Talk of the Town
(WASHINGTON) — The Washington, D.C., Bar has initiated disciplinary proceedings against Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin over allegations he improperly threatened to withhold federal funding from Georgetown University’s law school and then attempted to sideline an investigation into his conduct, according to a petition.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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Editor’s note: Some of the testimony described below is extremely graphic.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Robb Elementary School teacher Elsa Avila was taking photos of her fourth-graders with their science projects on May 24, 2022, when she said a young girl noticed something was wrong — that other students was running to their classroom and screaming.
Avila testified that her students immediately hid, as they had during lockdown training.
“We heard loud, loud shots in the hallway,” Avila said on Tuesday at the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales. “They knew that it was, you know, a real thing.”
When Avila briefly stood up to instruct her students to make sure everyone was “safe and out of sight,” she said she felt a piercing pain on her left side.
“I felt the burning pain,” she said. “I put my hand on my side and I saw blood. When I took my hand away, I saw blood. So, I knew that I had been shot.”
As she recounted her injury, Avila banged her hands on the witness stand — the wood ringing from her Rosary ring — to describe the sounds she heard.
“I fell to the floor, and we kept hearing the shots,” she said.
Avila said she was lying on the floor in intense pain and “trying so hard to keep it in.”
She said her students tried to comfort her while they sheltered in place.
“They were hugging each other. They were helping each other stay quiet. Some of them were tapping me. They were telling me, ‘Miss, Miss. We love you. We love you. You’re going to be OK, you’re going to be OK,'” she testified.
Avila’s harrowing testimony comes on the second week of Gonzales’ trial. Prosecutors allege Gonzales, who is charged with child endangerment, did not follow his training and endangered the 19 students who died and an additional 10 surviving students.
Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers argue he is being unfairly blamed for a broader law-enforcement failure that day. It took 77 minutes before law enforcement mounted a counterassault to end the May 2022 rampage.
Avila maintained her composure throughout most of her testimony, though she broke down in tears when she described what she felt in those moments.
“I was in so much pain towards the end there, my body was going into shock, and my legs were already starting to shake. My whole body was starting to shake,” she said. “I kept praying, you know, God, please don’t let me die.”
During a brief cross examination, Avila testified about hearing officers trying to negotiate with the gunman.
“I heard a voice saying, you know, ‘Sir, we need you to stop, we don’t want anyone else to get hurt,'” she said.
Avila testified that, even when officers broke through her classroom windows to begin rescuing students, some students wanted to stay with her due to her injury.
Former fourth-grade teacher Arnulfo Reyes also testified on Monday and Tuesday, recounting in excruciating detail the moments when gunman Salvador Ramos shot and wounded him and shot and killed all 11 children in his classroom.
Reyes said he fell to the ground after he was struck by gunfire. Then, the shooter “came around and he shot the kids,” Reyes testified, maintaining his composure.
After the first series of gunshots, Reyes testified that a student in a nearby classroom mistook Ramos for police.
“A student from that classroom said, ‘Officer, come in here. We’re in here,'” Reyes testified. “And I heard he walked over there, and I heard more shooting.”
As Reyes lay on the ground bleeding from wounds to his arm and back, he said the shooter returned to his classroom and noticed he was still alive.
“He came and he tried to taunt me. He got some of my blood and splashed it on my face,” he said.
During cross-examination, defense lawyer Nico LaHood tried to deflect some blame from Gonzales, suggesting Reyes was at least partially at fault for leaving his classroom door unlocked the morning of the shooting.
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(NEW YORK) — Jeffrey Epstein frequently connected New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch with women, according to dozens of 2013 emails released by the Department of Justice.
In the emails, the late sex offender appeared to be a frequent point of contact for Tisch, coordinating meetings with various women and providing specific details regarding their ages, nationalities, and physical appearances.
Tisch and Epstein discussed specific women, according to the emails, with Tisch frequently inquiring whether they were “pro or civilian” or a “working girl.”
In one April 2013 exchange, Tisch asked Epstein about a woman identified as “M,” writing: “Curious to know about M… pro or civilian?”
Epstein replied that she was a “civilian, but Russian,” and added that she was “fun.” In another exchange in June, Tisch asked if a woman was a “working girl,” to which Epstein replied, “Never.”
In another email, Epstein told Tisch that a Ukrainian woman was “a little freaked by the age difference” but that he would “try to convince her not to return” to her home country.
In another instance, Epstein told Tisch that a microbiology student in Florida was interested in meeting, advising Tisch to “make it clear that you will organize her ticket.”
The documents also indicate that the women were informed of Tisch’s professional background. One woman emailed Epstein in April 2013 stating she had “googled Steve Tisch” and noted he was an “Oscar winner producer, and Giants owner” before agreeing to a meeting.
The communication between the two men often involved invitations to Epstein’s home and sports events. In September 2013, Tisch emailed Epstein to offer “two tickets in my Suite for Sundays game.” Epstein, in an April 2013 email, referred to Tisch as a “new but obviously shared interest friend.”
Tisch has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
In a statement to ABC News provided by a Giants spokesperson, Tisch said on Epstein, “We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy and investments. I did not take him up on any of his invitations and never went to his island. As we all know now, he was a terrible person and someone I deeply regret associating with.”
Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations,” using cash payments to recruit a “vast network of underage victims,” some of whom were as young as 14 years old.
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(ARLINGTON, Texas) — A family in Arlington, Texas, grieved as they laid 30-year-old Wael Tarabishi to rest. His father, Maher Tarabishi, however, was not at the funeral. Instead, he was at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center nearly three hours away in Anson, Texas.
Wael faced a long battle with Advanced Pompe Disease, causing him to be severely disabled. Maher was by his side through it all, and has been described as his son’s arms, legs and lungs because of how involved and essential he was in his life.
Maher, a Jordanian native, overstayed a tourist visa here in the U.S. in 1994, his family and advocates said via @freemahertrabishi on Instagram account. The U.S. government allowed Maher to remain in the country legally to care for Wael through a Supervision Order in 2008, according to the account.
Maher presented himself at the Dallas field office to fulfill conditions of the Supervision Order last year for his annual check-in appointment, but found the building under temporary closure, the account noted. In an act of good will, the account said, Maher visited the office again once it re-opened.
Despite maintaining lawful status and carrying valid documentation of Wael’s condition, officers placed Maher in handcuffs and was told to “shut up and sit down” as he pleaded with them, according to the account.
After Maher was detained by ICE in October 2025, his family and advocates rallied to reunite the father and son. They said Wael, a U.S. citizen, would die without Maher’s care. Three months later, he did.
After Wael’s death on Jan. 23, heartbroken family and supporters desperately tried to get ICE to allow Maher to attend his son’s funeral on Thursday. Late Tuesday night, ICE gave final word that Maher would be denied permission.
“America speaks of freedom and family values yet it stole Maher from his dying son,” Shahd Arnaout, Maher’s daughter-in-law, posted on her Instagram today. “A funeral without Maher!!!!! This is a human rights crime.”
In a statement to ABC News, ICE accused Maher of being part of an organization the U.S. deems a terrorist group.
“Maher Mohd Tarabishi, 62, a criminal alien and self-admitted member of the Palestine Liberation Organization — a murderous foreign terrorist organization that has carried out countless terrorist attacks and plane hijackings, was arrested by ICE officers Oct. 28 in Dallas, Texas. Shockingly, Tarabishi has been permitted to remain in the U.S. illegally for nearly two decades despite being ordered removed from the U.S. by both an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals,” the agency said.
According to ICE, the Obama administration proactively filed a joint motion to dismiss the immigration case against Tarabishi in 2011, “despite the fact that he had admitted to being a member of a foreign terrorist organization” and had been ordered removed. The agency said its arrest of Tarabishi “shows clear evidence of the game-changing impact the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts are having.”
Shahd, a consistent voice for her family, vehemently denied these claims in an interview with ABC News’ Rhiannon Ally last week.
“We denied that he’s part of PLO or any other part of organization. And we did, his lawyer did,” she said. “He went to the Dallas Field Immigration Center and he spoke to an ICE agent and they respond with the no. He requested to go and at least to say goodbye and to the funeral and both answer was no. So why are they doing that?”
Ali Elhorr, attorney for Maher Tarbishi at Aspire Immigration Law, PLLC, said in a press release that he was profoundly disappointed in the decision and shared details of the process.
“We were in communication with multiple ICE officers who had shown the willingness to facilitate Maher’s supervised release to attend Wael’s burial … Initial steps in the process had already begun when I received a call from the ICE officer with whom I had been in contact,” he said. “The officer informed me that his director stepped in and told him that Maher would not be allowed to attend Wael’s burial. This was the final decision.”
Heartbroken, Shahd explained that Wael’s final wishes were to be with his father.
“We were trying so hard to let him out, to let Maher out, at least to say goodbye to Wael before he died. Because that’s what Wael’s wish was, ‘To say good-bye to my dad. At least let me see him one more time. At least, let me just maybe touch his hand before I die … ‘ ” he said. “Wael is a U.S. citizen And he asked for his dad, it was very simple ask for him. He trusted his country and he trusted the system. But they failed.”
Shahd described Wael as “an angel” and “an amazing person.”
“With everything Wael went through and all the hardship that he had, he always cared about his family. He always made us laugh,” she said. “Him and his father, it wasn’t just a normal relationship between any father and a son. No, he was his best friend. He was his caregiver. He was dad. He was everything for him.”
She said that she and many supporters believe ICE is directly responsible for Wael’s tragic death.
“ICE is responsible of the death of Wael Tarabishi. They may not kill him with a bullet, but they killed him inside.”
In her Instagram post last week, Shahd promised not to forget Wael.
“Me and the girls will miss you every single day. You will always live in our hearts. I will keep speaking your name, I will keep sharing your story, and I will keep every promise I made. I won’t stop until your dad is out and our family gets the justice and peace you deserved.”
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