(NEWARK, N.J.) — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka filed a lawsuit against interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba on Tuesday, accusing her of malicious prosecution over his arrest outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility last month.
The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages and is against Habba and the Department of Homeland Security special agent who Baraka claims unlawfully took him into custody on May 9 at Delaney Hall, where he was joined by three members of Congress for what they said they intended to be an inspection of conditions at the detention facility.
Baraka accuses Habba and Assistant Homeland Security Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin of seeking to politicize his arrest by promoting a “false and defamatory narrative” about the events that led to him being taken into custody.
While Habba and McLaughlin accused Baraka of attempting to “storm” the facility, his lawsuit noted he was actually invited onto the property by an agent of the GEO Group, a private prison operator that runs Delaney Hall, and was only placed under arrest after he had exited the gates when instructed.
“The false Affidavit was made with malice, particularly seeking to assure that the evening news included videos of the Black Mayor of Newark, New Jersey being led away in handcuffs by federal officials,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also takes issue with what it describes as the unusual treatment of Baraka following his arrest. It said he was kept in custody for over five hours before making a first appearance before a judge, whereas typically people are given a summons after being charged with the petty offense of trespassing.
Habba’s office moved to dismiss its case against Baraka, though prosecutors in a May 21 hearing were admonished by the federal judge assigned to Baraka’s case who said the charges against him appeared to be rushed and based on politics.
“The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, followed swiftly by the dismissal of these trespassing charges a mere 13 days later, suggests a worrisome misstep by your office,” Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa said. “The apparent rush in this case, culminating today in the embarrassing retraction of charges, suggests a failure to adequately investigate, to carefully gather facts and to thoughtfully consider the implications of your actions before wielding your immense power.”
Habba posted on X Monday night in response to a report on Baraka’s planned lawsuit, writing, “My advice to the mayor – feel free to join me in prioritizing violent crime and public safety. Far better use of time for the great citizens of New Jersey.”
Federal prosecutors have separately charged Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., for allegedly assaulting agents outside the Delaney Hall facility. McIver has said she plans to plead not guilty and vigorously disputes the charges.
A June 1978 sketch of the suspect accused of killing San Jose schoolteacher Diane Peterson, left, compared to then-student Harry Nickerson, now identified as her killer, in an undated photo, right. Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office
(SAN JOSE, Calif.) — The brutal murder of a school teacher, stabbed in the chest at a California high school in 1978, has finally been solved, according to authorities, with the district attorney’s office now revealing the then-16-year-old killer confessed to a family member minutes after the murder.
Diane Peterson was found stabbed at Branham High School in San Jose one day after school ended for the summer. And though they had suspects over the years, her murder had never been solved.
One of those suspects, Harry “Nicky” Nickerson, has now been confirmed as the killer, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday.
Earlier this year, investigators learned Nickerson had confessed to a family member he committed the murder. Investigators met with the family member, who admitted to police that Nickerson came to their home minutes after the murder and confessed to stabbing Peterson, solving the decades-old murder, according to the district attorney’s office.
The district attorney’s office will not be filing charges against the family member who revealed Nickerson admitted to the murder, the DA’s office told ABC News.
“The relative did not participate in the killing and did not provide protection or assistance. Just a witness. The relative was emotional and appeared relieved after having kept a secret for almost 50 years,” the office said in a statement to ABC News.
“The relative did not expressly say why they did not come forward,” the office said, saying it is “reasonable to surmise it was out of fear of retaliation.”
In the years after the murder, Nickerson was arrested and convicted of armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping, according to the DA’s office. He was shot and critically injured in 1984 while attempting a drug robbery, but no charges were filed against him “given the circumstances,” the district attorney’s office said.
Nickerson died by suicide in 1993, according to the district attorney’s office.
“This marks the end of a terrible and tragic mystery. Ms. Peterson would have been a senior citizen today if she had not crossed paths with this violent teenager. I wish she was. I am pleased that we have solved this case, even though the murderer is not alive to face justice. I wish he was,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement.
“Let this serve as a solemn reminder: no matter how much time passes, we will continue to seek the truth — because every victim matters, and every life deserves justice,” San Jose Police Chief Paul Joseph said in a statement.
A student found Peterson stabbed to death in the high school hallway in 1978, the district attorney’s office said. Peterson suffered a single stab wound to her chest, according to the district attorney’s office.
The murder occurred one day after school ended for the summer, while teachers were cleaning their classrooms, according to the district attorney’s office.
A witness had previously told police that Nickerson confessed to the crime and that he had seen Nickerson “carrying a knife that had written on it: ‘Teacher Dear,'” according to the district attorney’s office. Police were not able to corroborate that claim, according to the district attorney’s office.
Nickerson had long been a suspect in the killing, according to the district attorney’s office. Nickerson allegedly had a “strong similarity to a composite sketch based on eyewitness accounts of the attack,” according to the DA’s office.
The family of a student told police in 1983 that their son had claimed to have seen the killing and that he identified Nickerson as the killer. The student later denied this, according to the district attorney’s office.
In 1984, a witness told police that Nickerson implicated himself in the murder, claiming he killed Peterson after he was discovered making a drug deal, according to the district attorney’s office.
Extensive DNA work on the case in 2023 and 2024 was unable to identify the killer, according to the district attorney’s office.
A family member of the victim, who asked to not be identified by police, thanked investigators for “not giving up for 47 years.”
“Diane was a beautiful and wonderful person who is missed dearly,” the relative said in a statement.
(NEWARK, N.J.) — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka filed a lawsuit against interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba on Tuesday, accusing her of malicious prosecution over his arrest outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility last month.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Ramon Morales-Reyes, the man Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem publicly accused of writing letters threatening President Donald Trump, was framed by another inmate who wanted Morales-Reyes to be deported so he would no longer be able to testify against him in an upcoming trial, according to a court filing in Wisconsin yesterday.
“The investigation into the threat is ongoing,” the DHS said in a statement. “Over the course of the investigation, this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record. He will remain in custody.”
Last week, the DHS said Morales-Reyes, who is allegedly in the United States without legal status, threatened to shoot and kill Trump and posted what appeared to be a threatening letter sent from him to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
The letter claimed he was going to shoot and kill Trump at one of his rallies, and Morales-Reyes was arrested by ICE agents, the DHS said.
Reyes was involved in a dispute with another man who is currently in jail for allegedly physically assaulting him, and wanted to get Reyes deported to avoid testifying against him, multiple sources told ABC News.
During an interview with officials, Morales-Reyes said the “only person who would want to get him in trouble, was the person who had robbed him and who law enforcement knows to be the defendant, Demetric D. Scott.”
Demetric Deshawn Scott, 52, was charged Monday with identity theft, felony intimidation of a witness and two counts of bail jumping.
Morales-Reyes, 54, submitted to a handwriting test that did not match the handwriting in the letter, officials said.
Milwaukee police interviewed Scott last week. “During this interview, the defendant admitted that he wrote everything on the letters and envelopes himself. He stated that the letters were made without the assistance of anyone. When asked what was going through his head at the time of writing the letters, the defendant stated ‘Freedom,'” the court filing said.
Scott, according to the court records, can be heard allegedly concocting the plan to have Morales-Reyes arrested, thinking it would lead to the dismissal of his robbery case, of which he is currently waiting for trial.
Scott told the person on the other line he had a “hell of a plan.”
Scott allegedly told investigators he knew that by including Trump in the threat, Secret Service would have to get involved.
Police also searched his jail cell and found the blue pen with which he had written the letters.
(NEW YORK) — The United States’ economic growth forecast was cut sharply on Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, which attributed the gloomy outlook in part to tariffs issued by President Donald Trump.
The OECD expects the U.S. economy to grow 1.6% in 2025, marking a substantial reduction from a 2.2% expansion forecast in March.
The nation’s economic growth will slow further in 2026, the OECD said, cutting its forecast for that year to 1.5%.
The dampened outlook for the U.S. mirrors a slowdown expected for the global economy, the OECD said, predicting global economic growth to fall from 3.4% in 2024 to 2.9% in 2025.
“Global economic prospects are weakening,” the OECD said in a statement, pointing to an array of factors that includes “substantial barriers to trade” and “heightened policy uncertainty.”
The OECD also warned of a potential upsurge in U.S. consumer prices, saying inflation could approach 4% by the end of 2025. The inflation rate currently stands at 2.3%.
“Higher trade costs, especially in countries raising tariffs, will also push up inflation,” the OECD said.
The OECD forecast echoes concerns raised by Wall Street analysts and Federal Chair Jerome Powell about the possibility that President Donald Trump’s tariffs may cause what economists call “stagflation,” which is when inflation rises and the economy slows.
A growing set of major retailers have warned of possible tariff-driven price hikes, including Nike, Target, Walmart and Best Buy.
Consumer attitudes have soured for four consecutive months as tariffs have taken hold, according to a survey conducted by the University of Michigan.
Consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, could weaken if shopper appetites diminish. In theory, a slowdown of spending could hammer some businesses, prompting layoffs that in turn further shrink consumer activity.
“Global trade tensions are hitting sentiment,” the OECD said.
U.S. tariffs remain above where they stood before Trump’s second term began, but a number of levies have rolled back in recent weeks.
A trade agreement between the U.S. and China last month slashed tit-for-tat tariffs between the world’s two largest economies and triggered a surge in the stock market. Within days, Wall Street firms softened their forecasts of a recession.
The U.S.-China accord came weeks after the White House paused far-reaching “reciprocal tariffs” on dozens of countries. Trump also eased sector-specific tariffs targeting autos, and rolled back duties on some goods from Mexico and Canada.
Trump’s steepest tariffs fell into legal limbo last week, casting uncertainty over a major swath of the president’s signature economic policy.
For now, key measures of the economy remain fairly strong.
The unemployment rate stands at a historically low level and job growth remains robust, though it has slowed from previous highs. In recent months, inflation has cooled, reaching its lowest level since 2021.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is ramping up his criticism of Republican senators who are threatening to complicate the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which advances his legislative agenda.
On Tuesday, he railed against Sen. Rand Paul in a social media post after the Kentucky Republican publicly criticized the House-passed megabill.
Paul opposes the bill because of a debt ceiling increase in it that he said would “explode deficits.” Paul said at an event in Iowa last week that the cuts in the bill are “wimpy and anemic” and called for slashes to other entitlements, which Trump has made clear are a red line for him.
“Rand Paul has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming. He loves voting ‘NO’ on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not,” Trump said in a post on his conservative social media platform Tuesday morning.
“Rand Paul has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming. He loves voting ‘NO’ on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not,” Trump said in a post on his conservative social media platform Tuesday morning.
In a separate post, Trump said Paul “never has any practical or constructive ideas.” Over the weekend, Trump said that if Paul votes against the bill, “the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him!”
Trump is working the phones and having meetings with senators to try to get his sweeping agenda passed by Congress.
Trump met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House yesterday, according to a White House official. The meeting comes as Thune faces the Herculean task of moving this House-backed bill through the Senate as expeditiously as possible.
Thune has so far not made clear what his strategy will be for moving this package through the upper chamber. But as things currently stand, Thune can only afford to lose three of his GOP members to pass the package, and right now, he has more members than that expressing serious doubts about the bill.
The president’s outreach so far has targeted at a number of senators who have publicly expressed a need to see substantive changes to the House-backed bill.
Trump met with Republican Sen. Rick Scott on Monday to discuss the bill, sources confirmed to ABC News. Scott is among a group of Senate hardliners who wants to see larger cuts to government spending in this bill.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson — who also received a call from Trump on Monday, according to the White House — has also been vocal about his concerns that the bill doesn’t go nearly far enough to slash federal spending.
But anyone wishing to change the bill will have to balance the desire for spending cuts from hardliners against the calls from others in the conference who are insisting there be no cuts to Medicaid. Changes to Medicaid are one of the key ways the House bill slashes spending levels.
Trump seems to be targeting this part of the GOP conference as well, speaking with Republican Sen. Josh Hawley by phone, a White House official confirmed. Hawley, who has said he opposes potential cuts to Medicaid benefits, said in a post on X after that call, that Trump “said again, NO MEDICAID BENEFIT CUTS.”
Trump put pressure on Republican senators to fall in line in a post on his social media site on Monday night, emphasizing that he wants the GOP tax megabill on his desk before the Fourth of July holiday.
“I call on all of my Republican friends in the Senate and House to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY,” Trump wrote.
Echoing sentiments from Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday suggested that Republican senators who vote against Trump’s megabill will have a price to pay.
“Their voters will know about it. That is unacceptable to Republican voters and all voters across the country who elected this president in a Republican majority to get things done on Capitol Hill,” Leavitt said.
Despite expressing some displeasures about the large tax bill last week, Leavitt said Trump was keen on keeping the bill largely in-tact.
“Those discussions are ongoing, but the president is not going to back down from those key priorities that he promised the American public, and they are expecting Capitol Hill to help him deliver,” Leavitt said.
(WASHINGTON) — As top Trump administration officials press for more deportations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced it had deported 142 migrants in the Houston, Texas, area illegally in the United States and convicted of crimes to Mexico, over a two week period.
From May 19 to 30, ICE says the agency removed eight gang members from the United States, 11 convicted individuals who committed crimes against children and a man who entered the U.S. illegally 21 times.
In total, the migrants were convicted of 473 criminal offenses and entered the United States 480 times, according to ICE.
ICE says there were also 30 who were convicted of robbery and grand larceny, 43 who were convicted of aggravated assault and 48 who were convicted of drug crimes they removed.
Unfortunately, this is not an anomaly,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford. “For the past few years, there was virtually no deterrent to illegally entering the country. As a result, millions of illegal aliens poured into the country including violent criminal aliens, child predators, transnational gang members and foreign fugitives.”
Bradford said that “many of these dangerous criminal aliens went on to prey on law-abiding residents in local communities right here in Southeast Texas and we’re laser focused on identifying them and removing them from the country before they harm anyone else. This is just a small snapshot of those efforts as it only focuses on deportations to one country over the course of a two-week period, but it gives you an idea of how big this problem really is.”
It comes as in mid-May, Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff at the White House, was at ICE headquarters alongside DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and urged senior leaders at ICE and Homeland Security Investigations to step up their deportation efforts, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
The meeting was attended by senior ICE leaders and the special agents in charge of Homeland Security Investigations. Border czar Tom Homan was absent from the meeting.
Miller told senior ICE leaders that the Trump administration wants to triple the daily number of arrests agents were making up to 3,000 per day, according to sources.
(WENATCHEE, Wash.) — A missing persons alert was canceled for three young sisters in Washington — ages 9, 8 and 5 — who had not been seen since they left home for a scheduled visitation with their father, according to the Wenatchee Police Department.
The girls — 9-year-old Paityn Decker, 8-year-old Evelyn Decker and 5-year-old Olivia Decker — were last seen at approximately 5 p.m. on Friday when they left to be with their father, Travis Decker, on a “planned visitation,” police said.
Decker, 32, is homeless and has been living in his vehicle or at various motels or campgrounds in the area, officials said.
The Endangered Missing Persons Alert for the three girls was canceled late Monday, according to the Washington State Patrol, which did not provide further details.
Police said visitation has been a part of the family’s parenting plan, but Decker has “since gone outside the parameters of it which is not normal and cause for the alarm.”
As of Monday, the girls had not returned home and contact cannot be made with Decker, officials confirmed to ABC News.
Prior to the canceled missing persons alert, the mother of the sisters, Whitney Decker, said in a statement that she “just wants the girls back home safe and sound” and that she was “concerned” about the safety of her children.
“This is an unimaginable situation. I am pleading for everyone to look out for them,” Whitney Decker said in a statement provided to ABC News.
Travis Decker, who is described as 5 feet, 8 inches tall with black hair and brown eyes, was last seen wearing a light shirt and dark shorts and driving a 2017 GMC Sierra with a Washington license plate number of DC0165C, according to the missing persons’ poster.
Paityn Decker, the oldest of the siblings, was last seen wearing a blue shirt, purple shorts and pink Nikes, and Olivia Decker, the youngest, was last seen wearing a coral and pink shirt. Evelyn Decker, the third sibling, has blond hair and brown eyes, officials said.
State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Anadolu via Getty Images
(LONDON) — The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on Tuesday claimed to have conducted a new attack on Russia’s Kerch Strait Bridge — which links occupied Crimea to Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region — two days after the service’s dramatic drone strikes on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet.
The SBU posted a video, photograph and statement to its official Telegram channel detailing the operation, which it said “lasted several months.”
“SBU agents mined the supports of this illegal facility,” the statement read. “And today, without any civilian casualties, at 4:44 am the first explosive device was activated.”
“The underwater supports of the piers were severely damaged at the bottom level — 1,100 kg of explosives in TNT equivalent contributed to this,” the SBU said. “In fact, the bridge is in a state of emergency.”
SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk said in a statement, “Previously, we hit the Crimean Bridge twice in 2022 and 2023. So, today we continued this tradition under water.”
The official account for the bridge said the structure was “temporarily closed” after the explosion. The Russian Defense Ministry and government are yet to comment.
Meanwhile, at least seven people were killed and 27 were injured across Ukraine overnight into Tuesday as Russia continued long-range attacks on multiple cities, local officials said.
Ukraine’s air force said it recorded 112 Russian drones launched into the country overnight, 75 of which were either shot down or neutralized in flight. The air force reported impacts in 11 locations across the country.
Most of the reported deaths were clustered in two northeastern regions of Ukraine, close to the front lines.
Three people were killed and 20 were injured by a Russian cluster rocket attack on the city of Sumy, local authorities said. At least five rockets landed in open areas of the city center, the Sumy Regional Administration said, including along a busy road filled with cars and morning commuters.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post to social media that the “savage strike” was a “fully deliberate attack on civilians.”
Another three people were killed and six were injured in the Kharkiv region as a result of Russian shelling, the regional military administration said.
One person was killed and 13 were injured by Russian fire in the southern Kherson region, said Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the local military administration.
Five people were also injured by strikes in the northern city of Chernihiv and five others in the southern Black Sea coast city of Odesa, according to officials there.
In his Tuesday morning message, Zelenskyy said the ongoing Russian attacks indicate that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no genuine interest in peace, despite the Kremlin’s participation in ongoing U.S.-brokered talks to end its 3-year-old invasion.
Ukrainian and Russian representatives met in Istanbul, Turkey, on Monday for a second round of direct negotiations, the two sides having previously gathered in the city for the first round in May. That meeting allowed the first face-to-face peace talks between the two sides since the spring of 2022.
Ukraine is demanding a full 30-day ceasefire during which time peace negotiations can take place. Zelenskyy also said ahead of Monday’s meeting that Kyiv wants the release of all prisoners and the return of Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia during Moscow’s invasion. Zelenskyy also suggested direct future talks with Putin.
In a “peace memorandum” delivered to Ukraine’s negotiating team on Monday, Russia set out similar maximalist demands to those issued during the opening days of its spring 2022 invasion.
Among the demands are a Ukrainian withdrawal from all four Ukrainian regions that Russia claims — Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk — including areas that Russian troops do not occupy. Moscow said it would accept a ceasefire if Ukraine agreed to stop receiving foreign weapons and end mobilization — two demands Kyiv has rejected.
Moscow is also demanding limitations on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces, a permanent block on Ukrainian NATO accession, international recognition of Russian control over the areas of Ukraine it claims, the lifting of all sanctions and Ukraine to abandon its demand for war reparations to be paid by Moscow.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Tuesday that there was no significant breakthrough during Monday’s talks. “It would be wrong to expect any immediate decisions or breakthroughs here,” he said. “But work is ongoing.”
A meeting between Putin, Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump “is unlikely in the near future,” Peskov continued.
Dmitry Medvedev — the former Russian president and prime minister now serving as the deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council — wrote on Telegram that the talks “are not meant to achieve a compromise peace based on some imaginary and unrealistic conditions invented by others, but rather to secure our swift victory and the complete destruction” of Zelenskyy’s government.
Zelenskyy on Tuesday said it is “obvious: without global pressure — without decisive actions from the United States, Europe, and everyone in the world who has the power — Putin will not agree even to a ceasefire.”
“Not a single day goes by without Russia striking Ukrainian cities and villages,” the president continued.
“Every day, we lose our people to Russian terror. Every day, Russia gives new reasons for tougher sanctions and stronger support for our defense. I am grateful to everyone around the world who is promoting exactly this agenda: sanctions for aggression and the killing of people, and assistance in defending the lives of Ukrainians.”
Ukraine continued its own long-range strike campaign into Russia overnight. The Defense Ministry in Moscow said its forces downed eight Ukrainian drones on Monday night into Tuesday morning.
Monday’s Istanbul talks were held despite Ukraine’s audacious covert operation targeting Russian strategic bombers on Sunday, in which drones concealed in the back of trucks attacked at least five airfields deep inside Russian territory.
Zelenskyy told ABC News’ Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz that the attack was a “strategic operation” that “is definitely reducing Russia’s potential, and demonstrates that Ukraine is working on certain steps.”
“Unless they will stop, we will continue,” he said.
Asked whether he was satisfied with the Trump administration’s involvement, Zelenskyy told Raddatz, “We are looking for very strong steps on the part of President Trump to support the sanctions and to force President Putin to stop this war, or at least proceed with the first stage of putting an end to this war — that is the ceasefire.”
ABC News’ Will Gretsky, Oleksiy Pshemyskiy and Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.
Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images
(BOULDER, CO) — As his friends caught fire in front of his eyes in Boulder, Colorado, Omer Shachar felt “panic right away” and said he knew he had to help extinguish the flames.
Shachar, a co-leader of Run for Their Lives in Boulder, told ABC News he was standing in front of the group outside the Boulder courthouse Sunday afternoon when a man threw a Molotov cocktail under their legs.
“They’re literally on fire,” he said of the walk participants. “I don’t know if I can express it enough — literally on fire and trying to pull my friend out of the fire.”
“Once someone could help her, I was reaching out to the [attacker] and try, I don’t know what I thought, but maybe to tackle him … but we saw that he’s approaching to a container full of bottles and realized that it’s not a good idea, so we stepped back,” Shachar said. “We’re trying to keep people away as much as possible, although some of them couldn’t walk. One of them was on the ground where the fire is.”
Shachar said passersby stepped in with water bottles to try to help put out the blaze.
The suspect, 45-year-old Mohamed Soliman, was apprehended after allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails in an “act of terrorism” during the pro-Israel demonstration, officials said.
Twelve people were injured, officials said.
Soliman allegedly told police “he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead,” federal court documents said. “SOLIMAN stated he would do it (conduct an attack) again.”
He “said this had nothing to do with the Jewish community and was specific in the Zionist group supporting the killings of people on his land (Palestine),” the state documents said.
Soliman has been charged with a federal hate crime and state charges including 16 counts of attempted first-degree murder, according to court documents.
Shachar said Run for Their Lives holds a peaceful walk every Sunday to raise awareness about the hostages who remain held in Gaza by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023.
Participants include those who are “Jewish and non-Jewish, right and left, Israelis and non-Israelis, Americans and non-Americans,” he said. “And people are coming for the same cause — to bring those hostages back home.”
Shachar said he hopes the group can return to their walks soon.
“At the moment, Run for the Lives, the international group, asked to stop walking until we understand better safety arrangements and security arrangements,” he said. “However, personally, I will say that as long as we can do it, and as long that we’re working with the police and we can do it, I will walk until the last hostage is back home.”
