‘No more Nottoway’: Historic Louisiana plantation house destroyed in massive fire
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(WHITE CASTLE, La.) — A devastating fire destroyed the Louisiana’s historic Nottoway Resort, the largest antebellum mansion in the South, officials confirmed Friday.
“The fire has been contained now, but there’s no more Nottoway. The house is completely destroyed,” Iberville Sheriff’s Department Capt. Monty Migliacio told ABC News on Friday.
Emergency calls came in around 2:10 p.m. Thursday, reporting the fire, Migliacio told ABC News. The Iberville Sheriff’s Department arrived first, followed quickly by firefighters who fought the blaze at the White Castle mansion for hours.
“It was the biggest fire I’ve seen in my entire 20-year career,” Migliacio said.
Ten fire departments from surrounding areas worked together to contain the blaze and protect nearby buildings, according to officials.
Louisiana Fire Marshalls are investigating the cause of the blaze, authorities said.
Officials confirmed that no one was injured. It is unknown if anyone was touring the mansion at the time of the fire, they said.
Iberville Parish President Chris Daigle highlighted the mansion’s historical significance of the loss in a statement posted on Facebook.
“Nottoway was not only the largest remaining antebellum mansion in the South but also a symbol of both the grandeur and the deep complexities of our region’s past,” Daigle said.
He noted that it was built in 1859 and had been open to visitors since the ’80s.
“The loss of Nottoway is not just a loss for Iberville Parish but for the entire state of Louisiana,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — The killing of Clint Bonnell, a retired Green Beret whose remains were found in a North Carolina lake earlier this year, left his loved ones reeling. Now, his wife has been charged with his murder.
“We as a community have been devastated,” Kelli Edwards, Bonnell’s girlfriend, told ABC News. “How do you comprehend something like this? There’s really no comprehension.”
She added, “Whatever’s happened to him he didn’t deserve — no one deserves any of that — but he was just a really beautiful human being.”
Bonnell was in his second semester of physician’s assistant school at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and was the president of the cohort, Edwards said.
“This is a Green Beret who was a patriot to the Corps, who served for our country, who helped his fellow teammates with all their injuries, who deployed on teams, who went all around the world and he comes home and retires in three weeks and this is what happens? This is not okay,” Edwards said.
Edwards said Bonnell told her he was already going through the process of getting a divorce. Bonnell said he and his wife had been living separately for a couple of years and he had met with divorce attorneys, she said.
“After trying to make a marriage work for a long time, he decided it was best to cut cords and move on. And so when I met him, he was already at that stage,” Edwards said.
She added, “He was very intelligent, highly intelligent. But I think he really tried to see the best in everybody he was around. You have that personality which is a really great trait to have and sometimes it can be a flaw.”
Police said a wellbeing check on Bonnell was called in by an employee at the Methodist University on Jan. 28 after Bonnell did not attend class. When deputies arrived to the home, they spoke to his wife, Shana Cloud, who said she had not seen Bonnell since the day before, according to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s office.
Bonnell’s vehicle, school bag and other items were found in the residence, police said. A second wellbeing check was requested later in the evening by a friend of Bonnell, according to the sheriff’s office.
He was ultimately declared a missing person. Police executed multiple search warrants before human remains were found in a lake on Feb. 25.
Several weeks later, the remains were identified as belonging to Bonnell.
His wife has now been charged with first degree murder and felony concealing an unnatural death.
Cloud, a former traveling nurse who worked for the Virginia Department of Corrections, remains in custody without bond. Her attorney maintains her innocence, according to ABC station WTVD in Durham, North Carolina.
“Ms. Cloud looks forward to her day in court,” her defense said.
In court, prosecutors alleged Cloud was seen on video near the location where Bonnell’s remains were found, according to WTVD.
“Mr. Bonnell told his girlfriend that he had let the defendant know about the divorce and his plans the night before,” said Cumberland County District Attorney William West in court Monday. “We believe he was killed the following morning.”
Bonnell was shot multiple times, prosecutors say. A search of the couple’s home uncovered bullet holes in his book bag and laptop, according to WTVD.
Edwards said she started noticing some uncomfortable patterns and things happening in Bonnell’s life as their relationship got more serious.
“He didn’t really talk much about his wife in the beginning. I just knew more about his daughter, how much he loved his daughter and all the things that you know she’d brought to his life,” she said.
Edwards said she saw Bonnell the Monday he went missing and said you could tell he had a lot on his mind.
“The last text was that he was going to bed and good night basically. And that was it. And the next morning I texted an early morning text and there was no delivery,” she said.
Edwards said she called in a welfare check when she wasn’t hearing back from Bonnell the next day.
“I knew that something was wrong because we were in communication a lot during the day — mostly text messaging because he was in school — and I didn’t hear from him on the 28th of January,” Edwards said.
Edwards said she wants people to remember Bonnell as an amazing human who left an impact on many people.
“He was a very, just a jovial, happy human and he was really looking forward to his next part of his life, closing a chapter, coming out of the Army after 20 years, being in PA school — he was looking forward to the next chapter,” Edwards said.
The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said, “Our hearts go out to the Bonnell family, the Special Forces community, and the Methodist University Physician’s Assistant Program during this difficult time.”
No additional details will be released in the case “out of respect” for Bonnell and the integrity of the investigation, the sheriff’s department said.
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(WASHINGTON) — Another Navy fighter jet sank to the bottom of the Red Sea on Tuesday following the second such mishap aboard the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in just over a week, a U.S. official told ABC News.
The F/A-18 F fighter jet was attempting a nighttime landing onto the deck of the carrier when the crew was unable to stop it in time before going off the side, according to the official. When the “failed arrestment” of the aircraft became apparent, the two pilots ejected.
Both of the pilots were recovered and early indications are that they suffered minor injuries, the official said. No other injuries were reported.
The incident happened at 8:45 p.m. local time in the Red Sea, according to the official. It was not immediately unclear what led to the failed arrestment during the landing.
The incident is the fourth major mishap involving the carrier since it deployed last year, including when another F/A-18 jet fell off the side of the Truman just eight days ago. That jet was being towed in the hangar bay when the crew lost control of the aircraft, which then tumbled off the side along with the tow truck.
An investigation into the April 28 incident remains underway. F/A-18 jets cost some $70 million each.
In February, the Truman collided with a large merchant vessel in the vicinity of Port Said, Egypt, in the Mediterranean Sea. That incident followed an accidental shootdown of another F/A-18 late last year by one of the surface ships belonging to the Truman strike group.
The Truman has been operating in the Red Sea since last year when it was deployed to help protect commercial ships against near-constant attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The carrier was slated to come home last month, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth extended its deployment while ordering another carrier — the USS Carl Vinson — to the region to bolster military power.
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the U.S. would stop bombing the Houthis because the rebel group had agreed to stand down. A senior Houthi official said the group was not immediately agreeing to a U.S.-proposed ceasefire, saying they had to evaluate it first.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration could be sanctioned by a federal judge later this week after lawyers with the Department of Justice advised a federal judge Tuesday evening that they will not make a top administration official available for sworn testimony.
U.S. District Judge Charles Alsup had sought to have the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Charles Ezell, testify on Thursday about the mass firing of probationary employees.
But the DOJ said Tuesday that they would not make Ezell available for testimony.
By making Ezell unavailable, DOJ attorneys also withdrew his sworn affidavit, a move that Judge Charles Alsup suggested would heavily increase the odds that the Trump administration loses the case, which involves the legality of firing thousands of probationary employees.
“Live testimony of Mr. Ezell is also not necessary, as a factual matter, because existing documentary evidence and briefing demonstrates that OPM is not directing agencies to terminate probationary employees,” DOJ lawyers argued.
A group of federal unions has alleged that Ezell lied in a sworn declaration that his office did not order the firing of probationary employees based on “performance or misconduct,” prompting Judge Alsup to order Ezell to testify in person and under oath in San Francisco on Thursday.
The Trump administration attempted to push back on the order — arguing in a filing Monday that the testimony raises “fundamental constitutional concerns.”
Judge Alsup late Monday denied their request to cancel the hearing.
“The problem here is that Acting Director Ezell submitted a sworn declaration in support of the defendant’s position but now refuses to appear to be cross examined or to be deposed,” Judge Alsup wrote in an order Monday night.
The plaintiffs allege that on Feb. 13, Ezell convened a phone call with the heads of federal agencies to direct them to terminate thousands of federal employees and “falsely state that the terminations are for performance reasons.”
In a sworn declaration last month, Ezell denied directing the terminations based on performance reasons, instead arguing that OPM only issued guidance to individual agencies about the need for probationary workers to “demonstrate why it is in the public interest” for the government to continue to employ them.
“OPM did not direct agencies to terminate any particular probationary employees based on performance or misconduct, and did not create a ‘mass termination program,’ as the plaintiffs in this matter described it,” Ezell wrote.
The groups challenging the firings in court say that was a lie, and Judge Alsup appeared inclined to agree during a court hearing last month.
“How could so much of the work force be amputated suddenly overnight? It’s so irregular and so widespread and so aberrant from the history of our country,” Judge Alsup said. “How could that all happen with each agency deciding on its own to do something so aberrational?”
“I don’t believe it,” said the judge. “I believe they were directed or ordered to do so by OPM in that telephone call. That’s the way the evidence points.”
The allegations about the mass firings comes as the Trump administration faces increased scrutiny about the role of the Department of Government Efficiency in reducing the size of the federal government. During a cabinet meeting last week, Trump told the heads of the federal agencies that they are in charge of making cuts to their own departments, rather than Elon Musk and DOGE.
