In this Jan. 19, 2010 photo, Timothy Busfield attends a premiere in New York. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images, FILE)
Timothy Busfield, an actor and director best known for his role as Danny Concannon on The West Wing, is facing charges of criminal sexual contact of a minor and child abuse, according to an arrest warrant out of New Mexico.
Busfield is accused of inappropriately touching a child actor on the set of The Cleaning Lady, a television series that Busfield directed and acted in, according to a criminal complaint obtained by ABC News.
The actor faces two counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and one count of child abuse, according to the arrest warrant issued Friday by the Albuquerque Police Department.
It’s unclear if the actor is currently in custody. ABC News reached out to Busfield via his agent and did not immediately hear back.
The actor denied the allegations when interviewed by investigators, the criminal complaint says.
According to court documents, the parents of the boy reported that the alleged abuse began in 2022 when the child was 7 years old.
The investigation began in November 2024, after a physician at University of New Mexico Hospital examined the child and notified police of suspected sexual abuse, according to the criminal complaint.
An officer interviewed the children’s parents, who told investigators that the minor and his twin brother were child actors, the criminal complaint says. The children did not report sexual abuse at the time, according to the complaint.
The victim’s mother later reported to child protective services that Busfield had allegedly sexually abused her son from around November 2022 to Spring 2024.
Attorneys for Warner Bros., which produced The Cleaning Lady, told police they previously conducted an independent investigation into the allegations but said they could not find evidence to support the claims at the time, according to the complaint.
In a statement provided to ABC News by a company spokesperson, Warner Bros. Television said: “We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously and have systems in place to promptly and thoroughly investigate, and when needed, take appropriate action. We are aware of the current charges against Mr. Busfield and have been and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement.”
Busfield is married to actress Melissa Gilbert.
Court records for Busfield detailing an initial appearance or bond conditions were not immediately available.
Authorities said the case remains under investigation.
(NEW YORK) — A severe weather threat continues over the Deep South on Saturday with tornadoes and flash flooding possible. A Flash Flood Watch remains in effect for more than 8 million Americans in parts of Alabama and Georgia until Saturday evening.
Early Saturday morning, there were already active storms over parts of the South, primarily in Mississippi. The main threat will be in the morning into the afternoon hours where conditions will be more favorable for severe development.
These storms will continue into the afternoon from New Orleans to Clemson, South Carolina — including cities like Atlanta and Pensacola. Damaging wind, tornadoes, and some large hail are the primary threats Saturday morning and into the day.
The threat will die down later in the afternoon and into the early evening but rain continues to push east and northeast from the late evening into the overnight hours.
Another few rounds of heavy rain are likely and could inundate areas of the South again, leading to a widespread additional 1 to 3 inches, with some localized areas of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee getting up to 3 to 4 inches of additional rain.
Rain is expected to fall in Philadelphia starting at 11 a.m., New York City after 12 p.m. and Boston and further up the I-95 corridor later in the afternoon. Rain will continue through much of the day across most of the Northeast down to the Mid-Atlantic.
On the northern side of the storm, some light snow — quick dusting up to 3 inches — could fall in Chicago on Saturday morning, but will be clear before the NFL Wild Card Matchup this evening.
Parts of Wisconsin and especially Michigan could see 3 to 6 inches of fresh snow on Saturday, while northern New England could be cold enough to see a dusting to 3 inches of snow and up to a tenth of an inch of ice.
(LONDON)– It is one thing to make a New Year’s resolution. It is, however, a very different thing to be able to keep it.
Every year they are made with the best of intentions — with the hope and desire to become a better version of ourselves — so why is it that millions of people make New Year’s resolutions knowing the odds of them ever following through with them are minimal?
Jasper Rook Williams — fitness expert, online coach and owner of JRW Fitness — has made a successful career so far working with hundreds of clients around the world on improving their nutrition, training and lifestyle calibration. He has a good idea why.
“The goals, if sometimes a little ambitious, are rarely the problem and they are all set with best intentions,” Rook Williams tells ABC News. “The issue is there’s rarely enough thought put into the approach. People have high ambitions hinging on mostly unrealistic and unsustainable methods. Rather than just thinking ‘I’ll eat salads and join a gym’, people need to prioritize achievable routines, sustainability and lifestyle changes from a broader and more holistic perspective.”
According to research, Rook Williams isn’t wrong. The failure rate for New Year’s resolutions is said to be an estimated 80% with most people losing their resolve and motivation just weeks later in mid-February, according to U.S News and World Report.
“Changing your habits is very difficult, including finding the right moment to make a change,” Bas Verplanken, professor of social psychology at the University of Bath, said in a report released by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in 2017. “Changing from December 31st to January 1st is not a dramatic discontinuity. Many resolutions are made on December 31st, and go down the drain on January 2nd.”
Psychologically speaking, the beginning of a new year is often viewed as a seminal moment — a time to reflect on the previous year and look ahead to the new one. But this doesn’t necessarily translate to immediate change and action just because of timing.
“Anything worthwhile is never without obstacle” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the top three New Year’s resolutions made each year are living healthier (23%), personal improvement or happiness (21%) and losing weight (20%), according to a report published by Statista in Nov. 2022.
“A great question to ask yourself when starting out is “does this feel sustainable?” Rook Williams explains to ABC News. “If you can’t keep up the routine then you definitely won’t keep the results.”
One of the things that Rook Williams has found leads to people maintaining their success is when people have — or are given — a sense of accountability.
“You have to bear in mind that creating new habits is hard and progress for anything worthwhile is never linear,” he said. “There will be times when either you want to stop or results seem to have stopped and that can be hard to deal with. That’s when having someone to guide you can keep you accountable can be invaluable in the process of change.”
Ultimately, to successfully make a change for the better, it comes down to striking the right balance, according to Rook Williams.
“In the case of fitness, it’s not just the food or training or wider lifestyle that will create the change but all three of these things working together,” he continued. “They’re not mutually exclusive. Lacking motivation is common and, in my experience, is something that comes when you don’t have a plan. Whether you hire a professional or not, just removing the guesswork and gaining a sense of direction always helps the individual on their path to success.”
“Motivation is temporary” One of the biggest obstacles to maintaining resolutions, particularly when it comes to fitness objectives, is to choose goals that are both achievable and sustainable.
An estimated 12% of all new gym memberships per year occur in January, according to a study done by IHRSA, the fitness industry’s only global trade association that represents health clubs worldwide. Another study indicates that four out of every five people who join the gym in January will actually quit within five months.
“Motivation is temporary for everyone,” says Rook Williams. “So the best thing you can do is use that time to create the habits and routines needed to see you through once it wanes. And it will wane. It always does. The classic thing new gym starters do in the new year is go from zero to 100 mph … They want to go from not working out at all and eating what they want to training five, six, seven days a week and eating like a rabbit. This just sets them up for failure because it’s just not realistic.”
One of the biggest reasons why Rook Williams’ clients often succeed when it comes to setting goals is the focus on maintaining a healthy outlook every day and “saying no to short-termism.”
“Being new at something and hoping to be perfect straight away is a sure fire way to give up on anything very quickly,” Rook Williams explains. “Be sure to cut yourself some slack. If you planned to train three days one week but only managed two, that doesn’t make you a failure. It’s still two more than you were doing before, so just wipe the slate clean and try it again without holding on to guilt or punishing yourself.”
“Everyone falls off the horse at some point, even the pros,” Rook Williams continued. “What’s important is how quickly you dust yourself off and get back to work. Those who make it do this right away. But those who let one mistake spill over into more mistakes are the ones who are most likely to give up and start again next year.”
“Never just one solution” No matter what resolution you may make in the New Year, for Rook Williams, success is all about perspective and making changes in incremental ways that suit your lifestyle rather than completely disrupting it.
“There is never just one solution to a problem, whatever that problem might be,” he continued. “Your goal might be set in stone, but how you achieve it shouldn’t be. Don’t get married to just one method. Finding sustainable success is all about finding the method that is easiest and most maintainable for you.”
Unrealistic expectations and the dangers of expecting to get it right the first time are one of the main things that Rook Williams warns his clients about.
“With so much conflicting information out there and each of us having our own unique goals, schedules and responsibilities, the chance of getting your nutritional approach spot on when going alone immediately is incredibly slim,” Rook Williams explains. “Even if it is working, it might not be sustainable so be prepared for a period involving a lot of trial and error.”
For Rook Williams this was a huge reason why he became a coach in the first place. “It took me ages to piece it all together and, once I had, I wanted to help others do the same and in far less time.”
Research actually backs this up. According to a 2012 study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Weight and Eating Disorders Program, 65% of dieters return to their pre-diet weight within three years and only 5% of people who lose weight on a restrictive diet, such as a liquid or no-carb, manage to keep the weight off — just one out of every 20 dieters.
“Carbs are tasty, alcohol can be fun, food is for eating and going without all these things forever is, for most people, totally unrealistic. When you think about it logically like that, it’s no surprise the majority of people fail to keep off the weight they lose.”
Ultimately, making any major change in your life requires more than just the desire to do so. It requires a goal, determination and a willingness to learn all mixed with a heavy dose of reality and a well-constructed approach to change.
“If you have a day where you feel like you can’t be bothered with anything, remember you are running your own race,” Rook Williams explains. “Success isn’t made by being perfect everyday but by doing your best everyday, whatever that looks like to you. What I have learned myself — and what I have really seen leads people to success — is if you have good habits and routines in place that you have created over time, that’s what is going to get you to where you want to be.”
Said Rook Williams: “It’s not just the food or training or wider lifestyle that will create the change but all three of these things. They’re all connected.”
U.S. President Donald Trump listens during a ceremony for the presentation of the Mexican Border Defense Medal in the Oval Office of the White House on December 15, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump this week issued an attention-grabbing proposal cracking down on Wall Street in an effort to lower home prices and ease affordability woes.
In a social media post, Trump said he would move to ban large institutional investors from “buying more single-family homes” and he urged Congress to codify the policy into law. Trump accused industry behemoths of buying up properties and shutting average Americans out of the housing market.
“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in the post on Wednesday.
Several analysts who spoke to ABC News are skeptical that the proposal would meaningfully reduce home prices nationwide.
Institutional investors own a small fraction of single-family homes and many of those properties are occupied by renters, they said, meaning the ban would do little to address the supply shortage at the root of the affordability crisis.
“In the scheme of things, we’re talking about such a small number of homes,” Marc Norman, associate dean at the New York University School of Professional Studies and Schack Institute of Real Estate, told ABC News.
The median price of an existing home in November stood at $409,200, the National Association of Realtors, or NAR, said last month. Prices have surged 24% over the past five years, according to NAR data.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is 6.16%, hovering near its lowest level in 15 months, Freddie Mac data showed. But mortgage rates remain well above sub-3% levels recorded as recently as 2021.
Trump aims to address sky-high prices by shutting institutional investors out of the market for single-family homes, which in theory could alleviate the supply-demand crunch and put downward pressure on prices.
“I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it,” Trump said in a social media post.
Trump did not detail the steps he planned on taking to move forward with the ban. The White House did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
On Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said in a post on X he would introduce legislation meant to codify the proposal.
Congress has previously put forward bills aimed at limiting the role of institutional investors in the market for single-family homes. In 2023, Democratic members of the House and Senate introduced a bill that would have imposed an excise tax on hedge funds that own a large number of single-family residences.
Shares of some major industry players fell in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s announcement. Blackstone, Invitation Homes and American Homes for Rent saw their stock prices fall between 4% and 6% on Wednesday.
The National Rental Home Council, or NRHC, a trade group working on behalf of the single-family rental home industry, issued a statement commending “the administration’s focus on ensuring Americans have access to a diverse mix of housing options.”
“We look forward to engaging with the White House and other policymakers in this important discussion,” the NRHC said.
The snag, these analysts said, is that institutional investors do not hold a big slice of the market.
Institutional investors own about 450,000 homes, which amounts to roughly 3% of the single-family market, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, found in a study last year that analyzed data from 2022.
“The big question here is: Are large-scale institutional investors crowding out prospective homebuyers?” Jake Krimmel, senior economist at realtor.com, told ABC News Live. “The answer is ‘no.’”
Institutional ownership is concentrated in some regions, particularly in the Sun Belt, according to the GAO.
Institutions own 21% of homes in Jacksonville, Florida, and 18% of homes in Charlotte, North Carolina, the GAO found. In Atlanta, institutions own 1 out of 4 homes.
Analysts who spoke to ABC News disagreed about whether the ban on institutional ownership could lower prices in those highly concentrated markets.
Some said the elimination of a key source of demand could push down prices, while others cautioned the move would likely have little effect in those places, since an injection of new supply has already helped ease price pressures in many of those areas.
“In some select markets, this will have some bite,” Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor of real estate at Columbia University Business School, told ABC News. “Overall, it’s not such a big deal.”
A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24, 2022 during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 6, 2026, in Uvalde, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
(UVALDE, Texas) — Editor’s note: Some of the testimony described below is extremely graphic.
Gonzales — who was one of nearly 400 law enforcement officers to respond to Robb — is charged with child endangerment for allegedly ignoring his training during the botched police response. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed, and investigations have faulted the police response and suggested that a 77-minute delay in police mounting a counterassault could have contributed to the carnage.
Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his legal team says he did all he could to help students.
Judge Sid Harle issued a warning to the gallery before the jury entered on Friday.
“I want to forewarn you, these photographs are going to be shocking and gruesome, and if anybody wants to step out, you are welcome to step out, but we cannot have any displays in front of the jury,” Harle said. “I’m forewarning you — these are not going to be pleasant to look at, and I’m sorry you’re going to have to look at them just like I had to.”
“There was a lot of shell casings,” said Torrez, who spent three days photographing the room. “There’s a lot of blood, a lot of blood swipes, and the weapon was in the closet.”
Using a pointer to highlight parts of the photos, Torrez testified about the location of the classroom, damage to the door and areas of the room where students didn’t attempt to hide. Defense lawyers had objected to showing the more graphic images, but Harle allowed the bulk of them into evidence due to their relevance to the prosecution’s case.
“Does the scene change?” prosector Bill Turner asked Torrez about some of the photos.
“As far as the presence of blood, it changes dramatically,” Torrez said. “A lot of bullet holes, a lot of shell casings covered in blood, a lot of bullet defects, perforations, penetrations, and just a lot of blood.”
Over the next hour, the courtroom fell almost entirely silent, other than the testimony and occasional ruffling of tissues and sniffling. Some of the jurors craned their necks to see the photos, while others covered their mouths or lifted tissues to wipe their eyes. The families of the victims sat quietly and no one left the courtroom during the testimony.
The photos did not show the bodies of students, which were removed prior to the photos being taken. But jurors did see photos showing large pools of blood and the drag marks made when the bodies were removed. Photos also showed dried bloodstains on desks, textbooks and office supplies.
Torrez testified that investigators placed rods in the cavities left by the bullets to demonstrate the direction of the gunshots. The pink and yellow rods showed that the shooter likely fired downward — through the desks — toward the sheltering students, Torrez said.
Torrez offered his testimony with little context other than his experience as a crime-scene photographer that day. Prosecutors did not explain how the images relate to Gonzales, other than suggesting that his alleged inaction contributed to the loss of life that day.
Defense attorneys say Gonzales is being scapegoated for a broader failure by law enforcement. In its opening statement this week, the defense alleged that prosecutors were playing on jurors’ emotions and that convicting Gonzales would be an injustice piled on top of one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.
ABC News’ Juan Renteria contributed to this report.
(SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C.) — At least 99 new measles cases are being reported in South Carolina amid the state’s outbreak.
This brings the total number of cases in the state to 310. There are currently 200 people in quarantine, according to health officials.
The outbreak has been ongoing as state health officials continue to push for vaccinations. The majority of cases are located around Spartanburg County.
“The number of those in quarantine does not reflect the number actually exposed,” Dr. Linda Bell, the state epidemiologist, said in a press releases. “An increasing number of public exposure sites are being identified with likely hundreds more people exposed who are not aware they should be in quarantine if they are not immune to measles. Previous measles transmission studies have shown that one measles case can result in up to 20 new infections among unvaccinated contacts.”
South Carolina’s department of public health said it sent a statewide health alert on Jan. 7, “advising health care providers and facilities of the importance of heightened awareness for measles and recommended measures for the use of masks and rapid isolation of suspect measles cases to protect people in health care settings from exposures.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends that people receive two doses of the MMR vaccine, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective against measles, the CDC says.
However, CDC data shows vaccination rates have been lagging in recent years. During the 2024-2025 school year, 92.5% of kindergartners received the MMR vaccine, according to data. This is lower than the 92.7% seen the previous school year and the 95.2% seen in the 2019-2020 school year, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Luigi Mangione attends a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 18, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Shannon Stapleton-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione could stand trial by the end of the year, the judge in his federal case said Friday at a hearing in a Manhattan courtroom that was filled with Mangione’s supporters.
Mangione was back in federal court, where the defense presented arguments seeking to dismiss the death penalty counts against him if he is convicted of stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk in 2024.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett did not rule on the death penalty question at the conclusion of the hearing, but suggested that if the death penalty remains on the table, jury selection would begin in early September, and the trial would commence sometime in December or January.
If the death penalty is excluded, the judge suggested the trial could start in September.
She set a date for the next hearing on Jan. 30.
Judge Garnett also ruled Friday that Mangione’s backpack was lawfully seized by police when Mangione was apprehended in a Pennsylvania McDonalds’s five days after the shooting.
Two women who flew in from Sicily and came straight from the airport were among those in the courtroom gallery, which was filled with Mangione’s supporters, mostly young women. Many of them were wearing green, the color that has come to represent advocacy for Mangione.
“We have a full house here today,” Judge Garnett said at the outset of the hearing. “It is very important that decorum be maintained.”
The appearance of Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty to federal charges, follows a three-week hearing in state court during which Mangione sought to convince the judge in his state case to exclude some of the critical evidence police said they found in his backpack, including writings and the alleged murder weapon. The judge has yet to issue a ruling.
Judge Garnett, in issuing her ruling on the legality of the backpack’s seizure, said, “I don’t think it’s really disputed that if you’re arrested in a public place, the police are supposed to safeguard your personal property.”
Garnett said she does not need to schedule a hearing to determine whether to exclude evidence taken from the backpack, but that she reserves the right to reconsider that decision. She has yet to rule on what, if anything, should be suppressed.
“The Government searched the contents of the defendant’s notebook pursuant to a judicially authorized search warrant that expressly covered, among other things, handwritten materials, including notebook entries, contained within the defendant’s backpack,” prosecutor Sean Buckley argued in an earlier court filing.
“To the extent that the defendant now seeks to challenge the validity of the Government’s warrant — an argument the defendant similarly did not make in either his moving or reply papers — that argument would also fail on the merits because the warrant, which disclosed the initial search of the defendant’s backpack by the Altoona Police Department, was supported by ample probable cause,” wrote Buckley.
Paresh Patel, a lawyer from Maryland who recently joined Mangione’s defense team, argued stalking “fails to qualify as a crime of violence” and therefore cannot be the predicate to make Mangione eligible for the death penalty.
Mangione entered the courtroom with his ankles shackled but his hands free. Unlike his recent appearance in state court, when he wore slacks and blazer, Mangione was dressed in a beige smock and pants and a white long-sleeve T-shirt as he took a seat at the defense table between defense attorneys Karen and Mark Agnifilo.
Earlier this week, prosecutors disputed a defense claim that Mangione should not face the death penalty because of a purported conflict of interest by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The defense said Bondi is continuing to benefit from a 401k established while she worked at the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, which represents UnitedHealthcare.
Prosecutors said Ballard has made no contributions to her retirement plan since her Senate confirmation as attorney general, and argued that she stands to gain nothing from a “capital outcome” in the Mangione case.
“There is simply no factual basis for the assertion that outside corporate interests influenced the Attorney General’s charging decision in any fashion. The defendant’s insinuations otherwise rest on an inaccurate financial narrative,” Buckley wrote in a court filing.
