(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — The race for the White House is heading into the final stretch with most polls showing Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump neck-and-neck in key states with just about two weeks to go.
Harris, Cheney to make the case to disaffected Republican voters
Harris is stumping with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney on Monday in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. The two will hold a moderated conversation in each of the “blue wall” states.
Cheney endorsed Harris in early September, warning Trump posed a threat to democracy after what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice our capitol to allow law enforcement officers to be beaten and brutalized in his name and to violate the law and the Constitution in order to seize power for himself,” Cheney said at her first joint appearance with Harris earlier this month.
“I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, that is depravity, and we must never become numb to it,” she continued. “Any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again. We must defeat Donald Trump on Nov. 5.”
Trump to survey hurricane damage before rally in North Carolina
At noon, Trump will survey devastation caused by Hurricane Helene in Asheville, North Carolina.
He’ll later hold a 3 p.m. rally in Greenville before a 6:30 p.m. meeting with faith leaders in Concord.
Trump has criticized the Biden-Harris response to the storm, and spread misinformation about the federal government’s recovery efforts and assistance. Such misinformation, Biden and other officials have said, is harming those who need assistance and resulting in threats against FEMA workers.
Polls show close race between Harris, Trump
The latest polling averages from 538 show the two candidates running even in key swing states Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Trump, meanwhile, has a slight lead over Harris in Georgia and Arizona.
Overall, 538’s national polling average shows Harris ahead by just 1.8%.
(SAPELO ISLAND, G.A.) — The “catastrophic failure” of an aluminum ferry gangway caused the deaths Saturday of seven people who were attending an annual cultural event on historic Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia, officials said Sunday.
Three other people were critically injured and remained hospitalized Sunday afternoon, Commissioner Walter Rabon of the Georgia Department of Natural Resouces said during a news conference.
Among those killed was 77-year-old Charles Houston of Darien, Georgia, the chaplain for both the DNR and the Georgia State Patrol, Rabon said.
Rabon said the aluminum gangway, which was installed at the Marsh Landing Dock on Sapelo Island in November 2021, gave way in the middle under the weight of people boarding the ferry to leave the island.
“One end of the gangway was in the water. One end of the gangway on the landward side was still attached,” Rabon said, adding that the gangway was supported by two standing platforms, and that at the time of the incident, the ferry Annemarie was moored to a stationary dock next to one of the platforms.
In addition to Houston, those who perished were identified Sunday by McIntosh County Coroner Melvin Amerson as Jacqueline Crews Carter, 75; Cynthia Gibbs, 74; Carlotta McIntosh, 93; and Isaiah Thomas, 79. They were all from Jacksonville, Georgia. Also killed, according to Amerson, were William Johnson, Jr., 73, and Queen Welch, 76, both of Atlanta.
Rabon said it remains under investigation how many people were on the gangway when it collapsed. He said at least 20 people ended up in the water and another 20, including DNR staff and good Samaritans, jumped in to try to save people.
Rabon said that while the gangway was routinely inspected, “I can’t say that we get up under it and inspect it daily.”
“The initial findings of our investigation at this point show the catastrophic failure of the gangway causing it to collapse,” Rabon said.
In a statement Sunday, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources confirmed that the gangway was inspected less than a year ago, in December 2023, by Crescent Equipment Company.
On Saturday, the number of visitors to the island swelled to more than 700 from a normal daily average of less than 100, Rabon said. He said the Gullah Geechee people, descendants of enslaved Africans who were brought to the southeastern United States, were holding an annual cultural day on the Island on Saturday when tragedy struck.
Rabon said a second ferry and additional runs were added on Saturday to accommodate the large crowd.
When asked by reporters if the extra stress from the added ferry runs could have been a factor in the collapse, Rabon said, “At this time, I would not rule out anything as being a possibility.”
As part of the investigation, officials were reviewing the maintenance records of the gangway, he said.
“What I can say is that it is a structure failure. There should be very, very little maintenance to an aluminum gangway like that, but we’ll see what the investigation unfolds,” Rabon said.
During Sunday’s news conference, J.R. Grovner, a Sapelo Island resident and tour guide, spoke up, claiming that four months ago he complained to one of the ferry captains about the condition of the gangway.
“I brought it up to one of the ferry captains that the gangway wasn’t stable. I brought up concerns about the railing on the boat, that the railing is not locking properly down in the slot,” Grovner said, adding that he also complained to the U.S. Coast Guard about ferries being over capacity.
Rabon said, “At this time, I’m not aware of any complaints.”
Authorities received the first 911 call about the gangway collapse at the visitor’s landing dock at about 3:50 p.m., officials said. The incident sparked a large emergency response that included local authorities, the Georgia State Patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard, and sheriff’s deputies from McIntosh County and neighboring Camden County, as well as the McIntosh County Fire Department.
Emergency crews used boats equipped with sonar and helicopters to attempt to find and rescue people who fell into the water.
Everyone who went into the water has been accounted for, Rabon said Sunday.
An engineering and construction team was expected to help in the investigation.
The White House released a statement late Saturday from President Joe Biden.
“We are heartbroken to learn about the ferry dock walkway collapse on Georgia’s Sapelo Island,” Biden said in the statement. “What should have been a joyous celebration of Gullah-Geechee culture and history instead turned into tragedy and devastation. Jill and I mourn those who lost their lives, and we pray for the injured and anyone still missing. We are also grateful to the first responders at the scene. My team is in touch with state and local officials, and we stand ready to provide any assistance that would be helpful to the community.”
Vice President Kamala Harris is also “praying for all those who were killed or injured in the collapse of the ferry dock walkway on Georgia’s Sapelo Island,” she said in a statement Saturday.
“Our administration is in close touch with state and local officials, and we have offered any federal support the community might need. As always, we are deeply grateful for the heroism of our first responders,” Harris said in the statement.
She added that in the face of this tragedy, they will “continue to celebrate and honor the history, culture and resilience of the Gullah Geechee.”
In a statement posted on X, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said he was heartbroken by the tragedy and asked for prayers.
Sapelo Island is located about 70 miles south of Savannah, Georgia.
The Georgia Department of National Resources manages Sapelo Island, which is home to a research reserve and the Hog Hammock community, a small enclave made up of a few dozen full-time residents who are the descendants of enslaved African Americans.
The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of enslaved Africans who were brought to the southeastern U.S., primarily in coastal areas and who, because of their relative isolation, preserved many of their indigenous African traditions, according to the National Park Service.
Husband and wife Beverly and Irvin Jones told ABC News they were among those on the gangway when it collapsed. Irvin Jones said he felt the gangway slipping and made a split decision to jump onto the floating dock.
“We got almost to the boat and I felt it start to slide, like going backward,” Irvin Jones said. “So, I leaped and jumped. The two girls behind me, they fell in. The whole ramp fell in and collapsed.”
Irvin Jones added, “It happened so fast, people couldn’t react. It was sad. It was so sad. It was horrible. Not even 8 feet from me, I see one guy already drowned. One lady just jumped in to try to save a baby.”
Beverly Jones said she saw people in the water trying to hold on to their children.
“It was just horrific,” Beverly Jones said. “They were trying to hold on. There was nothing to hold on to.”
ABC News’ Laryssa Demkiw, Michelle Stoddart and Faith Abubéy contributed to this report.
(HOUSTON) — A helicopter that crashed into a radio tower in Houston, Texas, Sunday left four people killed, including a child, officials said.
The crash happened at approximately 7:54 p.m. local time, when a private aircraft struck a radio tower in Houston’s Second Ward, Houston police said in a press conference Sunday night.
All four of the individuals killed were aboard the helicopter and no one on the ground was injured in the crash, officials said.
No residences and structures were impacted except for the radio tower, police said, but noted the fire that erupted from the crash spanned two to three blocks.
The location of the crash was cited as the intersection of Engelke Street and N. Ennis Street, just five minutes away from Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros.
Houston Fire Department officials extinguished the fire after the crash.
The crash is being investigated by Houston authorities, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration.
(LONDON) — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday morning for his third visit to the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.
The Pentagon said in a statement that Austin “will meet with Ukrainian leadership and underscore the U.S. commitment to providing Ukraine with the security assistance it needs to defend itself from Russian aggression on the battlefield.”
Austin will end his fourth visit to Ukraine as defense secretary with an address on Kyiv’s successes, American commitment to supplying its troops and — with just over two weeks until the U.S. presidential election — “why Ukraine’s fight matters for U.S. security,” the Pentagon said.
A senior defense official told ABC News that Austin’s visit is intended as an opportunity to consider the overall status of the war, plus to underscore the U.S. role in defeating Moscow’s strategic objectives and inflicting “astronomical casualties” on Russian forces.
Austin will meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, the official said, with the former’s “victory plan” among the planned topics of conversation.
Ukraine, the senior U.S. official said, is in a stronger position now than one year ago, although battlefield conditions are difficult.
Kyiv’s forces are being slowly pushed back in the east of the country, while Russian counter-offensives are chipping away at Ukraine’s pocket of seized territory in the western Russian Kursk region.
Meanwhile, Russian drone and missile attacks continue across the country. The strikes have been particularly punishing for the country’s battered energy grid in the lead up to winter.
Manpower also remains a constant strain, and conversations continue in Ukraine about lowering the minimum conscription age from 25 to 18 to bolster available troop numbers.
Conscription is a politically sensitive topic, and April’s decision to drop the minimum age from 27 to 25 followed almost a year of debate.
Ukraine, the defense official said, should be able to take advantage of strategic opportunities as they arise. The challenge is in how to best its synchronize forces and prioritize its goals, they added.
Austin arrived shortly after Zelensky said Ukraine had “clear data” showing that North Korea is supplying Russia with military personnel.
“A new threat has emerged — the malign alliance between Russia and North Korea,” Zelensky said in a video statement posted to social media on Sunday evening.
“These are not just workers for production, but also military personnel,” the president said. “We expect a proper and fair response from our partners on this matter.”
“If the world remains silent now, and if we face North Korean soldiers on the front lines as regularly as we are defending against drones, it will benefit no one in this world and will only prolong this war,” Zelensky said.
Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov — the head of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence — said there are now “nearly 11,000 North Korean infantry troops training in eastern Russia to fight in Ukraine.”
Budanov said the troops will be ready to join battle by Nov. 1, the first group of around 2,600 soldiers earmarked for the fighting in Kursk.
South Korea’s spy agency warned last week that 1,500 North Korean soldiers were already inside Russia, in what it described as a “grave security threat.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed foreign concerns about deepening bilateral ties. “There is a lot of contradictory information, and that is probably how it should be treated,” he said, describing North Korea as a close neighbor and partner.
“This should not cause anyone any concern, because this cooperation is not directed against third countries,” Peskov added.
ABC News’ Britt Clennent, Lauren Minore, Yulia Drozd and Guy Davies contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Rick Singer, the man convicted of orchestrating the so-called “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal, has continued to advise prospective undergraduates on their college applications while serving his sentence in federal prison in Florida, and now from a California halfway house.
Singer, 64, a one-time college admissions consultant who pleaded guilty in 2019 to facilitating bribes between wealthy parents and elite universities in exchange for their children’s enrollment, told ABC News that he began to counsel students — pro bono — after he was sentenced last year.
Then, this past admissions season, while he was at a federal prison camp in Pensacola, Florida, Singer said, “The coolest thing ever happened.”
“I had a young man send me an email saying, ‘Could you help me with my applications and tell me if I could get into these schools?'” Singer told ABC News during a sit-down interview.
The applicant sent Singer his high school transcript and a list of his credentials. Singer, whose advice was once sought by higher-powered executives and Hollywood actors, wrote back, offering a few pointers. The student was accepted to his top school in March, Singer said.
This summer, Singer launched a new venture called ID Future Stars, a consulting business that boasts an 80% to 96% acceptance rate into first-choice schools. According to the site, “Our success speaks for itself.”
But his return to the college admissions world could be a challenge. Singer’s reputation unraveled after he pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction of justice charges in the decades-long scheme that federal investigators dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues.”
Federal prosecutors in Boston said Singer facilitated $25 million changing hands from families to college administrators and athletic coaches, who would dole out spots on their rosters to fulfill their fundraising goals. Singer transferred, spent or otherwise used more than $15 million for his own benefit, they said.
“Everything that the U.S. attorney said, and the FBI said, and everybody else said that I did do, I did it,” Singer told ABC.
Yet even four years later, Singer said the conspiracy amounted to a “victimless crime.”
News of the admissions scandal broke in 2019, when Andrew Lelling, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, announced the charges against Singer and over 50 others, including college coaches, testing administrators and actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.
The charges led to about 50 convictions and became the subject of at least four books, a Lifetime movie and a Netflix documentary.
In January 2023, a judge sentenced Singer to 42 months in federal prison. This August, he was released to a halfway house near Los Angeles.
For years, Singer said, he had operated a lucrative and legitimate college consulting business. But that changed around 2011, when he realized he could not push some clients through what he called the “front door.” He had become close with the students and their families, and wanted to do whatever he could to help them, so he developed a new admissions scheme: the “side door.”
While Singer said that a majority of his consulting has always been legitimate, he explained that the new scheme began with one student and soon expanded.
“There was a young man who was super talented, worked his tail off,” Singer said. But the student would always perform poorly on practice SAT or ACT exams.
So he found a way to get the student’s application to the top of the pile: He began to bribe standardized testing proctors to turn a blind eye to permit cheating on the exams, prosecutors said.
I knew “it was wrong, and I did it anyways,” Singer said. “What’s 10, 12, 13 kids who are good students, quality people, and this one score may screw them out of an opportunity to go to a decent school? I rationalized that to myself.”
Soon after, the stakes grew. Singer was well-known in the world of higher education, and he said presidents of several prestigious universities had contacted him, hoping his clients would donate millions of dollars to their schools.
He said that he began to set up meetings between the presidents and parents to discuss their children enrolling in the university. “The negotiations would go from whether the school was a good fit for the student to, ‘What does the president need? What does the family need? Would there be a chit involved?'” he said, referring to a monetary favor.
Singer, a former basketball coach, said he was sympathetic to coaches and the pressure they faced to fundraise ahead of their sports seasons. So he said that he began to set up similar meetings between them and his clients. At times, he faked the students’ athletic credentials to push their applications through.
“First I went to three, four coaches. Then the word got out to all the coaches, and coaches started calling me every year,” Singer said.
“If they needed to raise $250,000 or $500,000 for the program, they would call me and say, ‘Hey, I have a spot. Do you have a family that would like to come here?'” he said.
When asked if he thought his scheme may have prevented legitimate recruits from earning their way on a collegiate team, Singer said: “All I’m doing is being the facilitator and providing the coach this choice.”
On March 12, 2019, the day he was charged, Singer said he left John Joseph Moakley Courthouse in Boston and looked down at his phone.
He said he had received 93 text messages in less than an hour. Most, Singer said, were from clients looking for above-board advice and wondering whether he would still be able to meet with them for a consultation.
(NEW YORK) — The contentious debate surrounding New York City’s struggle to address homelessness and mental illness has clouded the memory of who Jordan Neely was.
But to some who cared for him, Neely is remembered for breaking out into dance and singing along with the hits on the radio as a joyous child.
He’s remembered as a teen who struggled to cope with the loss of his best friend — his mother — who was violently murdered.
He’s remembered for entertaining commuters, tourists, and locals alike with moonwalks and side glides that rivaled Michael Jackson on the NYC subways.
Neely’s family had imagined a great future ahead for him: “I said, ‘Jordan, one day you might be famous,” Neely’s great aunt Mildred Mahazu told ABC News. “And he said, ‘Really, Aunt Mildred?'”
But by the age of 30, Neely was homeless and appeared to be experiencing a mental illness crisis when he was killed after a subway passenger named Daniel Penny held him in a six-minute-long chokehold, officials said.
Penny, a former Marine, was charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in Neely’s death. He pleaded not guilty, arguing that Neely had been threatening to passengers on the train. Other witnesses reportedly told police that Neely had been yelling and harassing passengers. Penny’s trial begins on Oct. 21 with jury selection.
Neely’s death sparked citywide protests, demanding answers about city resources after reports showed dozens of interactions between Neely and both police and homeless services in the years leading up to his death.
Two of Neely’s loved ones reflected on the life and death in interviews with ABC News ahead of Penny’s trial.
Neely’s life
Neely’s childhood was rocky, according to Mahazu. He and his mother, Christie Neely, were housing insecure — sometimes living in homeless shelters — and his mother’s tumultuous relationship with her boyfriend filled some days with arguments. But amid the instability, Neely’s relationship with his mother blossomed.
The two were inseparable. Everywhere Christie went, Neely followed: “You see one, you see the other,” Mahazu said.
Before heading off to school each morning, Neely would knock at his mother’s door, wake her up and tell her goodbye.
On April 3, 2007, then-14-year-old Neely tried to go about his routine and say goodbye to his mother before school, but her boyfriend, Shawn Southerland, had blocked him from entering their bedroom, according to local news outlet NJ.com.
It was later discovered that Christie had been violently murdered at the hands of now-convicted-murderer Southerland and he dumped her body in a suitcase on a Bronx parkway, according to local reports.
Mahazu believes the tragedy changed the trajectory of Neely’s life. He was a teen, heartbroken and unable to grasp the loss.
Mahazu said she would catch Neely sitting with a far-off look in his eye, sometimes rocking side to side. She’d ask him what was wrong and recalled him once saying, “I miss my mama. I want my mama.”
“They loved each other dearly. They were crazy about each other,” Mahazu said. “From there on, he started going down, down, down, because he and his mother were extremely close, very close,” Mahazu said.
In the years after her death, Neely found solace in his love of dancing and made the NYC MTA subway system his stage, busking for money as a Michael Jackson impersonator.
New Yorker Moses Harper first remembers meeting Neely in August 2009, when she followed the sound of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits in the halls of the Times Square subway station.
Harper, a Michael Jackson tribute artist herself, remembers finding Neely mid-performance, surrounded by a crowd of tourists clapping to the rhythm and following Neely’s encouragement to dance alongside him.
Neely spotted and called on Harper, who was watching from the back of the crowd: “Show me something. Come on. Don’t be scared,” Harper recalls that he yelled out to her. Armed with a single glove in her back pocket on her way home from her dance studio, she surprised Neely with Jackson moves of her own.
“When it was all over, I gave him his hat back and he hugged me. He’s like, ‘You got to teach me, you got to show me.’ And I did,” said Harper.
It was the beginning of a friendship that would last years: “We wouldn’t just talk about Michael Jackson and dancing. We talked about other things, you know, and I missed that. I missed that. That was my little brother.”
She remembers when Neely first told her about his mother: “What was the one person in the world that really got him. And I had never seen him that sad.”
During those years, it was hard for Mahazu to keep track of him riding through the subway system. But he’d come and visit her often, and she’d fix up a big country dinner, and they’d sit and talk over their meal.
Homelessness and mental illness in New York One day, when Harper was riding the D train into the Bronx, she spotted Neely walking through the train cars. She recalled him looking noticeably homeless and asking for food or money.
She said his face lit up when he saw her, but he kept walking past, which Harper speculates was because of embarrassment. Harper said she stopped him, escorted him off the train, hugged him and asked him what was going on.
She bought him Chinese food, and something to drink, gave him cash and one of the shirts she had layered on.
“I said, ‘Listen to me: When you’re ready to get clean, this is where I am. Come and see me. I want you to come see me,'” she said. “It wasn’t what he needed at the time. And it just wasn’t. It just wasn’t enough. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
A community of Michael Jackson fans and tribute artists in NYC continued to search for Neely over the years after he stopped arriving at events and meetups. But local health officials and law enforcement said they knew him well.
According to police sources, Neely had a documented mental health history and had been previously arrested for several incidents, including assault, disorderly conduct and fare evasion.
The New York Times reported that Neely was on a list of the top 50 sheltered or homeless “high need individuals” to be reached by NYC outreach workers at the time of his death. According to New York Magazine, he bounced around shelters that have been criticized for their poor conditions and had also been hospitalized several times.
The Department of Social Services, the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene and the NYPD declined to comment further on Neely’s case and why the efforts to contact or address Neely’s needs did not work.
Those who knew Neely have demanded answers.
“If you had had the background that Jordan nearly had, how would you fare in life? Where would you be? Where would your mental state be if you had the same kind of struggles that he had?” Harper said. “How would you be doing right now? Do you think that you would deserve the same? The same treatment that he received on the last day of his life? “
The Adams administration criticized “the system” Jordan went through: “That was a real textbook case of how if you ignore the problem over and over and over again, it could turn out to be a tragic outcome.”
Adams condemned Neely’s killing in the days following the death: “Jordan Neely did not deserve to die,” Adams said in prepared remarks amid growing calls for Penny’s arrest. He was not immediately arrested following Neely’s death.
“Jordan Neely’s life mattered. He was suffering from severe mental illness, but that was not the cause of his death. His death is a tragedy that never should have happened,” the mayor said, referring to Neely as “a Black man like me.”
In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression, according to city officials.
Neely’s death took place following an announcement from New York City Mayor Eric Adams that individuals who appear “to be mentally ill” and “a danger to themselves” may be taken into custody involuntarily for psychiatric evaluations if they may be of harm, even if they are not considered to be an imminent threat to the public. The city has yet to release data about the outcomes of these programs and their effectiveness.
However, in a recent Department of Homeless Services announcement, city officials say 7,800 New Yorkers have been connected to shelter and 640 of them have been connected to permanent affordable housing since the city began an intensified approach to homelessness.
“They failed Jordan, they fail so many of the vulnerable members of a vulnerable population,” said Harper, calling for systemic reforms to fix the criminal justice and health care systems.
(LONDON) — Israeli forces continued their intense operations inside Gaza after Hamas leader and Oct. 7, 2023 attack mastermind Yahya Sinwar was killed in a firefight with Israeli forces.
The development comes as Israel continues intense air and ground campaigns against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and mulls its response to Iran’s latest ballistic missile attack.
‘Beirut in flames’ after night of airstrikes, foreign minister says
“Beirut in flames,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Monday following an intense night of airstrikes on the Lebanese capital.
“A wide-scale Israeli attack targeted Hezbollah’s financial infrastructure in Beirut and across Lebanon last night,” Katz said.
“Massive fires were seen above Beirut as over 15 buildings were struck following evacuation warnings to residents,” the foreign minister wrote.
“Hezbollah has paid and will continue to pay a heavy price for its attacks on northern Israel and its rocket fire. We will keep striking the Iranian proxy until it collapses.”
-ABC News’ Guy Davies
IDF claims ‘dozens’ of strikes on Hezbollah financial targets
Israel Defense Forces warplanes launched “a series of targeted, intelligence-based strikes against dozens of facilities and sites used by the Hezbollah terrorist organization to finance its terrorist activities,” the IDF said in a Monday post to X.
The Sunday night strikes hit targets in Beirut, southern Lebanon and elsewhere “deep within” the country, the IDF added.
The IDF said the targets were linked to the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association, which Israel has accused of acting as a key financier of Hezbollah activities.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
US investigating intelligence leak on Israel’s alleged plan to attack Iran
Documents purporting to show classified U.S. intelligence-gathering on Israel’s preparations for a possible retaliatory strike against Iran appeared on social media platforms late last week.
The impact of the circulation of these documents on current and future planning by the Israeli military is unclear at this time.
U.S. officials declined to comment on the situation when reached by ABC News. However, a law enforcement source on Sunday confirmed with ABC News that there is an investigation underway.
Markings on the documents indicate that they would have originated from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which collects, analyzes and distributes intelligence gleaned from satellite and aerial imagery.
If the documents are authentic, it would indicate a major intelligence breach.
According to Mick Mulroy, an ABC News national security and defense contributor, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East: “The future coordination between the U.S. and Israel could be challenged, as well.”
The Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation and a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on CNN Sunday and acknowledged that there is an investigation underway into the possible intelligence leak, adding, “We’re following it closely.”
-ABC News’ T. Michelle Murphy
IDF says it’s targeting infrastructure in Lebanon of group allegedly financing Hezbollah
The Israel Defense Forces announced it was targeting infrastructure Sunday night in Lebanon that has been linked to the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association, an organization it alleges is involved in financing Hezbollah.
The United States placed sanctions on the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association in May 2021 related to financing Hezbollah activities.
The Al-Qard Al-Hassan group has 31 branches in Lebanon — including in Beirut and Bekaa, officials said. At least one strike was reported Sunday evening in the Chyah neighborhood of Beirut.
“The ‘Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association’ is involved in financing the terrorist activities of the Hezbollah organization against Israel, and therefore the IDF has decided to attack this terrorist infrastructure,” the IDF said in a statement Sunday. “The IDF continues to work forcefully to destroy Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure. Therefore, we call on people inside buildings used by Hezbollah to stay at least 500 meters away from them for the next few hours.”
(LOUISVILLE, KY) — Opening statements are set to begin Monday in the federal retrial of Brett Hankison, a former Louisville police officer accused of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend and their neighbors in 2020, when Taylor was shot and killed in a botched police raid.
The initial trial ended in a mistrial last year when the jury reached an impasse because they were not able to reach a unanimous decision.
Hankison was charged in a two-count indictment in August 2022 for deprivation of rights under color of law, both of which are civil rights offenses. According to court documents, he was charged with willfully depriving Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, of their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures, which includes the right to be free from a police officer’s use of unreasonable force during a seizure.
According to court transcripts, he was also charged with willfully depriving Taylor’s three neighbors of their right to be free from the deprivation of liberty without due process of law, which includes the right to be free from a police officer’s use of unjustified force that shocks the conscience.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The trial marks the third trial for Hankison, following the initial mistrial as well as a state trial in 2022, in which he was acquitted of multiple wanton endangerment charges.
U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Jennings last week granted the prosecution’s motion to exclude references to Hankison’s prior court proceedings in the retrial, according to WHAS, the ABC affiliate in Louisville covering the case in the courtroom.
The judge denied the prosecution’s request to introduce evidence of his prior alleged wrongdoing while employed as a Louisville police officer, according to WHAS.
Hankison was one of three officers involved in the raid.
The plainclothes officers were serving a warrant searching for Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, who they alleged was dealing drugs. He was not at the residence, but her current boyfriend, Walker, thought someone was breaking into the home and fired one shot from a 9 mm pistol at the officers.
The three officers opened fire, shooting 32 bullets into the apartment, several of which struck Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who was in bed at the time.
Hankison fired 10 rounds, none of which hit anyone. He was fired for violating department procedure when he “wantonly and blindly” fired into the apartment. Several of the rounds entered a neighboring apartment where a man, child and pregnant woman were living, according to prosecutors. The neighbors — Cody Etherton, Chelsey Napper, and her son, Zayden — were all sleeping at the time of the shooting, prosecutors said.
The other two officers involved in the raid, Myles Cosgrove and Jonathan Mattingly, were not charged in the incident. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron called Taylor’s death a “tragedy” but said the two officers were justified in their use of force after having been fired upon by Walker.
Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The trial of Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran charged in the May 2023 choking death of a homeless man in a New York City subway car, is set to begin Monday with jury selection.
The trial is expected to last between four and six weeks, according to Judge Max Wiley.
Penny, 25, has pleaded not guilty to the charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in connection with Jordan Neely’s death.
Wiley denied Penny’s bid to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter case in January.
Penny put Neely, 30, in a fatal chokehold “that lasted approximately 6 minutes and continued well past the point at which Mr. Neely had stopped purposeful movement,” prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have said.
Penny’s attorneys have said that they were “saddened at the loss of human life” but that Penny saw “a genuine threat and took action to protect the lives of others,” arguing that Neely was “insanely threatening” to passengers aboard the F train in Manhattan.
Witness accounts differ on Neely’s behavior in the train, prosecutors say.
They note that many witnesses relayed that Neely expressed that he was homeless, hungry and thirsty, and most of the witnesses recount that Neely indicated a willingness to go to jail or prison.
Some witnesses report that Neely threatened to hurt people on the train, while others did not report hearing those threats.
Some witnesses told police that Neely was yelling and harassing passengers on the train; however, others have said though Neely had exhibited erratic behavior, he had not been threatening anyone in particular and had not become violent.
Some passengers on the train that day said they didn’t feel threatened — one “wasn’t really worried about what was going on” and another called it “like another day typically in New York. That’s what I’m used to seeing. I wasn’t really looking at it if I was going to be threatened or anything to that nature, but it was a little different because, you know, you don’t really hear anybody saying anything like that,” according to court filings by the prosecution.
Other passengers described their fear in court filings. One passenger said they “have encountered many things, but nothing that put fear into me like that.” Another said Neely was making “half-lunge movements” and coming within a “half a foot of people.”
Neely, who was homeless at the time of his death, had a documented mental health history and a history of arrests, including alleged instances of disorderly conduct, fare evasion and assault, according to police sources.
Less than 30 seconds after Penny allegedly put Neely into a chokehold, the train arrived at the Broadway-Lafayette Station: “Passengers who had felt fearful on account of being trapped on the train were now free to exit the train. The defendant continued holding Mr. Neely around the neck,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass in a court filing against Penny’s dismissal request. Wiley denied all motions to suppress evidence on Oct. 4.
Footage of the interaction, which began about 2 minutes after the incident started, captures Penny holding Neely for about 4 minutes and 57 seconds on a relatively empty train with a couple of male passengers nearby.
Prosecutors said that about 3 minutes and 10 seconds into the video, Neely ceases all purposeful movement.
“After that moment, Mr. Neely’s movements are best described as ‘twitching and the kind of agonal movement that you see around death,'” the prosecutor said.
The defense argued Penny had no intent to kill, but Steinglass noted that the second-degree manslaughter charge only requires prosecutors to prove Penny acted recklessly, not intentionally.
“We are confident that a jury, aware of Danny’s actions in putting aside his own safety to protect the lives of his fellow riders, will deliver a just verdict,” said Penny’s lawyers, Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff, after Penny’s request to dismiss the charge was denied.
“Danny is grateful for the continued prayers and support through this difficult process.”
Penny has raised more than $3 million for his legal defense fund ahead of the trial.
