California Cybertruck crash results in fatalities and an injury
KGO
(PIEDMONT, CA) — Three people were killed and one was seriously injured when their Tesla Cybertruck crashed in Piedmont, California, according to police.
Just after 3 a.m. on Wednesday, police received a collision alert from an iPhone, which provided police with the location of the crash, according to Piedmont Police Department Chief Jeremy Bowers. Shortly after, someone called 911 to report a crash.
“Officers arrived on scene to find a single-vehicle collision fully engulfed in flames,” Bowers said at a press conference Wednesday.
Another motorist was able to pull one person from the Cybertruck, Bowers said.
Officers attempted to extinguish the flames, but the fire was too intense for the extinguishers to be effective, police said.
The Piedmont Fire Department responded and was ultimately able to extinguish the flames, according to Bowers.
Police believe it is possible the people involved in the crash were at a function together before the incident.
There is no evidence that a mechanical issue with the electric truck caused the crash, police said.
Police said they will not be releasing information about the identities of those killed in the Cybertruck at this time.
Speed was a factor in the collision, but there were other factors that likely contributed to the deadly crash, Bowers said.
The Piedmont Police Department is investigating along with the California Highway Patrol.
(BRANDYWINE, Md.) — On 7 acres in Brandywine, Maryland, Peter Scott, a former United States Army counterintelligence agent assigned to Special Forces, is farming to help food-insecure veterans in the D.C. metropolitan region.
“I was at a place in life where I needed to do something and I needed to feel like it was something good after my time in service,” said Scott.
He returned stateside after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“I separated after about 12 years of service. I thought I was fine, but a few years went by and I was not fine,” Scott said. “I reached a moment with my family where it was ‘go get help or get out.’ I decided to go get help.”
After entering an inpatient program for combat PTSD, Scott met other service members who were food insecure. This discovery, along with a newfound passion for gardening, led him to launch Fields4Valor.
Since its inception, Fields4Valor has helped feed more than 500 veterans and their families. According to the Military Family Advisory Network, 1-in-5 active-duty military and veteran families experience food insecurity. And that number is on the rise.
While picking up her weekly bag of groceries from the farm, Shara Simms, a disabled Air Force veteran, expressed her admiration for the honey that is harvested from the honeycombs Scott maintains, calling it “liquid gold.”
Simms said the weekly bags afford her the opportunity to share “fresh fruit and honey that we don’t necessarily get in the stores because it’s extra expensive.”
“We live and die on everybody’s good will,“ said Scott. This year, he estimates approximately 300 volunteers helped on the farm – sometimes sourced from area military installations.
From the garden where rhubarb, kale, peppers, cucumbers and lettuce are grown, to the beehives where honey is extracted to fill jars and made into soaps, to the chicken coop where 120 chickens produce fresh farm eggs – everything is given to veterans.
(WASHINGTON) — A United States Army soldier has been sentenced to 14 years in prison after he allegedly attempted to assist ISIS in conducting a deadly ambush on U.S. troops, according to the Department of Justice.
Cole Bridges, a 24-year old man from Stow, Ohio, has been sentenced to 168 months in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release for “attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and attempting to murder U.S. military service members, based on his efforts to assist the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) to attack and kill U.S. soldiers in the Middle East,” the DOJ announced Friday.
Bridges originally pleaded guilty to terrorism charges on June 14, 2023, but his sentence was handed down this week, officials said.
Bridges joined the U.S. Army in approximately September 2019 and was assigned as a cavalry scout in the Third Infantry Division based in Fort Stewart, Georgia, according to court documents.
“Before he joined the Army, beginning in at least 2019, Bridges began researching and consuming online propaganda promoting jihadists and their violent ideology, and began to express his support for ISIS and jihad on social media,” the DOJ said. “In or about October 2020, approximately one year after joining the Army, Bridges began communicating with an FBI online covert employee (the OCE), who was posing as an ISIS supporter in contact with ISIS fighters in the Middle East.”
It was during these communications that Bridges expressed his frustration with the U.S. military and his desire to aid ISIS, officials said.
“Bridges then provided training and guidance to purported ISIS fighters who were planning attacks, including advice about potential targets in New York City. Bridges also provided the OCE with portions of a U.S. Army training manual and guidance about military combat tactics, with the understanding that the materials would be used by ISIS in future attack planning.”
In December 2020, Bridges subsequently began to supply the OCE with instructions for the purported ISIS fighters on how to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East.
“Bridges diagrammed specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters maximize the lethality of future attacks on U.S. troops,” according to the DOJ. “Bridges also provided advice about the best way to fortify an ISIS encampment to ambush U.S. Special Forces, including by wiring certain buildings with explosives to kill the U.S. troops.”
Bridges also provided the OCE with a video of himself in his U.S. Army body armor standing in front of a flag often used by ISIS fighters and making a gesture symbolic of support for ISIS in January 2021, authorities said, and even sent a second video a week later where he reportedly used a voice manipulator to read a propaganda speech in support of the anticipated ambush by ISIS on U.S. troops.
“The FBI Washington, Atlanta, and Cleveland Field Offices investigated the case, with valuable assistance provided by U.S. Army Counterintelligence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, and U.S. Army Third Infantry Division,” the DOJ said.
“Our troops risk their lives for our country,” said acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said when Bridges was initially charged in January 2021. “But they should never face such peril at the hands of one of their own.”
The Pentagon on Tuesday granted honorable discharges to more than 800 veterans who were separated from the U.S. military because of their sexual orientation during the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which was in effect from February 1994 to September 2011.
More than 13,000 service members were kicked out under the policy, close to 2,000 of whom received less than fully honorable discharges, according to Christa Specht, head of legal policy at the DOD’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. After 2011, most of those who filed appeals were upgraded, but others might not have been aware this was an option.
Last year, the Defense Department began a proactive review of the remaining cases. The Pentagon announced Tuesday that its review has led to an upgrade for more than 800 veterans, without them having to appeal. This could affect the benefits they have access to.
“After a year of exceptional work, the Military Department Review Boards directed relief in 96.8% of the 851 cases that they proactively reviewed. What this means is that of the nearly 13,500 individuals who were administratively separated under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and served long enough to receive a merit-based characterization of service, 96% now have an honorable discharge,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
The vast majority of those separated under the policy now have honorable discharges, according to Austin.
DADT was signed into law in 1993 under the administration of then-President Bill Clinton. In December 2010, then-President Barack Obama signed into law a repeal of the policy. It took effect in 2011.
