(PONTIAC, Mich.) — The parents of the accused Michigan school shooter were denied a request to reduce their bond on Tuesday.
Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews said the events leading to the arrest of Jennifer and James Crumbley make the bond currently set appropriate, as their actions were “premeditated to conceal their whereabouts.”
The two are charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter after allegedly failing to recognize warning signs about their son in the months before their son allegedly shot and killed four of his classmates at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021.
Prosecutors have accused the parents of giving their son a gun that was later used in the school shooting and allege the parents hid in an abandoned warehouse in Detroit and had concealed their car by hiding their license plates instead of turning themselves in the day they were charged.
Their son, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, is facing 24 counts, including four counts of murder and a terrorism charge
A judge ruled that Ethan Crumbley must remain in adult jail. His lawyers said in January they will claim an insanity defense. He is being held in isolation, under behavior watch, and must be checked on every 15 minutes.
The Crumbleys’ bond is set at $500,000 each, which they were attempting to get reduced to $100,000 each.
A lower court denied a similar motion to reduce their bond in January.
(COCHISE COUNTY, Ariz.) — A woman died after she was caught on a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a local sheriff’s office.
On April 11, Cochise County, Arizona, deputies were dispatched to a section of the border where they found a 32-year-old woman hanging upside down, the sheriff’s office said in a statement posted on Facebook.
“The woman reportedly climbed onto the top of the International Border wall and when attempting to maneuver down on the US side via a harness similar to rappelling, her foot/leg became entangled and she was trapped upside down for a significant amount of time,” the statement said.
An autopsy was being conducted to figure out exactly how the woman died.
“These types of incidents are not political, they are humanitarian realities that someone has lost a loved one in a senseless tragedy,” Sheriff Mark Daniels said. “We have to do better in finding solutions to the challenges facing our border, and we have to do it for the right reasons. Regardless of opinions, it is the facts that should direct our progress and we will keep working towards a shared goal of border safety and security.”
In a statement, Customs and Border Protection told ABC News the incident is under investigation.
“On April 11, 2022, Tucson Sector Agents received information from the emergency services dispatch in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico of an incident approximately 10 miles west of the Douglas Port of Entry at the International Boundary Barrier,” a CBP spokesman told ABC News.
“Border Patrol Agents and local emergency services responded to the scene and located an individual who was transported to a local hospital. Personnel from the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office and CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility are investigating; more information will be shared as it becomes available,” the spokesman said.
The incident comes as Customs and Border Protection had over 220,000 encounters with migrants along the southwest border in March, the third-highest on record.
Lauren Owens Lambert/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(BOSTON) — It was a triumphant and emotional moment for Henry Richard as he threw his arms up in the air and crossed the finish line at the Boston Marathon Monday.
Nine years ago, Henry’s younger brother, Martin Richard, was one of three people who were killed when two bombs detonated near the Boston Marathon finish line on April 15, 2013. Martin was 8 years old at the time.
Henry told ABC Boston affiliate WCVB-TV that he thought about his brother while running the course’s 26.2 miles.
“I know if he was here, either this year or the next coming years, he would have been doing it with me. So that’s all I could think about,” Henry said.
Henry had his brother’s name written in black marker on his right arm and his sister’s name on his left arm for the occasion, he said. He also wore a yellow jersey with the word “Peace” written on it, underneath “Team MR8,” the logo for the Martin Richard Foundation. The organization was launched in 2014 in Martin’s honor, to promote the values of “inclusion, kindness, justice and peace,” according to its website.
Before he reached the finish line, Henry also paused at the marathon’s memorial with a teammate and after he crossed the finish line, he shared an embrace with his parents, Denise and Bill Richard, and his sister, Jane Richard.
“So many people were out there for me. All my friends, my family. Motivation was the least of my worries. There was so many people there to support me. It was wonderful and I couldn’t believe it,” Henry told WCVB.
Henry added that he would definitely run another Boston Marathon in the years to come.
“I loved every second of it and this feels so great, I can’t wait to do it again,” he said.
Monday’s race was the 126th running of the Boston Marathon and passed through eight Massachusetts towns: Hopkinton, Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton and Brookline, before finishing on Boylston Street in Boston. The top finishers this year were Evans Chebet for the men’s division, who clocked in at 2 hours, 6 minutes, 51 seconds, and Peres Jepchirchir for the women’s division, who finished in 2 hours, 21 minutes, 1 second, ESPN reported.
(NEW YORK) — Russia launched an all-out ground offensive to take control of eastern Ukraine late Monday, marking the long-feared start of a new phase of the nearly two-month-long war.
Ukrainian officials said Russian forces were attacking along a nearly 300-mile front in the disputed Donbas region, the predominately Russian-speaking industrial heartland of Ukraine’s east, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian soldiers since 2014 and have declared two independent republics recognized by Moscow.
“Russian troops have begun the battle for Donbas, for which they have been preparing for a long time,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced late Tuesday in his nightly broadcast. “A very large part of the entire Russian army is now focused on this offensive.”
Since invading neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24 from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east, Russian forces have struggled to take full control of major cities amid strong resistance from Ukrainian troops. After failing to seize the capital, Kyiv, Russian forces retreated from northern Ukraine and have been regrouping in the east in recent weeks in preparation for a full-scale assault, as Russian officials declared “liberating” the Donbas as the main goal of the “special military operation.”
On Tuesday morning, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that “another stage of this operation is beginning.”
“I am sure this will be a very important moment of this entire special operation,” Lavrov said in an interview with India Today, an English-language Indian television network.
Lavrov noted that the objective, “as it was declared from the very start,” was to “fully liberate” the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics in the Donbas.
The Russian military called on the outnumbered Ukrainian fighters in the besieged port city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast to surrender by midday. The Russian Ministry of Defense said it was ready to declare a temporary ceasefire in Mariupol on Tuesday from 1:30 p.m. local time.
Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, head of Russia’s National Defense Control Center, told Russian state media on Tuesday that Ukrainian troops holed up on the grounds of the Azovstal steelworks plant in Mariupol had until 12 p.m. local time to stop all fighting and lay down their arms. Moscow has proposed this plan “given the catastrophic situation in the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, as well as for purely humanitarian considerations,” according to Mizintsev.
“All those who will lay down arms are guaranteed that their lives will be spared,” he added. “The actual start of the temporary ceasefire shall be marked by both sides by raising flags — red flags by the Russian side and white flags by the Ukrainian side along the entire perimeter of Azovstal. Furthermore, their readiness to put the temporary ceasefire into effect shall be confirmed by the sides via all communication channels.”
According to Mizintsev, “absolutely all” Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries would have been allowed to leave the plant without any weapons or ammunition from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. local time. Moscow guaranteed to each Ukrainian soldier who surrenders that their life will be spared and their rights as prisoners of war will be respected, Mizintsev said.
The territory of the giant Azovstal plant is the last holdout for the Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol. The Mariupol City Council has previously said there are at least 1,000 people, including Ukrainian troops, on the grounds of the plant. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Monday that civilians, including women and children, were also sheltering there. She called for an “urgent humanitarian corridor” to allow them to evacuate.
Eduard Basurin, a spokesperson for the militia of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, told Russian state media on Tuesday that separatist special forces were chosen to assist the Russian military in storming the Azovstal plant. Basurin said they have already started the operation in Mariupol, with Russian forces providing air and artillery support.
The Ukrainian government did not immediately confirm the claim. However, Ukrainian military spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun said Tuesday that Russian forces were intensifying their attacks in the east, with a focus on breaching Ukrainian defenses in the Donetsk and Luhanks oblasts, as well as establishing full control of Mariupol.
Weeks of relentless Russian bombardment have largely reduced Mariupol to rubble and killed thousands of residents, according to local officials. Capturing the city — a strategically important port on the Sea of Azov, part of the Black Sea — is the remaining obstacle to Russia’s push to secure a a coastal corridor to Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, which Russian forces invaded and subsequently annexed in 2014. Earlier this month, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that a full-scale ground offensive by Russia in Ukraine’s east would be “a crucial phase of the war.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
Russian forces have since retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. The United States and many European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes after graphic images emerged of dead civilians in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. Moscow is now said to be refocusing its offensive on the eastern Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the besieged port city of Mariupol.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 19, 6:26 am
Russia declares next phase of Ukraine invasion
Russia is starting the next phase of its “special military operation” in neighboring Ukraine, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“This operation will continue. Another stage of this operation is beginning,” Lavrov said in an interview Tuesday with English-language Indian television network India Today. “I am sure this will be a very important moment of this entire special operation.”
Lavrov noted that the goal of the operation is to “fully liberate” the Russian-backed separatist regions of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, “as it was declared from the very start.”
Apr 19, 6:16 am
Russia-backed separatist forces try to storm Azovstal plant in Mariupol
Russia-backed separatist forces are trying to storm a steel plant in besieged Mariupol where Ukrainian troops are holed up, according to separatist spokesperson Eduard Basurin.
Basurin, spokesman of the militia for a pro-Russia breakaway republic of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, told Russian state media on Tuesday that a separatist special forces unit was chosen to assist the Russian military in storming the giant plant of the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works company in Mariupol, a strategic port city in eastern Ukraine’s war-torn Donetsk Oblast that has been under heavy Russian bombardment since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24.
Basurin said they have already started their operation at the Azovstal plant, with Russian forces providing air and artillery support.
The territory of the Azovstal plant is the last holdout for the Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol, as Russian forces accelerate their efforts to capture the city. The Mariupol City Council has previously said there are at least 1,000 people, including Ukrainian troops, on the grounds of the plant. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Monday that civilians, including women and children, are also sheltering there and she called for an “urgent humanitarian corridor” to allow them to evacuate.
The Ukrainian government did not immediately confirm Tuesday that Russian forces are storming the Azovstal plant.
Apr 19, 6:14 am
Ukraine says Russia is stepping up attacks in the east
Ukrainian military spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun said Tuesday that Russian forces are stepping up attacks in the east.
Russian forces are currently focused on breaking through Ukrainian defences in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as well as establishing full control over the strategic port city of Mariupol, according to Shtupun.
In the south, Russian forces are focused on reaching the administrative border of the Kherson Oblast while continuing to shell the city of Mykolaiv, Shtupun said.
Meanwhile, Belarus continues to provide its territory to Russia for reconnaissance and launching air strikes against Ukraine. The Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Dnipro, Mykolaiv and Kherson were all shelled overnight, according to Shtupun.
Apr 19, 5:33 am
Russian military calls on Ukrainian troops in Mariupol to surrender
The Russian military is calling on Ukrainian troops in besieged Mariupol to surrender by midday on Tuesday.
Russian forces have been trying to seize the strategic port city in eastern Ukraine’s war-torn Donetsk Oblast since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24. The Russian Ministry of Defense said it is ready to declare a temporary ceasefire in Mariupol on Tuesday from 1:30 p.m. local time.
Ukrainian troops holed up on the grounds of the Azovstal iron and steelworks plant in Mariupol have until then to stop all fighting and lay down their arms, according to Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, head of Russia’s National Defense Control Center. Moscow has proposed this plan “given the catastrophic situation in the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, as well as for purely humanitarian considerations,” Mizintsev said in a statement Tuesday.
“All those who will lay down arms are guaranteed that their lives will be spared,” he added. “The actual start of the temporary ceasefire shall be marked by both sides by raising flags — red flags by the Russian side and white flags by the Ukrainian side along the entire perimeter of Azovstal. Furthermore, their readiness to put the temporary ceasefire into effect shall be confirmed by the sides via all communication channels.”
According to Mizintsev, “absolutely all” Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries will be allowed to leave the plant without any weapons or ammunition from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. local time. Moscow guarantees to each Ukrainian soldier who surrenders that their life will be spared and their rights as prisoners of war will be respected, Mizintsev said.
(NEW YORK) — Recycling on a large scale has always proved to be a challenging endeavor, especially as the production of plastic surged exponentially after the 1970s.
But new technology made to streamline the process may help the U.S. make strides in eliminating the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills.
Nearly 300 million tons of waste is produced in the U.S. every year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Only a fourth of that solid trash is recycled.
The need for automation in recycling centers is “obvious,” Matanya Horowitz, founder and CEO of AMP Robotics, told ABC News, especially since positions to sort through the trash do not pay well and can be dangerous.
Items such as bowling balls, skis, fabric and dirty diapers often make their way to the sorting center, Joshua Taylor, the manager of the Denver recycling plant, told ABC News.
Workers are on their feet in front of a conveyor belt all day, and turnover is high, Taylor added.
“At AMP Robotics, we’re using robotics and artificial intelligence to solve some of the primary challenges of the recycling business,” Horowitz said.
When Horowitz first proposed the idea, the feedback he received from people in the robotics field was not encouraging, he said.
“Most people in robotics that I knew thought it was a terrible idea,” Horowitz said, adding that they were “skeptical of the problems.”
But Horowitz persisted, convinced that the idea could work despite what the experts said.
He and his design team used a “unique” approach involving the use of artificial intelligence to teach the systems to identify a plethora of different materials, whether they’re bottles or cans and whether they are misshapen or have food particles on them, eliminating limitations of previous sorting machines.
“What I saw in recycling, the whole industry was being held back by these core challenges,” Horowitz said. “And if you could develop a vision system that could identify material, even though it’s been smashed and folded and dirty, you could deal with those core challenges, and you would unlock a whole lot for the industry.”
At the Waste Management plant in Denver, an average of 32 tons of waste is processed every hour, Taylor said, describing the recycling center as “a tough place to work.”
“So, you can imagine, every hour we’re doing about one and a half tractor trailer full of recyclable materials through the plant,” he said.
Recycling centers can install the robots in facilities “with almost no change to their existing operations,” Horowitz said.
The recycling industry is not achieving its full potential, said Susan Collins, the executive director of the Container Recycling Institute, a nonprofit that provides information, consultation, technical assistance and tools for recycling.
About 44% of greenhouse gases in the U.S. come from products and packaging, meaning that making recycling more efficient “represents the largest portion of what we can do” to reduce emissions, she said.
“People don’t look to the lowly glass bottle or aluminum cans and think, ‘Oh, that’s an opportunity for me to save energy and save greenhouse gases,'” Collins said. “But it is, and it’s huge.”
(SAN DIEGO) — A 2-year-old girl who spent the first two years of her life in the hospital is back home with her parents and younger brother in California.
It was a joyous homecoming for Addy Smith, who left the hospital on April 5 after 848 days of treatment at two different San Diego hospitals.
Addy was born via cesarean section on Dec. 10, 2019, at 27 weeks and four days at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns in San Diego, where she first received treatment. She was small for her age and according to her parents, was diagnosed with intrauterine growth restriction while still in the womb. IUGR, also known as fetal growth restriction or FGR, is a condition where a baby doesn’t grow at a normal rate in the womb and can lead to a lower weight at birth, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Addy’s parents, Aliesha and Chris Smith, had struggled for seven years with infertility, and at one point were told they weren’t able to have children. They tried several intrauterine insemination procedures that were unsuccessful but then got pregnant one month before they were supposed to begin the in vitro fertilization process.
“We had tried so long. It was never ever on the table, never an option to not see things through with her and not give her a chance,” Chris Smith, 36, recalled to ABC News’ Good Morning America. “The OB (obstetrician) had told us, she just painted a picture of what it would be like for the next, at least couple years, and the rest of her life and we were really like, ‘OK, let’s go. Let’s saddle up and this is what was meant to be.'”
At Sharp Mary Birch, Addy seemed to be making progress, despite her underdeveloped lungs, moving from a ventilator to a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine to help her breathe. But three months after her birth, Addy took a turn for the worse, when she stopped breathing.
“The doctors did not think she was going to make it and we were getting ready to say our goodbyes,” Aliesha Smith, 35, recalled to GMA.
Doctors had to work on Addy for over an hour to resuscitate her, but the team at Sharp Mary Birch told Aliesha and Chris that in order to give Addy a fighting chance, she’d have to be transferred to Rady Children’s Hospital.
Addy was quickly admitted to Rady’s neonatal intensive care unit in March 2020, the same month when COVID-19 was declared a national emergency. Aliesha and Chris Smith also moved into a friend’s recreational vehicle so they could split up time with Addy after the hospital changed their protocols due to COVID-19 and only allowed one parent to stay at Addy’s bedside at a time.
“She was so critical, so critical, that we had a friend that let us use their RV. And so we parked on the street and that’s where one of us would be when one of us would be up by her room,” Aliesha explained, adding that Addy coded two more times on her first two days at Rady.
Dr. Sandeep Khanna, a pediatric intensivist and the medical director of the pediatric intensive care unit at Rady Children’s Hospital, treated Addy, who had chronic lung disease and had trouble breathing on her own, for over a year in the PICU.
“She was a challenge,” Khanna told GMA. “She was having periods when the air exchange was very difficult on her and we had to give her heavy amounts of sedation to relax her, and sometimes even the heavy, heavy amounts of sedation did not work.”
“The only thing which helped us through was that we had to give her a paralyzing medication after heavy sedation,” Khanna continued. “It was tricky because sometimes those episodes would resolve [after] maybe 30 minutes or an hour. But sometimes she would have periods of those episodes maybe 10 times a day and she would continue to have it for like seven to 10 days. And it was hard to wean her from heavy sedation and muscle relaxation medications. And that’s why she was stuck in the hospital.”
For months, Addy was on some form of paralytic drug, but the Smiths never gave up on Addy, even when her care team, like Khanna, didn’t have any clear answers or solutions.
“I was sitting with [Chris] in the room and I said, ‘Look, the way things are going, Chris, I don’t know when she will go home. I think this might take years. It might take decades, even,'” Khanna recalled. “We are not saying we’re quitting but I’m just telling you that you should be prepared for that. And he said, ‘Well, she’s driving the bus. Keep doing it.’ So we did it.”
“We were always on the same page,” Aliesha added. “We always knew what the end goal was, which was to get her home. And we always made an agreement, Addy is going to tell us when she’s not ready. And if we started questioning that and we would pray about it and say like, ‘God, please give me a sign, tell me if it’s time to stop or if it’s time to keep going.'”
Khanna said there were many factors in Addy’s case but letting her grow in the PICU under the care of her nurses and medical team seemed to help with her breathing episodes, as her lungs continued to develop. Physical therapy also helped with her muscle rigidity and her lungs seemed to improve as her muscles strengthened. By February and March 2022, Addy didn’t have any bronchoconstriction, or muscle spasms in the lungs, when she couldn’t breathe.
The last two years have been extremely difficult for the Smiths but one of their bright spots was finding out they were expecting again. The couple welcomed their second child, a healthy baby boy named Aiden, last year.
Aiden was able to join his parents and accompany his older sister home two weeks ago and they’re getting to know each other already.
“She starts cracking up when he’s laughing or when he’s screaming. She cracks up and it’s funny to see them interact,” Aliesha said. “We’ve taken them on walks together out in the neighborhood, which has been so fun to do.”
Even though Addy still needs to use a ventilator at home for now, Aliesha and Chris are full of hope for their oldest child and want to pass along their hope to others.
“It’s been miracle after miracle with her,” Chris said. “We’re both so excited to see where she goes and what she can do. And I know she’s always going to continue to blow us away and surprise us.”
“I’m hoping we can give another family hope. We felt very alone during this whole thing and if her story can give another family that may be going through something so similar … if we can give them that little peace, I know it would have meant everything to us, as well,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — Over the holiday weekend, 12 people were shot at a Columbia, South Carolina, mall. In nearby Hampton County, nine people were shot outside a nightclub. And in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, two juveniles were killed and eight were injured after a shooting at a birthday party.
The recent incidents are just the latest examples of mass shootings that have been occurring at a sustained pace across the United States for the past two years and counting and which coincide with an increase in fatal shootings overall. Fatal shootings, not including suicides, jumped by more than 4,000 from 2019 to 2020 — a 26% increase in one year, according to statistics compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit which identifies mass shootings as cases in which four or more people are shot and tracks them through public data, news reports and other sources.
“These two devastating shootings will leave permanent scars on survivors and entire communities, and unfortunately, they represent only a fraction of the gun violence that impacts South Carolinians on a daily basis,” said the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety in a statement responding to the South Carolina shootings. “Just weeks ago, a twelve-year old was killed in a shooting at Greenville’s Tanglewood Middle School. Days after that, five people were wounded in a shooting along a rural road in Colleton County.”
While the rate of increase in fatal shootings slowed last year, the total number of fatal shootings still grew — to nearly 21,000, according to the GVA. And as the overall number of fatal shootings has increased, there has also been a rise in mass shootings. In 2019, there were 417 mass shootings, and just two years later, there were 693. Through April 17, the pace of mass shootings has slowed, but there have already been 139 such incidents (compared to 148 by the same date last year). Meanwhile, the number of non-mass shootings is on the rise from 5,445 through April 17 last year to 5,451 for the same period this year.
In an effort to address gun violence, President Joe Biden announced earlier this month an initiative to combat ghost guns — a firearm that comes packaged in parts, can be bought online and assembled without much of a trace.
“Anyone could order it in the mail, anyone … Terrorists and domestic abusers can go from a gun kit to a gun in as little as 30 minutes. Buyers aren’t required to pass background checks because guns have no serial numbers,” Biden said.
The new rule essentially expands the definition of a “firearm,” as established by the Gun Control Act, to cover “buy build shoot” kits that people can purchase online or from a firearm dealer and assemble themselves. It will make these kits subject to the same federal laws that currently apply to other firearms.
The goal, officials said, is to keep untraceable guns off the streets and out of the hands of those prohibited from possession.
Biden also nominated former U.S. Attorney Steve Dettelbach to become the next director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — a role that includes enforcing and implementing gun laws.
The White House and gun control advocates, however, have argued that substantive gun control measures will require legislative action through Congress, but that is unlikely given Republican opposition.
“The United States is not the only country with mental illness, domestic violence, video games, or hate-fueled ideologies, but our gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than our peer countries. The difference is easy access to guns,” according Everytown for Gun Safety, which applauded and had called for the recent moves by the Biden administration.
(NEW YORK) — The New York City Police Department is searching for the person who stabbed a New York City mother to death and dumped her body in a large rollable duffel bag, police sources told ABC News.
Just after 8 a.m. Saturday, authorities responded to a 911 call reporting a suspicious duffel bag with blood on it on a Queens, New York, street corner, the NYPD said.
Officers found 51-year-old Orsolya Gaal inside the bag, police said.
Gaal was stabbed dozens of times, according to police sources. The medical examiner’s office said she died from “sharp force injuries” to the neck.
A trail of blood from the duffel bag led to Gaal’s Queens home, police said.
According to police sources, Gaal may have known her killer.
It’s believed she went out for the night while her husband was out of town and it appeared she was killed in her basement, sources said.
Detectives are looking to speak with three men whose numbers were found in Gaal’s phone, sources said.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris announced Monday night that the Biden administration is setting a self-imposed ban on anti-satellite missile testing with the goal of making it an “international norm for responsible behavior in space.”
The U.S., China, India and Russia have all carried out such tests, which generate dangerous space debris. The U.S. is the first to impose such a ban.
“Simply put, these tests are dangerous, and we will not conduct them,” Harris said during remarks at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The vice president said the U.S. hopes other nations will follow suit.
The U.S. has identified and tracks over 1,600 pieces of debris that Russia created when it used a missile to destroy a satellite in November and more than 2,800 that China generated when it carried out its own test in 2007, Harris said. Russia’s direct-ascent anti-satellite missile test created a field of debris that threatened the International Space Station.
“This debris presents a risk to the safety of our astronauts, our satellites and our growing commercial presence,” she said. “A piece of space debris the size of a basketball, which travels at thousands of miles per hour, would destroy a satellite. Even a piece of debris as small as a grain of sand could cause serious damage.”
“These weapons are intended to deny the United States our ability to use our space capabilities by destructing, destroying our satellites, satellites which are critical to our national security,” Harris said. “These tests, to be sure, are reckless, and they are irresponsible. These tests also put in danger so much of what we do in space.”
Ahead of her remarks, the vice president met with members of the United States Space Force and United States Space Command, receiving briefings on their work advancing U.S. national security.
