(HOUSTON) — A helicopter that crashed into a radio tower in Houston, Texas, Sunday left four people killed, including a child, officials said.
The crash happened at approximately 7:54 p.m. local time, when a private aircraft struck a radio tower in Houston’s Second Ward, Houston police said in a press conference Sunday night.
All four of the individuals killed were aboard the helicopter and no one on the ground was injured in the crash, officials said.
No residences and structures were impacted except for the radio tower, police said, but noted the fire that erupted from the crash spanned two to three blocks.
The location of the crash was cited as the intersection of Engelke Street and N. Ennis Street, just five minutes away from Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros.
Houston Fire Department officials extinguished the fire after the crash.
The crash is being investigated by Houston authorities, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration.
(NEW YORK) — Rick Singer, the man convicted of orchestrating the so-called “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal, has continued to advise prospective undergraduates on their college applications while serving his sentence in federal prison in Florida, and now from a California halfway house.
Singer, 64, a one-time college admissions consultant who pleaded guilty in 2019 to facilitating bribes between wealthy parents and elite universities in exchange for their children’s enrollment, told ABC News that he began to counsel students — pro bono — after he was sentenced last year.
Then, this past admissions season, while he was at a federal prison camp in Pensacola, Florida, Singer said, “The coolest thing ever happened.”
“I had a young man send me an email saying, ‘Could you help me with my applications and tell me if I could get into these schools?'” Singer told ABC News during a sit-down interview.
The applicant sent Singer his high school transcript and a list of his credentials. Singer, whose advice was once sought by higher-powered executives and Hollywood actors, wrote back, offering a few pointers. The student was accepted to his top school in March, Singer said.
This summer, Singer launched a new venture called ID Future Stars, a consulting business that boasts an 80% to 96% acceptance rate into first-choice schools. According to the site, “Our success speaks for itself.”
But his return to the college admissions world could be a challenge. Singer’s reputation unraveled after he pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction of justice charges in the decades-long scheme that federal investigators dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues.”
Federal prosecutors in Boston said Singer facilitated $25 million changing hands from families to college administrators and athletic coaches, who would dole out spots on their rosters to fulfill their fundraising goals. Singer transferred, spent or otherwise used more than $15 million for his own benefit, they said.
“Everything that the U.S. attorney said, and the FBI said, and everybody else said that I did do, I did it,” Singer told ABC.
Yet even four years later, Singer said the conspiracy amounted to a “victimless crime.”
News of the admissions scandal broke in 2019, when Andrew Lelling, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, announced the charges against Singer and over 50 others, including college coaches, testing administrators and actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.
The charges led to about 50 convictions and became the subject of at least four books, a Lifetime movie and a Netflix documentary.
In January 2023, a judge sentenced Singer to 42 months in federal prison. This August, he was released to a halfway house near Los Angeles.
For years, Singer said, he had operated a lucrative and legitimate college consulting business. But that changed around 2011, when he realized he could not push some clients through what he called the “front door.” He had become close with the students and their families, and wanted to do whatever he could to help them, so he developed a new admissions scheme: the “side door.”
While Singer said that a majority of his consulting has always been legitimate, he explained that the new scheme began with one student and soon expanded.
“There was a young man who was super talented, worked his tail off,” Singer said. But the student would always perform poorly on practice SAT or ACT exams.
So he found a way to get the student’s application to the top of the pile: He began to bribe standardized testing proctors to turn a blind eye to permit cheating on the exams, prosecutors said.
I knew “it was wrong, and I did it anyways,” Singer said. “What’s 10, 12, 13 kids who are good students, quality people, and this one score may screw them out of an opportunity to go to a decent school? I rationalized that to myself.”
Soon after, the stakes grew. Singer was well-known in the world of higher education, and he said presidents of several prestigious universities had contacted him, hoping his clients would donate millions of dollars to their schools.
He said that he began to set up meetings between the presidents and parents to discuss their children enrolling in the university. “The negotiations would go from whether the school was a good fit for the student to, ‘What does the president need? What does the family need? Would there be a chit involved?'” he said, referring to a monetary favor.
Singer, a former basketball coach, said he was sympathetic to coaches and the pressure they faced to fundraise ahead of their sports seasons. So he said that he began to set up similar meetings between them and his clients. At times, he faked the students’ athletic credentials to push their applications through.
“First I went to three, four coaches. Then the word got out to all the coaches, and coaches started calling me every year,” Singer said.
“If they needed to raise $250,000 or $500,000 for the program, they would call me and say, ‘Hey, I have a spot. Do you have a family that would like to come here?'” he said.
When asked if he thought his scheme may have prevented legitimate recruits from earning their way on a collegiate team, Singer said: “All I’m doing is being the facilitator and providing the coach this choice.”
On March 12, 2019, the day he was charged, Singer said he left John Joseph Moakley Courthouse in Boston and looked down at his phone.
He said he had received 93 text messages in less than an hour. Most, Singer said, were from clients looking for above-board advice and wondering whether he would still be able to meet with them for a consultation.
(NEW YORK) — The contentious debate surrounding New York City’s struggle to address homelessness and mental illness has clouded the memory of who Jordan Neely was.
But to some who cared for him, Neely is remembered for breaking out into dance and singing along with the hits on the radio as a joyous child.
He’s remembered as a teen who struggled to cope with the loss of his best friend — his mother — who was violently murdered.
He’s remembered for entertaining commuters, tourists, and locals alike with moonwalks and side glides that rivaled Michael Jackson on the NYC subways.
Neely’s family had imagined a great future ahead for him: “I said, ‘Jordan, one day you might be famous,” Neely’s great aunt Mildred Mahazu told ABC News. “And he said, ‘Really, Aunt Mildred?'”
But by the age of 30, Neely was homeless and appeared to be experiencing a mental illness crisis when he was killed after a subway passenger named Daniel Penny held him in a six-minute-long chokehold, officials said.
Penny, a former Marine, was charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in Neely’s death. He pleaded not guilty, arguing that Neely had been threatening to passengers on the train. Other witnesses reportedly told police that Neely had been yelling and harassing passengers. Penny’s trial begins on Oct. 21 with jury selection.
Neely’s death sparked citywide protests, demanding answers about city resources after reports showed dozens of interactions between Neely and both police and homeless services in the years leading up to his death.
Two of Neely’s loved ones reflected on the life and death in interviews with ABC News ahead of Penny’s trial.
Neely’s life
Neely’s childhood was rocky, according to Mahazu. He and his mother, Christie Neely, were housing insecure — sometimes living in homeless shelters — and his mother’s tumultuous relationship with her boyfriend filled some days with arguments. But amid the instability, Neely’s relationship with his mother blossomed.
The two were inseparable. Everywhere Christie went, Neely followed: “You see one, you see the other,” Mahazu said.
Before heading off to school each morning, Neely would knock at his mother’s door, wake her up and tell her goodbye.
On April 3, 2007, then-14-year-old Neely tried to go about his routine and say goodbye to his mother before school, but her boyfriend, Shawn Southerland, had blocked him from entering their bedroom, according to local news outlet NJ.com.
It was later discovered that Christie had been violently murdered at the hands of now-convicted-murderer Southerland and he dumped her body in a suitcase on a Bronx parkway, according to local reports.
Mahazu believes the tragedy changed the trajectory of Neely’s life. He was a teen, heartbroken and unable to grasp the loss.
Mahazu said she would catch Neely sitting with a far-off look in his eye, sometimes rocking side to side. She’d ask him what was wrong and recalled him once saying, “I miss my mama. I want my mama.”
“They loved each other dearly. They were crazy about each other,” Mahazu said. “From there on, he started going down, down, down, because he and his mother were extremely close, very close,” Mahazu said.
In the years after her death, Neely found solace in his love of dancing and made the NYC MTA subway system his stage, busking for money as a Michael Jackson impersonator.
New Yorker Moses Harper first remembers meeting Neely in August 2009, when she followed the sound of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits in the halls of the Times Square subway station.
Harper, a Michael Jackson tribute artist herself, remembers finding Neely mid-performance, surrounded by a crowd of tourists clapping to the rhythm and following Neely’s encouragement to dance alongside him.
Neely spotted and called on Harper, who was watching from the back of the crowd: “Show me something. Come on. Don’t be scared,” Harper recalls that he yelled out to her. Armed with a single glove in her back pocket on her way home from her dance studio, she surprised Neely with Jackson moves of her own.
“When it was all over, I gave him his hat back and he hugged me. He’s like, ‘You got to teach me, you got to show me.’ And I did,” said Harper.
It was the beginning of a friendship that would last years: “We wouldn’t just talk about Michael Jackson and dancing. We talked about other things, you know, and I missed that. I missed that. That was my little brother.”
She remembers when Neely first told her about his mother: “What was the one person in the world that really got him. And I had never seen him that sad.”
During those years, it was hard for Mahazu to keep track of him riding through the subway system. But he’d come and visit her often, and she’d fix up a big country dinner, and they’d sit and talk over their meal.
Homelessness and mental illness in New York One day, when Harper was riding the D train into the Bronx, she spotted Neely walking through the train cars. She recalled him looking noticeably homeless and asking for food or money.
She said his face lit up when he saw her, but he kept walking past, which Harper speculates was because of embarrassment. Harper said she stopped him, escorted him off the train, hugged him and asked him what was going on.
She bought him Chinese food, and something to drink, gave him cash and one of the shirts she had layered on.
“I said, ‘Listen to me: When you’re ready to get clean, this is where I am. Come and see me. I want you to come see me,'” she said. “It wasn’t what he needed at the time. And it just wasn’t. It just wasn’t enough. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
A community of Michael Jackson fans and tribute artists in NYC continued to search for Neely over the years after he stopped arriving at events and meetups. But local health officials and law enforcement said they knew him well.
According to police sources, Neely had a documented mental health history and had been previously arrested for several incidents, including assault, disorderly conduct and fare evasion.
The New York Times reported that Neely was on a list of the top 50 sheltered or homeless “high need individuals” to be reached by NYC outreach workers at the time of his death. According to New York Magazine, he bounced around shelters that have been criticized for their poor conditions and had also been hospitalized several times.
The Department of Social Services, the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene and the NYPD declined to comment further on Neely’s case and why the efforts to contact or address Neely’s needs did not work.
Those who knew Neely have demanded answers.
“If you had had the background that Jordan nearly had, how would you fare in life? Where would you be? Where would your mental state be if you had the same kind of struggles that he had?” Harper said. “How would you be doing right now? Do you think that you would deserve the same? The same treatment that he received on the last day of his life? “
The Adams administration criticized “the system” Jordan went through: “That was a real textbook case of how if you ignore the problem over and over and over again, it could turn out to be a tragic outcome.”
Adams condemned Neely’s killing in the days following the death: “Jordan Neely did not deserve to die,” Adams said in prepared remarks amid growing calls for Penny’s arrest. He was not immediately arrested following Neely’s death.
“Jordan Neely’s life mattered. He was suffering from severe mental illness, but that was not the cause of his death. His death is a tragedy that never should have happened,” the mayor said, referring to Neely as “a Black man like me.”
In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression, according to city officials.
Neely’s death took place following an announcement from New York City Mayor Eric Adams that individuals who appear “to be mentally ill” and “a danger to themselves” may be taken into custody involuntarily for psychiatric evaluations if they may be of harm, even if they are not considered to be an imminent threat to the public. The city has yet to release data about the outcomes of these programs and their effectiveness.
However, in a recent Department of Homeless Services announcement, city officials say 7,800 New Yorkers have been connected to shelter and 640 of them have been connected to permanent affordable housing since the city began an intensified approach to homelessness.
“They failed Jordan, they fail so many of the vulnerable members of a vulnerable population,” said Harper, calling for systemic reforms to fix the criminal justice and health care systems.
(LOUISVILLE, KY) — Opening statements are set to begin Monday in the federal retrial of Brett Hankison, a former Louisville police officer accused of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend and their neighbors in 2020, when Taylor was shot and killed in a botched police raid.
The initial trial ended in a mistrial last year when the jury reached an impasse because they were not able to reach a unanimous decision.
Hankison was charged in a two-count indictment in August 2022 for deprivation of rights under color of law, both of which are civil rights offenses. According to court documents, he was charged with willfully depriving Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, of their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures, which includes the right to be free from a police officer’s use of unreasonable force during a seizure.
According to court transcripts, he was also charged with willfully depriving Taylor’s three neighbors of their right to be free from the deprivation of liberty without due process of law, which includes the right to be free from a police officer’s use of unjustified force that shocks the conscience.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The trial marks the third trial for Hankison, following the initial mistrial as well as a state trial in 2022, in which he was acquitted of multiple wanton endangerment charges.
U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Jennings last week granted the prosecution’s motion to exclude references to Hankison’s prior court proceedings in the retrial, according to WHAS, the ABC affiliate in Louisville covering the case in the courtroom.
The judge denied the prosecution’s request to introduce evidence of his prior alleged wrongdoing while employed as a Louisville police officer, according to WHAS.
Hankison was one of three officers involved in the raid.
The plainclothes officers were serving a warrant searching for Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, who they alleged was dealing drugs. He was not at the residence, but her current boyfriend, Walker, thought someone was breaking into the home and fired one shot from a 9 mm pistol at the officers.
The three officers opened fire, shooting 32 bullets into the apartment, several of which struck Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who was in bed at the time.
Hankison fired 10 rounds, none of which hit anyone. He was fired for violating department procedure when he “wantonly and blindly” fired into the apartment. Several of the rounds entered a neighboring apartment where a man, child and pregnant woman were living, according to prosecutors. The neighbors — Cody Etherton, Chelsey Napper, and her son, Zayden — were all sleeping at the time of the shooting, prosecutors said.
The other two officers involved in the raid, Myles Cosgrove and Jonathan Mattingly, were not charged in the incident. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron called Taylor’s death a “tragedy” but said the two officers were justified in their use of force after having been fired upon by Walker.
Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The trial of Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran charged in the May 2023 choking death of a homeless man in a New York City subway car, is set to begin Monday with jury selection.
The trial is expected to last between four and six weeks, according to Judge Max Wiley.
Penny, 25, has pleaded not guilty to the charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in connection with Jordan Neely’s death.
Wiley denied Penny’s bid to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter case in January.
Penny put Neely, 30, in a fatal chokehold “that lasted approximately 6 minutes and continued well past the point at which Mr. Neely had stopped purposeful movement,” prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have said.
Penny’s attorneys have said that they were “saddened at the loss of human life” but that Penny saw “a genuine threat and took action to protect the lives of others,” arguing that Neely was “insanely threatening” to passengers aboard the F train in Manhattan.
Witness accounts differ on Neely’s behavior in the train, prosecutors say.
They note that many witnesses relayed that Neely expressed that he was homeless, hungry and thirsty, and most of the witnesses recount that Neely indicated a willingness to go to jail or prison.
Some witnesses report that Neely threatened to hurt people on the train, while others did not report hearing those threats.
Some witnesses told police that Neely was yelling and harassing passengers on the train; however, others have said though Neely had exhibited erratic behavior, he had not been threatening anyone in particular and had not become violent.
Some passengers on the train that day said they didn’t feel threatened — one “wasn’t really worried about what was going on” and another called it “like another day typically in New York. That’s what I’m used to seeing. I wasn’t really looking at it if I was going to be threatened or anything to that nature, but it was a little different because, you know, you don’t really hear anybody saying anything like that,” according to court filings by the prosecution.
Other passengers described their fear in court filings. One passenger said they “have encountered many things, but nothing that put fear into me like that.” Another said Neely was making “half-lunge movements” and coming within a “half a foot of people.”
Neely, who was homeless at the time of his death, had a documented mental health history and a history of arrests, including alleged instances of disorderly conduct, fare evasion and assault, according to police sources.
Less than 30 seconds after Penny allegedly put Neely into a chokehold, the train arrived at the Broadway-Lafayette Station: “Passengers who had felt fearful on account of being trapped on the train were now free to exit the train. The defendant continued holding Mr. Neely around the neck,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass in a court filing against Penny’s dismissal request. Wiley denied all motions to suppress evidence on Oct. 4.
Footage of the interaction, which began about 2 minutes after the incident started, captures Penny holding Neely for about 4 minutes and 57 seconds on a relatively empty train with a couple of male passengers nearby.
Prosecutors said that about 3 minutes and 10 seconds into the video, Neely ceases all purposeful movement.
“After that moment, Mr. Neely’s movements are best described as ‘twitching and the kind of agonal movement that you see around death,'” the prosecutor said.
The defense argued Penny had no intent to kill, but Steinglass noted that the second-degree manslaughter charge only requires prosecutors to prove Penny acted recklessly, not intentionally.
“We are confident that a jury, aware of Danny’s actions in putting aside his own safety to protect the lives of his fellow riders, will deliver a just verdict,” said Penny’s lawyers, Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff, after Penny’s request to dismiss the charge was denied.
“Danny is grateful for the continued prayers and support through this difficult process.”
Penny has raised more than $3 million for his legal defense fund ahead of the trial.
(ROSWELL, NM) — Roswell, New Mexico, experienced an overnight “Flash Flood Emergency” on Saturday, the National Weather Service reported — the highest tier of flash flood warning.
Between 4 and 9 inches of rain fell in parts of the state, prompting the NWS to declare a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” alert — a warning issued when a Flash Flood Emergency occurs in an area of significant population.
The NWS issued a flood warning for east central, northeast, and southeast New Mexico through to the early hours of Monday. A flash flood watch remains in effect for eastern New Mexico through Sunday night.
Additional rain is expected through Sunday, falling on ground already saturated by Saturday’s downpours and thus raising the risk of further flash flooding.
Roswell was inundated with an all-time record daily rainfall of 5.78 inches — higher than the previous record of 5.65 inches set on Nov. 1, 1901.
Emergency services reported that numerous rescues were ongoing throughout the Roswell area, with water entering homes and cutting off numerous roads.
The Chaves County Sheriff’s Office shared an emergency alert on its Facebook page warning of “an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation.”
The Sheriff’s Office later shared videos of people being brought to safety through floodwaters and of roads being cut off by rising water.
The Spring River in the Cahoon area rose rapidly, stranding several vehicles under bridges along the river.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Documents purported to show classified U.S. intelligence gathering on Israel’s preparations for a potential retaliatory strike on Iran appeared on social media platforms this week. It is unclear what impact the potential leak may have on any Israeli military planning for a possible strike on Iran, or Israeli-American relations.
U.S. officials declined to provide comment when contacted by ABC News about the possible leak of highly-sensitive material.
ABC News could not independently verify the authenticity of the documents, which appear to show specific details about the types and number of munitions that Israel may be readying for a potentially large-scale strike on Iran in retaliation for the regime’s late September barrage of almost 200 ballistic missiles aimed at Israel.
The documents posted on social media have markings that would indicate that they originated from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the U.S. agency that collects, analyzes and distributes intelligence gleaned from satellite and aerial imagery. ABC News is not quoting directly from or showing the documents.
Analysis of overhead satellite imagery is just one of multiple intelligence collection tools that the U.S. intelligence community uses to make strategic assessments or risk evaluations.
“We are looking into these reports,” a senior U.S. defense official told ABC News when asked about the purported intelligence documents.
The Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation and a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all declined to provide any comment when contacted by ABC News.
If the posts prove authentic, it would signify a major intelligence breach, one reminiscent of the massive leak discovered last year after hundreds of classified documents were shared on the Discord social media platform.
Earlier this year U.S. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira pleaded guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information relating to the Discord leaks.
Axios first reported on the leaked documents.
“If it is true that Israel tactical plans to respond to Iran’s attack on October 1st have been leaked, it is a serious breach,” said Mick Mulroy, an ABC News national security and defense contributor, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East.
“Everyone that has access to this information has an obligation to keep it secure,” said Mulroy. “The men and women of the IDF that would carry out this mission could be compromised because of this, the future coordination between the U.S. and Israel could be challenged as well.”
“Trust is a key component in the relationship and depending on how this was leaked that trust could be eroded,” he added.
Libby Bush/Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community
(ASHEVILLE, NC) — More than three weeks ago, Hurricane Helene knocked out the power and running water at James Greene’s nursing home in Asheville, North Carolina.
Today, Greene, 84, and his fellow residents at Brooks-Howell Home still do not have regular access to safe, running water for their daily activities.
“For two weeks we’ve been unable to shower or wash hands,” Greene wrote in a letter to family and friends, which was shared with ABC News. “Maintaining hygiene with hand sanitizers is a constant must.”
“Another example is having to pour a bucket of water into the tank of the toilet in order to flush. And keep in mind that our residents are old and not used to such physical activity,” wrote Greene.
Greene’s nursing home is not the only one in North Carolina affected by the ongoing water crisis in Asheville. While bottled water is adequate for cooking and drinking, the lack of municipal running water places severe restrictions on activities like handwashing, showering and laundry.
In nursing homes particularly, infections can travel quickly, making access to clean running water an even more urgent necessity.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), floodwater from hurricanes can contaminate local water sources with “germs, dangerous chemicals, human and livestock waste” and other contaminants that can cause disease.
On Oct. 16, the City of Asheville Water Resource Department issued a Boil Water Notice for all water customers that is still in effect, meaning “there is contamination due to impacts from Hurricane Helene including the potential for untreated water in the distribution system,” according to the notice.
The elderly are particularly at risk of infection due to many factors, including reduced immunity, existing chronic illness, and exposure to pathogens in hospitals and nursing homes.
Kimberly Smith is the vice president of operations for Ascent Healthcare Management, a company that runs six retirement facilities in Western North Carolina. As of Oct. 18, three of the company’s Asheville locations still do not have running water, Smith told ABC News.
Even after running water returns, Smith said that she anticipates her facilities will be under the Boil Water Notice for quite some time.
Libby Bush, president and CEO of Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community, located in Asheville, said her facility is also currently under the Boil Water Notice.
“It has been challenging to keep up with the current and most accurate information,” she told ABC News.
Greene said he and other nursing home residents are deeply appreciative of the nursing home staff and government assistance in the wake of Hurricane Helene. While he now understands the scale of Helene’s destruction, Greene said in his letter that his initial days during and immediately after the storm were spent in seclusion, with the initial lack of internet, landline, and cell phone service contributing to “an utter sense of isolation.”
“The fact that no [one] called in, or could call out, made it worse,” he told ABC News.
Smith added that many nursing home residents suffered “an emotional toll” because they weren’t able to get in touch with their families.
Phone and internet services have been largely restored, Smith and Bush separately told ABC News.
Smith is also grateful for the shower trailers, portable toilets, hand washing stations and extra generators provided by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the state’s Office of Emergency Medical Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
They brought “a lot of things that we tried to get on our own and couldn’t,” Smith said. “All the regulatory people have kind of come together to help the nursing homes.”
Still, there’s a long road to recovery ahead for senior care facilities in Asheville.
Greene visited a Red Cross/FEMA disaster assistance center in Asheville and was impressed by the resources provided.
“It distresses me and others to see the negative reporting on FEMA and the Red Cross,” he said.
“The senior citizens here, many of them retired deaconesses and missionaries, dealt well with the hardship conditions,” Greene added of his fellow nursing home residents. “No doubt we are a bit traumatized, but God was good to us.”
Sejal Parekh, M.D. is a board-certified practicing pediatrician and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — Another dazzling display of the wonders of outer space will be visible from Earth in the coming days.
The annual Orionid meteor shower, which originates from Halley’s Comet, is expected light up the night sky starting this weekend.
Considered by NASA as “one of the most beautiful showers of the year,” the Orionids are the latest astronomical event this month, which already has included a strong solar storm that led to widespread northern lights, the Tsuchinshan-Atlas comet, and the brightest supermoon of the year.
“There’s been a lot of great celestial events this year alone,” Shawn Dahl, coordinator for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, told ABC News, describing them as “a lot of glorious things to see in the sky.”
The Orionid meteor shower is produced every year when Earth passes through the debris – composed of ice and dust – left behind by Halley’s Comet, according to NASA.
When the debris trail intersects Earth’s atmosphere, the debris disintegrates and creates streaks in the sky, according to NASA.
The intensity of the peak activity tends to vary, but they are “much higher than usual” this year, Elizabeth Macdonald, a space physicist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told ABC News.
In a normal year, the Orionids produce 10 to 20 showers per hour, but during exceptional years, such as 2006 to 2009, the peak rates were on par with the Perseids, at about 50 to 75 per hour, according to the American Meteorological Society (AMS).
The Orionids can be seen from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres without a telescope, according to NASA. In the Northern Hemisphere, face southeast, and if in the Southern hemisphere, face northeast.
However, the light from the supermoon, which began to wane on Friday, is expected to limit a lot of visibility, Macdonald said.
“The moon is going to bleach out a lot of meteors,” she said.
But even with the full moon, “relatively bright” meteors from Orionid tend to streak across the sky, said Dahl, who does backyard astronomy as a hobby.
Traveling to the darkest spot possible will likely increase the chances of seeing the shower, Macdonald said. It is also important for stargazers to keep their eyes dark-adapted in order to see the meteors, which includes avoiding constant interaction with the bright screen of a cell phone, Dahl said.
“In less than 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors,” NASA advised. “Be patient – the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.”
Awareness of the direction to look toward is important as well, Dahl said. The meteors tend to be “pointing back” as they’re streaking through the sky, so looking toward the radiant in the sky – that is, the point where the paths of meteors appear to meet – will increase the chances of seeing them, Dahl said.
“You have to be kind of know the general area of the sky to look,” Dahl said. “That’s why [meteors] have a name.”
The radiant of meteors is the constellation from which they appear to originate, according to NASA. For the Orionids, the radiant is the constellation Orion.
But it is not necessary to only look toward the radiant, as the Orionids are visible across the night sky, according to NASA, which advised viewing the Orionids from 45 to 90 degrees away from the radiant.
The Orionids tend to peak during mid-October every year, according to NASA, with the hours after midnight typically the best viewing times.
The meteor shower is expected to peak on Sunday and Monday, at which point the moon will be 83% full, according to the AMS.
The best time to see the meteor shower will probably be Monday night, once the supermoon has waned, Macdonald said.
(RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA) — The foster parents who took in several of the Turpin children after they were rescued from their home of abuse in 2018 were sentenced on child abuse charges Friday.
Marcelino Olguin was sentenced to seven years in state prison and was taken away in handcuffs after his sentencing was read in court in Riverside County, California.
His wife, Rosa Olguin, and their daughter, Lennys Olguin, were sentenced to four years each of probation. They cried during the sentencing.
The judge ordered that the defendants not make contact with the nine victims, which included several of the Turpin siblings.
None of the victims or their attorneys were in court for the sentencing.
A victim impact statement from one of the victims, identified by the initials JT, was read aloud in court during the sentencing hearing.
“All I wanted was to finally have a loving family and recover from my trauma but unfortunately I did not receive that,” the statement read in part.
Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin, whose office prosecuted the case, said the sentencing “marks a significant step in delivering justice to the victims who endured unimaginable abuse.”
“These children were placed in a position of vulnerability after surviving intense trauma, only to be further exploited by someone who was entrusted with their care,” he said in a statement. “We are committed to holding accountable those who prey on innocent children. Our office remains steadfast in pursuing justice for all victims of abuse and ensuring that those who violate the trust placed in them are held accountable.”
The three foster parents pleaded guilty last month to child endangerment and false imprisonment. Marcelino Olguin was the only one charged with three counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14.
The three foster parents were arrested in 2021 and initially pleaded not guilty.
The six youngest Turpin children were placed with the Olguin family at various times beginning in 2018, a lawyer for one of the Olguins previously told ABC News. Four were still living there at the time of the arrests, according to the attorney.
Six Turpin siblings filed a lawsuit in 2022 against Riverside County and ChildNet, the private foster care agency tasked with protecting them, alleging they suffered “severe abuse and neglect” for years in the care of the foster family.
Elan Zektser and Roger Booth, legal representatives for the Turpin family victims, said they plan to hold a press conference on Monday to address the sentencing as well as where the civil case stands.
“This press event comes at a pivotal moment, as the public has awaited further details on both the criminal outcomes and the civil action involving the County’s oversight of the foster care system,” a press release from the attorneys stated.
A spokesperson for Riverside County told ABC News after the civil complaint was filed that it does not comment on pending legal matters or specific juvenile cases due to confidentiality laws.
A ChildNet spokesperson also told ABC News at the time that the organization was unable to disclose facts or discuss the allegations in the complaint.
A 2022 report issued by outside investigators hired by Riverside County found that the 13 Turpin siblings had been “failed” by the social services system that was supposed to care for them and help transition them into society.
“Some of the younger Turpin children were placed with caregivers who were later charged with child abuse,” the 630-page report found. “Some of the older siblings experienced periods of housing instability and food insecurity as they transitioned to independence.”
In response to the report upon its release, Riverside County Supervisor Karen Spiegel said in a statement, “This is the time to act and I will support all efforts to meet the challenge.”
The Turpin case garnered national attention following the children’s rescue from captivity in their parents’ Perris, California, home in January 2018.
The 13 Turpin siblings were rescued after Jordan Turpin, then 17, executed a daring escape in the middle of the night and called 911. Authorities subsequently discovered that their parents had subjected the siblings, who ranged in age from 2 to 29 at the time, to brutal violence and deprived them of food, sleep, hygiene, education and health care.
Their parents, David and Louise Turpin, pleaded guilty to 14 felony counts in 2019 and were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
