13-year-old girl dead after 25-foot fall through attic floor at her after-school program
(COLORADO SPRINGS, CO) — A 13-year-old girl has died after falling approximately 25 feet through the attic floor of an after-school program, police said.
The Pueblo Police Department in Colorado say they received a call on Friday evening at approximately 7 p.m. from somebody at the Rocky Mountain SER after-school head start program, according to ABC News’ Colorado Springs affiliate KRDO.
When they arrived, officers said they found a 13-year-old — later identified as Joeylin Kenley McDonald by her family — dead at the scene, according to KRDO.
While it is currently unclear what led up to her fall, the Pueblo Police Department say they are investigating the incident and that they have not determined whether this is a criminal matter, though police did confirm that she was with a group of juveniles when it happened, according to KRDO.
“Joeylin was the brightest soul in the world,” said McDonald’s aunt, Caitlyn Valdez, in a statement obtained by KRDO. “She is smart, headstrong, beautiful, sassy, sweet, caring and one hell of a hard worker … Mourning the loss of such a beautiful soul will be a daily task for the rest of our lives. Joeylin is one of a kind and will never be forgotten.”
The administration also released a statement following McDonald’s death, saying her death is a “tragic loss within our community.”
“Joeylin was a bright and beloved light in our community, and her sudden passing is a devastating blow to all who knew and loved her,” Rocky Mountain SER said in a statement. “While the exact circumstances of this tragedy remain under investigation, we ask the Pueblo community and beyond to join us in lifting in loving support and deep prayer for Joeylin, her family, friends, and all who are grieving during this unimaginable time.”
McDonald is survived by her five siblings, two parents and extended family.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal appeals court is hearing arguments Monday over the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act last week to deport more than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador with no due process.
The hearing comes hours after a federal judge ruled that the migrants deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang.
In a ruling denying the Trump administration’s request to dissolve his order blocking the deportations, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote that Trump’s “unprecedented use” of the Alien Enemies Act does not remove the government’s responsibility to ensure the men removed could contest their designation as alleged gang members.
Trump last week invoked the Alien Enemies Act — a wartime authority used to deport noncitizens with little-to-no due process — by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States. Boasberg temporarily blocked the president’s use of the law to deport more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador, calling the removals “awfully frightening” and “incredibly troublesome.”
An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement subsequently acknowledged in a sworn declaration that “many” of the noncitizens deported last week under the Alien Enemies Act did not have criminal records in the United States.
“The Court need not resolve the thorny question of whether the judiciary has the authority to assess this claim in the first place. That is because Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all,” Judge Boasberg wrote in his ruling Monday, adding the men were likely to win their case.
Judge Boasberg acknowledged that the use of the Alien Enemies Act “implicates a host of complicated legal issues” but sidestepped the larger question of whether the law was properly invoked, instead focusing on the due process deserved by the men. He added that the men have been irreparably harmed by their removal to an El Salvadoran prison where they face “torture, beatings, and even death.”
“Federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such. Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge,” he wrote.
Judge Boasberg also cast doubt on the Trump administration’s allegation that the decision risks national security, noting that the men would still be detained within the United States if they had not been deported.
During a court hearing on Friday, DOJ lawyers acknowledged that the men deported on the Alien Enemies Act have the right to a habeas hearing — where they could contest their alleged membership in Tren de Aragua — but declined to vow that each man would be given a hearing before they were removed from the country.
A three-judge appeals panel is hearing arguments Monday over the Trump administration’s request to overturn Judge Boasberg’s ruling blocking the deportations.
If the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns Boasberg’s blocking of the president’s use of the centuries-old wartime law, the Trump administration could exercise the authority to deport any suspected migrant gang member with little-to-no due process.
Lawyers representing the Venezuelan men targeted under Trump’s proclamation have argued that the president exceeded his authority by using the Alien Enemies Act against a gang — rather than a state actor — outside of wartime.
“The President is trying to write Congress’s limits out of the act,” the plaintiffs argued, adding that U.S. presidents have used the law three other times during or immediately preceding a war.
But the Trump administration has argued that the judiciary does not have the right to review the use of the Alien Enemies Act, alleging the deportations fall under the president’s Article II powers to remove alleged terrorists and execute the country’s foreign policy.
“The President’s action is lawful and based upon a long history of using war authorities against organizations connected to foreign states and national security judgments, which are not subject to judicial second guessing,” DOJ lawyers have argued in court filings.
The Trump administration is asking the appeals court to overturn Boasberg’s temporary restraining order blocking the deportations, while Judge Boasberg continues to examine whether the Trump administration deliberately defied his order by sending the men to an El Salvadoran prison rather than returning them to the United States as he directed.
“The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order and who ordered this and what’s the consequence,” Boasberg said on Friday.
With deportations under the Alien Enemies Act temporarily blocked, the Trump administration has vowed to use other authorities to deport noncitizens. Over the weekend, Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez announced that the country had reached an agreement to resume repatriation flights of Venezuelan migrants from the U.S.
“We’re going to keep targeting the worst of the worst, which we’ve been doing since day one, and deporting from the United States through the various laws on the books,” border czar Tom Homan told ABC’s Jon Karl on Sunday.
The three-person panel hearing today’s arguments includes two judges nominated by Republican presidents, including one nominated by Trump himself. The D.C. Circuit is the last stop before the Trump administration could take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Trump nominated three judges during his last term, solidifying the court’s conservative majority.
(WASHINGTON) — An Abu Dhabi state-backed investment firm is making a major $2 billion investment in a crypto business deal that could serve as a major boost for Trump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial, according to Zach Witkoff, co-founder of World Liberty Financial.
USD1, World Liberty Financial’s so-called “stablecoin” — a digital asset designed to maintain a stable value — is expected to be used to complete Emirati investment firm MGX’s $2 billion investment transaction in crypto exchange Binance, Witkoff said during an appearance with President Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump at a crypto convention in Dubai this week.
“We are excited to announce today that USD1 has been selected as the official stablecoin to close MGX’s $2 billion investment in Binance,” Witkoff announced in a video recording of the event posted on X. “We thank MGX and Binance for their trust in us, and I think it’s only the beginning.”
After once deriding cryptocurrency as a “scam,” President Donald Trump last September announced he and his sons Eric and Don Jr. were throwing their support behind World Liberty Financial, though its business model was largely unclear. This week’s development is the latest example of a foreign entity making a major investment that could boost a Trump family business.
Cryptocurrency and ethics experts told ABC News that the timing and scope of the Trump family’s foray into cryptocurrencies raise questions about whether investors — including those from overseas — could try to leverage their investments to curry favor with the administration. Critics have raised issues with the Trump administration’s regulatory role over cryptocurrencies while he stands to personally benefit from cryptocurrency ventures.
“Essentially, the president is taking the weakness in our current ethics laws that allow a president to continue to hold financial interests in businesses while he’s in a position of presidency to just a whole new level in this administration,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan government watchdog.
Trump has yet to release his financial disclosures as president, so it’s unclear what arrangements he has made to ensure a firewall between his personal businesses and his presidency. Last month a White House spokesperson told Reuters in a statement that “President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest.”
The USD1 announcement was made during what the organizers described as a “fireside chat” between Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff, a son of Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, which was moderated by Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto mogul who became one of World Liberty Financials’ biggest investors the day before Trump’s inauguration by purchasing $75 million worth of its other coin, WLFI.
A month after that investment, SEC lawyers under the Trump administration moved to halt an alleged fraud case against Sun.
Zach Witkoff during the event also announced that World Liberty Financial will be “natively integrating” its USD1 coin with Tron, a cryptocurrency founded by Sun, boasting that they will be “minting” hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars of coins from the arrangement.
Much of World Liberty Financial’s operation is still shrouded in mystery, but its founders have touted its ambitious goal of integrating their venture into the everyday traditional retail system.
During the event, Zach Wikoff said he wants to walk into a deli in New York City or the Four Seasons in Abu Dhabi and freely use World Liberty Financial’s tokens. Eric Trump, in response, jokingly admonished Zach Witkoff for using Four Seasons Abu Dhabi as an example, and not Trump Tower.
Zach Witkoff claimed World Liberty Financial’s USD1 coin, backed “one-to-one by short-term treasuries and cash equivalents,” will become “the most transparent, the most regulated, stablecoin in the world.”
The Trumps and the Witkoffs have together raised at least $550 million for World Liberty Financial coins, according to the New York Times.
During this week’s event, Eric Trump also discussed additional Trump business ventures in the UAE, saying that the Trump Organization was able to speed through a permit for a new skyscraper with the highest swimming pool in the world — expected to be in the Guinness Book of World Records — just within the last month.
(ALBUQUERQUE) — A 13-year-old boy has been arrested for murder after police said he and two other juveniles intentionally ran down a bicyclist in New Mexico last year in a fatal hit-and-run that was filmed from inside the vehicle.
Police said they are still searching for the two other children — a 15-year-old boy who also faces a murder charge and a 12-year-old boy — in connection with the incident.
The victim, 63-year-old Scott Habermehl, was riding in a bike lane the morning of May 29, 2024, while commuting to work when he was struck in a hit-and-run, police said.
Police said there were no witnesses who saw the vehicle flee, and investigators were unable to find any surveillance footage of the incident.
Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said the case likely would have gone unsolved — until video taken from inside the vehicle of the incident was posted on social media.
The video, which police released on Tuesday, is “extremely disturbing,” Medina said.
“You hear the discussion of, they see the guy on the bike, and they make the decision that they’re going to strike him, they’re just going to bump him, and they murdered this individual,” Medina said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
“We’ve all looked at it, and it is just horrific that this could be done to another human being,” he said.
Police got a new lead on the case in February, after two juveniles reported the video, one to a parent and the other to a middle school official in Albuquerque, according to Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock with the Albuquerque Police Department’s criminal investigation division.
“The video had been posted to Instagram showing three individuals in a car purposely running over a cyclist,” Hartsock said during the press briefing.
Officers determined the video was from the May 29, 2024, hit-and-run, and were able to identify the three individuals in the car, which is believed to have been stolen, police said. They were “literally laughing about what they had just done as they fled,” Hartsock said.
In the video, someone can be heard asking, “Are you guys recording it?”
The back passenger, who police said is believed to be the 15-year-old, says to “just bump him, brah” after the car accelerates.
“Like bump him?” the driver responds.
“Yeah, just bump him. Go like 15, 20,” the back passenger says.
The video released by police ends just before the collision.
The three juveniles are believed to be friends, Medina said. Authorities believe the 13-year-old was driving the car at the time.
Police obtained murder arrest warrants for the two teenagers late last week, Hartsock said.
The 13-year-old was taken into custody on Monday and booked into a juvenile detention center, police said. He had been on juvenile probation following an arrest by Albuquerque police last year, police said. He was arrested on an open count of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leaving the scene of an accident involving great bodily harm or death and unlawful possession of a handgun by a person, police said.
Police are asking for the public’s help in locating the two other juveniles. Hartsock urged the 15-year-old, who faces the same charges as the other teen, to turn himself in.
The 12-year-old is a missing person out of Torrance County and is listed as a runaway, police said. He is too young to be charged and booked into a correctional facility, police said.
“We hope that the rest of the system is able to deal with this individual and make sure there’s consequences for what they have done, and make sure that they’re rehabilitated if it’s possible,” Medina said.
The 12-year-old was seen holding a firearm in the video, according to police. Medina said it is unclear what happened to the weapon.
The boy was 11 at the time of the incident, Medina said, calling the young age “surprising.”
“All of us that have kids in here, think of your 11-year-old out doing this. It is just mind-boggling,” Medina said.
The chief said they believe they have tracked down the vehicle involved in the incident.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller called the incident “unimaginable.”
“It’s something that, on the one hand, is incredibly heartbreaking because of their age and how they’re caught up in the cycle of violence,” he said at the briefing. “On the other hand, this is absolutely terrifying.”
The juveniles are not believed to have known the victim, Medina said, noting, “It seems random.”
Habermehl worked at Sandia National Labs and is survived by his wife and two sons, according to his obituary.
“Scott took great joy in sharing his hobbies with his sons, whether it was playing baseball in the yard, biking through the Bosque, hiking in his beloved Rocky Mountains, or skiing with them in the backcountry,” the obituary stated.
Medina asked for privacy for the family at this time.
“They, in a way, suffered the first time, feeling that this individual was the victim of a motor vehicle death,” he said. “Now, with the new information that’s come out, I’m sure it ripped open new wounds.”
Keller remembered Habermehl as a “stand-up member of the Sandia Labs community” who was “well-accomplished and loved by folks in his community out in Corrales.”
The mayor commended the police department on its investigation.
“Now we know what happened, we can at least tell the truth about what happened to Scott,” Keller said. “That truth involves a truth we all have to hold ourselves accountable to, which is we each have a role to play. And in this case, there are dozens and dozens of ways, dozens of cracks that this child, these children, fell through. But that is never an excuse.”
“We have to commit to do more and all of us have an answer of what we think would improve this criminal justice system, and for us, we know that our first step is actually to catch these remaining two individuals,” he continued.
