College graduates share emotional goodbyes with beloved university security officer
Valerie Baxter, lovingly referred to as "Ms. Val" by staff and students at High Point University in North Carolina, gave students hugs on their graduation day.
Valerie Baxter, lovingly referred to as "Ms. Val" by staff and students at High Point University in North Carolina, gave students hugs on their graduation day.
After months of back and forth, House Republicans and the White House this weekend unveiled a deal on raising the nation's $31.4 trillion borrowing limit while implementing some caps on government spending and other policy changes. The legislation, which was released publicly on Sunday, will need to be approved by Congress within days to avert a historic default that could begin as soon as June 5, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said. President Joe Biden has vowed to sign the debt deal if it passes the House and Senate.
An eighth person was rescued overnight from a partial apartment building collapse in Davenport, Iowa, officials said, adding that no one appears to remain missing. More than a dozen people self-evacuated when the six-story residential and commercial building partially collapsed on Sunday afternoon, Davenport Fire Chief Michael Carlsten said. "It felt like there was an earthquake, or somebody had rammed a bulldozer into the building," Linnea Hoover, a building resident and journalist at ABC Davenport affiliate WQAD, told ABC News.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed one of the world's harshest anti-LGBTQ bills into law on Monday. The Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023, which was introduced in Uganda's Parliament in early March, calls for the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality," which is defined as cases of same-sex relations involving people who are HIV positive as well as with minors and other categories of vulnerable people. Ugandan Parliament Speaker Anita Annet Among was the first to announce on Twitter that the president had signed the bill into law, saying Museveni had "answered the cries of our people."
Ralph Yarl, the teenager who was shot in the head when he mistakenly went to the wrong house to pick up his siblings, is set to attend a walk/run event in Overland Park, Kansas on Memorial Day to help raise money for traumatic brain injuries. Yarl is expected to participate in the “Going the Distance for Brain Injury” event, which takes place on Monday morning and features a 10K, 5k and 1.5 mile walk and an event for kids. Yarl suffered from his own traumatic brain injury following the shooting last month.
President Joe Biden on Sunday night celebrated a bipartisan "compromise" to raise the nation's debt ceiling and avert a historic default that could upend the economy. In a brief speech from the White House's Roosevelt Room, Biden urged Congress to move swiftly to pass the deal, brokered with House Republicans led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which also imposes some spending limits on the federal government and some regulatory and policy changes.
A teenager was shot and killed early Sunday morning outside an Atlanta high school after a confrontation that began at a graduation party, according to police. The Atlanta Police Department said it responded to calls about multiple people shot at 2:27 a.m. near Benjamin E. Mays High School. Powell was scheduled to begin working for the City of Atlanta on Tuesday as a participant in their youth employment program, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said during a news conference Sunday.
A search was underway Sunday for a gunman who shot three people at a casino in Seattle, according to police. The shooting unfolded at the Roxbury Lanes & Casino in southwest Seattle just before 11 p.m. on Saturday, the Seattle Police Department said. Officers responded to reports of multiple people shot at the casino and bowling alley and upon arrival discovered three victims suffering from gunshot wounds, police said.
Three people were killed and five others were injured when a shootout erupted between two outlaw biker gangs at the annual Red River Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally in New Mexico, police said. As tens of thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts converged on the Taos County resort town for the annual event and live music festival, members of the Bandidos and Water Dog biker gangs got into a fight in which multiple rounds of gunfire were traded between the two groups, New Mexico State Police Chief Tim Johnson said at a news conference Sunday morning. Johnson said all eight people shot in the episode, including those killed, were members of the two biker gangs.
One of the largest insurance agencies in the country will no longer accept applications for home and business insurance in California due to wildfire risks and the cost of rebuilding. State Farm has ceased new applications, including all business and personal lines property and casualty insurance, starting Saturday, the company announced in a press release. Existing customers will not be affected, and the company will continue to offer auto insurance in the state, according to the release.
German automaker Mercedes-Benz has seen its share of the U.S. luxury market slip as customers traded in their V8 sedans and sport utility vehicles for Teslas. Now, the company is following in Tesla's footsteps by building out its own charging network, accelerating its electrified fleet and adding Level 3 autonomous driving technology to its vehicles. Mercedes' goal is simple: Become the "most desirable electric vehicle luxury brand," according to Dimitris Psillakis, president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz North America.
Deputy Homeland Security Secretary John Tien, a 24-year Army vet, now finds himself with a new challenge, handed down by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas specifically because of his background: defeating, disrupting and dismantling Mexican drug cartels. "These cartels are responsible for human smuggling, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking in particular, who are making, shipping and selling dangerous and deadly narcotics," Tien told ABC News in an interview, laying blame with them for the spread of opioids like fentanyl. Tien is one of the most senior law enforcement officials in the country.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced at a brief presser on Saturday night that House Republicans and the White House have reached a tentative deal to raise the federal government's debt limit, ending a monthslong stalemate. "I just got off the phone with the president -- I talked to him twice today -- and after weeks of negotiations, we have come to an agreement in principle," McCarthy said, emerging from his office shortly after 9 p.m. ET on Saturday. McCarthy, who did not take any questions from the press, laid out next steps for the deal, including plans to post the text on Sunday and vote on the bill on Wednesday.
Newly released surveillance footage shows a dramatic shootout between a North Carolina public bus driver and passenger while the bus was in motion. The shooting occurred on May 18 on a Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) bus, after the passenger asked the driver to get off between stops near the Steele Creek Premium Outlet Mall, the transportation agency said. Tobias then walks away and can be seen pulling a firearm out of his jacket pocket, as two other passengers are visible seated on the bus, before moving back towards the front door of the bus and turning to face the driver.
At least two people have died in strikes on Russian territory as Russia reported more attacks on Saturday, with drones crashing in its western regions and areas on the border with Ukraine coming under shelling, according to Russian officials. Russia's Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine came under multiple rounds of shelling, killing one person, according to its governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov. In the neighboring Kursk region, which also borders Ukraine, one person was killed by cross-border mortar fire, Kursk Gov. Roman Starovoit said.
The family of a man fatally shot by a security guard in a San Francisco Walgreens last month during an apparent shoplifting altercation has filed a $25 million wrongful death lawsuit. Banko Brown, 24, died on April 27 following an altercation with the guard, police said. The guard, 33-year-old Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, has not been charged in the shooting.
A missing youth basketball coach in Florida was found dead nearly a week after police said he was last seen going for a run. Makuach Yak, 31, was found dead Friday evening inside the Delray Oaks Natural Area, a park in Delray Beach, Florida, local authorities said. "Right now, it appears his death is not criminal in nature," the Delray Beach Police Department said in a social media post.
Board games like Monopoly, Clue and The Game of Life are iconic in many Americans' lives and in pop culture. One of those games, Daybreak, is set to launch this spring after years of development to tackle one of the most complex topics of all, how to bring the world together to combat climate change. "The game started from a conversation on what could we do about climate change as game designers," game designer Matteo Menapace told ABC News.
An American soldier was killed in a non-combat rollover accident in Kuwait, U.S. officials said late Friday. Jayson Reed Haven, 20, of Aiken, South Carolina, died from a rollover accident that occurred in a non-combat situation on Thursday at Camp Buehring in the northwestern desert of Kuwait, about 20 miles from the southern border of Iraq. The news of Haven's death came just days before Memorial Day, a federal holiday for honoring and mourning those who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.
For Christi Brown, it's the legacy of her son, Judah, who died at 3 years old in a drowning accident, that keeps her moving forward. On Sept. 24, 2016, the Brown family -- Christi, husband Mark, Judah, 3, and his six older siblings, went for a swim and a barbeque at a friend's apartment complex near their home in Houston, Texas. On the Facebook page of a charity founded in Judah's honor, the Judah Brown Project, Brown wrote a post shared almost 1,800 times on why she believes a puddle jumper contributed to her son's drowning -- one reason being the position in which the device places a child.
A recent high school graduate from Louisiana is missing after going overboard while on a trip to the Bahamas, school officials said. Cameron Robbins, who attended University Laboratory School in Baton Rouge, was on a trip with a group of students when he went overboard on Wednesday night, according to school officials. "As of this interview right now he has not been located," Kevin George, director of the Laboratory School, told ABC Baton Rouge affiliate WBRZ midday Thursday.