Virginia state lawmaker who led redistricting push indicted by DOJ in marijuana trafficking conspiracy
Sen. Louise Lucas (D-VA) speaks in the chamber of the Supreme Court of Virginia on March 2, 2026, in Richmond, Virginia. (Mike Kropf-Pool/Getty Images)
Federal authorities have indicted Virginia Democratic state Sen. L. Louise Lucas and several family members and associates on charges stemming from a yearslong marijuana trafficking conspiracy and corruption probe.
Lucas, 82, has long been a powerful force in Virginia state politics and previously spearheaded the commonwealth’s redistricting effort which was reversed by the state’s Supreme Court earlier this year.
But in a sweeping 45-page indictment unsealed Thursday, prosecutors accuse her of using her legislative office to help support a “criminal enterprise” through a marijuana dispensary business with charges ranging from racketeering, money laundering, drug trafficking and fraud.
The indictment charges Lucas and six others, including Lucas’ two daughters and a grandson, with arranging for the purchase and sale of more than 100 kilos of marijuana, and laundering the profits — with Lucas allegedly using her role as the Virginia Senate pro-tempore and chair of the Finance and Appropriations committee to shield her activities from scrutiny.
Lucas self-surrendered to authorities Thursday morning, according to a DOJ official.
The federal corruption probe, which sources previously told ABC News dated back to the Biden administration, has been known since May of this year when the FBI carried out searches of Lucas’ office and a marijuana dispensary business she owned.
Thursday’s indictment says that in the searches, both marijuana and firearms were recovered, though Lucas herself is not specifically charged with firearms offenses.
Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel were expected to appear at a news conference in Norfolk Thursday to announce the case, in a rare move for two of the nation’s top law enforcement officials.
The FBI said it is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest of Oscar Sanchez-Munoz. (FBI)
The man wanted by the FBI in a string of shootings in the Kansas City, Missouri, area is believed to have been found dead, according to police.
Oscar Sanchez-Munoz, 22, allegedly shot at a car in Wyandotte County, Kansas, on June 11, authorities said, and then on June 16, he allegedly shot at five cars along Interstate 70 in Kansas City, Missouri. The June 16 shootings killed one person and wounded four, police said.
On the night of June 16, Sanchez-Munoz barricaded himself inside a house in Independence, Missouri, east of Kansas City, and engaged in a standoff with police, authorities said. In the middle of the night, the house went up in flames, and once firefighters put out the blaze and police entered the house, Sanchez-Munoz was not there, authorities said.
The manhunt for Sanchez-Munoz had been underway ever since, with the FBI offering a $25,000 reward.
On Wednesday afternoon, Sanchez-Munoz’s relatives, who were going through the damage at the house in Independence, called detectives to say they noticed the smell of decomposition in the basement, and when they moved some items aside, they saw what they thought was a body, police said.
Responding officers found a body in clothes consistent with what Sanchez-Munoz was wearing the night of the shootings, police said.
“Based on clothing description, and last known location, detectives preliminarily believe this deceased person in the residence is Sanchez-Munoz,” police said in a statement.
The medical examiner will confirm the identity and determine the cause and manner of death, police said.
A sign indicates the store accepts SNAP benefits on April 21, 2026, in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding could face a major shake-up at the end of September unless Congress passes a resolution to delay major changes included in H.R. 1, commonly known as the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
Starting Oct. 1, states will have to pick up 75% of the administrative costs of running the program, with the funding burden of providing benefits to participants set to shift from the federal to state level over the next few years.
State and national food assistance groups are calling on Congress to pass a resolution delaying the implementation of this cost shift, to give states more time to prepare for the bigger bill.
The federal food assistance program faced a funding lapse last fall, and experts are now warning of an uncertain future.
Nationwide, roughly 5 million Americans have lost access to SNAP since the Republican-backed budget bill became law, including more than 1.5 million children, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Much of the decline can be attributed to changes in work requirements and administrative hurdles in applying, coupled with a major cost shift that states will have to bear if they want SNAP to remain fully funded, Dottie Rosenbaum, director of federal SNAP policy at the CBPP, told ABC News.
Under the law, the upper age limit for able-bodied adults without dependents who must meet work requirements was raised from 54 to 64.
Additionally, exemptions were changed for parents and other family members responsible for a dependent, lowering the qualifying age from 18 to 14.
“The declines we’re seeing in SNAP participation so far are far deeper and far faster than the Congressional Budget Office predicted at the time the law was enacted, and it’s especially alarming that more than one and a half million children have been cut,” Rosenbaum said.
“We’re hearing increasing reports … of people struggling to put food on the table, of people facing untenable choices between, you know, paying their rent and buying groceries and other essentials, putting gas in their cars,” Rosenbaum added.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the impact of the new work requirements. The administration has publicly supported the idea in the past.
“The American dream is not being on [a] food stamp program. … The American dream is not being on all these programs. That should be a hand up, not a handout,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in an interview on Fox Business in January.
Alongside the new work requirements, the budget outlined a major shift in costs from the federal government to the states.
Beyond each state’s responsibility to pay 75% of SNAP’s administrative costs starting in October, states are set to pay a percentage of the benefit costs tied to its error rate in the coming years.
The error rate measures underpayments and overpayments, resulting in mandatory additional payments ranging from 5% to 15% for most states.
Impacts already seen
In Arizona, the state “took immediate action on error reduction efforts after H.R. 1 became law,” the Arizona Dept. of Economic Security said. This included expanding documentation requirements, establishing a preauthorization review process and continuous income monitoring. More than 400,000 SNAP recipients lost access to the program thereafter, according to the CBPP.
“Which meant that the number of people visiting food banks increased by about the same amount,” Terri Shoemaker, executive vice president of the Arizona Food Bank Network, said, crediting the state’s changes in SNAP for the substantial drop in participation.
“We know that [the Arizona Department of Economic Security] is trying to get its arms around accuracy and reporting, but at the same time, we also know that there are people who were impacted by those changes who shouldn’t have been,” Shoemaker said.
When the changes began in Arizona, Shoemaker said, communities rallied to donate food to people who had lost access to SNAP. Still, she added, the response is not sustainable.
“For every one meal that Arizona food banks provide for families, SNAP usually provides about five,” Shoemaker said. “Nationally, that statistic is more like one [meal from food banks] for every nine [meals from SNAP]. But if you think about that and food banks trying to fill that gap, it’s just a scale and scope that is so vast that food banks are going to have a hard time keeping up.”
In neighboring New Mexico, the impact can also be seen.
“Find out where your food bank distributes food and check out the length of a line,” said Jill Dixon, the executive director of the Food Depot — a collection of food banks covering northern New Mexico. “We have one in front of our building on the first and third Thursday of every month. That line usually extends over a mile and a half by the time it opens at 7 a.m.”
The Food Depot distributed more than 8 million meals across much of New Mexico in 2025.
“These are people. They’re not lines. It’s not boxes of food. It’s not anonymous. It’s deeply personal, and it’s right at the center of our community,” Dixon said.
“We’re going to see some hard times ahead,” she added. “Long term, we really have a reckoning of how we’re going to go about making sure that people are fed in a moment when it is incredibly hard to make ends meet.”
Predominantly Republican states hit
In predominantly Republican states, the impact is similar. Louisiana has seen the second largest per-capita decline, with 21% of the state’s SNAP recipients no longer having access to SNAP according to the CBPP.
Food Bank of North Central Arkansas CEO Jeff Quick said his state is facing a burden too large to bear without major changes. “We will never be able to food bank our way out of food insecurity,” Quick said.
“At best, I think we may be unprepared or unable to cover the cost to continue SNAP in Arkansas, and again, if that worst-case scenario were to happen, it could have an estimated $1.2 billion negative economic impact on our state,” he added.
Quick also said work requirements have hit harder in Arkansas, adding that a worker earning the state’s $11-an-hour minimum wage may still be ineligible for SNAP benefits.
“We don’t want to see anyone go hungry, and regardless of who you are or how you vote or how you legislate, we’re all on the same path,” Quick said. “We got to put great minds together around common causes to find solutions to hunger.”
The White House did not comment on whether the administration supports delaying the cost shift.
What’s next?
Food bank organizations at the state and national levels are asking Congress to pass a resolution delaying the cost shift and allowing states more time to lower their error rates before taking on the additional costs.
“States need more time,” Rosenbaum said. “They need more time to work to lower their error rate and improve their payment accuracy in a way that doesn’t limit access to benefits.”
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman released a version of the farm bill that would delay the cost shift of SNAP, though it has not advanced through the opposite chamber.
Lawmakers return to Washington from August recess on Sept. 14.
The booking photo for Karmelo Anthony. (Frisco Police Department)
(FRISCO, Texas) — A teen was found guilty of murder over the fatal stabbing of another teen at a high school track meet last year and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Karmelo Anthony, 19, was indicted on first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a track meet in Frisco, Texas, in April 2025.
Prosecutors called the stabbing “senseless” and “plain and simple murder,” while the defense argued that Anthony acted in self-defense.
Following the announcement of the jury’s announcement, Metcalf’s parents and his twin brother delivered emotional victim impact statements, addressing Anthony directly.
“We will never know what our future could have been,” Meghan Metcalf, Austin Metcalf’s mother, said, according to WFAA. “For journalists, activists, this is a story. For our family, this is our reality.”
Jeff Metcalf, Austin Metcalf’s father, said his son’s death destroyed the person he used to be.
“People think grief is sadness, it is not. It is rage. Pure unfiltered rage,” he said, as he slammed his fist on a table, according to WFAA.
The jury began deliberating midday Tuesday before reaching the guilty murder verdict in three hours, according to a court spokesperson. The jurors also could have considered manslaughter, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years.
The same jury reached a decision on the sentence after several more hours of deliberation on Tuesday.
After being remanded to the custody of the sheriff’s office, Anthony could be seen crying when he returned to the court for the punishment phase, according to ABC Dallas affiliate WFAA, which was in the courtroom for the trial.
Anthony’s mother was the only person to take the stand during the punishment phase, asking the jurors to show him mercy as he is sorry for what he did, WFAA reported. The judge said that Anthony waived his right to testify during the punishment phase, according to the station.
The murder charge carried a sentence of five years to life in prison. The state agreed to allow jurors to consider “sudden passion,” which, if proven, would have limited the sentence from two to 20 years, according to WFAA. The defense argued that Anthony was overwhelmed by a strong emotion and acted before having time to calm down.
The deadly stabbing occurred at a Frisco Independent School District stadium on April 2, 2025, during a track and field competition involving multiple schools in the district.
Police said Metcalf, an 11th grader at Frisco Memorial High School, was stabbed during an altercation under his school’s tent in the stadium bleachers. Witnesses said the two got into an argument over Anthony, a then-17-year-old student at Frisco Centennial High School, being under Metcalf’s school tent during the rainy track meet.
Jurors heard testimony over four days at the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney, Texas. Anthony did not take the stand in his own defense.
Judge John Roach imposed a gag order in the case, restricting what those involved can say, and barred any electronics from the courtroom during the trial due to the attention the case has garnered.
Collin County First Assistant District Attorney Bill Wirskye told jurors that the stabbing was not self-defense but “unjustified” murder, according to WFAA.
In his closing argument on Tuesday, Wirskye claimed that Anthony provoked Metcalf, questioned why the defendant didn’t walk away and called the stabbing disproportionate.
“You don’t get to meet a shove with a stab — especially if you provoke a shove,” Wirskye told jurors, according to WFAA.
Defense attorney Mike Howard told jurors that Anthony had gone to the Memorial tent to get out of the rain when Metcalf confronted him and told him to leave, WFAA reported. Howard said Anthony “acted in fear and chaos” after Metcalf pushed him, and stabbed the other teen in self-defense, according to WFAA.
During his closing argument on Tuesday, Howard said Metcalf had “no legal right” to use force on Anthony, WFAA reported. In response to contentions that Anthony could have just left, the defense attorney said, “I am sure he wishes he did,” according to WFAA.
Multiple students who were at the track meet that day testified that they saw Metcalf push Anthony, who was seated on the bleacher, with some describing it as a two-handed push, like a “lineman move,” while others said it was a one-handed “small shove,” WFAA reported.
One witness testified that Anthony was asked to leave the tent about 15 times, according to WFAA. Some recalled Anthony saying, “Touch me and see what happens,” during the altercation, which witnesses said lasted about four to six minutes, according to WFAA. Another witness quoted Metcalf as telling Anthony, “I’m not going to fight you,” the station reported.
Surveillance footage from the track meet played in court did not show the stabbing, and some of the witnesses were asked to demonstrate the incident, according to WFAA.
After the stabbing, witnesses said Anthony jogged away from the tent, and a coach who spoke to him on the track testified that he said, “He put his hands on me. I stabbed him,” according to WFAA.
A pocket knife used in the stabbing was found on the bleachers, police said. Collin County Medical Examiner Dr. Elizabeth Ventura testified that Metcalf was stabbed on the left side of his chest, and the knife perforated his right ventricle, according to WFAA.
Several people spoke during the trial of the efforts to save Metcalf. A football coach who was helping at the track meet testified that he put pressure on the stab wound, and Memorial’s athletic trainer said she did CPR until paramedics arrived, according to WFAA.
“Everybody was praying,” Memorial High School head track coach Robert Starr said in emotional testimony, according to WFAA. “I just knew Austin was gone.”
Metcalf was transported to an area hospital, where he was ultimately pronounced dead, police said.
Frisco ISD reacted to the verdict, saying in a statement, “We respect the judicial process and will continue to support our students with compassion and care.”
“We know this trial has brought strong emotions and deep grief, and we ask that our community continue to support each other with respect, sensitivity and understanding,” the statement continued.
