New York county legislature candidate reported missing for almost a week
The Nassau County Police Department
(NEW YORK) — A New York county legislature candidate has been missing for almost a week, according to the Nassau County Police Department.
Petros Krommidas, 29, a Democrat running for the Nassau County legislature’s 4th District, was last seen on April 23 in Baldwin, New York, police said.
Police said Krommidas was last seen wearing a camouflage print sweatshirt and gray sweatpants and is believed to be in the area of Long Beach, New York.
“Please keep searching. We need to find him,” Krommidas’ sister, Eleni-Lemonia Krommidas, said in a statement on Tuesday.
According to his family, Krommidas parked his car by the Allegria Hotel in Long Beach, locked his vehicle, grabbed his towel and walked onto the beach to exercise, “just as he had done many times before,” around 10:30 p.m. on April 23.
Krommidas was “always in great shape, and has many future plans,” including participating in a triathlon, his family said in a statement on Monday. He also was “not a stranger to cold water training,” his family said.
He was reported missing on April 24, with the family saying it is “completely out of character” for Krommidas not to respond to messages.
On April 24, police found Krommidas’ towel, clothes and phone left on the beach, officials confirmed to ABC News. Since then, the search efforts have continued, but the family is also encouraging the public to help by walking along the beaches — specifically areas between Long Beach, Lido Beach and Jacob Riis Park — during high tide.
“Every pair of eyes helps. Every step along the beach matters. Thank you for being part of bringing Petey home,” the family said.
Just two days before his disappearance, Krommidas spoke at a meeting for the Nassau County Young Democrats.
Police said anyone with information regarding Krommidas’ whereabouts should contact the Missing Persons Squad at 516-573-7347.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — An 80-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly shooting and killing another man in a turkey hunting incident in Northern California, authorities said.
The 65-year-old victim was shot once on Sunday morning while turkey hunting at the Fremont Weir Wildlife Area, which is about 20 miles north of Sacramento, the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The suspect, 80-year-old John Lee, of Sacramento, was turkey hunting separately from the victim, authorities said.
Lee was taken into custody on charges of second-degree murder and negligent discharge of a firearm, the sheriff’s office said.
(ACWORTH, Ga.) — A Georgia mother recounted the moment she was “tug-of-warring” with a man she said tried to snatch her 2-year-old son from her while in a Walmart.
Caroline Miller was shopping at a Walmart in Acworth with her two young children last week when the incident occurred. They were in a motorized wheelchair at the time because her 4-year-old daughter wanted to ride it, she told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB.
The suspect first approached the family and asked for help finding Tylenol, she told the station.
“When I pointed my arm out this way to point to the direction of where it was, that is when he reached down, put both of his hands on Jude, and grabbed him out of my lap,” Miller told WSB this week.
“I’m like, ‘No, no, no, what are you doing? What are you doing?'” she told the station. “He pulled him. I pulled him back. We’re tug-of-warring.”
The mother was able to break away with her son and the suspect fled the store, according to police.
“I’m just glad that he’s still home with us,” Miller told WSB.
Officers responded to the Walmart on March 18 “after receiving a call of a male who attempted to snatch a juvenile away from their mother,” the Acworth Police Department said in a press release.
The child was not injured in the incident, police said.
Detectives spoke to witnesses and reviewed surveillance cameras and Flock safety surveillance cameras installed in the area, Acworth police said. They subsequently identified a suspect and secured a warrant, police said.
“We were able to see the car he got into, and followed the cameras, and used our Flock cameras in the city and was able to get a tag number and track him down,” Sgt. Eric Mistretta with the Acworth Police Department told WSB.
Mahendra Patel, 56, of Kennesaw, was arrested on Friday and has been charged with kidnapping, simple battery and simple assault, police said.
He remains in custody at the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office with no bond, online jail records show. Online records do not list any attorney information.
Miller said her children now know how to respond in dangerous situations.
“As much as we would think it would never happen, it will and does, and to be prepared for when it does,” she told WSB.
(WASHINGTON) — The National Archives on Tuesday released thousands of pages of declassified records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
The records were posted to the National Archives’ website, joining recently released records posted in 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2017-2018.
Most of what the government released tonight is not new — in fact, much of what has attracted attention on social media and in news reports has long been in the public domain, except for minor redactions, such as the blacking out of personally-identifiable information of CIA sources or employees, including names and addresses, which have now been disclosed.
But the newly-declassified versions of these documents also shed light on granular details of mid-20th century espionage that the CIA had fiercely fought to keep secret. President Biden and President Trump had accepted those arguments, until now.
Tuesday’s initial release contained 1,123 records comprising 32,000 pages. A subsequent release on Tuesday night contained 1,059 records comprising 31,400 additional pages and key takeaways from the newly released tranche of previously classified records.
Surveillance
Several of the newly-released pages detail how the CIA went about tapping telephones in Mexico City between in December 1962 and January 1963 to monitor the communications of the Soviets and Cubans at their diplomatic facilities, which Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald visited in the months before the assassination.
The previously-redacted pages spell out specific instructions for CIA operatives on how to wiretap, including the use of certain chemicals to create markings on telephone devices that could only be seen by other spies under UV light.
For decades, the CIA has urged the continued secrecy of these details out of fear that they would reveal the methods of the agency’s spy craft.
Another newly-disclosed portion details CIA surveillance of Soviet embassies in Mexico City and efforts to recruit double agents from Soviet agency personnel — and reveal the names and positions of those who were recruited.
The CIA officials writing these memos tout the efficacy of their efforts, with one trumpeting, “I cannot help but feel that we are buying a great deal for our money in this project.”
The memo also details the CIA’s surveillance of an American man described as a Communist living in Mexico. The bulk of the memo is a listing of phone numbers that were tapped by the U.S. government. This file has long been sought by researchers due to Oswald’s visits to the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City, but the document includes no mention of Oswald by name.
Cuba and Castro
The material shed new light on U.S. covert activities in Cuba targeting revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.
Unredacted text of a June 1961 memo on the CIA — sent to Kennedy by aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr. — contained harsh criticism of the spy agency just months after its backing of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion.
Some of the other documents also detailed operations to potentially overthrow Castro. One 1964 document showed that two intelligence assets discussed potentially assassinating Castro under the administration of President Lyndon Johnson.
The document said the CIA was allegedly “formerly in favor of such a plan,” but it was “shelved” due to the opposition of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
Another previously released document detailed RFK being briefed on potential plans to kill Castro. “RFK asks to be told before the CIA works with the Mafia again,” a footnote of the document read.
CIA foreign footprint
Schlesinger had also argued to Kennedy that the CIA’s reliance on “controlled American sources” had been encroaching on the traditional functions of the State Department, and that the CIA may have been seeking to infiltrate the politics of America’s allies.
At the U.S. embassy in Paris, for example, Schlesinger wrote that the “CIA has even sought to monopolize contact with certain French political personalities, among them the President of the National Assembly,”
Newly declassified portions of Schlesinger’s notes also revealed the number of CIA sources in Austria and Chile.
RFK killing
The release included 77 documents regarding RFK, with most of the documents relating to his activities as attorney general and senator, totaling about 2,500 pages.
Of those, only two directly mentioned his assassination in 1968. An intelligence document from 1968 — previously released in 2018 — discusses how RFK’s assassination stoked interest in his brother’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation into the matter.
“The forthcoming trial of Sirhan, accused of the murder of Senator Kennedy, can be expected to cause a new wave of criticism and suspicion against the United States, claiming once more the existence of a sinister ‘political murder conspiracy,'” the dispatch said.
