(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYOFFS
Philadelphia 7, Houston 0
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Chicago 108, Brooklyn 99
Miami 116, Golden State 109
Oklahoma City 116, Orlando 108
Phoenix 116, Minnesota 107
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
NY Rangers 1, Philadelphia 0 (OT)
Tampa Bay 4, Ottawa 3
Vegas 3, Washington 2 (OT)
Minnesota 4, Montreal 1
Boston 6, Pittsburgh 5 (OT)
Dallas 5, Los Angeles 2
NY Islanders 3, Chicago 1
Edmonton 7, Nashville 4
Seattle 5 Calgary 4
Arizona 3, Florida 1
New Jersey 5, Vancouver 2
Anaheim 6 San Jose 5 (SO)
(SAN FRANCISCO) — The man accused of attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer last week has been arraigned in San Francisco Superior Court.
David DePape, 42, from Richmond, California, is facing a slew of state charges, including attempted murder, residential burglary and assault with a deadly weapon, as well as federal charges of assault and attempted kidnapping.
DePape walked into the courtroom wearing an orange jumpsuit and a shoulder sling on his right arm — having dislocated his shoulder during the alleged attack. Through his public defender, he pleaded not guilty and denied all allegations.
He has been ordered held without bail, and a preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Friday. DePape is expected to be arraigned on the federal charges against him on Wednesday.
A protective order that states DePape can make no contact with either Nancy or Paul Pelosi and can not come within 150 yards of their home was also signed by a judge.
According to the federal complaint, DePape allegedly used a hammer to break into the Pelosi residence in the upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco early Friday, just before 2 a.m. local time. The intruder then went upstairs, where 82-year-old Paul Pelosi was asleep, and demanded to talk to “Nancy.” Despite being told that the speaker was not home and would not be for several days, DePape said he would wait and started taking out zip ties from his backpack to tie up Paul Pelosi, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, Paul Pelosi told DePape that he needed to use the bathroom, allowing him to get his cellphone and call 911. Two police officers arrived minutes later and entered the home, encountering DePape and Paul Pelosi struggling over a hammer. The officers told the men to drop the hammer, at which time DePape allegedly gained control of the hammer and swung it, striking Paul Pelosi in the head. The officers immediately restrained and disarmed DePape, while Paul Pelosi appeared to be unconscous on the floor.
The officers later secured a second hammer, a roll of tape, white rope, zip ties as well as a pair of rubber and cloth gloves from the crime scene, according to the complaint.
Paul Pelosi was struck at least twice with the hammer, sources told ABC News. He was hospitalized following the attack and underwent successful surgery on Friday to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands, according to a statement from Nancy’s Pelosi’s spokesperson, Drew Hammill. Although his injuries are significant, the speaker’s husband is expected to make a full recovery, Hammill said.
While being questioned by police, DePape stated that he was planning to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and talk to her and that he wanted to use her to lure another unnamed individual. If she were to tell the “truth,” DePape told police he would the speaker go. And if she “lied,” he said he was going to break “her kneecaps,” according to the complaint. DePape told police he viewed Nancy Pelosi as the “leader of the pack” of lies told by the Democratic Party and that he was certain she would not have told the “truth.” DePape explained that by breaking her kneecaps, the speaker would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other members of her party there were consequences to actions, according to the complaint.
During a press conference on Monday evening, when announcing the state charges against DePape, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins described the attack as “politically motivated” and implored the public to “watch the words that we say and to turn down the volume of our political rhetoric.”
“This house and the speaker herself were specifically targets,” Jenkins said.
Nancy Pelosi gave an update on her husband’s condition in a statement on Monday night, saying he “is making steady progress on what will be a long recovery process.” She added that her family is “most grateful” for “thousands of messages conveying concern, prayers and warm wishes” since the “horrific attack.”
ABC News’ Julia Jacobo and Mola Lenghi contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A Kansas mother who was convicted of leading an ISIS battalion was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday.
Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, pleaded guilty in June to expressing interest in carrying out terrorist attacks in the United States in support of ISIS on six separate occasions between 2014 and 2017, according to court documents unsealed in February.
In letters to the court, her family described Fluke-Ekren as a “monster.” In court on Tuesday, her adult daughter said her mother forced her to marry an ISIS fighter who raped her when she was only 13.
“My mother is a monster who enjoys torturing children for sexual pleasure. My mother is a monster very skilled in manipulation and controlling her emotions to her advantage,” wrote her son, who remains unnamed in court documents filed by the Justice Department last week. “My mother is a monster without love for her children, without an excuse for her actions.”
Fluke-Ekren’s son, according to court documents, said she physically abused him as a child.
Fluke Ekren trained over 100 women and young girls, some just 10 years old on how to use automatic weapons, grenades and suicide belts, according to the Justice Department.
“Allison Fluke-Ekren brainwashed young girls and trained them to kill,” court documents say. “She carved a path of terror, plunging her own children into unfathomable depths of cruelty by physically, psychologically, emotionally, and sexually abusing them. For at least eight years, Fluke-Ekren committed terrorist acts on behalf of three foreign terrorist organizations across war zones in Libya, Iraq, and Syria.”
She also urged her daughter to delete messages shared between them to make sure she wasn’t caught in Syria where she had taken her children and was evading U.S. law enforcement, according to audio recordings played in court. Her daughter in court documents said she would inflict pain on her children, picking out what each one disliked the most and inflicting that damage upon them, then getting off on the pleasure of doing so, court documents say.
Fluke-Ekren was arrested in Syria earlier this year and transferred to U.S. custody, according to the DOJ.
Fluke-Ekren, who also used the name Umm Mohammed al-Amriki, moved to Syria in 2012 and married a “prominent” ISIS leader, court documents said. She can reportedly speak four languages, and the documents alleged she rose up the ranks to command her own all-female battalion.
“Fluke-Ekren’s alleged ISIS-related conduct includes, but is not limited to, planning and recruiting operatives for a potential future attack on a college campus inside the United States and serving as the appointed leader and organizer of an ISIS military battalion located in Syria, known as the Khatiba Nusaybah, in order to train women on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts,” court documents filed in January said.
Prosecutors say she provided ISIS members with services, which included lodging, translating speeches made by ISIS leaders, teaching extremist ISIS doctrine and training children on the use of weapons and suicide belts.
Justice Department prosecutors said they believe the 20-year sentence is not enough.
“Twenty years in prison is insufficient to fully account for her monstrous acts of terror and the immeasurable damage that she has caused to countless individuals across the globe, including her own children,” prosecutors said.
One former friend, who said she last spoke to Fluke-Ekren more than 10 years ago, painted a picture of a woman who was close with her family but then became increasingly radicalized.
“I told people who she was friends with in Kansas, I told them, ‘This girl is radicalized,'” said the former friend, who agreed to be identified by her last name, Farouk. Farouk knew Fluke-Ekren when she lived in Kansas and then as a teacher in the Middle East.
She said Fluke-Ekren was a “good mom” and that their children were close, but that living in the Middle East as a teacher during the 2010 unrest of the Arab Spring and ensuing refugee crisis deeply impacted her.
(NEW YORK) — Drug overdose deaths in New York state spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report from the state comptroller’s office.
The analysis, published Tuesday, found that fatalities surged by 68% between 2019 and 2021.
Additionally, the more than 5,800 deaths statewide from drugs in 2021 surpassed the previous peak in 2017 by more than 1,700.
“Too many New Yorkers have died from the misuse of drugs, but the jump in these numbers is alarming,” comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement. “It is a tragedy that devastates families and impacts our communities in countless ways.”
The report also found that the number of deaths linked to opioids has skyrocketed.
In 2021, the rate of opioid overdoses was 25 per 100,000 in New York, a spike from five per 100,000 in 2010.
Additionally, the report found there were disparities in drug overdose fatalities across racial and ethnic groups.
During the pandemic, death rates rose fivefold for Black residents and quadrupled for Hispanic residents. White New Yorkers also saw a rise in drug overdose deaths, with rates tripling during the pandemic.
“The data shows our battle against drug overdose deaths is far from over,” DiNapoli’s statement continued. “State leaders must ensure an ongoing commitment of public resources and strategies, including new funding from legal settlements, and innovative, evidence-based solutions for the fight against this deadly epidemic to be effective.”
The trends in New York reflect those seen on a national level. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year showed that more than 100,000 Americans died of a drug overdose during the first year of the pandemic.
It’s a 29% increase from the same period in 2019 and equates to a person dying every five minutes.
According to the CDC, many of those drug fatalities were due to opioids, particularly synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
(NEW YORK) — A new study from Montclair State University showed a dramatic increase in hate speech on Twitter immediately following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform.
Musk, who describes himself as a free speech absolutist, closed the deal on the platform on Thursday, Oct. 27. He said he promised to reduce Twitter’s content restrictions to promote free speech, yet no official changes have been made since the acquisition aside from the announcement of a to-be-formed “content moderation council” that will review company policies.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement when the deal was announced.
Some online have expressed concerns about what they see as a rise in misinformation and hate speech on one of the most popular social media sites.
Despite the lack of changes to content restrictions, some researchers say that a number users seemed to take Musk’s leadership as an open invitation to spread hate online.
Montclair State University researchers who studied how often certain homophobic, antisemitic and racial hate terms were used found no more than 84 tweets featuring hate terms were posted per hour when looking at the seven-day average before Musk acquired Twitter. This totals to just over 1,000 tweets in 12 hours.
On Oct. 28, in the first 12 hours following Musk’s acquisition, hate speech was tweeted an estimated 4,778 times, according to the report.
“The character of what Twitter will look like with Musk as the head remains speculative, despite his stated intentions,” the report reads. “What is not speculative, however, is the extent to which his date of formal acquisition was celebrated by racist and extremist users on the platform.”
The Montclair State researchers found that the potential number of times a term posted in Twitter could have been viewed was more than 3 million.
In similar research by the cyber research organization National Contagion Research Institute, the use of the N-word racial epithet skyrocketed by over 500% on the website on Oct. 28.
Puscifer has shared a new live video for the song “Man Overboard,” taken from the band’s recently premiered Parole Violator streaming concert.
The virtual show featured a full-album performance of Maynard James Keenan and company’s 2011 album, Conditions of My Parole. It premiered via the band’s Puscifer TV site last Friday alongside another streaming concert, titled V Is for Versatile. Archives of both streams will be available to watch through Monday, November 7.
You can watch the “Man Overboard” performance streaming now on YouTube.
Parole Violator and V Is for Versatile will be released as live albums later in November.
Puscifer is currently on a U.S. tour in support of the band’s latest album, 2020’s Existential Reckoning.
Just as TV personality and host Van Lathan and producer Mona Scott-Young were scheduled to chat with ABC Audio about their new WE TV show, Hip Hop Homicides, the music world was coming to terms with another murder, that of Takeoff from Migos.
Takeoff, born Kirshnik Khari Ball, was shot and killed in Houston early Tuesday morning.
The show, which debuts Thursday, investigates what’s become a string of murders in the hip-hop community, from Pop Smoke to XXXTentacion —and now 28-year-old Takeoff.
“We don’t know what’s going on, but there’s nothing that’s going to come out that’s going to make it make sense,” Lathan says. “I can tell you one thing: whatever was the reason behind this, it wasn’t worth it.”
While the rap community previously lost Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls to crime, Lathan says the show taught him something new is going on. “Everything is changed … when you start to dissect it, you start to kind of get the feeling that nothing is the way it used to be, and that’s being reflected in the callous way a lot of these murders are happening. The brazen way.”
He adds, “When you have the clout, which is poison … The clout plus social media, plus some of the aspects of the music, is just this cauldron of dysfunction.”
Scott-Young comments, “The amplification, the ability to see the gruesome details play out right in front of you. It’s an assault on our sensibilities, as, you know, human beings, you know, coexisting on a planet together … we are so desensitized. It’s all part of a larger affliction that we really have to get to the core of, or we’re just going to become more and more diseased in the way that we’ve come to accept these horrible, horrible occurrences.”
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — Former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid was sentenced to three years in prison for a drunk driving crash that injured five people, including one child severely, according to an attorney for the victims.
Reid, 37, pleaded guilty in September to driving while intoxicated in connection with the Kansas City crash. He had faced up to four years in prison as part of a plea deal.
Reid, the son of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, was driving his pickup truck near Arrowhead Stadium on Feb. 4, 2021, when he struck two vehicles that had stopped along the side of the highway. He had a blood alcohol content of 0.113 and was driving 84 mph in a 65 mph zone at the time of the incident, according to court documents.
Ariel Young, who was 5 years old at the time, was severely injured in the crash. She suffered “life-threatening injuries” and a “severe traumatic brain injury, a parietal fracture, brain contusions and subdural hematomas,” according to court documents.
The victims have spoken out against the plea deal and had hoped Reid would receive the maximum sentence. Prior to taking the guilty plea, Reid faced up to seven years in prison, with a trial expected to begin in September.
Ariel, now 6, attended the sentencing hearing Tuesday afternoon, entering the Kansas City courthouse with a shirt that had the words “Ariel strong” on it.
Her mother, Felicia Miller, prepared a victim’s impact statement that was read in court, detailing how the crash has impacted Ariel’s life.
“Today, Ariel drags her right foot when she walks. Next month we’re going to see a doctor about leg braces. She has terrible balance,” she wrote. “She takes longer to process information than her peers. She will have to be in special ed. She wears thick glasses that she never wore before. This is our life.”
Miller wrote that she does not accept past apologies from Reid for what happened. She wrote that Reid should never have been offered a plea deal and the victims are “offended” he asked for probation.
“Ariel’s life is forever changed because of Britt Reid. Her life will be dealing with the damage that Britt Reid did,” she wrote.
Reid addressed Ariel and her mother in court and apologized again, saying, “My family and I are in your corner,” according to Kansas City ABC affiliate KMBC.
Tom Porto, the attorney for the five victims in the crash, said in a statement that the victims are “outraged the defendant was not sentenced to the maximum sentence allowable by law.”
“No amount of prison time will ever be enough to punish the defendant for the pain and suffering he caused this family and the ongoing difficulties that Ariel will continue to endure for the rest of her life,” he continued.
In a statement provided to KMBC, Reid’s attorney, J.R. Hobbs, said his client “respects the court’s decision and appreciates the time and attention given to this matter.”
Reid “sincerely regrets and accepts responsibility for his conduct” and prays for Ariel’s “continued recovery,” the statement continued.
During a plea hearing on Sept. 12, Reid apologized for his “huge mistake.”
“I really regret what I did,” he said, according to KMBC.
At one point he turned to Ariel’s family and said, “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone that night,” KMBC reported.
When the judge asked the family if they had anything to say, KMBC reported that Miller said, “My family and I are opposed to the plea deal. I don’t think he should receive it.”
Reid was a linebackers coach for the Chiefs at the time of the crash and during the team’s Super Bowl win in February 2020. He was released by the team shortly after the incident.
In November 2021, the Chiefs and Porto announced that the team worked out a plan to help pay for Ariel’s medical care.
Reid has previously served prison time over a driving-related incident.
He pleaded guilty to simple assault and flashing a gun at another driver in a road rage incident in 2007, according to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, court records, and served prison time. While in prison, he also pleaded guilty to a charge of driving under the influence of a controlled substance from a separate incident, according to court documents.
ABC News’ Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
Billy Joel has donated $250,000 to Hurricane Ian relief via his charity, The Joel Foundation.
Ian was the fifth strongest hurricane ever to hit the continental U.S. Residents of Fort Myers and Southwest Florida will benefit from the donation to the Lee County Strong Hurricane Ian Relief Fund. The money will go toward rebuilding efforts, as well as to the local maritime community and school music programs.
In a statement, the Piano Man and his wife, Alexis, note that Florida is their “winter home” and that living through their own experience with Superstorm Sandy a decade ago has motivated them to “help those less fortunate.”
Over the years, The Joel Foundation has pledged and made over $7 million in charitable donations.
Billy has a scheduled show in Florida in early 2023: He’ll play at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, on January 27.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Liz Cheney said the House Jan. 6 committee is in talks with former President Donald Trump’s lawyers about his potential testimony.
“The committee is in discussions with President Trump’s attorneys and he has an obligation to comply,” Cheney, the vice chair of the committee, said Tuesday during a discussion with PBS journalist Judy Woodruff at Cleveland State University.
“We treat this and take this very seriously,” Cheney added. “This is not a situation where the committee is going to put itself at the mercy of Donald Trump in terms of his efforts to create a circus.”
The House committee took the historic step of formally issuing a subpoena to Trump on Oct. 21.
Trump faces his first deadline this Friday, Nov. 4, the date the subpoena requires him to turn over documents. The subpoena also requires him to appear for one or more days of deposition beginning around Nov. 14.
“As demonstrated in our hearings, we have assembled overwhelming evidence, including from dozens of your former appointees and staff, that you personally orchestrated and oversaw a multi-part effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power,” Cheney and Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote in a letter to Trump.
Trump has not publicly said whether or not he will cooperate with the subpoena. According to sources familiar with his thinking, Trump told advisers he’d welcome a live appearance before the panel. It doesn’t appear the committee is willing to give Trump the benefit of an unfiltered megaphone to repeat falsehoods about the 2020 election.
David Warrington, an attorney for Trump, said the day the issue was subpoenaed they would “review and analyze it, and will respond as appropriate to this unprecedented action.”
Committee members have been split about whether they would want Trump to testify in a live setting, but the panel’s been clear that any testimony would need to happen under oath.
“We haven’t made determinations about the format itself but it will be done under oath, it will be done potentially over multiple days,” Cheney told Woodruff on Tuesday. “We have significant questions based on the evidence that we’ve developed and what we know already about the extent to which he was personally and directly involved in every aspect of the effort.”
Woodruff pressed Cheney on the odds that Trump will testify or not.
“I think he has a legal obligation to testify but that doesn’t always carry weight with Donald Trump,” Cheney said.
Asked if she believes the committee should make a criminal referral to the Justice Department should Trump refuse to comply, Cheney said she didn’t want to get ahead of the panel’s work.
“The committee has been working in a very collaborative way and I would anticipate we won’t have disagreements about that, but we’ll have to make those decisions as we come to it,” she said.
The Jan. 6 committee will conclude its work by the end of the year and produce a report on its findings and recommendations to Congress.
– ABC News’ Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
