Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff attends a Cabinet Meeting at Camp David on July 31, 2026 in Camp David, Maryland. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff made nearly $107 million last year from a holding company affiliated with World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency firm he cofounded with President Donald Trump and members of their respective families, according to financial disclosures obtained by a government watchdog.
Witkoff, one of President Trump’s top negotiators working to broker peace deals in the Middle East and Ukraine, was at one point listed as a “co-founder emeritus” on World Liberty’s website, a title he shared with President Trump.
The firm is operated by Witkoff’s son, Zach Witkoff, and Trump’s three sons.
Trump and Witkoff have both attracted scrutiny for their involvement in World Liberty Financial, which recently secured preliminary approval from the Trump administration to operate as a bank. Critics say their private enterprise presents the appearance of a conflict of interest.
World Liberty has repeatedly brushed aside conflict-of-interest concerns. In May 2025, World Liberty wrote on X that Witkoff was in the process of divesting himself from the firm and “has no operational role, no financial interest in WLFI deals, and no influence on day-to-day decisions.”
Trump himself has reported earning $526 million from the sale of cryptocurrency tokens through World Liberty Financial, according to financial disclosures filed over the summer. He earned another $65 million from sales of equity in WLF’s holding company.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, told ABC News on Wednesday that Witkoff has now “fully divested from World Liberty Financial, and his prior commercial activities are completely unrelated to his efforts to end global conflicts on the President’s behalf.”
Aidan Keys is a fourth-year PhD student studying African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. (Courtesy Aidan Keys)
(NEW YORK) — At a time when Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts face local and federal backlash, some academics say that Black studies programs — several of which have been scaled back at colleges and universities across the nation — are more crucial than ever.
“The Trump administration has made clear to colleges and universities that they don’t want them doing anything that is race conscious. So, institutions are very cowardly defunding and eliminating these academic programs and departments that have enriched the campus for decades,” Dr. Shaun Harper, a professor at University of Southern California that specializes in racial equity, told ABC News.
According to Harper, President Donald Trump’s executive order in January 2025 targeting DEI initiatives in the private sector has fueled nationwide anti-DEI sentiment.
The executive order instructed the Departments of Justice and Education to investigate DEI programs at institutions of higher education.
Trump’s order doesn’t explicitly mention Black studies programs at colleges and universities, but it criticizes institutions of higher education that use “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences.”
Following his order, the Department of Education sent a letter to colleges and universities, notifying them that they will investigate and sever federal funding if they maintain DEI programs that the administration considers illegal.
“Many institutions haphazardly scrubbed their websites of everything related to race,” Harper said.
The politicization of DEI at the federal level has created a “trickle-down effect” at institutions where Black history and experiences have been undervalued, according to Harper.
‘We’re not going anywhere. We won’t be erased’
The University of Texas at Austin is one of the institutions that has consolidated their department this year.
Dr. Danielle Clealand, an associate professor at UT Austin that researches Black politics, told ABC News that there was “shock” among faculty and students when they were notified about the consolidation.
“We were the largest Black Studies department in the nation, so it was devastating,” she said.
“It hurts really bad. I really don’t like that I don’t have a department anymore,” Aidan Keys, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in African and African Diaspora Studies at UT Austin, told ABC News.
In a letter to the campus community obtained by ABC News, UT Austin President Jim Davis announced that the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies would merge into the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.
Other departments, such as Mexican American & Latina/o Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, were also brought under the single academic unit.
The university said it examined several factors to determine which programs should be merged like their size, student-to-faculty ratio and resource allocation.
“The University of Texas at Austin is committed to providing all of our students access to a world-class education,” Davis stated. “How we choose to organize ourselves and allocate the resources we steward impacts this important commitment.”
The announcement came after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s 2023 passage of SB 17, banning public colleges and universities from having DEI offices and offering training or hiring policies based on race, gender and sexual orientation.
A UT Austin spokesperson told ABC News that the bill didn’t apply to their curricula changes.
But Keys said that the university’s decision to merge Black Studies is still politically motivated.
“I think that the [Abbott] administration is trying their hardest to silence us and erase more leftist ideas from the campus,” she said.
According to Harper — the University of Southern California professor — recent cuts to Black studies programs appear to be more prevalent in institutions located in the U.S. Midwest and the South, based on his analysis.
“With the exception of historically Black colleges and universities, and perhaps a handful of other higher education institutions across the country, most predominantly white institutions have chronically failed to demonstrate their care for Black people,” he said.
While students at UT Austin can still major in Black studies, Indiana University Bloomington no longer offers a degree in African American and African Diaspora Studies (AAADS).
Instead, undergraduate and graduate students earn a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a subfield in AAADS.
“We are totally against it,” Professor Jakobi Williams, the chair of the AAADS department, told ABC News regarding the policy, adding that the department is advocating to reverse the degree title change.
“We’re not going anywhere. We won’t be erased,” he added.
The university’s decision to discontinue the AAADS major followed an Indiana state budget mandate — introduced by the Republican majority — requiring public institutions to graduate 15 students in a bachelor’s degree program, seven students in a master’s program and three students in a doctorate program over a three-year period to retain the degree.
Indiana University didn’t respond to ABC News’ request for comment on criticisms regarding the degree title change.
Williams explained that the AAADS department graduates about seven to 10 students annually across all degree programs.
‘What we do is so important’
Proponents of Black studies argue that the discipline is valuable because it encourages students to develop cultural knowledge.
“The nature of our discipline is to speak truth to power and train students and the public at large regarding issues like discrimination and socio-economic relations, especially in the larger African diaspora,” Williams said.
“Black Studies is experiencing a moment where we have to remind students why what we do is so important, not only to their academic experience but also to their training as citizens of this country,” Cleadland, the associate professor at UT Austin, explained.
Harper, the USC professor, said that reductions to these programs can produce significant consequences, especially for non-Black racial groups.
“If we have millions of college-educated white Americans who go into the world not knowing anything about any other population besides white people, they are going to make lots of costly, very embarrassing mistakes,” he said.
Harper also argued that Black studies and other disciplines have been challenged before, yet prevailed.
“Black Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Women’s Studies are incredibly resilient fields that have encountered politicized resistance,” he said. “We have seen and lived through this particular moment before, and those very important academic fields and disciplines survived.”
Exterior view of Plymouth Superior Court during Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial on Aug. 26, 2026, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. (Mel Musto/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Jurors in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy are speaking out after the 12-person group was unable to reach a unanimous verdict, triggering a mistrial in the high-profile case.
In an interview with NBC 10 Boston, which aired Tuesday, the jurors discussed their task of determining a verdict after a weekslong trial which centered around the events of Jan. 24, 2023, when Clancy was accused of strangling her 5-year-old daughter Cora, 3-year-old son Dawson and infant son Callan at the family’s home in Duxbury, a Boston suburb.
Clancy and her attorney, Kevin Reddington, argued that she killed her three children but should not be held criminally responsible for their deaths, because she was experiencing postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings.
Prosecutors argued that Clancy was criminally responsible for the children’s deaths and was capable of understanding the severity of her actions.
Throughout Clancy’s trial, much of the testimony centered on whether or not Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she strangled her children and attempted to take her own life.
“We weren’t trying to figure out if she murdered the children. She did,” said foreperson Roni Carlson. “We’re trying to figure out, ‘Did she know right from wrong at that time?'”
“With everybody saying she loved her children so much, and everything proved she loved her children … she had to have snapped,” Carlson added.
Jury deliberations spanned seven days, eventually yielding an 11-1 split in favor of not guilty by reason of insanity, but the final juror would not relinquish his position in favor of conviction, according to the jurors who spoke out publicly.
“He was very arrogant, he really did not take anything that anybody said,” said Paula Devlin, another juror.
The judge overseeing the trial, Judge William Sullivan, sought to emphasize to jurors during deliberations that it was their duty to determine whether prosecutors had successfully proven Clancy’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard prosecutors must surpass in order to secure a conviction in a criminal case. Sullivan repeated that instruction to the jury multiple times across the seven-day span, but it had little to no impact on the holdout juror, Carlson said.
Carlson alleges that at one point, the holdout juror admitted to having reasonable doubt about Clancy’s guilt but would not change his mind.
“He admitted he had reasonable doubt,” Carlson said. “I started filling out the forms, I was so excited … and then he said, ‘But I’m still not gonna say that she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.'”
Jurors also opened up about the significant impact the evidence in the case had on them, specifically the gut-wrenching 911 call made by Clancy’s then-husband Patrick Clancy, who found his wife after her suicide attempt and discovered his three children in the basement of the home the day of the killings.
“It’s something that I will never not hear, if I think about it,” juror Kellie Farina said. “It was the most horrific thing.”
The jurors also touched on their feelings about each side’s legal representation.
“I just found it to be harsh,” Farina said of the prosecution’s case.
The jurors said they found defense attorney Kevin Reddington both “entertaining” and “arrogant.”
Reddington told ABC News in an interview this week that he could understand why there was so much passion around this case.
“You’ve got three dead children,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of lightning rod emotion on both sides, unbelievable emotion on both sides.”
Reddington ultimately said he believes Clancy should have been acquitted.
“She deserved an acquittal, not because of me, but because the evidence that was there or not there,” he said.
Investigators continue work to determine what caused the crash of an Amazon cargo plane at Miami International Airport on September 07, 2026 in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The National Transportation Safety Board expects to interview the two pilots who were in the cockpit of an Amazon Air cargo plane that overran a runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday, crashing into a van and leaving five people dead.
At a press briefing Tuesday night, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorders, which she said contains two hours of good-quality audio, and the flight data recorder, which she said contains 55 hours’ worth of data.
Investigators have already combed through some of the data, which indicated that the plane was coming in for landing, but that several seconds before the recording ends, throttles increased consistent with a “go-around thrust,” NTSB investigator Chihoon Shin said. A few seconds later, brakes were reapplied and continued to be applied until the end of the recording, but there was no indication that speed brakes or thrust reversers were deployed, he said.
Homendy said the NSTB expected to release a readout of the voice recorder on Wednesday after the pilots had been interviewed.
The cargo plane, Amazon Air Flight 7598 arriving from Puerto Rico, was carrying about 32,000 pounds of mostly contact lenses, Homendy said.
When it overran the runway, the plane hit a Ford Econoline van owned by a company that cleans aircraft, with seven people inside.
The five people who were killed were identified by the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office as: Rolando Aleman Leon, 55; Yoel Rodriguez Narajo, 53; Julio C. Pineda, 75; Carlos Acosta Fajardo, 53; and Javierkys Reyes Quevedo, 47.
The aircraft’s two pilots were treated and have been released from the hospital, according to the sheriff’s office.
(WASHINGTON) — New data shows U.S. students continue to fall behind their peers in reading as the country’s achievement gap widens, according to results from the latest globally recognized international exam.
The 2025 Program for International Assessment, or PISA, found that 15-year-old U.S. students’ reading scores fell 14 points from the last time the test was administered, in 2022. The assessment also found that the achievement gap among U.S. readers in the 90th percentile and the 10th percentile was the largest among any other country included in the report.
The results come as reading scores among U.S. fourth and eighth grade students worsened in 2024, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, dubbed the nation’s report card. The recent plunge has renewed the conversation around the literacy crisis gripping the nation’s education system and the debate over COVID-19 school closures.
The Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES, which administers both tests to American students, releases the PISA results every three years.
Acting NCES Commissioner Matthew Soldner noted in a press release Tuesday that the performance gap between higher and lower end U.S. students is larger today than it was 10 years ago.
Combined with the NAEP — the largest assessment of U.S. students’ performance in public and private schools across all 50 states and the District of Columbia — Kevin Huffman, CEO of education nonprofit Accelerate, told ABC News the PISA results are troubling.
“People should have been concerned for a while about the direction of scores for older kids in this country,” Huffman said.
The international education scores confirm a “decade of stagnation and a devastating gap” for American students, according to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
“This moment is a stress test for our nation’s future,” McMahon wrote in a statement. “To pass it, we must enact a hard reset that stops protecting a failed status quo and instead builds a system that empowers state leaders and embraces innovative learning options through school choice.”
PISA — which is organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD — is the industry standard for ranking students from different countries, according to education experts. More than 700,000 students in roughly 90 education systems worldwide, including more than 30 developed nations in the OECD, participated in 2025.
Huffman, the former Tennessee education commissioner, stressed that the gap for the highest and lowest performing students from the assessments was exacerbated by the interrupted instructional period most U.S. students experienced amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He suggested that the disturbing trend in American education will worsen without accountability at the state level.
“I do worry about the idea that if top performing kids do OK, it decreases the urgency among a group of people who otherwise might be pushing to improve educational performance for all kids,” Huffman said.
Despite the sobering data, U.S. average scores in reading and science were higher than the OECD average in those subjects, according to the PISA results.
According to NCES, only Singapore and parts of China scored higher averages that were “significantly different” than the U.S. in both of those subjects.
The U.S. ranked 13th overall in reading and science but fell outside the top 25 in math (27th). There was no significant change in scores for science and math from 2022 and 2015, which is how PISA calculates short-term and long-term trends.
NTSB investigators examine the wreckage field Monday after a Boeing 767 cargo plane operating as 21 Air LLC Flight 7598 overran the end of runway 30 while landing Sunday at Miami International Airport; Sept. 7, 2026. (National Transportation Safety Board)
(WASHINGTON) — A National Transportation Safety Board investigation is underway after an Amazon Air cargo plane overran a runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday, leaving five people dead and five injured.
Of the five people injured, three remain hospitalized, two of whom are in critical condition and one of whom is in stable condition, Rosie Cordero-Stutz, the Miami-Dade County sheriff, said in a news conference on Tuesday.
The five deceased victims were identified in the news conference as: Rolando Aleman Leon, 55; Yoel Rodriguez Narajo, 53; Julio C. Pineda, 75; Carlos Acosta Fajardo, 53; and Javierk Reyes Quevedo, 47.
The aircraft’s two pilots were treated and have been released from the hospital, according to the sheriff’s office.
At a news conference on Monday, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said the Amazon cargo plane hit a van with seven people inside and an SUV when it overran the runway. The van was inside the airport perimeter and the SUV was outside the perimeter, Homendy said.
All of the people who were killed were in the van at the time of the crash, according to the sheriff’s office.
A team of 32 people is currently on site and will be documenting the scene and collecting “perishable evidence” over the week, Homendy said. She described the scene as “devastating.”
“I would describe it in word one word of devastating, utter devastation,” Homendy said. “I mean, you can see, on the paved surface, tire marks that [continue] through the grass. There’s debris everywhere. The Econoline van is torn apart. It is, you know, certainly must have been devastating.”
Homendy said the flight was arriving from Puerto Rico with two crew members onboard and that it was the third trip for the plane that day, having gone from Cincinnati to Miami to San Juan before heading back to Miami.
The accident occurred at 1:53 p.m. ET when the plane, Amazon Air Flight 7598 — a Boeing 767-33 Alpha operated by 21 Air LLC, based in Miami — overran runway 30.
The aircraft collided with a 2012 white Ford Econoline van with seven people inside. The van was owned by Professional Ocean Service Corp., a company that cleans aircraft, according to the briefing.
The plane then went past the airport perimeter fence and hit a Toyota Corolla Cross LE SUV. Homendy said the plane traveled about 1,300 feet past the paved runway surface. Victims from the crash were limited to the two vehicles the plane struck, Homendy said.
Homendy added that there is fuel everywhere that will need to be remediated as well as fuel that is being removed from the plane.
The aircraft’s flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder were recovered and are being sent to the NTSB Monday evening to be evaluated, according to Homendy.
The NTSB team will look at several factors during their investigation, including crew training, the company’s procedures, air traffic controllers, pilot and controller transmissions, components of the plane and weather conditions, but will not be determining probable cause while at the scene, Homendy said.
“We can only work to prevent the next [accident or tragedy] if our recommendations at the end of an investigation are implemented,” she said. “If we are in the business of repeatedly investigating an accident or tragedy, and our recommendations are not implemented, then we’re here again and again and again.”
Both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Amazon confirmed the incident in separate statements on Sunday evening.
“21 Air Flight 7598 overran the runway after landing at Miami International Airport around 2 p.m. local time on Sunday, Sept. 6. The Boeing 767-300 cargo aircraft departed from Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico,” the FAA statement said.
“Our deepest sympathies remain with the families, loved ones, and all those affected by this devastating tragedy.” Kelly Nantel, a spokesperson for Amazon, said in an updated statement on Tuesday. “We’ll fully cooperate with [NTSB] and support any other investigating authorities and we’ll also continue to coordinate with 21 Air, which operated the flight. Amazon leaders are also meeting with local officials, first responders, and others in the community to offer our support.”
The CEO of 21 Air said in a statement Sunday night the company is “devastated by the accident involving one of our aircraft in Miami today.”
“Our deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives. Our immediate priorities are supporting those affected, assisting the authorities, and ensuring that accurate information is communicated as it becomes available,” the CEO, Keith Winters, said in a statement. “We are cooperating fully with the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, and local authorities. The circumstances of the accident are under investigation.”
“Our hearts and prayers are with every employee and every family whose lives have been forever changed,” Professional Ocean Service Corp. said in a statement. “We grieve with those who lost a loved one and pray for the healing and recovery of those who were injured.”
Preliminary data from Flightradar24 shows the plane’s speed was approximately 128 mph as it went off the runway.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said Sunday that around 200 personnel responded to the incident and worked quickly to both conduct search and rescue and extinguish flames caused by the crash.
“One person was trapped under one of the involved vehicles and had to be extricated by specialized MDFR technical rescue personnel,” the department said in a statement. “Specialized MDFR hazardous materials (HazMat) units safely shut down the aircraft’s engine and worked to mitigate a fuel leak.”
“There were a total of 10 patients, and MDFR transported five patients by ground. Three were transported to a local trauma center. The other two were assessed and transported to local area hospitals,” the statement added.
A ground stop at Miami International Airport was lifted around three hours after the incident, with two of the four runways now reopened, according to officials.
“Our prayers remain with the families of the five individuals who lost their lives as a result of this tragic incident,” Cordero-Stutz said. “We are also praying for those who were injured and wish them a full and speedy recovery.”
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lonnie Bunch speaks during an event at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch is stepping down from his position, the institution said Tuesday, after seven years of leading the world’s largest museum, education and research complex.
“I have fought for as long as I can. I love this country and I love the Smithsonian and I will always work to defend our more perfect Union,” Bunch told ABC News in a statement, confirming his resignation on Tuesday.
Bunch’s resignation comes amid mounting attacks against the Smithsonian from the Trump administration, which has accused Smithsonian leadership of presenting a “radical view” of American history and threatening to withhold federal funds and support.
“It is with very mixed emotions and heartfelt gratitude that I announce my retirement from the Smithsonian,” Bunch said in a statement. “I have spent nearly half of my life working at and being part of the Smithsonian family, and what a privilege it has been. There is no place like the Smithsonian—it has been one of the great loves of my life, and I am extraordinarily proud of what we have accomplished together. I leave with pride and sadness, gratitude and joy, and with enormous confidence in the people who will carry this remarkable institution forward.”
Bunch, who has been a part of the Smithsonian Institution for the past 38 years, was named secretary in June 2019, making him the first African American and first historian to serve in the role. Bunch did not reference the ongoing attacks from the White House in his parting statement.
“It is time for my next chapter, a chapter that will allow me to continue to protect the integrity of the Smithsonian and to champion the importance of a history that illuminates and celebrates the complex story of our nation,” Bunch said. “The Smithsonian has been a reservoir of science, history, art and culture that freely allows the public to find knowledge, understanding, clarity, education, hope and a bit of joy. I will always carry the Smithsonian within me.”
Bunch reflected on his legacy in a July interview with ABC News to mark America’s 250th birthday.
Asked about the White House’s criticism of the Smithsonian, Bunch said, “I think that for me it’s — I’m always open to any criticism, any comments. We want to be in the best institutions we can be.”
He added, “But I feel very strongly that a nation has to understand the totality of its past, the complexity of its past, in order to understand greatness of a nation.”
In July, the White House released a scathing 162-page report accusing the Smithsonian Institution of engaging in “extreme political activism” and presenting “a radical view of American history.”
The report, which was published by the White House Domestic Policy Council, took aim at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), accusing its leadership of adopting “an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.”
The report came amid a review of the Smithsonian that was launched in response to President Donald Trump’s March 27, 2025, executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
The executive order directed Vice President J.D. Vance, in consultation with the president’s advisers on domestic policy, “to remove improper ideology” from Smithsonian institutions, arguing that materials that cast America in a “negative light” have no place in federal cultural institutions.
Amid escalating attacks from the White House, NMAH Director Anthea Hartig became the first Smithsonian official in July to testify on the issue before Congress.
In her testimony, Hartig pushed back against the White House July 4 report, asserting that the museum “does not take sides” in political debates.
“Our work is governed by the Smithsonian standards of scholarship, accuracy, independence, and nonpartisanship,” Hartig said in her opening remarks before a House Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency. “The museum does not take sides in America’s political debates. We preserve and document the evidence of American life in all of its breadth, so that the public can encounter the past and draw their own conclusions.”
Bunch, who met with Trump at the White House last August, has repeatedly affirmed the Smithsonian’s “independence” from political influence.
Referencing his conversations with Trump in a September 2025 letter to the institution’s employees, Bunch underscored the independence of the Smithsonian, saying it was “paramount.” He also told employees that the institution remains committed to telling the “American story” and “will always be, a place that welcomes all Americans and the world.”
The Smithsonian is overseen by a 17-member governing body, known as the Board of Regents.
Franklin D. Raines, chair of the Board of Regents, said board members will announce an acting secretary as they begin a national search for Bunch’s successor.
“I have had the honor of working with Lonnie Bunch for more than two decades, first when he was the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and ultimately when he became the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian,” Raines said in a statement on Tuesday. “I have seen firsthand how Secretary Bunch’s leadership of our 21 museums and the National Zoo has illuminated the nation’s past, opened pathways to new knowledge and powered creativity and innovation.”
ABC News’ Kyra Phillips and John Santucci contributed to this report.
Kevin Reddington appears on “Good Morning America,” Sept. 8, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Lindsay Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington said he is hopeful for an agreement between the defense and the district attorney after Clancy’s trial ended last week in a hung jury.
Reddington also said he hopes President Donald Trump would consider a pardon for his client.
“Mr. President, I would hope that you would consider this young lady and the person she is, what she’s been through, and consider a pardon,” Reddington said Tuesday in an interview on “Good Morning America.”
Clancy pleaded not guilty to three murder charges for the deaths of her 5-year-old daughter Cora, 3-year-old son Dawson and infant son Callan at the family’s home in Duxbury, a Boston suburb, on Jan. 24, 2023.
Clancy’s five-week trial ended in a mistrial on Sept. 4, after a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict following over a week of deliberations.
When asked about the trial on the day the mistrial was declared, the president told reporters that he was following it, saying, “It’s on television so much, it’s hard not to follow it.”
“Look, she did a horrible, horrible thing. Can’t be worse,” he said of Clancy. “But you’ll find out what the price to pay is. There’ll be a price. It’s going to be mental institution or jail or something, but I guess they’re going to go through another trial. It’s too bad.”
When asked for comment on Reddington’s remarks, the White House pointed back to Trump’s comments Friday.
The president has broad authority to issue pardons and commutations, but the power is strictly limited to federal offenses. In her trial, Clancy faced state offenses in being charged with three counts of first-degree murder and was not convicted, therefore she is not eligible for a pardon by the president. Instead, she would need to appeal to state authorities in Massachusetts, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
When it comes to the prospect of beginning a retrial for Clancy, Reddington said he hopes he and Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz are able to come to an agreement.
“He’s a very hard-charging prosecutor, a conservative gentleman,” Reddington said of Cruz. “I hope however after sitting through this trial and seeing the evidence that was presented from the government as well as from the defense, that he would revisit that issue and hopefully would be able to work something out that would be acceptable to both sides.”
In remarks on Sept. 4 after the mistrial was declared, Cruz declined to announce an immediate decision about retrying Clancy.
“I appreciate the fact that there are strong feelings and opinions tied to this case,” Cruz said outside the courthouse. “However, our job is to set aside our feelings and focus solely on the facts. The facts are Lindsay Clancy killed her three children and the evidence suggested to us that she was in control of her actions when she committed those homicides.”
The two sides are scheduled to be in court on Sept. 29 to determine next steps following the mistrial.
Reddington said he was “upset” with the mistrial because of information he said the jury foreperson provided about the lone juror holdout, whom Reddington has said was a male juror.
“He had agreed, according to the note from the forelady, that he had doubt but he would not present the law of reasonable doubt as presented by the judge,” Reddington said. “That’s not right and that’s why I was upset.”
Throughout Clancy’s trial, much of the testimony centered on whether or not Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis — considered a psychiatric emergency, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists — when she strangled her children and attempted to take her own life, and whether she should be held criminally liable for the killings.
Jurors in Massachusetts are instructed that in order to prove a defendant is criminally responsible for their conduct, prosecutors must “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not suffer from a mental disease or defect at the time of the alleged offense,” according to the Massachusetts Court System.
Reddington said that critics who call the so-called insanity defense a rationalization don’t understand what he says Clancy went through.
“These people don’t understand,” he said. “They don’t know what she went through. They didn’t see her text messages. They didn’t see her journal. They didn’t see the notes that she wrote.”
He continued, “She reached out to everybody and anybody that would listen to it and kept saying, ‘I am not good. I am not well,’ and it wasn’t good.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. Free, confidential help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You are not on your own.
A 38-year-old Ohio man was arrested Sunday after allegedly “pushing his way” through a crowd at a fair where Amy Acton, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Ohio, was speaking, according to authorities.
The suspect, identified by police as Patrick Havas, allegedly knocked two people to the ground before being taken into custody, according to the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office.
“After his arrest, two handguns and a set of ‘brass knuckles’ were recovered,” a sheriff’s office spokesperson said in a statement Sunday. “Investigators say no weapons were ever brandished or even removed from their holsters.”
The Ohio State Highway Patrol said in a later statement that Havas was booked at the Mahoning County Jail on charges of disorderly conduct and two counts of assault.
Acton was not harmed, according to the OSHP, members of whom were with Acton at the time as part of her protective unit.
The alleged incident took place at the Canfield Fair in Canfield, Ohio, located near Acton’s hometown of Youngstown, around 60 miles outside of Cleveland.
“Dr. Acton and Eric are grateful for the swift and decisive action of law enforcement and are praying for the recovery of those injured,” Addie Bullock, Acton’s campaign spokesperson, said in a statement Sunday, referring to Acton’s husband. “This kind of violence has no place in Ohio. Dr. Acton will always stand up to the chaos, hate and vitriol that pits us against one another.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement earlier Sunday that the alleged incident occurred when a “man tried to forcefully push himself toward Dr. Acton as she was speaking and injured other attendees at the Mahoning County Democrat booth.”
“Violence or the threat of violence at political or public events is always unacceptable,” DeWine said in a statement on social media Sunday, adding that he and his wife spoke with Acton and “she said to share with Ohioans that she is ok.”
“This case is now in the hands of law enforcement and will be investigated thoroughly,” DeWine said.
Acton previously served under DeWine when he appointed her as director of the Ohio Department of Health in 2019.
She is now running for governor in the November general election against Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy, whose campaign also issued a statement Sunday.
“Candidates should be able to meet with voters without having to worry about threats or violence,” Ramaswamy’s communications director Connie Luck said in a statement. “What happened today is completely unacceptable and has no place in politics, and we hope that no one was hurt.”
Ramaswamy was also scheduled to appear at the Canfield Fair Sunday afternoon. His campaign did not immediately respond to questions from ABC News about whether the event took place.
A cargo plane from Puerto Rico overran a runway at Miami International Airport Sunday afternoon, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“21 Air Flight 7598 overran the runway after landing at Miami International Airport around 2 p.m. local time on Sunday, Sept. 6. The Boeing 767-300 cargo aircraft departed from Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico,” the FAA statement said.
Air traffic control recordings from LiveATC.com state that the aircraft ran off the end of the runway and may have also struck a vehicle on a perimeter road.
“At approximately 2 p.m. today, Prime Air flight 7598 overran Miami International Airport’s diagonal runway and is disabled at the northwest end of the airport,” according to a statement issued by Miami International Airport.
“All runways and taxiways at MIA are currently closed as of 3:00 p.m. and a ground stop is in effect. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue (MDFR) has responded,” the airport statement further said.
“Over 60 Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units are on scene of an incident involving a plane that overran a runway and struck multiple vehicles near Miami International Airport,” according to a post on X from Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. “Units arrived to find an airplane that had caught on fire as a result of this crash, with heavy flames and smoke showing. Firefighters are working on extinguishing the fire and assessing patients.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
