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(GROSSE POINT, Mich.) — The parents of a teenage passenger killed in a high-speed car crash in Michigan are pushing for authorities to charge the mother of the driver.

In November 2023, Flynn MacKrell was riding in a car with his then-16-year-old friend who was driving over 100 mph in a 25 mph residential zone, according to police. The 16-year-old lost control and crashed into a tree, killing the 18-year-old MacKrell, according to police.

MacKrell died two months into his freshman year at the University of Dayton, according to his obituary.

The teen driver was charged with second-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty. He is awaiting trial. A lawyer for the family declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

But MacKrell’s family said they want the driver’s mother held responsible, too, saying the mother knew her son had a habit of driving excessively fast.

“He had no regard for his passenger safety, no regard for pedestrian safety. And the mother knew it,” MacKrell’s dad, Thad MacKrell, told ABC News.

The 16-year-old’s phone had Life360 — an app that shows how fast a car is going and where it is, according to an investigation report obtained by ABC News.

The driver’s mom repeatedly texted him in the weeks and months before the crash to stop speeding, at one point writing, “I have screen shots of you … driving 123 mph,” according to the report.

“Any reasonable person would have done something very, very simple — they would have taken the keys away. And she didn’t do it. And our son is dead,” Thad MacKrell said.

“Every day, we wake up in shock and disbelief that our beloved Flynn is gone,” MacKrell’s mom, Anne Vanker, said. “And it was 100% preventable.”

The MacKrell family is pointing to the Oxford, Michigan, school shooter case, in which the teenage gunman’s parents were held criminally responsible for giving their son the gun he used in the 2021 shooting, which killed four people. This April, the gunman’s parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years after each was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials.

ABC News legal contributor Brian Buckmire said, “In the Crumbley case, we’re talking about a gun that is a, per se, dangerous weapon. One of its intentions is to harm or kill another. A vehicle or car is not necessarily a, per se, dangerous weapon.”

“It becomes a dangerous weapon when used reckless or negligently,” he continued. “So the way we view those two objects may have a different opinion as to how this case is pursued.”

The prosecutor’s office said it is reviewing the MacKrell case. Investigators have submitted a “warrant request” for a relative of the teen driver, prosecutors told ABC News.

The driver’s case is “adult designated,” according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office. If convicted, “an adult designation allows the judge to have the option of sentencing the defendant as a juvenile, or as an adult, or to fashion a blended juvenile sentence with the option of imposing an adult sentence if the juvenile is not rehabilitated,” the prosecutor’s office said.

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(GRAND CANYON VILLAGE, Ariz.) — An 80-year-old man died in Grand Canyon National Park over the weekend after his boat flipped in the Colorado River, marking the 13th person to die in the park this year.

The man was on a commercial rapids trip Sunday and fell into the water at Fossil Rapid, according to the National Park Service.

He fell in at around 3:40 p.m., according to officials, with an emergency being reported to the National Park Service via satellite phone.

The group said CPR was already in progress as park rangers responded to the emergency.

However, efforts by the group and park rangers, who were flown in by helicopter, were not able to resuscitate him.

The National Park Service and Coconino County medical examiner are investigating the incident. The victim was not identified by officials.

Several people have died in Grand Canyon National Park just in August alone. A 33-year-old woman, Chenoa Nickerson, was washed away in flash flooding was found on Sunday, the same day as the 80-year-old man died in the boating accident.

Three people died in the park on the last day of July and into the first week of August, including a 20-year-old man who fell off a scenic overlook on July 31, a BASE jumper who fell to his death on Aug. 1 and a 20-year-old female hiker who was found dead 150 feet below the rim after she entered on Aug. 3.

A park official told The Associated Press this week that about 10 to 15 people die in Grand Canyon National Park every year, with just 11 dying last year.

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(WASHINGTON) — The FBI has been able to gain extensive analysis on the mindset of the suspected shooter who carried out the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, officials said Wednesday, but it has so far been unable to establish a clear motive.

In a media call Wednesday afternoon, the FBI said it has conducted nearly 1,000 interviews, served numerous search warrants, issued dozens of subpoenas and analyzed hundreds of hours of video footage as part of its investigation into the shooting.

As part of their investigation, officials said, they’ve found that Thomas Matthew Crooks engaged in a “sustained, detailed effort” to plan an attack on some kind of major event, but when the Trump rally was announced, he became “hyperfocused” on it as a “target of opportunity.”

In addition to a previously revealed online search conducted by Crooks on July 6 that stated, “How far was [Lee Harvey] Oswald from [John F.] Kennedy,” officials said he also searched “Where will Trump speak from at Butler Farm Show?” as well as “Butler Farm Show podium” and “Butler Farm Show photos.”

In the 30 days prior to the attack, Crooks reportedly conducted “more than 60 searches related to former President Trump and President Biden,” the FBI said.

Through a review of Crooks’ online activity dating back to 2019, investigators said they’ve also found he had conducted multiple searches related to explosive devices including, “How to make a bomb from fertilizer” and “How remote detonators work.”

The FBI released a picture in tandem with its briefing Wednesday showing an improvised explosive device it has said was found inside Crooks’ vehicle. The FBI said that after an analysis of the device, it determined the components were all purchased legally and “readily available online.”

Officials also provided an update to the timeline of the actions leading up to the moments of the shooting. According to video obtained from a local business, Crooks first climbed onto the roof of the AGR complex at 6:05 p.m. and traversed a series of rooftops before allegedly firing eight rounds at 6:11 p.m., officials said, meaning he was on the rooftop for a total of six minutes before he allegedly began firing and then was killed by a Secret Service countersniper.

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(LAS VEGAS) — A former Nevada politician was found guilty Wednesday of killing journalist Jeff German in September 2022.

As the jury’s foreperson read out the verdict, Telles stared downward and shook his head.

Prosecutors said former Clark County public administrator Robert Telles, 47, stabbed the Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter to death after German exposed corruption in his office, destroying both his political career and his marriage. German’s story detailed an allegedly hostile work environment in Telles’ office — including bullying, retaliation and an “inappropriate relationship” between Telles and a staffer — all of which Telles denied.

Telles was arrested days after German was found dead outside his Las Vegas home. Police said DNA evidence found in Telles’ home tied him to the crime scene, and a straw hat and sneakers — which the suspect was seen wearing in surveillance footage — were found cut up in his home. His DNA was also found on German’s hands and fingernails, police said.

He pleaded not guilty to murder and could face life in prison.

In her opening statement, Chief Deputy District Attorney Pamela Weckerly walked through the timeline of the murder and how Telles came to be pinpointed as the suspect.

“In the end, this case isn’t about politics,” Weckerly said. “It’s not about alleged inappropriate relationships. It’s not about who’s a good boss or who’s a good supervisor or favoritism at work — it’s just about murder.”

Telles took the stand in his own trial on Aug. 21, “unequivocally” maintaining his innocence and insisting he was “framed” in a sweeping conspiracy by a real estate company that he said he was investigating for alleged bribery.

“Somebody framed me for this, and I believe that it is Compass Realty, and I believe it’s for the work that I’ve done against them,” Telles told the court.

In a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in January, Compass Realty owner Takumba Britt denied Telles’ conspiracy claims, calling him a “desperate man who has been charged with violently murdering a beloved local journalist” who would “do and say anything to escape answering for this charge.”

When police took Telles into custody, he had what they said were non-life-threatening, self-inflicted stab wounds. His defense attorney, Robert Draskovich, said the suicide attempt was not out of guilt, but because Telles’ “life was coming apart.”

Draskovich echoed Telles’ claims of a conspiracy against him, saying in his opening statement the “old guard” in the public administrator’s office had been upset by Telles’ efforts to root out internal corruption. He also claimed that, because of German’s track record of investigating corrupt figures, there were other people who may have wanted him dead.

“There were others that had far more motive to make it look like [Telles] was the killer, and to conduct this killing because Jeff German was a good reporter — he would ultimately get to what the truth was,” Draskovich said.

German was the only journalist killed in the United States in 2022, with a total of at least 67 journalists killed worldwide that year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo previously described the case against Telles as “unusual,” and said that “the killing of a journalist is particularly troublesome.”

“It is troublesome because it is a journalist. And we expect journalism to be open and transparent and the watchdog for government,” Lombardo said. “And when people take it upon themselves to create harm associated with that profession, I think it’s very important we put all eyes on and address the case appropriately such as we did in this case.”

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(SALIDA, Colo.) — A worker on an office hiking retreat to a national forest in Colorado had to be rescued after 14 of his colleagues allegedly left him stranded on a 14,230-foot mountain, authorities said.

“In what might cause some awkward encounters at the office in the coming days and weeks, one member of their party was left to complete his final summit push alone,” Chaffee County, Colorado, Search and Rescue said in a statement.

The team-building expedition gone wrong unfolded Friday on Mt. Shavano in central Colorado’s San Isabel National Forest, according to search-and-rescue officials.

“Initial reports to our communications center indicated a group of 15 hikers on an office retreat had left the Blanks Cabin Trailhead at sunrise that morning, with a group completing summit attempts and a separate group ascending to the saddle [area of the mountain] and returning from there,” rescuers said in the statement.

While 14 employees made it down the mountain safely, rescue officials said one was left to complete the summit push alone.

The lone employee made it to the summit at 11:30 a.m., but when he tried to descend, “he became disoriented,” according to rescue officials.

Making matters worse, his colleagues descending the mountain ahead of him inexplicably collected belongings left in a boulder field to mark the path down, officials said.

“In his initial attempts to descend, he found himself in the steep boulder and scree field on the northeast slopes toward Shavano Lake,” according to officials.

The man, whose name and company were not released, used his cellphone to pin-drop his location to his coworkers, who informed him that he was on the wrong route and instructed him to hike back up to the summit to get to the correct trail down, officials said.

Just before 4 p.m. local time on Friday, he sent another location pin-drop to his colleagues that he was near the correct trail.

“Shortly after that message, a strong storm passed through the area with freezing rain and high winds, and he again became disoriented, losing his cell phone signal as well,” rescue officials said.

When his colleagues didn’t hear from him, they reported him missing to Chaffee County Search and Rescue at 9 p.m., some eight-and-a-half hours after he started his descent, officials said.

A search was immediately launched, but rescue teams on the ground encountered freezing rain and high winds that hampered their hike to the Mt. Shavano summit, officials said. The foul weather also made it difficult to operate a search-and-rescue drone in the area, authorities said.

While an aerial search continued, a rescue helicopter crew flew several search patterns over the area where the lost hiker pin-dropped his last location but found no sign of the man, who was dressed in all black clothing, leaving him to spend the night stranded on the mountain, officials said.

Rescue teams continued to search for the man into Saturday morning and summoned other teams from across the region to help.

The lost hiker regained enough cellphone service Saturday morning to call 911 and report his location, enabling rescuers to find him in a gully near a drainage creek, extract him and take him to a hospital, where he was in stable condition, officials said.

“He reported being very disoriented on his descent and falling at least 20 times on the steep slopes,” rescue officials said in the statement, adding that the hiker was unable to get up after his last fall.

“This hiker was phenomenally lucky to have regained cell service when he did, and to still have enough consciousness and wherewithal to call 911,” said rescue officials.

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(NEW YORK) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday revived Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, finding several major issues “impugn the reliability” of the original outcome.

The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals faulted the trial judge for dismissing the case before the jury had reached a verdict. The jury was allowed to continue deliberating before ultimately finding the newspaper not liable in February 2022.

“Unfortunately, several major issues at trial — specifically, the erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate jury instruction, a legally erroneous response to a mid-deliberation jury question, and jurors learning during deliberations of the district court’s Rule 50 dismissal ruling — impugn the reliability of that verdict,” the opinion said.

Palin sued the Times and its former opinion editor, James Bennet, over an editorial published on June 14, 2017. The piece, entitled “America’s Lethal Politics,” linked the 2011 shooting of former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to a digital graphic of a crosshairs over Democratic congressional districts published in March 2010 by Palin’s political action committee. A relationship between the crosshairs map and the shooting was never established. Rather, at the time of the editorial, the attack was widely viewed as a result of the shooter’s mental illness.

Palin’s original defamation lawsuit was dismissed but, in 2019, the Second Circuit vacated the dismissal. The case went to trial in 2022. Judge Jed Rakoff granted the Times’ motion for a directed verdict days before the jury found the newspaper was not liable for defaming Palin.

In its opinion on Wednesday, the appeals court agreed with Palin that Rakoff “erroneously disregarded or discredited her evidence of actual malice and improperly substituted its own judgment for that of the jury.”

The New York Times told ABC News in a statement Wednesday: “This decision is disappointing. We’re confident we will prevail in a retrial.”

Rakoff said at the time that he would set aside the verdict and dismiss the lawsuit because Palin had not met the high standard of showing the Times had acted with “actual malice” when it published an editorial that erroneously linked Palin’s political action committee to a mass shooting.

Palin sued the Times in 2017, roughly nine years after she was tapped to be Sen. John McCain’s GOP vice presidential nominee, claiming the newspaper deliberately ruined her burgeoning career as a political commentator and consultant by publishing an erroneous editorial she said defamed her.

The editorial that prompted the lawsuit was published on the same day a gunman opened fire on GOP politicians practicing for a congressional charity baseball game in a Washington, D.C., suburb, injuring six, including Republican Rep. Steve Scalise.

The Times’ editorial board wrote that prior to the 2011 Arizona mass shooting that killed six people and left Giffords with a traumatic brain injury, Palin’s political action committee had fueled a violent atmosphere by circulating a map that put the electoral districts of Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized crosshairs.

Two days later, the Times published a correction saying the editorial had “incorrectly described” the map and “incorrectly stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting.”

During the trial, Palin, in her testimony, accused the Times of deliberately fabricating information to sully her reputation.

Bennet testified that while he was responsible for the erroneous information in the editorial, it was an honest mistake and that he meant no harm.

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