(NEW YORK) — Michael Cohen is expected to testify Monday before a grand jury in New York that is hearing evidence of former President Donald Trump’s alleged role in a hush payment to Stormy Daniels, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, paid $130,000 to the adult film star in the closing days of the 2016 campaign to keep her quiet about an affair she claimed to have had with Trump. Trump has denied the affair.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has been investigating whether Trump falsified business records when the Trump Organization allegedly reimbursed Cohen and then booked the reimbursement to Cohen as a legal expense. In recent weeks former Trump advisers Hope Hicks, Kellyanne Conway and several other witnesses have testified.
Cohen served prison time after he pleaded guilty to federal charges that included campaign finance violations related to the hush payment. Charging documents said Cohen acted at the behest of “Individual 1,” who he has identified as Trump.
The district attorney’s office recently informed Trump of his right to testify before the grand jury, sources have previously told ABC News. New York law requires so-called “cross notice” so potential defendants are afforded a chance to tell the grand jury their side of the story but the invitation is typically only extended if prosecutors are planning to move forward with an indictment.
It is not known whether Trump will appear. His lawyers have recently gone into the district attorney’s office to meet with prosecutors, according to sources.
A spokeswoman for the office declined to comment.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has previously won the tax fraud convictions of Trump’s company and its former finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, but Trump himself has never been charged with a crime. The Trump Organization said it would appeal the conviction.
Trump has dismissed the investigation as a witch hunt and has insisted he did “absolutely nothing wrong.” His spokesman has called the possibility of an indictment in New York “simply insane.”
Trump is also awaiting charging decisions from two other entities: the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, is investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results on the state and a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland is investigating Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol and his handling of classified material.
(NEW YORK) — You could say the Internal Revenue Service is undergoing a Renaissance. After years of criticism for being inefficient and antiquated, the IRS has spent nearly $1 billion to improve its service.
“So far, so good,” Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.com, told ABC News about the current tax-filing season.
As of the end of February, the IRS had processed 1.9 million more returns and issued 5.4 million more refunds than the same time last year.
“That suggests to me that the gains are coming from faster turnarounds, not more filers,” said Rossman.
The IRS is also answering 90% of calls to its customer service line this year compared to just 13% a year ago, according to the agency. Tax pros say the IRS is on track for its first “normal” tax season in years after the COVID-19 pandemic upended the agency’s efforts to process returns and disburse refunds in an orderly and timely manner.
The IRS has spent nearly $848 million of the $80 billion granted to the agency over the next decade through the Inflation Reduction Act, according to Treasury Department data. The money is meant to give the agency the resources its needs to improve customer service and technology systems and to finally become a 21st century tax service.
Among the upgrades so far are new online tax-filing tools that include allowing filers to upload follow-up documents online, making the IRS more competitive with private-sector tax prep software. The agency also debuted a program that lets businesses file information reports for independent contractors through a secure portal on its website and it rolled out updated software that let’s taxpayers who filed amended returns receive refunds via direct deposit.
“It seems that most refunds are being delivered in a timely fashion this year. There’s still a paper backlog at the IRS. Even though it’s not nearly as bad as last year,” said Rossman.
Tax experts still recommend filing and requesting your refund electronically, if possible, to give yourself the best odds of getting your refund quickly. Barring any special exceptions, you should get your refund in two to three weeks in most cases. Sending a paper return or requesting a paper check could take much longer.
So far, the IRS has hired more than 5,000 employees to ramp up its customer service division and is looking to hire another 5,300 this year, according to agency officials.
The massive federal funding allocated to the IRS over the next 10 years is also meant to tighten tax enforcement on high-income earners and major corporations, something Republicans have argued would “supersize” the agency and lead IRS agents to harass taxpayers.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has instructed the agency not to use any of the money to increase audits of taxpayers earning less than $400,000 a year and incoming IRS chief Daniel Werfel has promised to abide by that order.
Rossman said it is important for the IRS to “get this filing season right” after years of disarray and poor customer service.
“I think it’s important for consumer confidence and for avoiding additional regulatory scrutiny,” Rossman said. “The IRS has a monopoly on America’s taxes – it’s not like we can choose to do business with one of their competitors instead – but I still think it’s important for the IRS to start turning its reputation around.”
(KYIV, Ukraine) — An Oscar-nominated documentary, “The House Made of Splinters,” tells a deep and emotive story of Ukrainian children affected by the Russian invasion.
“Life has always been difficult here,” the narrator of the film says, “war made it worse.”
The film takes us to 2019 in an orphanage-type institution in Lysychansk, a town in the eastern Luhansk oblast of Ukraine. The town is about 20 kms from the frontline between Ukrainian territory and the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic that was formed in 2014 when Russian forces occupied part of eastern Ukraine.
Many families in the region have been broken apart since then. Some were separated because parents lost their jobs and others because they found an outlet in alcohol or drugs or became homeless. Kids from such families are taken to shelters, centers for social and psychological rehabilitation, until their destiny could be decided by the authorities. After 9 months, most are either returned to their parents or brought to a foster family.
So, life in this house is something in between the past and the future, as well as the life in this whole region Ukraine and Russia are now battling for.
They live with uncertainty. But also in a bubble, a safe place, where kids find love, care and friends. But it’s a temporary bubble. A house made of splinters.
“I think childhood can be the most traumatic period that can affect our whole life,” Simon Lereng Wilmont, the Danish director behind “The House Made of Splinters,” told ABC News. “Mine was like that so I became interested in filming children. Our previous films were about kids in a safe environment so later I just wondered how it’s like to grow up in a dangerous one.”
The film was created in co-production with Denmark, Sweden and Finland with the support of the Ukrainian State Film Agency.
In the very first days of filming, the crew found themselves in danger — on the way to the orphanage their car came under shelling. Fortunately no one was hurt and it didn’t make the director change his mind and leave Ukraine. On the contrary.
“Once I entered the orphanage I immediately felt the warm and protected atmosphere inside,” Wilmont said. “How the kids were playing and the teachers took care of them … It’s just amazing in such dark circumstances.”
In that uncertain-but-safe bubble, the children in the film live through their tragedies, grow and change and sometimes demonstrate outstanding human qualities — this is what Wilmont’s team witnessed during roughly 100 days of filming over the course of a year and a half.
We see a 13-year-old boy who tenderly took care of his younger siblings, but in the blink of an eye could turn into a brutal hooligan before the others.
“Any director, any actor can only dream about such a strong black-and-white character! Kind of a small Joker,” said Azad Safarov, a producer on the film.
We see the beautiful friendship of two little girls and an invisible chain that tied two boys who became friends in the shelter.
“It was one of the most emotional scenes” Safarov said. “One of the boys had to leave. But he didn’t say anything to his friend, they were just sitting in front of each other silently for like half an hour … And you could feel how much was actually happening between them.”
Watching the film, it’s at times hard to believe that it’s not fictional — the stories unfold naturally, no one is looking into the camera as it silently follows the often-heroic children. It took the team quite some time to reach that goal, they said.
“We spent half a year earning these kids’ trust. Because they looked into the camera and then we had to resort to some tricks to make them not do that,” Safarov said. “And also because the kids thought we wanted to adopt them and tried to show the best of them. And no kid is better at acting like those from dysfunctional families. Because acting for them is a way of surviving.”
“But when they get used to the camera and then let it into the sensitive parts of their life you see what a huge world is inside this child,” he added.
In one scene, a girl who’s anxiously waiting for her mom to pick up hears “The number you have dialed cannot be reached.” Here grandmother tells her that her mom is drinking again. She promised her daughter to come and see her but didn’t keep her promise. Again.
“In some situations we just had to stop the filming and pause because we couldn’t help crying,” Wilmont said. “I couldn’t believe the parents could be so indifferent to their kids. And those little ones, despite everything, still love their parents! Every day they were losing hope and regaining it again.”
He added, “These kids’ families’ are broken. But each of them has some piece of it in their heart, and together with the rest they build this shelter. A house made of splinters.”
The film also shows that there’s a dark side of this safe bubble, with the psychological problems that the kids and their teachers face in the shelter.
“The psychologists that came there usually aren’t very helpful, their salaries are so poor,” Safarov said. “So it turns out that the teachers become mental doctors for kids but have no one to talk to themselves and you can see that burden on their shoulders. When we finally convinced them to talk to the shrinks we hired for them they were astonished at how much pain and tears they have been holding inside.
The film appeared on screens in January 2022 and immediately caught the eye of critics and received Sundance Film Festival’s award for best directing in the World Cinema Documentary category. Russia began a full-scale Invasion of Ukraine began the following month. The orphanage was relocated to a safer place.
“All the children’s hardships that we showed in our film now multiplied so much because of this war,” Wilmont said. “That’s why I’m so happy we were nominated for the Oscar now since we can bring up again the suffering that the Russian invasion caused to Ukrainian children in particular.”
The full-fledged war gave a start to a bigger mission for Safarov, its producer and co-director. Working on the film he and his friend Olena Rozvadovska launched a foundation Voices of Children that provides humanitarian and psychological aid to the Ukrainian kids affected by the war.
“I’ve been working near the frontline since 2014 and ‘The House Made of Splinters’ is my third film. But it’s the most difficult one from an emotional point of view,” he said. “So the launch of the foundation was, on one hand, a way of relief for me since now I can help the kids. On the other hand, we saw how much children can be neglected, so now we want them to be heard and understood. The name of our fund, Voices of Children, says it.”
The foundation gathers and publishes quotes by the kids affected by Russian invasion. For example: “My dad shielded the windows so that the missile couldn’t fly in,” little Eva said.
Dozens of such quotes were compiled into a book the fund has released this year. Safarov and Rozvadovska toured in Europe with the edition to raise more funds for their charity. Their big dream now is to build a big rehabilitation center for children in the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine.
They are as funny as they are bittersweet or even wise.
Said one child: “Mom, is it true that even Google doesn’t know when the war ends?”
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Billy Joel & Stevie Nicks)
Billy Joel predicted that he and Stevie Nicks would sing each other’s songs during their co-headlining stadium tour, and they did — but they sang them together.
Billboard reports that for the opening night of the tour, which took place Friday, March 10 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA, they sang two duets. The first was “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” Stevie’s hit duet with the late Tom Petty; Billy joined her onstage to sing Petty’s parts. Then, during Billy’s set, Stevie joined him to sing the ballad “And So It Goes,” from his 1989 album Storm Front.
You can watch fan-shot videos of both performances on YouTube.
Billboard notes that when Stevie paid tribute to her late Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie while performing “Landslide” during her set, she told the crowd, “I have to imagine she’s still here. It’s all I can do.” She also sang the Fleetwood Mac song “Sara” for the first time since 2008.
The next date on the tour is April 8 in Arlington, TX and will continue on and off through November.
(TEXAS) — A Texas man is suing three women he alleges helped his now ex-wife obtain medication for an abortion.
Marcus Silva filed a wrongful death lawsuit on March 9 seeking more than $1 million in damages from each of the women, claiming their assistance in procuring the abortion medication is equivalent to aiding murder.
Silva’s ex-wife is not named as a defendant in the suit. The complaint notes that she is exempt under Texas law from liability as the person who underwent the abortion, and that Silva “is not pursuing any claims against her.”
Silva alleges his then-wife (the pair officially divorced in February, according to the lawsuit) discovered she was pregnant in July of last year — just one month after the overruling of Roe v. Wade and before a state law making performing an abortion a felony went into effect in Texas.
Silva claims two of the defendants shared information with her from Aid Access, an international group that ships abortion medication by mail, and a third defendant set up the delivery of the medication. The lawsuit includes as exhibits alleged text messages exchanged among the women.
According to the complaint, Silva intends to sue the manufacturer of the medication as well once it is identified.
Silva is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, a lawyer who helped create a Texas bill banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, and Republican State Rep. Briscoe Cain.
After the fall of Roe v. Wade, legal battles over medication abortion in states that restrict the procedure have amplified. Walgreens recently said it will not sell mifepristone, an abortion pill, in 20 states that had threatened legal action if they did.
“We are outraged, but we are not surprised,” Wendy Davis, the senior adviser of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, said in a statement slamming Silva’s lawsuit.
Davis called the lawsuit a “direct result of the dangerous policies championed by Governor Greg Abbott and his supporters. It is state-sanctioned harassment and we will not stand for it.”
Earlier this week, five women sued the state over its strict abortion laws, stating they were denied the procedure even though their lives were threatened.
Nancy Northup, the president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the lawsuit was filed “to stop the unnecessary pain, suffering, injury and life threatening complications caused by Texas’s abortion ban.”
“This is the first lawsuit of its kind. It is the first lawsuit in which individual women have sued a state for the harm that they endured because abortion care has been criminalized in the wake of Roe’s reversal,” Northup said earlier this week at a news conference outside the Texas Capitol.
Alexandra Hutzler, ABC News
(TEXAS) — A Texas man is suing three women he alleges helped his now ex-wife obtain medication for an abortion.
Marcus Silva filed a wrongful death lawsuit on March 9 seeking more than $1 million in damages from each of the women, claiming their assistance in procuring the abortion medication is equivalent to aiding murder.
Silva’s ex-wife is not named as a defendant in the suit. The complaint notes that she is exempt under Texas law from liability as the person who underwent the abortion, and that Silva “is not pursuing any claims against her.”
Silva alleges his then-wife (the pair officially divorced in February, according to the lawsuit) discovered she was pregnant in July of last year — just one month after the overruling of Roe v. Wade and before a state law making performing an abortion a felony went into effect in Texas.
Silva claims two of the defendants shared information with her from Aid Access, an international group that ships abortion medication by mail, and a third defendant set up the delivery of the medication. The lawsuit includes as exhibits alleged text messages exchanged among the women.
According to the complaint, Silva intends to sue the manufacturer of the medication as well once it is identified.
Silva is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, a lawyer who helped create a Texas bill banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, and Republican State Rep. Briscoe Cain.
After the fall of Roe v. Wade, legal battles over medication abortion in states that restrict the procedure have amplified. Walgreens recently said it will not sell mifepristone, an abortion pill, in 20 states that had threatened legal action if they did.
“We are outraged, but we are not surprised,” Wendy Davis, the senior adviser of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, said in a statement slamming Silva’s lawsuit.
Davis called the lawsuit a “direct result of the dangerous policies championed by Governor Greg Abbott and his supporters. It is state-sanctioned harassment and we will not stand for it.”
Earlier this week, five women sued the state over its strict abortion laws, stating they were denied the procedure even though their lives were threatened.
Nancy Northup, the president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the lawsuit was filed “to stop the unnecessary pain, suffering, injury and life threatening complications caused by Texas’s abortion ban.”
“This is the first lawsuit of its kind. It is the first lawsuit in which individual women have sued a state for the harm that they endured because abortion care has been criminalized in the wake of Roe’s reversal,” Northup said earlier this week at a news conference outside the Texas Capitol.
(CALIFORNIA) — A Hayward, California, cremation business that had its license was suspended in January was found in possession of six bodies and the cremated remains of 154 people in a warehouse, according to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.
The business’s license to store remains was suspended last year, but it still had remains stored in the warehouse dating back to 2013, according to authorities.
The Coroner’s Bureau is working to identify the remains and notify next of kin. The coroner said it has received several calls about the remains and has been able to connect three people with their loved ones’ remains so far, according to the sheriff’s office.
A fourth unnamed individual was contacted regarding his father’s remains, but he told the corner’s staff that he was in possession of his father’s remains.
“Since we have them, he obviously has someone else’s ashes,” Lt. Tya Modeste told ABC News.
Oceanview Cremations Corporation had allegedly been operating on a suspended license, going back to 2018, Modeste told ABC San Francisco station KGO.
“That’s how they ended up incorporating the warehouse. And having them stored there. So they actually weren’t on their premises. But the issue there, is the warehouse was not licensed to store the remains either,” Modeste told KGO.
The coroner’s office was notified that the business was continuing its operations and had remains in its possession on Feb. 28, when it was alerted by the California Cemetery and Funeral Board.
The Coroner’s Bureau and a county-contracted funeral home responded to the warehouse to recover the remains on March 1.
“Family members indicated that after their calls to Oceanview Cremations’ owner, Robert Smith, went unanswered, they believed their loved ones had been cremated or scattered at sea as requested,” Modeste said in a statement.
Officials said if you used Oceanview Cremations for final arrangements between 2013 and 2022 and are uncertain of their disposition or the whereabouts of their cremated remains, you can contact the Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau at 510-382-3000.
(CALIFORNIA) — Over 8,500 residents have been urged to evacuate immediately after a 100-foot-wide breach emerged along California’s Pajaro River around midnight Saturday morning as the state has faced a series of storms.
The levee break comes as the state faces unrelenting rain, which could last until Wednesday.
“My heart hurts tonight for the residents of Pajaro. We were hoping to avoid and prevent this situation, but the worst case scenario has arrived with the Pajaro River overtopping and levee breaching at about midnight,” Luis Alejo, chair of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, said in a tweet.
During the breach, Monterey County Water Resources Agency and the California Department of Water Resources were conducting onsite flood-fighting efforts at the levee due to the rising waters.
After the levee break occurred, the sheriff’s office did 60 rescues from the area, according to Monterey County officials.
Four high-water vehicles are in the area, and additional vehicles are en route to Pajaro. Dive, search and rescue teams, as well as damage assessment teams are also en route, according to Monterey County officials.
“Some residents evacuated yesterday and overnight but did not leave the area and we are working on getting them transported to emergency shelters. MST is providing free transportation to shelters, and temporary evacuation points,” the county said in a statement Saturday.
The Salinas River has flooded in the area of San Ardo and Cattleman Road, which leads into the community, according to Monterey County.
Restoration work on the levee will resume Saturday during the daylight hours, officials said.
State officials conducted door-to-door notification and evacuation efforts throughout the day Friday and upon the levee break.
As of early Saturday morning, officials have been assisting residents who did not evacuate earlier after receiving evacuation orders. Residents in the evacuation zone who need help should call 911 immediately, Monterey County officials said.
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, North Monterey County Fire and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are conducting evacuations.
The Monterey Salinas Transit is transporting community members in the evacuation zone to shelters. The closest evacuation shelter to the Community of Pajaro is at the Santa Cruz Fairground. There are additional shelters in Salinas at Compass Church and a temporary evacuation center at the Prunedale Library.
(TEXAS) — Texas authorities are advising residents to avoid traveling to Mexico during spring break “due to the ongoing violence throughout that country.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety issued an advisory warning against travel to the country for spring break “and beyond.”
“Drug cartel violence and other criminal activity represent a significant safety threat to anyone who crosses into Mexico right now,” Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said in a statement on Friday. “We have a duty to inform the public about safety, travel risks and threats. Based on the volatile nature of cartel activity and the violence we are seeing there; we are urging individuals to avoid travel to Mexico at this time.”
The warning was issued a week after four Americans were kidnapped shortly after crossing the border into Matamoros, Mexico, which is in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas just south of Brownsville, Texas.
Two of the Americans, including one who was traveling to the region for a cosmetic procedure, were rescued on March 7. Two others were found dead.
Five alleged Gulf Cartel members have since been charged with aggravated kidnapping and murder.
A source close to the investigation told ABC News that investigators believe the gunmen wrongly believed the kidnapped Americans were rival human traffickers who were in an area of Mexico categorized as “do not travel” by the U.S. government due to the increased risk of crime and kidnapping.
The most popular Mexican tourist destinations have been rated a level two by the State Department, where travelers are advised to “exercise increased caution” — the same rating given to France, Germany, the U.K. and a dozen other countries.
AAA recently reported that international travel is up 30% compared to last year, and Cancun, Riviera Maya and Mexico City are listed as top spring break destinations.
LATEST NEWS: DPS Urges Texans to Avoid Spring Break Travel to Mexico
AUSTIN – @TxDPS is urging Texans to avoid traveling to Mexico during spring break, and beyond, due to the ongoing violence throughout that country.
Those who do decide to travel to Mexico are advised to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate prior to their departure, Texas authorities said.
“DPS understands many people do travel to Mexico without incident, but the serious risks cannot be ignored,” the agency said. “All travelers are encouraged to carefully research any planned trips and, again, consider postponing or canceling travel to Mexico at this time.”
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — In response to a Republican bill to boost parents’ rights in the classroom, Democrats are out with a proposal they say will advance an “inclusive, aspirational, and affirmative vision for public education.”
The Bill of Rights for Students and Parents, unveiled by Oregon Rep. Suzanne Bonamici on Friday, calls for well-rounded education “rooted in evidence-based practices” to support teachers, students and families.
“It serves as a direct contrast to recent proposals that are unproductive, burdensome, and pit parents against educators,” her office said in a news release. According to a spokesperson for Bonamici, who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, she has been working on the legislation for more than a month.
The opposing bills signify the growing debate over the role of parents in schools, with education becoming a politically-charged issue after the coronavirus pandemic upended classrooms and increased scrutiny of school leadership.
A summary of the Democrats’ bill said it prioritizes “authentic” collaboration between parents and educators, protecting students’ civil rights and providing children with “historically accurate” instruction to prepare them to participate in representative democracy.
It has the backing of dozens of advocacy groups like the NAACP, the National Parents Union and the National Parent Teacher Association, plus 27 Democratic co-sponsors.
Bonamici’s bill was released after the Education and the Workforce Committee held a grueling 16-hour markup on the Republican version earlier this week, which included 45 amendments.
The Republican bill would require parents to be provided with a list of books and reading materials available in the school library, and that they be notified of violent activity occurring on school grounds or at school-sponsored events. It also would mandate parental consent before medical exams, including those for mental health or substance use disorder, take place at school.
Schools would also be required to publicly post their curriculum and district budgets, and notify parents of revisions to state education standards.
House Republican leaders said they expect their measure to pass later this year. It already has support from more than 70 members.
After rolling out the legislation at an event on Capitol Hill on March 1, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told ABC News he “couldn’t imagine someone would oppose a Parents Bill of Rights.”
“Parent gets to guarantee[d] to know what their children are being taught, parent gets to know what their money is being spent on. … More importantly, the parents get to know if there is any activity on campus that could harm their child or not,” he said.
(MEXICO) — Three women have been missing for two weeks after traveling from Texas to Mexico for a shopping trip, authorities said.
The women — Dora Alicia Cervantes Saenz, 53, Marina Perez Rios, 48, and Maritza Trinidad Perez Rios, 47 — have been missing since Feb. 25, according to missing person posters posted by the Local Commission for the Search of Persons in the Mexican state of Nuevo León.
Two of the women are from Peñitas, a Texas town on the U.S.-Mexico border, Peñitas Police Chief Roel Bermea told ABC Rio Grande Valley affiliate KRGV. The three left on Feb. 24 to go to a flea market in Montemorelos, a city in Nuevo León, he told the station.
Saenz is a friend of the Rioses, who are sisters, The Associated Press reported.
Peñitas police started looking into their disappearance after the husband of one of the missing women contacted the department, Bermea said. Though after several days with no contact, his investigator contacted the FBI “to see what they could do,” the chief said.
“We did contact the FBI to let them know the ladies were considered missing,” Bermea told KRGV, adding that there’s “not much we can do ourselves” in a missing persons case in another country.
The FBI confirmed in a statement to KRGV that it is aware of the matter but that “no information is being provided at this time.”
News of their disappearance comes after four Americans were kidnapped shortly after crossing the border into Matamoros, Mexico, which is in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas just south of Brownsville, Texas, on March 3. Two of the Americans, including one who was traveling to the region for a cosmetic procedure, were rescued on March 7, though two were found dead. Five alleged Gulf Cartel members have since been charged with aggravated kidnapping and murder.
Bermea told KRGV this is the first time they are investigating a disappearance in another country.
“We’re just concerned,” he told the station. “We really haven’t had any other incidents that I can recall of something like this happening in another country.”
The women were traveling in a green mid-1990s Chevy Silverado, authorities said. Anyone with information is urged to contact the FBI or the Peñitas Police Department at 956-581-3345.
ABC News’ Victoria Beaulé contributed to this report.
