(NEW YORK) — Two Americans were found dead in their luxury hotel room in Baja California Sur, Mexico, on Tuesday, local police told ABC News.
When police and paramedics arrived at the Hotel Rancho Pescadero in El Pescadero, around 9 p.m. Tuesday, the two Americans, a man and a woman, had no vital signs, police said.
The victims have been identified as John Heathco, 41, and Abby Lutz, 22, according to the Baja California Sur Attorney General’s Office. Lutz is from Newport Beach, California, the AG’s office said. Local police initially said both victims were in their mid-30s.
Their cause of death was “intoxication by substance to be determined,” the AG’s office said in a statement Wednesday.
The man and woman had been dead for about 10 or 11 hours when they were found, the attorney general’s office said. There were no signs of violence on their bodies, according to the AG’s office.
Hotel Rancho Pescadero is a luxury hotel and a Hyatt property.
Hyatt didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
The local attorney general is currently overseeing the investigation.
(NEW YORK) — Instant Brands, the parent company of beloved kitchenware and houseware brands like Pyrex glassware and Instant Pot, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Earlier this week, Instant Brands announced the voluntary court-supervised process in a press release, stating that it will give the company “time and flexibility” for ongoing discussions with financial stakeholders to move forward in a way that “strengthens the company’s financial position.”
The company has over $500 million in both assets and liabilities, according to its filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.
The Chicago area-based company said it received a $132.5 million commitment for new debtor-in-possession financing from its existing lenders that, paired with cash from current operations, it expects will support the business during the process.
President and CEO Ben Gadbois said in Monday’s press release that the company “continues to drive positive operating cash flows.” However, after weathering the COVID-19 pandemic, the company faces challenges, including “tightening of credit terms and higher interest rates,” he said.
This had caused an impact on the company’s liquidity levels and made its “capital structure unsustainable,” he said.
Four years ago, private-equity firm Cornell Capital acquired Instant Brands and it merged with Corelle Brands. Additional consumer products under the parent company include Corelle, Snapware, CorningWare, Visions and Chicago Cutlery.
(LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines) — Tens of thousands of villagers in the Philippines are facing long-term displacement as the Mayon volcano continues to erupt — and is expected to do so for months.
The volcano, the most active on the archipelago, is wreaking havoc on the island of Luzon. In the past 24 hours, Mount Mayon, located on the northeastern Albay province, has recorded seven volcanic earthquakes and 309 rockfall events, according to a bulletin from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology released Monday morning.
Mayon is sending ash and continuous plumes of sulfur dioxide emissions into the air, and lava is slowly pouring out of the summit crater, reaching more than half a mile away, officials said. The volcano began to expel lava on Sunday night, and it is estimated that 149 tonnes of sulfur dioxide were emitted on that day alone, researchers said.
A Level 3 alert remained for the Mayon volcano on Monday, signifying a relatively high level of unrest, with magma at the crater and hazardous eruption possible within days. Based on the current wind pattern, ash fall events may most likely occur on the south side of the volcano.
Anyone living within the 6-kilometer permanent danger zone — about a 3.7-mile radius away from the volcano summit — has been ordered to evacuate due to the dangers of lava flows, rockfalls and other volcanic hazards. Albay Gov. Edcel Greco Lagman extended the danger zone by another kilometer, asking residents on the outskirts of that radius to be ready to move at any time.
More than 15,000 people have moved to emergency shelters since last week, and authorities and villagers began moving large numbers of cows and water buffalo away from the evacuation zone on Sunday, The Associated Press reported.
However, thousands of people are still in the danger zone, AP reported, citing local officials.
Residents should also be practicing vigilance against pyroclastic density currents, hot flows of ash and debris that can travel at speeds of hundreds of meters per second, and sediment-laden streamflows, volcano experts said.
Officials raised the alert level for Mayon, a popular tourist destination, on Thursday and issued a state of emergency the next day.
The eruptions could last for months, officials announced on Wednesday.
Of the country’s 24 active volcanoes, Mayon sees the most activity. In 2018, a series of violent eruptions displaced thousands of villagers. When the volcano erupted in 1814, it killed more than 1,000 people, burying entire villages, the AP reported.
If the alert is raised to Level 4, the number of those fleeing their homes could skyrocket to 33,000, Lagman said.
Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, described Mayon’s activity so far as “a very gentle eruption.”
“Hopefully, it will stay that way,” Bacolcol said.
Jemal Countess/Getty Images for People’s Rally to Cancel Student Debt
(WASHINGTON) — While the Supreme Court weighs whether to allow President Joe Biden to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in federal student loan debt, the U.S. Department of Education has announced a broad timeline for when all borrowers should expect to restart their payments after a three-year pause for COVID-19.
People with federal student loan debt should expect interest to kick back in on Sept. 1 and payments to resume starting in October, a spokesperson from the Department of Education told ABC News.
That means that while interest will begin accumulating on Sept. 1, payments won’t be due right away, instead ramping up through the following weeks. Exactly when payments are due for borrowers could depend on how individual loan servicers handle the restart.
The Department of Education is expected to issue more concrete timing guidance in the next few months, and a spokesperson said officials are committed to making sure students are well aware of their payment deadlines.
Still, advocates for student debt relief say they’re concerned by the lack of information released so far and would like to see more specific dates for when payments must begin again, including whether different servicers will be on different timelines.
Spreading the world early and often will be particularly important for people who’ve moved addresses over the last few years or don’t have reliable internet access — borrowers who could also be more at risk of defaulting on their loans, said Aissa Canchola Bañez, a senior adviser at the Student Borrower Protection Center.
“I think there are lots of questions we have that the [Department of Education] really needs to put out guidance to their servicers on, like a firm timeline and what to expect so that borrowers can can plan accordingly,” Canchola Bañez said.
“If servicers have the chance to do whatever they want, that’s going to be even more confusing for, let’s say, a borrower who has multiple services or a married couple with two different servicers,” she said.
The Biden administration previously said the pause on student loan payments would lift either after the Supreme Court issued a ruling on the current legal battle, brought by the state of Missouri and others, or about two months after June 30. The latest dates from the Department of Education slightly revises that schedule.
The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected any day now; oral arguments were heard in February.
If the decision goes in Biden’s favor, Americans with federal student loans who make below a certain income will have between $10,000 and $20,000 of their debts canceled before payments restart. If the Supreme Court rules against Biden’s plan, Americans will restart payments for the first time since 2020 without any such changes.
“We recognize that the return to repayment would result in significant financial hardship for many borrowers. That is why this Administration also put forward a plan to provide up to $20,000 in debt relief for hard-working Americans recovering from the economic harms of the pandemic, most of whom make less than $75,000 a year, and why we continue to fight for that relief on behalf of the millions of borrowers who need it,” a Department of Education spokesperson said.
“We will also be in direct touch with borrowers and ramping up our communications with servicers well before repayment resumes to ensure borrowers and their families are receiving accurate and timely information about the return to repayment,” the spokesperson said.
Critics of Biden’s student loan cancellation plan have countered that it is beyond his authority as president and unfair to other borrowers who paid off their own loans. Some of the Supreme Court justices have likewise taken a skeptical view of forgiving the debt.
“In effect, this is a grant of $400 billion,” conservative Justice Clarence Thomas posited during February’s arguments, citing one estimate on the potential cost of the plan. “And it runs headlong into Congress’ appropriations authority.”
In the meantime, the Department of Education is also implementing a new income-driven repayment plan that would allow some Americans to pay lower monthly payments and have their debt forgiven after a certain amount of payments, a plan that administration officials have described as “the first true student loan safety net in this country.”
It’s unclear when the new payment plan will be available to borrowers, though it was announced in January.
The department also says it’s engaging borrowers with a high risk of delinquency, as well as taking steps to combat scammers and fraudsters who might pray on the confusion on payments restarting.
(COSTA MESA, Calif.) — Two men, including an active duty Marine, are facing federal charges in connection with the firebombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic in California in 2022, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Chance Brannon, 23, an active duty Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton, and Tibet Ergul, 21, both of Orange County, are accused of using a Molotov cocktail to firebomb a Costa Mesa clinic in March 2022, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a release.
Special agents with the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service arrested the two men Wednesday morning without incident. They are charged with the use of an explosive or fire to damage real property affecting interstate commerce, according to the federal complaint.
The attack occurred around 1 a.m. on March 13, 2022. Prosecutors allege that Brannon and Ergul ignited and threw a Molotov cocktail at the front door of the clinic, causing a fire. No one was injured in the incident and the clinic had to temporarily close.
Security videos captured two suspects wearing hooded sweatshirts and face masks, and the FBI was offering an award of up to $25,000 for information leading to their identification, arrest and conviction.
On April 3, a witness contacted the FBI, identifying the suspects as Ergul and Brannon, according to the complaint. The witness stated that they were high school friends and that Ergul allegedly sent them text messages “admitting his involvement” in the attack, “including photographs of the Molotov cocktail,” the complaint stated.
Cell phone data allegedly placed Brannon near the Planned Parenthood clinic the night of the attack, according to the complaint.
The charge of using an explosive or fire to damage real property affecting interstate commerce carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison if convicted, prosecutors said.
“My office takes very seriously this brazen attack that targeted a facility that provides critical health care services to thousands of people in Orange County,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. “While it is fortunate that no one was physically harmed and responders were able to prevent the clinic from being destroyed, the defendants’ violent actions are entirely unacceptable.”
The defendants were expected to make their first court appearance on Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately clear if they have attorneys who can speak on their behalf.
Brannon enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in September 2018 and is currently ranked a corporal, according to information released by a Marine Expeditionary Force spokesperson.
The Marine Corps does not comment on ongoing legal matters, the spokesperson said.
The firebombing at the Costa Mesa clinic was one of several attacks on reproductive health service facilities around the country last year.
“Incidents of this nature have been on the rise at Planned Parenthood health centers across the country and this is unacceptable,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement to ABC Los Angeles station KABC earlier this year.
The FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are continuing to investigate the Costa Mesa incident.
(KELOWNA, Canada) — A couple who allegedly harassed and “accosted” a 9-year-old girl and her family at a track meet, claiming the athlete was trans and shouldn’t be playing on the girls team, will be banned from the school district’s events and property, according to school officials.
The incident occurred last week at a track meet for elementary students in Kelowna, British Columbia in Canada, Superintendent of Central Okanagan Public Schools Kevin Kaardal told ABC News.
According to local reports of the incident, a man demanded that the girl show certification of her sex – claiming she’s not a girl, was trans, and should not be competing.
Heidi Starr, the mother of the girl, told news outlets that the man halted the entire event and that the man’s wife began calling her a “genital mutilator” and “pedophile.”
The young athlete is a cisgender girl, born female, with a short haircut, according to her mother.
ABC News has reached out to the man who was allegedly involved in the incident, Josef Tesar, who told CTV News Vancouver that he never berated Starr or her daughter. Instead, he said he privately asked an event official whether it was a co-ed event since he believed she was a boy.
The district confirmed the incident with ABC News and said it is taking steps to ban the people involved from district property and events.
According to Kaardal, the “person(s) who accosted the student and family was not from one of our Central Okanagan Public Schools.”
“The safety of our students and staff is our top priority, which includes protecting human rights and ensuring safe, inclusive places to learn and work,” Kaardal said in a statement. “We expect that adults who are invited to celebrate student success govern their behaviour and conduct themselves with civility and respect.”
David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, denounced the incident on Twitter, saying “This kind of hate is not acceptable or welcome in British Columbia.”
“Let’s keep calling out transphobia when we see it,” he said in the post. “Hate hurts everyone. And let’s stand with this girl and everyone who is targeted just for being themselves.”
(MIAMI) — Former President Donald Trump is narrowing down his list of potential attorneys as he and his team work to expand his legal team following his arraignment Tuesday on federal charges, sources tell ABC News.
Multiple sources have described the process as “productive,” with “several options” for lawyers that could join his legal defense.
The former president, appearing in federal court in Miami, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing, saying that his handling of all documents was in line with the Presidential Records Act. Officials with the National Archives and Records Administration, however, have said that the act requires a president to separate personal and presidential documents “before leaving office.”
Trump’s search for new counsel comes after his attorneys in the case, Jim Trusty and John Rowley, resigned on Friday, just hours after Trump was informed on Thursday of the indictment.
With no timetable set for Trump’s next court date, sources said there’s no time crunch to officially finalize the team.
Nevertheless, Trump’s history of legal turnover has led to some attorneys to turn him down, while others have asked for retainer fees that Trump’s team views as excessive, multiple sources told ABC News.
Among the first motions Trump’s legal team is expected to file is a motion to dismiss the indictment entirely, according to sources.
Sources said Trump’s team believes a critical witness in the case will be Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran, who was ordered to turn over notes and provide testimony to a grand jury after a federal judge determined in March that the government had made a prima facie case that Trump had “committed criminal violations” by deliberately misleading Corcoran about his handling of documents, as ABC News reported at the time.
Trump’s legal team has discussed filing a motion to suppress Corcoran’s notes and make his testimony inadmissible at trial, sources tell ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, if elected to the White House, would not pursue charges against Joe Biden over the current president’s handling of classified documents while out of office, Ramaswamy told ABC News on Wednesday.
His comments stand in stark contrast to current GOP front-runner Donald Trump, who promised in a speech after being arraigned on federal charges on Tuesday that, if he retakes the White House, he’ll “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president and the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden.”
Ramaswamy, though, took another view.
“I think that as part of a broader vision of laying down arms, 360 degrees, that we’re agreeing to put the past in the past and we’re ready to move forward,” the 37-year-old entrepreneur said. “That would be my way of governing.”
Both Trump and Biden have been investigated by special counsels over their handling of government secrets while out of office. Some classified documents from Biden’s earlier time in office, before his presidency, were found in his personal possession. He has since returned the materials and said in January, “We’re fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly.”
While Ramaswamy is currently polling at the back of the crowded field of GOP primary candidates, he said Wednesday that he has been thinking about what his presidency would look like — in content and style.
He told ABC News that he plans to look beyond traditional party lines to lead, a perspective that he argues makes him “an outsider” among his Republican rivals.
“I’m using the Republican Party as a vehicle to advance a positive nationalist agenda,” he said. “I certainly don’t think either of the two major parties, including the Republican Party, are defined what they mean. I think it is on the table how we define them.”
Ramaswamy said he remains firm on his commitment to pardon Trump if elected — a pledge that has drawn criticism from some other Republicans in the 2024 race, with former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson calling it “offensive.”
Trump, who was arraigned in Florida on Tuesday afternoon, is charged with 37 counts including willful retention of national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He denies wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors allege he illegally retained government secrets after he left the White House and worked to avoid returning them when asked.
“If there was any evidence that he was actually selling those defense plans or nuclear secrets to our foreign enemies, my judgment is completely different. That is treason,” Ramaswamy said on Wednesday. “But my assumption is that that would have been an indictment if that were the case.”
Ramaswamy has been outspoken in his disapproval of Trump’s unprecedented federal indictment, calling Trump’s alleged actions “reflective of very poor judgment” but maintaining they are not unlawful.
“I would have made different judgments than he made, but a bad judgment is not the same thing as breaking the law,” Ramaswamy said.
Despite his vocal support of Trump, who is running to win the Republican presidential nomination over him, Ramaswamy insists he is still set on winning himself.
When asked if it would be a mistake for the party to nominate Trump, he said, “I’m running because I think this party should nominate me. I do think that we do need a leader who is … offering a vision of what we are running to. We can’t be running from something.”
(NEW YORK) — A grand jury has indicted former U.S. Marine Daniel Penny in connection with the chokehold death of Jordan Neely aboard a subway train, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
The exact charges will not be unsealed until Penny appears in court at a later date, the sources said. Penny was initially arrested on a second-degree manslaughter charge.
Video showed Penny, 24, putting Neely in a chokehold on May 1. Several witnesses observed Neely making threats, assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass told the judge.
Some witnesses told police that Neely was yelling and harassing passengers on the train, authorities said. Police sources told ABC News that Penny was not specifically being threatened by Neely when he intervened and that Neely had not become violent and had not been threatening anyone in particular.
Neely was homeless at the time of the incident.
Penny held Neely for several minutes, and at some point Neely stopped moving, but Penny continued to hold him for a period of time, Steinglass said. Penny remained on the scene to talk with police following the incident, Steinglass said.
The medical examiner determined Jordan Neely was killed by a chokehold and his death was ruled a homicide.
Steinglass said prosecutors conducted a “thorough investigation” that included interviews with eyewitnesses, 911 callers and responding officers before moving forward with the criminal charge. Penny turned himself in to police on May 12 following an announcement from the Manhattan district attorney’s office regarding charges. He has not yet entered a plea.
Neely, who was homeless at the time of his death, had a documented mental health history, according to police sources. Neely had been previously arrested for several incidents on the subway, though it’s unclear how many, if any, led to convictions.
Attorneys for Penny said in a past statement to ABC News that they “fully expect that Danny will be exonerated of all charges.”
Penny’s attorneys offered “condolences to those close to Mr. Neely” and claimed, “Mr. Neely began aggressively threatening Daniel,” and that the Marine veteran and others “acted to protect themselves” in an earlier statement.
Mayor Eric Adams released a statement Wednesday afternoon stating he appreciated the DA “conducting a thorough investigation into the death of Jordan Neely.”
“Like I said when the DA first brought charges, I have the utmost faith in the judicial process, and now that the grand jury has indicted Daniel Penny, a trial and justice can move forward,” the mayor said in his statement.
(BOUTE, La.) — A 28-year-old woman has been arrested for allegedly posing as a 17-year-old student and attending a Louisiana high school throughout this school year, authorities said.
Martha Jessenia Gutierrez-Serrano, 28, who was placed in the ninth grade, allegedly pretended to be a teenager so she could learn English, St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne said at a news conference Wednesday.
“She was in school, she minded her own business, she did her schoolwork, she caused no trouble,” the sheriff said. “She wanted to learn English.”
Gutierrez-Serrano, 28, and her mother, Marta Elizeth Serrano-Alvarado, 46, both of Boutte, Louisiana, were each charged Tuesday with one count of injuring public records, the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office said.
Serrano-Alvarado allegedly used a fraudulent passport and birth certificate to enroll her 28-year-daughter at Hahnville High School in Boutte during the 2022-2023 school year, according to the sheriff’s office.
Boute is about 25 miles west of New Orleans.
School officials launched an investigation after getting “a tip that a female student, who was on record as being 17 years old, was in fact an adult possibly in her mid 20’s,” the sheriff’s office said. School officials then relayed their findings to the authorities on May 29, the sheriff’s office said.
The fraudulent birth certificate, from Honduras, “looked just like a real birth certificate,” the sheriff said.
“Whether you’re a U.S. citizen, a foreign national, some type of immigrant — no matter what status — students are entitled a role in our public school system,” Champagne said. “Inquiring about their immigration status is not done.”
The mother, Serrano-Alvarado, had been in the U.S. for “a number of years” and had an expired visa, the sheriff said. Her daughter, Gutierrez-Serrano, arrived in the U.S. in fall 2021, and the sheriff said, based on a photo taken at that time, she could “very easily be taken for a young teenager.”
She “wanted to become proficient in English and perhaps further her education, which I think we can all be sympathetic with,” Champagne said. “Unfortunately, whether it was her decision or her mother’s decision, it’s certainly bad judgment to submit a falsified document to the government.”
The St. Charles Parish school district said in a statement it “will enhance processes to determine the authenticity of enrollment documents for current and future students as well as modify policy and procedures as warranted.”
