Backpacks containing $1.1 million of cocaine discovered in the wilderness near Canadian border
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents assigned to a region near the Canadian border in Washington found two backpacks left out in the woods containing an estimated $1.1 million of cocaine, officials said. Image via U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
(NEW YORK) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents assigned to a region near the Canadian border in Washington found two backpacks left out in the woods containing an estimated $1.1 million of cocaine, officials said.
The incident occurred when agents on patrol in the Blaine Sector of Washington, approximately 110 miles north of Seattle, discovered two black backpacks weighing 78 pounds lying on the ground in a wooded area near the border in Lynden, according to a statement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection released on Monday.
When the agents looked inside, they found “30 brick-like packages containing a white powdery substance,” officials said. The substance was later tested and determined to be cocaine.
“Thanks to the vigilance of Blaine Sector Border Patrol agents these dangerous narcotics were prevented from reaching our communities,” said Chief Patrol Agent Rosario “Pete” Vasquez. “Our agents work tirelessly day in and day out to protect this nation, and this seizure highlights that crucial commitment.”
The narcotics were immediately turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, officials said.
Authorities did not reveal how the bags got there, who they might belong to or if any arrests have been made in connection to the case.
(COOPERSBURG, Pa.) — A man has been arrested in the murder of a New Jersey woman whose body was found in a Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, dumpster over the weekend.
Rolando Corte, 42, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Lucrecia Jadan Sumba, 39, from Elizabeth, New Jersey, according to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.
Sumba was reported missing by friends and family on Jan. 9 to the Elizabeth Police Department. Sumba was killed last Wednesday, according to prosecutors.
Corte was identified and arrested on Sunday. He is being held at the Union County Jail in New Jersey and is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday.
If found guilty, he could face up to life in prison.
It’s unclear if the suspect and victim had any connection or what led police to identify Corte as a suspect.
The woman was found in a dumpster on S. 3rd Street in Coopersburg just before 6 p.m. on Saturday, according to police.
Coopersburg, a suburb of Allentown, is about 80 miles west of Elizabeth.
An autopsy revealed Sumba’s cause of death was sharp force injuries and her death was ruled a homicide, according to the county coroner.
“A joint investigation conducted by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Task Force, Elizabeth Police Department, Coopersburg Police Department, and the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office led to the identification and arrest of Corte,” according to the prosecutor’s office.
Coopersburg Police did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — Though Jimmy Carter was a U.S. president, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the founder of a global organization, The Carter Center, to his more than one dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he was a grandfather first and foremost, his grandson Jason Carter told “Good Morning America.”
“He’s an interesting guy, but he really was a grandfather to me first,” Jason Carter said in a live interview Tuesday on “GMA,” just days after the former president’s death on Dec. 29, at age 100.
“He was my grandfather so I have a lot of memories, like others do, of him taking me fishing or sitting around and talking about what I should do in my life,” Jason Carter continued. “When I graduated from college, he and I sat down and I said, ‘What would you do if you were me?,’ and he said, ‘I would go to Africa and join the Peace Corps,’ and so I did that.”
Jimmy Carter is survived by four children and around two dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren, according to the Jimmy Carter Library.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19, 2023, at age 96.
Jason Carter, the son of the Carters’ eldest child, John William “Jack” Carter, described his grandparents’ decades-long marriage as “one of the great American love stories.”
He said a photo of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter kissing each other amid the backdrop of the U.S. presidency shows who they really were at heart, two people who remained in love after meeting in the small town of Plains, Georgia.
“He spent eight years in politics, and the other 92 years he spent at home in Plains, Georgia,” Jason Carter said of his grandfather. “Obviously, working around the world, doing things for The Carter Center and otherwise, but really, he was a small-town guy who lived out that faith that is reflected in that picture and the love that is reflected in that picture.”
Jason Carter, who plans to deliver a eulogy at his grandfather’s funeral on Jan. 9, said he sees his grandfather’s legacy as one of someone who stayed true to himself even while reaching the highest heights of power.
During his own political career, including a run for Georgia governor in 2014, Jason Carter said he tried to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps in that way.
“He’s one of those people who demonstrates that you can be in politics and not change who you are, that you can be an honest person, a person who lives out his faith and love in the real world, and still be in politics, and I think that was my hope,” he said. “Our politics is messy, and he was always one of those rare people who was able to reach the highest levels of it without compromising who he was, and we talked about that aspect of it a lot.”
Now, as his family moves forward after the death of their patriarch, Jason Carter said they are reflecting on the annual New Year’s family vacation that Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter hosted every year and sharing memories of sipping champagne together on New Year’s Eve.
As they look ahead to the new year, Jason Carter said he and his family want to continue their grandfather’s work at The Carter Center, which describes itself as a “nongovernmental organization that helps to improve lives by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy and preventing diseases.”
“He built this remarkable organization over 40 years that’s really been his life’s work,” Jason Carter said of The Carter Center, of which he has served as chair of the board. “There’s 3,000 employees that work all over the world … and of those 3,000 employees, only a couple hundred are in the U.S., and the rest are in Ethiopia or Sudan or Mali or Chad or Bangladesh, the places where the center can do the most good for the most people.”
An ABC News graphic shows the weather forecast on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — The first ever blizzard warning has been issued for parts of the Texas and Louisiana coast as a historic snowstorm hits the South.
Debilitating travel conditions and power outages are possible across the region.
Houston’s airports are closed and nearly 2,000 flights are canceled across the U.S.
The snow is underway Tuesday morning from Austin to Houston to Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama.
By midday, the snow will leave the Houston area and push east, continuing across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and into Georgia and the Carolinas.
By the evening, the snow will be ending in Alabama and still hitting Tallahassee, Florida; Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Charleston, South Carolina.
Houston may see 1 to 3 inches of snow and New Orleans may see 3 to 5 inches of snow.
New Orleans has only recorded snowfall on eight days since National Weather Service records began in 1948.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said a storm of this magnitude has not been documented since 1963.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, may get 3 to 6 inches of snow and the Florida Panhandle may see 2 to 4 inches.
Schools are closed from Houston to New Orleans to Savannah.
“Our reality is this, we can do hurricanes and tropical storms, alright? We don’t do cold and we don’t do ice well,” Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said Monday. “If you don’t have to go outside, don’t. Stay home. Watch Netflix, get make some soup, enjoy your family.”
The snow will be done by sunrise Wednesday but rain will continue in the Florida Peninsula.
