Missing 21-year-old Navy sailor found dead, another sailor in custody
Virginia State Police
(NORFOLK, VA) — A 21-year-old Navy sailor who mysteriously disappeared in Virginia has been found dead, and another sailor is in custody, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service said.
Angelina “Angie” Resendiz was last seen on the morning of May 29 at her barracks in Miller Hall at Naval Station Norfolk, according to the Virginia State Police.
Resendiz’s body was found in a wooded area in Norfolk on Monday; the remains were confirmed to be the missing sailor on Tuesday, NCIS said.
Another Navy sailor “has been placed in pretrial confinement” in connection with Resendiz’s death, NCIS said. The sailor was not named.
“Charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice are pending,” NCIS said in a statement. “NCIS remains committed to uncovering the facts surrounding the tragic death of Seaman Resendiz to ensure accountability and justice.”
Resendiz, a Texas native, was a culinary specialist assigned to the USS James E. Williams, the Navy said.
Resendiz joined the Navy in 2023 after high school “because she felt it was something that called her,” her mother, Esmeralda Castle, wrote to ABC News last week.
As a culinary specialist, “She thought that one day she might be able to cook for the president and other world leaders,” Castle said. “She worked really hard on her ship.”
“People that care about Angie shared with me that the last person she was with was missing with her,” and “that person showed up [on June 2] but not Angie,” Castle said.
“There are no answers for me,” she said. “I just want my kid.”
(NEW JERSEY) — New Jersey Transit train engineers have officially commenced their strike, shutting down commuter trains and leaving hundreds of thousands of commuters scrambling to find other modes of transportation.
Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union had been threatening to go on strike unless NJ Transit officials and the union were able to agree on new contract terms and conditions for the workers who drive the trains.
A deal was close but not reached, according to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, resulting in all New Jersey Transit commuter trains and the MTA Metro-North West of Hudson service to stop running when the strike began at 12:01 a.m. on Friday.
Tom Haas, the general chairman for BLET, told ABC News on Friday that “it felt like” they were close to reaching a deal, but the two were “still several dollars apart and New Jersey Transit was unable to bridge that gap.”
“We are ready, willing and able to talk at any time,” Haas said. “Ultimately, it was New Jersey Transit that decided to walk away, which is unfortunate because we don’t want to be in this situation.”
BLET National Vice President James Louis said during a press conference on Friday that negotiations between the union and NJ Transit officials will not resume until Sunday.
“We hope this is not a long strike,” Louis said.
On Thursday, both sides met again for eleventh-hour negotiations to avert the strike, in addition to a meeting in Washington, D.C., on Monday with the National Mediation Board, but no resolution was reached.
During a press conference late Thursday evening, Murphy and NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri encouraged commuters to work from home on Friday.
“If you can work from home, certainly tomorrow, and you’re out there watching that would be a really good day to do so,” Murphy said.
Kolluri said Thursday evening there was an imminently achievable deal and negotiations weren’t a “lost cause.” They are expected to resume negotiations on Sunday morning, according to Kolluri.
After a New Jersey Transit board meeting on Wednesday, Kolluri told reporters he was “confident and optimistic” about their efforts to avert a strike.
“I am going to stay at the negotiating table as long as it takes,” Kolluri said. “If it takes two to tango, I think if we can all focus on the task at hand, which is to get a fair and affordable agreement, I think we can avert a strike.”
BLET National President Mark Wallace said during a press conference on May 9 that it’s been five years since train engineers working for NJ Transit have received a pay increase.
“Reasonable people would vote for an agreement that is fair,” Wallace said.
Haas said during the same news conference that engineers working for NJ Transit earn an average salary of $113,000 a year. If New Jersey Transit CEO Kris Kolluri agrees to an average salary of $170,000 a year for engineer operators, then “we got a deal,” Haas said.
“NJ TRANSIT locomotive engineers already have average total earnings of $135,000 annually, with the highest earners exceeding $200,000,” according to a statement on the New Jersey Transit website regarding negotiations with the BLET.
During a separate press conference on May 9, Kolluri responded to the union’s arguments, saying Haas previously agreed to a wage increase to $49.82 an hour but then later demanded even higher wages because he thought there was a “better pot at the end of the rainbow.”
“I cannot keep giving money left and right to solve a problem. It all comes down to, who is going to pay for this? Money does not grow on trees,” Kolluri said.
ABC News requests sent to NJ Transit and the BLET for comment regarding Wallace, Haas and Kolluri’s statements concerning pay increase claims did not receive a response.
NJ Transit states that if they were to accept BLET’s terms, it would cost both them and New Jersey taxpayers $1.363 billion between July 2025 and June 2030. Additionally, if BLET chooses to strike, the taxpayer cost of providing a limited alternative service via buses would be $4 million per day, NJ Transit claims.
NJ Transit officials have said the strike would “disrupt the lives of more than 350,000 commuters” and developed a contingency plan that includes adding “very limited capacity to existing New York commuter bus routes in close proximity to rail stations and contracting with private carriers to operate bus service” for commuters that typically rely on the trains.
But even with the expanded bus service, NJ Transit said that it “estimates that it can only carry approximately 20% of current rail customers” because the bus system doesn’t have the capacity to replace commuter rail service.
Xuan Sharon Di, associate professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia University, told ABC News before the strike began that it could be a “disaster” for the traffic in Manhattan due to the increased bus and car traffic into the city from commuters unable to take the train. There also will be the added penalty of commuters into Manhattan having to pay recently enacted congestion pricing.
“New Jersey Transit is the backbone for people who live in New Jersey to move around. This is actually shocking to me,” Di told ABC News of the prospect of a strike.
Steven Chien, civil and environmental engineering professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said many of his colleagues use NJ Transit to commute and that a strike will “paralyze vital transportation arteries in our regions.”
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — The mother of a 9-year-old boy is speaking out after he was swept away and killed by floodwaters in Kentucky during the four days of historic storms that pounded the region.
Gabriel Andrews was swept away by the floodwaters on Friday morning while walking to his school bus stop in hard-hit Frankfort, according to the Franklin County Coroner’s Office.
Gabriel, who enjoyed basketball and football, “had the most beautiful smile” and “loved everyone he came in contact with,” his mother, Racheal Andrews, told ABC News.
“I’m overwhelmed with the love that the community had for my son,” she added.
The four days of deadly storms began on Wednesday, devastating the central U.S. with catastrophic flooding and destructive tornadoes. Twenty-three people have died, with the fatalities spanning Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Indiana.
Franklin County, Kentucky, was hit especially hard by the life-threatening rain, and Racheal Andrews said she is “devastated” that in-person school wasn’t canceled on Friday.
“There never should have been school that day,” she said.
The Franklin County School District is on spring break this week and superintendent Mark Kopp did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on Monday.
But Kopp commented on Gabriel’s death on Friday, saying in a statement, “We are deeply saddened at this horrific tragedy.”
“We are more than a school system, we are a family at Franklin County Schools, and we share this loss together. At this time, we are working with support staff at our schools and offering services to our students, faculty, and staff who need assistance,” Kopp said. “We are eternally grateful for our community first responders from both city and county agencies who selflessly responded to assist in this situation.”
(WASHINGTON) — The federal judge overseeing the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador in error, slammed the government’s handling of the case Friday and ordered the Justice Department to provide her with “daily updates” on its efforts to bring him back.
“From now until compliance, [I am] going to require daily statuses, daily updates,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said at a hearing in Maryland on Friday. “We’re going to make a record of what, if anything, the government is doing or not doing.”
The judge said she will require updates on Abrego Garcia’s location, what steps the Trump administration has taken to facilitate his return, and what additional steps the government will take to return him.
The judge said the Supreme Court, in its ruling on the matter late Thursday, was quite clear in directing the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia.
“The Supreme Court has spoken quite clearly,” Judge Xinis said. “And yet, I can’t get an answer today about what you’ve done in the past, which means, again, the record as it stands, is that nothing has been done.”
Judge Xinis began the hearing by asking the government to answer where Kilmer Armando Abrego Garcia is — but Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign told the judge that he does “not have the information” regarding Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts.
“Where is he and under whose authority?” Xinis repeatedly asked.
“I do not have that knowledge, and therefore I cannot relate that knowledge,” Ensign said.
“I’m not asking for state secrets, I’m asking where one man who is wrongly and illegally deported, removed from this country [is],” Xinis said.
“Your Honor, I do not have the information provided to me that I can provide to you,” Ensign said again.
The judge decided to go ahead with Friday’s hearing after the Trump administration sought to delay the hearing until next week. The Justice Department on Friday morning asked her to reschedule the hearing for Wednesday, April 16, two days after El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is scheduled to meet with the White House — but the judge, in a filing, kept the hearing date as scheduled.
Judge Xinis scheduled the hearing after the U.S. Supreme late Thursday affirmed her earlier ruling ordering the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States after he was mistakenly sent to an El Salvador prison last month.
Judge Xinis had also ordered the Trump administration to file, by 9:30 a.m. ET Friday, a supplemental declaration from an individual with personal knowledge acknowledging the current physical location of Abrego Garcia and what steps the administration will take to facilitate his immediate return.
Attorneys for DOJ requested the deadline for the supplemental declaration be moved to next week, but in her filing the judge moved the deadline back by only two hours. In response, the DOJ told Judge Xinis in a filing that they were unable to provide her the information she requested on such a short deadline.
“In light of the insufficient amount of time afforded to review the Supreme Court’s Order following the dissolution of the administrative stay in this case, Defendants are not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the Court. That is the reality,” the DOJ’s filing said.
“It is unreasonable and impracticable for Defendants to reveal potential steps before those steps are reviewed, agreed upon, and vetted,” they added. “Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review.”
The Supreme Court on Thursday largely upheld Judge Xinis’ ruling last week ordering the Trump administration to bring Abrego Garcia back.
“The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the Supreme Court’s unsigned order stated.
Abrego Garcia — despite having protected legal status preventing his deportation to El Salvador, where his attorneys say he escaped political violence in 2011 — was sent to that country’s notorious CECOT mega-prison following what the government said was an “administrative error.”
The Trump administration has claimed Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, which his lawyers and his wife deny, and argued in legal filings that because Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody, the courts cannot order him to be returned to the U.S. nor order El Salvador to return him.
In response to the Supreme Court ruling, the Trump administration has emphasized its role in carrying out foreign policy, which was also cited in the high court’s order.
The Supreme Court said the lower-court judge should “clarify” her earlier order “with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs. For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”
In a statement, a Justice Department spokesman said: “As the Supreme Court correctly recognized, it is the exclusive prerogative of the President to conduct foreign affairs. By directly noting the deference owed to the Executive Branch, this ruling once again illustrates that activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the President’s authority to conduct foreign policy.”
Reacting to the Supreme Court ruling, the attorney for Abrego Garcia told ABC News that “the rule of law prevailed.”
“The Supreme Court upheld the District Judge’s order that the government has to bring Kilmar home,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg. “Now they need to stop wasting time and get moving.”
ABC News’ Alexander Mallin and Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.
