Kristin Ramsey, 53, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Ashley Okland. (West Des Moines Police)
(WEST DES MOINES, Iowa) — A woman has been arrested in the 2011 cold case murder of an Iowa real estate agent, authorities said.
Kristin Ramsey, 53, was arrested on Tuesday for first-degree murder in the death of Ashley Okland, the West Des Moines Police said.
Police and prosecutors did not elaborate on what led to Ramsey’s arrest, but Dallas County Attorney Matt Schultz said at a Wednesday news conference, “After hearing the evidence, a Dallas County grand jury issued a true bill indicting Kristin Ramsey with the murder of Ashley Okland.”
Okland was shot and killed while working at a model townhouse on April 8, 2011, according to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office Cold Case Unit.
Okland’s death sent “shockwaves” throughout the state and “haunted” the real estate community, West Des Moines Police Assistant Chief Jody Hayes said at the news conference.
“That Friday afternoon when Ashley was taken from us seems so long ago. We had lost our hope in finding answers and having any justice,” Okland’s sister, Brittany Bruce, told reporters.
She thanked the detectives and prosecutors for their relentless work on the case.
“We have full confidence in their abilities to see this through,” she said.
Tom Holland is seen on the set of ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ on August 3, 2025 in Glasgow, Scotland. (MEGA/GC Images)
A new trailer for the highly-anticipated film Spider-Man: Brand New Day is here.
Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Entertainment shared the trailer early Wednesday across social media platforms.
Tom Holland, who stars as the titular super hero, also shared the trailer in an Instagram reel, writing in the caption, “A brand new day starts now. I can’t wait to share this movie with you. Watch the official trailer for #SpidermanBrandNewDay — exclusive in theatres July 31st.”
The new trailer gives audiences a look at the aftermath of the end of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third movie in the latest version of the franchise.
It opens with Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, sitting at the top of a skyscraper and watching a video on his phone of his former friends MJ (played by Zendaya) and Ned (portrayed by Jacob Batalon).
“Hi, my name is Peter Parker,” Holland continues in a subsequent voiceover. “You don’t remember me, but we used to know each other. Something bad was gonna happen and the only way to stop it was to make everyone forget about me because I’m not just Peter Parker: I’m Spider-Man.”
The trailer caption explains that four years have passed since Spider-Man: No Way Home and Peter Parker is now an adult living on his own in a New York where no one knows him or his name. He’s still fighting crime but, as the synopsis explains, “The pressure sparks a surprising physical evolution that threatens his existence, even as a strange new pattern of crimes gives rise to one of the most powerful threats he has ever faced.”
Spider-Man: Brand New Day, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, went into production last August.
Zendaya and Jacob Batalon return for Spider-Man: Brand New Day; they’re joined by Liza Colon-Zayas, Tramell Tillman and Sadie Sink. Other familiar faces are set to make appearances as well, including Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/the Hulk and Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/the Punisher.
Marvel is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News and Good Morning America.
The official teaser trailer for Tom Clancy’sJack Ryan: Ghost War has arrived. Prime Video has released the first trailer for the upcoming film, which comes to theaters on May 20. It finds John Krasinski back starring as the titular hero. The Jack Ryan television series ran for four seasons. Ghost War marks the first film in its franchise …
Paradise has been renewed for season 3 at Hulu. The second season is currently streaming, with its season finale set to premiere on March 30. Dan Fogelman created the political thriller, which stars Sterling K. Brown as Agent Xavier Collins …
Hudson Williams is heating up a new Netflix show. The Heated Rivalry actor has joined the cast of the upcoming limited series The Altruists. Also announced to join the cast are Jennifer Grey, Terry Chen, Elizabeth Adams, Hannah Galway and William Mapother. The Altruists stars Anthony Boyle and Julia Garner as Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, the young idealists who tried to remake the global financial system before they were accused of stealing $8 billion …
The official teaser trailer for Jack Ryan: Ghost War has arrived. Prime Video has released the first trailer for the upcoming film, which comes to theaters on May 20. It finds John Krasinski back starring as the titular hero. The Jack Ryan television series ran for four seasons. Ghost War marks the first film in its franchise …
Paradise has been renewed for season 3 at Hulu. The second season is currently streaming, with its season finale set to premiere on March 30. Dan Fogelman created the political thriller, which stars Sterling K. Brown as Agent Xavier Collins …
Hudson Williams is heating up a new Netflix show. The Heated Rivalry actor has joined the cast of the upcoming limited series The Altruists. Also announced to join the cast are Jennifer Grey, Terry Chen, Elizabeth Adams, Hannah Galway and William Mapother. The Altruists stars Anthony Boyle and Julia Garner as Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, the young idealists who tried to remake the global financial system before they were accused of stealing $8 billion …
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard attends an event where President Donald Trump delivered an announcement on his Homeland Security Task Force in the State Dinning Room of the White House on October 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGOTN) — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard returns to Capitol Hill this week for an annual set of hearings on worldwide threats — her most significant public appearance in months and her clearest opportunity yet to address the intelligence picture surrounding the war in Iran.
Lawmakers are expected to press Gabbard on the administration’s handling of the Iran conflict, homeland security concerns, election integrity and the broader global threat environment at a moment of rising tension.
The hearings will also offer a rare extended look at an intelligence chief who has spent much of the past year largely out of public view. The Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to hear from her on Wednesday, March 18, with the House hearing set for Thursday, March 19.
She heads into the hearings under fresh scrutiny after the resignation of Joe Kent, the administration’s top counterterrorism official, who stepped down Tuesday over his objections to the Iran war — the highest-profile administration official to resign publicly over the conflict.
An ODNI official told ABC News that Gabbard was not asked by the White House to fire Kent, pushing back on a report first aired by Fox News.
Kent’s resignation sharpened questions already hanging over the administration’s case for war — whether Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States.
In his resignation letter, Kent said he could not “in good conscience” support the war and argued that Iran posed “no imminent threat” to the nation, directly undercutting President Donald Trump’s repeated public justification for the conflict.
Trump has previously said Tehran posed an imminent threat and was “very nearly” in a position to strike.
Hours after Kent’s resignation became public, Gabbard moved to publicly back Trump’s authority to make that call.
In a post on X, she said the president, as commander in chief, is responsible for determining “what is and is not an imminent threat” and whether action is necessary to protect U.S. troops, the American people and the country.
She added that ODNI’s role is to coordinate and integrate intelligence, so the president has the best information available to inform his decisions, and said Trump had concluded Iran posed an imminent threat after reviewing the available intelligence.
She did not directly address Kent’s allegations or mention him by name.
The moment is especially striking for Gabbard because few figures in Trump’s orbit spent more time warning about regime change wars, intelligence failures and the cost of Washington interventionism.
As a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, she was so vocal in her opposition to war with Iran that she sold “No War With Iran” T-shirts.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News last year, she again spoke about diplomacy, military restraint and the human cost of conflict in terms that reflected a worldview she has carried for years.
In that interview, Gabbard said the stress of her first deployment in her mid-20s turned part of her hair white, and that she kept the streak as a reminder of the high human cost of war.
“War must always be the last resort, only after all measures of diplomacy have been completely exhausted,” she told ABC News in the interview.
This week’s hearings will also unfold against the backdrop of Gabbard’s broader and unusually quiet tenure. Before taking office, she was rarely far from public view, frequently appearing on television, podcasts and social media.
As DNI, that version of her has largely faded from public view.
In recent months, she has appeared mostly in glimpses, at major administration moments.
Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and the first person in U.S. history to serve as DNI while in military uniform, appeared in uniform at Dover Air Force Base earlier this month during the dignified transfer of six American soldiers killed in a drone strike in Kuwait in the opening hours of the war with Iran.
She also heads into the hearing with other controversies still hanging over her.
Gabbard has drawn scrutiny for her role in the administration’s election integrity push, including her appearance outside the FBI’s operation in Fulton County, Georgia, in January, where federal agents seized election materials tied to the 2020 election, and her subsequent acknowledgment that she arranged a call between President Donald Trump and the agents involved. She has also faced continuing questions about her investigations into election security in Puerto Rico and Arizona.
ABC News previously reported that Gabbard arranged a call between Trump and FBI agents involved in the seizure of election materials in Fulton County, an unusual move given the sensitivity of the investigation. In Arizona, a senior administration official told ABC News that Gabbard was not on the ground but was still “working across the agency to ensure election integrity.”
The hearing is shaping up as more than a routine annual threat assessment.
It will be the clearest public test yet of how Gabbard explains the role she has carved out inside the Trump administration, and how she reconciles the anti-war politics that helped define her rise with the office she now holds at the center of a war she is being asked to defend.
Construction on the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building on March 10, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Reserve will unveil on Wednesday its latest decision on interest rates, marking the first such move since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran drove up gasoline prices and risked a wider bout of inflation.
The elevated price increases coincide with a slowdown of economic growth, threatening to intensify an economic double-whammy known as “stagflation,” which poses difficulty for the Fed.
If the Fed opts to lower borrowing costs, it could spur growth but risk higher inflation. On the other hand, the choice to raise interest rates may slow price increases but raises the likelihood of a cooldown in economic performance.
Markets are expecting the Fed to hold interest rates steady. Investors peg the chances of interest rates being left unchanged at about 99%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.
The central bank maintained the current level of interest rates at its most recent meeting in January, ending a string of three consecutive quarter-point rate cuts.
The benchmark rate stands at a level between 3.5% and 3.75%. That figure marks a significant drop from a recent peak attained in 2023, but borrowing costs remain well above a 0% rate established at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A lackluster jobs report last week showed the U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, which marked a reversal of fortunes for the labor market and erased most of the job gains recorded in 2026.
The unemployment rate ticked up from 4.3% in January to 4.4% in February, the BLS said. Unemployment remains low by historical standards.
A revised government report last week on gross domestic product (GDP) showed the economy grew at a sluggish annualized pace of 0.7% over the final three months of 2025.
Those economic headwinds helped set the conditions before the outbreak of war with Iran, which spiked oil prices and risked price increases for a host of diesel-fuel transported goods.
U.S. crude oil prices hovered at about $96 per barrel on Tuesday, soaring more than 50% since a month earlier.
Since the military conflict began, U.S. gas prices had gone up 81 cents to an average of $3.79 per gallon as of Tuesday, according to AAA.
The rate decision on Wednesday will also mark the first such move since a federal judge blocked Justice Department subpoenas to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors after determining the government “produced essentially zero evidence” to support a criminal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, according to an unsealed court opinion.
“A mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning,” U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in his opinion on Friday.
Acting U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro blasted Boasberg as an “activist” judge and pledged to appeal his ruling.
Prince Andrew, Duke of York attends the traditional Easter Sunday Mattins Service at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle on April 20, 2025 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — One month after the arrest of former Prince Andrew, the head of London’s Metropolitan Police is pushing U.S. officials for unredacted material from the Epstein files.
In an interview with ABC News’ chief investigative correspondent Aaron Katersky, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said his office is in communication with the Department of Justice to access the original documents related to ongoing investigations of both Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and former British ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson.
“Of course, there’s a big body of that evidence … in the United States in all those files and at some stage we’re going to need the unredacted evidence,” Rowley said. “We need the original copy and where did it come from and that’s going to be necessary if we get to the stage of court cases.”
While Department of Justice officials have repeatedly insisted that there is nothing more to investigate stateside about the convicted sex offender and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, officials in the United Kingdom are carrying out unprecedented investigations into both Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
Emails released earlier this year by the Department of Justice suggested that both Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson appeared to share sensitive information with Epstein stemming from their roles as the U.K. trade envoy and business secretary, respectively.
In one email released by the Department of Justice and referenced by Rowley, Mandelson appeared to confirm the timing of an impending bailout with Epstein during the European Union’s sovereign debt crisis.
“It looks like it was shared with Epstein so we’re looking at that as to whether that’s a criminal offense and then colleagues in Thames Valley are looking at other documents that Andrew Mountbatten-Winsor potentially shared,” Rowley said.
According to Rowley, his department is also assessing “a whole range of suggested sexual allegations” to determine if any “merit a criminal investigation.”
Suspicion about Mountbatten-Windsor began years ago following the publication of a photograph showing the former prince with his arm around the waist of Virginia Guiffre, who said she was 17 years old at the time of the photograph. Before she died by suicide last year, Guiffre alleged that Epstein trafficked her in 2001 to have sex with the former prince. Mountbatten-Windsor has long denied wrongdoing and told the BBC in 2019 that the allegations are not credible.
When asked about the allegations made by Guiffre, Rowley claimed that the information they received from Guiffre during four recorded interviews could not support an investigation.
“With Virginia Guiffre, we did four of those interviews with her … .and those interviews didn’t give us any evidence or any allegations of sexual offending or trafficking that we could investigate in the UK,” he said. “That’s why that investigation didn’t go forward.”
However, Rowley said he hopes the renewed look at the allegations against Mountbatten-Windsor helps improve the public’s trust that law enforcement is willing to scrutinize anyone regardless of their title or status.
“Those investigations all go wherever the evidence takes them — quite comfortable with investigating sort of famous or powerful people. I think it’s really important for policing to do that, that sense of operating without fear or favor. The law applies equally to everyone, and those cases will go, say, wherever the evidence leads us to,” he said.
Rowley said the investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor comes as the Metropolitan Police is increasingly targeting sexual and domestic violence.
“We’ve developed tactics to be much more proactive and targeting the most dangerous men who pose a threat to women and children just like we do terrorists and organized crime. So, a combination of factors has seen the rates steadily coming down,” he said. “We’re making big progress and most of all — at the center of all this that matters to me and matters to policing — is trust in the police’s building in London.”
Rowley also touted some of the technology used by the Metropolitan Police to lower crime rates such as facial recognition, which he said has allowed officers to identify violent offenders while minimizing intrusion to the broader public.
While he acknowledged that the technology has raised privacy concerns, Rowley argued that the focus on targeting violent offenders using the technology can help improve the public trust — something he says is foundational to the Metropolitan Police’s 200-year history.
“[Policing] should start from the idea of having the consent of people in a democracy and use the minimum force necessary and be focused on the prevention of crime, and those ideas still guide us today,” he said.
Rowley said he hopes being upfront with the public about the work of the Metropolitan Police — from low-level street crimes to allegations against some of the most prominent people in British society — can renew the public’s trust in law enforcement.
“Policing in the UK will operate without fear or favor, that’s the fundamental principle. I think if you don’t have that, you’re never going to have the trust and confidence of the public in policing, so that’s really important to me,” he said.
Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek and Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton in the sixth episode of ‘Bridgerton’ season 4. (Liam Daniel/Netflix)
(SPOILER ALERT)Bridgerton season 4 is continuing its reign atop the Netflix charts, having danced its way into its seventh week as part of the platform’s Top 10 TV chart.
Millions of fans are still swooning over Benedict (Luke Thompson) and Sophie’s (Yerin Ha) love story. There’s a specific moment in the sixth episode of the season that had fans reeling. Sophie reveals to Benedict that her mother was a maid and that her father was Lord Penwood. In return, Benedict shares a secret of his own: he’s been intimate with men in the past.
Thompson spoke to ABC Audio about how these confessions allowed the pair to finally communicate and see each other in new ways. He said one of the reasons he loves the moment is because it is not your usual coming out scene.
“It’s atypical in that, and that’s always been the case with Benedict … sex hasn’t been something he’s ever been particularly scared or worried about,” Thompson said. “Him opening up to Sophie like that feels like something he is doing for Sophie as a gesture of openness rather than to get something off his chest.”
Thompson truly believes Benedict when he tells Sophie he refuses to be ashamed about the confession.
“That doesn’t feel like a cover,” Thompson said. “I think that’s genuinely true. And quite distinctive, I think, for a male character to feel no shame like that.”
The actor said it “feels like it’s a real gesture for Sophie rather than something that he’s trying to sort out for himself.”
“I think that’s refreshing,” he said.
Part 2 of Bridgerton season 4 arrived to Netflix on Feb. 26. All episodes are streaming now.
