Prisoner at large after escaping from Texas hospital
Bellville Police Department
(BELLVILLE, Texas) — Police are searching for a prisoner who escaped custody while undergoing testing at a hospital in Bellville, Texas, on Thursday.
The inmate, Salvador Saucedo, has red hair and tattoos and isn’t handcuffed. He was wearing an orange shirt and blue pants when he escaped, according to the Bellville Police Department.
He is missing his front teeth and has face tattoos, according to the Austin County Sheriff’s Office.
Saucedo was in custody on charges of possession of a controlled substance, resisting arrest and assault on a peace officer, according to the Waller County Sheriff’s Office.
Saucedo escaped from custody at Bellville Hospital shortly after 7 p.m. on Thursday, police said.
He has not been seen since, according to law enforcement.
Authorities from the Bellville Police Department, Austin County Sheriff’s Office and Waller County Sheriff’s Office have multiple units searching for him, including K-9s, drones and a helicopter.
It is unknown if Saucedo is still in the Bellville area or not. Bellville is about an hour west of Houston.
Anyone who sees the suspect is being asked to call 911 or call the Waller County Sheriff’s Office at 979-826-8282 or the Austin County Sheriff’s Office at 979-865-3111.
(WASHINGTON) — As Elon Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency works to reduce government spending by eliminating waste and cutting diversity programs, his SpaceX corporation currently has a multibillion dollar contract to help NASA land the first woman and first person of color on the moon.
In 2021, NASA announced that it had awarded a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX to build a spacecraft for long-term human exploration of the moon under its Artemis program.
“NASA is getting ready to send astronauts to explore more of the Moon as part of the Artemis program,” NASA said in the 2021 press release. “At least one of those astronauts will make history as the first woman on the Moon. Another goal of the Artemis program includes landing the first person of color on the lunar surface.”
In 2023, NASA announced that the crew for the Artemis moon exploration mission would be Navy Capt. Victor Glover, a Black Engineer of the Year Award honoree, and North Carolina native Christina Koch, the record-holder for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, as well as former chief of the Astronaut Office Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut and fighter pilot Jeremy Hansen.
“For a woman to be on the crew and for a Black astronaut to be on the crew, because that’s what our office looks like, to me it is important,” Glover told ABC News’ Linsey Davis in February 2024.
Musk, as the head of DOGE, is taking a knife to federal agencies and programs as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce the size of government. He has claimed to have cut a billion dollars’ worth of federal DEI programs, and sources say DOGE has directed agencies to remove anything DEI-related from bulletin boards, including posters and signs, and has checked bathroom signs to ensure they comply with Trump’s executive orders to eliminate DEI initiatives from the federal government.
NASA representatives and representatives for SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Since the 2021 announcement of the partnership with SpaceX, NASA has announced additional contracts for Musk’s space company as part of the moon landing mission. So far, SpaceX has received $2.8 billion in obligations, with the possibility of the total award going up to $4.4 billion, according to federal spending data.
SpaceX has received more than $18 billion in federal contracts over the last decade, with NASA making up $13 billion of that, federal spending data shows.
“SpaceX will not let NASA down!” Musk tweeted in 2022 in response to a post by then-NASA administrator Bill Nelson announcing an additional $1.15 billion contract for the company.
Last month, NASA said the agency would comply with Trump’s executive order aimed at ending DEI programs, by amending certain program elements, including ending the “Inclusion Plan Pilot Study,” removing requirements for “Inclusion Plans,” and removing “references to NASA’s DEIA programs.” It’s not yet clear if NASA’s compliance with Trump’s DEI order extends to each of its contractors.
The Artemis program was first established in 2017 under a directive from Trump during his first administration, with the aim of bringing humans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, plus a long-term goal of expanding to Mars.
(NEW YORK) –Luigi Mangione’s mother filed a missing persons report about her son in San Francisco on Nov. 18 — 16 days before he allegedly shot dead UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City — law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Mangione appeared in court in Pennsylvania on Monday, shortly after his arrest at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, following a five-day manhunt across multiple states. Mangione told a judge he was in touch with his family “until recently.”
Law enforcement sources told ABC News that Mangione’s mother spoke with a task force of FBI agents and New York Police Department detectives one day before her son’s arrest on Dec. 9.
That conversation followed a tip the FBI received from the police in San Francisco, where Mangione’s mother filed the missing persons report.
The tip from SFPD was based on physical appearance and Mangione’s mother, in her conversation with the Joint Violent Crimes Task Force last Sunday, indicated the person in the surveillance photos circulated by the NYPD could be her son, the sources said.
The task force was still working on the information the mother and San Francisco Police Department provided when Mangione, 26, was arrested in Altoona.
The Mangione family released a statement saying they were “shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest” and offered “our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.”
Mangione is currently in custody at a Pennsylvania state prison after a judge denied bail on Tuesday. Mangione faces charges in Pennsylvania including allegedly possessing an untraceable ghost gun. In New York, he faces charges including second-degree murder.
Mangione’s new attorney
Mangione has now hired veteran former New York City prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo to defend him, according to a statement from her law firm Agnifilo Intrater LLP.
Friedman Agnifilo served as the second-in-command in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office from 2014 to 2021 under former District Attorney Cyrus Vance. A biography on her law firm website says she played a lead role in prosecuting “high-profile violent crime cases,” including those involving mental health and cold case homicides.
“Karen Friedman Agnifilo has a three-decade background in criminal justice, litigation and trials. Her practice focuses on criminal defense in state and federal courts, leveraging her extensive experience prosecuting serious violent crimes, including complex homicide cases, from accusation to investigation to arrest and trial,” the biography said.
“While serving in the Manhattan DA’s office, Ms. Friedman Agnifilo was also integral to creating the office’s Human Trafficking Unit, Hate Crimes Unit, Antiquities Trafficking Unit, Terrorism Unit, its Cybercrimes and Identity Theft Bureau, as well as working on the creation of Manhattan’s first Mental Health Court,” the biography continued.
Friedman Agnifilo is also a frequent television news guest and commentator and is a former legal analyst for CNN.
She is the co-host of a weekly podcast on the Meidas Touch Network where she discusses emerging legal issues and litigation strategy, and serves as a legal adviser for the television show “Law and Order.”
Writings analyzed
Law enforcement sources told ABC News that writings seized from the suspect indicate he developed a fixation and increasing malice toward UnitedHealthcare and allegedly talked about harming its leader for months.
Some entries in the notebook seized from Mangione upon his arrest were dated as far back as mid-2024, the sources said.
That fixation eventually evolved into the alleged plan to shoot executive Thompson, the sources said.
Some of the writings were diary-style, documenting how he felt and what he did that day. They also documented a desire to focus on his health and find his purpose, the sources said.
But as time went on — and as Mangione allegedly fell out of contact with friends and family and grew increasingly isolated — some writings indicated a deterioration in his state of mind, illustrating a gradual build towards the alleged plan to kill Thompson at what the writings described as UnitedHealthcare’s “annual parasitic bean-counter convention,” sources said.
Mangione’s writings, obtained by ABC News, claimed that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world but ranks around 42nd in life expectancy.
He said UnitedHealthcare “has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit.”
“I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done,” he allegedly wrote. “Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.”
Neither Mangione nor his parents received insurance through UnitedHealthcare, according to UnitedHealth Group.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Dozens of people were arrested in Philadelphia after fans took to the streets to celebrate the Eagles’ Super Bowl victory, police said.
Philadelphia police reported nearly 50 arrests following the Eagles’ win against the Kansas City Chiefs in New Orleans on Sunday.
Among those, five people were arrested for assault on police, authorities said. There were also two arrests for aggravated assault, one for recklessly endangering another person and one for misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the third degree, police said.
Additionally, police said 29 people were arrested for disorderly conduct and issued code violation notices.
There were eight arrests for vandalism incidents, including against four city sanitation trucks, two banks and two retail stores, police said. The businesses were all in Center City on Walnut Street.
Amid the raucous celebrations, fans were captured passing a downed traffic light pole on a packed street, and a large fire was seen near an intersection.
The Super Bowl victory celebrations will continue on Friday, when the city hosts the parade to mark the Eagles’ commanding 40-22 win over the Chiefs.
Police similarly reported disorderly conduct and other incidents after the Eagles won the NFC championship game in Philadelphia on Jan. 26, which sent them to the Super Bowl.
Thirty-one people were issued citations for disorderly conduct or failure to disperse, police said at the time.
Two shootings, a stabbing and a car crash that injured multiple pedestrians were also among several “significant” incidents reported amid the NFC championship celebrations, police said.
Tragically, an 18-year-old Temple University student died after he fell from a light pole while celebrating the win, officials said.
ABC News’ Alexandra Faul contributed to this report.