incident commander outside the school, as police waited more than an hour for the order to attack the shooter. Nolasco has denied he was in command and has made only limited comments in the months since the shooting. Carter said Texas law does not require sheriff’s departments to have active-shooter training.

“I would anticipate that in the next session of legislature — I would be disappointed and shocked — if there was not legislation that made it a requirement, a mandatory course that all Texas police officers be required to take an active shooter response course,” said Carter.

County officials declined to release a copy of Carter’s report. Carter announced the results of his review at a meeting of the county commissioners, which was even more emotional because of the presence of Commissioner Mariano Pargas, the man who was in charge of the Uvalde City Police Department during the May massacre and has since retired from the force before he could be fired. It was Pargas’ first public appearance since he retired last month.

Jesse Rizo, uncle of Jacklyn Cazares who was killed at Robb, told commissioners the after action review still leaves the families of victims with unanswered questions.

“It is beyond comprehension,” Rizo said. “It solely focuses on policy and procedure. The families come up here to want answers. What they want to know is the detailed information.”

Rizo spoke directly to Pargas, saying, “It doesn’t take a manual to tell you what to do. You failed them. It’s time for you to resign.”

In an emotional scene outside the courthouse, families of victims confronted Pargas urging him to “step down.” Pargas, who was escorted by multiple sheriff’s deputies to his car, did not respond to comment.

Brett Cross, guardian of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia who was killed in the shooting, told ABC News, “they want to hide behind the badge. It is sickening.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Air Force last week successfully tested a hypersonic AGM-183A missile off the coast of southern California — striking a target after reaching more than five times the speed of sound — in a sign that U.S. weapons are catching up to similar Chinese and Russian capabilities.

The missile was launched from a B-52H bomber on Friday. It’s the first test of a missile prototype that the Air Force hopes will become its first hypersonic missile.

Unlike two previous airborne tests of the missile’s booster system that reached hypersonic speeds, Friday’s test, which was announced by the Air Force on Monday, was of a full prototype with an attached warhead that struck a target after reaching hypersonic speeds.

Hypersonic weapons are designed to fly at lower altitudes than ballistic missiles while still striking at long-range targets.

The U.S. has been behind Russia and China in developing such weapons, as both countries’ militaries have already fielded hypersonic systems.

The missile the Air Force is developing is known as both the AGM-183A and the ARRW, which stands for air-launched rapid response weapon, and is intended to be fired from the air.

The test of a full prototype operational missile, or what the Air Force calls an “all-up-round” test, was similar to the two previous booster tests in that the prototype was released from a B-52 bomber flying off the coast of southern California.

“The ARRW team successfully designed and tested an air-launched hypersonic missile in five years,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei, the Armament Directorate Program’s executive officer, said in a statement. “I am immensely proud of the tenacity and dedication this team has shown to provide a vital capability to our warfighter.”

The 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base in California executed the ARRW test flight.

In addition to the air-launched hypersonic missile that the Air Force is working on, the military is also developing land-launched hypersonic weapons.

While seen as a long-distance targeting option, Russia has used some of its air-launched hypersonic missiles to strike inside Ukraine, a relatively short distance compared to its capability.

These attacks have been seen as Russia trying to demonstrate its advanced military technologies — or potentially out of need as its stock of precision-guided missiles has decreased significantly since its invasion began in February.

Though China and Russia have developed hypersonic missile systems like the ones the U.S. is working on, the term hypersonic has also been used to describe other weapons systems that operate differently.

That was the case in 2021 when it was disclosed that China had tested a system known as a fractional orbital bombardment system that could potentially carry a conventional or nuclear warhead anywhere in the world at hypersonic speeds.

In that test, China launched a rocket that carried a maneuverable glide vehicle that orbited the earth before reentering the atmosphere and traveling at a hypersonic speed toward a target.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(RICHMOND, Va.) — The removal of Richmond, Virginia’s last standing city-owned Confederate statue was completed Monday but the fight over where it will be relocated continues.

Richmond’s deputy chief administrative officer, Robert Steidel, said the statue of Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill was removed Monday morning.

It will be moved into storage until the administrative process is finished for it to be donated, as planned, to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, Steidel said.

Two years ago, amid protests after the murder of George Floyd, the city of Richmond, which was the Confederate capital for most of the Civil War, began removing all of its Confederate monuments.

Since then, more than a dozen such memorials across the city have been taken down. But as ABC affiliate WRIC-TV reported, the removal of Hill’s statue was complicated because the site also includes Hill’s remains and four indirect descendants filed in court to have a say in the process.

According to WRIC, they contended that because the remains of the general, who was killed by Union troops near the end of the Civil War, were buried under the monument in 1891, the statue should be considered a cemetery and grave.

While Hill’s relatives and the city came to an agreement to move his remains to Fairview Cemetery in Culpeper, the family has argued they should also decide where to relocate the statue.

In October, a Richmond Circuit Court Judge ruled against the descendants, WRIC reported, giving the city control over where the statue will end up.

Hill’s distant family has appealed, according to WRIC.

While the city intends to send the memorial to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, Hill’s relatives want to have the memorial moved to the Cedar Mountain battlefield by the cemetery where Hill’s remains will be taken.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Sam Bankman-Fried, the embattled former CEO of cryptocurrency giant FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, has been arrested in the Bahamas on criminal charges, the Bahamas Attorney General’s Office announced Monday.

The arrest “followed receipt of formal notification from the United States that it has filed criminal charges against SBF and is likely to request his extradition,” the office said.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the U.S. government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.”

A source familiar said the case could be described as a multi-count fraud indictment, although specific charges will not be unsealed until Tuesday.

Since the collapse of FTX, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have been looking at Bankman-Fried, sources have told ABC News.

The Southern District declined to comment on the arrest.

In response to the arrest announcement, Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said, “The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law.”

“While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, the Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere,” he added.

FTX, once a $32 billion cryptocurrency darling, filed for bankruptcy protection in November after a rival cryptocurrency exchange announced it was backing out of a plan to acquire it.

Bankman-Fried was expected to appear before Congress Tuesday to testify before the House Financial Services Committee in a hearing titled “Investigating the Collapse of FTX, Part 1.” John Ray, FTX’s new CEO guiding the company through bankruptcy proceedings, will also testify.

Bankman-Fried, in a series of tweets, had said he’s “willing to testify” after initially resisting the committee’s request.

“I still do not have access to much of my data — professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d like,” Bankman-Fried wrote. “But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th.”

Bankman-Fried, in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, denied that he knew “that there was any improper use of customer funds.”

ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Alexandra Hutzler, Kirit Radia and Mark Guarino contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — At least 137 flights were canceled across the country on Monday as winter storms wreaked havoc on roadways.

Up to 6 inches of snow hit near Hartford, Connecticut, and Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Up to 9 inches of snow slammed western Massachusetts and upstate New York.

In the west, a weekend storm dropped up to 5 feet of snow in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range.

That West Coast storm is now moving east and is forecast to bring blizzard conditions from Montana to Colorado.

The Heartland will first get hit with freezing rain and strong winds Monday night from Nebraska to South Dakota. That’ll transition to snow early Tuesday.

Snowfall totals in the Northern Plains could reach 1 to 2 feet this week.

The region should also brace for 55 mph winds and extreme cold. In parts of western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming, brutal wind chills as low as 20 degrees below zero could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, Texas to Nebraska should prepare for damaging winds, tornadoes and hail beginning Monday night.

On Tuesday, storms will hit the south from Texas to Oklahoma to Mississippi.

On Wednesday, the storm will be centered over the Gulf states, from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. By Thursday, Georgia and the Florida Peninsula could see strong storms.

Also on Thursday, the storm will push into the Northeast, bringing snow to Pennsylvania, upstate New York and New England. More than six inches of snow is possible Thursday and Friday.

ABC News’ Kenton Gewecke and Sam Sweeney contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(MOSCOW, Idaho) — As police investigate the mysterious murders of four University of Idaho students, an “army of analysts” are combing through the videos submitted to the FBI tip website, according to Moscow Police Capt. Roger Lanier.

“Those videos are from all over town,” Lanier said in a video statement Monday.

“As you can imagine, there’s hours and hours and hours of video, so it does take a lot of time,” he said.

It’s been nearly one month since roommates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle, as well as Kernodle’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin, were killed inside the girls’ off-campus house in the early hours of Nov. 13.

Two surviving roommates — who police said are not suspects — were home at the time and likely slept through the attacks, according to authorities. They were on the ground floor while the four students killed were on the second and third floors.

No suspects have been identified.

Lanier said police “do have a lot of information” that they’re choosing not to release to the public.

“We’re not releasing specific details because we do not want to compromise this investigation,” he said. “We owe that to the families and we owe that to the victims. We want more than just an arrest — we want a conviction.”

Police did say they’re looking to speak with the occupant or occupants of a white 2011-2013 Hyundai Elantra that was in the “immediate area” of the house on the morning of the murders.

“We’re looking for that car because we believe, through our investigation, that that car was in the area during the time of the murders,” Lanier said Monday. “The occupants or occupants may have seen something — they may not know they have seen something. So we specifically want to talk to them.”

Police urge anyone with information to upload digital media to fbi.gov/moscowidaho or contact the tip line at tipline@ci.moscow.id.us or 208-883-7180.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.