(BERLIN) — A car plowed into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, on Friday, injuring multiple victims and sending people fleeing in panic, according to police.
Extensive police operations are underway at the Magdeburg Christmas market, which is now closed, police said.
Magdeburg is about a two-hour drive west of Berlin.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(BELLVILLE, Texas) — A family in Austin County, Texas, is anxiously waiting for the return of their 3-year-old kangaroo after the marsupial pushed a gate open and hopped a fence.
The 5-foot-tall kangaroo, named Rowdy, was last seen early Wednesday morning on Pyka Road near Interstate 10 in Austin County, according to the kangaroo’s owner.
Local radio DJ Dana Tyson said she saw the kangaroo while heading to work, she told Houston ABC News affiliate KTRK.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think a kangaroo would jump in front of my car,” Tyson told KTRK.
Tyson recorded the kangaroo on camera and said she later found out a nearby resident, Marsha Matus, was missing one.
Matus said she is anxious for Rowdy’s safe return because she knows he is scared.
“He is our baby. He is not your stereotypical kangaroo. He is our pet,” Matus told KTRK.
Rowdy is one of three kangaroos owned by Matus, she said. After Rowdy got out of the pen, she said he jumped the perimeter fence and ran off. Daphne, another pet kangaroo, only got as far as the yard. And Rocky, the youngest kangaroo, who is still a baby, remained inside the house.
Matus said she loves her kangaroos and she even has kangaroo signs, yard art and a personalized license plate that reads “Roo Mom.”
“They’re unique,” she said. “I’m worried to death.”
On Thursday night, Matus told KTRK a stranger even drove down to help Matus search for Rowdy using his drone that is equipped with thermal imaging. Matus and her husband also used their drone to try and find Rowdy.
In a post on Facebook, Matus says Rowdy spends his days laying down and resting because kangaroos are nocturnal. She urges that if anyone sees him that they call the Austin County Sheriff’s Office.
“Please if you spot him anywhere you can contact myself, Austin Co Sheriff’s office or DPS,” Matus posted on Facebook. “He will not go to anyone, he will not harm anyone or anyone’s pets. He knows my voice and will come to me.”
Matus hopes Rowdy is safe and that he can make it back home.
“I just hope he’s safe because I know he’s scared. I just want him home.”
ABC News reached out to the Austin County Sheriff’s Office for comment and did not receive a response.
We now know who will join Anne Hathaway in the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover‘s bestselling book Verity.
Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett will star opposite Hathaway in the drama, which will be directed by Michael Showalter with a script by Nick Antosca.
Hartnett will play Jeremy Crawford, the husband of bestselling thriller author Verity Crawford, played by Hathaway. After Verity is unable to complete the remaining books in her successful series, Jeremy hires struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh, who will be played by Johnson, to finish them.
The film will be released in theaters by Amazon MGM Studios.
Verity was first self-published by Hoover in 2018. It then grew in popularity and was acquired by Grand Central Publishing in 2021. It sold more than 1 million copies in 2023.
It’s almost time to say goodbye to our friends in Hawkins, Indiana.
Production has ended on the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, Netflix announced on Friday. While a release date for season 5 has yet to be revealed, the show is confirmed to return in 2025.
“THAT’S A WRAP ON STRANGER THINGS. See you in 2025,” Netflix shared to the social platform X on Friday.
On the same post, the streamer shared a collage of eight behind-the-scenes images from the creation of season 5. Pictures of the main cast, including Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Joe Keery, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Maya Hawke and Priah Ferguson, were seen in the collage.
The show’s creators Matt and Ross Duffer were also pictured, along with director Shawn Levy. While Brett Gelman and JamieCampbell Bower were not pictured, they are confirmed to return in season 5. Linda Hamilton is also joining the cast in an unspecified role.
(NEW YORK) — A captain in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps faces federal murder and terrorism charges in New York, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday that charges Mohammad Reza Nouri with orchestrating the murder of an American citizen to avenge the drone strike killing of a top Iranian general.
Stephen Troell, a 45-year-old American living in Baghdad, was killed in front of his wife in November 2022 after federal prosecutors said Nouri gathered intelligence on Troell’s daily routine, procured weapons and housed the operatives who carried out the murder.
“We allege that Mohammad Reza Nouri, an officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, orchestrated the murder of Stephen Troell, an American citizen living in Iraq, carrying out the Iranian Regime’s efforts to take vengeance for the death of Qasim Soleimani,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing the charges. “Stephen should still be alive today, and the Justice Department will work relentlessly to ensure accountability for his murder.”
The U.S. has said Iran sought revenge for the January 2020 death of Soleimani in an American drone strike in Baghdad.
In November 2022, the Iranian regime struck in Iraq. A group of operatives working on behalf of the IRGC brutally murdered Troell in Baghdad, where he worked at an English language institute, as Troell was driving home with his wife after work.
Nouri, 36, allegedly “played a key role in the IRGC’s targeting and ultimate murder of Troell,” whom Nouri appears to have believed was working as an American or Israeli intelligence officer.
According to the complaint, Nouri accumulated data including Troell’s date of birth, coordinates of his residence, occupation, work schedule, telephone number, wife’s name, and children’s names, among other information. In the weeks leading up to the murder, he allegedly coordinated with one of his co-conspirators to procure firearms and a vehicle for use in the attack.
Troell was driving home from work with his wife when heavily armed gunmen in two cars forced the couple to stop shortly before they reached their residence, blocked any possible escape route, approached Troell on the driver’s side, and, using an assault weapon, shot and killed Troell as his wife witnessed the attack in the passenger seat.
Less than a half hour after the attack, Nouri sent an encrypted messages inquiring about the wellbeing of the operatives tasked with carrying out the hit, allegedly asking, “The guys are fine?” and “They are doing well?”
In March 2023, Iraqi authorities arrested Nouri and he was subsequently convicted by an Iraqi court for his role in Troell’s murder. He remains in custody in Iraq.
(Delphi, Ind.) — Convicted Delphi, Indiana, killer Richard Allen was sentenced on Friday to 130 years in prison for the 2017 murders of two teenage girls as the victims’ families spoke out in court.
Allen was given 65 years for each murder, to run consecutively.
Last month, a jury found Allen guilty on all charges in the double homicide: felony murder for the killing of 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams while attempting to commit kidnapping; felony murder for the killing of 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German while attempting to commit kidnapping; murder for knowingly killing Abby; and murder for knowingly killing Libby.
A gag order prevented the families of Abby and Libby from commenting during or after Allen’s trial.
Libby’s grandmother, Becky Patty, broke her silence on Friday, saying at sentencing, “I can never change my choice to let Libby and Abby go to the trails that day.”
“I hope he lives with the same fear he caused Abby and Libby in the last hour of their lives,” she said.
“You could’ve taken accountability,” Libby’s grandfather, Mike Patty, said to Allen. “You need to stand up and not appeal.”
Abby’s grandmother, Diane Erskin, said, “This is a day of great sadness for our family. We won’t be going home to celebrate with champagne.”
Nearly eight years since her granddaughter’s murder, Erskin said, “I’ve watched her friends graduate college and wonder how many great grandkids were murdered that day, too.”
Erskin said Abby’s last words in Libby’s phone were “don’t leave me up here,” so the grieving grandmother didn’t let herself leave the trial even during tough testimony.
The families, law enforcement and prosecutors are expected to address the public at a post-sentencing news conference on Friday.
Abby and Libby were walking along a Delphi hiking trail when they were attacked on Feb. 13, 2017. Their throats were slit and their bodies were dumped in the nearby woods.
Moments before the murders, Libby posted a photo of Abby on Snapchat showing her on the Monon High Bridge. After crossing the bridge, the girls saw a man behind them — who became known as “bridge guy” — and Libby started a recording on her phone, according to prosecutors.
As police looked for the suspect, they released footage from Libby’s phone to the public: a grainy image of “bridge guy” and an audio clip of him telling the girls to go “down the hill.”
“He developed photos with no remorse and he didn’t blink,” Becky Patty said in court on Friday.
Allen admitted to police he was on the trail that day, but he denied being involved in the crime.
The prosecution’s key physical evidence was a .40-caliber unspent round discovered by the girls’ bodies. Police analysis determined that unspent round was cycled through Allen’s Sig Sauer Model P226, prosecutors said.
Another major focus of the trial was Allen’s multiple confessions in jail and his mental health at the time. The defense argued Allen was in a psychotic state when he confessed numerous times to his psychologist, corrections officers and his wife.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — The price of bitcoin has tumbled about 12% from a record high reached earlier this week.
After topping $108,000 for the first time on Tuesday, the world’s largest cryptocurrency dropped to a price below $93,000 in early trading on Friday. Bitcoin soon recovered some of those losses, settling around $95,000 at 9:30 a.m. ET.
The selloff rippled through the wider cryptocurrency market. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, ticked down about 1%. Lesser-known dogecoin fell 4% and crypto-trading exchange Coinbase fell nearly 2%.
The slide for bitcoin has largely come after the Federal Reserve announced late Wednesday that it expects fewer interest rate cuts next year.
Lower interest rates typically stimulate economic activity, drive up corporate profits and lift the value of forward-looking assets like stocks and cryptocurrencies. In theory, a longer-than-expected period of high interest rates could diminish those returns.
The Fed’s forecast sent stocks falling within minutes and helped push bitcoin to its lowest level in weeks.
The recent slide for bitcoin erases some of the gains enjoyed since the election of former President Donald Trump, who is widely viewed as friendly toward cryptocurrency. Still, the price has climbed about 36% since Election Day.
Bitcoin had climbed to a new high earlier this week after Trump reaffirmed support for a U.S. bitcoin strategic reserve.
A U.S. bitcoin strategic reserve would amount to a substantial government holding of bitcoin similar to the country’s stockpile of oil or gold. Bitcoin bulls expect such a potentially large acquisition of bitcoin to drive up demand and hike the price.
Supporters of a bitcoin strategic reserve also say the asset would help diversify the nation’s financial holdings, protecting it from the possible decline in value of other assets, such as the U.S. dollar.
Since the price of bitcoin is highly volatile, a large purchase of the asset could end up threatening the nation’s financial stability rather than safeguarding it, some critics say.
The major stock indexes rebounded on Thursday, recovering some of the losses they took after the Fed’s unwelcome forecast.
(CHICAGO) — Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport issued a ground stop on Friday, pausing departures amid snowy and icy conditions.
The stop came as the clipper system that brought heavy snow and airport delays to the Upper Midwest on Thursday is moving on Friday morning through the Illinois city.
Up to 10 inches of snow fell in the Upper Midwest on Thursday. Ten states are now on snow alert, stretching from Wisconsin down through the mountains of North Carolina.
A band of moderate snow with low visibility is moving into Chicago just in time for their morning commute.
A dusting to 1 inch is possible, just enough to make the roads very slick and dangerous in the city.
Also this morning, snow is moving through Michigan and Ohio and on its way to the Northeast.
This afternoon and evening the rain and snow will move into the I-95 corridor making roads slick.
Rain and snow will continue for the I-95 corridor into early Saturday morning.
Most areas will see only a dusting, the same as Chicago, but this could be enough to make roads dangerously slick, as temps fall to near freezing.
Locally about 3 to 6 inches of snow are possible in the mountains of West Virginia and into western NY, and northern New England.
Locally more than a foot possible in the highest elevations.
Christmas Eve rain or snow in the Northeast?
Another storm system is expected for Christmas Eve in the Northeast, with rain and snow possible.
Rain and snow could fall along the I-95 corridor on Tuesday, Christmas Eve.
With this storm, the highest chance for accumulating snow will be in upstate NY and in New England. It is too early to say how much snow is possible.
An arctic plunge will move into the Northeast this weekend, as temperatures fall into the teens and single digits Saturday night into Sunday.
Wind chills could be below zero for inland areas and in the single digits even for coastal major cities.
Looking ahead, warmer weather is forecast after Christmas for the Northeast and most of eastern U.S.
