(JOLIET, Ill.) — Police in Joliet, Illinois, arrested Kyleigh Cleveland-Singleton, 21, who they identified as the girlfriend of shooting suspect Romeo Nance, for obstructing justice.
Police said she made statements to detectives on Jan. 22 to “prevent the apprehension of the suspect and obstruct this investigation.”
Nance, 23, was identified by police earlier this week as the suspect in shootings at several locations in Joliet. Eight people were killed and nine shot over two days in what authorities have called a “reign of terror.”
Nance died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound outside of a gas station in Natalia, Texas, after a police standoff, officials said.
Cleveland-Singleton, of Joliet, was located and questioned by police in the evening on Jan. 22, according to a news release.
“Following questioning of Cleveland-Singleton, Detectives believed that she made statements in order to prevent the apprehension of the suspect and obstruct this investigation,” the statement said.
The Will County State’s Attorney Office approved one count of obstructing justice, police said.
She was arrested, processed and transported to the Will County Adult Detention Facility, law enforcement said.
People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on Jan. 24, 2024. (JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — North Korea launched a test flight for a new type of missile, state media outlets said Thursday.
The test on Wednesday was the first for an under-development strategic cruise missile, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. Reports named the weapon as a Pulhwasal-3-31 missile.
“The test fire had no negative effect on the security of the neighboring country and is not connected with the situation of the region,” the Voice of Korea, a national broadcaster, said in an English-language post.
The launch comes amid growing cooperation between the United States, South Korea and Japan, with the three countries saying they’re sharing real-time updates and analysis on military activity in the region.
The U.S. State Department on Wednesday had called for North Korea to “refrain from further provocative, destabilizing actions and return to diplomacy.”
“We are eager to engage in substantive discussions on identifying ways to not just manage military risk but create lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Vedant Patel, a spokesperson, said during a press brefing, “as well as our continued stated goal of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
(PHILADELPHIA) — Philadelphia police are on a manhunt for a teenage murder suspect who escaped from a hospital Wednesday and is “considered dangerous,” the department announced.
Authorities identified the escaped prisoner as 17-year-old Shane Pryor, who was being held on murder charges, Deputy Commissioner of Investigations Frank Vanore said in a news conference Wednesday.
Pryor escaped from the emergency room parking lot of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia around noon Wednesday after he was brought in for an apparent hand injury.
“He was able to escape from staff and run from this area on foot,” Vanore said.
Vanore described Pryor as a Black male with a light complexion and is 5’7″ weighing 180 pounds. He was last seen in the University Avenue and Civic Center Boulevard area wearing blue sweatpants, a blue sweatshirt and slides with socks on his feet.
Vanore said investigators reviewing surveillance footage spotted Pryor entering and exiting buildings in the area following his escape.
United States Marshals Service Philadelphia posted on X Wednesday night that it’s believed Pryor may be operating a stolen Ford F-150 and asking for the public’s assistance in keeping an eye out for the vehicle.
No lockdowns have been put in place for Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and authorities believe he is no longer near the hospital, Venore said.
Philadelphia authorities encourage anyone with information regarding Pryor to call 911 and to not approach the suspect.
(NEW YORK) — The United States Coast Guard rescued 33 people from a sinking vessel in deep water when their boat began taking on water and sinking.
The incident occurred on Monday when Coast Guard District Seven watchstanders received notification from the crew of Coast Guard Cutter Dependable after they encountered a sailing vessel taking on water with 33 people on board approximately six miles north of Cap-Hatien near the Haiti coast, according to a statement from the U.S. Coast Guard.
Pictures of the scene show inclement weather at the time of the rescue with the Dependable’s crew members pulling people aboard while their boat was taking on water.
“Dependable’s crew did a great job of rapidly responding to the dangerous situation,” said Lt. j.g. Chelsea Chamberlain, a Coast Guard District Seven enforcement officer. “The people were actively bailing out water in heavy seas and if our crew hadn’t arrived when they did, the vessel would have likely succumbed to the sea.”
All 33 people who were rescued were brought aboard the Dependable and transferred to Haitian authorities in good health.
(NEW YORK) — The Florida Board of Governors voted Wednesday to prohibit state funding to be used toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, including “political or social activism” activities on campus in a 15-2 vote.
The regulation prohibits state universities from using state or federal funds to promote, support or maintain any programs or campus activities that “advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion as defined in this regulation; or promote or engage in political or social activism as defined in this regulation.”
The decision by the Florida Board of Governors, the 17-member governing body for the State University System of Florida, will affect all public universities in the state.
The vote is the latest decision to target DEI programming by the state. Last week, the Florida Board of Education approved regulations that limit public funding of programs, activities, and policies towards DEI initiatives in public colleges.
The ruling comes almost a year after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 266, prohibiting universities from expending any state or federal funds, regardless of source, to promote, support, or maintain any programs or campus activities.
The regulation provides guidance on what amounts to advocacy of DEI, state or federal funds; and will require institutions to designate an agent to ensure they are observing the prohibited expenditure provisions of the regulation.
DEI, as defined by the Boards’ regulation, is “any program, campus activity, or policy that classifies individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation and promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification.”
The regulation also defines political or social activism as “any activity organized with a purpose of effecting or preventing change to a government policy, action, or function, or any activity intended to achieve a desired result related to social issues, where the university endorses or promotes a position in communications, advertisements, programs, or campus activities.”
DEI are initiatives rooted in the 1960s anti-discrimination legislative movement that introduced laws to address labor issues based on protected classes. Some of these laws include the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. DEI initiative efforts aim to further create equitable workplaces and schools for underrepresented communities as defined by DEI professionals.
DeSantis has spearheaded numerous efforts affecting DEI and education around race in Florida. In 2021, DeSantis announced the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E.) Act, a bill that would have restricted race-related curriculum in colleges and universities. The bill was blocked by a federal judge in November 2022.
However, months later, DeSantis requested data from state universities and colleges on courses and programs that include “diversity, equity and inclusion” and “critical race theory.
The fate of DeSantis’ legislation will be decided on a bench trial set for October.
(MOREHEAD CITY, N.C.) — Dozens of cold-stunned sea turtles were rescued by researchers off the coast of North Carolina this week.
The North Carolina State University Center for Marine Sciences and Technology said it saved 36 cold-stunned sea turtles from Cape Lookout.
While they took in 109 cold-stunned sea turtles, only 36 survived, the marine center said. The surviving turtles are being examined and treated.
The turtles will then be transferred to the North Carolina Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores and the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Topsail, to complete their rehabilitation before eventually being released back into their natural habitat.
The dead turtles will be necropsied and used for research.
The term “cold-stunned” refers to a condition in which a sea turtle has become very weak and inactive from exposure to cold temperatures, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Cold-stunning generally occurs when water temperatures where sea turtles are present fall below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the NOAA.
“Cold-stunned turtles become lethargic and are eventually unable to swim causing them to float at the surface. Wind and/or tides may wash them ashore. If temperatures remain low or turtles are not rescued, they can develop secondary health problems or die. Hundreds or even thousands of sea turtles can be affected by cold-stunning events,” according to the NOAA.
Sea turtles become cold-stunned when they are not able to strictly regulate their body temperature like mammals and birds, according to the NOAA.
(WASHINGTON) — Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro will be sentenced on Thursday for defying a congressional subpoena to cooperate with the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Navarro was convicted in September on one count of contempt of Congress over his refusal to appear for a deposition in front of the committee, and on a second count for refusing to produce documents.
He is the second Trump adviser to be convicted for refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 panel, after Steve Bannon was found guilty in July of defying a Jan. 6 committee subpoena.
Bannon was subsequently sentenced to four months in prison, pending an appeal.
Prosecutors have asked for Navarro, who under Trump was director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, to be sentenced to six months behind bars.
“The mandatory minimum sentence of one month in prison is insufficient to account for, punish, and deter the Defendant’s criminal offense,” prosecutors wrote last week. “For each Count, the Court should instead impose a sentence of six months’ imprisonment — the top end of the applicable Guidelines’ advisory sentencing range — and fine the Defendant $100,000.”
In their memo, prosecutors said the six-month sentence for each count could be served concurrently.
Navarro’s attorneys requested the court sentence him to no more than six months and to pay a fine of $100 for each count.
The Jan. 6 committee’s 17-month probe, which concluded with the release of its final report in December 2022, determined there was a “multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election.” Among the panel’s 11 recommendations were that Congress affirm the way electoral votes are certified; that it bolster efforts to combat violent extremism and threats to election workers; and that it improve the effectiveness of the Capitol Police.
(BEATTY, Nev.) — The remnants of an ancient lake are still visible in Death Valley National Park after an inundation of rain last year left a significant amount of water in the famed Badwater Basin.
On Aug. 20, heavy precipitation from Hurricane Hilary — an event that prompted the first-ever tropical storm watch in California’s history — led to the pooling of several inches of water in Badwater Basin, where Lake Manly, an ancient lake that once was filled with water up to 700 feet deep during the Ice Ages, once stood, Abby Wines, park ranger at Death Valley National Park, told ABC News.
More than 2 inches of rain fell on Aug. 20 alone — more than the area, known for its desert landscape, typically sees in a year — according to the National Park Service.
The rain was so heavy it caused the closure of Death Valley National Park from Aug. 20 to Oct.15, the longest-ever in the park’s history, according to the NPS.
Since Death Valley is an internal basin, meaning the water does not drain out to sea, the remnants of the heavy rainfall remain — but it won’t be there forever, Wines said. Currently, the lake measures at multiple miles long, and about 2 miles wide. It is only a couple of inches deep and gets shallower by the day — with park rangers estimating that the lake could remain until the end of February.
The last time the lake filled up was in 2005, just before Wines moved to the region. It took about a week after it formed to dry up and has not filled up since, she said.
“We didn’t think it would be here anywhere near this long,” Wines said. “But if you were worried you might have missed it, you’re not too late. Come out here soon.”
The sight of the lake itself is enough to take one’s breath away, witnesses describe.
When the wind is calm, the water reflects the mountains surrounding Death Valley — the picturesque vista Badwater Basin is known for, Wines said. Tiffany Lin, a travel and hiking blogger in her mid-30s, described the water as having a “vibrant reflection” to it.
“It was perfectly clear,” said Lin, who drove from her home in Orange County, California, over Thanksgiving weekend to see the lake.
The flooding at its deepest was not nearly enough to kayak from end to end, Wines said. Lin described water deep enough to wade in toward the middle of the lake.
Because the climate is typically so hot and dry, any water left behind by rainfall tends to evaporate and leave behind salt flats in the basin, Wines said. But because the rain fell so fast and furiously, instead it drained down to the salt flats and filled it with water, she said.
At night, the full moon amplified the white hues in the salt, making the water appear brighter, Lin said.
“It just made for a really cool experience,” she said.
Badwater Basin, the home of the lowest sea level in North America at 282 feet below sea level, is one of the highlights for the parks 1.7 million visitors a year, Wines said.
Repeat visitors to Death Valley National Park are awestruck by the sight of a vast lake in an area that is typically bone dry, Wines said.
Lin described a stark different between her more recent visit and when she saw Badwater Basin in 2018, when it was “100% dry.”
(NEW YORK) — Donald Trump’s defamation damages trial is scheduled to resume Thursday after a two-day postponement stemming from a courtroom COVID-19 scare. At issue is whether the former president has to pay writer E. Jean Carroll additional damages for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegations of sexual abuse.
Originally scheduled to take three days, the trial is now nearing the end of its second week as Trump prepares to possibly testify and the court grapples with COVID concerns.
Here are five questions as the trial heads toward its conclusion.
What happens if multiple jurors have COVID-19?
If multiple jurors call in sick, Judge Lewis Kaplan will likely face a decision to either continue the trial with fewer jurors or extend the trial’s delay until the jurors recover, according to former federal prosecutor Josh Naftalis.
“My expectation with most, if not all, Southern District judges is they would prefer to lose a juror and keep the trial going, than to put it off indefinitely to get back the person who’s sick,” Naftalis told ABC News.
When Judge Kaplan delayed the trial on Monday, he expressed confidence that the trial would continue through any COVID-related delay.
“This Court functioned all the way through the worst of the COVID pandemic. We conducted over a hundred jury trials right through the lockdowns and everything else,” the judge said. “We have gotten through all of that. I’m sure we’ll get through all of this too.”
How many jurors are needed to render a verdict?
Judge Kaplan initially seated nine jurors to hear the defamation trial; however, a jury of six could still render a verdict, according to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Even though the jury does not include any alternates, having three more jurors than needed gives Kaplan a cushion, according to Nafatlis.
“If you lose a juror, you can keep going as long as you stay with the jury of at least six,” Naftalis said.
However, if the jury loses four members, Kaplan would likely be forced to declare a mistrial in the case, according to Naftalis.
Kaplan would then have to empanel a new jury to restart the case. Depending on the availability of Kaplan, the parties, and the jury pool, that process could begin as early as next week.
Does Trump still plan to testify?
Trump arrived at court on Monday with his regular legal team as well as his two criminal defense lawyers, Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles.
“He was planning to testify,” defense lawyer Alina Habba told Kaplan Monday before court was adjourned due to health concerns.
What happens if Trump defies the judge on the stand?
If Trump takes the stand, his testimony will be heavily restrained by the judge’s pretrial ruling, which determined that — because a jury last year already found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and then defaming her — Trump is barred from arguing that he did not sexually abuse Carroll or that he never met her.
The possibility that Trump violates those rules in the presence of the jury could put Kaplan in a tight spot, according to trial lawyer and ABC News contributor Chris Timmons.
“If you go into court and you disrespect the judge in front of the entire courtroom, you’re going to be held in contempt or at least get warned that you’re on the verge of being held in contempt,” Timmons said.
If Trump defies Kaplan’s orders, Kaplan could strike the testimony from the record and instruct the jury to disregard it, according to Naftalis.
“He will likely try to direct him as to what’s in bounds and out of bounds,” Naftalis said. “If Trump continues to ignore … there would likely be a break outside the presence of the jury where he says, ‘If you continue to do this, I will just end your testimony.'”
If Trump continues to defy the rules, Kaplan could boot Trump from the courtroom — something he threatened to do during last week’s proceedings when Trump was being disruptive.
“Mr. Trump has the right to be present here. That right can be forfeited and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive, which is what has been reported to me,” the judge said last Wednesday after Trump was heard making comments within earshot of the jury. “Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial.”
“I understand you are probably very eager for me to do that,” the judge added, to which Trump threw his up his arms and said, “I would love it, I would love it.”
Could the judge hold Trump in contempt?
If Trump repeatedly violates the orders and instructions of the court, Kaplan could hold the former president in contempt and impose monetary sanctions — but the likelihood that it gets to that point is low, according to Naftalis.
“I think the more likely scenario is the judge says, ‘If you’re not going to abide by the orders of the court, your testimony is over.’ I think that’s more likely than getting to, like, full-out sanctions,” said Naftalis.
“The judge will interrupt them and strike it, and that will end it there,” Naftalis said. “There won’t be an opportunity for Trump to sort of go on and give us a soliloquy.”
(LOS ANGELES) — Southern California may have just experienced a historic amount of rainfall, but more extreme precipitation is headed toward the region.
More than a month’s worth of rain fell in a span of three hours in San Diego on Monday, according to the National Weather Service. The city saw its wettest January day on record and wettest overall day in nearly 100 years on Monday with 2.73 inches of rain on Monday. Typically, San Diego sees an average 1.98 inches of rain in the entire month of January, records dating back to 1850 show.
The Southern California coast has been getting slammed with moisture this week, with up to 9 inches of rain falling in parts of the region over the weekend into Monday. Dozens of rescues were reported around San Diego County due to this historic rainfall.
While the area got a much-needed reprieve beginning on Tuesday, there is growing concern for multiple rounds of heavy rain targeting these same areas in California and other parts of the West beginning later next week and lasting through early February, forecasts show.
Southern California is expected to experience a period of dry weather through at least the upcoming weekend, but rounds of heavy rain are now targeting the northern half of the West Coast, with rain soaking the area from Northern California to Portland and Seattle on Wednesday afternoon. Another round of heavy rain is expected in the Pacific Northwest by Friday night into the upcoming weekend.
Following this storm system, much of the West will experience a brief break. But, the wet winter weather will not subside completely.
At the start of February, an active weather pattern will likely take shape across the West once again, bringing the chance for multiple heavy rain events during the first week of the month.
The extreme rainfall event that hit San Diego and the rounds of heavy rain in the forecast, particularly for southern California, have strong connections to the current El Niño event that is in place.
During the winter months, this leads to wetter than average conditions across much of the Southern U.S, including a large swath of California, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A typical El Niño pattern favors multiple rounds of heavy rain and an overall period of unsettled, rainy weather.
In addition to El Niño, human-amplified climate change can play a role in extreme rainfall events, especially in the future as the impacts of global warming continue to worsen, experts said.
In the coming weeks, many of the potential heavy rain events along the West Coast will likely be fueled by atmospheric rivers. Atmospheric rivers, essentially rivers in the sky that collect moisture from tropical areas and redistribute the water to other latitudes, are natural part of the global weather system. But climate change is expected to impact the intensity and frequency of atmospheric rivers in the future as global warming leads to more moisture being evaporated into the atmosphere, according to recent research by NOAA.
Researchers found that models in higher temperature scenarios predicted increased low-elevation precipitation, but less high-elevation precipitation, research shows.
And it’s not just atmospheric rivers. Climate change can cause extreme rainfall events to become more frequent and more intense, research shows.
More intense extreme rain events also increase the frequency and scale of flash flooding as the influx of water is more than current infrastructure was built to handle, experts said.
