(BRANSON, Mo.) — Seven people have been hospitalized after a train derailed at the Silver Dollar City amusement park in Branson, Missouri, Wednesday night.
Sections of the Frisco Silver Dollar Line Steam Train derailed from the track, and six guests and one employee were transported to nearby medical facilities, the park said in a statement.
“At this time, we are wholeheartedly focused on providing support for guests and team members in partnership with Stone County first responders,” it added.
Stone County Emergency Management Director Tom Martin said three of the cars turned over, and the ride is closed.
“The state fire marshall has been contacted to investigate if any malfunctions happened on the ride,” Martin said.
(NEW YORK) — A whopping $800 million is up for grabs in the next Powerball drawing on Saturday night, lottery officials said, in what is expected to be the second biggest jackpot drawing of all time.
The winning numbers drawn on Wednesday night were 19, 36, 37, 46, 56 and 24, and the Power Play is 2X.
Wednesday’s jackpot was Powerball’s largest prize so far this year, the fifth-largest in the American lottery game’s 30-year history and the eighth-largest U.S. lottery jackpot ever, according to a press release from Powerball.
Jackpot winners can either take the money as an immediate cash lump sum or in 30 annual payments over 29 years. The cash value of Wednesday’s $700 million jackpot is $335.7 million, Powerball said.
Tickets cost $2 and are sold in 45 U.S. states as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. More than half of all proceeds remain in the jurisdiction where the ticket was purchased, according to Powerball.
The jackpot grows based on game sales and interest rates. But the odds of winning the big prize stays the same — 1 in 292.2 million, Powerball said.
Powerball drawings are broadcast live every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET from the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee. The drawings are also livestreamed online at Powerball.com.
(NEW YORK) — A Texas man was arrested Tuesday for allegedly trying to smuggle dozens of undocumented immigrants across the U.S. border hidden in a dump truck, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Robert Flores Jr., 38, from Poteet, Texas, was charged with 84 counts of human smuggling after being stopped on Interstate Highway 35 in Cotulla, Texas, for a commercial motor vehicle safety inspection, authorities said.
Texas DPS said Flores Jr. was allegedly smuggling 84 migrants from Guatemala and Mexico.
The suspect allegedly bypassed a border patrol checkpoint in Texas’ Webb County when he was pulled over, Texas DPS spokesperson Lt. Chris Olivarez said on Twitter.
“The Texas Department of Public Safety remains committed in deterring human smuggling and disrupting criminal activity,” Olivarez told ABC News in a statement. “As part of Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, DPS will continue to enhance border operations and commercial motor vehicle safety inspections.”
The migrants were handed over to U.S. Border Patrol, according to Texas DPS.
U.S. Border Patrol’s apprehensions of migrants have exceeded two million so far this fiscal year, including people who turn themselves into authorities between land ports of entry, according to agency data from September.
Last year, law enforcement officials detained 1.66 million migrants and encountered them nearly two million times. As of September, there have been more than 2.4 million encounters.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice will not pursue any federal charges in the in-custody death of a mentally ill Black man at a South Carolina jail last year, officials said Wednesday.
Jamal Sutherland, 31, died on Jan. 5, 2021, at the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in North Charleston hours after deputies attempted to remove him from his cell to attend a bond hearing for a misdemeanor assault charge that morning. He was arrested the day before following a fight at a mental health and substance abuse center where he was being treated for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, his family said.
Body-camera footage released by the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office showed deputies repeatedly deploy stun guns, use pepper spray and place a knee on Sutherland’s back. He became unresponsive and was later declared dead.
Two deputies, Lindsey Fickett and Brian Houle, were later fired amid the investigation into his death. A local solicitor ultimately declined to issue any criminal charges against them, saying the two made “grave mistakes” but that their actions didn’t amount to a crime. Charleston County agreed to pay a $10 million settlement to Sutherland’s family last year.
After reviewing evidence including “reports, law enforcement accounts, witness statements, physical evidence reports, training materials, photographs and videos of the incident,” the Justice Department said it will not pursue any criminal civil rights charges against two former deputies for Sutherland’s death, though it did not identify them by name.
“They also reviewed the Charleston County Solicitor’s Office’s public report on Sutherland’s death, including the expert force and medical analyses referenced in that report, which laid out the reasons why the state declined to pursue criminal charges,” the DOJ said in a press release.
Federal prosecutors were determining whether the force used against Sutherland violated federal criminal civil rights laws, including a federal criminal civil rights statute that “prohibits certain types of official misconduct,” the DOJ said.
“After this review, prosecutors determined that insufficient evidence exists to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that deputies willfully violated the federal criminal civil rights statutes,” the DOJ said.
Representatives of Sutherland’s family have been informed of the determination, and the department’s review of the incident has been closed, according to the DOJ.
Sutherland’s mother, Amy Sutherland, told reporters she spoke with DOJ officials in Charleston on Tuesday.
“I wanted to scream again, but screaming days is over,” Amy Sutherland said when asked about her reaction to the decision during a press briefing Wednesday. “My tears didn’t do anything to solve any problems.”
She said she did feel some closure at the news.
“I was upset from the time my son died until yesterday, because I felt like I had failed him in getting help,” she said. “But yesterday, after they came down, I was able to say, Jamal, your mom did all she could.”
ABC News was unable to reach Fickett or Houle for comment.
Budrul Chukrut/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Meta, the parent company of Facebook, reported a second consecutive quarter of declining sales on Wednesday, as the company contends with a widespread drop in online ad spending and rising competition from TikTok.
In addition, an Apple iOS privacy update last year, which limits the capability of advertisers to target users, has continued to weigh on ad sales at the heart of Meta’s business.
Revenue declined 4% year-over-year, the earnings report showed. That slump exceeded the 1% year-over-year decline during the previous quarter.
Shares of Meta were down more than 10% in after-hours trading immediately after the announcement.
Meanwhile, the company reported 2.93 billion daily active users on its family of apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. That figure comprises 4% year-over-year growth, which matches the rise in daily users reported over the prior quarter.
The company’s stock price has fallen roughly 60% in 2022, more than double the decline experienced by the tech-heavy NASDAQ.
The continued revenue decline marks the latest in a series of challenges for Meta this year, including the announcement in June that Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg would depart the company as well as difficulty yielding revenue from its multi-billion-dollar investment in its metaverse project.
Meta declined to respond to a request for comment.
The company has drawn criticism from some investors lately over its large investment in its metaverse project, which has yet to deliver significant returns.
Brad Gerstner, whose fund Altimeter Capital holds hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Meta stock, sharply criticized the company’s strategy in an open letter this week.
“Meta has drifted into the land of excess – too many people, too many ideas, too little urgency,” Gerstner wrote. “This lack of focus and fitness is obscured when growth is easy but deadly when growth slows and technology changes.”
Gerstner called on the company to cut staffing costs by 20% and limit spending on its metaverse project to $5 billion per year.
“Meta needs to get its mojo back,” he wrote.
The report from Meta arrives a day after Microsoft and Google-parent Alphabet announced lackluster quarterly earnings.
Microsoft’s revenue grew at its slowest pace in five years, sending shares in the company tumbling 6%. Alphabet, meanwhile, said its advertising sales rose at its lowest rate in nearly a decade.
(NEW YORK) — Angelo Colon-Ortiz pleaded guilty Wednesday to second-degree murder and unarmed robbery charges in connection with the 2016 killing of Vanessa Marcotte, a Google employee in New York City who was killed while jogging near her mother’s home in Princeton, Massachusetts.
Colon-Ortiz, who was arrested in 2017, was sentenced to life in prison.
Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early said the Marcotte family asked prosecutors to accept the plea to spare them from listening to the details of Vanessa’s death during a trial.
“We know nothing can bring Vanessa back, but we know, through the meticulous work of the prosecutors and investigators involved, justice will be served, and the plea allows Vanessa’s family to move on from this tragedy,” Early said in a statement.
The Marcotte family issued a statement thanking prosecutors and remembering Vanessa.
“We are thankful and gratified the legal process has accomplished what we always wished for, that this man will now be in a place where he can’t hurt anyone else like the way he hurt Vanessa,” the Marcotte family said. “To honor and remember Vanessa, we will continue to educate and protect women through the Vanessa T. Marcotte Foundation.”
The foundation trains women in self-defense and teaches women and girls about jogger safety, violence prevention and healthy relationships.
Marcotte, 27, had worked for Google in New York City. She was visiting family in Massachusetts in August 2016 when she went out for a jog on the afternoon of Aug. 7, 2016, and was reported missing after she did not return to her family’s home. Marcotte’s body was discovered in the woods not far from her family’s home later that evening.
Investigators received more than 1,300 tips but a state trooper’s spotting of an SUV with a driver that matched the suspect’s description proved to be the big break in the case.
The trooper wrote down the license plate number on his hand and authorities were then able to obtain DNA from the suspect, who was identified as Colon-Ortiz. His DNA led to a match from evidence collected at the crime scene.
(WASHINGTON) — A judge has ordered former President Donald Trump’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to travel to Georgia to appear before the grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election there, according to a spokesperson for the Fulton County district attorney’s office.
The ruling from the South Carolina judge comes after Meadows’ lawyer argued in a filing on Monday that Meadows cannot be compelled to testify because, although the special grand jury is investigating alleged criminal conduct, it does not have the ability to return a criminal indictment and can only make recommendations concerning criminal prosecution.
Meadows’ lawyer also argued that as a “special grand jury,” the panel lacks the authority to compel testimony from witnesses who live out of state. Meadows currently resides in South Carolina.
Meadows was on the January 2021 phone call that then-President Trump had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” him enough votes to win the state.
Trump, who has denounced the Fulton County probe, has repeatedly defended his phone call to Raffensperger, calling it “perfect.”
Meadows is likely to appeal the ruling ordering him to appear, according to his lawyer.
Matthew Hatcher/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(MILWAUKEE) — A George Floyd mural was vandalized in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, according to ABC affiliate WISN 12. It’s unclear when the mural was vandalized.
Paint was splattered over the face of the Black man who was killed by a Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officer in May 2020, sparking a nationwide reckoning on racial injustice and police brutality.
Milwaukee was one of many cities across the country that saw crowds come out, day-after-day, to protest Floyd’s murder. This mural was completed in June 2020, according to local news outlet Urban Milwaukee.
Dom Whitehurst, one of the original painters who helped organize the mural, told WISN 12 that artists plan on repainting it and have discussed installing cameras in the area.
“Initially, I was like, ‘that’s horrible.’ More than likely, race related,” Whitehurst told the local news station. “It’s kind of sad that you have to do that for something so beautiful. This is supposed to be a peaceful representation of the community coming together.”
It’s not the first time a memorial created in honor of racial justice has been vandalized, with similar incidents occurring in New York, California, Michigan and more.
Milwaukee police told ABC News they did not receive a call or a report of the incident; however, the department is attempting to make contact with the building owner regarding the vandalism, officials said.
Anyone with any information is asked to contact Milwaukee Police at (414) 935-7360 or to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at (414) 224-Tips or P3 Tips.
Miranda Lambert is in the midst of her Velvet Rodeo Las Vegas residency, and she’s celebrating the run with a brand-new fragrance. The singer just announced her new Velvet Rodeo perfume, which will join the rest of her Idyllwind line.
“This scent was created for all you strong-spirited, take no prisoners queen of hearts,” the singer says in a statement. “Saddle up…and go get ‘em, girls!”
Combining notes of jasmine, iris and vanilla suede, the Velvet Rodeo perfume is a nod to the glitz and glamor of Miranda’s Vegas stage. Its vintage-inspired packaging ups the drama even further, with a diamond-cut glass bottle and tassel atomizer.
You can snag a bottle of your own online or in Boot Barn stores nationwide. The one-size, 100ml spray bottle retails for $59.50.
Miranda wrapped her first set of Vegas shows earlier this month; she’ll be back for more starting in late November.
For his breakout hit “Betty (Get Money),” Yung Gravy looked to the ’80s — a 1987 Rick Astley hit — for musical inspiration. But with his leisure suits, turtlenecks and gold chains, he definitely looks to the ’70s for fashion inspo, which is probably why his fans like to dress like him on Halloween.
The rapper says there have been some great fan costumes over the years, including couples dressed as him and Martha Stewart, who he name-checked in a song and starred with in a commercial. But it turns out the best Yung Gravy costume wasn’t a costume at all.
“I actually did a show one time … on Halloween,” he laughs. “And I showed up to a party at some bar afterwards and they gave me a trophy and a little cash reward for looking the most like Yung Gravy.”
Expect more Yung Gravy costumes this Halloween, now that “Betty (Get Money)” is the rapper’s biggest hit yet. Calling it a good introduction to his style, he jokes, “It’s cleaner than most of my music, so it’s a little bit misleading.”
But if you go to see Gravy and his pal bbno$ on their joint tour next month, you’ll see he’s much more than that one song.
“My show is very interactive and fun,” he notes. “And I think it’s good for someone who’s maybe heard a song or two by me to … see that I actually can bring it and have a whole catalog.”
You might also see Gravy bring out a special guest: Rick Astley.
“I haven’t talked to him directly. I want to,” Gravy tells ABC Audio, adding, “He’s been on tour. I’m about to go on tour. We’re hoping to find a place where I can bring him out in a show and do the song together.”
