Clouds pass over the skyline on August 26, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
(CHICAGO) — Chicago police are investigating a disturbing incident in a downtown park where a large cross was set on fire in the middle of the day on Tuesday.
Videos and images of the burning cross in Grant Park, which police say was discovered around 2:30 p.m., went viral, shocking onlookers. The burning cross has historically been a symbol of hate that white supremacists have used to harass and intimidate Black Americans.
Alyna Carlton, 22, who filmed the burning cross while she was in a car with her mother, told WLS Chicago on Tuesday that she could not believe her eyes.
“Seeing that in Chicago, in 2026 … yeah, we were really taken aback,” she said.
The Chicago Fire Department quickly responded and put out the fire, according to investigators. There were no injuries or serious property damage.
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement that it is investigating the incident, but as of Wednesday morning, no arrests have been made.
The booking photos for Samantha Raebel, left, and Vanessa Wahanganisa Tjongarero-Henderson. (Montgomery County Police Department)
(MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md.) — Two women wanted in Maryland for allegedly killing the mother of one of the suspects were captured in Ohio after an individual who offered to help them realized from media coverage that they were wanted for murder, authorities said.
The arrests came nearly three weeks after the victim, 67-year-old Hilde Henderson, is believed to have been killed at her apartment at a senior living community in Silver Spring, Maryland, authorities said.
Officers conducting a welfare check on May 26 found Henderson dead from blunt force trauma, according to the Montgomery County Police Department. She is believed to have been dead for four days, police said.
The victim’s daughter, 29-year-old Vanessa Tjongarero-Henderson of Clarksburg, and the daughter’s girlfriend, 36-year-old Samantha Raebel of Phoenix, were subsequently identified as suspects in the homicide, police said. Police obtained an arrest warrant charging them both with first-degree murder and released their photos amid the search for the suspects.
Following a nationwide search, the two were ultimately arrested Wednesday in Genoa, Ohio, thanks to a local tip, police said.
A woman in Genoa unwittingly offered to help the couple, until she and her friend grew suspicious and learned of the ongoing manhunt by searching one of their names online, according to ABC Toledo affiliate WTVG.
Adrienne Behrman told WTVG that the suspects came into her workplace and told her they were homeless, so she offered to help and invited them to stay at her apartment.
“I’ve been down and out myself — homeless, without money, you know, just not wanting to be a charity case or anything like that, and I just felt like I was led to help them,” Behrman told the station.
Behrman recounted, though, that the more questions she asked them about where they were from and where they wanted to go, “things were not adding up.”
She told her concerns to a friend, Nikki Peters, who said she noticed that the last name of one of the suspects from a Cash App payment request for cigarettes didn’t match the name she had been told, WTVG reported.
“That didn’t make sense to me, because it was still Vanessa, but a different last name,” Peters told WTVG.
While searching Tjongarero-Henderson’s name online, Peters said she found wanted posts for the two women, WTVG reported.
“I almost passed out,” Peters told the station. “[Behrman] was cool, calm and collected, but I almost passed out.”
“That didn’t make sense to me, because it was still Vanessa, but a different last name,” Peters told WTVG.
While searching Tjongarero-Henderson’s name online, Peters said she found wanted posts for the two women, WTVG reported.
“I almost passed out,” Peters told the station. “[Behrman] was cool, calm and collected, but I almost passed out.”
Behrman said she called 911, WTVG reported.
“That orchestrated the whole thing the way that it needed to be done in order for them to be apprehended and no one else to be hurt,” Behrman told the station.
Tjongarero-Henderson and Raebel are being held at the Ottawa County Detention Center awaiting extradition to Maryland, authorities said.
Police have not released details on what evidence led them to identify the couple as suspects in the case.
A protester speaks to the police using a megaphone near the Delaney Hall detention center on May 31, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey. Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark has ordered a mandatory curfew surrounding Delaney Hall from 9 PM Saturday until 6 AM Sunday. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/Getty Images)
(NEWARK, N.J.) — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on Tuesday called for the immediate closure of Delaney Hall, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility that he and activists allege is housing detainees in poor living conditions and without adequate medical care, and threatened to file suit if the facility remains open.
There is already a lawsuit against the GEO Group, the private company contracted by ICE to run the facility. However, the mayor and city leaders said that they will expand their litigation to call for the facility’s closure if state health inspectors aren’t given full access to the detention center.
Protests and an alleged hunger strike have been ongoing since May 22 after reports alleged the 300 inmates inside the ICE detention center have been poorly fed, are not receiving proper medical care and are being held in poor conditions.
Baraka said there was a report that alleged one of the inmates suffered a miscarriage and was not given proper care.
“It’s troubling, which forces us to expand our lawsuit against Delaney Hall” Baraka said at a news conference outside Delaney Hall.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has previously said that the reports of the poor conditions are untrue.
The federal government and the GEO Group did not have an immediate comment about Baraka’s announcement.
Several elected officials have visited the facility since the protests began and claimed they have seen the poor conditions first hand.
Federal and state law enforcement agents have clashed with protesters on numerous days, with federal officers in some instances firing tear gas and using batons.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill and other New Jersey Democrats have criticized the federal government for their response and actions against the protesters and have called on everyone to turn down the temperature.
A curfew was enforced outside the facility starting Sunday night.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
An undated photo from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein is part of a collection of images released Dec. 18, 2025, by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. (House Oversight Committee Democrats)
(WASHINGTON) — Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are seeking testimony from private investigators who removed and stored a trove of evidence from the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion before it was searched by police in 2005, according to letters reviewed by ABC News.
With the Department of Justice appearing to have never obtained the evidence — which included three desktop computers and more than two dozen phone directories — lawmakers want to interview the men about the removal of what could have been key evidence for police and prosecutors in their probe into Epstein’s sex trafficking.
“[T]he Committee requests that you make yourself available for a transcribed interview to provide insight into the contents, removal, storage, and location of the materials removed from Mr. Epstein’s Palm Beach home,” Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. Robert Garcia of California wrote in letters that were sent to the three private investigators, who were working for Epstein.
“The Committee also seeks information regarding the reason for the removal of these materials, the potential withholding of these materials from law enforcement, and any other information regarding the activities and crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and any of his co-conspirators,” Garcia wrote.
ABC News last month reported about the removal of the potential evidence, which may have shielded Epstein from legal scrutiny and contributed to how he was able to largely evade justice for more than a decade.
The Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) issued a report in 2020 that faulted Alexander Acosta — then the top federal prosecutor in Miami — for agreeing to a plea deal with Epstein on charges in Florida before securing the missing computers, including one that was believed to have video footage from Epstein’s home surveillance cameras.
“There was good reason to believe the computers contained relevant — and potentially critical — information; and it was clear Epstein did not want the contents of his computers disclosed,” the OPR report said.
In letters first obtained by ABC News, Garcia formally requested that private investigators Paul Lavery, Stephen Kiraly and William Riley appear separately for voluntary transcribed interviews. The deadline for the investigators to respond is April 9.
According to the letters, Epstein’s longtime attorney Darren Indyke — who sat for a deposition before the Oversight panel last week — told lawmakers that the evidence was likely never turned over to law enforcement.
“After Epstein’s conviction, after he served jail time, through conversations with defense counsel I became aware that there were computer hard drives in the possession of private investigators,” Indyke said in his deposition. “I just don’t know how they came into possession, but I knew of the existence of hard drives.”
Documents released earlier this year by the Department of Justice shed new light on the removal of the potential evidence. According to a 2005 memo from private investigator William Riley to one of Epstein’s criminal defense lawyers, Lavery visited Epstein’s Palm Beach home to remove “items of potential evidentiary value” less than two weeks before police raided the mansion in October 2005.
Lavery removed more than 100 pieces of potential evidence, according to an index released by the DOJ, including the three computers, 29 bound telephone directories and a listing of nearby masseuses, as well as a trove of sexually explicit materials. Among the removed materials was a photo with a handwritten message saying, “You better never forget about me” from an unknown woman who signed her name “Class of 2005.”
When the Palm Beach Police Department searched Epstein’s home two weeks later, investigators noted that multiple computers from the property “were conspicuously absent” from the home, including one linked to Epstein’s surveillance system.
While federal prosecutors attempted to recover the evidence while investigating Epstein in the late 2000s — including subpoenaing Riley for testimony — law enforcement agreed to abandon the effort when Epstein agreed to the 2008 plea deal that allowed him to avoid a lengthy jail sentence. Documents released by the Department of Justice indicate Epstein’s attorneys continued to keep tabs on the evidence to ensure the materials were not disclosed to attorneys for Epstein’s victims in civil litigation.
In 2009, Riley confirmed that he would continue to store the materials in a “safe and secure location,” though the evidence’s location in the following decade remains unclear.
“If at any time, you are unable to maintain possession of those materials or have any concern whatsoever that Mr. Epstein’s possession may be compromised in any manner, please advise me immediately such that we can take the necessary actions to protect and preserve those materials as is required in the Non-Prosecution Agreement,” an attorney for Epstein wrote in a letter memorializing the conservation about the evidence.
Billing records of the private detective agency owned by Riley and Kiraly, both former Miami police officers, show that the firm’s invoices for Epstein and his attorneys spanned several years and included recurring charges for a storage facility, according to records included in the DOJ’s release of Epstein files.
Riley and Lavery did not respond to requests for comment last month. Reached by phone, Kiraly said he would not discuss anything related to Epstein.
Garcia told ABC News “it’s incredibly troubling” that Epstein’s computers and hard drives were in possession of private investigators and may have never been seen by any law enforcement agency.
“This idea that now these private investigators have this enormous amount of information that has not been accessible to us on the committee or in Congress or the American public is pretty significant,” Garcia said. “They’re an important part of our investigation.”
House Democrats, in the letters, requested that the investigators “preserve all relevant materials” in their possession, including hard drives, storage devices, backup archived data, cloud-based storage accounts, financial records, videos, photos, audio recording and all communications.
The committee also requested any records “reflecting the transfer, custody, or handling of the above materials; and any physical items that were taken from Jeffrey Epstein’s home.”
While Garcia’s invitation is for voluntary testimony, if the men do not cooperate, the committee could vote to subpoena them, or the Republican chairman of the Committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, could also unilaterally compel them to testify.
“We are bringing in anyone that has any information that would be helpful to our investigation and hopefully we’ll be able to get the truth to the American people and provide some type of justice for the victims,” Comer said after a recent deposition with Epstein’s accountant Richard Kahn.
Marie Villafaña, the former assistant U.S. attorney who pushed to indict Epstein during the investigation in Florida, previously said if the evidence on the missing computers “had been what we suspected it was … [i]t would have put this case completely to bed,” according to the OPR report.
Acosta said he had “no recollection” of the efforts to obtain the computers, and objected to the report’s conclusion that he should have given greater consideration to pursuing the evidence before entering the deal with Epstein, the report said.
