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(LOS ANGELES) — Jury selection in the trial of Tory Lanez is set to begin on Monday as the rapper faces charges for allegedly shooting and injuring hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion on July 12, 2020 in the Hollywood Hills.

Opening statements and testimony are expected to begin on Dec. 12, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office told ABC News.

According to prosecutors, Lanez “personally inflicted great bodily injury” upon Megan Thee Stallion, whose legal name is Megan Pete, after the two got into an argument while riding in an SUV in the Hollywood Hills, resulting in an injury in her foot for which she received medical treatment.

Lanez, a popular rapper whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, was charged in Oct. 2020 with one felony count each of assault with a semiautomatic firearm (personal use of a firearm), and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle, according to charging documents obtained by ABC News. “Personal use of a firearm” is not a separate charge but a sentencing enhancement linked to the first count that increases Lanez’ possible sentence.

Lanez pleaded not guilty on both counts. If he is convicted as charged, he faces up to 22 years and 8 months in prison, according to prosecutors. ABC News has reached out to his attorney Shawn Holley for additional comment.

Megan Thee Stallion, a Grammy-winning rapper who is known for chart-topping hits like “Savage” and “WAP” with Cardi B, first spoke out about the shooting in a since-deleted July 15, 2020 Instagram post, but she did not name Lanez as her alleged shooter until months later and said that she had initially tried to protect him.

At the time, news of Lanez’s arrest sparked rumors about his involvement in the incident. Although Megan received an outpouring of support, she was also subjected to a barrage of attacks on social media from fans jumping to his defense and casting doubt about her injury.

Megan named Lanez as her alleged shooter in an emotional Instagram Live post on Aug. 21, 2022, saying she initially “tried to spare” him.

“Yes … Tory shot me. You shot me and you got your publicist and your people going to these blogs lying,” she said in the emotional video. “Stop lying. Why lie? I don’t understand.”
‘Protect Black women’: How Megan Thee Stallion’s story became part of a movement

Before he was charged, Lanez denied shooting Megan in a lyric on his album, “Daystar,” released on Sept. 25, 2020.

“I ain’t do it,” he claims on the the album’s opening song, “Money Over Fallouts,” and claims, “Megan people tryna frame me for a shootin’.”

Megan had said in the Instagram Live video that she initially didn’t report getting shot to police or that they had a gun in the car — which became a part of the defense’s line of questioning during pretrial hearings — because amid a string of police-involved shootings of unarmed Black men and women in the U.S., she had a fear and mistrust of police.

Los Angeles Police Detective Ryan Stogner testified during pretrial hearings that Megan was initially hesitant to report the incident to police because as a Black woman, she feared the police and was worried of the force they could use against Lanez, who is a Black man, according to court transcripts obtained by ABC News.

“She was afraid that there had been recent police shootings, and she described her concern for the police possibly shooting the defendant since he had just committed a shooting,” Stogner said, according to the transcripts.

Since sharing her story Megan has faced intense public vitriol and attacks on social media, with fans questioning her account, accusing her of lying and even making jokes about her injury.

“Even as a victim, I have been met with skepticism and judgment,” Megan wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times published on Oct. 13, 2020. “…There’s not much room for passionate advocacy if you are a Black woman.”

This case has sparked intense debates over society’s treatment of women and Megan’s account of the incident — and the intense public vitriol she faced after sharing her story — has spotlighted the Protect Black Women movement, which addresses the two-front battle of sexism and racism that Black women experience in their own communities and in society at large.

Most recently, hip-hop star Drake prompted backlash when he appeared to target Megan and cast doubt on her account of the shooting in a controversial lyric on his latest album, “Her Loss.”

“This b—- lie about getting shots, but she still a stallion / She don’t even get the joke but she still smiling,” Drake raps in the song, “Circo Loco,” featuring 21 Savage, which appears on his newest album, “Her Loss.”

While some fans have suggested on social media that the lyric could be referencing plastic surgery, others have accused Drake of questioning Megan’s allegation that she was shot in the feet by Lanez.

“Despite the irrefutable evidence that Megan was a victim of gun violence, the ignorant continue to support her attacker,” Megan’s attorney, Alex Spiro, told ABC News in a statement amid backlash over Drake’s lyric.

Drake has not addressed the backlash in connection to his lyric publicly and his representatives declined to comment for this story.

Megan, who has used her platform to spotlight the stories of Black women, has become one of the most visible voices in the movement.

“… it’s ridiculous that some people think the simple phrase ‘Protect Black Women’ is controversial. We deserve to be protected as human beings,” she wrote in her October 2020 op-ed.

“We are entitled to our anger about a laundry list of mistreatment and neglect that we suffer,” she also wrote.

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(WASHINGTON) — Vandals are suspected of causing a major power outage across a North Carolina county that plunged about 45,000 customers into darkness amid freezing temperatures, according to authorities.

Evidence of sabotage was found at multiple electrical substations following the massive blackout Saturday night, prompting the Moore County Sheriff’s Office to investigate the incident as a “criminal occurrence.”

The power outages began at about 7 p.m. Saturday, and thousands of Duke Energy customers remained without electricity on Sunday after enduring freezing temperatures overnight.

“As utility companies began responding to the different substations, evidence was discovered that indicated that intentional vandalism had occurred at multiple sites,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

No arrests have been announced.

Duke Energy officials said utility crews are working to restore power by 10 p.m. Sunday. Several law enforcement agencies in Moore County were providing security as crews worked to repair the damage.

A spokesperson for Duke Energy told ABC News the outages are likely to extend beyond Sunday as crews work to fix what were described as “indications of public interference and vandalism.”

The sheriff’s office has scheduled a news conference for Sunday afternoon to update the public.

Mike Cameron, Southern Pines’ assistant town manager and fire chief, told the Raleigh News and Observer that Duke Energy officials informed him that two substations were hit with gunfire.

“Everything that I’m understanding is that it’s not an accidental cause,” Cameron told the newspaper.

Cameron said several vehicle accidents were being blamed on the power outage, including a multiple car crash that injured several people at an intersection in Southern Pines.

“The car wreck was totally because the stop lights were out,” Cameron told the News and Observer.

Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst, North Carolina, also lost power and was forced to switch to its backup generator, officials said.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said in a Twitter post that he has spoken with Duke Energy and state law enforcement officials about the crisis.

“They are investigating and working to return electricity to those impacted. The state is providing support as needed,” Cooper said.

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(HOUSTON) — A 5-year-old boy is fighting for his life Sunday after being shot by an 8-year-old family friend inside a Houston home, police said.

Three people were detained for questioning following the shooting Saturday afternoon in the Trinity/Houston Gardens neighborhood in east Houston, police said.

Commander Jonathan Halliday of the Houston Police Department said at least one adult was present when the shooting occurred. Halliday said it was not immediately clear how the older boy got his hands on the gun.

Police officers went to the home around 12:30 p.m. Saturday after someone at the residence reported a shooting had just occurred there, Halliday said during a news conference.

“When they arrived, they learned that a 5-year-old had been shot one time reportedly by an 8-year-old,” Halliday said.

Before officers reached the home, the wounded child was taken by his father to Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston, Halliday said. The boy was later flown by helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition, Halliday said.

Halliday said the police department’s major assaults unit is investigating the shooting. He said no one has been arrested.

“We know that one adult was inside the house, but we’re not sure the total number of people,” Halliday said.

He said one of the children involved in the shooting was visiting residence when the incident occurred, adding, “they’re all family friends.”

He said the older boy who purportedly fired the gun suffered a laceration to his head following the shooting, but it was not clear how he was injured.

The shooting came a little over a month after an 8-year-old boy in a suburb of Houston was accidentally shot and killed by his 10-year-old brother, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities said the older boy was playing with a shotgun that went off inside their apartment, fatally striking the younger child in the torso.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, at least 299 children 11 years old or younger have been killed in shootings this year and another 648 have been injured.

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(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — Four people, including two juveniles, were found dead in a Kentucky home in an apparent murder-suicide, police said.

Louisville officers responded around 8:45 a.m. local time Saturday to a call of a shooting “with multiple victims” at the home on the 4500 block of East Pages Lane, the Louisville Police Department said.

A man, woman and two juvenile females were found dead from apparent gunshot wounds inside the home, police said.

“Upon further investigation, it appears the adult male shot the adult female and the two juvenile females and then himself,” police said.

The victims and the shooter were related, according to police.

No further information has been released at this time.

The incident is under investigation by the police department’s homicide division.

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(BOYD, Texas) — A FedEx driver confessed to abducting and killing 7-year-old Athena Strand after he delivered a package to her family’s home, Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin said at a press conference Friday night.

Police found Strand’s body southeast of Boyd, Texas. Digital evidence and interviews lead investigators to believe that Strand died within an hour of her abduction, according to Akin.

The driver, 31-year-old Taner Lynn Horner, is in jail and is being charged with capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. Horner, who is a resident of Lake Worth, is being held on a $1.5 million bond, according to Akin.

“The answers were not the answers that we would have hoped that we would have gotten. And we want to send our condolences out to the family of Athena Strand,” Akin said.

MORE: Takeoff murder suspect charged following fatal shooting of Migos rapper
Early on in their investigation, law enforcement officers knew that there was a FedEx delivery made at the same time Strand went missing, Akin said.

Horner, who was working as a contract FedEx driver, was not related to the family and did not know the family, Akin said.

Akin said law enforcement were able to get a confession from Horner, saying this has been one of the “toughest” investigations he has ever been involved in.

“Any time there’s a child that dies, it just hits you in your heart. You compare that child to your own children when they were at that age.” 

Law enforcement officials said they were able to locate and find Horner through digital evidence and by partnering with FedEx.

Officials said they are unaware if Horner has a prior criminal history. The investigation is ongoing.

In a statement, FedEx expressed their condolences for Strand’s killing.

“Words cannot describe our shock and sorrow at the reports surrounding this tragic event. First and foremost, our thoughts are with the family during this most difficult time, and we continue to cooperate fully with the investigating authorities. At this time, any further questions should be directed to law enforcement,” FedEx said in a statement to ABC News.

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(HOUSTON) — A suspect has been arrested and charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Migos rapper Takeoff, Houston police said Friday.

Patrick Xavier Clark, 33, was arrested Thursday evening in Houston and “charged with the murder of Takeoff,” Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said during a press briefing.

Takeoff, whose real name is Kirshnik Khari Ball, was shot and killed outside the 810 Billiards & Bowling in downtown Houston around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 1 following a private event, police said. He was 28.

A 23-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman also suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the shooting, police said.

Police said at the time that an argument between some of the party guests “led to multiple unknown males firing pistols at each other.”

There was a “lucrative dice game” during the event, followed by an argument outside the venue, Houston Police Sgt. Michael Burrow said during the briefing.

“I can tell you Takeoff was not involved in playing the dice game, he was not involved in the argument that happened outside, he was not armed,” Burrow said. “He was an innocent bystander.”

Investigators were able to determine that Clark was the alleged shooter of Takeoff through shooting reconstruction and ballistics evidence, Burrow said. Police have also obtained cellphone and surveillance footage that has “surfaced over time,” he said.

Police have urged the public to come forward with tips in the days and weeks since.

Around 30 people were at the scene went the shooting happened, and police are still looking to speak with those who were there, Burrow said.

“Literally every one of those people left the scene without leaving a statement,” Burrow said. “It’s important that those people come forward.”

Amid the investigation into the shooting, a man was recently charged with two counts of felon in possession of a weapon for allegedly having a gun at the time Takeoff was fatally shot, ABC Houston station KTRK reported.

Takeoff was part of the Grammy-nominated hip-hop trio Migos, which formed in 2008 in suburban Atlanta and gained mainstream recognition and rose to stardom in 2013 with their song “Versace.” His uncle Quavo, who was present when the shooting took place but unharmed, and his cousin Offset were also part of the trio.

ABC News’ Deena Zaru contributed to this report.

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

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(NEW YORK) — A federal judge on Thursday pressed attorneys for Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis to explain why the governor’s recent suspension of a state prosecutor he viewed as “woke” wasn’t an unlawful and politically motivated overreach of executive authority.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle said he would rule in the coming weeks on whether the governor was within his rights to suspend Andrew Warren, a Democrat who was reelected last year as the top state prosecutor in Tampa and surrounding Hillsborough County after running on a platform of criminal justice reform.

“This whole thing is chock-full of animus toward [reform-minded] prosecutors,” Hinkle said on the last day of a three-day trial in Tallahassee. “Florida law does not allow a governor to remove a state attorney because the governor disagrees with a state attorney’s general approach.”

But attorneys for DeSantis insisted in court that was not why the governor suspended Warren, who was first elected to his position in 2016.

“We have someone here who was not going to enforce the law, based on his own statements,” DeSantis attorney George Levesque told the judge.

According to the executive order suspending Warren in August, the state attorney demonstrated “incompetence and willful defiance of his duties” by implementing certain “policies of presumptive non-enforcement” and by co-signing a left-leaning advocacy group’s public statements about state laws criminalizing gender-affirming care and abortions.

“[We] commit to exercise our well-settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions,” said a statement signed by more than 80 local, elected prosecutors from around the country on June 24, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, leaving the question of abortion rights to the states.

After his suspension, Warren filed a federal lawsuit in August, asking a judge to have him reinstated as state attorney. Hinkle, a Clinton appointee, is deciding the case without a jury.

During trial this week, Hinkle said the outcome of the case hinges on the “real reason” for Warren’s suspension: Was it about Warren’s conduct — a lawful basis — or was it really about his speech, which would violate Warren’s First Amendment rights?

Hinkle suggested the curated text of the executive order alone may not “tell the whole story” of what truly motivated Warren’s suspension.

An attorney for Warren, David O’Neil, told Hinkle that Warren’s suspension was a “political hit job,” targeting his rights to free speech.

“Mr. Warren was suspended from his office because of what he said and what he believed,” O’Neil said.

The statements Warren signed — which were also supported by dozens of prosecutors from other parts of the country — were “purely symbolic, purely an expression of values,” O’Neil said.

According to three days of witness testimony, DeSantis’ so-called “public safety czar,” Larry Keefe, asked people he knew in the law enforcement community if there were any state prosecutors refusing to enforce the law.

“All roads were leading to Mr. Warren,” Keefe testified.

A Republican sheriff in Warren’s own county even sent Keefe a packet flagging two of Warren’s policies that he found worrisome, including one policy — issued in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic — telling prosecutors to only bring low-level charges like trespassing or public intoxication under certain circumstances.

In testimony, Keefe conceded that, of those whose party affiliations he knew, all but one of the people he spoke with early on about Warren were Republican.

Then, months later, as the Supreme Court was overturning Roe v. Wade, Warren signed the abortion-related statement from the group Fair and Just Prosecution.

In pressing DeSantis’ attorneys, Hinkle said “a possible view of the facts” is that DeSantis was “genuinely opposed” to “more lenient,” liberal-minded prosecutors, and “it would be good politics to take one down,” so he mentioned that to Keefe, who went “out looking for” them.

“He finds one,” Hinkle said. “He conducts a very one-sided inquiry … [and then] incidentally, he finds the abortion statement. Bingo.”

But at least one senior lawyer in DeSantis’ office who helped formulate Warren’s suspension testified that the abortion-related statement and the other Fair and Just Prosecution statement relating to transgender issues, would not by themselves have led him to recommend Warren’s suspension.

A key point of contention throughout the trial was whether Warren’s signature — and official title — on the Fair and Just Prosecution statements amounted to official policy.

Signing the abortion-related statement “was an announcement we were not going to prosecute cases under the law,” and it told prosecutors in Hillsborough County “what Mr. Warren wanted from them,” Warren’s former chief of staff, Gary Weisman, testified in court.

The top lawyer in the governor’s office, general counsel Ryan Newman, agreed, saying any “reasonable person” would view the statements Warren signed as “a pledge,” making Warren’s suspension not only warranted but lawful under Florida state law.

Warren himself disputed that the statements reflected any type of policy or pledge, testifying that he signed them because he “agreed with the general idea” behind them.

To emphasize that point, O’Neil noted that Warren never disseminated the statements he signed — as he would with an official policy — and that the statements never impacted “a single” case because no abortion-related case was ever referred to Warren’s office for prosecution, and the state of Florida doesn’t even have a law relating to gender-affirming health care.

When DeSantis announced Warren’s suspension in August, he accused Warren of promoting an agenda that is “basically ‘woke,'” elevating his “own personal conception of, quote, ‘social justice’ over what the law requires of you.”

During his testimony this week, Warren defended his time in office, saying the policies he implemented were about efficiency and “fairness” in the criminal justice system, and about trying “to steer low-level offenders away from the downward spiral of the system.”

Warren’s attorney told the judge that upholding Warren’s suspension would have a “chilling” effect on the free speech of other elected officials.

“What other state attorney is going to speak out on policy issues the defendant disagrees with?” he asked.

Prosecutors, however, said Warren’s actions made him unlike other elected prosecutors in Florida.

“It’s not as though every [reform-minded] attorney is somehow on the chopping block,” Newman said.

DeSantis declined to testify in his own defense, which Hinkle said left “a massive hole in the center of [the governor’s] case.”

The judge also expressed concern that no one affiliated with DeSantis contacted Warren or any of his staffers to inquire about his office’s practices and policies.

“You do understand he’s not getting paid — they’ve taken his job,” the judge told Newman while he was on the stand. “Didn’t you think you owed [Warren] any due process before you suspended him for months?… At least pick up the phone and call him?”

Nevertheless, Hinkle made clear that — even if he’s critical of how it transpired — he hasn’t decided whether the suspension was unlawful.

“I don’t know who’s going to win,” the judge said.

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(NEW YORK) — California’s ongoing drought and a poor forecast is forcing the state’s water management agency to cut back on its fresh water supply to nearly 27 million residents.

The state’s Department of Water Resources announced Thursday an initial allocation of 5% of requested supplies for 2023 for 29 local water agencies across California.

DWR Director Karla Nemeth said in a statement that the state is already preparing for a fourth dry year and more extreme drought conditions. Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s largest reservoir, remains at 55% of its average for this time of the year, according to the agency.

“This early in California’s traditional wet season, water allocations are typically low due to uncertainty in hydrologic forecasting, but the degree to which hotter and drier conditions are reducing runoff into rivers, streams and reservoirs means we have to be prepared for all possible outcomes,” Nemeth said in a statement.

DWR said it will “assess requests for additional water that may be necessary for health and safety including minimum domestic, sanitation, and fire suppression needs.”

The agency said it will reevaluate requests depending on the precipitation during the winter and spring months. California typically receives half of its rain and snow totals by the end of January, according to DWR.

Most of California has seen less than its average precipitation levels over the last 60 days, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System. Most of the state is under severe to exceptional drought warnings, the data showed.

“We are in the dawn of a new era of State Water Project management as a changing climate disrupts the timing of California’s hydrology, and hotter and drier conditions absorb more water into the atmosphere and ground. We all need to adapt and redouble our efforts to conserve this precious resource,” Nemeth said.

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(WASHINGTON) — The time for the big reveal of the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber has finally come, but what will we see when the Air Force’s newest long-range bomber is unveiled Friday after being shrouded in secrecy?

All that is known for sure is that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will be there in person as the B-21 Raider rolls out of Northrop Grumman’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.

There will be a live video broadcast of the unveiling presented by the U.S. Air Force and the plane’s manufacturer, Northrup Grumman, but it’s unclear how much of the aircraft will actually be shown as it’s made public for the first time.

The mystery surrounding the Air Force’s sixth-generation stealth fighter is in keeping with the scant details provided over the last decade during the development of the bomber — intended to replace the B-2 Spirit and the B-1 Lancet bombers.

Throughout that time, the goal has been to reveal as little as possible of what it might look like in order to avoided providing any hints of how it can remain undetectable to advanced radars.

And it has literally been cloaked in secrecy.

The first glimpse of what the new aircraft might look like came in the final seconds of a Northrup Grumman Super Bowl ad in 2015 that showed only the plane’s general wing-shaped contours because it was covered by a shroud.

Since then, Northrup Grumman has released only artist renderings of a wing-shaped aircraft in flight that looks a lot like the B-2 bomber.

Like the B-2, the new long-range aircraft is designed to deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons while flying undetectable to advanced radars and air defense systems anywhere in the world.

The B-2 does that through its unique flying-wing shape and the materials and coatings on the plane’s fuselage that reduce its radar footprint. It’s assumed the new B-21 will improve on a 30-year-old technology.

The aircraft unveiled on Friday will begin initial flight testing at Edwards AFB in California with its first flight forecast to take place in mid-2023. For now, the are six B-21 aircraft in various stages of production and the Air Force plans to to acquire at least 100 of the new bombers, with the first one entering service in the mid-2020s.

As they enter into service, they will eventually replace the B-1 and B-2 bomber fleets, joining the venerable B-52 as the U.S. Air Force’s long-range strategic bomber.

Overall, it is estimated that the fleet of a hundred B-21s will cost $203 billion to develop and operate over the next 30 years, according to Bloomberg.

Unless they are temporarily deployed overseas, the B-2 fleet is housed at Whiteman AFB in Missouri. The Air Force plans for the new B-21 to operate from Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota, although Dyess AFB in Texas could be an alternate location.

In 2016, the Air Force announced that the new bomber would be known as the Raider to honor the famous Doolittle Raiders who flew the surprise bombing run on Tokyo on April 18, 1942.

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(LA FAYETTE, Ala.) — James Michael Grimes is speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with ABC News after going overboard on a Carnival cruise ship after being missing for almost 20 hours.

The 28-year-old man said he was determined to make it out of the Gulf of Mexico alive, calling it the experience of a lifetime.

Grimes said he treaded water for nearly 20 hours after falling overboard on Thanksgiving Eve — battling jelly fish, rip currents and shark-infested waters before being airlifted by the U.S. Coast Guard on Nov. 24. shortly after 8 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard told ABC News.

“Good Morning America” will have an exclusive interview with James Michael Grimes that will air Friday at 7 a.m. ET.

Grimes had only been aboard the Carnival Valor for a day before his sister reported him missing. The two were last seen together at a restaurant where Grimes had won an air guitar contest before going to the bathroom.

That is the last thing he remembers. Grimes said he believes the fall overboard knocked him unconscious.

“The next thing I know… I regained consciousness. I was in the water with no boat in sight,” he said.

Alone in solid darkness, and the light from the stars and the moon, Grimes decided in that moment he would make it out of the water.

“I felt like I was given a chance right then… you’re alive for a reason… that [fall] could’ve killed me, but I felt like from that moment on, I was trying to stay positive. And, you know when you’re here, you’re still alive for a reason. So, all you got to do now is swim and survive. I was hoping… they will start looking for me… they will find me eventually,” Grimes said.

Grimes was aboard the five-day cruise with 18 of his family members for Thanksgiving. When he didn’t return to his cabin that night, his sister reported him missing.

The ship was on its way to Cozumel, a Mexican island in the Caribbean, and was released by the Coast Guard to continue to its destination after the rescue was made.

“The Jayhawk aircrew hoisted the man onto the helicopter and transferred him to awaiting emergency medical services at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport,” a statement from the Coast Guard read.

“We are beyond grateful that this case ended with a positive outcome,” said Lt. Seth Gross, a Coast Guard Sector New Orleans search-and-rescue mission coordinator.

“We greatly appreciate the efforts of all, most especially the U.S. Coast Guard and the mariner who spotted the guest in the water,” the Coast Guard said in a statement Thursday to ABC News. “Cruise ships have safety barriers in all public areas that are regulated by U.S. Coast Guard standards that prevent a guest from falling off. Guests should never ever climb up on the rails. The only way to go overboard is to purposefully climb up and over the safety barriers.”

Carnival Valor had said in a statement to ABC News that it conducted a search-and-rescue operation after Grimes went missing.

“Carnival Valor retraced its route to support the search and rescue, but the ship has now been released by the U.S. Coast Guard, and will continue on its way to Cozumel. Carnival’s Care Team is providing support to the family members of the missing guest who were sailing with him and remain on board,” the statement at the time said.

Against all odds, Grimes said he kept a positive attitude and “just kept swimming.”

In addition to his attitude, he said it was his will to see his family again that kept him afloat.

“I wanted to see my family and I was dead set on making it out of there. I was never accepting that this is it, this is going to be the end of my life. I’m 28 years old. I’m too young. This is not going to be it,” Grimes said.

“I always thought there’s a greater purpose for my life. Now, I know for sure I’m meant to do something on this Earth. And, you know, I don’t know. It was just the Lord was out there helping me, giving me strength and helping me stay afloat,” he added.

ABC News’ Victoria J. Arancio contributed to this report.

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