(LOS ANGELES) — A California man has pleaded guilty to importing wild animals into the country, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced Wednesday.
Prosecutors said Jose Manuel Perez, 30, smuggled more than 1,700 wild animals, including 60 reptiles, worth $739,000 into the U.S. and was arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border in February. Officials found reptiles hidden in his clothing in small bags, prosecutors said.
When he was caught crossing into the U.S., federal agents said he had about 60 reptiles on him — including some in his pants.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of smuggling goods into the country and one count of wild trafficking, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.
Perez, who also went by the name Julio Rodriguez, used social media to arrange and smuggle animals into the U.S. between January 2016 and February 2022, federal prosecutors said.
The wildlife, which came from Mexico and Hong Kong, included Yucatan box turtles, baby crocodiles, Mexican box turtles and beaded lizards, federal prosecutors said, and he didn’t declare them through U.S. Customs or obtain the required permits through the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Perez worked with others in his smuggling operation, according to federal prosecutors. His sister, Stephany Perez, 26, was allegedly involved and is scheduled to go on trial in February, prosecutors said.
Jose Manuel Perez faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for each count of smuggling and up to five years in prison for wildlife trafficking, according to federal prosecutors.
His attorney did not immediately provide a comment to ABC News.
(ATLANTA) — Three children in Georgia have now tested positive for monkeypox, newly updated state data has revealed.
The Georgia Department of Health did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on these cases.
Newton County School System, which went back to school in early August, confirmed to ABC News that at least one child at Mansfield Elementary in Mansfield, Georgia, has tested positive for the virus, and one student at Flint Hill Elementary in Oxford, Georgia, is currently undergoing testing.
It is unclear if these cases are at all connected. The schools are located approximately 13 miles apart. Additional information on how the students may have contracted or been exposed to the virus is unavailable at this time, due to privacy concerns, according to school officials.
The school district has notified parents, officials said, and parents of students considered to be close contacts will receive separate communications instructing them on next steps.
“NCSS facilities employees will thoroughly clean and disinfect classrooms and other areas at both schools this afternoon to ensure ongoing safe and healthy learning and work environments for students and staff. Both schools will be open tomorrow,” the school district wrote in a statement on Tuesday.
Across the state of Georgia, at least 15 children, ages 17 years and younger, have received their first monkeypox vaccine dose, state data shows.
Separately, in Texas, officials confirmed that a previously confirmed monkeypox case had actually turned out to be a false positive.
Across the country, at least 13 children have now tested positive for monkeypox. Nine states and jurisdictions have reported pediatric monkeypox cases.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Homeland Security took steps on Wednesday to codify the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program into regulatory policy — even as a court case threatens to upend the ability of migrants who were brought illegally into the U.S. as young children to remain in the country.
Since President Barack Obama launched the policy in 2012, the DHS estimates that more than 825,000 immigrants have been enrolled in DACA, which temporarily protects them from deportation and allows them to obtain work authorization.
The DHS’ final rule, issued Wednesday after being subject to public comment, is a technical move that seeks to absorb DACA under administrative law rather than through presidential discretion.
The rule largely preserves the eligibility criteria outlined in a 2012 memo by then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, including the requirement that applicants must have arrived in the U.S. before the age of 16 and must have continuously resided in the country for at least five years before June 15, 2012.
“We are taking another step to do everything in our power to preserve and fortify DACA, an extraordinary program that has transformed the lives of so many Dreamers,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Thanks to DACA, we have been enriched by young people who contribute so much to our communities and our country. Yet, we need Congress to pass legislation that provides an enduring solution for the young Dreamers who have known no country other than the United States as their own,” Mayorkas said, referring to the people in the program by a common nickname.
Since its inception, DACA has faced multiple legal challenges from those who say Obama overreached his authority. An ongoing case in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals seeks to have the court rule the program unlawful and end it. A decision there may come any day.
Despite Wednesday’s regulatory filing by DHS, DACA remains closed to new applicants as a result of a July 2021 decision from a federal court in Texas. Only those who already have DACA status can apply to renew it under the new framework, according to DHS.
The department’s final rule would not go into effect until Oct. 31 and it was unclear how Wednesday’s move would impact any current litigation.
“President [Joe] Biden campaigned on strengthening and fortifying DACA. This final DACA rule fails to strengthen the program by not expanding it to include the majority of undocumented immigrant youth who are graduating from high school this year and not eligible for the program because of arbitrary cut-off dates,” Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, deputy director of federal advocacy for the group United We Dream, said in a statement, in part.
“This rule does not bring us any closer to seeing true protection for DACA recipients and immigrant youth,” Macedo do Nascimento said.
The DHS rule will preserve the original process for applying for a renewal of deferred action — shielding young migrants from deportation — and a work permit despite the department suggesting in an earlier proposal that it would have potential applicants apply for a permit and for deportation protection separately.
Immigration advocates had warned that decoupling the two benefits would leave people susceptible to losing work authorization while maintaining deferred deportation if a future administration wished to make DACA recipients ineligible to work.
DHS estimates that as of 2020, DACA recipients and their households pay around $5.6 billion in annual federal taxes and $3.1 billion in annual state and local taxes. Many people in the program have gone on to acquire professional certificates, advanced school degrees and about 56,000 have become homeowners, DHS said.
After the final rule was published, Biden issued a statement on Wednesday reaffirming his support for the “Dreamers,” whom he said were “part of the fabric of this nation.”
“They serve on the frontlines of the pandemic response. They are students, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. Many serve bravely in our military. They’ve only ever known America as their home,” Biden said.
Although the president made no mention of the ongoing legal challenges to DACA, he called on Republicans to support a pathway to citizenship — a politically fraught process that has divided the GOP and repeatedly failed, over the years, to result in federal legislation.
“It is not only the right thing to do,” Biden argued of congressional action, “it is also the smart thing to do for our economy and our communities.”
(NEW YORK) — Rothy’s and Evian are taking reduce, reuse, recycle to a whole new level.
The two brands have teamed up to created a limited-edition tennis-inspired capsule collection made with recycled water bottles from the 2021 U.S. Open.
Approximately 72,000 Evian bottles from the tennis tournament were blended with other recycled plastic bottles to create items in the line.
“We are excited to collaborate with evian to showcase Rothy’s transformative capabilities and prove that through innovation we find new uses for single use plastic,” Saskia van Gendt, Rothy’s head of sustainability, said in a press release.
According to the brands, this is a first-of-its-kind circular production collection.
From a cap to a bag for your tennis racket, this collection has everything you need to hit the court in style.
(NEW YORK) — Condiment fans are clamoring on social media over the luxurious and spicy new collaboration from Hidden Valley Ranch and hot sauce company Truff, Spicy Truffle Ranch.
The two companies announced the ultra-limited release on Tuesday, encouraging interested tasters to join the online waitlist to get notified when the black truffle infused hot sauce and ranch dressing blend goes live later this month.
From pizza to chicken wings, ranch and hot sauce are a well-known go-to for all things dipping, dunking and drizzling, so it comes as no surprise that fans are hyped about the hybrid Spicy Truffle Ranch blend.
“TRUFF is all about flavor exploration and reimagination. While we’ve had the privilege of working with world-class chefs, sometimes the best suggestions come from our customers, who have been very vocal about requesting a truffle ranch,” Truff co-founder Nick Ajluni said. “Partnering with Hidden Valley Ranch was the obvious choice. Not only are they the original ranch, but they’re a truly iconic brand with a passionate community that’s helped make ranch a cultural phenomenon.”
This unique new spicy truffle ranch features “the spice of red chiles, umami depth of black truffles, and tangy, creaminess of ranch dressing, all of which morph into a truly gourmet condiment,” according to the press release.
Deb Crandall, marketing director at Hidden Valley Ranch, hailed Truff as “the perfect partner” to deliver ranch fans a “new and unexpected” flavor experience.
Truff Hot Sauce, an upscale version of the spicy pantry staple, first reached viral acclaim when it debuted in 2017 and quickly became the fastest-growing company in the hot sauce space with its distinctive flavors, sleek bottle and truffle-shaped cap. The company now offers a variety of products, including pasta sauce, mayonnaise and truffle oil.
Previous iterations of Truff Hot Sauce have been tried and beloved by celebrities like Oprah and Machine Gun Kelly to home cooks.
The limited-time Spicy Truffle Ranch sauce officially goes live Aug. 30 at 11 a.m. ET and will be available for $24.99 in TRUFF’s larger 18-ounce “magnum” bottles while supplies last.
(KIEV) — Andrii Pokrasa is being hailed as a hero in Ukraine, known to the public as “Drone Boy,” after he helped a crucial Ukrainian military operation using his drone.
Andrii, 15, helped by his father, put his life in danger and sent the Ukrainian military the coordinates of advancing Russian forces during the early days of the war.
The war in Ukraine, which has raged on for six months, has had a particularly brutal effect on children.
Nearly 1,000 children have been killed or injured during the war, UNICEF estimates, and more than 5 million Ukrainian children both in the country and living as refugees abroad are in need of humanitarian aid.
“My mother was very scared at first,” Andrii told ABC News reporter Britt Clennett. “But now she is proud that we did well, that we are healthy and that we were able to help.
Andrii said that they posted in a local village group that they had a drone, and that Andrii knew how to operate it. A man named Yuri Kasyanov from the civil defense forces responded to their post, Andrii told ABC News, adding that “he didn’t know that I’m 15.”
Andrii was asked to use his drone to spy on advancing Russian vehicles in Makariv, a village near his own village of Kolonschyna, in the outskirts of Kiev.
“There were fuel trucks, tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers,” he said. “I tracked them on a drone, they were in my picture. And then I opened the tab with the map on the drone and put a mark on it and the coordinates appeared there.”
Andrii said he passed the coordinates to Kasyanov, who passed them on to the Ukrainian artillery. The artillery decimated the column of Russian tanks within minutes.
They were near enough to an explosion related to the attack that they had to evacuate the area, he said.
“Yuri organized a green corridor for us – a convoy,” he said. “We went through this field to the Zhytomyr highway that had already been liberated by that time.”
Andrii said his friends didn’t believe him at first when he recounted his story of helping to defeat Russian forces, but then they saw him on TV.
MORE: Ukrainian children’s book author imagines the war through their eyes
“My friends are very happy that everything turned out and I am fine,” he said. “I had to help because I could.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — In a March 3, 2021, school board meeting, Uvalde police chief Pete Arredondo, raised concerns about security issues in schools.
Uvalde school board officials unanimously voted Wednesday to fire Pete Arredondo, the school district’s police chief, exactly three months after the school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.
The termination is effective immediately.
Arredondo was not in attendance at his termination hearing out of concerns over his safety, his attorney, George Hyde, said in a 17-page statement released shortly before the community gathered Wednesday evening.
Hyde claimed that the district did not file proper legal procedures in proceeding with disciplinary action and that follow-up requests for access to district complaints or investigations “have been ignored by the district,” calling the proceedings an “illegal and unconstitutional public lynching.”
Arredondo has been the target of criticism for the delayed response to the May 24 tragedy.
School officials have continued to face pressure to hold officers accountable for the 77 minutes it took before law enforcement breached a classroom door and killed the 18-year-old gunman.
The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District recommended that Arredondo be fired. The Uvalde school board canceled its July 23 special session to consider the district’s recommendation “in conformity with due process requirements, and at the request of his attorney.”
School board members agreed in an Aug. 15 meeting to hire outside attorneys ahead of the hearing.
Parents and community members have called on officials to fire Arredondo immediately, with some calling for the firing of other members of Uvalde’s school district police force who were present during the shooting.
According to an investigative report by the Texas House of Representatives into the events of May 24, the school district’s written active shooter plan assigned Arredondo “to assume command and control” during an active shooter incident.
“But as events unfolded, he failed to perform or to transfer to another person the role of incident commander,” the report from the state House read. “This was an essential duty he had assigned to himself in the plan mentioned above, yet it was not effectively performed by anyone.”
The report goes on to describe the general consensus from witnesses that officers on the scene either “assumed that Chief Arredondo was in charge, or that they could not tell that anybody was in charge of a scene described by several witnesses as ‘chaos’ or a ‘cluster.'”
Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.
In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Arredondo said he did not consider himself the commanding officer on the scene. He has said he was not made aware of the 911 calls coming from the children in the attacked classrooms.
Arredondo has defended the police response to the incident.
“We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced,” Arredondo said. “Our objective was to save as many lives as we could, and the extraction of the students from the classrooms by all that were involved saved over 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before we gained access to the shooter and eliminated the threat.”
Fifteen months before the school shooting, Arredondo at a school board meeting mentioned some of the security issues that investigators found played critical roles in the failures connected with the May 24 massacre, including problems with police radios and school doors left open.
In other remarks, Arredondo pointed out the need for more active shooter training.
Arredondo resigned from his city council post and is currently on leave from his position as UCISD police chief.
He is calling for the board to “immediately reinstate him, with all back pay and benefits and close the complaint as unfounded,” his attorney said Wednesday.
Al Diaz/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — Most of the Florida school board candidates backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis won their elections on Tuesday — an indication that the ascendant Republican’s conservative stance on education is moving the needle with some parents across the state.
DeSantis at his election night rally on Tuesday night declared victories for his endorsees, of which 25 out of 30 won or are likely to win their races.
He again lauded that success on Wednesday at a rally in Seminole County, casting the races in the culture-war language that has become his signature.
“We were able to take school boards that had leftist majorities … people that wanted to mask your kids, people that wanted to indoctrinate your kids. We were able to replace them all across the state,” DeSantis argued at another stop on his “Keep America Free” tour. “We were able to replace union-backed candidates with conservatives.”
In the days leading up to Florida’s primaries, DeSantis campaigned across the state on his “Education Agenda Tour.” He joined with school board candidates who share his “anti-woke” agenda, giving them one final push before their races.
“We didn’t have a primary for me … we didn’t have Senate [race], attorney general [race], none of that,” he said. “So what was the motivation?” he added, referencing the turnout of Republican voters. “One of the reasons is we worked hard to elect pro-student, pro-parent candidates all across the state of Florida.”
With DeSantis at the helm, Florida Republicans have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the down-ballot, typically apolitical races. The rare move to endorse and even share campaign funds with school board candidates comes as DeSantis has made a legislative push to preserve what he calls parents’ rights in schools, over criticism that he is trying to restrict some topics from the classroom.
In recent months, Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature has passed bills barring race-based conversations in schools and for some grades, the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The issue of education and parents’ oversight of the classroom has become a key tenant of the GOP’s campaign message in recent years, in particular after the onset of COVID-19 and the resulting remote schooling and school closures. Voters in some places have responded favorably, such as with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 victory in Virginia.
Youngkin ran in large part on the issue of parental choice in COVID-related school restrictions.
In recent months in Florida, DeSantis has signed legislation like the Parental Rights in Education Bill, denounced by its opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which bans the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools for children from kindergarten to third grade or in other classroom settings where it is deemed inappropriate.
DeSantis also signed the so-called Stop WOKE Act to block critical race theory in schools. (The theory is typically taught only in high-level academic settings, not grade school.) Last week, a federal judge declared portions of that bill unconstitutional.
The governor’s school board victories in Florida include two races in Miami-Dade County, one of the stops on DeSantis’ “Education Agenda Tour.” Monica Colucci, who rallied with him on Sunday, defeated a 24-year incumbent on her platform of keeping “socialist curriculums” away from schools.
In Sarasota, another of Florida’s largest counties, three DeSantis endorsed candidates won their races, flipping the school board to a four-to-one conservative majority.
The Florida Department of Education — whose commissioner, Manny Diaz, also spoke on DeSantis’ tour — announced last week it would give U.S. military veterans and their spouses five-year temporary teaching certificates as they complete bachelor’s degrees. The policy has been opposed by teachers’ unions across Florida, who say hiring unqualified instructors would be harmful to students.
Democrats, who also decided to endorse 18 school board candidates, saw just five victories on Tuesday night. They unseated Fred Lowry, who as a Volusia County councilman faced calls to resign after he espoused a far-right conspiracy theory.
Diyonne McGraw, who was removed from her seat last year by DeSantis and replaced with Mildred Russell after it was discovered she lives around 300 feet outside of the district, ran again and beat out Russell.
(LOS ANGELES) — After nearly two weeks of testimony, a jury has reached a verdict in Vanessa Bryant’s invasion of privacy trial over photos taken at the scene of the 2020 helicopter crash that killed her husband, basketball star Kobe Bryant, and their 13-year-old daughter.
The jury deliberated for several hours before reaching the verdict, which is expected to be read shortly.
The federal trial began on Aug. 10, with the jury hearing from those in law enforcement, first responders and the family of the victims, including Vanessa Bryant. Attorneys gave closing statements on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Vanessa Bryant filed a lawsuit several months after the 2020 crash against Los Angeles County, alleging that first responders took graphic photos of human remains at the scene as “souvenirs” and shared them with others. She is claiming she suffered emotional distress and sued for an undisclosed amount of damages for negligence and invasion of privacy.
Kobe Bryant and their daughter, Gianna, were headed to a basketball game at his Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks along with others connected to the basketball program on Jan. 26, 2020, when the helicopter they were traveling in crashed in Calabasas. All nine people on board were killed.
Vanessa Bryant took the stand in Los Angeles federal court on Friday, telling the jury she lives in fear every day that the photos could be leaked and wants “justice for my husband and my daughter.”
Orange County financial adviser Chris Chester is also suing the county over photos taken of his wife and daughter, who were killed in the same crash. In July, U.S. District Judge John Walter decided to consolidate Bryant’s and Chester’s cases into one trial.
Chester took the witness stand on Thursday, telling the jury he was in “disbelief” after hearing reports that deputies and firefighters took and shared photos of his wife, Sarah, and their 13-year-old daughter, Payton.
“It was grief on top of grief,” he said, calling for “justice and accountability.”
Throughout the trial, the defense maintained that the photos have not surfaced online since the tragedy. Multiple county fire and sheriff’s personnel have also testified that they deleted whatever crash-site pictures they had on their cellphones.
Both Bryant’s and Chester’s lawsuits argue that the photos were shared before being deleted by first responders.
The jury was instructed that they could find either the county sheriff’s office or fire department, or both, to be liable, and that Bryant or Chester, or both, were warranted damages.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday nominated Kim Cheatle to lead the United States Secret Service, the White House announced.
“Kim has had a long and distinguished career at the Secret Service, having risen through the ranks during her 27 years with the agency, becoming the first woman in the role of Assistant Director of protective operations,” Biden said in a statement.
The Bidens have a close relationship with Cheatle. She served on Biden’s security detail when he was vice president. Biden said his family “came to trust her judgment and counsel.”
“She is a distinguished law enforcement professional with exceptional leadership skills, and was easily the best choice to lead the agency at a critical moment for the Secret Service,” his statement said. “She has my complete trust, and I look forward to working with her.”
The director is not a Senate-confirmed position.
Prior to leaving the agency for the private sector, Cheatle not only served in leadership roles in Washington, D.C. but also around the country for the agency.
“She has deep knowledge and understanding of the Agency’s missions to investigate and protect. I am confident that her skillset, combined with her fresh perspective, will ensure the Secret Service builds on its strong foundation to grow and evolve into an even more effective agency,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Secret Service is housed in the Department of Homeland Security.
Don Mihalek, an ABC News contributor and a retired Secret Service agent who worked with Cheatle during his time at the agency, told ABC News she “is a professional that has the competency and capability to lead the agency.”
Mihalek said the agency she is returning to is “different” than the one she retired from two years ago, and it will be her decision which direction the agency goes.
The Secret Service has come under scrutiny as of late for the deletion of text messages on and in the days surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection.
A Secret Service spokesman last month acknowledged text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, were deleted after being sought by the DHS inspector general.
A letter sent by the inspector general last Wednesday to the heads of the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees said the messages were deleted “as part of a device-replacement program” despite the inspector general requesting such communications.
Anthony Guglielmi, the agency spokesman, dismissed any “insinuation” the agents had “maliciously” deleted the texts.
The agency sent out communications to employees on how to upload digital files on their local devices if they are government records, according to a source familiar with the Secret Service migration process.
