Mom charged with murder for allegedly drowning 7-year-old daughter: DA
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(LOS ANGELES) — A California mom has been charged with murder for allegedly drowning her 7-year-old daughter, prosecutors said.
Graciela Castellanos, 37, allegedly killed her daughter at an apartment in Van Nuys on April 11, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
First responders pronounced the 7-year-old dead at the scene, prosecutors said.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman called the allegations “profoundly tragic and deeply unsettling.”
“Our sympathy goes out to the family and loved ones of this young girl, whose life was cut short far too soon,” Hochman said in a statement Tuesday.
Castellanos pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges of murder and assault on a child under 8 years old causing death. She’s due to return to court on June 17.
(RACINE, WI) — An 11-year-old boy was accidentally shot to death by his sibling inside of their Wisconsin home, police said.
The incident occurred on Friday when the Racine Police Department in Wisconsin received a call at 10:33 p.m. reporting that a juvenile had been struck by gunfire and was being taken to the hospital by his family, according to a statement from the Racine Police Department.
“When officers arrived at the hospital, they located an 11-year-old male suffering from a single gunshot wound,” police said. “The 11-year-old male did not survive his injury.”
Preliminary information indicate that the incident took place inside a home in the 2600 block of Prospect Street in Racine and that the victim was “accidentally shot by a sibling,” authorities confirmed.
“A suspect has been identified and apprehended,” police said.
Authorities did not disclose what may have happened leading up to the incident or how the juveniles came into contact with a firearm inside the home.
The investigation is currently ongoing and more information about this case will be released in due course.
A tentative agreement has been reached to end New Jersey’s first statewide transit strike in more than 40 years, according to the union representing the engineers and train operators.
Trains are set to resume operations on Tuesday, according to NJ Transit. The union had previously indicated trains would resume on Monday.
“We will have a deal. Strike will end,” the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) said in a statement.
Terms of the agreement, which have not yet been released, will be sent to the union’s 450 members who work as locomotive engineers or are trainees for their consideration, according to the union.
The BLET will begin to conduct a ratification vote by electronic ballot for participating members and the agreement will also be voted on by the NJ Transit board at their next meeting on June 11.
“While I won’t get into the exact details of the deal reached, I will say that the only real issue was wages and we were able to reach an agreement that boosts hourly pay beyond the proposal rejected by our members last month and beyond where we were when NJ Transit’s managers walked away from the table Thursday evening,” Tom Haas, the general chairman for BLET, said in a statement.
The strike, which lasted just three days, shut down trains on Friday, leaving some 350,000 commuters scrambling to find other modes of transportation.
BLET members 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.
The day before the strike commenced, a deal with the union was close but not reached, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said at the time.
Both sides met for eleventh-hour negotiations to avert the strike on Thursday, in addition to a meeting in Washington, D.C., on Monday with the National Mediation Board, but no resolution was reached.
Union leaders 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,” BLET National President Mark Wallace said at the time.
BLET chairman Haas said during the same news conference that engineers working for NJ Transit earn an average salary of $113,000 a year. If NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri agrees to an average salary of $170,000 a year for engineer operators, then “we got a deal,” Haas said.
Following the news of the tentative strike deal, Kolluri said supplemental bus service and park and rides will be operational as planned on Monday, along with the light rail.
“If you can work from home, please do that one more time tomorrow,” he added.
NJ Gov. Murphy celebrated the agreement, saying, “I am delighted to report that NJ Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen have reached a tentative agreement and as a result, New Jersey’s first rail strike in decades has officially come to an end.”
(GAZA) — Initial findings in an ongoing Israel Defense Forces investigation found that Israeli tank fire caused damage to a United Nations structure in central Gaza in March, killing one UN staffer and injuring five others.
The incident occurred one day after the ceasefire collapsed, according to a release from the IDF on Thursday. The IDF said it attacked the structure because of “suspicions of enemy presence.”
UN staffer Marin Marinov was killed in the Deir al Balah strike, UN Secretary General Deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told ABC News in an email in March.
The injured staffers were Neil Arnold, Joel Fournet, Nicolas Berthon, Alexandru Baban and David Petrov, Haq said.
The IDF initially denied involvement in the strike, saying it “did not strike a UN compound in Deir al Balah.” On Thursday, it apologized for “the unintentional harm to the UN employee and share the grief of the family.”
“The IDF continues to conduct thorough investigation processes in order to draw lessons and examine additional steps to prevent incidents of this type,” it said. “The IDF sees great importance in continuing the dialogue with international organizations, as part of efforts to coordinate, draw lessons, and prevent similar incidents in the future.”
The UN has opened its own fact-finding mission to learn more surrounding the circumstances of the strike.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, UN under-secretary-general and UNOPS executive director, responded to the IDF’s latest statement on the incident, saying: “We acknowledge the reported initial findings of the Israeli Defense Forces today that a tank round was the cause of the death of a UNOPS colleague in Deir al Balah. This is consistent with known facts to the UN: this incident was a result of a tank round into a fully deconflicted UNOPS premises. Full accountability must be ensured with respect to the grave violations of international law that have been committed.”
A week after the incident, the UN said it was “comfortable with the assertion” that rounds were fired by an Israeli tank during its initial gathering of security information, Haq told ABC News last month.
The UN secretary general announced that the organization planned to “reduce the Organization’s footprint in Gaza” on March 24, four days after the strike.
“In the past week, Israel carried out devastating strikes on Gaza, claiming the lives of hundreds of civilians, including United Nations personnel, with no humanitarian aid being allowed to enter the Strip since early March,” Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for UN secretary general, said in a statement in March. “As a result, the Secretary-General has taken the difficult decision to reduce the Organization’s footprint in Gaza, even as humanitarian needs soar and our concern over the protection of civilians intensifies.”
The Israeli government has blocked the delivery of all goods, food and medical supplies into Gaza for more than eight weeks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was blocking aid because Hamas refused to release more hostages in an extension of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Fifty-eight hostages remain in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.
The March 19 strike brought the number of UN staff members killed in Gaza since Hamas’ surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, to 280 people, the UN secretary general said in March.
The March UN building strike is one of several incidents where the IDF has acknowledged accountability.
It recently took responsibility for misidentifying targets and firing on a convoy of emergency medical vehicles on March 23, killing 15 medical and humanitarian workers.
It’s unclear from the IDF if any Israeli soldiers will be held accountable for deadly UN strike.
