Nearly all of Puerto Rico without power on New Year’s Eve
Ricardo Arduengo/AFP via Getty Images
(PUERTO RICO) — An island-wide blackout in Puerto Rico Tuesday left millions of residents without power ahead of New Year’s Eve celebrations.
As of Tuesday afternoon, less than 10% of customers on the island had their power restored, according to power company LUMA.
LUMA said the exact cause of the power outage, which began at 5:30 a.m. local time, remains under investigation.
“As part of our coordinated response, our LUMA team is in close communication and collaboration with island officials, including the Governor, Governor-elect, and our Mayors to keep them updated on the status of restoration,” the power company said.
Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Pierluisi earlier said work was underway to restore the service at energy plants in San Juan and Palo Seco.
The U.S. territory has continued to face a slow rebuild of its infrastructure since Hurricane Maria caused widespread damage to the island in 2017.
In 2020, 1 million customers were without power following back-to-back earthquakes. An explosion and subsequent fire at a substation left 900,000 customers on the island without power in June 2021.
Another massive fire at a major power plant caused a massive outage for about 1.3 million customers in April 2022, followed by Hurricane Fiona in September of that year.
The weather is forecast to be disguised as summer for Halloween in most of the Northeast.
As ghosts and goblins prepare to go trick-or-treating on Thursday, temperatures are expected to feel more like Labor Day than All Hallows’ Eve as an autumnal U.S. hot spell continues.
Potential high temperature records for the last day of October are forecast to be broken in several cities in the Northeast.
In New York City, temperatures Thursday could possibly reach 80 degrees, which would set a new record for the day. Records are also expected to fall in Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., as those cities are also expected to breach the 80-degree mark.
Even the far Northeast will experience a warm Halloween as Burlington, Vermont, and Bangor, Maine, are forecast to heat up to 76 degrees. Down south, Charleston, South Carolina, could hit 84 degrees, while Raleigh, North Carolina, is forecast to get up to 81.
Temperatures in the Northeast are forecast to be around 30 degrees higher than last year’s Halloween, when New York City, Philadelphia and Boston were in the low 50s.
The balmy weather, however, will be short-lived.
A strong cold front is expected to move through the Northeast on Friday afternoon, bringing an end to record heat.
For the New York City Marathon on Sunday, the high temperature for the day is forecast to be 57, according to the National Weather Service.
The cold front is also expected to bring chilly temperatures, rain and snow to parts of the Great Lakes and upper Midwest. A winter weather advisory issued for Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan includes the chance of measurable snow.
Elsewhere in the nation, a cold front responsible for severe weather from Oklahoma to Illinois on Wednesday is forecast to move east, producing strong to severe storms from western Texas to Little Rock, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee, all the way to Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio.
As people across the Northeast were breaking out T-shirts and shorts amid record-breaking high temperatures this week, several inches of snow blanketed the mountaintops of Hawaii.
As firefighters in Colorado battled wildfires and meteorologists issued red-flag fire danger warnings, high elevations of Hawaii’s Big Island resembled the Rocky Mountains in winter.
Several inches of snow blanketed the summits of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, the tallest peaks in Hawaii and part of the state’s Volcanoes National Park.
“Due to winter weather conditions, the summit is currently closed for both day and overnight use, and permits for Mauna Loa Summit Cabin are temporarily on hold,” the Volcanoes National Park said in a statement on its Facebook page.
Meanwhile, in the actual Rockies, a major storm system moving in is expected to bring up to a foot of fresh snow. But elsewhere in Colorado, firefighters were dealing with what investigators suspect is a “human-caused” wildfire that spread to 166 acres near the town of Divide and was 80% contained on Wednesday.
The wintry weather expected for the Rockies was countered by record-breaking temperatures this week across a large part of the nation from Detroit, where it got up to 77 degrees on Wednesday, to Laredo, Texas, where the temperature was expected to hit 94, tying a daily record.
In these booking photos taken Oct. 10, 2024, Erik and Lyle Menendez are shown. Via CRDC.
(LOS ANGELES) — The Los Angeles County district attorney met with the Menendez brothers’ relatives on Friday, but said he is still reviewing the facts in the case and hasn’t yet decided if he’s in support of the brothers’ bid for freedom.
LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said that when he came into office on Dec. 3, he promised to review all the facts in Erik and Lyle Menendez’s case. He said that effort has involved reviewing thousands of pages of confidential prison records, trial transcripts, speaking to all the prosecutors and defense attorneys involved and reviewing court filings.
Hochman said that effort continues, noting that he’s not finished reviewing all the prison files from the brothers’ decades behind bars.
Over 20 Menendez relatives met with Hochman on Friday in their continued push for the brothers’ release from prison.
Hochman described the conversation as “very productive” and “in some ways, an informal, off-the-record discussion.”
“They gave me all their thoughts about what should happen, their experiences they wanted to share, the ultimate direction they wanted this case to go,” he said.
Hochman did not reveal the details of the conversation.
In a brief address to reporters, Anamaria Baralt, cousin of the Menendez brothers, spoke out after the family’s meeting with Hochman Friday afternoon.
“We did have a meeting with the district attorney and we’re grateful for his time,” she said in a statement. “I want to reiterate our position as a family and as the victims’ families that this 35-year process has been incredibly traumatizing for us as I’m sure that you can all imagine.”
She said she the family was hoping to see an immediate release of the brothers, saying that going before a parole board “will only serve to re-traumatize us.”
The previous district attorney, George Gascón, announced in October that he was recommending the brothers’ sentence of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, they would be eligible for parole immediately with the new sentence.
The DA’s office said its resentencing recommendations take into account many factors, including rehabilitation in prison, and abuse or trauma that contributed to the crime. Gascón praised the work Lyle and Erik Menendez did behind bars to rehabilitate themselves and help other inmates.
Weeks after Gascón’s announcement, he lost his race for reelection to Hochman.
Erik and Lyle Menendez next appear in court for a hearing in the resentencing case on Jan. 30 and Jan. 31.
This comes on the heels of an attorney for the brothers petitioning to move the case from the DA’s office to the California Attorney General’s Office, claiming a conflict of interest between Hochman and Kathleen Cady, whom Hoch just appointed director of the department’s Bureau of Victim Services.
Cady recently resigned as attorney for Milton Anderson, the one Menendez relative who has been pushing to keep the brothers in prison.
Hochman said Friday that Cady is “walled off from the Menendez case.”
Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted in 1996 of the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, who they gunned down in the family’s Beverly Hills home.
The defense claimed the brothers acted in self-defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father, but prosecutors alleged they killed for money.
Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were 21 and 18 at the time of the crime, respectively, were sentenced to two consecutive life prison terms without the possibility of parole.
Besides the resentencing, the brothers have been pursuing two other paths to freedom.
In 2023, the brothers filed a habeas corpus petition for a review of new evidence not presented at trial.
They also submitted a request for clemency to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. In November, Newsom said he’d defer to Hochman’s “review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”
ABC News’ Amanda M. Morris contributed to this report.
(ATHENS, Ga.) — The suspect accused of murdering Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus was found guilty on all charges Wednesday, including malice murder and felony murder.
Prosecutors called the evidence against the suspect “overwhelming,” while the defense raised the theory that the defendant could be an accomplice but not the killer during closing arguments in his trial.
Jose Ibarra, 26, was accused of killing the 22-year-old nursing student while she was out for a run after prosecutors said she “refused to be his rape victim.” Jose Ibarra, an undocumented migrant, was charged with malice murder and felony murder in connection with her death, which became a rallying cry for immigration reform from many conservatives, including President-elect Donald Trump.
Jose Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial and the case was presented over four days in the Athens-Clarke County courtroom to Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who rendered the verdict on Wednesday.
Sobbing could be heard in the courtroom as he read the guilty verdicts on each charge.
Before announcing his verdict, Haggard told the courtroom that he wrote down two statements from the attorneys during closing arguments.
One was a statement by the prosecutor, who said the “evidence was overwhelming and powerful.”
The other was one by the defense attorney, who said that the judge is “required to set aside my emotions.”
“That’s the same thing we tell jurors,” he said. “That’s the way I have to approach this, and I did. Both of those statements are correct.”
Court is on recess until 12:30 p.m. ET, at which point Haggard said he is ready to move ahead with sentencing.
Jose Ibarra faces a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors called 28 witnesses while laying out what they said was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Jose Ibarra killed Riley, who died by blunt force head trauma and asphyxia.
Special prosecutor Sheila Ross told the court Jose Ibarra encountered Riley while she was on her morning jog on Feb. 22 while he was out “hunting” for women on the Athens campus.
Ross said Riley “fought for her life” in a struggle that caused Jose Ibarra to leave forensic evidence behind. Digital and video evidence also pointed to him as the only killer, she said.
“The evidence in this case has been overwhelming, and the evidence in this case has spoken loud and clear — that he is Laken Riley’s killer, and that he killed her because she would not let him rape her,” Ross said during her closing argument on Wednesday.
A forensics expert testified that Jose Ibarra’s DNA was found under Riley’s right fingernails, and that his two brothers, who lived with him in an apartment near the campus, were excluded as matches.
When Jose Ibarra was questioned by police a day after the murder, he had visible scratches on his arms, officers said. He also had scratches on his neck and back, which Ross said could have only been left by Riley.
“In order to not find him guilty, you would have to disbelieve your own eyes,” Ross said.
“She marked him. She marked him for everyone to see. She marked him for you to see,” Ross told the judge.
Prosecutors argued Jose Ibarra hindered Riley from making a 911 call, and said his thumbprint was left on her phone. Data from his Samsung phone and the Garmin watch Riley was wearing on her run showed the devices overlapped and were in close proximity in the forest where she was found dead, an FBI analyst testified.
Jose Ibarra was captured on Ring footage discarding a bloody jacket and disposable gloves near his apartment about 15 minutes after Riley died, prosecutors said. The individual’s face can’t be seen in the video, but Jose Ibarra’s roommate testified that it was him. The defendant’s brother, Diego Ibarra, also identified him as the person in the video while being questioned by police a day after the murder.
Riley’s DNA was found on the jacket and gloves, the forensics expert said. Jose Ibarra’s DNA was also found on the jacket, while his two brothers were excluded as matches, the expert said.
“That is what we call consciousness of guilt in our business — he threw away those items because he knew he had killed her, and he threw them away because he didn’t want anyone to find him,” Ross said.
Her DNA was also found on an Adidas cap he was seen wearing in the video, the expert said. That cap was not discarded, Ross surmised, because Jose Ibarra could not see that there was actually blood on it.
Jose Ibarra was also seen in different clothes from the dumpster Ring footage discarding unidentifiable items in a bag that was never recovered by police hours after the killing. Ross surmised that the bag contained the clothes he was wearing earlier, which were also similar to ones he was wearing in a selfie posted on Snapchat earlier that morning.
“His digital evidence of posting selfies of himself wearing what is basically his rapist gear an hour before he leaves his house that condemns him, he has condemned himself,” Ross said.
The defense called three witnesses, including a neighbor who said Diego Ibarra had threatened her the night of Riley’s murder.
The defense said they had planned to call two additional witnesses — including Diego Ibarra, who is in federal custody awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to possessing a fraudulent green card, however, his attorney did not wish for him to testify.
“While the evidence in this case is voluminous, it is circumstantial,” defense attorney Kaitlyn Beck told the judge.
Beck told the judge they advised Jose Ibarra to have a bench trial “trusting that your honor could and believing that your honor would set aside the emotions in this case and simply consider the evidence.”
She argued there is doubt about what was tested and said the judge should be “skeptical” of the DNA evidence.
She presented an “alternative theory” that Diego Ibarra was actually Riley’s murderer, and that Jose Ibarra was an accomplice in covering up the evidence.
“Maybe it was him throwing away the jacket, as Diego said, maybe he was covering up for his brother,” Beck said.
“Under that theory, of course, Jose would be guilty of tampering, but that theory does not prove that he was present or involved in the murder of Laken Riley,” she said.
She said since three gloves were discarded, which “suggests that there are multiple pairs of hands wearing those gloves.”
On rebuttal, Ross called the defense’s theory “desperate” and a “mischaracterization of the evidence.”
“There is no reasonable explanation for all of this evidence other than he is guilty of every single count in this indictment,” Ross said.
Diego Ibarra told officers during questioning that he was asleep at the time the killing occurred. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation testified earlier Wednesday that there was no evidence to contradict that statement.
Jose Ibarra, a migrant from Venezuela who officials said illegally entered the U.S. in 2022, waived his right to testify during the trial. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges, including malice murder and felony murder.
Additional charges in the 10-count indictment included aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing or hindering a person making an emergency telephone call and tampering with evidence. The latter charge alleged that he “knowingly concealed” evidence — the jacket and gloves — involving the offense of malice murder.
Jose Ibarra was also charged with a peeping tom offense. Prosecutors said that in the hours before Riley’s murder, he spied through the window of a UGA graduate student, and said the incident “shows his state of mind” that day.
The student testified that she called police after hearing someone trying to open her door.
Ross said the person at the student’s apartment was wearing clothes similar to the ones Jose Ibarra had on in the Snapchat selfie posted earlier that morning, including the Adidas cap.
