(WASHINGTON) — After facing angry questions from constituents at a town hall last week, Georgia Republican Rep. Rich McCormick is back on Capitol Hill with a new message for Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency: Show a little compassion.
McCormick faced ‘boos” as he fielded questions from furious constituents in his suburban Atlanta district.
“People are concerned about what DOGE is, what it can do, what its powers are, if they’re overstepping the law. They’re concerned about the rapidity of the moves and people losing their benefits,” McCormick said.
McCormick said he is heading to the White House Tuesday afternoon for a previously scheduled meeting with President Donald Trump. If given the chance, he plans to convey some of his concerns about DOGE to the president directly.
“I think some of their actions have been too rapid to adapt to — for real people. I mean, you’re talking about Republicans, too. We’re not just talking about Democrats,” he said.
“I’m all for trimming the government; I am all for also doing it in a deliberate manner that allows people to adjust to their lifestyles … We’re talking about people who are struggling and have to make big decisions,” he added.
He said Republicans have a strong message, but it’s at risk of being lost.
“You can lose that message with just one attitude. And if nothing else, we have to be careful with how we message this so it doesn’t come across as discompassionate,” he said. “In my opinion, we have to be a little more — give people a little more to adjust, who are about lose their jobs.”
“It’s very hard for me to adjust,” he said referencing the “lightning speed” pace of changes from the new administration.
“I think we can have better coordination between the executive branch and the legislative branch … just for if nothing else — we can be one team, one fight moving forward,” he added.
Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz of Oregon also got an earful from constituents at a town hall last week. His message for Musk? Don’t leave Congress in the dark.
“I think the group is learning as it goes. You can tell this by the fact that they rehired some of the people they fired, so that’s a good thing — it shows that they’re listening and paying attention to what they’re doing,” Bentz.
“I would tell him he needs to reach out to Congress and let us know what they have in mind before they do it. So we at least have some sort of heads up.”
(LONDON) — When she left her home in Gaza City 16 months ago, Tala Herzallah didn’t think she was seeing it for the last time.
Now, walking in the rubble of what used to be her house, the 22-year-old Palestinian can barely recognize the place where she spent most of her life.
“It pains me to say it, but I only can recognize a wall from my home. Just one wall,” she told ABC News. “Otherwise, everything just disappeared as if it wasn’t there.”
Herzallah, an English student at the Islamic University of Gaza, packed her school bag and a few of her most treasured belongings as she evacuated after incessant bombing hit her neighborhood, Tel Al-Hawa.
The northern part of Gaza was the first target of Israel’s retaliatory strikes following the Hamas-led October 2023 terror attack and remained the scene of some of the fiercest fighting. Multiple ground operations and relentless airstrikes damaged or destroyed most of the buildings.
Its residents were forced to evacuate. The lack of aid, medical care and basic resources made life impossible for those who stayed behind.
Still, as soon as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was announced in January, hundreds of thousands made their way back north.
Those that have returned have been shocked by the devastation: their houses and belongings were mostly reduced to rubble and the signs of a humanitarian crisis are apparent on every corner.
But when Herzallah looked behind from her car, as bombs fell across the road that was taking her and her parents to a safer place in the south, she still hoped to return to north Gaza as she always knew it: colorful, vibrant and full of life.
That hope never faded, but with every month of war that went by, Herzallah said she knew there would be nothing waiting for her in Tel Al-Hawa.
“I know that it was destroyed. But until the last moment, I had this tiny hope that no, it won’t be destroyed. The pictures they showed me, I didn’t trust them,” she told ABC News. “I told myself, when I will reach it, it will be good.”
But it was not. As for millions of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel’s war changed everything for Herzallah.
Her house was reduced to rubble. Her education was paused as her university was destroyed and her beloved professor, Dr. Refaat Alareer, killed in an Israeli airstrike.
She was separated from her family, with her brothers in different parts of Gaza and her nephews abroad. She lost all her privacy, having to share a bathroom with more than 20 people for months.
“I don’t want to remember these days. I don’t want to remember how much I suffered because each time I remember these details, I feel that we’re not human beings,” she said. “No human being can tolerate and bear this much of pain and suffering.”
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, the Hamas-run Health Ministry reported, and 1.9 million people have been displaced, according to the United Nations.
Unable to process her present, Herzallah said she sometimes struggles to envision her future. Especially when the future she thought she would have had, if the war had not happened, gets in the way of planning anything else.
Entering her school’s campus for the first time since the war began, Herzallah found it changed to a shocking degree.
The Islamic University of Gaza, where she studied English Literature and Translation for the past three years, was hit by an Israeli airstrike on Oct. 10, 2023, as seen in a video shared by the Israeli military. They claimed Hamas used it as a base.
“It was always colorful. Colored with smiles, laughs,” Herzallah said, surrounded by burnt seats and a damaged stage. “I’ve never imagined to enter this place and see it as black as darkness. Pain is everywhere.”
Holding a graduation hat covered in dust, Herzallah said she felt all her losses.
“The first time I came to university, I dreamed of graduation day, of taking photos here with my family, siblings and professors,” she said. “Now I am graduating with nothing.”
Still, Herzallah said her dreams are “stuck between and among this rubble,” in her education. She received a scholarship to pursue her master’s degree in the U.S., which she sees as a second chance to make up for lost time and opportunities.
But she needs to leave Gaza first. Ceasefire talks are ongoing, but a permanent end to the war has yet to be agreed and Gaza’s borders remain closed.
Surrounded by unpredictability and hardship, one certainty remains for Herzallah: that if help is given, Palestinians can rebuild.
“We are strong enough to build it again. But the point is that we need a lot of things to help us. We need a lot of machines and other stuff,” she said.
To President Donald Trump’s proposal that the U.S. take over Gaza, Herzallah has a clear answer: provide the tools and then leave Gaza to Palestinians. She added his comments felt like a slap on her face after everything her people experienced.
“The relationship between Palestinians and their land is like the relationship between any mother and her sons,” Herzallah said. “Even if they leave their mother for a period of time, they will return at last to her hug and her embrace.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that an Oklahoma man convicted of murder, Richard Glossip — who has been scheduled for execution nine times and served his “last meal” three times — must now receive a new trial because errors committed by prosecutors violated his constitutional rights.
The 5-3 decision marks an extraordinary turn in a case that has seen decades of failed appeals, including a prior unsuccessful bid before the Supreme Court in which Glossip challenged the constitutionality of lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment.
“We conclude that the prosecution violated its constitutional obligation to correct false testimony,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her majority opinion, invoking the 14th Amendment’s right to due process. “We reverse the judgement below and remand the case for a new trial.”
Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined Sotomayor. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett dissented. Justice Neil Gorsuch recused from the case because of prior involvement as an appellate judge.
Glossip was convicted by an Oklahoma jury for involvement in the 1997 murder of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, only by testimony from the confessed killer, Justin Sneed, who later recanted the claim that he was paid by Glossip to perform the killing. He has maintained his innocence. There was no physical evidence.
Sneed — who received a life sentence in exchange for testifying against Glossip — had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and been taking psychiatric medication, but denied it during trial — facts uncorrected by prosecutors who knew the truth.
“Had the prosecution corrected Sneed on the stand, his credibility plainly would have suffered,” Sotomayor wrote. “That correction would have revealed to the jury not just that Sneed was untrustworthy … but also that Sneed was willing to lie to them under oath. Such a revelation would be significant in any case, and was especially so here where Sneed was already nobody’s idea of a strong witness.”
The state’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, who is a death penalty advocate, came out strongly against execution after reviewing the trial record.
“The death penalty doesn’t turn on, you know, ideology or politics,” Drummond told ABC News last year. “It should turn on the rule of law. This has been a wildly unpopular position for me to take, but it’s the right thing to do.”
Drummond has said he does not believe Glossip is innocent but that a new trial is imperative.
“We are thankful that a clear majority of the Court supports long-standing precedent that prosecutors cannot hide critical evidence from defense lawyers and cannot stand by while their witnesses knowingly lie to the jury. Today was a victory for justice and fairness in our judicial system,” said Glossip’s attorney Don Knight in a statement. “Rich Glossip, who has maintained his innocence for 27 years, will now be given the chance to have the fair trial that he has always been denied.”
The Van Treese family had asked the Supreme Court to uphold Glossip’s conviction.
Justice Thomas, in a written dissent, said the high court had no authority to override Oklahoma state court’s, which had refused to give Glossip a new trial.
“The Court stretches the law at every turn to rule in his favor,” Thomas wrote. “It finds a due process violation based on patently immaterial testimony about a witness’s medical condition. And, for the remedy, it orders a new trial in violation of black-letter law on this Court’s power to review state-court judgments.”
(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his leadership team spent much of 2024 cautiously courting both sides of America’s widening political divide — well aware that repelling Russia’s ongoing invasion relied, in large part, on U.S. largesse.
Kyiv appeared hopeful it could weather President Donald Trump’s dramatic return to the White House, assuring itself and the world that his campaign trail alignment with Russia’s narrative would be tempered by the geopolitical realities of the world’s most powerful office.
But the first month of Trump’s second term has already delivered a radical American pivot. The opening of U.S.-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia — intended to secure peace in Ukraine, but conducted without Kyiv’s involvement — and subsequent fraying of U.S.-Ukrainian ties, poses a new crisis for a nation that has grown used to living with existential peril.
Volodymyr Fesenko, a political scientist and the СEO of the Center for Political Studies “Penta” in Kyiv, told ABC News that recent developments represent “the most acute crisis in relations between the U.S. and Ukraine in their entire history.”
“In the worst case, this is a strategic turn of the U.S. towards Russia, rapprochement with Putin and weakening — or even the destruction — of previous partnership relations with Europe and Ukraine,” Fesenko said. “I am afraid that this is the scenario that will gradually be realized.”
“With Trump’s businesslike approach to bilateral relations, and with his interest in restoring relations with Russia, the previous special partnership relations between the U.S. and Ukraine will no longer exist,” Fesenko said.
Former President Joe Biden’s commitment to involving Kyiv in any talks to end the war was embodied by the “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” motto. That approach appears to have been replaced with Trumpian transactionalism.
The White House now appears to be strongarming Kyiv into economic, territorial and political concessions, with Trump himself berating Zelenskyy — celebrated by many Americans for his stoic wartime stewardship — as a “dictator without elections” who “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left.”
Zelenskyy and his top officials have pushed back, noting that Ukraine is unable to hold new elections while under martial law. Kyiv has said it is happy to work with the new administration on mutually beneficial economic and security deals, while urging American partners to treat Moscow’s narrative with skepticism. Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday voted to affirm Zelenskyy’s legitimacy and agree that no elections can be held while the war continues.
The situation is “beyond disturbing” for Kyiv, a source close to the Ukrainian government told ABC News. “It’s hard to imagine that it can be pulled back.”
Ukraine’s leadership is trying to chart a course through the minefield of Trump’s second term, the source added. “They feel that they’re striking this balance of not being impolite or disrespectful when it comes to countering some of the things that, again, at the end of the day, no Ukrainian leader can accept,” the source said.
“They feel that they’re managing it well, which doesn’t mean that they don’t have anxiety,” they added. “They do, because it is a fact that they rely on U.S. support, it is a fact that Europe cannot totally compensate for that support.”
“They’re striking this balance of pushing back, but not in a way where they’re coming off as totally obstructionist and obstinate,” the source continued.
This month’s historic U.S.-Russia meeting in Riyadh laid bare the new administration’s approach to Moscow. The two sides agreed to normalize diplomatic relations and continue talks aimed at ending Russia’s war, all without Ukraine’s involvement.
Meanwhile, Trump’s bid to win access to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Ukrainian mineral resources further unsettled Kyiv. “We’re going to get our money back,” the president said of the would-be deal, the first draft of which Zelenskyy rejected, declaring, “I can’t sell our state.”
But after a week of intense negotiations, both sides now suggest they have all but reached a deal, with Trump saying Monday he expects to see Zelenskyy in Washington next week.
The reversal of the U.S. approach is striking. Where once Biden and his team refused to engage with Moscow outside of an unprecedented sanctions campaign, Trump and his top officials are now lauding a revival in bilateral ties.
Where Biden once led the “ironclad” commitment to defending Ukraine against Kremlin aggression “for as long as it takes,” Trump falsely suggested Ukraine “should have never started” the war.
The Biden administration’s steady flow of vital military and economic aid, meanwhile, has been replaced with Trump’s push to recoup what he sees as poorly invested American money. “I want them to give us something for all of the money that we put up,” Trump told CPAC on Saturday. The president has focused in on the value of American aid to Kyiv, which he claims is as high as $500 billion. Zelenskyy disputed the figure and said American aid was given as grants, not loans. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy — a research institute in Germany that tracks foreign aid to Ukraine — said the U.S. has contributed around $119 billion to Ukraine over three years of war. The majority — $67 billion — was in the form of military equipment.
America’s rising Ukraine-skepticism is being expressed on all fronts. In an extraordinary illustration of the re-alignment on Ukraine, the U.S. sided with Russia in a vote against a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia, which passed on Monday with the support of the U.S.’ traditional Western allies. The UN Security Council passed a U.S.-drafted resolution which called for an end to the conflict without criticizing Russia. France and the U.K. abstained on the UNSC vote.
Zelenskyy has said Ukraine will not agree to any peace deal that does not protect it against renewed Russian aggression. The Trump administration’s rapid policy shift has pushed European allies to mobilize to provide their own long-term support — and protection — of Ukraine. Britain, France and others are discussing deploying European troops to Ukraine to guard any peace deal.
Though financially and logistically dependent on foreign partners, Ukraine’s armed forces are among the world’s most potent and experienced. Zelenskyy said in January that 980,000 Ukrainians are now under arms, dwarfing any other European military.
Despite Trump’s unproven claims to the contrary, well-respected polling organizations in Ukraine have found that Zelenskyy retains the trust of the majority of Ukrainians. His compatriots want the war to end on what they consider fair terms, but a December survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology poll indicates that 57% are prepared to carry the conflict’s burden for as long as necessary, despite heavy casualties, ongoing attacks on infrastructure and severe economic strain.
There are more testing days to come. Moscow has said that the U.S. and Russian negotiating teams will meet for a second round of talks within the next two weeks.
“It should not look like Americans and Russians are trying to reach a deal about Ukraine’s fate behind our backs,” Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament representing Zelenskyy’s party, told ABC News.
“But what is really important for us is that such communication between Americans and Russians should not lead to the decisions concerning Ukraine,” said Merezhko, who is also the chair of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
“I hope that it might be a part of a political game on the part of Trump, who is trying to lure Putin into negotiations to demonstrate to his voters that he is at least trying to deliver on his promise,” Merezhko added.
“That’s why we need constant communication with Trump and his team — if there is a vacuum, it can be filled by pro-Russian narratives.”
Yuriy Boyechko, the founder and CEO of the Hope for Ukraine charity, told ABC News he believes Trump “is taking a side of the aggressor.”
“Ukrainians won’t sign a surrender,” he added. “We will keep on fighting to preserve a free and democratic Ukraine even if our top ally — the U.S. — walks away. We have no other choice.”
ABC News’ Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.
(KYIV, UKRAINE) — Ukraine’s parliament has passed a resolution affirming the legitimacy of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as president and confirming that elections are not possible until after the war ends.
The resolution is a rebuff to U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who have both suggested Zelenskyy is illegitimate because he has not held elections during the war with Russia.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday he would step down if it meant peace for his country, adding he would also do so if it meant Ukraine would be granted NATO membership.
The parliament noted on Tuesday that Zelenskyy was elected in legitimate elections and his mandate is not in doubt. It also said that no elections can be held until the lifting of martial law after the coming of a “just and lasting peace.”
Zelenskyy was elected in a landslide in 2019, but his term expired last May. Ukraine is under martial law which under its constitution forbids the holding of elections.
Most Ukrainians, including major opposition parties, agree that holding credible elections now amidst the war is not possible because millions are abroad as refugees, hundreds of thousands are fighting.
An election could also be an opportunity for Russia to divide the country while it is trying to defend itself.
Members of parliament passed the resolution on Tuesday in a second attempt, after an initial vote on Monday failed to achieve sufficient support.
Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament representing Zelenskyy’s party, told ABC News that Monday’s vote failed because too few of the president’s faction were present.
“It was Monday, when many members of parliament hadn’t come from their districts yet,” he said. By Tuesday, enough MPs were in attendance for the vote to pass comfortably.
ABC News’ David Brennan contributed to this report.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — French President Emmanuel Macron used his visit to the U.S. to publicly push back on President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on Ukraine, fact-checking his American counterpart in real-time and urging caution in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During their joint Oval Office appearance on Monday, Macron interrupted Trump when the latter said that Europe was being paid back 60% of the aid it contributed to Kyiv over the last three years of war.
Touching Trump’s arm to interject, Macron said, “No, in fact, to be frank, we paid. We paid 60% of the total effort: it was through, like the U.S., loans, guarantees, grants,” Macron said. “And we provided real money, to be clear.”
After Macron’s comments, Trump smiled and replied, “If you believe that, it’s okay with me.”
In a Fox News interview that also aired on Monday, Macron warned Trump to “be careful” in the nascent U.S.-Russia talks intended to end Moscow’s 3-year-old war, without the direct involvement of Ukraine or European allies.
“I think the arrival of President Trump is a game-changer,” Macron said. “And I think he has the deterrence capacity of the U.S. to reengage with Russia.”
“We want peace,” the French president continued. “And I think the initiative of President Trump is a very positive one. But my message was to say be careful because we need something substantial for Ukraine.”
Trump’s repeated demands that Kyiv repay U.S. aid given since the beginning of Russia’s invasion have strained American ties with Ukraine and with its European allies.
The White House has framed its proposed deal to secure access to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Ukrainian resources as part of Trump’s push to recoup American wartime investment. Ukrainian officials said Monday that the deal is close to being finalized.
Trump said Monday he will soon meet with Zelenskyy, signaling the U.S. and Ukraine were “close” to a deal giving the U.S. access to profits from Ukraine’s valuable mineral resources and that Zelenskyy would come to Washington to sign it.
“I will be meeting with President Zelenskyy. In fact, he may come this week or next week to sign the agreement,” Trump said.
The president continued to focus on what he considers Ukraine’s unfair approach to U.S. and American aid during Russia’s war.
Trump again falsely claimed the U.S. has given Ukraine $350 billion during this period — a figure publicly disputed by Zelenskyy. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that the U.S. has committed about $119 billion. The majority — $67 billion — was in the form of military equipment.
The institute says that European nations — meaning the European Union, the U.K., Iceland, Norway and Switzerland — have collectively contributed around $138 billion to Ukraine, $65 billion of which was military equipment.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
Neil Milton/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(LONDON) — NATO ally Poland scrambled “military aviation” in its airspace early Tuesday morning in response to Russian missile strikes in western Ukraine, the country’s Operational Command said.
“Due to the activity of long-range aviation of the Russian Federation carrying out strikes on objects located, among others, in western Ukraine, military aviation has begun operating in Polish airspace,” the command said in a statement posted to X.
The operational commander “activated all available forces and resources at his disposal, and ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems reached a state of readiness,” the statement added.
“The steps taken are aimed at ensuring safety in areas bordering the threatened areas,” the command said. “The Operational Command of the Armed Forces is monitoring the current situation, and its subordinate forces and resources remain in full readiness for immediate response.”
The command said that its forces were stood down after around four hours, with “no violation of the airspace of the Republic of Poland” observed.
The Polish military, it added, “is constantly monitoring the situation in the territory of Ukraine and remains in constant readiness to ensure the security of Polish airspace.”
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 213 drones and seven missiles into Ukraine. Six missiles and 133 drones were shot down, the air force said on Telegram.
All of western Ukraine — and much of the rest of the country — was placed under air raid alerts in the early hours of Tuesday. Nightly Russian drone, and often also missile, attacks have become the norm in Ukraine as the country begins a fourth year of its defensive war.
This weekend, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement to social media, “Every day, our people stand against aerial terror.”
On Saturday night, Russia launched its largest-ever drone strike, firing 267 UAVs into Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian air force.
Russian and Ukrainian projectiles have at times crossed into Polish and other NATO national airspace. In 2022, two people were killed in eastern Poland by what the Polish Prosecutor’s Office said was a Ukrainian S-300 air defense missile that went off course during a Russian attack.
In at least two other instances, Warsaw has alleged that Russian cruise missiles briefly violated Polish airspace on their way to targets inside Ukraine. Poland summoned the Russian charge d’affaires to demand an explanation after one such incident in December 2023.
NATO allies Romania and Latvia have also reported airspace violations by Russian drones during Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
An online content creator has been arrested after “disturbing” videos of her contaminating store products by urinating on them has spawned an investigation and a product recall dating back four years ago. (Facebook / Keene, NH Police Department)
(KEENE, NH) — An online content creator has been charged with criminal mischief for allegedly making “disturbing” videos of her contaminating store products by urinating on them, spawning an investigation and a product recall dating back four years ago.
The investigation began on Feb. 14 when the Keene Police Department in New Hampshire received an anonymous tipoff regarding a woman – later identified as 23-year-old Kelli Tedford – who had “posted disturbing videos to an internet site” of her “contaminating items in a local business with her urine,” according to a statement from the Keene Police Department released on Friday.
Police immediately launched an investigation in cooperation with the local grocery store, the Monadnock Food Co-Op, and the affected items were removed in coordination with the health department, officials said.
Monadnock Food Co-Op subsequently issued a voluntary recall for red quinoa, white quinoa, tri-color quinoa, cornmeal, polenta, coconut shreds and raw walnuts and affirmed that “our community’s health and safety remain our top priorities.”
“While this was a highly unusual situation, we took swift action in accordance with our food safety and recall procedures,” Monadnock Food Co-Op said in their statement released on Friday. “We have also been in direct communication with the Keene Health Department, which has confirmed that no ongoing risks remain. We continue to cooperate fully with the Keene Police Department and the Keene Health Department regarding this matter. We have strict food safety protocols and recall procedures in place. We are reviewing our security measures and procedures to further safeguard our store and customers.”
However, during the police investigation into the incident, authorities found “numerous additional videos” of Tedford committing the same act over a four-year period, said the Keene Police Department.
“At this time, it appears likely that similar historic incidents occurred in Keene and surrounding communities where Tedford contaminated items and/or surfaces with urine, as several videos appear to be recorded as early as 2021,” police said.
As a result of this incident, the Monadnock Food Co-Op sustained an estimated financial loss of more than $1,500 in destroyed merchandise and cleaning costs.
“At this time, it appears likely that similar historic incidents occurred in Keene and surrounding communities where Tedford contaminated items and/or surfaces with urine, as several videos appear to be recorded as early as 2021,” police said.
As a result of this incident, the Monadnock Food Co-Op sustained an estimated financial loss of more than $1,500 in destroyed merchandise and cleaning costs.
Tedford was arrested on Friday by the Keene Police Department and charged with criminal mischief as a class B felony, authorities confirmed. She was subsequently released on personal recognizance bail and is scheduled for arraignment on April 7 at the 8th Circuit Court in Keene.
The investigation is ongoing, and police said that additional criminal charges are possible.
Police are searching for a man who has now been missing for almost two weeks after visiting a national park in Colorado, authorities said. (National Park Service)
(MONTROSE COUNTY, CO) — Police are desperately searching for a man who has now been missing for almost two weeks after visiting a national park in Colorado, authorities said.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park staff and the Montrose County Sheriff’s Office have now asked for the public’s assistance in locating a missing person named as Jordan Marsters, a 31-year-old man from Denver, Colorado, who went missing nearly two weeks ago and hasn’t been hear from since Feb. 13, according to a statement from the National Park Service on Monday.
“Marsters was traveling through Grand Junction on February 11 and in Montrose on February 12,” officials said. “His last known locations were in Montrose on February 12 and 13 and at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park on the morning of February 13 at approximately 7:20 am.”
Marsters is described as 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighing approximately 140 lbs. with blonde hair and blue eyes. last seen wearing a tan jacket and black hoodie and police say he was driving a white Kia Fuente rental car with Texas license plates “TXH4349.”
It is unclear how long Marsters was supposed to be traveling through the national park for but authorities have asked for anybody with information about his whereabouts or who was in contact with him on the days leading up to Feb.13, to contact Black Canyon National of the Gunnison National Park immediately.
