Two Colorado hikers remain missing after a search team found a tent, collapsed by snow, with items inside, the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office announced in a social media post on Tuesday.

Kaden Matsuda, 19, and Jackson Donlon, 20, left Colorado Mountain College Leadville's campus for a hike on Friday and did not return, according to the sheriff's office.

Authorities said they received a call about the missing hikers from staff at the college on Monday.

"Family and friends were interviewed, and it was learned that Kaden and Jackson planned on hiking Ice Mountain on the far north end of Chaffee County," authorities said.

Ice Mountain is located southeast of Aspen, in Colorado's Rocky Mountains.

"According to friends, Kaden and Jackson planned on returning from the hike on Saturday if they didn't feel safe. If they continued to Ice Mountain, they would return on Sunday," the sheriff's office noted.

Those close to the hikers also described them as "experienced hikers" and added they "should have had appropriate clothing," the sheriff's office said.

Matsuda's car was found at the trailhead with "about eight inches of snow on the ground but none under the vehicle," the sheriff's office said.

Authorities said it was raining in the area on Friday, and began snowing on Saturday afternoon.

The sheriff's office said search and rescue teams began a search mission for Matsuda and Donlon.

Forensic examinations on the hikers' phones indicated that they had not been used in 48 hours, authorities said.

"The service in the area would be almost nonexistent, and they certainly could have turned the phones off to preserve the batteries, which makes the 48 hours less concerning," the sheriff's office said.

On Tuesday, authorities said a helicopter spotted an object near Lake Ann.

"A search team was sent in on foot to this area and discovered that the object was the hiker's tent that had collapsed under the weight of the snow," the sheriff's office said.

The post continued, "There was no snow under the tent and there were no visible footprints in the snow, which suggested, again, this was all in place before the snow came in. Their sleeping bags, a stove and some clothing were inside the tent, but Kaden and Jackson were not located."

The sheriff's office said Ice Mountain "is a very technical climb, and it is recommended that hikers be very experienced when trying to tackle it. That is when it is dry."

Authorities said the mountain received one to two feet of snow, with three to four feet in some areas due to "sluffing and drifting."

Chaffee County Sheriff Andy Rohrich said authorities are "still optimistic" that the missing hikers "are hunkered down somewhere waiting to be rescued."

"Our window of opportunity is closing as poor weather is expected again later this week, so we are putting all our available resources in the field. We are also considering other potential destinations they may have been headed to other than Ice Mountain," Rohrich said in a statement.

Rohrich said both hikers are "strong" and added, "hope is not lost."

ABC News has reached out to Colorado Mountain College for more information.

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Labor icon Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers, has died at 96, her family said.

"We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96," her family said in a statement on her official Instagram account. "As you can imagine, this is an incredibly difficult time for us, and we ask for privacy as we grieve this incredible loss to our family. We know that many of you around the world share in our mourning, and we will be following up on plans to recognize and celebrate her incredible life and legacy."

A spokesperson for Huerta's family confirmed her cause of death was cancer.

Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) with fellow activists Cesar Chavez and Gilbert Padilla, which would eventually become the United Farm Workers of America. The union's work led to the first farmworker union contracts in U.S. history.

The union highlighted Huerta's coining of the popular labor motto "Si, Se Puede" ("Yes, we can") and her advocacy for farmworkers, women, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and "all marginalized people."

"Her life's work was to empower her community to face and overcome injustices, and she has left farm workers and the entire Latino community stronger and more organized than she found it," said UFW President Teresa Romero. 

Huerta was born on April 10, 1930, in Dawson, a small mining town in northern New Mexico to Mexican parents involved in union activism. She grew up in Stockton, California, and became active in community and labor organizations as an adult.

Huerta became a teacher in rural California in the 1950s and said life wasn’t always easy for Mexican-Americans, witnessing mistreatment, extreme poverty and starving children.

"We still have that racism that exists that I had to confront when I was a teenager growing up," Huerta told "Good Morning America" in 2020.

She began seeing how horrendous life was for farm workers in California.

"They were only earning like 50 cents an hour," Huerta said. "They had no unemployment insurance, farmworkers, because they migrated from, you know, from county to county. They weren't even able to have any kind of access to the food banks ... no bathrooms in the field, especially for the women. That was really horrible."

She said she knew it was her calling to fight discrimination and help improve the lives of farmworkers. First, she joined a grassroots group called the Community Service Organization. That’s when she met Chavez and her mentor, Fred Ross Sr., who she calls the godfather of the farmworkers' movement.

She founded the Agricultural Workers Association in 1960 before joining Chavez and Padilla to form the NFWA two years later.

Huerta played a pivotal role in the Delano grape strike of 1965 and led the subsequent national boycott of table grapes, which successfully pressured growers to improve wages and working conditions.

Huerta founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation in 2002, a civic advocacy organization supporting marginalized, low-income and immigrant communities

She was also a strong advocate for women, campaigning for reproductive rights and serving as an honorary co-chair of the 2017 Women's March in Washington, D.C.

In 2012, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her decades of advocacy in civil rights and women's equality.

Allegations against Chavez and continuing work

In 2026, Huerta spoke exclusively to ABC's John Quiñones in response to a New York Times article detailing allegations that Chavez abused women and minors. Chavez died in 1993.

Huerta said that she was "manipulated and pressured into having sex" with Chavez She detailed two separate sexual encounters with him in the 1960s -- one in which she said she was pressured to have sex with him, and another in which she said she was forced against her will.

"And to think that somebody that we looked at as our hero and our leader -- you know, it's pretty horrible," Huerta said.

Huerta said both encounters she had with Chavez led to pregnancies that she kept secret, later arranging for the children to be raised by other families.

"I thought that abortion was a sin," Huerta told Quiñones. "I have since changed my mind on those issues because I now realize that women have to have a right to abortion. And by the way, abortion was also illegal at that time."

She said that one of the children was raised by her brother and the other was raised by a family friend.

Huerta said at the time that she remained committed to her work, focusing on current threats to labor rights and the treatment of immigrants in detention centers.

"My intention is just to do the work, make lives better for women, make lives better for working people," Huerta said. "We know that the job isn't finished yet."

"At my age, 96, as long as God gives me strength and the little energy that I have left, I want to just continue doing the work to make life better for women, for children, and of course, for farmworkers and workers in general," she said. 

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Two right-wing provocateurs, James O'Keefe and Cam Higby, are facing election-related charges in Minnesota after posting videos of an undercover stunt intended to expose alleged deficiencies in election security. 

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said each man faces a count of unlawful voting and identity theft. 

"Elections are the bedrock of democracy and their protection is one of our highest priorities," Moriarty said in a statement. "Individuals engaging in unlawful conduct related to our elections will be held accountable." 

O'Keefe, a self-proclaimed "guerilla journalist" infamous for his undercover videos, and Higby, a social media influencer, posted the video at the heart of the charges in August. It shows the two men approaching election judges at multiple voting precincts in Minneapolis wearing burqas, speaking in fake accents, and allegedly misrepresenting their identities, in an effort to expose what O'Keefe and Higby say are gaps in the rules that allow residents to vouch for the identity of other voters. 

The video, which remains pinned on Higby's X account, is called "I Wore Burqa To EXPOSE Election FRAUD In Minneapolis." 

No ballots were cast in the course of their efforts.

Prosecutors said Wednesday that O'Keefe and Higby deceived the election judges by using the identities of real Minnesota voters "without those voters' knowledge or permission" in violation of state law. Each count carries up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Neither man is in custody, according to charging documents. 

In a statement shared on X, Higby said, "No laws were broken. They want me in PRISON for exposing election vulnerabilities in their state." O'Keefe did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Steve Simon, the state's top election official, said in a statement that "any attempt to disrupt or deceive our election workers will not be tolerated." 

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Attorneys for two former FBI agents charged with lying to Congress about past probes of Hunter Biden are back in court Wednesday seeking to convince a magistrate judge to immediately dismiss their case, citing a lack of evidence and alleged prosecutorial misconduct.

In a marathon hearing Tuesday, magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui lambasted the conduct of federal prosecutors, striking from the record a superseding complaint they attempted to file in the case because it lacked proper signoff from a judge.

Faruqui said the growing record of "inappropriate" actions by the government was "throwing enormous amounts of gasoline onto this fire," which supported arguments from lawyers for former agents Nikki Floris and Brian Benavides that the charges against them were politically motivated.

"And so everything you're doing just is making me more and more concerned that there's something to that," Faruqui told DOJ prosecutors.

The Justice Department on Friday charged Floris and Bradley with allegedly making false statements to Congress stemming from a probe into whether investigators in the lead-up to the 2020 election sought to suppress or discredit the veracity of material on the laptop of former President Joe Biden's son that included embarrassing photos and videos.

Under cross-examination by attorneys for Floris and Benavides, FBI agent Bryan Witt, who was tasked with investigating their clients, disclosed that the genesis for the entire case was President Donald Trump's July speech that centered around unverified claims of fraud in past U.S. elections.

Witt said that following the speech, FBI Director Kash Patel personally assigned the investigation of a list of former agents, including Floris and Benavides, to the FBI's Kansas City field office.

Witt, who conceded that the sequence of events was unusual, further testified that the office received regular check-ins from FBI leadership on the status of their probe.

At the start of Wednesday's hearing, a DOJ attorney sought to object to a line of questioning related to Trump and Patel's personal involvement in initiating the investigation.

Faruqui seemed skeptical of the objection, saying that the testimony appeared to be directly relevant to his eventual determination of whether there is sufficient probable cause for the charges.

"It's not typical that the president of the United States says go investigate people," Faruqui said. "So that seems to squarely fit within an investigation to the reasonableness of the basis for the charge."

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Lawyers representing Meta and Snap will be back in court this week in the latest trial over claims their apps were designed to get teens and children hooked.

Jury selection begins Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court in the next potential bellwether case involving two teenage girls who say addictive features like "Snapstreaks," push notifications and view counts worsened their mental health.

In the complaint, an18-year-old from Mississippi who goes by "K.D.B." claims her compulsive use of Snapchat and Instagram, which is owned by Meta, contributed to depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

"To this day, the addictive qualities of Defendants’ products and their harmful algorithms are not fully known or understood by minor users or their parents," the plantiffs' lawyers wrote in the complaint.

In a statement to ABC News, a Snap spokesperson said the allegations "misrepresent" the plantiffs' experiences on the app.

"From the beginning, Snapchat was built differently from traditional social media: it opens to a camera, not a feed, not a ranking of what other people post or other social comparison metrics. We have built safeguards into the platform, introduced safety tools and educational resources, and we believe the evidence will support that we have put our community first, and that these allegations fundamentally misrepresent the plaintiffs' experiences on Snapchat and how our platform was designed,” the Snap spokesperson said.

Meta has previously pushed back on allegations it does not protect young users on its platforms, pointing to features like Teen Accounts.

A Meta spokesperson responded to the latest lawsuit, telling ABC News: "We disagree with these allegations and will defend ourselves in court. A young person's mental health is shaped by many factors, as the evidence in this trial will show. The plaintiff used TikTok far more than Instagram or Facebook, and her personal circumstances were a substantial factor in her struggles," adding, "We've spent more than a decade building protections for teens, and our agreement with 52 bipartisan attorneys general goes even further with strict time limits, no access at night, and no notifications during school hours. We hope the rest of our industry joins us in setting this new standard."

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Instagram's top executive Adam Mosseri are expected to testify in November.

A similar landmark trial in the same courtroom against Meta and YouTube in March saw a jury side with the plaintiff "K.G.M." and award her $6 million in damages. The companies are appealing. Snap and TikTok settled before the trial.

Meta has faced a slew of high-stakes legal battles this year as states, school districts and individuals try to use the courts to force tech companies to pay penalties and make changes to their products.

In a historic settlement with 48 states in August, Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion and make significant changes to its apps for young users including setting time limits, disabling some filters and hiding like counts. Meta did not admit wrongdoing.

The tech giant is calling for other companies including TikTok, YouTube and Snap to make similar changes to their apps in order to implement a "new industry standard" toward safety.

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When the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, then-President Barack Obama said, "This agreement represents the best chance we've had to save the one planet that we've got.”

But a decade later, a new report, led by University College London in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), finds that while progress has been made, many detrimental health indicators linked to climate change are moving in the wrong direction. The report's authors are also warning that problems aren't just increasing -- they're accelerating.

"A decade after the Paris Agreement, our findings are unambiguous: the health harms of climate change are growing faster than the world's response to them, and in many cases even accelerating," said Marina Romanello, a professor at University College London and the executive director of the Lancet Countdown in a statement.

The 2026 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change includes findings from 146 researchers at more than 100 institutions in more than 30 countries. Researchers found evidence that heat was linked, on average, to more than 540,000 estimated deaths per year from 2016, when the Paris Agreement went into effect, through 2023, the latest year with available data. The researchers attribute 68% of those fatalities to climate change.

"These numbers point to a clear emergency," Romanello said in a statement. "The rate of increase in many climate-related health threats is accelerating, while heat deaths linked to climate change have reached a record-high, and the economic toll is battering vulnerable sectors and communities the hardest."

The past 11 years have been the 11 hottest on record. In 2023, heat could be linked to 710,000 estimated deaths, with more than 71% attributable to climate change, the report said. That number exceeded the loss of life from malaria or HIV, according to the researchers. For the entire period of 2016 to 2023, the report found that nearly 3 million deaths could be connected to climate change.

According to the report, heat is also taking a toll on the global economy. Because of reduced productivity, the researchers estimated that the world lost more than a trillion dollars in potential income in 2025. They say it's the third consecutive year that losses topped the trillion-dollar mark.

"The threats to people's health and people's survival have reached unprecedented levels, with many of these threats and impacts even accelerating in the last decade with respect to the previous one," Romanello said.

The researchers also found the pace at which land is being hit by extreme drought accelerated by about 700% between 2016 and 2025 compared with the decade before the Paris Agreement. In 2025, more than half of the world's land experienced extreme drought for at least a month. In other cases, climate change brought too much precipitation, which can result in flash flooding. The report found that the share of land hit by very extreme rainfall rose from 14.8% between 2006 to 2015 to 17.2% from 2016 to 2025.

"The risks become even more profound when you consider how different hazards interact and compound. At the same time, drought is spreading, and the world is swinging to water extremes, some drying out, while others are flooding. This isn't a gradual worsening; it's a step change that must be recognized as the global health emergency it is," Romanello said.

But it's not all bad news. The report noted that global investment in clean energy grew by more than 7% in 2025, reaching a record $2.1 trillion. That's 82% more than was invested in fossil fuel energy sources, according to the researchers. The report said new investment helped renewables grow from 5.5% of global electricity generation in 2016 to 13.5% in 2023. As a result, the report found that cleaner air prevented an estimated 323,000 deaths a year in dozens of countries, though increases elsewhere offset those gains globally.

Still, despite the growth of renewable energy, fossil fuels accounted for over 80% of global energy supply, the report found, and the authors say the resulting air pollution is responsible for about 2.7 million deaths worldwide each year.

Based on their findings, the report's authors say climate change should now be treated as a "global health emergency" and they laid out six priorities for a "health-centered response" to the warming planet.

For one, they say the WHO and United Nations should use their existing resources to respond to the challenges, and they recommend that the WHO create a new way to formally recognize climate change as a health emergency and coordinate a global response. They also suggest making health and well-being core objectives and measures of success in all climate action.

The authors say countries and global institutions need to make climate and health a top priority and they call for cutting greenhouse gas emissions quickly and fairly to protect people's health. In addition, the researchers recommend creating a shared pool of climate and health data that everyone can use and having wealthier countries provide more grants and low-interest loans.

"We have not really managed to tackle climate change 10 years after the Paris Agreement, and we're seeing these escalating health harms that have made climate change now a very severe, very grave global health emergency that requires an urgent emergency response to be adequately addressed," Romanello said.

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A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has refused to indict former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson on charges of lying to Congress over her testimony before the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News. 

The failed indictment is the latest setback for the Justice Department in its support of what critics call a campaign of retribution by President Donald Trump, who has long accused Hutchinson of lying to the committee regarding his actions surrounding the Capitol assault. 

Republicans have long sought to undercut Hutchinson's testimony regarding a story she said had been relayed to her secondhand about President Trump lunging for the steering wheel of his presidential limo following his speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6. 

Trump has vehemently denied the account and other White House employees did not corroborate the specific detail about Trump lunging.

The Washington Post first reported that a grand jury refused to indict Hutchinson. 

Former special counsel Jack Smith, who indicted President Trump for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, has said he opted not to treat Hutchinson as a material witness after determining much of her testimony was based on hearsay.  Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges related to Jan. 6 and Smith's case against him was ultimately dismissed.

Hutchinson has maintained that she stands by her testimony. She could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday. 

A Justice Department spokesperson also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

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Police in Winter Park, Florida, released body camera footage of officers responding to an i9 youth soccer game on Saturday amid a dispute over 3-year-old soccer player Nevada Pierre, who dominated the field, prompting concerns over other children getting to play.

Body camera video released on Monday shows the league's athletic director telling police, who responded to the incident, that he decided to call 911 after a female parent began livestreaming their interaction on social media.

He explained that the dispute with the parent, who identified herself to ABC News as Nevada's mother Martasia Griffin, began after the 3-year-old's parents disagreed with his decision to "swap out" Nevada to give other children a chance to play.

"What happened is he's very advanced compared to the other ones. So he scored a lot of goals, but he pushes the kids to do all that stuff. So I try to tell him, 'Hey, stop! Don't [push]. You want to play with that person, right?'"[The parents] don't like that. They tell me I'm ignorant. I'm this. I'm that," he said.

In the 911 audio of the call, which was released by police, the athletic director tells the dispatcher that he is calling to report an alleged "unruly parent" who is live-streaming their interaction on social media.

"There's a parent here that's really really disruptive ... following me around and calling me names and in front of this whole bunch of people that's here," he said in the call. "I want [her] to be gone ... Can you have someone quickly get here?"

Griffin told ABC News that she was standing up for her son after she learned that he was going to be benched, after being sidelined multiple times in previous games, to give other children the chance to play amid complaints from other parents.

"I was only walking behind him because he said that he's the director. So I'm trying to figure out what are you gonna do? Like my son should play," she said of her interaction with the athletic director.

Griffin acknowledged that when her son plays, he dominates the field.

"It's just his movement. How he's moving around with the ball. Nobody can't touch the ball," she said.

Griffin said that people were "yelling" at her son to "pass the ball," and when he saw the police, he "was scared as if he did something wrong." She said the experience damaged "his spirit."

"At some point, Nevada's feelings has to ... matter too," Griffin said. "Everybody's worrying about their kids' feelings. Their kid want playing time. Their kid want to kick the ball. My kid do too. He don't know why he's sitting down. Why everybody else is playing?"

Griffin also claimed that she heard other parents tell their children to push her 3-year-old son on the field. Nevada plays in a league with 5-year-olds, according to his mother.

In a statement, the i9 sports program said that they are "aware of concerns" regarding this incident and "take them very seriously."

"The respectful treatment and well-being of every child and family matter deeply to us. We have reached out to the family and have begun a review that includes speaking with those involved," the statement said. "While we work to understand the circumstances, we will not speculate or share unverified information. We appreciate everyone who has brought their concerns to our attention."

The Winter Park league's athletic director didn't respond to ABC News' request for comment.

Griffin said that her son trains for three hours a day with his father and is advanced for his age, so he excels on the field, regardless of playing with children older than him.

According to the league's ethos, as outlined in the i9 Sports Experience, there is a "focus on fun" and they are committed to giving the children the opportunity at "equal playing time regardless of talent level."

The league's "sportsmanship values" include "being a team player" and "inclusion" -- "to ensure everyone is treated equally and fairly," and "giving everyone a chance to play regardless of differences," the i9 website says.

Police said during their interaction with the director in the body camera video that this is a "civil" matter and "not criminal" and while they couldn't force Nevada's family out of the park because it's a public space, they could tell them that they couldn't participate in the program anymore.

Griffin is seen in the video asking for a "refund," and the director said he would fully refund what they paid.

The officers are seen having a conversation with Nevada's parents and told them that the youth sports league would get in contact with them about refunding their money in a week or two. The family then left the field on their own accord, the video shows.

She noted that the i9 league offered Nevada a chance to join another league for free, but it was three hours away, so the family declined.

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The Alexander brothers were each sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday, after being found guilty on all counts in their federal sex trafficking trial in New York City.

The former real estate titans, Oren and Alon Alexander, 39-year-old twins, along with their brother, Tal Alexander, 40, were accused by prosecutors of a "decade-long sex trafficking and sexual abuse scheme."

The three brothers will have to participate in sex offender treatment programs in prison, the judge said. In addition to their prison terms, the brothers were each sentenced to 10 years of supervised release.

Oren and Alon Alexander were also ordered to pay $300,000 each in fines, and Tal Alexander was ordered to pay $350,000 in fines, as well as restitution, which will be determined by attorneys from both sides. Oren Alexander, who was also convicted of sexually exploiting a minor by distributing homemade child sex abuse material of a 17-year-old girl in 2009, was ordered to pay an additional $50,000 immediately.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Espinosa asked the judge for the maximum sentence -- life in prison -- for all three brothers, arguing that the government does not believe one is more culpable than the others in what prosecutors called an "immense" sex trafficking scheme.

"They spent years designing, executing, and perfecting their playbook of luring victims with promises of luxury, drugging victims so they could not resist, and then forcibly raping them," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed ahead of Tuesday's hearing. "The defendants carried out their playbook time and time again, drugging, raping, and assaulting dozens of victims. Over 70 women came forward with harrowing accounts of assault that stripped them of their dignity and autonomy."

Defense attorneys argued that the brothers should serve lighter sentences -- 15 years, the minimum for sex trafficking -- while maintaining their innocence.

"At no time did Alon, Oren or Tal rape or sexually assault another person. At no time did Alon, Oren or Tal entice, harbor, or maintain a woman to have commercial sex. At no time did Alon, Oren or Tal administer a drug or other substance to a woman against her will or without her knowledge. At no time did Oren intentionally make or distribute child pornography," defense attorneys wrote in their sentencing memorandum on behalf of the three brothers. "They are innocent of these charges, and they show honor and respect to our system of justice by vowing to fight for their innocence with all of their power for as long as is required, confident in the notion that one day they will be free to live out their lives with their children and families."

The brothers' friends and family members also submitted letters to Judge Valerie Caproni asking for leniency, describing their character and dedication to family.

The brothers addressed the court prior to learning their sentences during Tuesday's hearing in Manhattan, continuing to claim that they never sexually assaulted or drugged anybody.

Judge Caproni admonished the brothers for continuing to maintain their innocence.

"You did not have to stand up and say you’ve never raped anyone," Caproni said while handing down their sentences. "That's a lie and you know it."

A dozen women delivered victim impact statements during Tuesday's hearing, including six who testified during the federal trial.

Prosecutors thanked those who came forward in the case "to ensure that the defendants can no longer harm others."

"The defendants preyed on women and young girls, using drugs and violence to incapacitate them so they could rape them. The defendants did this for years --inflicting unspeakable harm on so many young women.  And, for years, the defendants used their careers and social status to conceal the danger they posed," U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said in a statement. "Today's sentence makes clear that this craven, sinister conduct is extraordinarily serious and will be met with serious punishment."

Throughout the five-week trial, 11 women testified that they were sexually assaulted by one or more of the brothers. At least eight of the women claimed they were drugged by one of the Alexanders. 

The brothers denied sexually assaulting anyone or running a sex trafficking conspiracy, as prosecutors have charged. They pleaded not guilty. A spokesperson for the Alexander family called the verdict "deeply disappointing."

"We believe there are substantial problems with the evidence and the way this case was presented," the spokesperson, Juda S. Engelmayer, said in a statement following the jury's verdict in March. "The legal process does not end here. We will continue fighting every day until justice is done and the three brothers regain their freedom."

Oren and Tal Alexander gained notoriety in New York's luxury real estate market through their company, Alexander Group, and have been under federal investigation alongside Alon since late 2024.

They have been accused of luring women to nightclubs and parties, then drugging and sexually assaulting them.

In his closing statement during the spring trial, federal prosecutor Andrew Jones said there is "crushing evidence" that the brothers "masqueraded as party boys when really they were predators" who committed an "array of federal sex offenses."

Jones recounted the graphic accounts of the alleged victims and said the wealthy brothers had a "playbook" of luring women with exclusive parties, yachts and luxury travel so they could assault them.

During closing arguments, defense attorney Howard Srebnick conceded the brothers could be "obnoxious" and their conduct "inappropriate," but he told the jury, "Nobody was being assaulted, nobody had been trafficked."

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to unfreeze a Biden-era policy that allowed immigration judges to use their discretion to temporarily close deportation cases for immigrants.

In an unsigned order, the court rejected a request from three cities with large migrant populations -- Baltimore as well as Columbus, Ohio, and New Haven, Connecticut -- to pause an agreement between Texas and the Trump administration that threw out the policy.

There were no noted dissents. 

The regulation, known as "administrative closure," gives immigration judges discretion to temporarily pause deportation proceedings for migrants while the migrants seek humanitarian protections or other forms of legal status in the country.

The Trump administration has pushed to curtail judicial processes for unlawful migrants, and the high court's conservative majority has been largely deferential to executive authority in the area of immigration policy.

Deportation hearings in immigration court are legal proceedings initiated by the Department of Homeland Security in which an immigration judge determines whether a migrant should be removed from the United States. Often, an immigration judge will pause or dismiss a case to allow the individual to pursue legal relief. 

While dismissals were viewed as a positive outcome for migrants, immigration attorneys have said the Trump administration, as part of its immigration crackdown, began to use dismissals to detain people at immigration courts and place them into expedited removal without allowing them to fight their case.

Last year, federal agents arrested hundreds of migrants at immigration courts -- in some cases after their deportation cases were dismissed. 

In court filings, the cities argued that administrative closure promoted "efficiency" and protected "due process rights." They also argued that the practice has existed in various forms for decades.

In June, the state of Texas sued the federal government, arguing that the policy granted "indefinite amnesty to aliens illegally present in this country."

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A thief who stole earrings valued at over $760,000 and later swallowed them while being arrested is set to be sentenced in December after he was found guilty of grand theft and robbery, the state attorney's office for Florida's ninth judicial circuit announced.

Jaythan Gilder received the guilty verdict last week after a trial surrounding the theft of jewelry at a Tiffany & Co. store in Orlando, Florida, the state attorney's office said.

According to the prosecutor's office, "In February 2025, Gilder posed as a representative negotiating a jewelry purchase on behalf of a professional basketball player."

Prosecutors say Gilder then grabbed and attempted to leave with $760,000 worth of merchandise and used "force" against an employee while trying to escape.

According to an affidavit for an arrest warrant, Gilder also attempted to leave with a ring, which was slapped out of his possession and recovered at the scene of the robbery.

Gilder was later arrested, after which prosecutors say he "swallowed the stolen earrings in an attempt to conceal the evidence."

A video posted by the Orlando Police Department describing the crime said that while Florida Highway Patrol stopped Gilder, "they noticed items in his mouth he was attempting to swallow, which a body scan at the Washington County Jail later found to be foreign objects suspected to be the Tiffany's earrings."

Authorities "monitored" Gilder over a nearly two-week time period "before recovering the jewelry," prosecutors say.

"After the diamonds were expelled from his system, we were able to bring the diamonds to Tiffany's where they were cleaned and where their master jeweler looked at the inscription or serial numbers on the diamonds and confirmed they were the very diamonds that were stolen on the 26th [of February]," the police video added.

"This case involved not only a significant financial loss, but also the safety of employees who were confronted with violence while simply doing their jobs," state attorney Monique Worrell said in a statement. "This verdict sends a clear message that violence and theft will not be tolerated in our community."

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A federal judge has ordered a top Department of Justice official back into court after President Donald Trump posted on his social media account affirming that East Potomac Golf Course will close Nov. 15 for renovations — directly contradicting repeated assertions from administration officials in a hearing last week. 

District Judge Ana Reyes has ordered Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward to clarify whether his prior statements to her that there were no plans to close the course remain accurate.

She further ordered Woodward's attendance at a hearing either Friday or Monday where she is expected to press the government for more updates on its compliance with her injunction barring further construction at East Potomac. 

In a sharply worded 70-page ruling, Reyes criticized the Trump administration over its plans for the historic golf course in Washington, D.C., and concluded the administration likely violated environmental laws in the process.

"Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President," Reyes wrote. "Not to believe him that a cabinet secretary has 'developed' a federal land project. Not to believe him that the secretary's agency will destroy a historic golf course already on the land. Not to believe him that 'Restoration work' will begin 'IMMEDIATELY!' Not to believe him that the course 'will be closed' for over a year. Not to believe what the President has repeatedly told the American public. And yet, here we are."

The case began over golf and long walks, Reyes said, but has now morphed into an effort to reconcile sworn statements made by members of the administration with statements made by Trump.

The administration must give "ten business days' written advance notice before making any irreparable modification to any forms or features of East Potomac Park, pending the outcome of this litigation," Reyes said.

Hours before the hearing was set to start, the president had posted on social media that construction on East Potomac Golf Course would begin immediately, despite the administration suggesting to the court that it would not.

"If, as DOJ insists, President Trump is wrong, Secretary Burgum can just say so," Reyes wrote. "He has not. That said, at this juncture Plaintiffs carry the burden of showing a final plan likely exists. They have done so. This is confirmed not just by the President's and Secretary's many posts, but also by the Government's actions, not the least of which is the removal of hundreds of healthy, non-invasive trees on no real notice."

The tree removal had been scheduled a week earlier, but Reyes concluded that those involved in the lawsuit had little notice to stop the cutting.

The administration also likely violated environmental laws — specifically the National Environmental Policy Act -- by "segmenting" the environmental impacts of the construction, she said.

Trump said his administration will appeal the ruling, insisting he will move forward with his plans to shut down the course on Nov. 15 to start the project. 

"We are closing the East Potomac Golf Course Site as scheduled on November 15th in order to renovate and rebuild for Competitive (with other such projects!), Safety, Modernization, and Aesthetic reasons," Trump wrote on his social media platform overnight. 

He said the judge's request for updates is "unconstitutional." 

"We believe this Project is totally 'as of right,' and that the judge does not have the Constitutional Right to 'ask for or receive notices,' which are time-consuming, unnecessary, expensive, and unconstitutional. We will immediately appeal this decision," Trump wrote. 

During a gaggle with reporters on Monday night after his Mississippi rally, Trump also said he has a "go-ahead" to work on the renovations and blasted the judge for being an "architectural critic of golf courses."

"It's not my golf course, it's a public course being built in Washington D.C. and it has a go-ahead," Trump said.

He added that the current public course is "extremely dangerous to play" because it is too close together and that he was asking the D.C. Circuit Court for "immediate remedy."

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A Florida mother has been arrested after she allegedly left her four children, who are under 14 years old, home alone while she was working in Las Vegas, according to officials.

Irene Miller, 50, was arrested on four counts of child neglect, the Osceola County Sheriff's Office announced Monday.

Miller told investigators she was working in Las Vegas and a babysitter was checking on the children, according to the sheriff's office. When she returned to Florida, investigators took her into custody, according to the sheriff's office.

On Oct. 21, just after 8:30 p.m., one of the children called 911 and reported that a dumbbell had fallen on her 9-year-old brother's head, according to the sheriff's office.

Deputies responded and found four children, ages 14, 12, 11 and 9, without an adult, according to the sheriff's office.

The injured 9-year-old child was taken to the hospital, treated and released, according to the sheriff's office.

Deputies then contacted the children's mother, who told them she was working in Las Vegas, the sheriff's office said.

An attorney for Miller did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

Miller told deputies a babysitter was checking on the children before and after school but was not required to stay overnight, according to the sheriff's office.

The children's father was contacted and agreed to take them to his residence on Friday, the sheriff's office said.

She left Kissimmee, Florida, on Oct.18 and planned to return on Oct. 23, investigators said.

Detectives met her when she returned, and she was booked into the Orange County jail, the sheriff's office said.

According to jail records, she has since been released.

"The Osceola County Sheriff's Office will not tolerate child neglect. These cases will be investigated, and charges will be brought against the parents who are not properly supervising or caring for their children," Osceola County Sheriff Chris Blackmon said in a statement Monday.

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Attorneys for a former FBI agent charged with lying to Congress about the probe into Hunter Biden's laptop computer called the charges "a serious abuse of the criminal charging process" Tuesday.

The Justice Department on Friday charged two former senior FBI officials for allegedly making false statements to Congress, stemming from a probe into whether investigators in the lead-up to the 2020 election sought to suppress or discredit the veracity of material on the laptop of former President Joe Biden's son that included embarrassing photos and videos.

Nikki Floris, the former deputy assistant director for FBI's Counterintelligence Division, and Bradley Benavides, another former senior counterintelligence official, both appeared Friday in a federal district court in D.C., where they were charged through a criminal complaint with making false statements to Congress. 

The DOJ then added an obstruction of a congressional proceeding charge against two former FBI officials prior to a hearing on the matter on Tuesday. Both former agents deny all charges.

"The government's last-ditch filing before the pre-scheduled preliminary hearing in this case is not merely procedurally improper and substantively deficient," Floris' attorneys said. "It represents a serious abuse of the criminal charging process, a troubling disregard for the judicial safeguards governing the initiation of criminal proceedings, and a calculated effort to evade judicial scrutiny and shield the government's allegations from adversarial testing at the scheduled preliminary hearing." 

Court records filed on Tuesday added the obstruction charge and described how the charges are based on witness accounts and other documents of the alleged conduct dating as far back as 2020.

The Justice Department alleges that the pair knowingly lied to Congress on two separate occasions -- on July 19, 2023, for Floris, and on Sept. 28, 2023, for Benavides.

"The evidence further establishes that probable cause exists to believe that Floris and Benavides made these statements for the purpose of minimizing or concealing [the FBI Foreign Influence Task Force's] engagement with, and communications about, the Hunter Biden investigations and to impede the Congressional investigation," according to the documents filed overnight.

The affidavit alleges that both congressional and FBI witnesses, along with FBI documents, prove that the pair were aware of the Hunter Biden investigation.

"What is going on at the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office?" attorneys for Floris said in a statement responding to the filing. "In the middle of the night, the government filed an unsigned and unsworn complaint attempting to fix the issues with their original charge against Ms. Floris and adding a new charge just as meritless as the first one."

"In our combined decades of DOJ service, we have never seen or even heard of something like this being filed. That's because the public lodging of criminal charges must be authorized by the grand jury, a judge, or the defendant herself," the statement said. "We have asked to address this outrageous government conduct against a decorated public servant at today's court hearing."

U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui appeared on Friday to be skeptical of the charges -- and said the "facts appear to be old" and there are "questions that need to be answered." The judge set a hearing for Tuesday to consider whether the government established probable cause in its complaint.

Faruqui said the judge who signed off on the complaint needed extra time to determine if there was probable cause or not. "Rare charges" that are "this old" are never charged by complaint, according to the judge. 

It was not immediately clear why prosecutors chose to charge the pair through a criminal complaint and not an indictment, which would have required approval by a grand jury instead of a magistrate judge.

Ron Safer, a lawyer for Benavides said the government should be able to offer evidence "today" against two "dedicated public servants."

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Election officials from coast to coast are facing a slew of challenges ahead of the high-stakes midterms, from the Trump administration's bid to impose itself on state-run elections to last-minute court challenges and threats faced by election workers -- all under a persistent sense of distrust in the voting process itself, some experts told ABC News.

"Usually the temperature is much higher -- and emotions run much hotter -- in a presidential election year than in a midterm election year," said Wendy Weiser, vice president of the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. "This year, though, the temperature is staying up at a high level."

Election experts broadly lay blame for the elevated sense of distrust in elections this year at the feet of President Donald Trump, whose administration has taken unprecedented steps to question the outcome by levelling unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

Trump administration officials says steps they've taken in recent weeks -- including lawsuits in California and Alaska and threats to prosecute election workers -- are meant to ensure the integrity of the election. 

But under the weight of those allegations, state officials say the once-collaborative rapport between the federal government and state leaders has in some cases given way to a deep sense of suspicion.

"There's no trust in that relationship," Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar told ABC News. "In order to have a working relationship, there has to be trust, and the fact that they continue to tear that trust apart and spread the misinformation and the lies that they are about our elections is wrong."

At the same time, people who oversee voting at the county level across the country are frequently fielding questions from voters who say they lack faith in the electoral process. About 6 in 10 Americans are confident the midterm elections will be conducted fairly and accurately, while nearly 4 in 10 Americans and about 3 in 10 voters are not confident , according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel.

"No matter how transparent we are, people always are questioning what we're doing [and] how we're doing it," Deidre Holden, the director of elections and voter registration in Paulding County, Georgia, told ABC News. "I try to explain [that] we have nothing to hide. You're welcome to come in and watch the process."

'You never know what someone's going to do'

Holden, who has been an elections official in Georgia for 25 years, said that in her early years in the role, she "used to train people on how to smile and hand out an 'I voted' sticker."

Yet over the last several years, Holden has devoted much of her time to ensuring that everyone at polling places and in the county's ballot processing facility are safe. She currently has a sheriff's deputy stationed at every polling location, and in 2024 she first showed ABC News the active shooter training her poll workers were undertaking as a precaution.

"I'm forever concerned with the security of my staff, with my poll workers, with my voters," Holden said. "You never know what someone's going to do."

Paulding County was once a solidly Republican area, but as the suburban sprawl around Atlanta has increased, the county's population has quadrupled and it is now a purple county with Democrats and Republicans living side by side. With such a partisan divide, Holden said transparency about the process is key.

"Some of our best poll workers have come from the naysayers that didn't trust us and we invited them in and now they're our best workers and our biggest advocates because they get to see behind the scenes, they get see how the sausage is made, how we do things and how we do those things with integrity," Holden said.

'I just want to find 11,780 votes'

The official once again overseeing the election at the state level in Georgia this November is Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who rose to national prominence in January 2021 after receiving a phone call from President Donald Trump.

"All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes," Trump told Raffensperger at the time, claiming it was "not possible" that he lost Georgia's 2020 presidential election.

Joe Biden won the 2020 election in the Peach State and Raffensperger certified the results, despite facing criticism from some other Republicans.

"At the end of the day we did our job, we followed the law and we followed the constitution," Raffensperger told ABC News in a recent interview.

"I know I did the right thing, and I feel sorry for people that didn't do the right thing, because at some point, they're going to have to look at themselves in the mirror," he said.

Raffensperger's time in office will end in January. Early voting for the midterms is currently underway in Georgia, and Raffensperger said he is confident that residents will have an accurate idea of the projected election results by midnight after the polls close.

"Those ballots actually in effect will be counted three times just to verify the result, so at the end of the day, we know that the winner won and that's our job," Raffensperger said.

'What they've been able to uncover is nothing'

While Raffensperger was on the phone with Trump in 2021, many recent dustups between the federal government and state agencies have involved staffers going back and forth over email and video conferencing.

At the core of the growing friction is the claim by President Trump and DHS officials that the country has a "broken" election system, where they claim 278,000 people who are not U.S. citizens have registered to vote illegally.

Weiser told ABC News that the Trump administration has been attempting to "substantiate their theory that our country is plagued by widespread voter fraud."

"What they've been able to uncover is nothing," Weiser said. "Our elections, in fact, are safe and secure."

The allegations of widespread noncitizen voting have not just been made at press conferences. Over the summer, DHS employees reached out to states around the U.S., sending letters and holding meetings about "the concerning results" of what they called a "preliminary review" of potential noncitizens registered to vote.

Aguilar, the Nevada secretary of state, said members of his office ended up on a video conference call in August with DHS representatives alleging that there could be as many as 15,903 noncitizens registered to vote in Nevada.

One of the DHS officials on the call was Heather Honey, a known election denier and a key figure in the fight to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

While not overtly hostile, a recording of the video conference obtained by ABC News shows palpable tension and some awkward exchanges, as Nevada officials seemed deeply skeptical of the claims made by DHS.

"So what you're saying is the 15,000 number has not been vetted?" a Nevada official asked, according to a recording of the video conference.

"I probably wouldn't use the sentence, 'It hasn't been vetted,'" a DHS representative responded, adding that each out has not "had a full manual review."

Following the meeting, DHS officials emailed Nevada officials with a new figure -- claiming they found 185 noncitizens on the state's voter rolls during a preliminary sweep. Officials in Nevada said the DHS was wrong, replying later that, after their own review of those 185 individuals, "our records indicate that they were citizens."

In response to a request by ABC News for comment, DHS stood by their work, which they called "a service to Nevada's citizens," and accused Nevada officials of knowingly harboring illegal voters on its lists.

"Nevada knows the 185 names they keep waving around were never the full list of illegal voters," a Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email. "They were only the files [that immigration officials] had finished reviewing at the moment of the call. Since then, [immigration officials] have manually confirmed about 2,000 more aliens from the same list. The review is just beginning."

Trusting the process

While voting in the upcoming election will conclude on Nov. 3, there is concern among some election experts that the relationship between federal leaders and their counterparts at the state and local levels might not be easily repairable.

The federal government has traditionally supported state and local officials on a slew of election-related matters, from mitigating foreign threats to cybersecurity. With the fragile state of affairs, some experts fear any Election Day complications could threaten the integrity of the vote.

"Our state and local election officials are going to have fewer resources at their disposal, less intelligence and less ability to coordinate in responding to what might be significant threats going forward because they don't trust the federal government as a partner the way they did," Weiser said.

While trust in how elections are being conducted remains top of mind for voters, election officials like Holden, Aguilar and Raffensperger are working to assure their residents that they should still have faith in the process.

"There's no reason for a voter to ever doubt their ballot," Holden said.

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A man was charged with allegedly sending letters with white granular substance, which turned out to be salt, to four members of Congress, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Monday in federal court in Springfield, Illinois. 

He was allegedly heard about reports of other letters with suspicious substances being sent to senators and secretaries of state around the country, the court documents said.

Matthew Unglesbee allegedly sent the letters to four members of Congress in the Northern District of Illinois, including the office of one U.S. senator, according to the Justice Department.

In one House member's office, the letter sent felt like it contained a powder substance, which turned out to be salt, the complaint said. The staffer felt something inside the letter and called 911, and subsequently alerted other Congressional offices in the area, according to the complaint.

Inside there was white granular substance, and a note that read "HA HA," according to the department. In the letter to the U.S senator, it read "HA HA HA enjoy your gift," the prosecutors allege.

Investigators found the return address on the letters to be Unglesbee's, according to the court records.

Authorities interviewed him at his home and he allegedly told them he was aware of other suspicious substance letters sent to offices around the country.

"Unglesbee told agents he mailed the four letters to the four members of Congress after hearing someone in a restaurant mention the news story of other letters being mailed earlier this month," the complaint said. "Unglesbee acknowledged being aware of past mailing of white powder sent in letters including anthrax. Unglesbee said he knew recipients of white powder letters 'took it serious and would have 'hazmat come in white suits' because 'anthrax is dangerous.'"

He allegedly said he was joking but recognized the recipients of the letter could see the letters as a threat, according to the complaint. 

When investigators searched his home, they found a fifth envelope addressed to one of the members' Washington, D.C., office, the complaint said.

A lawyer for Unglesbee declined comment when contacted by ABC News.

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A federal judge in New York on Monday ruled against President Donald Trump and the Justice Department over the firing of Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, from the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office. 

Judge Jesse Furman said Comey's termination violated civil service rules. 

"Yes, the Attorney General is authorized by law to remove an AUSA. But the Attorney General (and anyone to whom the Attorney General delegates that authority) is also limited by law, namely the CSRA, to do so only in a particular manner and only for certain reasons," the judge wrote.

Furman ordered Maurene Comey, who most recently led the prosecution of Sean "Diddy" Combs, reinstated with back pay.

In addition to calling her termination unlawful, Furman decided Trump and the DOJ violated the separation of powers, the Administrative Procedure Act and Maurene Comey's due process rights. 

"The Department disagrees with this decision and will appeal in due course," a DOJ spokesperson told ABC News.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment. 

ABC News has reached out to Maurene Comey for comment.

Furman's ruling outlines that Maurene Comey's reinstatement applies from the date of her termination in July of 2025 until December, when she effectively resigned from her role by accepting a new job in the private sector. 

In ordering Maurene Comey's reinstatement, Furman rejected what he described as the Trump administration's "sweeping and unprecedented theory of executive authority." 

The Trump administration had argued that not only was Maurene Comey's firing lawful under federal statute, but that the laws protecting civil servants were also an unconstitutional intrusion into Trump's authority. 

"The question at the heart of this case is whether these limitations on the removal of Assistant United States Attorneys are consistent with Article II and the constitutional separation of powers," Judge Furman wrote. 

To make its argument, the DOJ pointed to the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. Slaughter -- where the justices effectively supercharged presidential power by greenlighting the firing of the leaders of independent federal agencies -- and the Trump v. United States immunity case

"On their view, AUSAs who represent the United States in criminal cases in court exercise prosecutorial and investigatory functions that fall squarely within the President's 'conclusive and preclusive' powers," Furman wrote. "Accordingly, they argue, the President -- and, by extension, the heads of departments appointed by the President -- must have the power to remove such AUSAs for any reason or no reason at all." 

But Furman rejected the DOJ's interpretation of the legal precedent, pointing to decades of other cases which affirm the legal protections for line prosecutors. He also noted that neither case cited by the DOJ applies to inferior officers or "supports their sweeping and unprecedented theory of executive authority." 

"Defendants' argument is contrary to an unbroken line of Supreme Court decisions dating back almost two centuries, and the Supreme Court itself has not formally overruled any of those decisions. That is sufficient, in itself, to reject the argument," wrote Judge Furman. 

To accept the DOJ's argument, Furman wrote, would "unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation's constitutional system." 

Maurene Comey was an assistant U.S. attorney who successfully prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell, the former associate of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and multiple gang members before the split verdict last year in the trial of Combs, who was convicted of a prostitution-related charge but acquitted of more serious charges.

She was also involved in the office's case against Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 at New York City's Metropolitan Correctional Center while he was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

Trump fired James Comey during his first term in office after Comey announced publicly that Trump's 2016 campaign was being investigated over potential ties to Russia.

Prior to Maurene Comey's firing, Trump privately vented about having a Comey work in his administration, sources previously told ABC News.

Earlier this year, Furman blocked the Justice Department's attempt to move Maurene Comey's lawsuit over her firing as a federal prosecutor out of court.

The Justice Department argued at the time that her case belongs before the Merit Systems Protection Board and not in federal district court.

Furman decided the case belongs with him because Maurene Comey was fired pursuant to the president's executive authority and not the usual procedures for civil servants. 

"Maurene Comey was, by all accounts, an exemplary Assistant United States Attorney. In her nearly ten years working at the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, she was assigned some of the country's highest profile cases, and she consistently received the highest accolades from supervisors and peers alike," the judge's opinion in April said.

The DOJ, in court filings, has characterized Comey's case as routine.

"A federal employee's claims that removal from federal service was arbitrary and capricious or conducted in a manner that did not provide the process to which they contend they were due is not a novel issue," government attorneys previously said.

Following her termination last year, Maurene Comey told colleagues in a farewell email that she was fired as a federal prosecutor without being told a reason but urged them not to succumb to the "fear" she said her firing could cause.

"If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decision of those who remain," Comey said in her email, a copy of which was obtained by ABC News. "Do not let that happen."

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A 15-year-old was arrested in connection with a shooting near Florida A&M University over the weekend, which left 12 injured, including six children, the Tallahassee Police Department announced on Monday morning. Eleven of those who were injured had gunshot wounds.

Authorities said they made the arrest on Sunday.

The individual arrested, Anthony Rivers III, will face 11 counts of attempted second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a delinquent, police said.

State attorney Jack Campbell said Monday he would be prosecuted as an adult.

According to police, "preliminary findings indicate a physical altercation occurred" before the shooting on Saturday night near Perry and Manatee streets just outside Florida A&M University's Bragg Memorial Stadium.

"Detectives believe the incident stemmed from a dispute between individuals known to one another. At this stage of the investigation, none of the victims appear to have been the intended targets," according to police.

Police added that the investigation remains "open and active" and said more arrests are possible.

"What should have been a weekend of celebration in our community instead became a night of fear and violence for the victims and their families,” Tallahassee Chief of Police Lawrence Revell said in a statement.

The statement continued, "While this arrest marks a significant step forward, our work is far from over. We remain committed to holding those responsible accountable and getting answers for every family impacted by this tragedy."

Revell spoke with reporters during a late-night press conference after the shooting.

"We know that our youngest victim is 11 years old. At least three of our victims have sustained serious injuries and one of those is in critical condition. Eight of those are reported to be in stable condition," he said.

In a Sunday morning update, the Tallahassee Police Department said that six of the victims remain hospitalized, with one in critical condition. Five other victims have been released from the hospital, police said.

The person who was injured but not from a gunshot was "a grandmother of one of the victims," the chief said, adding that she "injured herself fleeing from the scene."

FAMU President Marva B. Johnson released a video statement Sunday afternoon, saying that while the shooting did not occur on her campus, the school is offering care and support to "members of our FAMU family who were injured in the tragic incident."

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Authorities are searching for 28-year-old Jacob Morley, a convicted murderer who escaped from a Tennessee prison, the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) announced Monday.

Morley, who is serving a life sentence, escaped from the Northwest Correctional Complex, the agency said.

"At approximately 11:30 p.m. on October 25, 2026, staff at NWCX confirmed Morley was unaccounted for and immediately conducted an emergency count and search of the facility," the agency said.

Security cameras "confirmed Morley breached the perimeter fence and exited the facility in his TDOC uniform," officials said.

"TDOC is committed to protecting the safety of the public and is asking the community to immediately contact law enforcement with any sightings or information," TDOC said in a statement.

The agency said it is working with local, state and federal law enforcement to apprehend Morley.

According to the agency, Morley was serving a life sentence for a conviction in Carter County, Tennessee, for crimes including first-degree murder, aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence, evading arrest and vandalism.

A wanted poster from the TDOC describes Morley as 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighing 240 pounds with green eyes and brown hair.

"If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Jacob Morley, please contact the Tennessee Department of Correction at 1-844-832-3463 or 911," the poster read.

Sheriff Bryan Avery of the Lake County Sheriff's Office, where the prison is located, asked the public to remain "vigilant and exercise caution."

"Anyone who encounters or believes they have spotted Morley should not approach, confront, or attempt to apprehend him," Avery said in a statement Monday. "Instead, immediately dial 911 and provide any relevant information to law enforcement."

Northwest Correctional Complex, located in Tiptonville, Tennessee, is a prison with "the operating capacity to house 1,776 male inmates with custody levels ranging from minimum to close," according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.

According to ABC News Tennessee affiliate WJHL, Morley was found guilty of murder in 2022.

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A New Jersey teen accused of intentionally ramming his SUV into two 17-year-old girls riding an e-bike, killing them, pleaded not guilty to murder charges on Monday.

Vincent Battiloro, 18, appeared in court for his arraignment on Monday, following his indictment earlier this month on two counts of first-degree murder.

The victims -- Maria Niotis and Isabella Salas, both 17 -- were killed on Sept. 29, 2025, after authorities said a Jeep Compass struck them while the two friends were riding the e-bike on a residential street in Cranford, then fled the scene.

Battiloro, who was 17 at the time, was arrested two days later and initially charged as a juvenile with murder. He was waived to adult court in June.

Battiloro did not speak during Monday's hearing, his first since being charged as an adult. One of his attorneys entered his plea on his behalf.

The next hearing in the case has been scheduled for Dec. 14. ABC News has reached out to his attorneys for comment on the charges but did not immediately receive a response.

Family members of the victims attended Monday's hearing, wearing sweatshirts with their names and faces printed on them.

"Maria and Isabella should be alive today," their families said in a joint statement on Monday. "These families, and every parent in this community, deserve to know how this unspeakable catastrophe was allowed to happen."

The families call on the New Jersey attorney general to open an investigation "concerning the events leading to the deaths of Maria and Isabella, including investigating all law enforcement's dealings and interactions with Vincent Battiloro and his family."

The families of the girls had alleged in a statement following Battiloro's arrest that the suspect plotted an attack against Niotis for months, killing her and also her friend in the "horrific act."

Authorities have not commented on an alleged motive.

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