(INDIA) — At least 200 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in a train accident in India, as the death toll continues to rise, officials said.
The crash occurred Friday night in Odisha, a state in eastern India, and involved three trains, according to Odisha Chief Secretary Pradeep Jena. Several cars of a passenger train derailed in the incident, he said.
“Death toll in the train accident increasing,” Jena said on social media, noting that 207 people were killed and approximately 900 injured in the accident, per reporting from the Special Relief Organization, which deals with disaster management in the state.
More than 200 ambulances have responded to the scene of the “violent train accident,” Jena tweeted.
Rescue teams have been mobilized from various parts of the country, according to Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology.
Distressed by the train accident in Odisha. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. May the injured recover soon. Spoke to Railway Minister @AshwiniVaishnaw and took stock of the situation. Rescue ops are underway at the site of the mishap and all…
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “distressed” by the accident.
“In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families,” Modi tweeted. “May the injured recover soon.”
Saturday has been declared a day of mourning in Odisha due to the rail accident, which occurred near Bahanaga.
Ex-gratia payments will be offered to “victims of this unfortunate train accident in Odisha,” Vaishnaw tweeted.
Families who suffered a death will receive 10 lakhs — equivalent to about 12,000 USD — while those who suffered “grievous” injuries will receive two lakhs — about 2,400 USD — according to Vaishnaw.
People with minor injuries will receive 50,000 rupees — about 600 USD — Vaishnaw said.
ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
(IDAHO) — Investigators are probing the digital footprint of Bryan Kohberger, the suspect accused of killing four Idaho college students in an early morning attack last year, according to new court documents.
The documents include search warrant applications for some of Kohberger’s internet activity and some additional phone records, as well as some of the four victims’ social media accounts. There is “probable cause to believe” that those records could yield evidence regarding the November killings of Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, Ethan Chapin and Madison Mogen at the girls’ off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, the documents say.
Though they do not reveal details of what the warrants obtained, the records indicate that prosecutors have launched an expansive examination of Kohberger’s activities online as they probe the suspect’s possible connection to the victims – and the crimes he is accused of committing.
“The case has only just begun once you make an arrest,” said Robert Boyce, an ABC News contributor and retired chief of detectives in the New York Police Department. “You want to see what he was looking up. You want to know what he was saying, whether under his or under an assumed name on these platforms.”
“They want to establish his state of mind, who he talks to and what he talks about,” Boyce said. “There could be probative materials there.”
The Latah County Prosecutor’s Office, leading the case against Kohberger, did not reply to requests from ABC News for comment.
Kohberger, 28, was indicted last month on charges including four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. At his arraignment last week, Kohberger declined to offer a plea, so the judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
A trial date was set for Oct. 2.
Prosecutors allege that in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, Kohberger, a Ph.D. student at Washington State University’s department of criminal justice and criminology, broke into an off-campus home and stabbed to death four University of Idaho students: Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.
After a more than six-week hunt police zeroed in on Kohberger as a suspect, tracking his white Hyundai Elantra, cell phone signal data, and recovering what authorities say was his DNA on a knife sheath found next to one of the victims bodies, according to court documents. He was arrested on December 30 in Pennsylvania, after driving cross-country to spend the holidays at his family home in Albrightsville, PA.
The murder weapon has not been recovered, authorities have said.
Among the new documents are search warrant applications for Kohberger’s accounts on Reddit, Google and TikTok, as well as the four victims’ Snapchat accounts, and additional records from AT&T.
Investigators obtained information from the suspect’s Reddit account this spring, including his public posts and private messages with other users; saved files and photos; and location data, court documents show.
Investigators had also previously obtained records from Kaylee Goncalves’ Reddit account, earlier court filings show.
In the affidavit for Kohberger’s arrest, officials noted he had previously “posted a Reddit survey which … asked for participants to provide information to ‘understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision making when committing a crime.'”
From Kohberger’s Google account, investigators, according to the new filings, have also pulled extensive records: emails, including drafts and trash; “hangouts” and “chats” including photos; his Google Drive, including “documents, spreadsheets, presentations and files, and associated metadata.”
The warrant also obtained information about his search and browsing history; calendar events and contacts, Google Play purchases, along with his Google Pay transactions; court documents show.
“You want to develop a profile of him in your case, sometimes a psychological profile,” Boyce said.
“They want to put a knife in that sheath, because they don’t have it right now. So you want to see if he bought it somewhere online, you’re looking at credit card receipts,” he added. “The more evidence you can put before a judge, the better you’ve got.”
Investigators also obtained additional AT&T records for a subscriber “unknown at this time,” for the specific time period of June 23, 2022 to August 1, 2022 “including any messages, records, files, logs, or information that have been deleted but are still available,” including cell tower pings that transmitted outgoing and incoming calls.
Investigators previously used cell tower data to link Kohberger to the killings’ crime scene, court documents show.
Records from “Strava,” an internet service which allows users to track their physical exercise and share their performance on social networks, were also obtained, filings show – including “biometric information” like “exercise data,” session logs, geolocation data, contacts and photos. Names and accounts obtained were redacted, but the search warrant application says there is “information related to the investigation” into the students’ killings.
Records related to the four victims’ Snapchat accounts were also obtained, according to the documents, including “communications or other messages sent or received by the accounts,” logs of previous snaps, stories and chats, and “all records pertaining to communications between Snapchat and any person regarding the user or the user’s Snapchat accounts, including contacts with support services, and all records of actions taken, including suspensions of the accounts.”
“There’s a lot to this case, technology-wise. It’s an evolving and changing field but it’s the best evidence you have – because it’s irrefutable, unbiased, human error-free,” Boyce said. “It may not be one knockout punch – but there could be overwhelming circumstantial evidence.”
(NEW YORK) — Attorneys for former President Donald Trump have been unable to locate the sensitive military document that Trump discussed on tape during a July 2021 meeting at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Federal investigators have the audio recording, on which Trump acknowledges he held onto a sensitive military document after leaving office, sources previously told ABC News.
On the recording, which ABC News has not listened to nor obtained, Trump is heard attacking Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley and referencing one document in particular that Trump claimed Milley had compiled, according to sources. Trump, who said on the recording that he still had the document in his possession, said the document was about attacking Iran, sources said.
Trump’s lawyers turned over documents in response to a March subpoena seeking all documents and materials related to Milley and Iran, including any materials containing invasion plans or maps, the sources told ABC News.
In their dealings with Trump’s lawyers, special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators said they specifically wanted the document that Trump referenced on the recording, sources familiar with the matter said. But they were unable to locate it.
It’s also not clear whether Trump had the specific document with him during the July 2021 meeting while he was discussing it. Trump indicated during the recording that he knew the document in question was secret, sources said.
The special counsel’s office declined to comment to ABC News.
The recording was made during a meeting that Trump held with people who were helping former chief of staff Mark Meadows with his memoir, according to sources.
Contacted earlier this week about the recording, a Trump spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News, “Leaks from radical partisans behind this political persecution are designed to inflame tensions and continue the media’s harassment of President Trump and his supporters.”
(SOUTH CAROLINA) — The viewing service for Cyrus Carmack-Belton, who was allegedly shot and killed by a South Carolina gas station owner, is being held Friday, according to Leevy’s Funeral Home. His funeral is planned for Saturday.
Rick Chow, 58, was arrested and charged with murder in connection to 14-year-old Cyrus’s death, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department said. Chow wrongly believed Cyrus had shoplifted several bottles of water, police said.
“He did not shoplift anything,” Sheriff Leon Lott said during a press conference Monday. “We have no evidence that he stole anything whatsoever.”
Summit Parkway Middle School, where Cyrus was a student, released a statement on Facebook, Thursday remembering what it said was its “young Eagle.”
“He was intelligent, humorous with quick wit and well-liked by his classmates,” the post said. “We could always depend on Cyrus to ask questions beyond the scope of the topic as he often would seek to understand, rather than accept and move on.”
The school noted that he had dreams of owning a tattoo shop.
During a press conference Monday by the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, Lott said there was a verbal confrontation inside the store before Cyrus left and took off running.
Lott said the convenience store owner, who police said was armed with a pistol, and his son chased after the teen.
The sheriff told reporters that Cyrus fell during the chase, got up, and “at some point” during the chase, the store owner’s son said that the teen had a gun.
“The father shot the young man in the back,” Lott said. According to law enforcement, a gun was found close to the teen’s body.
Veronica Hill, a public information officer for the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, told ABC News in a statement Friday that “Cyrus was in possession of the gun, but in South Carolina a juvenile cannot legally own a handgun.” She added that the office is investigating the gun’s origin.
Naida Rutherford, the Richland County coroner, said during the press conference that Cyrus died from “a single gunshot wound to his right lower back” that caused “significant damage to his heart and hemorrhaging.”
According to a sheriff’s office incident report obtained by ABC News, the shooting is not believed to be “a bias motivated incident.”
ABC News reached out to Chow’s attorney, James Snell, Jr., in the wake of the murder charge, but his office declined to comment.
On Thursday, Fifth Circuit Solicitor Byron E. Gipson said in a statement his office will determine whether any additional charges will be made in the incident once it has conducted a full review.
This week’s shooting was not the only alleged incident involving Chow.
Hill told ABC News in a statement Wednesday that Chow has had two prior confrontations with alleged shoplifters that resulted in him firing a weapon — in 2015 and 2018 — but his conduct in those incidents “did not meet the requirements under South Carolina law to support criminal charges.”
Todd Rutherford, who represents Cyrus’s family, told ABC News in a statement Wednesday that “what happened to [Cyrus] wasn’t an accident. It’s something that the Black community has experienced for generations: being racially profiled, then shot down in the street like a dog.”
“One beacon of hope is seeing the resilience of the Black community as they wrap their arms around this family that has joined the club that no Black family ever wants to be a part of,” he continued.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Teddy Grant contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump on Friday asked the judge overseeing his criminal prosecution in New York City to step aside, citing the judge’s daughter’s ties to a Democratic organization.
Judge Juan Merchan is presiding over the case, in which Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection to a hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Merchan himself will decide whether he is impartial.
The defense said he can’t be, because his daughter is an executive at Authentic Campaigns, a Democratic consulting firm that worked on President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.
There is a “need to assure the public that the judge who presides over this historic case is actually impartial,” Trump’s attorneys said in their motion for recusal. “This role cannot be fulfilled by Your Honor.”
“Authentic is a company which has both publicly taken positions against President Trump and has reported raising over $74 million in campaign contributions for clients since 2018 (mostly in 2020 and 2022) to Democrats,” the motion said.
Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles also cited Merchan’s oversight of a prior criminal case involving the Trump Organization, which was convicted of tax fraud. They said Merchan encouraged then-chief financial adviser Allen Weisselberg to plead guilty and cooperate against the company.
“At a June 17th meeting in the Court’s Chambers, the Court informed Mr. Weisselberg’s attorneys that unless Mr. Weisselberg cooperated with the People against Donald Trump and his interests, the Court would only offer Mr. Weisselberg a state prison sentence of at least one to three years imprisonment, even if Mr. Weisselberg pleaded guilty,” the defense motion said.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has not formally responded, but was expected to oppose Trump’s effort to replace the judge. A spokesperson for the DA’s office declined to comment.
The motion for recusal is the second attempt by Trump to move his criminal case out of Merchan’s courtroom. He is also seeking to remove the case to federal court, a move that’s opposed by the district attorney’s office.
(NEW YORK) — COVID-19 cases may be increasing again in New York City, new wastewater data hints.
Nearly all of the 14 wastewater treatments plants in the city are currently in the “high” detection level category, meaning likely 50 or more cases per 100,000 people, according to the NYS Wastewater Surveillance Network dashboard, which was updated Friday.
What’s more, two-week trend data shows that just three of the plants are seeing decreases in virus detection.
Reported case numbers have not jumped. But fewer people are getting tested than earlier in the pandemic, so case numbers are a less reliable indicator of COVID-19 spread.
Health experts told ABC News that wastewater tracking is a good early detection tool for monitoring potential future upticks, but it’s too early to determine what it means.
“Wastewater data can be a very helpful indicator of what is taking place,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation office at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “Now, it’s an indication of the level of virus that people might be shedding, but it’s not 100% related to the amount of illness people are experiencing.”
He continued, “Because with the significant amount of immunity from previous infections, from vaccination, there may be community transmission, but it may be asymptomatic and so what wastewater can’t tell you is actually the severity of the cases in the community.”‘
Wastewater surveillance checks for the virus in sewage — from households and buildings — that contains human fecal matter.
Because at least half of COVID-19 patients shed genetic material from the virus, or viral RNA, in their feces, the same tests that can determine if someone is positive can also detect the virus in wastewater samples.
When people shed the virus in their stool, they are often in the early stages of the infection, meanings levels of the virus in wastewater samples will often occur before the number of cases rise.
Reported COVID-19 cases have remained relatively flat since mid-April at about 270 cases for a seven-day rolling average, according to data from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Hospitalizations and deaths have also remained relatively flat.
“Wastewater data is…unbiased,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News. “It just depends on the amount of virus circulating in the community, so although the absolute number might be debatable, that trend is always something that makes us pay attention.”
However, he cautioned not to panic and said just because there are areas of the city in the “high” category, that does not mean a surge is imminent.
While the end of mitigation measures such as masking and some waning immunity may play a role if cases increase, Chin-Hong said the U.S. is in a much better position than it was in years past.
“In the old days, we just kind of had to be subject to the whims of the virus, but now we have weapons to fight back,” he said. “And even if vulnerable populations are infected, they could avert or prevent hospitalization and death by taking advantage of these early, antivirals taken early in the course of disease, like Paxlovid and remdesivir and molnupiravir.”
The experts said it’s natural that wastewater data is going to ebb and flow and it is not going to stay low all the time. However, because everyone has a different risk tolerance, the data can help people decide if they want to modify their behavior.
“Knowing that viruses circulating may inform people about the kinds of activities you want to take part in,” Brownstein said. “So just like you bring an umbrella for rain, you may change your behavior if you know that viruses are circulating. This is not a reason to panic. But more information can help empower people to make their own decisions.”
(NEW YORK) — Ethnic cleansing campaigns have continued in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, despite a November 2022 peace agreement, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.
“The November truce in northern Ethiopia has not brought about an end to the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans in Western Tigray Zone,” Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “If the Ethiopian government is really serious about ensuring justice for abuses, then it should stop opposing independent investigations into the atrocities in Western Tigray and hold abusive officials and commanders to account.”
The new report highlights that Tigrayans have suffered forced expulsions and deportations, torture, death and life-threatening treatment that “may amount to the crime against humanity of extermination” on the basis of their identity.
The Ethiopian military entered Tigray, a semi-autonomous region in the northern part of the country, on Nov. 4, 2020, in response to claims the Tigray People’s Liberation Front attacked a military base in the region, according to the country’s prime minister.
The war in Tigray is estimated to have claimed the lives of up to 600,000 civilians between November 2020 and August 2022, according to researchers from Belgium’s Ghent University. Han Nyssen, senior professor of geography at Ghent University, told ABC News in January that the true scale of death in Ethiopia’s Tigray region remains hard to ascertain.
“We [still] have almost no view of what happens in Western Tigray,” he said.
Human Rights Watch conducted dozens of interviews with witnesses, victims and humanitarian aid staff in gathering information about the bleak conditions for Tigrayans.
“The [militias] came into my home and said I need to leave because it’s not our land,” a woman from the town of Adebai who was forced to flee toward Sudan told Human Rights Watch on the condition of anonymity. “They would knock at midnight and say Tigrayans can’t come back.”
More than a thousand Tigrayans have been arbitrarily detained from September 2022 to April 2021, in the Western Tigrayan towns of Humera, Rawyan and Adebai, according to the report. One interviewee who was held at Bet Hintset prison told Human Rights Watch that detainees endured poor treatment, with many dying due to lack of food and medication.
The African Union, which convened the peace talks alongside members of the high-level, AU-led Ethiopian Peace Process panel, reached a “cessation of hostilities agreement” on Nov. 2, 2022. It said at the time it marked an “important step in efforts to silence the guns.”
Many of the displaced — which the U.N. registered as 47,000 in eastern Sudan as of October 2022 — told Human Rights Watch that they felt unsafe returning home due to intimidation from abusive officials and security forces that remain in the region.
The Human Rights Watch has called on the Ethiopian government to “suspend, investigate and appropriately prosecute” commanders and officials who are implicated in the abuse of human rights in Western Tigray.
“If the Ethiopian government is really serious about ensuring justice for abuses, then it should stop opposing independent investigations into the atrocities in Western Tigray and hold abusive officials and commanders to account,” Bader said.
(NEW YORK) — North Carolina’s Fort Bragg, named after Confederate Army Gen. Braxton Bragg, was officially redesignated to Fort Liberty on Friday.
The renaming ceremony Friday was part of a national campaign to change the names of nine U.S. Army installations, as recommended by the Department of Defense’s Naming Commission to erase symbols that commemorate the Confederate States of America.
Last month, the U.S. Army base formerly known as Fort Hood in central Texas was changed to Fort Cavazos and Georgia’s Fort Benning was renamed to Fort Moore. Fort Lee was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams in April, with more changes to come.
While the previously renamed bases were chosen to honor past soldiers or Army families, Fort Liberty was named after no one person.
“Every name was considered, debated. … Ultimately, any of them could have been chosen,” said Lt. Gen. Chris Donahue, the XVIII Airborne Corps’ commanding general. “A consensus could not be reached on just one. How could you choose any and leave any of those others behind? … There was no right name. There were no names that could define what this post is all about.”
Among the names considered by the community team tasked with renaming the base were Medal of Honor recipients past and present, including Sergeant Alvin York and Sergeant Robert J. Miller.
Donahue detailed that names were considered from soldiers from “all legendary tenant units,” including the 82nd Airborne Division, United States Army Special Operations Command, Joint Special Operations Command and 18th Airborne Corps.
The final decision on the new name was inspired when one of the American Gold Star Mothers, Patti Elliot, brought up the theme of liberty.
“The name Liberty honors the heroism, sacrifices, and values of the Soldiers, Service Members, Civilians, and Families who live and serve with this installation,” the press release stated. “We view this as the next chapter in our history and look forward to honoring the stories of our military heroes from every generation and walk of life.”
The three-day event began on May 30 with a sneak peek of the Sunset Liberty March, a new daily march the base will do to honor the “service, sacrifices and legacy of Liberty,” according to the press release. The grand opening of the marching site was held on Thursday.
The Friday event included the casing of the Fort Bragg garrison colors, and uncasing of the Fort Liberty colors, signifying the redesignation of Fort Liberty.
“Liberty has always been here,” Donahue said. “Liberty has always been ingrained in this area.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice has notified former Vice President Mike Pence that no criminal charges will be sought in their investigation into his handling of classified documents after leaving office, according to a letter sent to Pence’s attorneys by the DOJ that ABC News has reviewed.
A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the letter to ABC News, but declined to comment further.
The letter from DOJ’s National Security Division comes the week before Pence is expected to announce his candidacy for president in 2024.
Earlier this year, lawyers for Pence informed the Justice Department that a small number of classified documents had been found at his home in Indiana.
The discovery came after representatives for President Joe Biden similarly found classified materials from his time as vice president and dating back to his time as a senator in several locations.
A special counsel is still investigating Biden’s potential mishandling of classified materials, and the status of that probe remains unclear.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice has notified former Vice President Mike Pence that no criminal charges will be sought in their investigation into his handling of classified documents after leaving office, according to a letter sent to Pence’s attorneys by the DOJ that ABC News has reviewed.
