(NEW YORK) — Prosecutors in New York City on Monday asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump to seek additional information from one of Trump’s attorneys who they believe may have a potential conflict of interest in the case.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign. Trump has denied all charges.
Trump’s defense team includes Joe Tacopina, a lawyer Daniels once considered hiring as her attorney, and the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Tacopina’s representations so far are insufficient.
“[T]he People request that the Court make certain additional inquiries of Mr. Tacopina and conduct a Gomberg inquiry of the defendant,” executive assistant district attorney Susan Hoffinger wrote in a letter to the court, referring to a hearing that would establish that Trump knowingly opts to continue with Tacopina as his attorney notwithstanding any conflict.
Trump affirmed at his arraignment he wanted to move forward with Tacopina on his legal team, but Hoffinger said a full hearing would be needed.
She has asked the judge order Tacopina to turn over any records of his firm’s communications with Daniels, and to disclose the extent to which he may have shared any information from Daniels with Trump.
The potential conflict was raised by Daniels’ current attorney, Clark Brewster, who said in a letter to the Manhattan district attorney’s office that Daniels had a 2018 conversation with Tacopina and attorneys at his firm about them potentially representing her.
Tacopina has said he never spoke to Daniels and he told the judge his firm refused to represent her.
Already having become the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time even before its second weekend in theaters, the box office gross of The Super Mario Bros. Movie is still mushrooming.
The Universal film cleared more than $691 million over the weekend and is expected to barrel past the $700 million mark by the time the sun rises on Tuesday.
In both U.S. theaters and overseas, Deadline reports, the movie enjoyed a huge Sunday, which is generally a weaker theatrical day than Friday and Saturday. The movie starring the voices of Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy and Seth Rogen actually jumped on Sunday versus its box office take on Saturday in several major European markets.
Get ready for another taste of Ed Sheeran‘s upcoming album, Subtract:On Instagram, the singer announced that Friday, April 21, he’ll release new song “Boat” and a video for the track.
“Boat is the first song I wrote and finished for Subtract, it’s where it all began, and a good way to kick off the album,” he wrote, adding, “hope you love it as much as I do x.”
“The waves won’t break my boat,” Ed sings over acoustic guitar in a clip of the song’s video. It shows him plunging off a cliff in a car, then emerging from the water as the waves crash into him.
“Boat” is the second song Ed has released from Subtract, following “Eyes Closed.” Subtract, the final installment of Ed’s “mathematics” albums, arrives May 5. As previously reported, on May 3 Disney+ will debut a four-part docuseries about Ed called The Sum of It All.
(KANSAS City, Mo.) — A 16-year-old Black teenager was shot on Thursday night by a homeowner in Kansas City, Missouri, after he accidentally went to the wrong address to pick up his siblings, police said.
Kansas City police told reporters on Sunday that the teenager, Ralph Yarl, meant to go to a house on Northeast 115th Terrace, but he went to 115th Street instead. They said he was taken to the hospital and was in stable condition as of Sunday evening.
The teenager was identified as Ralph Yarl by his family. Attorney Lee Merritt confirmed to ABC News on Sunday that he and attorney Ben Crump have been retained to represent Ralph’s family.
Merritt and Crump said in a statement on Sunday that Ralph was shot in the head and the arm and “despite the severity of his injuries,” the teenager is “alive and recovering.”
Merritt told ABC News on Monday that Ralph was released from the hospital on Saturday and is in the care of his doctors at home.
The identity of the shooter has not been released.
Amid questions over the suspect’s identity, a spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department told ABC News Monday afternoon “the name of a suspect in a crime only becomes public upon charges being filed by the prosecutor.”
“Investigators are diligently gathering evidence and investigating as we speak in the hopes to submit a case file to the prosecutors as soon as possible,” the spokesperson told ABC News. “Our next anticipated update is when we send the case file to the prosecutors for their review and determination of applicable charges. That has not happened yet. We will update the media and the public once that has happened.”
Asked if video of the incident is available, police said, “any video would be closed record at this stage of the ongoing investigation. Detectives will routinely canvass for video, witness accounts and anything else that would give them a better idea of what led up to the incident.”
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said during a press conference Sunday evening that after the shooting, the individual who shot the teenager was taken into police custody and placed on a 24-hour investigative hold but has since been released while police investigate and present evidence to the prosecutor’s office.
“After consulting with the Clay County prosecutor’s office, the homeowner was released pending further investigation due to the need to obtain a formal statement from the victim, forensic evidence and compile additional information for a case file to be presented,” Graves said.
The suspect’s release prompted protests in the city, according to ABC News affiliate in Kansas City, KMBC, with hundreds of people taking to the streets on Sunday to demand justice for Ralph.
Merritt and Crump said in a statement on Sunday the family is demanding “swift action from the Clay County prosecutors and law enforcement to identify, arrest and prosecute to the full extent of the law the man responsible for this horrendous and unjustifiable shooting.”
Graves told reporters on Sunday that police “recognize the frustration” the suspect’s release “can cause in the entire criminal justice process,” but that the Kansas City police are working “expeditiously” and “thoroughly” to present the case to the Clay County prosecutor’s office to “ensure the criminal justice process continues to advance as quickly as all involved and our community deserve.”
Asked if the shooting was “racially motivated,” Graves said there’s “no indication,” but added it’s “still an active investigation” and “as a chief of police, I do recognize the racial components of this case.”
The Clay County, Missouri prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Monday that they “have not yet received a criminal referral from the Kansas City Police Department regarding this case.”
“However, we are actively working with law enforcement in an attempt to speed up that process so that we can review the file when it is submitted and determine whether criminal charges are appropriate,” the statement said. “As always, it is our mission to ensure that justice is fully pursued and that the rights of all people in Clay County are protected and upheld by law.”
ABC News has reached out to the prosecutor’s office for further comment.
Police said they plan to get a formal statement from the teenager once his medical condition allows for him to speak with law enforcement.
“I believe that he’s stable, and we’re looking forward to have an opportunity to go ahead and take a statement from him,” Graves said.
Asked why speaking Ralph is necessary to determine charges, police told ABC News on Monday that “Prosecutors require a sworn statement from victims of crimes when they are living to attest to the actions of the suspect before making an informed decision of charges.”
Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, said during the press conference on Sunday that there will be a “thorough review” of the incident by the prosecutor’s office to determine if any charges will be filed.
“As with every case that comes through Kansas City, we will make sure we do all we can to be fair, to make sure that we’re as expeditious as possible, and more than anything to make sure that everyone no matter their background, knows that justice can be obtained here in Kansas City,” Lucas said.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
Sting is extending his time on the road. The singer has added nine new dates to his My Songs 2023 tour, which hits North America this fall.
The new additions, which all feature special guest Joe Sumner, Sting’s eldest son, are in Wantagh, New York; Hollywood, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; Reno, Nevada; and Austin, Irving and Woodlands, Texas.
The tour is set to kick off September 5 in Toronto, Canada, with dates now confirmed through October 15 in Woodlands. Tickets for the new shows go on sale Friday, April 21, at 10 a.m. local time.
Before bringing the show back to the U.S., Sting is set to tour Europe, with dates kicking off June 1 in Bilbao, Spain. A complete tour schedule can be found at Sting.com.
(NEW YORK) — Early on in her pregnancy, Tori Wapsheli made plans to deliver her second child in the same hospital where she had her first — Astria Toppenish Hospital on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington State.
But with just three months left in her pregnancy, the hospital suddenly shut down its Family Maternity Center, leaving Wapsheli and others in the community scrambling. In a news release, the hospital cited higher costs, reduction of Medicaid reimbursement from 150% to 100%, inability to recruit enough staff and a 50% decrease in deliveries as the reason for the closure.
“Just being so far out here, Toppenish was the place that would have worked easier,” Ciera Wheeler, who was more than 7 ½ months along when the pregnancy ward closed, told ABC News.
Patients in active labor who come to Astria Toppenish when there’s no time to stabilize and transfer them before delivery will now have their babies delivered in the emergency room and then, after being stabilized, transferred by ambulance to another hospital, the release said.
For Wheeler, the closest hospital with a maternity ward was now 45 minutes away, she said.
Options for maternity care on the reservation, which spans more than a million acres, have gone from bad to worse. Pregnant women looking for care are often forced to travel roads that can become dangerous in poor weather, according to the women ABC News spoke to on the reservation.
“This area is very rural. It is isolated. So the traveling distance plus the resources that are needed to get quality care not there,” said Jessica Whitehawk, who founded the Ttáwaxt Birth Justice Center with the help of fellow advocates Leslie Swan and Semone Dittentholer.
The Yakama Indian Reservation is just one of many U.S. communities dealing with a shortage of obstetric care.
Over a third of all U.S. counties are what’s known as maternity care deserts, which translates to more than 2.2 million women of childbearing age and 146,000 babies born in areas without obstetric providers, hospitals or birth centers offering obstetric care, according to a recent March of Dimes report.
It’s an issue that’s contributing to the high U.S. maternal death rate, said March of Dimes chief medical officer Dr. Elizabeth Cherot.
In 2021, there was a 40% increase in the death rate from maternal causes compared to the year before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After a spike during the pandemic, preliminary data suggests the number of maternal deaths began dropping in 2022, but numbers are still higher than experts would advise.
One of the states with the highest number of maternal deaths, according to the CDC, is Mississippi, where Byron Stribling lost his pregnant wife, Harmony, and their unborn child while on the way to the hospital in July 2021.
“We don’t have a hospital. We don’t have an emergency room. The nearest hospital was about 15, 20 miles away, give or take,” Stribling told ABC News.
Harmony was five days away from delivering her baby when she developed complications from preeclampsia. On the drive to the hospital, Stribling pulled over to perform CPR as directed by a 911 dispatcher. By the time first responders arrived around 15 minutes later, she and their unborn child were dead. They were about three minutes from the hospital, according to Stribling. Stribling believes that if there had been an emergency room or hospital in closer proximity to their home, his wife or child might have been saved.
There are no obstetric providers in more than 50 counties in Mississippi, according to Rachael Morris, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. She and her team have been trying to fill the gap by training hundreds of first responders in parts of the state that lack maternal care on what to do if there’s an emergency.
“We teach you how to intubate a baby. We teach you how to deliver a baby,” Morris said.
Morris said that almost 90% of the mortalities they’ve had over a 2-year period were deemed preventable.
“It’s frightening. Something’s got to change,” Morris said.
According to the CDC, the maternal mortality rate for Black women is three times higher than non-Hispanic white women, although all ethnicities saw an increase in 2021. For women over the age of 40, the mortality rate is seven times higher than for women under the age of 25.
At 38 years old, Dominique Armour is considered to be of advanced maternal age. She’s 8 months pregnant with her tenth child, putting her in a high-risk category. She told ABC News this will be her fourth time driving across state lines, from Arkansas to Mississippi, to give birth because of limited options.
“My last baby, I almost had on the side of the road,” Armour said.
The only hospital in Armour’s county hasn’t had a delivering physician in more than five years, according to Armour. Access to prenatal care is also limited, she said, and the last time she was able to see a doctor was months ago.
“It was hard. I had to go by myself. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t,” Armour said in tears.
Alice Rogers Johnson of the Arkansas Birthing Project says she is exploring options like the March of Dimes mobile clinic to get women in the area access to more care.
“A lot of women do miss appointments because they don’t have transportation,” Johnson said.
Back at the Ttáwaxt Birth Justice Center, the founders are working to expand their services, hoping that one day they can build a new birthing facility on the Yakama Nation grounds.
“We’re trying to rebuild our kinship, our nationhood, our family strength, providing a safe place for our families and women and children to come to have more options, to be cared for and to heal,” Whitehawk said.
(WASHINGTON) — Embattled Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., launched his reelection bid Monday despite being mired in several scandals over past lies over his biography and questions over his campaign finances.
In a press release announcing his reelection bid, Santos made no mention of the various investigations into the scandals, instead casting himself as a fighter for his Long Island district.
“As a first-generation American, I am no stranger to the issues affecting my district,” he said, saying he’d tackle immigration, the cost of living, crime and other policy issues.
“Since the Left is pushing radical agendas, the economy is struggling, and Washington is incapable of solving anything, we need a fighter who knows the district and can serve the people fearlessly, and independent of local or national party influence. Good isn’t good enough, and I’m not shy about doing what it takes to get the job done. I’m proud to announce my candidacy to run for re-election and continue to serve the people of NY-3,” he added.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(AKRON, Ohio) — A grand jury has chosen not to indict officers on state criminal charges for the death of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old who was fatally shot after a car and foot chase by police on June 27, 2022, in Akron, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.
“The grand jury just a little while ago issued what is called a no bill, meaning that there will be no state criminal action, no charges at the state level,” Yost said in a Monday press conference.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(DADEVILLE, Ala.) — Four people were killed and 28 others were injured in a shooting in a rural Alabama town late Saturday.
The shooting took place at a crowded birthday party in the small town of Dadeville, located approximately 60 miles northeast of Montgomery, according to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.
Here’s what we know about the victims so far:
Philstavious “Phil” Dowdell, 18
Philstavious “Phil” Dowdell, a senior at Dadeville High School, was one of the four people who died, his coach Roger McDowell told ABC News.
He was a star high school football player — a standout wide receiver — and track team member, his coach said.
Dowdell had committed to attending Jacksonville State University on a football scholarship, McDowell said.
“He was a great young man with a bright future,” Rich Rodriguez, Jacksonville State’s head football coach, tweeted. “My staff and I are heartbroken and hope that everyone will support his family through this difficult time.”
“Phil was humble with a major smile,” McDowell told ABC News. “He had one goal to get to the NFL and take care of his mom.”
Shaunkivia Nicole Smith, 17
Like Dowdell, Shaunkivia Smith was a senior at Dadeville High School, where she played volleyball and softball, according to family. She was also a manager for the track and football teams, McDowell said.
Smith, who went by “Ke,” was a model student-athlete who was looking forward to attending the University of Alabama in the fall, her cousin, Amy Jackson, told ABC News.
“She just always told my son that she was gonna go to school — she wanted to go to college,” Jackson said.
Smith often took care of her younger brother and sister and “helped her mom every which way she could,” Jackson said.
“She had a smile that was contagious. I mean, she smiled, you’re going to smile back,” Jackson said.
Back in 2005, Metallica opened two shows for TheRolling Stones — but if you thought the two bands hung out backstage and partied, you’d be wrong. While chatting with Bill Maher for his Club Random podcast, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich revealed the band wasn’t even allowed to make eye contact with Mick Jagger.
Ulrich says the band was sitting backstage at what is now Oracle Park in San Francisco when an assistant told them Jagger was about to walk through to go to his gym and warm up, telling them, “’When he walks through here, please don’t make eye contact with him or talk to him.’”
While Lars says the Stones did take a picture with them, they didn’t exactly get a chance to bond.
“I had dreams, like, I thought, we’re gonna play with the Rolling Stones and you know where I’m gonna spend my whole time, in Keith Richards‘ hotel room, sitting doing those legendary parties ’til nine o’clock in the morning: I’ll be the last one to leave!” Ulrich said. “It wasn’t exactly like that.”
It did have a lasting effect on Ulrich, though, and informed the way he treated opening acts for the rest of their career. “I always go and say hello to our support act. I look them in the eye, I ask them if there’s anything they need,” he says. “It’s a human thing; if somebody comes out and plays on a Metallica stage, I want them to feel at home.”
