Talk of the Town
(NEW YORK) — Borge Brende stepped down as the head of the World Economic Forum Thursday following an independent review into his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, marking the latest departure in a string of high-profile resignations by business and government leaders who were associated with the late sex offender.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — The federal judge who tossed then-special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against President Donald Trump has permanently barred the release of Smith’s final report on his probe.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in 2024 after deciding that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful, then blocked the release of the Smith’s report on his investigation.
She ruled Monday that the report should be sealed for good, after Trump and his co-defendants in the case sought a court order barring the report’s release.
The public release of the report “would contravene the conclusions in the Court’s final Dismissal Order that Special Counsel Smith acted without lawful appointment or funding authority in this proceeding and that his actions taken in connection herewith are therefore invalid,” Cannon’s order said.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, also scolded Smith for preparing the report in the first place even though she had ruled his appointment was unlawful, calling it a “concerning breach of the spirit of the Dismissal Order.”
“Nevertheless, rather than seek a stay of the Order, or clarification, Special Counsel Smith and his team chose to circumvent it, for months, by taking the discovery generated in this case and compiling it in a final report for transmission to then-Attorney General Garland, to Congress, and then beyond,” Cannon wrote in her order.
“The Court need not countenance this brazen stratagem or effectively perpetuate the Special Counsel’s breach of this Court’s own order,” she wrote.
Trump pleaded not guilty in June 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. Trump asserted that he had every right to possess the documents.
Smith, testifying publicly before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee last month, said his investigation “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity” — and that partisan politics did not play a role in his decision to charge Trump.
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(LOS ANGELES) — Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Monday that the FBI disrupted a “massive and horrific terror plot” by an anti-government extremist group allegedly planning a series of bombings against multiple targets in Orange County and Los Angeles, California, beginning on New Years Eve.
Bondi said the plot by the so-called “Turtle Island Liberation Front,” which she described in the announcement as a “far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government and anti-capitalist group,” also “planned to target ICE agents and vehicles.”
At a Los Angeles press conference Monday morning, Bill Essayli, assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, and Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said that four people — identified as Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30, Zachary Aaron Page, 32, Dante Gaffield, 24, and Tina Lai, 41 — were arrested and each charged with conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device.
The FBI on Friday “intercepted a scheme by members of a violent extremist group we believe determined to detonate explosives at multiple businesses on New Year’s Eve,” according to Davis.
The four people arrested, whom Davis said were “members of a radical faction of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, a violent homegrown anti-government group,” allegedly planned to plant backpacks containing improvised explosive devices “to be detonated at multiple locations in Southern California targeting U.S. companies.”
The IEDs were coordinated to detonate at midnight on New Year’s Eve, Davis said, adding that the suspects were arrested Friday by the FBI while they were allegedly assembling the devices in the desert.
All four will appear in federal court Monday afternoon, according to officials.
Though he declined to name the companies that were allegedly targeted, Essayli described them as “logistics centers.” He added that there were “at least five” locations that the suspects allegedly planned to target in Orange and Los Angeles counties.
FBI Director Kash Patel also posted Monday that a fifth person “believed to be linked” to the Turtle Island Liberation Front had been arrested by the FBI in New Orleans for “allegedly planning a separate violent attack.”
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(GREENSBORO, N.C.) — Police in Greensboro, North Carolina, are urging the public to share any tips in connection to the disappearance of Marissa Carmichael, a Black mother of five who was last seen on surveillance footage at a gas station on Jan. 14, 2024, after making a distressed call to 911.
Carmichael was 24-years-old at the time of her disappearance.
A spokesperson for the Greensboro Police Department (GPD) told ABC News on Tuesday that police are “absolutely” still concerned about Carmichael’s welfare two years after her disappearance, and are urging the public to come forward with any information about her case.
“We know that not being home with her children – and not having any contact with her family – is out of character for her,” the spokesperson said.
Asked if foul play is suspected and if any suspects have been identified in connection to the case, the police spokesperson declined to comment. “In surveillance footage obtained by our department, Ms. Carmichael was seen getting into a vehicle and leaving the gas station,” the spokesperson said, adding that the footage has not been released publicly as part of “the active investigation” into Carmichael’s disappearance.
Police said in a Feb. 13, 2024, update in this case that “detectives have identified and interviewed the driver of that vehicle, who is currently considered a witness in this case.” The spokesperson for GPD said that no further updates are available publicly at this time.
According to police, Carmichael was last seen at 3:46 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024, at the Exxon gas station on 809 East Market St. in Greensboro and made a distressed call to 911 just before she vanished.
In the 911 call – the audio of which was obtained by ABC News — Carmichael appeared distressed and was asking for help finding a ride home. According to an incident report obtained by ABC News, when police arrived at the gas station, Carmichael wasn’t there.
During the two-minute call, Carmichael, whose name is bleeped out when she identifies herself, tells the 911 dispatcher that a man had asked her to pick up some things at the gas station but drove off while she was inside and that she has no way of getting home. Police have confirmed that the call is from Marissa.
“I don’t know where I am in Greensboro … he took off with my phone. I have no clue where I’m at. I have no numbers,” Carmichael tells the dispatcher.
Carmichael’s mother, Sara Carmichael, previously told ABC News that the family last saw Marissa on Saturday, Jan. 13, but since Jan. 14, her daughter has not been active on her social media accounts and her phone has been turned off.
According to Sara Carmichael, on the night before her disappearance, Marissa told her sister Emma that she was going to the club and asked her not to tell her mother because she didn’t want her to worry.
Sara Carmichael said after talking to her daughter’s friends, she learned that Marissa went to One17 SofaBar & Lounge, and then later went to an Airbnb for an afterparty, then was dropped off at the Exxon station.
Sara Carmichael told ABC News on the one-year anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance that her family, including Marissa’s five children, are distraught as they await updates from detectives working the case.
“Every day I wake up and it’s like, here, you know, it’s just the day where I might find out some news,” her mother said. “Is this the day where, you know, there may be some answers for me, for her kids? It just sometimes – this does not seem real. It still just doesn’t seem real.”
Ahead of the two-year anniversary of Marissa Carmichael’s disappearance, ABC News reached out to Sara Carmichael for further comment.
Greensboro police told ABC News that Marissa Carmichael’s information was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System and into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) as a missing person the day she was reported missing.
Police also urged the community to reach out to police or call Greensboro/Guilford Crime Stoppers to share tips anonymously at 336-373-1000.
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