9/11 Memorial & Museum adding 7th moment of silence for victims of 9/11 illnesses
Flowers stand on the National September 11 Memorial ahead of the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Sept. 7, 2023, in New York City. (Gary Hershorn/ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — The 9/11 Memorial & Museum announced Tuesday it will add a seventh moment of silence at this year’s 25th commemoration ceremony to honor those who have died of illnesses related to their time at or near the World Trade Center site.
For the past 24 years, there have been six moments of silence: two to mark the times when the planes struck the World Trade Center towers; one to mark when a plane struck the Pentagon; one to mark when a plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania; and the two times the World Trade Center towers collapsed. The moments of silence are each followed by a bell toll.
This new, seventh moment of silence will be observed at the conclusion of the reading of the names and will be a permanent part of the annual ceremony.
The recognition comes as more than 9,000 people have now died from 9/11-related illnesses, approximately three times the number killed on Sept. 11, 2001, according to the World Trade Center Health Program. Cancer cases tied to exposure have skyrocketed from 3,200 in 2015 to nearly 53,000 in 2026.
“We’ve lost far too many to cancer, respiratory issues, and other 9/11-related illnesses,” Dr. Kerry Kelly, former FDNY Chief Medical Officer and 9/11 Memorial & Museum Trustee, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This new moment of silence is a fitting tribute to these heroes whose sacrifice, dedication, and commitment to public service will never be forgotten,” Kelly said.
Les Wexner speaks onstage at the 2016 Fragrance Foundation Awards presented by Hearst Magazines – Show on June 7, 2016 in New York City. (Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Fragrance Foundation)
(WASHINGTON) — Members of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday are set to depose retail billionaire Leslie Wexner, whose wealth fueled Jeffrey Epstein’s fortune before an alleged multimillion dollar theft ended their relationship, newly revealed documents suggest.
After learning that Epstein stole hundreds of millions from him in 2007, Wexner opted to quietly resolve the issue with Epstein, who at the time was being investigated by federal prosecutors for both sex crimes and money laundering, according to emails and a memo later drafted by prosecutors.
A vitally important person in the transformation of Epstein from college dropout to multimillionaire adviser to the ultra-wealthy, Wexner — a businessman behind brands like Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works — has received substantial scrutiny over his association with Epstein since Epstein’s arrest and death by suicide in 2019.
Years after the two severed ties, prosecutors in New York initially included Wexner in a group of potential co-conspirators to be investigated after Epstein was arrested in July 2019, though they later determined there was “limited evidence regarding his involvement,” according to a recently-released 2019 email from an FBI agent who was part of the sex crimes investigation.
“The Assistant U.S. Attorney told Mr. Wexner’s legal counsel in 2019 that Mr. Wexner was neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect,” a spokesperson for Wexner told ABC News in a statement following the release of Epstein files by the Department of Justice last month. “Mr. Wexner cooperated fully by providing background information on Epstein and was never contacted again.”
Lawyers for Wexner, in a meeting with federal prosecutors about two weeks after Epstein’s arrest, claimed that Wexner “had no knowledge of any inappropriate or unlawful activity with young women by Epstein” and that Wexner’s dealings with Epstein were “more professional than social,” according to a December 2019 prosecution memo summarizing the investigation into Epstein’s potential collaborators.
Wexner’s attorneys said the two ended their relationship after Wexner learned that “Epstein had stolen or otherwise misappropriated several hundred million dollars” from him, according to the memo. The memo stated that Epstein personally profited by repeatedly purchasing properties for the Wexners before buying them for himself at a fraction of the cost.
“The Wexners then decided to cut off Epstein,” prosecutors wrote in the memo summarizing their discussion with Wexner’s counsel.
‘All I can say is I feel sorry’ Epstein was — throughout 2007 — the subject of an ongoing investigation in Florida into sex crimes involving minors that had expanded to probe potential financial crimes and money laundering. The Wexners did not report the alleged theft of their funds to law enforcement and instead resolved the matter privately, according to prosecutors.
Wexner was contacted by federal prosecutors in Florida as early as August 2007 regarding the Epstein investigation, according to handwritten notes released last month by the Department of Justice. Notes from an August 2007 call between an attorney for Wexner and a DOJ representative suggest that prosecutors inquired about Wexner’s interactions with his “money manager,” documentation of their meetings, and whether Wexner ever visited Epstein’s home.
At the time, prosecutors had begun to broaden their investigation to not only cover sex crimes but also potential money laundering and wire fraud, documents suggest.
“She just wanted to know if Les has been to my house,” Epstein emailed his associate Ghislaine Maxwell in August 2007, in an apparent reference to the prosecutor’s contact with Wexner’s lawyer, according to emails obtained by DDOSecrets, a transparency website that received a cache of Epstein emails that were not included in the DOJ’s disclosures.
“That’s odd?? Why” Maxwell responded.
“It’s bulls—, she just wanted to let him know about an investigation is my guess,” Epstein wrote back.
It is unclear if Wexner was aware of the investigation into financial crimes when his attorney was contacted, but in the following months, Wexner began the process of ending Epstein’s role as his money manager, according to emails in the DDOSecrets collection between lawyers for Epstein and Wexner.
“All I can say is I feel sorry. You violated your own number 1 rule … Always be careful,” Wexler emailed Epstein in 2008 days before Epstein reported to prison for soliciting underage sex, according to documents included in DDOSecrets collection.
“No excuse,” Epstein replied.
‘She pretty much wants everything’ According to a 2019 prosecution memo, Wexner’s wife began to look into Epstein’s management of their money after Epstein claimed he was “having legal problems involving an overly aggressive police chief and some sort of massage.”
According to the memo, Abigail Wexner discovered Epstein “misappropriated a significant amount of the family’s funds,” including by purchasing property on the Wexners’ behalf before selling it to himself at a fraction of the cost.
“When confronted, Epstein tried to convince Wexner’s wife that she did not understand the financials and insisted that he had the Wexners’ best interests at heart,” the memo said. “The Wexners did not want to bring unnecessary public attention to the issue, so they withdrew the power of attorney, and hired counsel to negotiate a private settlement with Epstein.”
Epstein resigned from the foundation and all of his roles with Wexner in September 2007, according to an independent review conducted in 2020 of Epstein’s involvement with the Wexner Foundation.
“Mr. Wexner terminated Epstein as his financial advisor, revoked his power of attorney, and directed that he be removed from all bank accounts,” a spokesperson for Wexner said in a statement to ABC News.
As early as October 2007, emails indicate that Epstein began transferring assets back to Wexner.
“When speaking with [Abigail Wexner], she pretty much wants everything,” Wexner’s financial controller told an attorney for Epstein.
Later that year, an attorney for Wexner pushed the process along, telling an attorney for Epstein that his client “is eager to execute documents,” according to the DDOSecrets cache.
Prosecutors wrote in a 2019 memo that Epstein returned $100 million to Wexner by January 2008.
Though the dispute with Wexner was privately resolved by January 2008, Epstein’s attorneys appeared to have mounted a pressure campaign to discredit the prosecutor pursuing a money laundering investigation into Epstein, according to emails in the DDOSECRETS collection. Epstein had signed a non-prosecution agreement in September 2007, but his lawyers continued to negotiate with the government over its terms for several more months.
“In what can only be seen as an attempt to intimidate Mr. Epstein, Ms. Villafana [an assistant U.S. Attorney] then added money-laundering and unlicensed wire-transmittal to the list of violations under investigation even though there was no evidence against Mr. Epstein concerning these charges,” attorneys for Epstein wrote in a letter to the Office of Professional Responsibility dated Feb. 11, 2008.
By June 2008, Epstein began his jail sentence in Palm Beach after reaching the controversial plea deal that allowed him to avoid federal charges.
‘You and I had gang stuff for over 15 years’ Although Epstein and Wexner appear to have severed ties following Epstein’s plea deal, documents released by the DOJ suggest that Epstein may have attempted to rekindle their relationship in subsequent years by drafting a letter reminding Wexner of shared experiences and alleged secrets. In the letter, Epstein wrote that he protected him when he was questioned by Wexner’s wife about his management of their money.
“You and I had ‘gang stuff’ for over 15 years. A great deal of it, that she was unaware of. I had no intention of divulging any confidence of ours, no matter what accusations she made. And she made quite a few,” Epstein wrote in the draft note. Based on publicly available documents, it is unclear whether Epstein ever sent the note to Wexner.
Wexner publicly addressed his relationship with Epstein in August 2019 amid mounting public pressure, saying in a letter to his charitable foundation that he was “deceived” by Epstein.
“As the allegations against Mr. Epstein in Florida were emerging, he vehemently denied them. But by early fall 2007, it was agreed that he should step back from the management of our personal finances. In that process, we discovered that he had misappropriated vast sums of money from me and my family. This was, frankly, a tremendous shock, even though it clearly pales in comparison to the unthinkable allegations against him now,” Wexner wrote.
Florida State University shooting victim Tiru Chabba. (Chabba family via Storm Law Firm)
(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — Attorneys representing the family of Florida State University shooting victim Tiru Chabba have filed a federal lawsuit against OpenAI and its artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT, alleging that the company could have done more to prevent the shooting.
The complaint, which was filed on Sunday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, also names the shooting suspect, Phoenix Ikner, as a defendant.
According to ChatGPT logs released by law enforcement in Florida, Ikner allegedly consulted ChatGPT as he planned the attack and asked pointed questions about gun operations and media coverage. He even consulted the platform about the busiest time on the FSU campus, according to the logs.
Chabba’s family attorney, Bakari Sellers, said these messages date back about 18 months ago and include 16,000 different “disturbing chats.”
“This is the same person who asked, you know, how can he become infamous? He asked about the Columbine shooting. He asked about what time should he go to campus? What time are most people going to be there?” Sellers said, describing the alleged messages that Ikner sent to ChatGPT.
“He literally utilized open AI and Chat GPT as his co-conspirator, utilized it as a resource to carry out mass murder,” Sellers added. “There was nothing in place to prevent that from happening and so lives were lost. That’s the inherent danger, there has to be something in place to prevent that from happening.”
Drew Pusateri, an OpenAI spokesperson, told ABC News in a statement: “Last year’s mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy, but ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime. After learning of the incident, we identified an account believed to be associated with the suspect and proactively shared this information with law enforcement. We continue to cooperate with authorities. In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity. ChatGPT is a general-purpose tool used by hundreds of millions of people every day for legitimate purposes. We work continuously to strengthen our safeguards to detect harmful intent, limit misuse, and respond appropriately when safety risks arise.”
The lawsuit comes after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced last month that the Office of Statewide Prosecution launched a criminal investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT after prosecutors reviewed the chat logs.
“Florida is leading the way in cracking down on AI’s use in criminal behavior, and if ChatGPT were a person, it would be facing charges for murder,” Uthmeier said in a statement on April 21. “This criminal investigation will determine whether OpenAI bears criminal responsibility for ChatGPT’s actions in the shooting at Florida State University last year.”
OpenAI did not respond to ABC News’ request when asked about the probe by the attorney general.
The shooting, which took place on the FSU campus on April 17, 2025, injured six people and killed two people – Chabba and Robert Morales, both of whom worked for the university’s dining services.
Ikner, whose trial is set for October 2026, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
ABC News’ Luke Barr and Jeana Fermi contributed to this report.
Deputies served a search warrant at a property in the 500 block of East Branch Street in San Luis Obispo, Calif., May 5, 2026, in connection with the 1996 disappearance of Kristin Smart. (San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office)
(SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.) — Nearly 30 years after 19-year-old Kristin Smart disappeared, California investigators conducted new search warrants as part of their ongoing probe into the location of her body.
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday that deputies executed a search warrant at the 500 block of East Branch Street.
The sheriff’s office declined to provide further details about the operation.
“The Sheriff’s Office remains committed to bringing Kristin home to her family. No further information is available,” it said in a statement.
Smart attended an off-campus party at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she was a freshman, on May 24, 1996, but never returned to her dormitory.
Investigators declared Smart legally dead in 2002 and the case remained cold until 17 years later, when the true crime podcast “Your Own Backyard” launched and helped investigators to get new witnesses and evidence.
In 2021, investigators arrested and charged Paul Flores, who was a student at the college at the time of Smart’s disappearance.
Detectives said that some classmates found Smart passed out during the early morning hours of May 25, 1996, and Flores appeared out of nowhere. He claimed to the other classmates that he knew where she lived and offered to help her to her dorm, detectives said.
Flores was interviewed by officers following Smart’s disappearance, but he was not charged.
In 2021, police searched the home belonging to Flores’ father, Ruben Flores, and allegedly found human blood and fibers in the dirt that matched the colors of the clothing Smart had been wearing when she went missing.
