(FORT WORTH, Texas.) — An athlete drowned during a swimming event at a CrossFit competition in Texas on Thursday, the organization said.
The death occurred on the first day of the CrossFit Games, being held in Fort Worth through Sunday. The events have been canceled for the rest of the day, CrossFit said.
CrossFit CEO Don Faul said during a press briefing he is “gutted” by the death of the athlete, whose name has not been released.
“We’ll continue to be focused on our community and the family through this tragic set of circumstances,” Faul said.
The incident occurred Thursday morning in Marine Creek Lake. The Fort Worth Fire Department responded around 8 a.m. local time to a call regarding a CrossFit Games participant who went missing in the water, authorities said.
First responders used dive teams and a drone to find the person, who was recovered from the water about an hour after the dive team response, authorities said.
The body of the athlete has been transferred to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner and the name will be released pending family notification, police said.
Faul said CrossFit is cooperating with authorities in the investigation.
(WINDER, Ga.) — The mother of Colt Gray, the 14-year-old suspected of opening fire at his Georgia high school, was in tears and overcome with emotion while speaking to ABC News.
“If I could take their place, I would. I would in a heartbeat,” Marcee Gray said Sunday night.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told ABC News that the timeline of phone calls and events on the morning of the Apalachee High School shooting are being investigated.
This comes as allegations by the accused shooter’s aunt raise new questions about whether Colt Gray’s mother warned school officials of an “extreme emergency” about 30 minutes before the gunfire on Wednesday.
Colt Gray’s aunt, Annie Polhamus Brown, confirmed to ABC News that Marcee Gray called a school counselor on Wednesday morning, telling school officials to find her son and check on him immediately. This news was first reported by The Washington Post.
According to the Post, “That account is supported by a call log from the family’s shared phone plan, which shows a 10-minute call from the mother’s phone to the school starting at 9:50 a.m. — about a half-hour before witnesses have said the gunman opened fire.”
The sheriff told ABC News he is not aware of that phone call, but he stressed authorities are in the very early stages of the investigation and are working to piece together a timeline. School district officials declined to comment.
Colt Gray is accused of killing two students and two teachers, and injuring nine others, at Apalachee High School on Wednesday.
He is charged with four counts of felony murder. More charges will be filed, prosecutors said.
The teen’s father, Colin Gray, is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, the GBI said. He is accused of “knowingly allowing his son, Colt, to possess a weapon,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said.
The father and son both made their first court appearances on Friday. Neither has entered a plea and both are set to return to court on Dec. 4.
ABC News’ Toria Tolley, Stephanie Maurice and Darrell Calhoun and contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A week before Thomas Mathew Crooks opened fire on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, he became “very focused” on Trump and the rally, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
Crooks also searched for information on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, he said.
Wray told Congress in the last few days the FBI has been able to analyze a laptop connected to Crooks.
“On July 6, he did a Google search for quote, ‘how far away was Oswald from Kennedy?’ So that’s a search that’s obviously significant in terms of his state of mind,” Wray said.
He added that Crooks had pictures of public figures on his phone, but had “no rhyme or reason” to their methodology.
The FBI director said there is no apparent motive yet for the July 13 assassination attempt.
“We’re hoping to learn more, and we’re still exploiting a number of digital devices,” Wray said.
Crooks went to the site a week before the assassination attempt, he also said.
“He traveled to the grounds, I think, a week before, he spent roughly 20 minutes there,” he said. “Then he went to grounds again on the morning of the event, it appears, for about 17 minutes.” Crooks went to the site a third time “for good.”
Crooks flew a drone about 200 yards from the rally venue and had it up in the air for about 11 minutes, he testified.
“We have recovered a drone that the shooter appears to have used,” Wray said, adding the drone was recovered in the shooter’s vehicle.
“It appears that around 3:50 p.m., 4 o’clock, in that window, on the day of shooting, that the shooter was flying the drone around the area,” he said.
“Let me be clear about the area, not over the stage, and that part of the area itself, but I would say about 200 yards, give or take away,” he said.
Wray said it appears the shooter was a “loner” and didn’t have a lot of contacts in his cell phone.
“A lot of people describe him as a loner … that does kind of fit with what we’re seeing in his devices. You know, his list of contacts, for example, is very short, compared to what you would normally see from most people … there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot of interaction between him, you know, face to face or digital, with a lot of people,” Wray said.
The FBI has conducted over 400 interviews with “many more to conduct,” he said.
Border threat
In addition to questions about the assassination attempt against Trump, the FBI director was asked about the threat emanating from the southern U.S. border.
Over the past five or six years, the number of known or suspected terrorists encountered along the southern border “has increased,” and “that should be of concern,” Wray testified.
He also said that it doesn’t take a lot of foreign terrorists to be a “real problem.”
“I am increasingly concerned that foreign terrorists could seek to exploit vulnerabilities at our Southwest border or at other ports of entry or in other aspects of our immigration system to facilitate an attack here in the United States. I think that is something we have to be concerned about,” he said.
Election threats
Wray also said the Russians are continuing attempts to “influence” and “in various ways interfere with our democracy.”
“In fact, just in the last few weeks, we announced a significant disruption of a generative AI, enhanced social media and a bot farm, essentially of the Russians that was designed, designed to be an influence operation, and some of the fake, fictitious profiles of those bots purported to be US persons, so they’re still at it,” Wray said.
(NEW YORK) — On the southeast coast of O’ahu, a group of visitors from Renton, Washington, has arrived to volunteer with 808 Cleanups, a local organization working to remove invasive species from along the shoreline.
“I could not come to Hawai’i, to the island of O’ahu, without giving back to the community,” said first-time visitor Doris Martinez. “Today it’s really about cleaning up all of these bushes here that are not native to the Hawaiian land, which is something that we learned this afternoon.”
Doris and her fellow travelers are participating in “regenerative tourism,” when visitors give back to the community in some way. Efforts such as cleaning up a beach or reef, planting native plants, or helping to rebuild a fishpond are just a few of the ways that tourists can have a positive impact.
Last August, deadly wildfires tore through Maui and laid bare the deep tensions that can exist between visitors and the local community, where some feel the tourism economy is prioritized over the well-being of area residents.
That strain was captured in irate social media posts with images of snorkelers continuing their vacation as the ruins of Lahaina smoldered.
“There’s a snorkel boat with tourists in the water. The same waters that they were still trying to find bodies,” remembered Lahaina resident Courtney Lazo. “It just made your skin crawl.”
Lazo worked tirelessly to save her own home by hosing it down, but the fires ultimately consumed the house that her family had lived in for five generations.
More than nine million visitors a year travel to Hawai’i, with tourism the largest segment of the Hawaiian economy, supporting more than 216,000 jobs.
“That’s our brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas,” said Kalani Ka’anā’anā, the chief stewardship officer for the Hawai’i Tourism Authority (HTA).
But according to Kūhiō Lewis, CEO of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, it comes at a cost.
“Tourism has been economically beneficial to Hawaii’s economy. However, it’s placed a great burden on the people of Hawai’i, as well,” Lewis said.
“With tourism, people make it to be this strong economy,” said Lahaina resident Jordan Ruidas. “But if you look at it, people working in tourism still have to work two, three jobs. So, it’s not as strong as they say.”
Native Hawaiians and residents of the state find some visitors often are culturally insensitive or unaware of the impact of their actions. Social media is rife with videos of tourists hiking out of bounds onto sacred land, urinating on lava flows, or touching endangered wildlife.
“They come here so they can post a video on social media that hopefully will go viral that is extremely disrespectful to our people and our culture,” said Lewis.
“They think this is a playground, they’re on vacation,” said Pā’ele Kiakona, who was born and raised in Lahaina. “You see them all the time going onto the beach, touching turtles and touching the seals.”
Bad behavior persists despite well publicized bans on interfering with wildlife, offenses that can incur up to $10,000 fines.
“We know we can’t keep doing mass tourism in the way that we have in the past,” said the HTA’s Ka’anā’anā.
“Our community wants managed tourism. Our community wants tourism that gives back to local,” Ka’anā’anā added. “So instead of going to Starbucks, can you go to the local coffee shop? Instead of going to the chain restaurant, can you go to…the poke spot, the food truck.”
The Hawai’i Tourism Authority tries to reach out to visitors even before they come to the islands through their website, which offers tips on how tourists can be mindful during their visit. According to Ka’anā’anā, it’s an effort to share “the ideas of aloha and malama. How to take care of one another. How to take care of the place that they’re visiting. How to leave it better than when they found it.”
The HTA now offers visitors a way to volunteer and have a deeper travel experience with their Mālama Hawai’i website. Mālama means to take care of or protect. Along with other sites, like Kanu Hawaii, visitors can find volunteer opportunities that match their interests and travel plans.
“Visitors are looking for a deeper connection,” Ka’anā’anā added. “They’re looking for meaningful experiences that are unique and memorable for that place.”
Hawai’i Gov. Josh Green recently signed a bill bolstering regenerative tourism, supporting programs that will protect Hawaiian resources.
“These bills represent significant steps forward in safeguarding Hawai’i’s environment and promoting responsible tourism,” Green said in a statement.
“We want tourists who want to come here and feel a sense of place or a sense of purpose and help in deeper ways than just throwing money at us,” said Lahaina resident Jordan Ruidas. “Come get your hands in the dirt.”
Back out on the coast of Oahu, Kimeona Kane is the community director for 808 Cleanups.
“We want to give [visitors] an example of what it means to truly engage with a place, understand its history, understand its current situations, and also think about what the future might look like,” Kane said.
“People who came today didn’t want to just take,” said Michael Loftin, co-founder and executive director of 808 Cleanups. “They didn’t want to just be consumers of the islands. They wanted to give back.”
For Doris Martinez, the choice to volunteer was simple.
“This is love. Love in its purest form,” Martinez said.
On Maui, residents are continuing to recover from the devastating impacts of last year’s wildfire.
“It’s really important for people to remember that Hawaii has shown people so much aloha,” said Ruidas. “And right now it’s really a time where I feel like the aloha needs to be shown back to us while we heal and rebuild.”
If you would like to learn more about regenerative tourism and resources in Hawai’i these links can get you started: