Chinese hacking effort is far more pervasive than previously reported, sources say

(WASHINGTON) — Over 100 years after a white mob attacked a then-thriving Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Department of Justice announced the first-ever federal probe into the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

The attack on the Greenwood neighborhood, often referred to as “Black Wall Street,” left up to 300 people killed and homes and businesses in ruin.

Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights who announced the review in a statement Monday, referred to the massacre as “one of the deadliest episodes of mass racial violence in this nation’s history.”

The DOJ’s announcement comes after the Oklahoma Supreme Court in June dismissed a reparations case filed by survivors of the massacre without going to trial.

The federal review is being conducted by the Civil Rights Division’s Cold Case Unit, which is investigating the crimes under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

In July, survivors Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, and Viola Ford Fletcher, 110, made a plea to the Biden administration to invoke the 2007 Act, which allows for cold cases of violent crimes against Black people committed before 1970 to be reopened and investigated.

Damario Solomon-Simmons, lead attorney for the Tulsa Race Massacre Survivors, celebrated the decision in a press conference Monday.

“I’m so excited to announce that this morning, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Kristen Clarke announced that the United States Federal Government Department of Justice will open a review and evaluation of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre,” Solomon-Simmons said.

“It is about time! It only took 103 years,” he added.

Solomon-Simmons said that this decision is credited to the multiple meetings with the Department of Justice, both in Washington D.C. and on Zoom, and the continuous fight of the community.

“This community would never stop fighting for reparations. This community would never forget what happened to our people, just for being black, just for being successful,” Solomon-Simmons said.

“So we are excited today. This has been a difficult journey, a lot of obstacles, a lot of odds, a lot of opposition, but today we have a victory,” he added.

Tiffany Crutcher, a descendant of a survivor of the massacre and founder and executive director of the Terence Crutcher Foundation, said the massacre has been “ignored for far too long.”

“Today, my family and community are deeply grateful that the U.S. Department of Justice is finally preparing to review the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. This tragedy has been ignored for far too long,” Crutcher said during the press conference.

“I leave you with this quote from my mentor, our mentor, Bryan Stevenson, this community will continue to stand on hope, and hope is what will get you to stand up when people tell you to sit down, and today, we continue to stand,” she said.

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(NEW YORK) — The owner of a day care where a 1-year-old boy died of fentanyl poisoning and three other children were sickened pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges, resolving a case that horrified New York City and underscored the scourge of the nation’s fentanyl epidemic.

Grei Mendez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death and serious bodily injury, one count of possession with intent to distribute narcotics resulting in death and one count of possession with intent to distribute narcotics resulting in serious bodily injury. The three counts carry a minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison.

Prosecutors said the children were poisoned because Mendez, her husband and a co-conspirator chose to operate a large-scale fentanyl packaging and distribution facility inside her day care, which she ran out of a small apartment in the Bronx.

On the afternoon of Sept. 15, 2023, when 1-year-old Nicholas Dominici and another child became unresponsive, prosecutors said Mendez placed a series of phone calls: first to the community center that had referred the children to the day care, then to her husband, and then 911.

Moments after Mendez called 911, but before emergency personnel arrived, prosecutors said her husband was seen on surveillance camera rushing through the front door and then leaving out of the back of the building with two heavy bags.

Nicholas died from the fentanyl and three other children — ranging in age from 8 months to 2 years — were hospitalized and treated with Narcan, police said.

At the day care, authorities discovered a one-kilogram brick of fentanyl, two kilo press machines and two trap doors that revealed concealed compartments under the floor tiles of the playroom, authorities said.

Inside the traps were more than 11 kilograms of drugs, including fentanyl and heroin, as well as tools used to brand, package, distribute and traffic narcotics, the indictment said.

Federal prosecutors said they have surveillance footage and a voice message in which Mendez said that running a day care is not her “thing” in order to prove that the facility was a front for the narcotics operation.

“Grei Mendez has just admitted she conspired to maintain and distribute large quantities of dangerously toxic fentanyl in a Bronx Daycare center, a place where parents expected their children would be protected and safe,” Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement Tuesday.

“This case has shown the senseless collateral damage caused by the fentanyl epidemic, and should remind us all that the demand for illegal narcotics so often puts innocent bystanders at risk while drug traffickers ruthlessly pursue profits,” Williams added.

Earlier this month, Mendez’s husband, Felix Herrera Garcia, was sentenced to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal drug charges. The third co-conspirator has also pleaded guilty.

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(MARCO ISLAND, Fla.) — Marco Island, a barrier island off southwest Florida, is under a mandatory evacuation ahead of Hurricane Milton’s anticipated landfall late Wednesday.

Though not everyone has evacuated.

Michael Sean Comerford, 65, told ABC News he decided to stay and watch his parents’ condo on the 23rd floor of a building while they evacuated to Naples, where his sister lives.

“I’m prepared,” he said Wednesday. “The island is closed. I have food and water for the next two days.”

Comerford said he’s not the only one who stayed behind in the building, which he said is expected to suffer a power outage in the storm.

“I feel like I’m going to survive it,” he said. “We’re not going to get the worst of it, but it’s going to be uncomfortable, given that there’s going to be power outages and it’ll be hot and dark.”

Comerford said he wanted to document what he sees for a book he’s writing about climate change, in which he talks to people on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts.

Milton is expected to make landfall on Florida’s west coast Wednesday night, likely as a Category 3 hurricane.

The storm is forecast to make landfall farther north of Marco Island, though Comerford said there is still the “fear of the unknown.”

“If it takes a turn here this way, I don’t know what could happen,” he said. “I just don’t know. We’re getting all sorts of alarming warnings, but I think they’re directed at the people north of us.”

Comerford said he is preparing himself for “dramatic” storm surge. Marco Island could see 5 to 8 feet, according to forecasts.

“It’s going to be not insubstantial here,” he said. “The whole island could go underwater.”

ABC News’ Mark Guarino contributed to this report.

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