Ex-FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, charged with lying about Biden family, reaches plea deal

(WASHINGTON) — An Army specialist has been charged with the murder of a fellow soldier whose body was found on an Army base last week.

Spc. Wooster Rancy, 21, is accused in the murder of Sarah Roque, a 23-year-old sergeant, officials said Thursday.

Last week, Roque was found dead in a dumpster at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.

Rancy also faces obstruction of justice charges, officials said. He is currently in pretrial confinement ahead of a preliminary hearing.

A combat engineer, Rancy is originally from Miami and joined the Army in 2022, officials said.

It is not yet clear what led to Rancy’s arrest or the motive in the killing.

Roque, of Ligonier, Indiana, was reported missing after she failed to report for duty last week.

In a press conference after her body was found, Maj. Gen. Christopher Beck said her death was being investigated as a homicide.

“As a commander and a leader, this is a tragedy,” Beck said. “This is something that we never want to happen, we never want for the family to have to endure, or for the unit to have to endure.”

Roque served as a mine dog handler, officials said. Since she enlisted in 2020, she was awarded the Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal and the Army Service Ribbon.

“Sarah not only served our country bravely and honorably as a soldier, she was also a daughter, a sister and a friend to many,” Beck said.

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(CHAPEL HILL, N.C.) — Madyson Barber, a grad student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was researching young transiting systems in space when she made a remarkable discovery.

Barber used data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to observe the brightness of stars over time. During the observations, Barber noticed some “little dips” in brightness, indicating that a “transiting” planet may be passing near Earth.

“This planet discovery popped out,” Barber told ABC News.

The planet, named IRAS 04125+2902 b, is estimated to be 3 million years old, which is considered “young” for stars, Barber said. Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and took an estimated 10 million to 20 millions to form. The next youngest known planet is about 10 million years old, Barber said.

“It’s about the same as a 10-day-old baby in human timescale,” she added. “So, super, super young in comparison to our home.”

Nicknamed “TIDYE-1b” by researchers, the new planet has been shown to have an orbital period of 8.83 days, according to a paper published Thursday in Nature. It has a radius about 10.7 times larger than Earth and has approximately 30% of the mass of Jupiter.

TIDYE-1b orbits a star of about the same age named IRAS 04125+2902.

Astronomers noted some unusual characteristics of the star, which is located relatively close to Earth at 160 parsecs, or 522 lightyears, away, researchers said. The outer protoplanetary disk surrounding the star is misaligned and the star has a depleted inner disk.

The combination of these unique features allowed scientists to observe the transiting protoplanet.

“If part of the planetary discs were still present, it would be in the same plane of rotation as that spinning star and the orbiting planet,” Barber said. “So the disc would block our observations of the star.”

Astronomers are still learning about the planet. They were able to calculate the upper mass limit by looking at the radial velocity of the star, which is the movement of the star over time, and measuring “little wiggles in that movement,” Barber added.

“Other than that, there’s not a whole lot we can say about the planet at this point,” she said.

Right now, the researchers are only 95% confident in the measurements they’ve taken for the planet’s upper mass limit, and they hypothesize that the planet’s real mass is actually much smaller, Barber said.

“Because we don’t have a ton of these young transiting systems that we know of, it’s really important that we look for more so that we can have a better picture of what that formation and evolution looks like, so we can better understand how our own home formed and evolved,” Barber said.

The researchers believe the new planet could be a precursor of the super-Earth and sub-Neptune planets that are frequently found orbiting main-sequence stars.

The system could also be a useful target for studying the early stages of planet formation due to its young age, the rare disk misalignment and the relatively close location to Earth, Barber said.

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(NEW YORK) — A Manhattan jury found Daniel Penny not guilty in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, following nearly a week of deliberations.

Penny, a former Marine and architecture student, was initially charged with manslaughter and negligent homicide. Prosecutors alleged that Penny killed Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man who had previously been a Michael Jackson impersonator, when he placed him in a six-minute-long chokehold on a subway car in May 2023, holding Neely for at least 51 seconds after his body went limp. The city’s medical examiner concluded Penny’s chokehold killed Neely.

The defense told jurors that Penny “acted to save” subway passengers from a “violent and desperate” Neely, who was acting erratically, and that Penny continued to hold on because he feared Neely would break free, though he didn’t intend to kill Neely. The defense argued Neely died from a genetic condition and the synthetic marijuana found in his system.

The jury deliberated for more than 24 hours across five days before acquitting Penny of criminally negligent homicide on Monday. They were previously deadlocked on the more serious charge of second-degree manslaughter, which Judge Maxwell Wiley dismissed on Friday at the request of prosecutors.

Penny pleaded not guilty to both charges.

The jury submitted several questions to the court during the course of their deliberations, giving some insight into their thinking.

Day 1

A little more than an hour after beginning deliberations, the jury on Tuesday asked for a readback of a portion of the judge’s instructions on the law. The jury was interested in the part about justified use of force.

Day 2

The jury asked to see key videos shown during the trial — police body camera footage, Penny’s interrogation video and a bystander’s video on Wednesday.

Later that day, the jury asked for a readback of testimony. The jury wanted to hear part of the cross-examination of the city medical examiner who concluded Penny’s chokehold killed Neely. Dr. Cynthia Harris, who was the final witness for the prosecution during the trial, determined that Neely died from compression to the neck.

During an intense cross-examination, Harris had pushed back against the defense suggestion that the public sentiment surrounding the trial influenced her conclusion that “there are no alternative reasonable explanations” for Neely’s death other than Penny’s chokehold.

“No toxicological result imaginable was going to change my opinion,” she testified.

Day 3

The jury heard more testimony read back from the cross-examination of Harris.

The jury subsequently requested to see two bystander videos capturing the moments when Penny placed Neely in a chokehold. The jury had already requested one of the two bystander videos the previous day.

Wiley allowed the jury to access a laptop with the videos so they could watch the requested videos as many times as they’d like.

Later that day, the jury requested the definitions of criminal negligence and recklessness.

“We the jury request that Judge Wiley read the definition of recklessness and negligence. Please read it more than once,” the note read. “Could the jury have the definitions in writing?”

The jury was considering two counts – second-degree manslaughter, which carries a maximum 15-year sentence, and criminally negligent homicide, which has a four-year maximum. To convict Penny of manslaughter, the jury must be convinced Penny acted recklessly and grossly deviated from how a reasonable person would behave knowing the risk his conduct posed.

Day 4

The jury told the judge on Friday they were “unable to come to a unanimous vote” on whether Penny committed manslaughter.

“We the jury request instructions from Judge Wiley. At this time, we are unable to come to a unanimous vote on court one,” the note said.

The verdict form asked the jury to decide the first count — second-degree manslaughter — before potentially moving to the second count of criminally negligent homicide. Only if they found Penny not guilty on the first count could they consider the second count.

About 20 minutes after the judge encouraged them to continue deliberating despite their deadlock, the jury sent back another note requesting more information about the term “reasonable person” in their instructions.

“Ultimately what a reasonable person is up to you to decide,” Wiley told the jury in response to their note, referring them to a two-part test in jury instruction.

“Would a reasonable person have had the same honestly held belief as the defendant given the circumstances and what the defendant knew at that time?” Wiley asked, referring to the second part of the test.

Several hours later, Wiley dismissed the top charge of second-degree manslaughter at the request of prosecutors.

The judge encouraged the jury to continue deliberating on Monday the lesser charge of whether Penny committed criminally negligent homicide.

Day 5

The jury announced Monday morning they had reached a unanimous decision on count two — finding Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide.

The courtroom broke out in a mix of cheers, clapping, and jeers as soon as the verdict was read.

Neely’s father cursed in anger shortly after the verdict and was forcibly removed from the courtroom by a court officer. Others in the gallery shouted, and one woman broke down in tears.

Penny, walking out of the courtroom, flashed a brief smile before returning to his stone-faced demeanor. His lawyers embraced one another while seated at the counsel table.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the case, thanked the jury and vowed to respect their verdict.

“The jury has now spoken. At the Manhattan D.A.’s Office we deeply respect the jury process and we respect their verdict,” he said in a statement.

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