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(JACKSON, NH) — A 39-year-old man has died in a skiing accident after going off a trail he had been traversing near a ski resort in New Hampshire, police said.

The incident happened on Sunday at the Black Mountain ski area in Jackson, New Hampshire, at approximately 5:51 p.m. when Officer Mike Mosher of the Jackson Police Department responded to a report of a skiing accident from a passerby, according to a statement from the Jackson Police Department.

“The initial report was that a skier had gone off the trail and was seriously injured,” authorities said.

However, when police arrived on the scene, they discovered that the situation was worse than previously reported.

“Mountain ski patrol reported to ‘Upper Maple Slalom’ trail to aid the patient,” police said. “The area of the accident was near the summit. Upon arrival they found an unresponsive adult male with significant injuries on the edge of the snow line to the left of the trail.”

Life saving measures were immediately put into effect as authorities evacuated the man — identified as 39-year-old Eric Page of Bartlett, New Hampshire – to the base area.

“Additional life-saving efforts were provided by Bartlett Jackson ambulance personnel but were unsuccessful and the patient was declared deceased,” police said.

The crash was unwitnessed, according to the Jackson Police Department.

“The New Hampshire medical examiner’s office was notified and ordered the decedent to be taken to Furber and White Funeral Services in North Conway, New Hampshire,” authorities said.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

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(COLORADO SPRINGS, CO) — A 13-year-old girl has died after falling approximately 25 feet through the attic floor of an after-school program, police said.

The Pueblo Police Department in Colorado say they received a call on Friday evening at approximately 7 p.m. from somebody at the Rocky Mountain SER after-school head start program, according to ABC News’ Colorado Springs affiliate KRDO.

When they arrived, officers said they found a 13-year-old — later identified as Joeylin Kenley McDonald by her family — dead at the scene, according to KRDO.

While it is currently unclear what led up to her fall, the Pueblo Police Department say they are investigating the incident and that they have not determined whether this is a criminal matter, though police did confirm that she was with a group of juveniles when it happened, according to KRDO.

“Joeylin was the brightest soul in the world,” said McDonald’s aunt, Caitlyn Valdez, in a statement obtained by KRDO. “She is smart, headstrong, beautiful, sassy, sweet, caring and one hell of a hard worker … Mourning the loss of such a beautiful soul will be a daily task for the rest of our lives. Joeylin is one of a kind and will never be forgotten.”

The administration also released a statement following McDonald’s death, saying her death is a “tragic loss within our community.”

“Joeylin was a bright and beloved light in our community, and her sudden passing is a devastating blow to all who knew and loved her,” Rocky Mountain SER said in a statement. “While the exact circumstances of this tragedy remain under investigation, we ask the Pueblo community and beyond to join us in lifting in loving support and deep prayer for Joeylin, her family, friends, and all who are grieving during this unimaginable time.”

McDonald is survived by her five siblings, two parents and extended family.

The investigation is currently ongoing.

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(NEW YORK) — The wife of pro-Palestinian demonstrator Mahmoud Khalil gave birth to their first child while he remains in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.

Khalil, who is being held at a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, was denied a request for temporary release to meet their son, according to emails reviewed by ABC News.

Khalil’s lawyers requested a two-week furlough, noting that his wife, Dr. Abdalla, had gone into labor “eight days earlier than expected,” an email addressed to New Orleans ICE ERO Field Office Director Mellissa B. Harper shows.

In the email, the lawyers also recommended that Khalil could be placed in ankle monitor and could do check-ins with ICE.

Harper denied the request, writing in an email, “After consideration of the submitted information and a review of your client’s case, your request for furlough is denied.”

Dr. Noor Abdalla released a statement after the birth, saying, “My son and I should not be navigating his first days on earth without Mahmoud. ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom.”

On April 11, an immigration judge ruled that Khalil is removable after Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a section of the law that deemed him deportable because, the government claimed, his continued presence in the US would have an adverse consequence on foreign policy.

The Louisiana judge has given Khalil’s lawyers a deadline of April 23 to file applications for relief to stop his deportation. The judge said if they failed to make the deadline, she would file an order of removal to either Syria or Algeria.

While a student at Columbia University, Khalil was part of a leadership group protesting the war in Gaza. Khalil took part in negotiations with school administrators demanding the institution cut ties with Israel and divest from Israeli companies. Khalil finished his graduate studies at Columbia in December and is set to graduate in the spring.

He was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his Columbia housing in March.

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(LOS ANGELES) — After investigating the case for more than a year, the Los Angeles Innocence Project has filed voluminous evidence it says shows Scott Peterson did not murder his wife and unborn son in 2002.

In a nearly 400-page petition to the California Court of Appeals, filed Friday night, the LA Innocence Project argued Scott Peterson is innocent and his conviction should be overturned.

Laci Peterson, who was 27 years old and eight months pregnant, disappeared on Christmas Eve in 2002. Her body was found in San Francisco Bay in April 2003.

Scott Peterson, now 52, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife and second-degree murder in the death of their unborn son. A jury found him guilty following a six-month trial in 2004.

The Los Angeles Innocence Project claims Scott Peterson was denied his rights to due process and a fair trial because jurors did not hear evidence over two decades ago that they argue could have affected the outcome of the trial, and police and prosecutors did not fairly investigate the case, and even destroyed possibly critical evidence.

“In my opinion, once the police locked onto Mr. Peterson as the prime suspect, they had no interest in finding evidence showing that someone other than Scott may have abducted Laci Peterson because that evidence did not fit with their working theory of the case,” LA Innocence Project director Paula Mitchell stated in the filing. “In addition to ignoring the eyewitness reports, the police turned a blind eye to other exculpatory evidence that would have exonerated Mr. Peterson.”

She said she believes police press releases included information “indicating to the public that police did not believe Mr. Peterson’s alibi, almost from day one.”

“This created a domino effect and ultimately created a tidal wave of media attention focused on Mr. Peterson as the prime suspect in the case,” she continued.

In their filing, the LA Innocence Project claims they have new scientific evidence that shows the date of the death of the Petersons’ unborn child was later than claimed at trial, and that an expert in water movement can prove that Laci Peterson’s body was not dumped where police said it was in December 2004 — two points they say would undermine the prosecution’s case.

“This new evidence undermines the prosecution’s entire circumstantial case against Petitioner, and shows that the jury relied on false evidence, including false scientific evidence, to convict him,” the petition states. One of the attorneys on the case said that in her entire career, she has never seen exculpatory evidence this strong.

The filing also makes multiple claims of new evidence and witnesses involving two crimes they say happened around the same time as Laci Peterson’s disappearance near the Petersons’ home — a burglary at a neighbor’s home and a burned van in Modesto’s Airport District.

Last year, a judge did not let them test for Laci Peterson’s DNA on a bloodstained mattress found in the van, so his attorneys do not know if her DNA is on that mattress. Prosecutors have argued that testing on one of the mattress cloths found male DNA, so no further testing would be required. The LA Innocence Project said it has sought “more precise DNA testing to determine if there is a link to the crimes in this case.”

A judge did grant them access to review some discovery in the case from the trial in 2004, including police interview transcripts and case files.

“Every aspect of the prosecution’s theory as to how the crimes in this case were committed has now been shown to be false,” the petition states.

The petition also includes a 126-page declaration from Scott Peterson, who did not testify during his trial, in which he maintains his innocence and says he was wrongfully convicted of murder.

“It is important to me that whoever killed my wife and son be found and held accountable,” he stated. “If whoever committed such violence against Laci and Conner is still at large they are a danger to public safety. It is also important to me that I clear my name and my family’s name because I did not and could never harm or kill my family.”

The filing asks the court to vacate the judgment and sentences, among other possible forms of relief.

The LA Innocence Project also submitted an application seeking permission from the court to file the oversized petition, as it is in excess of the allowed 25,500 words.

The Court of Appeal said Monday that a decision on the application may take several days. If the application is granted, the court said it will then file the petition and lodge the exhibits. If the application is denied, it will reject the petition but may allow a shorter one to be filed.

The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, said it won’t comment on the petition until it is filed by the court and they read it.

Scott Peterson has previously appealed his conviction, claiming he received an unfair trial based on possible jury misconduct.

A judge denied him a new trial in 2022 following his appeal on stealth juror accusations.

Prosecutors and police who were involved in the original trial have stood behind the 2004 conviction.

Scott Peterson was initially sentenced to death for the murders. In 2020, the California Supreme Court overturned his death sentence, citing that his jury was improperly screened for bias against the death penalty, according to court documents. He was later resentenced to life in prison without parole.

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(PHOENIX) — Lori Daybell, the mother convicted of murdering two of her children in a so-called doomsday plot, delivered her closing argument Monday during her latest trial in Arizona, where she is charged with conspiring with her brother to kill her fourth husband.

Dubbed the “doomsday mom,” Daybell has maintained that her brother shot her then-husband of 13 years, Charles Vallow, in self-defense in her home in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019. Her brother, Alex Cox, died from natural causes months after the shooting.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, said the shooting was a ploy for Daybell to get rid of her estranged husband so that she could get his $1 million life insurance policy and be with her current husband, Chad Daybell, whom she married four months after the shooting. Prosecutors further said she invoked their religious beliefs as justification for the murder and gave her brother “religious authority” to kill Vallow because they believed he was possessed by an evil spirit they referred to as “Ned.”

Lori Daybell, 51, represented herself in the Phoenix trial. She has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

During her nearly 20-minute closing argument, she told jurors the shooting was not a premeditated murder but a “tragic family event.”

“This event was not planned or expected. It was shocking,” she said.

She argued that officers neglected to conduct a thorough investigation, though she also said the Chandler Police Department “did treat this event just like it was: self-defense.”

“This is an attempt by the state to try to retrofit a crime that doesn’t exist,” she said.

Daybell also urged the jurors to watch her entire police interview conducted after the shooting, part of which was shown during the trial.

The judge sustained several objections during her closing argument after she referred to testimony that had not been entered into evidence during the trial.

During her nearly two-hour closing argument on Monday, Maricopa County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Treena Kay said the evidence at the scene shows that Vallow was not shot in self-defense, but was “executed” and the scene “staged.”

She began by recounting text messages sent from Lori Daybell to her husband, Chad, seven days after Vallow was killed, discussing her now-deceased husband’s life insurance policy. Kay said that, upon learning she was no longer the beneficiary of the plan, the defendant messaged Chad that “Ned” probably changed it “before we got rid of him.”

“Her words tell us that she was involved in this killing, her actions and her words of texting Chad Daybell tell us the motives behind this murder — Chad and money,” Kay told jurors.

The prosecutor also revisited witness testimony that she said spoke to what she called Lori Daybell and Alex Cox’s “twisted religious beliefs” and a text message the defendant sent her brother days before the deadly shooting that mentioned Nephi, a prophet in the Book of Mormon who God commanded to kill Laban.

“Lori Vallow wanted the million dollars, and she wanted Chad Daybell, and she and Alex used that twisted religious beliefs they had so that they could kill the evil, possessed Charles and ‘be like Nephi,'” Kay said.

Kay said Alex Cox showed up at his sister’s home with a loaded gun, “ready for his mission,” and shot Vallow twice. She argued that the evidence shows the second shot was fired while Vallow was lying on the ground.

“That is premeditated first-degree murder, no matter what you believe before that,” Kay said.

Daybell countered in her closing that Nephi “signifies strong faith, perseverance and courage.”

“The state’s attempt to misconstrue the positive text message about a wonderful religious figure, Nephi, and try to turn it into an order to kill someone is absurd,” she said.

Kay advised jurors that even if you don’t hear someone explicitly talk about conspiring, “a conspiracy may be inferred from circumstances showing a common criminal objective.”

In this case, the conduct inferred a “conspiracy of Alex coming over with his gun to shoot and kill Charles,” she said.

The jury is now deliberating the verdict.

Over two weeks, the state called more than a dozen witnesses, including Daybell’s other brother, Adam Cox, who testified that he had “no doubt” his two siblings conspired to kill Vallow upon learning that his brother had fatally shot him.

Daybell did not call any witnesses in the trial and did not take the stand in her own defense.

In her cross-examination, Daybell tried to question the thoroughness of the police investigation into the shooting. She asked several witnesses, including her brother Adam Cox, if they personally saw her conspire with her brother Alex Cox to murder her husband, to which they responded no.

Throughout the trial, the judge often sustained frequent objections from the prosecution over Daybell’s questions for testifying, hearsay, relevance and speculation.

After the state rested its case on April 16, Daybell presented a motion for acquittal due to insufficient evidence. The judge denied it, saying the court finds there is sufficient evidence that a reasonable juror could find her guilty.

Both Lori and Chad Daybell were found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of her children, Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, who went missing months after Vallow was killed. In two separate trials in 2023 and 2024, prosecutors argued that the couple thought the children were possessed zombies and murdered them so that they could be together. The children’s remains were found on an Idaho property belonging to Daybell in June 2020 following a monthslong search.

Lori Daybell is currently serving life in prison without parole for the murders of her two children. She has denied killing them.

Chad Daybell was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering the two children, as well as his first wife, Tamara Daybell, and now awaits execution on Idaho’s death row.

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(WASHINGTON) — Harvard University is suing President Donald Trump’s administration for threatening to withhold federal funding if the school did not comply with its list of demands.

The lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts federal court, asks a judge to block the funding freeze from going into effect, arguing the move is “unlawful and beyond the government’s authority.”

In it, lawyers for the university argue that the administration is unlawfully using billions of dollars in federal funding as “leverage to gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard.”

They also allege that the funding freeze violates the First Amendment, flouts federal law and threatens life-saving medical research.

“All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote.

Earlier this month, following the school’s refusal to budge on the government’s demands, the administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism – alleging the school has failed to confront antisemitism on campus – froze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts, and it reportedly plans to pull an additional $1 billion in funding for medical research.

The decision followed Harvard University President Alan Garber’s letter on April 14, which said that the school “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights” by agreeing to a series of terms proposed by the Trump administration.

The lawsuit is the school’s latest effort to push back against the administration’s threats.

“The Government has not—and cannot—identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation,” the lawsuit said. “Nor has the Government acknowledged the significant consequences that the indefinite freeze of billions of dollars in federal research funding will have on Harvard’s research programs, the beneficiaries of that research, and the national interest in furthering American innovation and progress.”

In addition to arguing the funding freeze violates the First Amendment, Harvard’s lawyers alleged the Trump administration failed to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which sets out a series of procedures needed before funding can be frozen.

“The Government made no effort to follow those procedures—nor the procedures provided for in Defendants’ own agency regulations—before freezing Harvard’s federal funding,” the lawsuit said.

The school asked a federal judge to declare the funding freeze unlawful, block it from taking effect and enjoin the government unilaterally freezing furniture funding without following the steps laid out by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Garber announced the lawsuit in a letter published to the school’s website on Monday, saying the administration’s demands sought to impose “unprecedented and improper control” over the university.

“Doubling down on the letter’s sweeping and intrusive demands—which would impose unprecedented and improper control over the University—the government has, in addition to the initial freeze of $2.2 billion in funding, considered taking steps to freeze an additional $1 billion in grants, initiated numerous investigations of Harvard’s operations, threatened the education of international students, and announced that it is considering a revocation of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status,” Garber’s statement said.

“These actions have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world,” it continued.

The Trump administration has also cut funding at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern — with Harvard being the most high-profile and first university to explicitly refuse the government’s demands.

“Today, we stand for the values that have made American higher education a beacon for the world. We stand for the truth that colleges and universities across the country can embrace and honor their legal obligations and best fulfill their essential role in society without improper government intrusion,” Garber said in his statement announcing the lawsuit on Monday.

The White House did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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