Former classmate sentenced to life without parole in murder of gay teen Blaze Bernstein
Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register/Getty Images, Pool
(SANTA ANA, Calif.) — Samuel Woodward, a California man found guilty of murdering his former classmate in 2018 in a hate crime, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday.
Blaze Bernstein — a 19-year-old gay, Jewish student at the University of Pennsylvania — went missing while visiting his family in Newport Beach during winter break in January 2018. His body was found, following a dayslong search, buried in a park in Lake Forest he went to with Woodward the night he went missing, authorities said. He had been stabbed 28 times, prosecutors said.
Woodward, now 27, was charged with first-degree murder as a hate crime. Prosecutors had argued that Woodward murdered his high school classmate because Bernstein was gay.
In issuing the sentence during a lengthy hearing on Friday, Judge Kimberly Menninger said there was evidence that the defendant planned the murder, and that the jury found it true that the crime was committed because of Bernstein’s sexual orientation.
Menninger also denied Woodward probation.
On whether the defendant is remorseful, Menninger said, “Unfortunately for the court and for the defendant, I’ve never seen any evidence of this up to this point in time.”
Woodward was not present at his sentencing hearing due to an illness, according to Menninger.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Peach and Blossom are the two lucky turkeys from Minnesota who escaped a fowl fate of ending up on someone’s Thanksgiving table this year when they were pardoned Monday by President Biden at the White House.
“This event marks the official start of the holiday season here in Washington,” Biden said to what he said was a crowd of 2,500 gathered on the South Lawn. “It’s also my last time to speak here as your president during this season and give thanks and gratitude. So let me say to you, it’s been the honor of my life. I’m forever grateful.”
“May we use this moment to take time from our busy lives and focus on what matters most: our families,” Biden said. “My dad used to have an expression, family is the beginning, the middle and the end, our friends and our neighbors. The fact that we are blessed to live in America, the greatest country on Earth — and that’s not hyperbole. We are. No matter what, in America we never give up. We keep going, we keep the faith.”
These birds were plucked for the presidential flock and went through rigorous training to ride the gravy train to the White House for the honor, according to John Zimmerman, chairman of the National Turkey Federation.
Zimmerman’s 9-year-old son Grant and other young trainers made sure their feathers wouldn’t be ruffled by the spotlight.
“Preparing these presidential birds has taken a lot of special care,” Zimmerman said Sunday during a news conference introducing the two turkeys. “We’ve been getting them used to lights, camera and even introducing them to a wide variety of music — everything from polka to classic rock.”
Peach and Blossom, weighing 41 and 40 pounds, respectively, where hatched back in July. They traveled to Washington this week and were treated to a suite at the Willard InterContinental hotel before their big day on Monday, as is tradition.
Biden said the birds were named after the Delaware state flower: the Peach Blossom.
The president joked Peach lived by the motto “keep calm and gobble on.” Blossom’s mantra, he said, was “no foul play, just Minnesota nice.”
Biden at times was interrupted by gobbles, responding by saying one was making a “last-minute plea.”
After the pardons, the two turkeys were headed back to Waseca, Minnesota, to live out the remainder of the feathery lives as “agricultural ambassadors” at Farmamerica, an agricultural interpretive center.
“And today, Peach and Blossom will join the free birds of the United States of America,” Biden said.
The turkey pardon at the White House is an annual tradition that is usually “cranned” full of a cornucopia of corny jokes.
The history of the turkey pardon
The origin of the presidential turkey pardons is a bit fuzzy. Unofficially, reports point all the way back to Abraham Lincoln, who spared a bird from its demise at the urging of his son, Tad. However, that story might be more folklore than fact.
The true start of what has evolved into the current tradition has its roots in politics and dates back to the Harry Truman presidency in 1947.
Truman ruffled feathers by starting “poultry-less Thursdays” to try and conserve various foods in the aftermath of World War II, but Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day all fell on Thursdays.
After the White House was inundated with live birds sent as part of a “Hens for Harry” counter-initiative, the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board presented Truman with a bird as a peace offering — although the turkey was not saved from a holiday feast.
President John F. Kennedy began the trend of publicly sparing a turkey given to the White House in November 1963, just days before his assassination. In the years following, the event became a bit more sporadic, with even some first ladies such as Pat Nixon and Rosalynn Carter stepping in to accept the guests of honor on their husband’s behalf.
The tradition of the public sparing returned in earnest during the Reagan administration, but the official tradition of the poultry pardoning at the White House started in 1989, when then-President George H.W. Bush offered the first official presidential pardon. In the more than three decades since, at least one lucky bird has gotten some extra gobbles each year.
(NEW YORK) — Closing arguments began Monday in the trial of Daniel Penny over the May 2023 subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely.
Penny, a 25-year-old former Marine, put Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man, in a six-minute-long chokehold after Neely boarded a subway car acting erratically, according to police. Neely entered a subway car on an uptown F train at the Second Avenue stop, and was described by witnesses as yelling and moving erratically when Penny put Neely in a chokehold, officials said.
Penny is charged with manslaughter and negligent homicide in Neely’s death. He pleaded not guilty.
He faces up to 15 years in prison if he’s convicted of manslaughter. There is no minimum sentence.
The proceedings began late so the defense could fix two audio exhibits. The prosecutors alleged the defense had “willy nilly edited” the audio and “taken out what they don’t like.” Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran said it would be misleading for the jury to hear an edited excerpt.
The judge agreed, and the defense recut the exhibits, so jurors were clear they were hearing edited portions.
The delay means the jury will likely not begin deliberations until Tuesday. If necessary, the judge asked jurors to consider continuing their deliberations Wednesday, when the trial did not sit.
The defense’s closing arguments
The defense attorney, Steven Raiser, asked jurors in closing arguments to imagine they were on the train that day, conjuring the scene with sound effects of closing doors, a train pulling out of a station and police body camera footage of passengers saying Neely “scared the living daylights out of everybody.”
A “violent and desperate” Jordan Neely entered the uptown F train on May 1, 2023, “filled with rage and not afraid of any consequences,” causing passengers to be “frozen with fear” before Daniel Penny “acted to save those people,” a defense attorney said Monday during closing arguments at Penny’s manslaughter and negligent homicide trial.
In its summation, the defense challenged the prosecution’s assertion that Penny held Neely in a chokehold for “way too long,” and did not let go for almost six minutes. Raiser said Penny did not intend to kill Neely but did not let go because Neely was fighting back.
“Of course, he didn’t. He had to remain in place out of fear that Neely would break free,” Raiser said.
The city’s medical examiner concluded Penny’s chokehold killed Neely. The defense argued Neely died from a genetic condition and the synthetic marijuana found in his system.
Defense attorney Steve Raiser argued that Penny “was not applying a textbook Marine blood choke because his purpose was not to render Mr. Neely unconscious,” Raiser said. Raiser said Penny applied a chokehold “in a less aggressive manner,” reflecting his character.
“He could have squeezed Mr. Neely to unconsciousness,” Raiser said. “Instead, he laid with him on the dirty subway floor while the smell of uncleanliness…and feces enveloped him.”
The defense summation included an image of the two men on the subway floor: “It’s basic human instinct to grab at the arm choking you. You don’t see that here because Danny’s not choking him,” Raiser said.
Raiser argued Penny was not applying pressure on Neely’s neck in the hold’s final 51 seconds and the whole case represented a rush to judgment: “This was not a chokehold death,” Raiser said. “They failed to prove their case, period.”
During the trial
During the trial, prosecutors argued that Penny went “way too far,” holding Neely around the neck for nearly six minutes, past the point when he posed a threat. About 30 seconds after Penny put Neely in the chokehold, the train arrived at the next station and many passengers left the train car, according to court filings.
Footage of the interaction between Penny and Neely, 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 passengers nearby.
Prosecutors argue that Penny should have known that his minutes-long chokehold was turning fatal.
Witness accounts of Neely’s behavior that day differ.
In court filings, some passengers described their fear. 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,” according to court filings.
Other 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.”
Everoak Farms volunteers harvest sugar cane that could be salvaged after heavy winds and water from Hurricane Milton wrecked and flooded crops on the Orlando, Florida, farm. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(TALLAHASSEE, Fla. ) — Florida’s agricultural fields — including the state’s iconic orange groves and berry farms — are routinely damaged by strong storms that roll through the state.
Some of the Sunshine State’s most important farms are now recovering from two of the 2024 season’s most powerful hurricanes, which struck one after the other.
On Sept. 27, Hurricane Helene became the strongest hurricane to strike Florida’s Big Bend. Less than two weeks later, on Oct. 10, Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key. After both Category 4 storms brought life-threatening storm surge to the Gulf Coast, they turned toward the heart of the state, destroying farmland with strong winds and heavy rains, experts told ABC News.
While the state is no stranger to hurricanes, its agriculture industry is threatened every time a strong hurricane rolls in, Angela Lindsay, associate professor and disaster specialist at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), told ABC News.
Florida’s groves were heavily impacted by the recent hurricanes, which tore through regions with some of the most productive citrus acreage in the state, Matt Joyner, executive vice president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, the state’s largest citrus trade association, told ABC News.
Hurricane-force winds caused defoliation — or the leaves to fall off — damaged limbs and branches and even downed entire trees, snapping them at the roots, Lindsay said. While oranges are not yet ready for harvest, they are currently near maturity and heavier, making it easier for high winds to pull the fruit from their branches, Joyner said.
“We know that we have a lot of fruit on the ground for this year’s crop,” Joyner said.
At Showcase of Citrus, an orange grove in Clermont, Florida, near Orlando, the gusts from Milton bent some trees at a 45-degree angle, owner John Arnold told ABC News.
Floods often kill the citrus groves, especially young orange trees planted in low-lying areas, Arnold said, adding that several of his young orange trees were lost to flooding.
Mitigation is difficult, the farmers said. Complicating matters even further is the uncertainty of the forecast up until just a few days before landfall, making it difficult to tend to hundreds and thousands of acres in a short amount of time, Michael Hill, co-founder and CEO of H&A Farms in Mount Dora, Florida, told ABC News.
Citrus trees can be staked in order to provide support from the hurricane-force winds, Lindsay said. Some farmers have tried wrapping the trees in tarp-like material, but that technique is not commonly used, Lindsay added.
“I’ve seen storms that tipped over entire groves of mature trees,” Arnold said.
There’s not much that can be done to protect crops in the ground, said Hill, who grows strawberries and blueberries — two of the most vulnerable crops in the state, after citrus, experts say.
A tree fell on Hill’s home in Eustis, Florida, but once the storm passed, all he cared about was the state of his fields.
“That’s the least of my worries,” he said of the downed tree.
About 60% of the plastic mulch the strawberries were planted in on Hill’s farm were torn up by Milton, he said. Hill and his workers are attempting to re-lay the plastic while keeping the plants alive in a cooler.
For the dairy industry, the cows still need to be milked, but the stressed cows likely produce much less, Jeb Smith, president of the Florida Farm Bureau Federation, told ABC News.
“It may be a month before they’re able to get back to where production should be,” Smith said.
Structural damage often includes buildings and fences that require re-building, Smith said. Showcase of Citrus sustained some damage to its screen buildings for growing grapefruit, Arnold said. A barn at H&A Farm was destroyed by Milton’s hurricane-force winds, and the entire facility lost power for days, Hill said.
Once the storm rolls through, farmers try to save whatever fruit fell to the ground and attempt to stake damaged trees in an attempt to support what’s remaining, Lindsay said.
Milton was the fourth named storm to hit many of the farms in Central Florida in 14 months, following Hurricane Irma in September 2023 and Debby in early September 2024, Smith said.
“It leads to more impact, when you have blow after blow,” Smith said.
In 2022, Florida’s agriculture industry generated $182.6 billion in revenue and supported more than 2.5 million jobs, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services. While citrus is Florida’s signature crop, the state is an important producer of many other agricultural products. Florida is the second-largest producer of all oranges, strawberries, sweet corn and non-Valencia oranges in the country. More than 40 vegetables are grown commercially in the state, which ranks in the top three on production value of tomato, bell pepper, snap bean, squash, cabbage and cucumber, according to the University of Florida.
Sugarcane, timber, cattle and dairy are also major commodities for the state, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Other storms in the recent past have been just as devastating, the experts said.
Farmers were in disbelief over the amount of fruit that had been blown to the ground after Hurricane Irma in 2017 and Hurricane Ian in 2022, Lindsay said. The citrus industry saw a 1,000% loss as a result of Ian, Smith said.
In 2018, after Hurricane Michael struck the panhandle, researchers and officials couldn’t even get to some of the fields — many of which contain row crops of tomatoes and cotton — to assess the damage because of the damaged roadways, Lindsay said.
“We were using drones to look at them,” she said. “There wasn’t a lot there.”
Hurricane Ian in 2022 led to an estimated $7.9 billion in agricultural losses and impacted nearly 5 million acres, a report by the university found. Hurricane Irma in 2018 caused about $1.3 billion in losses, impacting about 1.9 million acres, according to an IFAS report.
Milton resulted in losses between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion, in addition to the estimated $1.5 billion in damage caused by Idalia, Debby and Helene in the 13 months prior, according to a preliminary assessment by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services released Thursday.
Every named storm in recent memory that has passed through central Florida has caused damage to Arnold’s farmland, he said.
“Just as we replant trees and rehabilitate groves and look to recover and move into better seasons, we’re getting hit with these storms,” Joyner said. “It’s really been difficult for growers to kind of regain their footing and move forward.”
In addition to crop insurance, there are several programs in place for farmers, including loan and recovery programs by the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, Lindsay said. The data collected by IFAS is sent to federal officials, who then determine the amount of aid to be distributed to farmers.
Once the damage is assessed, farmers then must make long-term decisions on how to move forward, Smith said.
“Some of these producers will have impacts years down the road,” Smith said, adding that the adverse impacts on the citrus industry can even last for decades.
Hurricanes are just one of the hazards Florida farmers face regularly. The last few years have been tough on the industry, with citrus farmers experiencing widespread greening, a disease that impacts citrus trees, Arnold said.
Combined with freezes, market prices, other diseases, labor challenges and inflation, farmers in the state have left many farms struggling to keep afloat, Hill said.
“When you see Florida strawberries in your stores this year, know that it came from a farmer that chose not to give up,” Hill said.
