(SUN CITY HILTON HEAD, S.C.) — A woman was killed in an apparent alligator attack in South Carolina on Monday, officials said.
The large alligator was spotted “near the edge of a pond” in Sun City Hilton Head, an adult-only community, “guarding what was believed to be a person,” the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office said.
Responders found the gator and a dead person, the sheriff’s office said. The victim hasn’t been identified.
The gator is still being recovered from the pond, according to the sheriff’s office.
Alligators are active during spring and summer, because when temperatures rise, their metabolism increases and they look for food, Melody Kilborn, a spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, told ABC News last month.
Kilborn urged people to follow these safety tips: alligators are most active at night, so only swim in designated swimming areas during daylight hours; never feed an alligator; and keep your pets on a leash and away from the water’s edge.
ABC News’ Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — On the one-year anniversary Monday of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, House Republicans and the Biden administration quarreled over who is to blame for the series of events that led to the Taliban victory and the handling of the chaotic withdrawal of 120,000 Afghans.
A 121-page report by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee that investigated the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan blames the Biden administration for failing to plan accordingly for what would happen once all U.S. troops left the country. The report, in which committee Democrats did not participate, was made available to ABC News and other news outlets ahead of its public release.
Ahead of that release, the White House issued a memo denouncing the Republican investigation as a “partisan report” that “is riddled with inaccurate characterizations, cherry-picked information, and false claims.”
“It advocates for endless war and for sending even more American troops to Afghanistan,” Adrienne Watson, the National Security Council’s top spokeswoman, said in the memo. “And it ignores the impacts of the flawed deal that former President Trump struck with the Taliban.”
Citing a lack of cooperation from the Biden administration, the report relied on open source reporting, independent interviews with former officials, and interviews with U.S. military commanders included in U.S. Central Command’s investigation of the Abbey Gate suicide bomb attack at Kabul’s airport that killed 13 American service members and more than 170 Afghan civilians.
“The choices made in the corridors of power in D.C. led to tragic yet avoidable outcomes: 13 dead service members, American lives still at great risk, increased threats to our homeland security, tarnished standing abroad for years to come, and emboldened enemies across the globe,” said the Republican report.
In its response, the NSC said Biden’s decision reflected the tough choice he had to make to either “ramp up the war and put even more American troops at risk, or finally end the United States’ longest war after two decades of American presidents sending U.S. troops to fight and die in Afghanistan.”
The Republican report claims President Biden was “likely aware” that his stated reasons for withdrawing from Afghanistan were “inaccurate” when he announced the withdrawal in April 2021 and that he ignored recommendations by U.S. military commanders that it would be prudent to keep a small U.S. military presence of at least 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.
“The decision to withdraw U.S. military forces was made by President Biden, despite advice from his military commanders that such a move could lead to Taliban battlefield gains,” said the report.
Watson also pushed back on that claim, citing congressional testimony last fall by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley that leaving a force of 2,500 would have likely led to a troop increase if the Taliban targeted U.S. forces.
The Republican report criticizes the Biden administration for not having prepared for the quick Taliban takeover of Kabul saying President Biden “was warned repeatedly that the return of the Taliban was a question of when, not if.” Meanwhile, the White House response shifted blame to the Doha agreement negotiated by the Trump administration said “empowered the Taliban and weakened our partners in the Afghan government.”
In the two weeks after the fall of Kabul, 120,000 Afghan civilians were evacuated as part of a hastily-planned U.S. military airlift, but those that left were the lucky ones who were able to clear Taliban checkpoints and U.S. military entrances to Kabul’s airport.
The chaotic images of thousands of Afghan civilians attempting to be allowed into the airport became the signature image of that withdrawal.
The Republican report blamed the State Department for not planning accordingly earlier in the year and noted that at the peak of the withdrawal there were only 36 U.S. consular officers at the airport to process the claims of the tens of thousands ultimately evacuated.
Only a small number of those who were evacuated had received for applied for the Special Immigrant Visas (SIV’s) offered to Afghans who served as interpreters or contractors working for the United States. More than 77,000 Afghans who applied for those visas remain inside Afghanistan and the report criticizes the Biden administration for not developing a plan for how to get them out of Afghanistan.
The report also disclosed the previously undisclosed figure that more than 800 Americans have been evacuated from Afghanistan since last year, a much larger number than the 100 to 200 Americans that the administration had claimed were still in the country at the end of the chaotic withdrawal.
Republicans also disclosed that a “significant” number of highly trained Afghan commandos crossed into Iran seeking refuge after the Taliban takeover and expresses concerns that they “could be recruited or coerced into working for one of America’s adversaries that maintains a presence in Afghanistan, including Russia, China, or Iran.”
The report described last week’s CIA drone strike that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri as proof that Afghanistan has once again become a safe haven for terrorists.
But the White House responded that the Zawahiri strike showed that the U.S. did not need a troop presence to go after the top terrorist leader and cited a U.S. intelligence assessments that al Qaeda has not reconstituted itself in Afghanistan. According to that assessment, there are only 12 al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and only Zawahiri has attempted to restart operations in Afghanistan.
Tina Turner and Cher in 1985; Robin Platzer/Getty Images
It seems that music icons attract other music icons as friends. On Sunday, Cher revealed in a Twitter message that she’d spent the day hanging out with Tina Turner.
“WE LAUGHED FOR 3 1/2 [hours] STRAIGHT,” she wrote. “My sides Ache.”
Cher added, “There Will Never Be Another TINA TURNER. We Love each other Dearly, I’m [lucky] To Have Her in my life…[We] Carried On Till The Sun went Down.”
In a follow-up tweet, Cher reported that she brought Tina “a little antique Buddha” statue as a gift, adding, “Wish I’d taken a picture…I’ll Call Her & Ask for one [tomorrow].”
Turner has been a practicing Buddhist since the 1970s.
(NEW YORK) — More than 2 million infant rockers and swings have been recalled due to entanglement and strangulation hazards, leading to at least one death.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the voluntary recall Monday of certain 4moms MamaRoo Baby Swings and RockaRoo Baby Rockers, which were sold at Target and Best Buy.
When the swing or rocker is not in use their restraint straps can dangle below the seat and non-occupant crawling infants can become entangled in the straps, posing a strangulation hazard, according to the CPSC.
4moms has received two reports of entanglement incidents involving infants who became caught in the strap under the unoccupied MamaRoo infant swing after they crawled under the seat. This includes a 10-month-old infant who died from asphyxiation, and a 10-month-old infant who suffered bruising to his neck before being rescued by a caregiver, according to a press release from the CPSC.
No incidents involving the RockaRoo have been reported, the CPSC said.
Gary Waters, the CEO of 4moms, said his company was “deeply saddened” by the two incidents, adding, “Families put their trust in our company when they choose to bring our products into their homes. That’s why we take every precaution and make the extra effort to ensure that our baby gear products not only meet but exceed all applicable safety standards.
Consumers with infants who can crawl are advised to “immediately” stop using the recalled products and place them in an area where the infants cannot access them.
The CPSC said consumers should contact 4moms immediately to register for a free strap fastener that will prevent the straps from extending under the swing when not in use.
(WASHINGTON) — On Tuesday, for the first time, Alaska voters will use ranked-choice voting — and it’ll be for a special general election to fill the state’s only House seat following the death of Republican Rep. Don Young.
Three candidates advanced from a crowded special primary in June: Sarah Palin, the former Republican governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee; Republican Nick Begich III, a businessman and former GOP aide; and Democratic state Rep. Mary Peltola.
The seat they are seeking to fill opened for the first time in almost 50 years in March, with Young’s death.
Voters in the state had approved a ballot initiative in 2020 in favor of using ranked-choice voting in their general elections. The initiative also created a nonpartisan primary which sends the top four vote-getters, regardless of political affiliation, to the general election. (The fourth candidate in June’s special primary, Al Gross, withdrew shortly thereafter.)
The ranked voting works like this: If a candidate in the general election wins more than 50% of first-choice votes, they win the race outright. Otherwise, the candidate with the least amount of first-place votes is eliminated and that candidate’s voters instead have their ballots redistributed to their second choice.
This process continues until a candidate exceeds 50%.
Alaskans for Better Elections, co-chaired by former state Attorney General Bruce Botelho, was responsible for the ballot measure authorizing the ranked-choice voting system.
Supporters hope that ranked-choice voting could lead to less polarizing elections. Botelho said he believes it will force a more “civil dialogue focused on issues” and see candidates pushed to “reach beyond their base,” since how voters rank the hopefuls could decide the winner of the election (as happened in New York City’s last mayoral race).
Chris Warshaw, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, said that a downside to ranked-choice voting is that it’s more complicated compared to plurality voting, which is more standard, in which the first-place candidate usually wins even if they don’t get a majority.
“Theoretically, things [that] are more complicated could both drive down turnout and exacerbate socioeconomic inequalities,” Warshaw said. “Empirically, we don’t know; there isn’t much evidence on [ranked-choice voting] because it’s such a new reform.”
The system has been implemented in some other cities and states, such as New York City, Maine and San Francisco.
Voters in Alaska may not know who won the special House election for a while, since on election night and for the 15 days after, the state will only report first-choice results.
If none of the three candidates reaches the 50% threshold, the state will apply the ranked choices, eliminating the last-place candidate and redistributing their ballots — and then report those results on or about Aug. 31.
Whoever emerges as the winner of the race will serve only the remainder of Young’s term, which will end in January.
A regularly scheduled election to decide who will serve a full two-year term starting in 2023 will be held in November; the regular election primary is also on Tuesday and includes all three of the top candidates for the special election alongside more than a dozen others.
(NEW YORK) — When Paige West decided to scale back the amount of effort she was putting into her corporate job, she joined a growing workplace trend known as “quiet quitting.”
“When I was quiet quitting, I didn’t want to constantly feel that stress of working that job and feeling like I needed to put my 1000% in,” West, now a digital creator, told “Good Morning America.” “So I decided to scale that back and really just do the work that was required of me.”
For West, the urge to focus more on her work-life balance and give less to her job came during the coronavirus pandemic, when she, like many workers around the globe, began working remotely from home.
“I was really struggling with just the idea of a 9 to 5, especially when COVID hit and we were all working from home,” said West. “I was just stuck at my desk all day from 9 to 5, at a minimum, working on my computer, staring at a screen. For me, that just wasn’t the ideal situation.”
With the pandemic blurring the lines between work and home, people like West are using quiet quitting as a way to set more boundaries between their professional and personal lives.
The new form of “quitting” sees people keeping their jobs, but mentally stepping back from the burdens of work — for example, working the bare minimum number of hours and not making their jobs an important center of their lives.
Clayton Farris, a freelance writer, said he heard about the trend on TikTok, where the hashtag #quietquitting has been posted more than 3 million times.
“I just heard about this term called Quiet Quitting, and I realized that is what I’ve been doing … against my will,” Farris said in a video on TikTok.
Farris told “GMA” he has learned in his own life how to set boundaries around work.
“It’s about quitting the hustle culture that goes along with work in our society,” he said. “I can still be a very productive, active worker and not have to focus on work 24 hours a day.”
Data shows the trend of putting limits on one’s job and work life, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is most popular among people just starting out in their careers, those who are in their early 20s.
“Being connected to a mission or purpose is a high priority for the younger generation,” said Jim Harter, chief workplace scientist at Gallup. “That’s something they want but they’re not experiencing in their current workplaces.”
Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News chief business, technology and economics correspondent, said making a decision to quiet quit a job could come down to a person’s career goals.
“If your objective is work-life balance over income and maybe even job security and you’re not lookin for big raises and promotions, then this could work for you,” Jarvis said, noting the current job market is also amenable to the trend. “It is much easier to pull off when there are nearly two job openings for every job seeker.”
The risk of quiet quitting, according to Jarvis, is that an employee who is less invested in their job may be “more likely to be laid off in a down economy.”
Jarvis said that for employees who are feeling burned out, it may be the right time to speak with their manager.
“Set time. Talk to them about the fact that you’re feeling burned out,” she said, adding that employees should also come prepared with solutions for how they can fulfill their job obligations while also taking care of themselves.
Finally, according to Jarvis, employees can look for community within their workplace to make things a little easier on themselves.
“For people who don’t necessarily feel it on their team, look around the company. ” said Jarvis. “There may be others and when you have that community, those friends at the job, it goes by so much more quickly.”
If you thought Drake was retiring from rap music, you thought wrong. According to the rapper, his dance album, Honestly, Nevermind, was simply a way to “challenge” himself after years of being in the music game.
“I’m not at that point where I even consider that being an option,” Drake explained on the debut episode of Nicki Minaj‘s Queen Radio, per Complex. He plans to continue making music and describes “one of the best feelings” in his life as “completing a song or project.”
“And by the way, those things are painful, as well,” Drizzy continued of the music-making process. “A lot of nerves, a lot of confidence wavering. But I feel like I’m reaching a new level of fun. I’ve reached a new level of comfortability where I want to try things. Like this last album, I put out something I wanted to do to challenge myself.”
The risk of putting out a full dance record has fortunately resulted in record-breaking stats for Drake. Chart Data reports he is now “the first artist in history to earn a milestone 100 top 20 hits on the [Billboard] Hot 100.”
R. Kelly‘s team is taking legal action to prevent Surviving R. Kelly viewers from serving as jurors in his federal trial. According to TMZ, the singer’s lawyers filed a motion to exclude those who have seen “any portion” of the documentary, citing their inability to make a “fair” judgment in the case.
“This is an issue of potential jurors possessing a mountain of information about the specific allegations in this case and the witnesses’ stories that will play center stage at this trial and may or may not be admissible,” Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, argued in the motion, per the Chicago Tribune. “Allowing an individual to sit on this jury who has seen Surviving R. Kelly is no different than allowing a juror to sit on the jury who was permitted to preview the discovery in this case.”
U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber later deemed it inappropriate to reject potential jurors who’d seen any part of the documentary.
Jury selection for Kelly’s federal trial began on Monday. The judge hopes to get at least 40 potential jurors before proceeding to the next stage of the process.
As previously reported, Kelly is accused of engaging in sex acts with five minors and recording some of the abuse on multiple videos. He is also accused of conspiring to intimidate victims and conceal evidence in an effort to obstruct law enforcement.
Two former employees of Kelly’s music business, Derrel McDavid and Milton “June” Brown, are also facing charges. McDavid, of Chicago, is accused of helping Kelly fix the 2008 trial, while Brown, also of Chicago, is accused of receiving child pornography, according to court documents. All three men have denied the allegations.
John Roca/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images, FILE
(WASHINGTON) — Last Monday, FBI officials raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., executing a court-ordered search warrant the Department of Justice later revealed was related to possible violations of three criminal statutes.
Officers seized a total of 27 boxes from Mar-a-Lago, with 11 containing classified documents — including top secret information.
ABC News contributor and former federal prosecutor Kan Nawaday spoke with ABC News’ Phil Lipof about what stands out to him in the search warrant, the top secret materials in the boxes and what officials are likely doing now.
PRIME: ABC News contributor and former federal prosecutor Kan Nawaday again with us tonight for some insight on all of this. Kan, thanks for being here. Let’s take a look at the search warrant first. We both have a copy of it. What stands out to you in the search warrant?
NAWADAY: First off, the huge big powder keg in this is the fact that the judge found probable cause to believe that there was a violation of the Espionage Act.
PRIME: And that’s no small feat. We’re talking about espionage here.
NAWADAY: Exactly. What that means is that they think that there was mishandling of top secret information that was transmitted to unauthorized persons. This is the exact same statute that [National Security Agency whistleblower Edward] Snowden was charged with.
PRIME: All right. So let’s move on to the receipt here, the things that they say they took in this search of the former president’s home. You can see at the top a grant of clemency for Roger Stone, information on the president of France, then we see as you move down secret documents, miscellaneous, then we have top secret documents, confidential documents, more top secret documents. Talk about top secret for a minute, because, you know, people can throw that term around, but what does that mean?
NAWADAY: And you’re exactly right. Feel like people throw that term around. But it’s actually very, very specific. What top secret means is a type of document or information that if it gets out there, it can cause exceptionally grave damage to our national security. So it’s really important stuff, it’s sensitive stuff. And the thing that sticks out to me is item “2A,” various TS/SCI documents.
PRIME: That SCI.
NAWADAY: Right, SCI means this is top secret stuff that can only, and should only, be viewed within a certain facility that’s basically protected from data leaks.
PRIME: They’re called skiffs, right?
NAWADAY: Exactly.
PRIME: No phones allowed, nothing. This is where you view these documents exactly.
NAWADAY: Like you cannot take your phone in, you’re not going to get any emails…that’s how sensitive this material is, and they have it there.
PRIME: So then what do they have to do now? Are they concerned about people who may have seen this or where this material may have gone?
NAWADAY: Absolutely. My money’s on what the FBI, and national security professionals are doing right now — they’re looking through everything they’ve gotten from the search and they’re trying to figure out who else may have seen this highly sensitive material.
PRIME: That’s a big task. Yes. Especially with everything that we see they took. OK. Former federal prosecutor and ABC News contributor Kan Nowaday, thanks so much for joining us again, we do appreciate it.
(WEYAUWEGA, Wisc.) — A Wisconsin man, 51-year-old Tony Haase, has been arrested for a 1992 double murder after police used DNA from a recent traffic stop to connect him to the crime. He told police last week he was in a “drunken stupor” and has “snippets” of memories of the crime, according to the criminal complaint.
On March 21, 1992, Timothy Mumbrue, Tanna Togstad and Togstad’s dog were found stabbed to death at Togstad’s Weyauwega, Wisconsin, home, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
The murders went unsolved for decades, even as police collected DNA, re-tested evidence, conducted interviews and executed search warrants, according to the criminal complaint.
At one point Haase was identified in the investigation, the criminal complaint said. A DNA sample was taken from a pen Haase used during a traffic stop in July 2022, and that DNA sample was determined to be a match to fluids on Togstad’s body, the complaint said.
In a police interview on Aug. 11, 2022, Haase revealed his father was friends with Togstad’s father, according to the complaint.
Haase told investigators that he’d never been to Togstad’s home and denied involvement in the murders, the complaint said.
But Haase also told police “he had ‘snippets/blurbs’ of memories through the years that he attributed to the murders,” the complaint said. “Those ‘snippets’ included remembering walking down the front steps of the house and vomiting in the yard” and leaving her driveway, the complaint said.
Haase said those memories “made him very nervous and scared that he was involved,” according to the complaint.
He later told police that his father died a snowmobile accident when he was a child. Haase said several people were racing and collided, and that one of the snowmobile drivers was Togstad’s father, the complaint said.
Haase told police that the night of the crime, he got “very drunk” and started thinking about his father’s death, which led him to thinking about going to Togstad’s home, the complaint said.
In a “drunken stupor,” Haase said he had a “scuffle” with Mumbrue, “and he moved his arm in a stabbing motion toward Mumbrue’s chest,” the complaint said.
Haase said Togstad yelled, “what the f—” and he then punched her in the face, the complaint said.
When “Togstad started to ‘stir,'” he said he stabbed her in the chest, the complaint said.
Haase said the crime was not planned and “he did not know why he did it,” according to the complaint. He said when he “saw the news report he thought ‘Holy f—, what did I do,'” the complaint said.
Haase, of Weyauwega, was charged Friday with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, the Wisconsin Department of Justice announced Monday. He does not have an attorney. He has not entered a plea and is due back in court on Tuesday.
