5-year-old boy with autism goes missing from home during nap with mom: Sheriff
Coos County Sheriff’s Office
(HAUSER, Ore.) — A search is underway for a 5-year-old boy in Oregon who has been missing since Saturday.
Joshua McCoy went missing from his home in Hauser, according to the Coos County Sheriff’s Office. He and his mother had taken a nap Saturday afternoon, but when his mother woke up around 5:30 p.m. local time, Joshua was missing, according to the sheriff’s office.
Joshua has autism and may not respond when called, the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office has activated CORSAR — the California Oregon Regional Search and Rescue Task Force — to help search for the child.
Drones and K-9 resources have been involved in the search. The sheriff’s office said it has also requested assistance from state and federal agencies, with additional resources expected to arrive on Tuesday.
The sheriff’s office said they have found “some clues” so far during the search, though “nothing definitive.”
“Nothing is being ruled out at this time as we are considering all possible avenues,” the Coos County Sheriff’s Office said in an update on Monday. “We maintain hope that Joshua will be found alive and well.”
Joshua, who turns 6 on Saturday, was described by authorities as 3 feet, 6 inches tall and 50 to 60 pounds, with brown eyes and brown shoulder-length hair.
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — Andrew Lester, the man charged in the April 2023 shooting of Ralph Yarl after the teenager mistakenly went to the wrong house, got a new trial date on Tuesday, pending the outcome of a mental health evaluation, ABC’s Kansas City affiliate KMBC reported.
A Clay County judge rescheduled Lester’s trial, which was initially set for Oct. 7, to begin on Feb. 18, 2025, according to KMBC.
Prior to Tuesday’s hearing, Lester’s trial had been delayed indefinitely after the judge ordered on Sept. 9 that Lester undergo a mental health check to determine if he is fit to stand trial in response to a motion filed by Lester’s attorney Steven Salmon.
Salmon filed a motion in the Clay County Circuit Court on Aug. 27, requesting a mental evaluation to determine if Lester is fit to stand trial, according to court documents obtained by ABC News, where he claimed that Lester is facing health conditions that could impair his ability to understand legal proceedings or assist in his defense at trial.
The judge said on Tuesday that Lester’s mental evaluation must be complete by Nov. 9 and his next hearing was set for Nov. 26, according to KMBC.
ABC News reached out to Lester’s attorney but a request for comment was not immediately returned.
Lester, a white man, was charged with one count of felony assault in the first-degree and one count of armed criminal action, also a felony, in the shooting of Yarl, a Black teenager who mistakenly went to Lester’s Kansas City home after arriving at the wrong address to pick up his twin brothers from a play date. Lester pleaded not guilty in April 2023 and was released on a $200,000 bond.
Yarl was shot in the head and in the right arm on the evening of April 13, 2023, by Lester, according to police. The 18-year-old suffered a traumatic brain injury, his family previously told ABC News.
Exclusive: Ralph Yarl, teen shot after mistakenly going to the wrong house, seeks ‘justice’ in civil lawsuit
According to court documents, Salmon said in the motion that Lester has lost more than 50 pounds, experienced issues with his memory and has exhibited confusion surrounding the details of the case.
“Over the course of this case, Counsel has noticed a significant decline in Defendant’s overall physical health, as well as his mental acuity,” Salmon said in the motion. “The frailty of Defendant’s physical health has, in part, been because of a broken hip, heart issues and hospitalization he has suffered during the pendency of this matter.”
Salmon also noted that Lester has faced “stress” due to “overwhelming media attention, as well as death threats and other unwanted attention, making it difficult for him to interact socially with anyone.”
“The goal of the judicial system is never to hold white offenders accountable for the crimes committed against people of color,” Yarl’s mother, Cleo Nagbe, told ABC News in a statement on Sept. 9 after the trial was delayed indefinitely. “So, we wait to be proven wrong this time around, especially with a victim like Ralph.”
Andrew Lester, suspect in Ralph Yarl shooting, to undergo mental health check, judge rules
The trial was initially set after a Clay County judge ruled during an August 2023 preliminary hearing that there was enough probable cause that a felony has been committed.
“The binding over of a defendant from a preliminary hearing is fairly normal. The prosecutor simply needs to provide probable cause to bind the case over,” Salmon told ABC News after the August 2023 ruling.
(NEW YORK) — A NASA employee testified during a weekslong hearing on the implosion of OceanGate’s Titan submersible that the agency had disagreements over the sub maker’s press materials mentioning NASA.
Justin Jackson, a materials engineer with NASA, testified Thursday during the U.S. Coast Guard’s hearing into the June 2023 implosion of the OceanGate submersible, which killed all five passengers while on a deep-sea dive to the Titanic shipwreck.
Jackson said OceanGate’s then-chief operating officer initially reached out to NASA to manufacture a composite hull and they signed an agreement under the Reimbursable Space Act Agreement in early 2020.
NASA had an interest in the fabrication of a thick composite hull for “exploration applications,” though the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the agency from manufacturing or testing one for OceanGate, he said.
NASA did provide remote consultation to OceanGate on a one-third scale mockup, including a plan to try to fabricate a thick-walled hull, Jackson said. Conversations with the company ended in 2021, shortly after a disagreement over press materials invoking NASA, he said.
Asked by investigators why NASA refused OceanGate’s request to use its name in a media release, Jackson said, “It was the language they were using was getting too close to us endorsing. So it was, our folks had some heartburn with the endorsement level of it.”
As previously reported by ABC News, in some public statements, OceanGate suggested that its Titan submersible was designed and engineered with the assistance of entities such as NASA and Boeing. In statements to ABC News in the wake of the catastrophic implosion of the Titan, each entity described its role in the Titan submersible, or lack thereof, as more limited than sometimes stated by OceanGate.
Investigators also heard from a witness with Boeing regarding the company’s past dealings with OceanGate over a carbon-fiber hull during the hearing on Thursday.
Boeing entered an agreement with OceanGate in 2013 to conduct a preliminary feasibility study for a concept vessel, the Coast Guard said. Boeing was asked whether it was feasible to “have a design with a certain amount of buoyancy and safety factor,” Mark Negley, a materials and process engineer with Boeing, said during his testimony.
Negley said Boeing did not manufacture any parts for OceanGate or give advice on the type of carbon fiber to purchase, and was not involved in materials testing.
Negley said Boeing did not work with OceanGate on subsequent requests from the submersible maker.
“I don’t know [why] exactly, you know, I think maybe we were too expensive,” he said.
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion, which killed five people, including its co-founder, Stockton Rush.
The hearing on the incident began on Sept. 17 and is scheduled to run through Friday in North Charleston, South Carolina, though the proceedings might be impacted by Hurricane Helene, the Coast Guard said.
The main purpose of the hearing is to uncover the facts related to the implosion and to make recommendations, the Coast Guard said.
Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for a pretrial hearing, following his overturned sex crimes conviction, in New York City, July 19, 2024. (KENA BETANCUR/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Harvey Weinstein’s criminal sexual assault case is scheduled to return on Wednesday to a Manhattan courtroom — and if Weinstein shows up he will be arraigned on a new indictment.
The charges remain sealed until Weinstein appears. The former movie mogul missed his last court date after being rushed to the hospital for emergency heart surgery.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office presented to the grand jury allegations of three separate women who said Weinstein sexually assaulted them. Their allegations were not part of the initial trial of Weinstein that ended in a conviction, which was later overturned on appeal.
“We will do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault,” a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement earlier this year, when the conviction was overturned.
Weinstein has denied all claims of sexual misconduct, saying his encounters were consensual.
