Pentagon pulling 2,000 National Guard deployed to LA amid ICE protests
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(LOS ANGELES) — The U.S. military presence in Los Angeles is being reduced by almost half as the Pentagon confirms that 2,000 California National Guard members are being withdrawn from the mission to protect federal buildings and personnel that followed protests of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Los Angeles.
“Thanks to our troops who stepped up to answer the call, the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding. As such, the Secretary has ordered the release of 2,000 California National Guardsmen (79th [Infantry Brigade Combat Team]) from the federal protection mission,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement provided to ABC News.
Nearly 4,700 personnel had been provided to that mission with 700 of them being active-duty Marines and the remaining 4,000 coming from the California National Guard.
The initial deployment of 2,000 California National Guard members to Los Angeles was announced on June 7.
At the time, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media that he was prepared to send active-duty Marines “if violence continues.” Two days later, U.S. Northern Command announced that 700 Marines from Twentynine Palms in California were being deployed to Los Angeles.
An additional 2,000 National Guard members were later mobilized for the mission in Los Angeles.
Some of the Guard members later received specific training to provide perimeter security during ICE operations and were not carrying out law enforcement duties. However, they were authorized to temporarily detain individuals if needed and then quickly turn them over to law enforcement personnel.
(PHOENIX) — Lori Daybell is set to be sentenced in Arizona on Friday for conspiring with her late brother to kill her fourth husband in 2019.
She will also be sentenced for conspiring with her brother to kill her niece’s ex-husband in a failed drive-by shooting that same year.
Daybell was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in two separate trials in Maricopa County this spring. She faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years for each conviction, prosecutors said.
Her sentencing hearing is underway in Phoenix before Judge Justin Beresky, who presided over both trials.
The so-called “doomsday mom” is already serving life in prison after being convicted in 2023 of murdering two of her children. Prosecutors in the Idaho trial argued that she and her current husband, Chad Daybell, thought the children were possessed zombies and murdered them in 2019 so that they could be together. She was also found guilty of stealing Social Security survivor benefits allocated for the care of her children after they went missing.
Similarly, prosecutors in Maricopa County argued that she conspired with her brother to kill her estranged husband of 13 years, Charles Vallow, so she could get his $1 million life insurance policy and be with Chad Daybell, an author of religious fiction books whom she married four months after the deadly shooting.
Prosecutors further said she invoked their “twisted” religious beliefs as justification for the murder and gave her brother “religious authority” to kill Vallow because they believed he was possessed by an evil spirit they referred to as “Ned.”
In the first of her Arizona trials, Lori Daybell argued that her brother, Alex Cox, shot Vallow in self-defense in her home in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019.
She was then found guilty in a second trial of scheming with Cox to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of her niece. Three months after Vallow’s killing, Boudreaux called 911 to report that someone driving by in a Jeep shot at his vehicle outside his home in Gilbert, Arizona.
Prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum that Boudreaux continued to live in fear following the failed attempt on his life, wondering if Cox would “return to finish the job.”
Cox died from natural causes later in December 2019.
Lori Daybell, 51, did not take the stand or call any witnesses in either trial, in which she represented herself. In her closing statement, she argued that her family has been struck by tragedy and that she did not conspire to commit any crime.
Her sentencing hearing comes after failed attempts at getting new trials on both counts. After being convicted of conspiring to kill Vallow, she also unsuccessfully tried to remove Judge Beresky from the case, claiming he was biased against her.
She frequently clashed with the judge while representing herself during the trials. During the second trial, Beresky at one point removed her from the courtroom after she became combative during discussions about her character. The judge had warned that if she referred to herself as having “great character,” that could open the door for the state to introduce evidence to rebut that character, including regarding her previous convictions in Idaho.
Both Lori and Chad Daybell were found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of her children in separate trials in Fremont County, Idaho. Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, went missing months after Charles Vallow was killed. Their remains were found on an Idaho property belonging to Chad Daybell in June 2020 following a monthslong search.
They were also found guilty of conspiring to kill Chad Daybell’s first wife, Tamara Daybell, who died in October 2019 — two weeks before Lori and Chad Daybell married in Hawaii. Chad Daybell was found guilty of murdering her.
Lori Daybell is currently serving life in prison without parole, while Chad Daybell was sentenced to death for the three murders and now awaits execution on Idaho’s death row.
Victim impact statements
Several of Lori Daybell’s relatives have addressed the court ahead of the sentencing, touching on the loss of Vallow as well as JJ and Tylee.
Her eldest son, Colby Ryan, from her second marriage, remembered Vallow as a generous man.
“My father, Charles Vallow, cared for his family. He took care of our family, and he made sure we had a good life,” Ryan said.
He said his mother told him Charles Vallow had died from a heart attack, before he learned the truth, and spoke about the pain of losing his father and then his siblings.
“I’m here to tell you the effect that this has had on me. In simple terms, each one of my family members was taken from us all in one swoop,” Ryan said.
Regarding his mother, he said it “must be a very sad life to smile your way through all the pain you’ve caused.”
“Rather than being able to acknowledge the pain that she has caused, she would rather say that Charles, Tylee and JJ’s deaths were a family tragedy and not her evil doing,” he said. “Quite frankly, I believe that Lori Vallow herself is the family tragedy.”
One of Vallow’s sisters, Susan Vallow, said the day her brother died “changed my life forever.”
“My brother’s death was a deliberate act of evil and self-seeking financial gain. Your greed has caused so much pain to this day,” she said virtually.
Kay Woodcock, another one of Charles Vallow’s sisters and JJ’s biological grandmother, read a letter she wrote from the perspective of JJ in court.
“I can’t be here to read this letter, because I am dead. I was murdered by the defendant Lori Daybell, or as I used to call her, mom,” she read. “See, there are a whole lot of tragedies that have happened to my family, and all of them are the result of my mom’s actions.”
Vallow “never would have let her hurt me, and I know he died protecting me,” the letter said.
“I should be 13 years old now, but I’m forever seven,” she read.
At the end of the letter, she screamed at Lori Daybell, “I trusted you!” before breaking down in tears.
Her husband, Larry Woodcock, his anger visceral, called Lori Daybell a “narcissist, psychopath, delusional murderer.”
“You’re nothing, murderess,” he said. “I can’t stand you.”
Following remarks by several members of his family, including his siblings and current wife, Boudreaux addressed how the attempted murder has impacted him.
“The betrayal by someone connected to my family has left me battling overwhelming emotions over the years,” he said, his voice shaky. “I felt fear, paranoia. I lived with constant vigilance, loneliness, regret, sadness, depression, anger, heartache and embarrassment.”
He said he has chosen to forgive Lori Daybell so he can be a better father, husband, son, neighbor and friend. “But I had never seen any remorse or acknowledgement from Lori,” he said.
Melissa and Mark Hortman attend at Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer Labor Party’s annual Humphrey-Mondale Dinner at the Minneapolis Hilton on Friday, June 13, 2025.(Minnesota House DFL Caucus)
(BROOKLYN PARK, MN) — State Rep. Melissa Hortman and State Sen. John Hoffman, who were targeted by a shooter on Saturday, were longtime members of Minnesota’s state legislature who spent years working to improve their communities, according to leaders who knew them.
Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed at their home in Brooklyn Park early Saturday by a suspect who posed as a police officer, investigators said. They left behind two children.
Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot earlier in the morning by the same suspect inside their home at Champlin. The couple, who have a daughter, were rushed to a hospital and underwent surgery, Gov. Tim Walz said.
Authorities said they’ve identified 57-year-old Vance Boelter as a suspect as they search for the gunman.
Both state leaders were members of Minnesota’s Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), a state party affiliated with the Democrats.
Hortman, 55, nee Haluptzok, had the most experience in the state legislature. She earned a BA in political science and philosophy at Boston University and worked as an intern for then-Sen. Al Gore and later Sen. John Kerry, according to her campaign biography.
Hortman went on to earn a law degree at the University of Minnesota Law School in 1995 and clerked with Judge John Sommerville. She later earned an MPA from Harvard in 2018.
Outside politics, Hortman worked as a private attorney and volunteered her time in the local school board and Sunday school at Saint Timothy Catholic Church in Blaine. She first ran for office in 1998, for the State House of Representatives seat, but lost.
After another defeat for the same seat four years later, Hortman was elected to the state’s District 47B in 2004.
Hortman quickly rose through the ranks of the House, serving as assistant majority leader from 2007 to 2010 and as minority whip from 2011 to 2012. She championed many causes, including reproductive rights and environmental issues.
She also pushed for stricter gun control and attended events with gun control advocates, including Everytown for Gun Safety.
In 2017, she was named minority leader and became speaker in 2019 after the DFL gained a majority in the House. Hortman spearheaded efforts to pass police reform in 2020 following the George Floyd protests.
During this year’s session, the state House Republicans and the DFL engaged in a tense standoff over leadership after Republicans gained seats. A DFL boycott ended in February with a power-sharing agreement where Hortman retained the title of minority leader until a March special election created a tie in the House.
Hortman and her husband were married for 31 years. Mark Hortman worked as a program manager for nVent Electric, a company that specialized in electronics, particularly green electronics, according to his Facebook and LinkedIn pages.
Mark Hortman frequently posted photos and updates about his family on his Facebook page.
“A couple of weeks ago, I posted a video showing off how we taught our dog how to ring the doorbell when he wants to come inside. Well, now that dog has figured out that if he wants to play he rings the doorbell and then ding dong ditches us just to get us to come outside and play!,” he posted in 2023.
The couple attended the DFL’s annual Humphrey-Mondale Dinner at the Minneapolis Hilton on Friday, according to the Minnesota House DFL Caucus.
They were killed on the same day as the birthday of Melissa Hortman’s father, her sister, Lieza Jean Haluptzok, told ABC News.
“We loved them dearly; they will be missed. It’s a horrible thing. I hope they catch him. And they get justice for what happened. It’s devastating,” she said Saturday afternoon.
Hoffman, 60, was elected to the State Senate in 2012.
A Wyoming native, Hoffman earned a bachelor’s degree from Saint Mary’s University and spent several decades working for various Minnesota businesses and non-profits, according to his campaign bio page.
He was the co-founder of Consumer Credit of Minnesota, a non-profit consumer assistance organization, and served on the Anoka Hennepin School Board starting in 2005, his bio said.
In 2012, he won the state senate seat for District 34 and would win reelection three more times.
He served as the minority whip from 2017 to 2020 and is on the Senate’s Human Services committee.
“Throughout my career, I have been afforded many opportunities to assume progressive management roles, which have allowed me to gain and implement a unique set of expertise,” he wrote on his campaign page.
ABC News’ Mark Guarino contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The extreme rainfall that occurred in the Northeast on Monday will likely occur more often in the future as a result of climate change, research shows.
The Northeast has experienced the largest regional increase of extreme precipitation in the U.S., with a 60% increase in recent decades, according to the U.S. government’s Fifth National Climate Assessment, a summary of the latest climate science research findings by 14 different federal agencies, published in November 2023.
Extreme precipitation events are very rare, defined as the top 1% of daily precipitation events.
While it’s problematic to attribute any specific weather event solely to climate change, global warming is amplifying naturally occurring events, like the torrent of rain that fell on the Northeast on Monday evening, making them more intense.
New York City’s Central Park preliminarily recorded its second-highest hourly rainfall total since 1943, measuring 2.07 inches of precipitation in one hour at around 7 p.m. on Monday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The amount of rain that fell in one hour represents a 1-in-20-year flood for Central Park, meaning there is a 5% chance it could happen in any given year.
The record for most precipitation in one hour in Central Park was set on Sept. 1, 2021, when the remnants from Hurricane Ida caused 3.15 inches of rain to fall, flooding basement apartments in the city and killing 13 people.
The deluge of water caused subway lines to flood, with water even rushing from platforms and into train cars. In at least one instance, the city sewer overflowed into the subway system, according to the city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Between one and five inches of water fell in neighboring northern and central New Jersey, with the highest totals measured in the regions around Plainfield, New Jersey and White Plains, New York – about five inches, according to the NWS. Metro-North and New Jersey Transit commuter train lines experienced service disruptions due to downed trees and flooding, and numerous roadways in the region were closed due to floodwaters. Two people were killed when their car was swept into the overflowing Cedar Brook river in Plainfield, officials said.
According to climate scientists, human-amplified climate change is causing extreme rainfall events to become more frequent and more intense. More intense extreme rainfall events also increase the frequency and scale of flash flooding as the influx of water is more than existing infrastructure was built to handle, according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment.
Additionally, human-amplified climate change has contributed to increases in the frequency and intensity of the heaviest precipitation events across nearly 70% of the U.S., the Fifth National Climate Assessment found.
ABC News’ Climate and Weather Unit contributed to this report.
