Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s president, attends a hearing for his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(SEOUL)– The Seoul Central District Court sentenced former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison Thursday.
The court found him guilty of leading an insurrection linked to his declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024.
The court ruled that Yoon’s central offense was mobilizing military and police forces to seize control of the National Assembly and detain key political figures.
“The deployment of martial law troops to the National Assembly during the state of emergency constitutes ‘rioting,’ a key legal element required to establish the crime of insurrection,” presiding judge Ji Gui-yeon said Thursday. Ji said declaring martial law can constitute insurrection if intended to obstruct or paralyze constitutional institutions.
The court acknowledged political tensions between Yoon’s administration and the opposition-controlled legislature. However, it said those circumstances did not justify declaring martial law under the constitution.
Judges also said Yoon showed no remorse or acknowledgment of wrongdoing during the proceedings, which they considered in determining his sentence.
Yoon’s attorneys criticized the ruling as “a mere formality for a predetermined conclusion.”
“Watching the rule of law collapse in reality, I question whether I should even pursue an appeal or continue participating in these criminal proceedings,” Yoon’s attorney, Yoon Gab-geun, told reporters after the ruling. “The truth will be revealed in the court of history.”
Yoon was taken into custody immediately after the ruling and transferred to the Seoul Detention Center. He will remain there unless the court grants release pending appeal.
If Yoon appeals, the case will move to the Seoul High Court, which can review legal interpretations and factual findings. A final appeal could be filed with the Supreme Court.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, arguing Yoon’s actions posed a grave threat to the constitutional order.
Thursday’s ruling addressed only the insurrection charge. Other criminal cases tied to the December 2024 martial law declaration, including abuse of power and obstruction of official duty, remain pending.
In a separate case last month, Yoon was sentenced to five years in prison for obstructing his arrest, the first criminal conviction tied to the crisis.
“Yoon’s sentencing does not represent a national catharsis since most Koreans have already emotionally moved on from the former president,” Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, told ABC News. “Nor does this televised verdict mark closure because many cases and appeals related to Yoon’s martial law debacle have yet to be fully adjudicated.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton attends the executive order signing ceremony to reduce the size and scope of the Education Department in the East Room of the White House on March 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A Texas appeals court will hear arguments on Thursday in a civil lawsuit brought against a woman accused by the state of illegally providing abortions in the Houston area.
Maria Margarita Rojas allegedly provided abortions in violation of the state’s abortion ban and was practicing medicine without a license at a network of clinics in northwestern Houston, according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Last year, a lower court in Waller County issued an injunction against Rojas and the three clinics at which she worked, causing them to shut down.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is currently asking the appellate court to reverse that decision.
Meanwhile, prosecutors have also accused Rojas of violating the state’s abortion ban and charged her with a first-degree felony that carries a potential sentence of up to life in prison.
“[Paxton] is accusing our client of basically operating abortion clinics, which the problem is that the allegations just aren’t true and we think that the state completely failed to prove or show that any abortions were happening or that any unlawful practice was happening at the clinics,” Marc Herron, interim associate director of litigation with the CRR, who is representing Rojas in the civil case, told ABC News.
ABC News has also reached out to the attorney representing Rojas in the criminal case.
Herron said the case against Rojas is significant because it marks the first time a provider has been criminally charged in Texas for violating the state’s abortion ban.
He accused Paxton’s office of conducting a “shoddy” investigation and said Rojas was using the abortion drug misoprostol to provide miscarriage care.
In January 2025, an anonymous complaint was filed with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, alleging that two abortions were performed at one of Rojas’ clinics, according to the appellate brief.
The Medicaid Fraud Division within Paxton’s office began investigating, with one investigator claiming to find a pill bottle of the drug misoprostol, according to the complaint. While misoprostol can be used as part of a two-drug combination to induce an abortion, it is also used to treat first-trimester miscarriages.
In filing an appeal, Rojas’ attorneys argued that mifepristone, the drug given with misoprostol to induce an abortion, was never found by investigators, nor were tools found that would be used in a surgical abortion.
They also alleged the state investigators had no “medical training or expertise” to know what misoprostol could be used for and did not consult with a medical expert during the investigation.
Herron said the effects of the investigation and of the charges have been devastating on Rojas.
“I think this is a politically motivated case and the effect has been to completely upend my client’s life,” Herron said. “She was arrested twice. She was held in jail for 10 days and had to post this exorbitant $1.4 million bond. She’s now out, but she’s got to wear an ankle monitor. There are extreme restrictions on her travel. Her midwifery license has been temporarily suspended pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings, which could take years.”
He added that the proceedings have also affected the predominantly Spanish-speaking, low-income, uninsured patients who relied on care from Rojas and her clinics.
“People who relied on Mrs. Rojas for midwifery care — she delivered babies,” Herron said. “She was a caring, devoted midwife who delivered babies and provided care to her patients, and now her patients can’t turn to her. So this has been devastating.”
According to a press release last year from Paxton, Rojas is a midwife known as “Dr. Maria.” She allegedly owned and operated multiple clinics, including Clinica Waller Latinoamericana in Waller, Clinica Latinoamericana Telge in Cypress and Latinoamericana Medical Clinic in Spring — all in the northwest Houston area.
Rojas is accused of performing “illegal abortion procedures” in her clinics, which allegedly violated the Texas Human Life Protection Act, the attorney general’s office said.
Abortions are banned in Texas except in limited, exception cases if the woman has a life-threatening condition or is at risk of “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”
In the limited exceptions when abortion is allowed, patients are required to make two trips, one for an in-person counseling session and then 24 hours later for the abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that focuses on sexual and reproductive health
Paxton’s office did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment
In an aerial view, Nancy Guthrie’s residence is seen on February 17, 2026 in Tucson, Arizona. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Authorities said they’re looking into using genetic genealogy in the investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s mysterious abduction, and an expert says the cutting-edge technique could be the key.
While authorities may find Guthrie’s kidnapper through other avenues of investigation, “if they don’t, investigative genetic genealogy definitely will,” genetic genealogist CeCe Moore told ABC News.
Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, was kidnapped from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the early hours of Feb. 1 by an unknown suspect.
The FBI ran DNA from a glove found during a roadside search through the national criminal database known as CODIS, but did not get a match to any of the roughly 22 million samples in the database, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said.
That glove — which was found about 2 miles from Nancy Guthrie’s house — also did not match DNA found at her property, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Moore, a former ABC News contributor, said, “I think we have to exercise a lot of caution in putting too much emphasis on” the glove.
“If it had had Nancy’s DNA, or had matched the DNA at the crime scene, obviously that would be different. But with it being found at such a distance, I always was a little hesitant to get too hopeful about that,” she said. “I think the DNA found at the home is far more compelling.”
While the DNA found at Nancy Guthrie’s property is still being analyzed, the sheriff’s department said on Tuesday that investigators are “looking into additional investigative genetic genealogy options for DNA evidence to check for matches.”
Genetic genealogy takes the DNA of an unknown suspect left behind and identifies the suspect by tracing the family tree through his or her family members, who voluntarily submit their DNA to a genealogy database. Genetic genealogy has been used to solve hundreds of cases since it was first implemented in the 2018 arrest of the “Golden State Killer,” a cold case that had stumped California law enforcement for decades.
“Just like in the hundreds of cases where we’ve been able to identify a violent criminal that couldn’t be found any other way, genetic genealogy has the power to do so through reverse engineering this individual’s family tree based on his DNA alone,” Moore said. “When you have this person’s DNA, you have so much information about their family tree at your fingertips. And so you can piece that tree back together … you just have to spend the time to look at all that information and sort through it.”
“So genetic genealogy often steps in and is successful when all the other leads have been exhausted,” she said.
In the Guthrie case, investigators “were very smart to start [pursuing genetic genealogy] early, and not wait for all those other leads to be exhausted,” Moore said. “Because if he’s not identified any other way, investigative genetic genealogy will definitely be the key — it’s really just a matter of time.”
And when it comes to that timeframe, Moore said, there are two factors: “the population group from which the person of interest descends — and luck.”
“Sometimes you just get lucky and somebody has a close relative in these very small databases,” Moore said.
“If the population group is one that’s not well represented, then that can make it extremely difficult. If the person has deep roots in the United States and primarily Northwest European ancestry, they may be identified in a matter of minutes or hours, because that’s the population group that’s best represented, and it’s also the one that we have the most information about being here in the United States,” she said. “If someone’s born in another country, or even as far back as their great-grandparents were immigrants, there’s far less representation in the databases that we’re able to use, and it’s also more difficult to work with records outside of the U.S.”
In the Guthrie case, law enforcement sources told ABC News on Wednesday that the FBI has reached out to Mexican authorities. There’s no evidence Nancy Guthrie was taken to Mexico, but it’s an avenue investigators are exploring given Tucson’s proximity to the border, the sources said.
If the Guthrie suspect’s parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents were born in Mexico, Moore said, “it will likely take longer.”
Moore said she predicts the genetic genealogy process in the Guthrie case “won’t take more than weeks, maybe months.”
“I have worked on cases for years. However, I don’t think this case will take that long because of the large amount of resources being dedicated to it. I would suspect the FBI genetic genealogy team would be brought in if it takes too long, and they have 200 agents,” she said.
Moore also noted that investigative genetic genealogy can be slowed due to law enforcement’s limited access to DNA profiles.
“There are over 50 million people who have taken direct-to-consumer DNA tests, but most of them are in the three largest databases, and those companies have barred law enforcement from using their databases for these purposes,” Moore said. Currently, law enforcement is limited to accessing three smaller databases, which combined have about 2 million DNA profiles, she said.
“I do expect that if [the Guthrie suspect] is not identified soon, then law enforcement very likely will serve a warrant on those bigger databases” to try to request access, she said.
(TRUCKEE, Calif.) — The group of skiers involved in the deadly avalanche in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains on Tuesday includes parents, mostly mothers, of students at a local school and ski academy, according to a source involved in the search and rescue effort and a statement from the school.
“Multiple members of the Sugar Bowl Academy community and others with strong connections to Sugar Bowl, Donner Summit, and the backcountry community died in an avalanche on Tuesday, February 17, 2026,” a statement from the school said.
Sugar Bowl Academy is a private independent school boarding and day school designed for competitive skiers.
A source involved in the search and rescue effort on the scene told ABC News that most of both the deceased and surviving victims of the avalanche are parents connected to the school.
The parents’ kids are on a winter break from school, according to sources familiar.
Authorities have not publicly identified any of the victims.
Emergency responders “are still working to recover all of the victims and are not at this time sharing the personal details of the victims and the survivors out of respect for the families affected,” the school said in the statement. “Sugar Bowl Academy is similarly not sharing the names of the victims and survivors out of respect for the families affected.”
The statement went on to say, “Sugar Bowl Academy is focused on supporting its athletes, students, staff, and families through this tragedy. Most importantly, the Sugar Bowl Academy community will continue to be there in the months and years ahead for the families that have lost loved ones.”
The Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said earlier Wednesday that 15 people were part of the group of skiers who were caught in the avalanche on Tuesday at the end of a three-day guided trip.
Eight people are confirmed dead and one other person is still missing, but presumed dead, the sheriff’s office said. Of the dead and missing, seven are women and two are men.
Six people survived the avalanche — four men and two women — and were rescued by crews after sheltering under a tarp for hours amid “highly dangerous” conditions, authorities said.
The tragedy is the deadliest U.S. avalanche in 45 years, second only to an avalanche that killed 11 people on Washington’s Mt. Rainer in 1981.
A spokesperson for Nevada County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Preston Cooper currently has his first top-30 hit with his debut single, “Weak.”
It’s a big change for the 22-year-old, who came up with the melody while walking a 14-mile mail route as a postman in Fredricktown, Ohio.
“’Weak’ was a song that came very natural to us when we wrote this song,” he says. “I made it up before I came to Nashville, and it just felt right.”
“It just had this emotional blues feeling,” he continues, “and that’s what I grew up listening to was blues, like Stevie Ray Vaughan and [Chris] Stapleton, and I just felt natural. It just felt good. It was fun to sing. It’s one of my favorite songs to sing.”
“Weak” is from Preston’s debut album, Toledo Talkin’, which came out in August.
Harry Styles, ‘Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally’ (Columbia Records)
Harry Styles has invited fans to listening parties all over the world for his new album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally, and the first one took place on Wednesday. Some lucky fans checked the album out ahead of its release and left some positive reviews.
A fan who attended the listening party in Dublin, Ireland, told RTE News that the project was “the best album that I’ve ever listened to.” Another one gushed, “It was amazing. I actually have no words for it.”
“I can’t believe we have to wait three weeks now to hear it again,” said a third person. “Like, I’m actually fuming over that.”
Two other reviews provided some actual information about the album. One fan said, “It’s really good. It’s very different from what I expected it to sound like, very different from what Harry has released previously.”
Another revealed that the album has “a huge variety of songs,” including “some super-slow ballads” and “some rock-inspired songs.”
Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally arrives March 6. Listening parties have also been set for Mexico City, Paris, Tokyo, Toronto, Berlin, Madrid, Milan, London, Zurich and more. LA and Madison, Wisconsin, were the two U.S. cities chosen to host parties.
Tim McIlrath of Rise Against performs on September 27, 2025 in Tinley Park, Illinois. (Ryan Bakerink/Getty Images)
Rise Against has launched a new initiative called The A.R.T. Project, which stands for “All Rise Together.”
In an accompanying video, streaming on YouTube, the Rise Against members speak on the importance of community in the punk scene. In then transitions to footage of Rise Against fans meeting at a warehouse and creating artwork inspired by the band.
The video ends with Rise Against performing their song “Ricochet,” the title track off their latest album, in front of those fans.
“When you create art, you create communities,” Rise Against says. “The best people to tell our story are the people who truly connect with the music.”
Ricochet was released in 2025. It also includes the singles “Nod” and “I Want It All.”
Noah Kahan will release his new album, The Great Divide, in April, but he says that creating it — or, at least, starting to create it — was “the worst professional thing I’ve gone through.”
While Noah is aware that he shouldn’t complain about being creative or being a musician, he admitted during an appearance on Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meal that the pressure to follow up Stick Season left him in despair.
“I mean, as a creative person, getting asked, ‘What are you gonna do next?’ just creates a pit in your stomach, where you’re like, ‘Oh s***, like, I gotta follow this up,’” he tells host Josh Scherer.
“The pressure of having all the sold-out shows and the song on the radio and people being like, ‘This album changed my life.’ … I started to see them all as negatives,” he explains. “Because I was like, ‘It just means that when I disappoint you with my next thing, it’s gonna be that much harder for me to bear.'”
“So I started to hate when people told me they loved [the album], because it made me feel like, ‘That’s just another person whose face is gonna fall when they hear how bad my next thing is.'”
“It was the worst professional thing I’ve gone through, having to look at that blank piece of paper after four years and be like, ‘I gotta start,’” he shares. And when he finally did, he says, it was a struggle.
“It felt like someone had taken my power away,” he says. But eventually he was able to write The Great Divide, thanks to his wife, his mom and “all these people in my life that have been with me through these cycles I’ve gone on and helped me get through that s***.”
J.I.D performs during J.I.D: God Does Like Ugly Tour at Coca-Cola Roxy on December 19, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Prince Williams/WireImage)
To Whom This May Concern, JID is one of the features on Jill Scott’s newly released album. He appears on the song “To B Honest,” which he says was an honor — but a surprise opportunity.
“It was amazing working with her. I was overly honored. I was shocked that it was happening,” he told ABC Audio. “So many feelings wrapped up in working with somebody of that stature, her legacy and everything that she has contributed to music in itself. So I put my best foot forward.”
He says he “sent the song [back] like overly fast” because he was “not letting this moment pass.”
“It holds a special place in my heart, being able to work with Miss Jill Scott,” JID says. “I’m kind of still processing it.”
He adds that he and Jill are still in touch and have “even worked on more music.”
While JID guests on Jill’s To Whom This May Concern, fans noticed his absence on J. Cole’s The Fall-Off, an album he’s happy has finally been released.
“Me being a part of it is … that is neither here nor there because me and my dog work all the time,” JID says.
Of Cole and the album, he adds, “It’s like super amazing to see somebody with his trajectory. … Being around it is like super inspiring.”
JID released his last album, the Grammy-nominated God Does Like Ugly, in August. With the help of his son, he also recently reimagined the Frosted Flakes jingle “Hey Tony.”
“It’s not something that happens every day or to anybody. So I take it with honor,” he says of recreating the jingle. “I’m happy that I got a chance to do it.”
