A suspect accused of attempting to kidnap Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs was erroneously released from prison, and now the U.S. Marshals are offering a $5,000 reward for information on his whereabouts.
The Marshals, in a release obtained by ABC News Monday night, say 19-year-old James Howard Jackson was released from jail where he was being held pending trial due to a “clerical error” on April 6, 2022.
Jackson is alleged to have shot dog walker Ryan Fischer with a .40-caliber handgun while he was walking the three dogs in Los Angeles. Fischer sustained a through-and-through gunshot wound to his chest and was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Police arrested five people in April in connection with the attack, two of whom were charged as accessories after the fact. Jackson, Jaylin White, 19, and Lafayette Whaley, 27, were all charged with one count of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit robbery and second-degree robbery.
Jackson is described as a black male, with black hair and brown eyes. He stands 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs approximately 120 pounds, according to the statement, which adds that Jackson “should be considered armed and dangerous.”
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Democrats’ campaign arm outraised its Republican counterpart in the second quarter of 2022 amid a fierce battle for control of the upper chamber, which is split 50-50.
In numbers shared first with ABC News, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) said Tuesday it drew $33.5 million in donations from April to June, of which $12.5 million was raised in June alone. The group finished June with more than $53.5 million in the bank and has no debt, it said.
Comparatively, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) previously announced that it raised $25.6 million in the second quarter of 2022 and finished June with $28.5 million cash on hand. It also had no debt, it said.
“The DSCC’s record breaking fundraising continues to be powered by strong, energized grassroots supporters who recognize the stakes of this election — and are committed to protecting and expanding our Democratic Senate Majority that is fighting to address working families’ most pressing priorities,” DSCC Executive Director Christie Roberts said in a statement.
An NRSC spokesperson said in their own statement that “the NRSC has broken fundraising records and are spending money early to define the Democrats. Meanwhile, Democrats are blowing money defending weak incumbents in states that Joe Biden won by double digits. No amount of money can save Democrats from themselves.”
The dueling hauls indicate both parties will be flush with cash heading into November. They are also both expressing optimism about their ability to control the Senate in the next Congress — when Democrats hope to preserve their bare majority while Republicans look to capitalize on President Joe Biden’s sagging approval and other political headwinds, like high inflation.
Democrats say they saw a surge in donations last month after the Supreme Court scrapped constitutional protections for abortion. The DSCC said the day of the decision overturning Roe v. Wade marked its strongest day of online fundraising so far this cycle, with the day after marking the second-best day of online fundraising.
Democrats are hoping that social issues like abortion and gun reform will energize a base that polls show has been depressed heading into the midterms, with Biden’s approval ratings stuck under 40%, according to the FiveThirtyEight average.
The core Senate battleground map has Democrats defending incumbents in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire — and Republicans trying to hold onto open seats in North Carolina and Pennsylvania while electing Sen. Ron Johnson to a third term in Wisconsin.
(UVALDE, Texas) — The Texas House of Representatives committee report on the Robb Elementary School shooting revealed the accused school shooter exhibited many warning signs in the years, months and days leading up to the school shooting, but he was still able to legally purchase the assault rifle used in the shooting.
The report illustrated many failures by the school and by law enforcement officers leading up to and on the day of the shooting and caused outcry among families of the 21 people killed in May.
Private individuals were the only people who knew of the many warning signs he displayed, as he had no criminal history prior to the shooting. The alleged shooter’s apparent motive was a “desire for notoriety and fame,” according to the report.
Those interviewed by the committee, including family, friends and acquaintances, reported many warning signs that experts say should have raised red flags.
“He exhibited almost every warning sign,” John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and the former acting undersecretary for intelligence and counterterrorism coordinator at the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview. “This guy should have been on everybody’s radar.”
School officials had identified the accused shooter as “at-risk” academically by the third grade due to consistently poor test results. However, he did not receive any education services, according to the report.
The shooting itself took place in the accused shooter’s former classroom. The suspect had discussed bad memories of fourth grade with an acquaintance just weeks before, according to the report.
The suspect’s fourth grade teacher told the committee she was aware he needed special help and that he claimed to be a victim of bullying. She met with his mother over these concerns and said she believed he ultimately had a good year and that the classroom was a safe space where he made friends, according to the report.
The suspect’s family, however, disputed this account saying that classmates bullied him over his stutter, clothing and short haircut. Some family members also said that some of the teachers picked on the suspect and his cousin, according to the report. Notes found on the alleged shooter’s phone indicated that he was bullied beginning in middle school.
Concerning patterns
Beginning in 2018, the alleged shooter had bad school attendance, with more than 100 absences annually. He also had failing grades and increasingly dismal performance on standardized and end-of-course exams, according to the report.
The committee found that the local court does not regularly enforce truancy rules and it is unclear if any school resource officers ever visited the alleged shooter’s home.
Aside from a single 3-day suspension due to a “mutual combat” with a student, the suspect had almost no disciplinary history at school.
By 2021, when he was 17 years old, the alleged shooter had only completed ninth grade. He was involuntarily withdrawn from Uvalde High School in October 2021, citing poor academic performance and lack of attendance, according to the report.
Last year, the suspect increasingly withdrew and isolated himself. At the beginning of the year, a group of the alleged shooter’s former friends “jumped him,” according to the report.
His former girlfriend described the alleged shooter as lonely and depressed and said he was constantly teased by friends who called him a “school shooter,” according to the report. He was also called a “school shooter” online due to his comments.
She said he told her repeatedly that he wouldn’t live past 18, either because he would commit suicide or simply because he “wouldn’t live long.” The alleged shooter also responded to their breakup last year by harassing the girl and her friends, according to the report.
The alleged shooter’s activity online was also concerning as he began to watch violent and gruesome videos and images of things like suicides, beheadings and accidents.
Those with whom he played video games reported that he became enraged when he lost. He allegedly made over-the-top threats, especially towards female players, whom he would terrorize with graphic descriptions of violence and rape.
Later internet usage suggests he may have wondered if he was a sociopath and sought out information on the condition. His internet research resulted in him receiving an email, which was not disclosed from where in the report, about obtaining psychological treatment for sociopathy.
One month into working at Whataburger in 2021, he was fired for threatening a female coworker. He reportedly had a similar experience at Wendy’s.
His family and friends were aware of his efforts to buy guns before he was old enough to do so legally. He asked at least two people to buy him guns when he was 17, but they both refused, according to the report.
None of the suspect’s online behavior was ever reported to law enforcement, and if it was reported by other users to any social media platform, it does not appear that actions were taken to restrict his access or to report him to authorities as a threat, according to the report.
Red Flag Laws
Red flag laws, or extreme protection orders, allow law enforcement or family members to ask a civil court to temporarily remove guns from a person who poses a risk to themselves or others. Recent federal legislation included funding for states to implement these laws.
While Texas is not one of the 19 states that have red flag laws in place, experts say these laws could have prevented the shooting if they had been used in this case.
“I think this is an illustration of why red flag laws might be needed. And that might be helpful, particularly if they were used extensively here,” Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychology and behavioral studies who is affiliated with the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University, told ABC News in an interview.
The alleged shooter in Uvalde showed sufficient indication of risks that his guns could have been removed under these laws, Swanson said.
Jarrod Burguan, the former San Bernardino police chief and ABC News contributor, said the mental health system being a revolving door has not made it effective in forcing treatment and potentially protecting society from these kinds of attacks.
While law enforcement can detain people they suspect pose a potential risk for up to 72 hours (this varies based on state), Burguan said millions of people slip through the cracks.
“We need something that puts more teeth in the ability of the mental health system to hold somebody and force them into treatment, and stop allowing people to walk away, and then affect everybody else in society,” Burguan said.
Cohen said he has heard this concern from law enforcement all over the country, but says the recent federal legislation can be helpful by increasing access to mental health care.
Cohen sees a need to also implement threat management strategies where community members, leaders and family could put in place a plan that would help people who may pose a risk.
Even if there is not enough evidence to arrest someone who may pose a risk, there is still middle ground for acting preventatively with “law enforcement working with mental health professionals to assess the risk based on an evaluation of the person’s behavior,” Cohen said.
(NEW YORK) — The funeral for the late Ivana Trump, first wife of former President Donald Trump, will be held Wednesday at New York City’s St. Vincent Ferrer Church.
Her three children — Eric, Ivanka and Donald Jr. — are expected to speak during the services.
Ivana Trump died Thursday after suffering injuries sustained from a fall in her Upper East Side home, New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said. She was 73.
She was married to the ex-president from 1977 to 1992 and had three kids together, Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka.
“Our mother was an incredible woman — a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend,” the Trump family said in a statement at the time of her passing.
In a statement on his Truth Social platform, former President Trump called her a “wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life.”
Ivana Trump was found unconscious and unresponsive at the bottom of a set of stairs in her apartment, police sources said. Her death was ruled an accident, according to the medical examiner.
Known for her glamour, Ivana Trump created her own clothing line and helped design the interior for the Grand Hyatt Hotel and Trump Tower. She was also a bestselling author and worked for her former husband’s business empire as a senior executive, where she served as the CEO of Trump’s Castle, a hotel casino in Atlantic City.
Instead of flowers, her family is asking people to donate to the Florida nonprofit Big Dog Ranch Rescue, the organization said on its website.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Poor Wi-Fi service and a staff desensitized to alerts by frequent notifications diminished the effectiveness of Robb Elementary School’s digital emergency system during the May 24 massacre there, hampering teachers’ ability to swiftly secure their classrooms and students, according to an investigative report published Sunday.
The emergency alert system, called Raptor, was implemented by Uvalde’s school district in February 2022 to disseminate information about on-campus or nearby police activity. But on May 24, the alert system failed to sufficiently warn staff as a gunman approached the school and killed 21 people, the report found, even after the school’s principal triggered it.
“If the alert had reached more teachers sooner, it is likely that more could have been done to protect them and their students,” concluded the report, which was prepared by a special committee of the Texas state legislature.
Raptor Technologies, the Houston-based company that developed the emergency alert service used at Robb, pushed back against some of the committee’s findings, including details about when the first alert notification was transmitted.
David Rogers, the firm’s chief marketing officer, told ABC News that the report “paints an ambiguous and potentially misleading picture of the degree to which the data communication infrastructure was performant during the incident,” and said the committee did not request their data or input before publishing its report.
In the wake of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, and as students across the country prepare to return to classrooms in the coming weeks, school districts across the country are grappling with their own alert systems and safety concerns.
The alert system was just one of many procedures that together failed to prevent the shooter from entering the school. In their investigative report, lawmakers noted that many of the shortcomings identified at Robb — including how it handled its emergency alert system — exist elsewhere in the state.
“We must not delude ourselves into a false sense of security by believing that ‘this would not happen where we live,’” according to the report. “The people of Uvalde undoubtedly felt the same way.”
Beyond the myriad of missteps on the part of law enforcement and the school district to adequately prepare for an active shooter event, the lawmakers’ report offered new details about how administrators sought to use the Raptor system during the siege with varying degrees of success. Patchy wireless connection at Robb Elementary delayed sending and receiving alerts, the report said, and an influx of notifications in recent months “diluted” the seriousness of the lockdown warning.
Difficulties with the digital alert app began almost immediately, the committee found. After hearing from a teacher who witnessed the gunman approach the school, Robb Elementary School Principal Mandy Gutierrez “attempted to initiate a lockdown on the Raptor application, but she had difficulty making the alert because of a bad wi-fi signal,” according to the report.
“Poor wi-fi connectivity in Robb Elementary likely delayed the lockdown alert through the Raptor application,” the report added.
Rogers, the Raptor executive, again disputed this claim from the committee, telling ABC News that the report “appears to imply that the lockdown was ‘attempted’ but not successfully initiated.”
“If that was the intended implication of the House Report,” he continued, “that would be inaccurate.”
Rogers said the firm’s internal system log data, which was shared with ABC News, confirmed that a “lockdown” alert was successfully transmitted at 11:32 a.m. — one minute before the shooter entered the school building. The committee’s report also noted that at least one teacher inside the school successfully received a lockdown alert at 11:32 a.m.
“Within seconds” of the alert being generated, Rogers said, 91 “critical notifications,” which are similar to an Amber Alert, 68 text messages and 136 emails were sent to “all configured user devices” associated with the Robb community. Rogers added that several teachers communicated amongst themselves using the app’s “group chat” function as the shooting unfolded.
With regard to Wi-Fi challenges cited by the committee, Rogers said Raptor’s alert system relies on devices that use cellular networks and wired connections, too — but said school districts are the ones responsible for ensuring strong Wi-Fi signals.
Once Gutierrez’s lockdown alert was successfully transmitted, the committee reached another troubling conclusion: many teachers likely ignored it. According to the report, the high volume of Raptor alert notifications about off-campus police activity in the weeks and months leading to the May 24 shooting “diluted the significance of alerts and dampened everyone’s readiness to act on alerts.”
Between February and May 2022, according to the report, staff members received more than 50 alerts — a frequency that “contributed to a diminished sense of vigilance about responding to security alerts,” the committee said.
Most of those alerts were in response to what the committee described as nearby “bailouts,” referring to incidents when undocumented immigrants flee their vehicles and attempt to outrun police. Because of Robb’s proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border, these so-called bailout events happen often.
“The series of bailout-related alerts led teachers and administrators to respond to all alerts with less urgency—when they heard the sound of an alert, many assumed that it was another bailout,” the committee reported.
Rogers said that Raptor is “actively working” with the Uvalde school district to make modifications to its platform so that “bailout” incident alerts would have a different notification setting, “so as to be clearly differentiated from other categories of emergencies.”
Even so, the committee added that many teachers “did not always reliably receive” the alerts for a number of other reasons, including “poor wi-fi coverage, phones that were turned off or not always carried, and employees who had to log-in on a computer to receive a message.”
In at least one instance during the shooting, the Raptor system worked as planned. Jennieka Rodriguez, a fourth-grade teacher in classroom 105, told the committee that she received a lockdown alert on her phone at 11:32 a.m. — just one minute before the gunman entered the school.
“[Rodriguez’s] students knew what to do and where to hide,” according to the report. “She stepped outside and checked her classroom door to ensure it was locked. As she did so, she looked across the hall and locked eyes with another fourth-grade teacher, Ms. [Irma] Garcia, who was locking the door to her classroom, Room 112.”
Moments later, the gunman entered the school and stormed classroom 112, killing Garcia and her students.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is expected to announce on Wednesday a few executive actions to address climate change, with a focus on helping Americans facing extreme heat — but the steps fall far short of the more sweeping measures climate activists are calling for.
In fact, the directives largely appear to provide more funding to or otherwise strengthen existing programs.
According to the White House, the president’s latest set of executive actions will include “protecting communities facing extreme heat with additional FY22 funding for FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program and additional guidance to support the Department of Health and Human Services Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).” The BRIC program offers funding to communities for hazard mitigation, while the LIHEAP provides low-income Americans with assistance in covering their energy costs.
The White House said Biden will also announce “additional actions to boost the domestic offshore wind industry.” Further information on those actions was not immediately available, and it was unclear whether they would be new or impactful.
Biden will make the announcements while visiting a now-defunct coal-fired power plant, called Brayton Point, in Somerset, Massachusetts. The site is expected to be turned into a manufacturing plant that will produce transmission cables for Massachusetts’ offshore wind industry, according to the White House.
“The President ran on fighting the urgent economic and national security threat of climate change, and tomorrow’s actions will be a continuation of the decisive steps on climate that the President has taken since day one,” a White House official said. “In the coming days, he will continue to announce executive actions that we have developed to combat this emergency.”
While Biden does not plan to declare a climate national emergency this week, that option is “still on the table,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday.
The Biden administration’s efforts to continue to pivot the U.S. power sector toward zero-emission energy options, such as off-shore wind, move the country in the right direction but don’t address the larger problem of cutting and reducing current energy-based emissions from the existing fossil fuel industry. Without continuing to cut and reduce current emissions from a range of polluting areas, it will take much more than empowering renewable energy and improving building efficiency to reach Biden’s climate goals.
Wednesday’s announcements come as people across the United States — and around the world — grapple with sweltering temperatures this week. A scorching airmass remains over the majority of the continental U.S. on Wednesday, with a heat dome sitting over the Southwest and Great Plains and triple-digit temperatures stretching throughout the Midwest and up and down the East Coast.
Palm trees and hydrangeas and impatiens, oh my! Jake Owen took to Instagram Stories to offer fans a tour of the flora growing on his Nashville property.
The Florida native brought a piece of his native land to Nashville by planting palm trees near his driveway. Known as Christmas Palms, which have three branches per stem, Jake says their 30-gallon planters are “great” for allowing room at the bottom to fill with other flowers such as impatiens and dipladenias.
“I like to make sure that my place is covered in palm trees, not to mention beautiful flowers,” he says.
In fact, the singer has plenty of the plants lying around. During the video the camera pans over to a bed of pink impatiens that “love to draw butterflies,” as evidenced by a butterfly perched on one of the petals.
“What a beautiful little animal, sitting there sucking nectar out of my beautiful impatience,” the singer narrates. “I love creating beautiful habitats for all my butter friends.”
The country hitmaker also has several white flowering hydrangea bushes flanked by a “beautiful” crape myrtle. “Sometimes they’re white, sometimes they’re purple, sometimes depending on how much you water them they’re brown,” Jake says with a laugh about the hydrangeas.
Jake notes his jam-packed schedule can make it difficult to care for the plants. “You have to make time for your flowers.”
(MORENO VALLEY, Calif.) — A woman is being held on $1 million bail after allegedly dressing as a nurse and gaining access to a maternity ward at a hospital in an attempt to steal a baby.
The incident occurred on Thursday, July 14, when Moreno Valley Sheriff’s deputies in California were notified by hospital staff at the Riverside University Health System – Medical Center of an alleged “individual impersonating a nurse on campus,” said the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department in a press release.
Authorities said that the suspect — later named as 23-year-old Jesenea Miron from Moreno Valley, California — had allegedly entered the hospital posing as a newly hired nurse and was able to gain access to the medical unit where all of the newborn babies were being looked after.
“The female entered a patient’s hospital room and identified herself as a nurse,” said the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. “While inside the patient’s room, she attempted to take their newborn infant.”
It is unclear what security measures were in place at the hospital and how Moreno was able to gain access to the maternity ward.
Moreno was eventually confronted by hospital staff who immediately notified security of the breach and alleged attempted kidnapping, authorities say.
“The female fled the location before she was able to be apprehended by hospital security or law enforcement,” said the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. “Investigators served a search warrant at the 11000 block of Weber Street in the city of Moreno Valley, where Miron was located and arrested. Additional items of evidentiary value were also located inside the residence.”
Authorities say that Miron was subsequently booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center for kidnapping charges and is currently being held on $1 million bail.
Anybody with further information regarding this case is asked to contact the Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station or the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. The investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Here’s wishing a supernaturally happy birthday to Carlos Santana, who turns 75 today.
The legendary guitarist helped create a groundbreaking fusion of rock, blues, pop, Latin music and jazz with his namesake band Santana.
Santana came to global prominence after an incendiary performance at the 1969 Woodstock festival, which showcased Carlos’ blistering and intense playing. The group’s self-titled debut album came out that same month, featuring classics like “Evil Ways” and the instrumental “Soul Sacrifice.” The band’s next two studio albums, Abraxas and Santana III, topped the Billboard 200 and included such hits as “Black Magic Woman,” “Oye Como Va” and “Everybody’s Everything.”
From the early 1970s through the ’90s, Santana’s lineup changed frequently as the band’s popularity fluctuated.
Santana was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, then experienced a huge career resurgence thanks to 1999’s Supernatural. The album, which featured Carlos and company collaborating with various guest artists, yielded two #1 hits — “Smooth” with Matchbox Twenty‘s Rob Thomas, and “Maria Maria” with Wyclef Jean and The Product G&B. Supernatural topped the Billboard 200 for 12 nonconsecutive weeks and went on to win nine Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
More recently, Santana was saluted at the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors in 2013.
Santana’s latest album, Blessings and Miracles, was released in October 2021. Following a similar template to Supernatural, Blessings and Miracles features collaborations with various guest artists, including Thomas, Steve Winwood, Metallica‘s Kirk Hammett and Diane Warren.
On July 5, Santana collapsed onstage during a show in the Detroit suburb of Clarkston, Michigan — reportedly because of heat exhaustion and dehydration — leading him to postpone a series of shows. The band currently is scheduled to return to the road this Saturday, July 23, in Paso Robles, California.
“Come and get me, motherf*****,” Jamie Lee Curtis‘ Laurie Strode dares Michael Meyers in the first trailer for Halloween Ends — the final showdown between the two.
Halloween Ends is set four years after 2021’s Halloween Kills and finds Laurie living with her granddaughter Allyson — played by Andi Matichak — and working on her memoir when a murder begins a new string of terror, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Will Patton, Kyle Richards, Omar Dorsey, Nick Castle and James Jude Courtney also star.
Director David Gordon Greentold the outlet back in October, “[Halloween Ends is] very different in tone from Halloween [2018] and Halloween Kills, and I think that’s part of my self-indulgence. I very often jump around in genres and explore different themes and characters through movies,”
“I just came up with a new twist ending on the ending that existed a couple weeks ago, and that’s something that only I hold the piece of paper that has those words on it.”
Halloween Ends is the 13th — and allegedly the last — installment in the slasher film franchise, and the fourth installment in the saga established by 2018’s Halloween, which was a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s original 1978 film.
