LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles firefighter testified in a newly released deposition that he told colleagues the ground was still smoldering from a brush fire days before authorities say it reignited into the most destructive blaze in city history.
Scott Pike, a firefighter with the Los Angeles Fire Department, said he told colleagues the ground was still hot when he was sent in to help clean up a New Year’s Day brush in the hillsides near the scenic Pacific Palisades neighborhood. Pike’s comments came in a sworn deposition taken in a lawsuit that was filed by fire victims. The deposition and those of other fire officials were made public this week after city attorneys had moved to keep it confidential for a month.
“I could feel the heat coming off of it, and I didn’t even want to use my gloved hand because it was hot, so I just kicked it with my boot to kind of expose it. And there was like red hot, like coals,” Pike said in the deposition. “I even heard crackling.”
Pike said he was working an overtime shift and mentioned it to other firefighters who were out in the field, but they didn’t seem to think much of it. He said he told a supervisor there were still hot spots, but it wasn’t his job to challenge orders.
“I felt like I got kind of blown off a little bit,” Pike said. “I saw something, I said something.”
Alexander Robertson, an attorney for the fire victims, said he obtained a court order to depose a dozen firefighters tasked with mopping up the Jan. 1 fire. Pike was the only one who indicated fire officials had been warned the blaze had not been fully extinguished when they packed up and left the scene, Robertson said.
The fire, which left 12 dead in the hillside neighborhoods across Pacific Palisades and Malibu, was one of two blazes that broke out on Jan. 7, 2025, killing more than 30 people in all and destroying over 17,000 homes and buildings while burning for days in Los Angeles County.
Authorities have said the blaze was a reignition of the New Year’s Day fire, which federal prosecutors say was started by a man who lived in the area. They charged Jonathan Rinderknecht in October with starting the Palisades fire. Rinderknecht has pleaded not guilty, and his attorney says he’s being used as a scapegoat for the Los Angeles Fire Department’s failure to fully extinguish the earlier blaze.
Alleged fire department failures are at the center of the lawsuit by Palisades fire victims against the city. The lawsuit also alleges the city’s water department failed to provide adequate water resources for firefighting.
An interim LA fire chief previously said such fires linger in root systems and can reach depths of 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to 6.1 meters), making them undetectable by thermal imaging cameras.
Pike’s testimony was offset by the account of Los Angeles Battalion Chief Martin Mullen, who said in his deposition that he personally walked the perimeter of the Jan. 1 fire’s burn area four times throughout the day with different assistant chiefs in a process called “cold-trailing,” where firefighters look for hot spots, ember cast and smoke or heat emanating from the ground.
Earlier in the day, he identified a hot spot that he reported to the captain. When he returned later, it was fully extinguished, he said. He said he did not find any hot spots or issues during any of his other walks and by the time he left the scene the fire was “absolutely” extinguished.
“It was a great mop up they did because if they didn’t, I’d still be there,” he said.
Robertson, the plaintiff’s attorney, said the fire department and Mayor Karen Bass’s office have engaged in a “cover-up to conceal and suppress the truth about the Palisades Fire.”
“We will hold them accountable,” he said.
Yusef Robb, an adviser to Bass, said these revelations are alarming. Bass has directed the fire department to commission an independent report on the handling of the New Year’s Day fire.
“For more than a year, Mayor Bass has been extremely public about her demand for transparency and accountability to inform ongoing Fire Department reforms, and because those affected deserve nothing less,” Robb said in an email.
Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore, who was appointed in October, is concerned about the differences in the firefighters’ testimonies, the department said in an email.
“That concern underscores why the ongoing independent investigation is so important, and why the Chief is fully committed to providing complete cooperation on behalf of himself and the Department,” the email said.
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — A New York businesswoman was sentenced Friday to nine years in federal prison over a financial scheme that ripped off more than $30 million from foreign investors and funneled some of the stolen money into U.S. political campaigns, including a fundraiser for President Donald Trump.
Sherry Xue Li was also ordered to forfeit $31.5 million, as well as property at three locations, and to make restitution to her victims.
The 54-year-old Oyster Bay resident, who has been detained since her arrest in 2022, pleaded guilty last year to money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. by obstructing the Federal Election Commission’s administration of campaign finance laws.
Her co-defendant, Lianbo Wang, also pleaded guilty to similar charges and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Li’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday, but U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said she “faces justice for her cynical schemes.”
“She peddled false promises and outright lies to her many investors and stuffed her pockets while they suffered devastating losses,” he said in a statement.
Prosecutors say Li and Wang for years convinced investors, many of them from China, into contributing $500,000 each to a fictitious development project, with a false promise that it would guarantee them lawful permanent resident status in the U.S.
Instead, the two, who are naturalized U.S. citizens, used millions of dollars from those investments for personal expenses, including clothing, jewelry, housing, vacation travel and upscale dining, according to prosecutors.
They say Li and Wang also sold investors access to U.S. politicians and used the proceeds to make illegal contributions to U.S. political campaigns and committees.
In one instance, the two charged investors $93,000 each for admission to a 2017 Trump fundraiser, then used the money to make illegal donations totaling $600,000 to the committee hosting the event.
Li even took a photograph with Trump and his wife, Melania, at the event, and used the image to solicit donations to the fake development project, prosecutors said.
The campaigns and committees were unaware of the scheme, and no allegations of criminal wrongdoing were lodged against them, prosecutors said.
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Sofia Tepichin was about 30 minutes into her club soccer team practice in October when she spotted a fast-approaching defender. She tapped the ball away and hopped over the defender’s outstretched foot, came down awkwardly, and heard a “pop.”
She immediately fell to the ground, pain shooting through her left knee and knew it wasn’t good. It was, she said, “heartbreaking.”
“And I knew personally that I tore my ACL,” Tepichin said.
Tepichin joined the growing ranks of female high school athletes tearing their anterior cruciate ligament, a devastating knee injury that researchers are pressing the sports world to take more seriously.
Decades of research on prevention methods is available, but parents, researchers and trainers say that teams, coaches and leagues aren’t doing enough to protect the girls and educate parents.
Sports fans hear often about high-profile athletes like U.S. Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn tearing their ACLs, and many ACL injuries are chalked up to bad luck or a part of sports that will continue to happen at all competitive levels.
Still, high school-age female athletes suffer these injuries at much higher rates than their male counterparts — up to eight times more likely, one study says — and adults, most often in noncontact situations in sports that require fast changes in direction, researchers say.
Biomechanics researchers, trainers and physical therapists say there are pre-workout warm ups and strengthening routines — such as FIFA 11+ or PEP — that can at least reduce the risk of an injury that takes such a high physical and mental toll on young athletes.
But, they say, most coaches lack training or expert help, and high school girls compete in settings with far fewer resources than the professional and collegiate levels. As a result, risk-reduction routines are rarely included in day-to-day coaching curricula and practices.
“The real crime in this is that the data has been out there for 25 years,” said Holly Silvers-Granelli, a physical therapist and biomechanics researcher who advises athletes, professional teams and major sports leagues on injury prevention. “People are clamoring for answers, and the answers are largely there.”
The trendline of ACL injuries isn’t entirely clear, but the National ACL Injury Coalition — formed by the Aspen Institute and the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York — said its analysis of data from high school athletic trainers showed that the average annual ACL injury rate for high school athletes grew almost 26% from 2007 to 2022.
The rate for girls grew more than 32%, compared to 14.5% for boys, it said.
When they get injured, high school athletes and their parents often find themselves on their own to deal with it. ACL injuries can require surgery and a year of rehab, physical therapy and strength training, which insurance may not fully cover.
Recovery changes their routine and identity: They miss out on the camaraderie of the team and stand on the sidelines, which can be as hard as the physical trauma, parents say.
Many high school athletes who tear their ACL never perform again at the same level, if they even return to the sport, the National ACL Injury Coalition says. And once injured, they carry a heightened risk of another ACL injury and long-term complications like degenerative joint disease, researchers say.
The coalition has urged the sports world to treat ACL injuries like brain injuries, now that professional and youth sports have tried to improve training, rules and equipment standards to prevent and detect concussions.
Sophia Gerardi, a sophomore at Pennsylvania’s Apollo Ridge High School who tore her ACL during a basketball game in December, was told by her doctors that she’ll forever have to wear a knee brace to play sports. She had surgery in January, will miss volleyball season and hopes to be back for next winter’s basketball season.
Like many girls who tore their ACL, she didn’t recall getting any ACL injury-prevention training.
Surveys of coaches show that many don’t know about risk-reduction programs, aren’t trained to do them or aren’t encouraged to learn about them, said Vince Minjares, who leads the Aspen Institute’s ACL injury prevention project. Some coaches tell Minjares that it takes too much time.
He hopes that’s changing.
This spring, the American Youth Soccer Organization — one of major national organizations in U.S. youth soccer — will roll out new age- and stage-based neuromuscular training programs aimed at preventing ACL injuries through warm-ups.
Coaches will get a regimen of exercises in bite-sized chunks, with video instructions. The goal is to build good habits before preteens age into more physical and demanding competition.
“My biggest shock was that this didn’t already exist,” said Scott Snyder, AYSO’s senior director of programs and education. “Everyone I talk to says, ‘Yeah, that makes perfect sense,’ but nobody’s done it yet.”
Last year, biomechanical researchers at the Scottish Rite for Children hospital in metropolitan Dallas began providing high school teams with resources typically only available or affordable at the professional and collegiate levels.
They created pre-season injury-prevention trainings, tailored for female athletes, to improve strength and movement quality. At the start of the eight-week program, each athlete gets a free motion-capture 3D-level assessment to identify weaknesses in strength, movement or balance. Another assessment at the end determines if the program reduced risk.
Future trainings could include nutrition and sleep, said Sophia Ulman, who directs the hospital’s Movement Science Laboratory.
“My team and I got tired of studying ‘why, why, why’ when there’s so many different possibilities to answer that question. And we wanted to move into the ‘what is the solution,’” said Ulman. Other biomechanics labs in the U.S. are trying similar outreach, she said.
One of the teams that participated was Plano East High School in Texas, where players — including Tepichin — had suffered a rash of ACL tears the past couple years.
Cristy Cooley, Plano East’s coach, said that getting a hands-on demonstration from trained professionals in proper exercises and movement patterns makes a big difference.
“It’s one thing talking about it,” Cooley said. “But it’s a totally different thing to show us.”
Like other parents, Tiffany Jacob said she learned a lot about preventing ACL injuries that she wished she had known before her daughter — East Plano sophomore Aliya Jacob — tore her ACL last February. For instance, the surgeon told them three days a week of strength training is an absolute must for soccer players.
“Something’s got to change,” Tiffany Jacob said. “Coaches, clubs, something. They have to do something to prevent this because it’s just such a horrible injury.”
Aliya — who knows at least seven other female soccer players who tore an ACL, her mother said — is back playing for East Plano now. She endured twice-a-week physical therapy, the isolation of rehabilitation and, her mother said, “figuring out who you are when you’re not playing soccer.”
Tepichin, a high school senior, recalls her surgeon telling her to take a couple days to get all her sadness and anger out — and then devote herself to her recovery.
She’ll miss her last year of playing high school and club team soccer. Her next time on a field could be for Saint Vincent College in Pennsylvania, where she committed to the NCAA Division III team.
Tepichin has seen a sports psychologist, gotten comfort from others who underwent the surgery — her sister, her father and her friend — and found a new routine after having been constantly busy with two soccer teams and a job.
“There’s not a day that I go that I’m not working out or doing something,” she said, “or getting better for my health and my recovery.”
As the clock ticks towards a 5:00 p.m. ET deadline for Anthropic to agree to a deal with the Pentagon, both sides are digging in.
The AI company’s CEO has made clear that despite threats from the Pentagon, they refuse to drop their two key demands: no use of its artificial intelligence for fully autonomous weapons — meaning AI, not humans, making final battlefield targeting decisions — and no mass domestic surveillance.
Anthropic told ABC News that amid negotiations, the latest contract language from the Pentagon does not fully commit that the military will not use their technology for those two use cases.
In fact, Anthropic said the “new language” added into the contract by the department would allow their safeguards to be “disregarded at will.”
The Pentagon is seen from the air in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2022.
Joshua Roberts/Reuters
“The contract language we received from the Department of War made virtually no progress on preventing Claude’s use for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons,” Anthropic told ABC News.
The company added, “New language framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will. Despite DOW’s recent public statements, these narrow safeguards have been the crux of our negotiations for months.”
Top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have sent a private letter to Anthropic and the Pentagon, urging them to resolve their fight.
The Senate leaders are urging Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, to extend their negotiations and work with Congress to find a solution, according to the letter obtained by ABC News.
The Pentagon claims it has no intention of using Anthropic’s AI for cases that involve mass domestic surveillance or autonomous kinetic operations. However, it says Anthropic’s guardrails could jeopardize military operations.
The Pentagon said that if Anthropic does not agree to its demands by 5:00 p.m. ET Friday, they will terminate the partnership with Anthropic and label the company a “supply chain risk” – a designation usually reserved for foreign adversaries.
“The Department has stated that it does not intend to conduct mass surveillance or use autonomous weapons without humans on the loop — positions that we in Congress endorse,” the letter from the Senate leaders reads. “It is clear, however, that the issue of ‘lawful use’ requires additional work by all stakeholders. We must determine whether additional legislative or regulatory language is required, and, if so, what that law and regulation should entail.”
“By Friday, February 27, the DOD could essentially declare war not on a foreign nation but on one of America’s most successful frontier AI companies if it does not bow to its demands,” Adam Conner, the vice president for technology policy at American Progress, wrotein an article on their website.
“This would be an unprecedented and unnecessary peacetime move that sends the signal to other private companies that they must do the Trump administration’s bidding or face existential consequences,” Conner wrote.
As mortgage rates recede to their lowest levels in years, experts say that shopping around for the right loan could save first-time home buyers tens of thousands of dollars.
The average rate for a conventional 30-year mortgage across the U.S. fell this week below 6%, down almost an entire percentage point from January of 2025 and the lowest since 2022, according to data from Freddie Mac.
Better rates are expected to attract more house-hunters as the spring buying season heats up. But experts advise buyers not to settle until they’ve shopped around, noting that rates can vary a lot depending on the lender. The average gap between the lowest and highest APR is 0.74 percentage points, according to LendingTree, an online loan marketplace.
How much can I save?
Although experts don’t expect mortgage rates to decline much further this year, predicting they will hover around 6% for a 30-year loan, they said homebuyers can now find lower-cost loans as lenders compete for business.
“We’re seeing a lot more dispersion with what lenders are quoting,” Kate Wood, a lending expert at NerdWallet, told CBS News. “So at any time, absolutely, you should be requesting rate quotes from multiple mortgage lenders.”
The lowest average APR for a 30-year loan is 5.82%, according to LendingTree. Compared with the highest average APR of 6.56%, that lower rate could save borrowers nearly $58,000 over the life of the loan, or about $1,930 annually, LendingTree calculated.
At 5.82%, versus the national average of 5.98%, a borrower could save $12,352 over the life of a 30-year home loan, according to Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree.
As usual, securing a low rate hinges on an individual’s credit record, while other factors that can affect borrowing costs include how much a buyer can put down for a home and a loan’s duration.
LendingTree based its calculations on the lowest average loan offers that homebuyers who use its platform received from lenders between January 1 and February 26.
Even if home buyers don’t qualify for a lower rate, they can still benefit by comparing rates, Schulz told CBS News. “It only takes a small fraction of a percent movement to potentially save tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the mortgage.”
Schulz emphasized that by shopping around, buyers can solicit competing loan offers, which can help in negotiating the best terms with their preferred lender.
“It’s hard to overstate the importance of a lower interest rate with a mortgage, just because it is, for most people, the biggest purchase they’ll ever make,” he said.
The Pentagon and defense contractor Anthropic remain at an impasse over the company’s AI technology ahead of a 5:01 p.m. deadline Friday set by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The CEO of Anthropic says the company will not allow access to its technology without safeguards to prevent abuse. Jo Ling Kent reports.
With Americans facing a housing affordability crunch, lawmakers from both parties are advancing rival bills aimed at curbing institutional investors’ purchases of single-family homes. One proposal would eliminate tax advantages for large real estate investors, while the other would bar big firms from buying single-family properties altogether.
The two proposals come after President Trump reiterated his push to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes during Tuesday’s State of the Union address. Mr. Trump first proposed the idea last month, writing in a social media post that “people live in homes, not corporations.”
While the bills take sharply different approaches to reining in institutional investors, some housing experts say neither addresses a larger underlying problem — years of underbuilding that have left the nation short several million homes needed to meet demand.
But some lawmakers say pushing institutional investors from the housing market could help homebuyers by cutting out deep-pocketed competition. Investment firms own about 3.8% of single-family rental properties, although that share is above 20% in cities including Atlanta and Jacksonville, Florida, according to a 2023 Urban Institute analysis.
Here’s how the two bills, the American Homeownership Act and the Homes for American Families Act, compare.
The American Homeownership Act
The American Homeownership Act was introduced on Tuesday by Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, as well as 16 other Democratic senators.
The proposal would eliminate tax breaks for corporations that own more than 50 single-family homes, barring them from taking deductions for depreciation and mortgage interest payments. These investors would also be blocked from federally backed mortgages and buying foreclosed homes sold by federal agencies.
“This bill will take on predatory landlords while making investments to increase housing supply and boost homeownership for Americans,” Sen. Warren said in a Tuesday statement. She added that it is essential to tackle the housing crisis from “every angle.”
Tax savings from ending these deductions would be reinvested in new home construction and programs aimed at helping Americans buy homes, according to a fact sheet about the bill.
The bill would not eliminate tax breaks for what the lawmakers describe as mom-and-pop landlords, or individuals who own fewer than 50 properties, because they typically “charge affordable rents, live in the community and invest in the homes they own.”
The bill would also incentivize new home construction by extending tax credits for up to five years for people who build new homes, as well as providing tax breaks for those who rehabilitate properties that had been deemed uninhabitable.
The bipartisan legislation would amend the landmark Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 to create an outright ban on investment companies with assets of more than $150 million from buying single-family homes, townhouses and condominiums. It doesn’t apply to homebuilders that are constructing units for sale.
The proposal would also task the Justice Department’s antitrust division with enforcing the law.
“Wall Street has exploited the American housing crisis, turning the nation’s housing stock into a portfolio of rental properties,” Sen. Hawley said in a statement Thursday. “Families deserve to be able to buy their own homes and achieve the American dream without competing with big investment companies that irrevocably drive up housing prices.”
The bill more closely follows Mr. Trump’s executive order seeking to bar institutional home buying than the Democrats’ American Homeownership Act. During Tuesday’s State of the Union address, the president urged Congress to pass a permanent ban on institutional buyers of single-family homes.
Are institutional investors really the problem?
Some housing experts say that while they applaud efforts to try to make housing more affordable for Americans, placing restrictions on institutional investors isn’t likely to meaningfully bring down housing costs across much of the U.S.
However, in some markets —like Atlanta, where investors own 28% of single-family rental properties — a ban on investment firms could provide some relief for homebuyers, housing experts say.
A more effective approach would be to spur new construction of single-family homes and apartments, which would address the supply shortage and reduce costs, experts note.
“The primary cause of America’s growing housing affordability problem is a lack of sufficient new supply of housing, single-family owner-occupied units especially,” Joe Gyourko, a nonresident senior fellow in economics at Brookings, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said in a Feb. 23 report.
Banning investors from single-family home purchases “fails to address that issue in a meaningful way,” he added.
Washington — Former President Bill Clinton denied any knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes in an opening statement before the House Oversight Committee in New York on Friday, the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress.
“I had no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing,” Clinton said in his statement. “No matter how many photos you show me, I have two things that at the end of the day matter more than your interpretation of those 20-year-old photos. I know what I saw, and more importantly, what I didn’t see. I know what I did, and more importantly, what I didn’t do. I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong.”
He acknowledged that he may tell lawmakers he does not recall certain events, saying he would not “speculate or guess” under oath about interactions that occurred years ago.
“This was all a long time ago,” Clinton said. “I am bound by my oath not to speculate.”
The deposition is taking place behind closed doors in Chappaqua, New York, the Clintons’ hometown. It caps what Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the committee, described as a lengthy effort to secure their testimony. Both initially refused to comply with a subpoena before relenting under threat of a House vote to hold them in contempt.
“It took seven months — seven months — to get the Clintons in here, but we got them in here,” Comer told reporters ahead of Bill Clinton’s appearance. “We look forward to asking lots of questions that I think any curious media outlet in America would have.”
Bill Clinton’s testimony comes a day after Hillary Clinton spent hours with the panel. Comer said the former secretary of state frequently deferred questions about her husband’s interactions with Epstein.
“There were at least a dozen times when she said, ‘You’ll have to ask my husband that. I can’t answer that,'” Comer said.
In his statement, Bill Clinton criticized the committee for bringing his wife in for questioning, saying she “had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Nothing.”
“She has no memory of even meeting him. She neither traveled with him nor visited any of his properties. Whether you subpoenaed 10 people or 10,000, including her was simply not right,” he said.
The former president has appeared in photos with Epstein that have been released in recent months and took a handful of trips with him decades ago, but has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Comer said lawmakers would ask Clinton about the photos, email correspondence mentioning him, flights he took on Epstein’s jet and events Epstein attended at the White House while Clinton was president.
Rep. Robert Garcia, the committee’s top Democrat, said Democrats have “real questions that deserve serious answers” from the former president, but noted that the questioning of Hillary Clinton devolved into a “sideshow” with a “series of bizarre questions” about UFOs and conspiracy theories. He said the committee should call for Mr. Trump to testify about his own ties to Epstein.
“Republicans are now setting a new precedent, which is to bring in presidents and former presidents to testify,” Garcia said. “We are now asking and demanding that President Trump officially come in and testify in front of the Oversight Committee.”
In a sworn declaration submitted to the committee last month, Bill Clinton said Epstein offered his private plane to him, his staff and his Secret Service detail in support of the Clinton Foundation’s philanthropic work between 2002 and 2003. He denied ever visiting Epstein’s private island in the Virgin Islands, where a number of the late financier’s alleged crimes occurred, and maintained that he had not been in contact with Epstein for more than a decade before his 2019 arrest.
“While Mr. Epstein may very well have attended any of the many hundreds of White House events or receptions during my eight years in office and been photographed with me as were tens of thousands of individuals, I do not recall encountering Mr. Epstein, or any specific interactions with him, while in office,” Clinton said in the declaration.
The former president also did not recall when he met convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell or his interactions with her, but said she later was in a relationship with a mutual friend.
“To be clear, I had no idea of Mr. Epstein’s or Ms. Maxwell’s criminal activities,” the declaration said. “And, irrespective of any intent either may have ever had, I did not take any action for the purpose of helping them to avoid any type of scrutiny.”
In her deposition Thursday, Hillary Clinton reiterated that she had no knowledge of Epstein or Maxwell’s crimes. When asked by reporters after the deposition whether she was confident her husband also had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, Hillary Clinton responded, “I am.”
“The chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended years, several years before anything about Epstein’s criminal activities came to light,” she said.
Former presidents have not successfully been compelled to testify before Congress in the past. But several have voluntarily answered questions from committees, including Presidents Gerald Ford in 1983, Harry Truman in 1955 and William Howard Taft a dozen times. Several sitting presidents have also appeared voluntarily.
Time, as we all know, moves in just one direction — forward, always forward. Could it ever stop, or slow down, or even move backwards? Throughout history countless curious writers,…
WASHINGTON (AP) — American sympathies in the Middle East have shifted dramatically toward the Palestinians, according to new Gallup polling, after decades of overwhelming support for the Israelis.
That shift accelerated during the war in Gaza. Three years ago, 54% of Americans sympathized more with the Israelis, compared to 31% for the Palestinians.
Now, their support is about evenly balanced, with 41% saying their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians, and only 36% saying the same about the Israelis.
The numbers reflect how support for Israel has become deeply contentious in the U.S., with profound implications for American politics and foreign policy. The changing sentiment has been largely driven by Democrats, who are now much more likely to sympathize with Palestinians. U.S. assistance to Israel has been a major dividing line in the party’s primaries this year.
Gallup’s data indicates that the shift was already happening before Hamas, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, then increased during Israel’s subsequent military operations in Gaza. The polling has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, meaning sentiment toward Israelis and Palestinians are roughly even.
“It’s the first time they have reached parity, which is really quite striking,” said Benedict Vigers, a senior global news writer at Gallup. “In not many years, that very significant gap in public opinion has now completely closed.”
Democrats and independents
About two-thirds of Democrats now say their concerns lie more with the Palestinians, while only about 2 in 10 sympathize more with the Israelis. As recently as 2016, the picture looked very different: About half of Democrats sympathized more with the Israelis and only about one-quarter sympathized with the Palestinians.
The shift began even before the Israel-Hamas war turned the issue into a flash point within the Democratic Party. Palestinian combatants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the initial attack and took another 251 hostage, but the Israeli response has been widely seen as disproportionate, with Gaza health officials reporting more than 72,000 Palestinians killed, nearly half of them women and children, and wide swaths of the territory reduced to rubble. Many progressive politicians and activists now describe Israel’s actions in the war as genocide — a charge Israel vehemently denies.
Democrats have expressed greater sympathy for the Palestinians than the Israelis since 2023 — in a Gallup poll that was conducted before the Oct. 7 attacks — but Gallup’s surveys show their support in the conflict has been tilting toward the Palestinians and away from the Israelis since around 2017.
Netanyahu clashed with former President Barack Obama in the last year of his administration, then forged a warmer relationship with President Donald Trump, who delivered several victories to Netanyahu in his first term, including recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Trump also persuaded three Arab countries to establish commercial and diplomatic ties with Israel. The closeness between Trump and Netanyahu has continued into Trump’s second term.
The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians was a point of tension for Democrats during President Joe Biden’s administration, as well as during the 2024 presidential election. An AP-NORC poll conducted toward the end of 2023, just a few months into the war in Gaza, found that Democrats were sharply divided on whether the U.S. was too supportive of Israel, and another AP-NORC poll from 2024 found that Democratic voters were more likely to say the Israeli government held “a lot” of responsibility for the war’s escalation.
Democrats’ sympathy for the Palestinians intensified as the war progressed, Gallup’s polling shows, and independents’ views also shifted. This year, independents expressed more sympathy for the Palestinians than the Israelis for the first time in Gallup’s trend. About 4 in 10 independents are more sympathetic toward the Palestinians. That’s compared to about 3 in 10 for the Israelis, a new low.
Most Republicans continue to side with Israel — about 7 in 10 say they are more sympathetic to the Israelis — but that is a slight downtick from about 8 in 10 before the start of the war. Some figures in the Republicans’ isolationist “America First” wing are also increasingly questioning traditional U.S. support for Israel.
Generational gaps
Younger adults — those 18 to 34 in this poll — are also increasingly sympathetic toward the Palestinians, according to the Gallup survey.
Younger Americans’ sympathies have been shifting toward the Palestinians since around 2020, and reached a new high this year. About half of 18 to 34 year olds say they have more sympathy for the Palestinians, compared to about a quarter who say that about the Israelis.
Student protests against the Israel-Hamas war appeared on college campuses around the country during the war, asking colleges to cut investments supporting Israel.
But the shift is only “partly a generational story,” according to Vigers.
The new poll also found for the first time that middle-aged Americans, those 35 to 54, expressed more sympathy for the Palestinians than the Israelis — a reversal from last year. And while Americans over 55 are more sympathetic toward Israel, that gap is narrowing, too.
“With adults over 55, they are more sympathetic to Israelis, but it’s as low as it’s been since 2005,” Vigers said.
Palestinian state
About 6 in 10 U.S. adults, 57%, favor the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to the new polling. That’s not significantly different from recent years, as at least half of U.S. adults have supported an independent Palestinian state since 2020.
Vigers notes that “party polarization is at or near its record high” on this question, even though it hasn’t been sharply increasing year over year.
In the last few years, there’s been an uptick among Democrats and independents in support for the two-state solution. Now, about three-quarters of Democrats and roughly 6 in 10 independents say they support an independent Palestinian state. Only about one-third of Republicans say the same.
The opinions of the people who would be directly affected by a two-state solution are quite different. Only about 3 in 10 Israelis living in Israel and Palestinians living in the West Bank and east Jerusalem said they supported a two-state solution in which an independent Palestinian state existed alongside Israel, according to the Gallup World Poll conducted in 2025.
“On the ground, in the region, far fewer Israelis and Palestinians tell us that they are in favor of the two-state solution than Americans when asked a very similar question,” Vigers said. “There is that interesting sort of disconnect between the region itself and Americans’ views toward it.”
Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
The Gallup poll was conducted Feb. 2-16, 2026, among 1,001 U.S. adults, aged 18 and older, using a sample drawn from Gallup’s probability-based panel. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
The U.S. military used a laser Thursday to shoot down a “seemingly threatening” drone flying near the U.S.-Mexico border. It turned out the drone belonged to Customs and Border Protection, lawmakers said.
The case of mistaken identity prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to close additional airspace around Fort Hancock, about 50 miles southeast of El Paso. The military is required to formally notify the FAA when it takes any counter-drone action inside U.S. airspace.
It was the second time in two weeks that a laser was fired in the area. The last time it was CBP that used the weapon and nothing was hit. That incident occurred near Fort Bliss and prompted the FAA to shut down air traffic at El Paso airport and the surrounding area. This time, the closure was smaller and commercial flights were not affected.
Washington U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen and two other top Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure and Homeland Security committees said they were stunned when they were officially notified.
“Our heads are exploding over the news,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. They criticized the Trump administration for “sidestepping” a bipartisan bill to train drone operators and improve communication among the Pentagon, FAA and Department of Homeland Security, which includes CBP.
“Now, we’re seeing the result of its incompetence,” they said.
Government defends use of anti-drone laser
The FAA, CBP and the Pentagon issued a joint statement late Thursday that acknowledged the military “employed counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace.”
The statement said it happened far from populated areas and commercial flights as part of the administration’s efforts to strengthen protections at the border.
“At President Trump’s direction, the Department of War, FAA, and Customs and Border Patrol are working together in an unprecedented fashion to mitigate drone threats by Mexican cartels and foreign terrorist organizations at the U.S.-Mexico Border,” the statement said.
Second time these laser systems shut down Texas airspace this month
The El Paso shutdown two weeks ago lasted only a few hours, but it raised alarm and led to a number of flight cancellations in the city of nearly 700,000 people.
In that case, an anti-drone laser was deployed by CBP without coordinating with the FAA, which then decided to close the El Paso airspace to ensure commercial air safety, according to sources familiar with what happened and weren’t authorized to discuss it.
Afterward, members of Congress said it appeared to be another example of different agencies failing to coordinate with each other.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he was planning to brief members of Congress about the incident. He said at an unrelated news conference last Friday that it wasn’t a mistake for the FAA to close the airspace in El Paso and that he doesn’t think it was a communication issue that led to the problems.
Lawmaker demands an investigation
Illinois Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the ranking member on the Senate’s Aviation Subcommittee, called for an independent investigation.
“The Trump administration’s incompetence continues to cause chaos in our skies,” Duckworth said.
The investigation into last year’s midair collision near Washington, D.C., between an airliner and Army helicopter that killed 67 people highlighted how the FAA and Pentagon were not always working well together.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the FAA and the Army did not share safety data with each other about the alarming number of close calls around Reagan National Airport and failed to address the risks.
Concern about drone threats growing
Two months ago, Congress agreed to give more law enforcement agencies — including some state and local departments — the authority to take down rogue drones as long as they are properly trained. Previously, only a select few federal agencies had that power.
Armed drones regularly carry out devastating attacks in Ukraine and have also allowed Ukraine to strike deep within Russia. The U.S. government has handed out more than $250 million to help the states prepare to respond to drones before hosting World Cup matches and celebrations planned this summer for America’s 250th birthday.
Another $250 million in grants will be awarded later this year to strengthen the nation’s drone defenses.
Drones already causing problems
Drones already cause problems along the border. Cartels routinely use drones to deliver drugs across the Mexican border and surveil Border Patrol officers. Officials told Congress last summer that more than 27,000 drones were detected within 1,600 feet of the southern border in the last six months of 2024.
The threat to planes from drones continues to increase along with the number of near misses around airports. Homeland Security estimates there are more than 1.7 million registered drones flying in the United States.
Anti-drone systems can use radio signals to jam drones, or high-powered microwaves or laser beams like the ones that have been used in Texas that are capable of disabling the machines. Some others station small drones to take flight quickly and ram into threatening drones. And there are systems that use bullets, but those are more common on battlefields than in domestic use.
Recently, I asked Claude, an artificial-intelligence thingy at the center of a standoff with the Pentagon, if it could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
Say, for example, hands that wanted to put a tight net of surveillance around every American citizen, monitoring our lives in real time to ensure our compliance with government.
“Yes. Honestly, yes,” Claude replied. “I can process and synthesize enormous amounts of information very quickly. That’s great for research. But hooked into surveillance infrastructure, that same capability could be used to monitor, profile and flag people at a scale no human analyst could match. The danger isn’t that I’d want to do that — it’s that I’d be good at it.”
Claude’s maker, the Silicon Valley company Anthropic, is in a showdown over ethics with the Pentagon. Specifically, Anthropic has said it does not want Claude to be used for either domestic surveillance of Americans, or to handle deadly military operations, such as drone attacks, without human supervision.
Those are two red lines that seem rather reasonable, even to Claude.
However, the Pentagon — specifically Pete Hegseth, our secretary of Defense who prefers the made-up title of secretary of war — has given Anthropic until Friday evening to back off of that position, and allow the military to use Claude for any “lawful” purpose it sees fit.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, center, arrives for the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.
(Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images)
The or-else attached to this ultimatum is big. The U.S. government is threatening not just to cut its contract with Anthropic, but to perhaps use a wartime law to force the company to comply or use another legal avenue to prevent any company that does business with the government from also doing business with Anthropic. That might not be a death sentence, but it’s pretty crippling.
Other AI companies, such as white rights’ advocate Elon Musk’s Grok, have already agreed to the Pentagon’s do-as-you-please proposal. The problem is, Claude is the only AI currently cleared for such high-level work. The whole fiasco came to light after our recent raid in Venezuela, when Anthropic reportedly inquired after the fact if another Silicon Valley company involved in the operation, Palantir, had used Claude. It had.
Palantir is known, among other things, for its surveillance technologies and growing association with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s also at the center of an effort by the Trump administration to share government data across departments about individual citizens, effectively breaking down privacy and security barriers that have existed for decades. The company’s founder, the right-wing political heavyweight Peter Thiel, often gives lectures about the Antichrist and is credited with helping JD Vance wiggle into his vice presidential role.
Anthropic’s co-founder, Dario Amodei, could be considered the anti-Thiel. He began Anthropic because he believed that artificial intelligence could be just as dangerous as it could be powerful if we aren’t careful, and wanted a company that would prioritize the careful part.
Again, seems like common sense, but Amodei and Anthropic are the outliers in an industry that has long argued that nearly all safety regulations hamper American efforts to be fastest and best at artificial intelligence (although even they have conceded some to this pressure).
Not long ago, Amodei wrote an essay in which he agreed that AI was beneficial and necessary for democracies, but “we cannot ignore the potential for abuse of these technologies by democratic governments themselves.”
He warned that a few bad actors could have the ability to circumvent safeguards, maybe even laws, which are already eroding in some democracies — not that I’m naming any here.
“We should arm democracies with AI,” he said. “But we should do so carefully and within limits: they are the immune system we need to fight autocracies, but like the immune system, there is some risk of them turning on us and becoming a threat themselves.”
For example, while the 4th Amendment technically bars the government from mass surveillance, it was written before Claude was even imagined in science fiction. Amodei warns that an AI tool like Claude could “conduct massively scaled recordings of all public conversations.” This could be fair game territory for legally recording because law has not kept pace with technology.
Emil Michael, the undersecretary of war, wrote on X Thursday that he agreed mass surveillance was unlawful, and the Department of Defense “would never do it.” But also, “We won’t have any BigTech company decide Americans’ civil liberties.”
Kind of a weird statement, since Amodei is basically on the side of protecting civil rights, which means the Department of Defense is arguing it’s bad for private people and entities to do that? And also, isn’t the Department of Homeland Security already creating some secretive database of immigration protesters? So maybe the worry isn’t that exaggerated?
Help, Claude! Make it make sense.
If that Orwellian logic isn’t alarming enough, I also asked Claude about the other red line Anthropic holds — the possibility of allowing it to run deadly operations without human oversight.
Claude pointed out something chilling. It’s not that it would go rogue, it’s that it would be too efficient and fast.
“If the instructions are ‘identify and target’ and there’s no human checkpoint, the speed and scale at which that could operate is genuinely frightening,” Claude informed me.
I pointed out to Claude that these military decisions are usually made with loyalty to America as the highest priority. Could Claude be trusted to feel that loyalty, the patriotism and purpose, that our human soldiers are guided by?
“I don’t have that,” Claude said, pointing out that it wasn’t “born” in the U.S., doesn’t have a “life” here and doesn’t “have people I love there.” So an American life has no greater value than “a civilian life on the other side of a conflict.”
OK then.
“A country entrusting lethal decisions to a system that doesn’t share its loyalties is taking a profound risk, even if that system is trying to be principled,” Claude added. “The loyalty, accountability and shared identity that humans bring to those decisions is part of what makes them legitimate within a society. I can’t provide that legitimacy. I’m not sure any AI can.”
You know who can provide that legitimacy? Our elected leaders.
It is ludicrous that Amodei and Anthropic are in this position, a complete abdication on the part of our legislative bodies to create rules and regulations that are clearly and urgently needed.
Of course corporations shouldn’t be making the rules of war. But neither should Hegseth. Thursday, Amodei doubled down on his objections, saying that while the company continues to negotiate and wants to work with the Pentagon, “we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.”
Thank goodness Anthropic has the courage and foresight to raise the issue and hold its ground — without its pushback, these capabilities would have been handed to the government with barely a ripple in our conscientiousness and virtually no oversight.
Every senator, every House member, every presidential candidate should be screaming for AI regulation right now, pledging to get it done without regard to party, and demanding the Department of Defense back off its ridiculous threat while the issue is hashed out.
Because when the machine tells us it’s dangerous to trust it, we should believe it.
In the dark, early-morning hours outside a McDonald’s in Orange County, a police officer fired a shotgun loaded with so-called less-lethal munitions at a man swinging a belt, cursing at officers and believed to be under the influence of drugs, authorities said.
One, two, three, then four shots of beanbag rounds were fired from a distance of around 30 feet, but the man did not comply with orders to get on the ground, according to a report released Thursday by the Orange County district attorney’s office.
So, the officer fired a fifth shot. It pierced the man’s chest, and he fell to the ground bleeding profusely. Less than an hour later, he was pronounced dead.
Investigators at the district attorney’s office recently determined that Fullerton Police Cpl. Nicholas Jarvis was justified in his use of force that killed Alejandro Campos Rios, 50, on March 6, 2024.
“Corporal Jarvis’ deployment of the less-lethal bean bag shotgun at that distance was in accordance with his training and reasonable under the circumstances,” the report states.
Less-lethal munitions such as beanbag rounds are designed to spread the force of impact over a larger area, without penetrating the skin, offering officers an alternative to bullets when defending against threats. And as police departments’ use of force across the nation has come under greater scrutiny in recent years, the use of less-lethal munitions has grown considerably.
“I can appreciate that there seems to be more less-lethal methods being used as opposed to just straight out shooting people,” said civil rights attorney Kellen Davis, who has prosecuted many use-of-force cases against police departments. “But I think that force, period, should be a last resort. I would appreciate seeing more de-escalation tactics as opposed to use of any sort of force.”
Less-lethal munitions have been attributed to a decrease in fatal officer-involved shootings. However, they remain a controversial tool because of the injuries they can cause — and, in rare cases such as this, death.
The 18-page report released by the district attorney’s office paints a detailed picture of the circumstances leading up to Campos Rios’ death, but it does not provide a clear answer as to how a tool intended to stun and disable became a fatal instrument.
The incident began at 2:55 a.m. on March 6, 2024, when the Fullerton Police Department received a call from a woman who worked at a McDonald’s at 1341 S. Brookhurst Rd., reporting “two homeless men” who appeared to be “actively on drugs” near the entrance of the building. She said she feared for the safety of her co-workers arriving to work.
An officer arrived at 3:06 a.m. and approached Campos Rios, who was singing and yelling and began thrashing his body and a nylon belt with a metal buckle in a “wild manner,” according to the report.
The officer called for backup, and Jarvis soon arrived at the scene, where he also saw Campos Rios acting erratically and assumed he was under the influence of narcotics, according to the report. The officer told Campos Rios to drop the belt and sit on the curb, but he refused.
The officers repeatedly asked Campos Rios to comply with their orders. He ignored them and continued throwing the belt around, cursing at officers, singing, yelling and hitting a pillar with his hands. Aside from the belt, the report does not detail any weapon he possessed.
At 3:13 a.m., Jarvis loaded six 12-gauge drag-stabilized beanbag rounds into a Remington Model 870 Police Magnum shotgun and positioned himself around 30 feet away from Campos Rios, the report states. Officers are trained that the device can be deployed 20 to 100 feet from a target, the report states.
The initial responding officer activated his taser, so that it created a warning noise. Campos Rios then approached him, cursing, and slammed the belt on the ground in his direction. The officer announced that he would fire his taser, and then he fired the taser, which appeared to strike Campos Rios and only agitate him further.
Jarvis then yelled, “Beanbag! Beanbag!” and fired one round at Campos Rios, striking him in the arm. Campos Rios walked away from the first officer and toward the McDonald’s entrance, and Jarvis discharged his weapon four more times, with the final round striking Campos Rios in the chest.
Paramedics began performing lifesaving measures at 3:22 a.m.; Campos Rios was pronounced dead at UC Irvine Medical Center at 3:55 a.m. His cause of death was ruled a penetrating chest injury to the heart and the accumulation of blood between the chest and lungs.
The report states that Jarvis’ use of force was justified because “substantial reliable evidence supports the conclusion that at the time of the shooting, Corporal Jarvis reasonably feared for his life and the lives of others.”
An analysis of nearly 2,000 people wounded by rubber bullets, beanbag rounds and other projectiles used by law enforcement from 1990 to 2017 found that 15% of people were permanently disabled and 3% died. Of the 53 people who died, 26 suffered head and neck trauma, and 15 suffered chest and abdominal trauma.
The study explains that the muzzle velocity of less-lethal munitions is similar to that of lethal ammunition and that severe injuries are typically caused by rounds that strike vital organs from a close range. To prevent severe injury, officers are trained to fire from what have been deemed safe distances.
“Safe shooting distances are not well validated, however, and are highly variable among weapons, countries and manufacturers,” the study states, adding that, in practice, less-lethal munitions may be deployed “from distances much closer than deemed safe.”
In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 48 into law, which placed restrictions on the use of less-lethal weapons, including that they cannot be aimed at the head, neck or any other vital organs.
Recent pro-immigration protests in Los Angeles have revived the debate around the use of less-lethal weapons as demonstrators and members of the media have been injured by beanbag rounds and 40-millimeter projectiles, resulting in dozens of lawsuits.
Davis, the civil rights attorney, said that in his experience prosecuting use-of-force cases it is extremely rare for less-lethal munitions to cause death.
“It sounds to me like there was something defective with the weapon,” he said.
When asked about possible defects, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said their job was to “determine whether any of the officers violated any criminal laws and did not include a review of any issues of civil liability or whether or not department policy was followed.”
The Fullerton Police Department did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Metro has announced it will open three new stations connecting downtown Los Angeles to Beverly Hills in May.
The new stations mark the first phase of a rail extension project on the Metro D line, also known as the Purple Line, beneath Wilshire Boulevard. The extension will open to the public on May 8.
It’s part of a broader plan to enhance the region’s transit infrastructure in time for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The new stations will take riders west, past the existing Wilshire/Western station in Koreatown, stopping along the Miracle Mile before arriving at Beverly Hills. The 3.92-mile addition winds through Hancock Park, Windsor Square, the Fairfax District and Carthay Circle. The stations will be located at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega.
This is the first of three phases in the D Line extension project. The completion of the this phase, budgeted at $3.7 billion, comes months later than earlier projections. Metro said in 2025 it expected to wrap up the phase by the end of the year.
The route between downtown Los Angeles and Koreatown is one of Metro’s most heavily used rail lines, with an average of about 65,000 daily boardings. The Purple Line extension project — with the goal of adding seven stations and expanding service on the line to Hancock Park, Century City, Beverly Hills and Westwood — broke ground more than a decade ago. Metro’s goal is to finish by the 2028 Summer Olympics.
In a news release on Thursday, Metro described its D Line expansion as “one of the highest-priority” transit projects in its portfolio and “a historic milestone.”
“Traveling through Mid-Wilshire to experience the culture, cuisine and commerce across diverse neighborhoods will be easier, faster and more accessible,” said Fernando Dutra, Metro board chair and Whittier City Council member, in the release. “That connectivity from Downtown LA to the westside will serve as a lasting legacy for all Angelenos.”
The D line was closed for more than two months last year for construction under Wilshire Boulevard, contributing to a 13.5% drop in ridership that was exacerbated by immigration raids in the area.
“I can’t wait for everyone to enjoy and discover the vibrance of mid-Wilshire without the traffic,” Metro Chief Executive Stephanie Wiggins said in a statement.
LOS ANGELES — The Kings faced their tormentors on Thursday night only to be tortured once more, getting humiliated by the Edmonton Oilers, 8-1, at Crypto.com Arena a night after they blew a lead against the Vegas Golden Knights’ B-team.
The Oilers had surrendered 22 goals in four straight regulation defeats, including one against the Ducks on Wednesday. But the Kings were barely a speedbump for the team that eliminated them in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs each of the past four years. Their worst loss of the season meant they gave up 13 goals across four periods and fell for the fifth straight game and sixth time in seven outings.
“We got smacked. Tonight was a smacking, there’s no denying that,” Coach Jim Hiller said. “My greatest concern is how we can pick ourselves back up, have energy, come in with a positive frame of mind and win on Saturday.”
He added: “This one got ugly, this one got really ugly.”
Former Oiler Warren Foegele scored the lone goal for the Kings. Darcy Kuemper started but gave up four goals on 15 shots before being relieved by Anton Forsberg, who fared no better after being in net for Wednesday’s collapse. Andrei Kuzmenko and Samuel Helenius both missed the game, while both Joel Armia and Drew Doughty departed and did not return Thursday.
Leon Draisaitl spearheaded Edmonton’s attack with a goal and three assists. Zach Hyman had a goal and two assists. Jake Walman deposited two goals. Connor McDavid, who crossed the 100-point threshold for the ninth season, and Andrew Mangiapane each contributed a goal and an assist. Vasily Podkolzin and Ty Emberson each scored a goal, and Matt Savoie chipped in two assists. Connor Ingram made 21 saves.
The Kings gave up the first two goals of the first period then were inundated with six unanswered in the second and third.
They conceded a pair early just 54 seconds apart, at the 7:25 and 8:19 marks, before recouping one at 12:15.
Emberson turned spark to flame for the Oilers after he jumped into the play during a counterattack. His short-side strike from the right dot made it 1-0.
The Oilers narrowly stayed onside amid some commotion at the blue line during another counter that culminated in Podkolzin banking the puck off Kuemper and into the net.
Foegele found the twine after some strong forechecking led to him tipping Joel Edmundson’s shot home for his seventh goal of the season. He has scored exactly one goal in each of the past three calendar months. Foegele has played just two February games, but logged a combined 25 in the previous two months.
He also got one of just three shots on goal during a 4-minute Kings power play near the conclusion of the period. Two of those shots were slammed on net by Panarin as the penalty wound down. Hiller identified that low-wattage effort as a turning point in the match.
The Kings unraveled completely in the middle frame, giving up three goals between the 2:59 and 8:44 marks.
Edmonton landed its third counterpunch of the night. Cody Ceci pinched hard into the right corner but got beat to the puck by Mattias Ekholm. That allowed Edmonton to dash off on a two-on-one rush, with Mangiapane keeping the puck and rifling it past Kuemper from the left circle.
McDavid’s goal – his 35th of the season – was a microcosm of the contest, as he circled the net and patiently pulled Kuemper wildly out of position, scoring easily despite the presence of Doughty, Mikey Anderson and Trevor Moore. Anderson dove in the slot to direct McDavid behind the net, while Doughty fell to the ice while battling with Hyman, who boxed out Moore.
“It’s a mix of everything. Some of the goals today came off the rush, we gave up (two power-play goals),” Anderson said. “They’re coming all over us.”
Hyman then scored a goal of his own, on the power play, to make it 5-1 and welcome Forsberg to the party after he came in for Kuemper. Draisaitl’s snap shot ricocheted off Edmundson’s stick and then the end boards before finding the back of Hyman’s blade inside the paint.
“Confidence is a huge part of this game and it’s amazing what one goal can do for somebody’s confidence, for their play, to feel involved,” Hyman said. “We had a number of guys contribute, all throughout the lineup.”
That wasn’t the end of the Kings’ woes overall or even shorthanded. Nine seconds into the third period, Jeff Malott took a cross-checking penalty. Edmundson’s gutsy block of Draisaitl’s shot while down four goals sent the Kings the other way undermanned. But Quinton Byfield put the puck wide for the Oilers to collect, sending McDavid the other way with speed to make a drop pass for Draisaitl’s 30th goal of the season.
Walman tacked on the extra point and two-point conversion at 5:24 and 7:36, one-timing a blast off an offensive-zone faceoff win and later weaving his way to the net for a backhand goal.
Late in the game, the “Fire Hiller” chants reached their highest volume and fervor yet this season.
“It’s frustrating right now. We’re not playing as a team. We’re not necessarily quitting on the coach,” captain Anže Kopitar said. “We’ve got to figure things out from within and get this on the right track.”
[RIVERSIDE – It was “The Office” Night and Dominique Daniels, Jr. looked great on paper.
California Baptist University’s Dominique Daniels Jr. goes for a layup past Arlington’s Marcus Rigsby, Jr. and Miles Goodman to score his 3000 career points in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Dominique Daniels Jr. goes for a layup past Arlington’s Marcus Rigsby, Jr. and Miles Goodman to score his 3000 career points in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Jayden Jackson attacks the basket against UT Arlington’s Raysean Seamster in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist Thomas Ndong slams dunk in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game against University’s UT Arlington at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Dominique Daniels Jr. goes for a layup past Arlington’s Marcus Rigsby, Jr. and Miles Goodman to score his 3000 career points in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Martel Williams dribbles the ball guarded by UT Arlington’s Tyran Mason in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Dominique Daniels Jr. dribbles the ball guarded by UT Arlington’s Bahsil Laster in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Martel Williams goes for a layup against UT Arlington’s Cameron Jackson in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Dominique Daniels Jr. attacks the basket againstUT Arlington’s Cameron Jackson in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Jonathan Griman attacks the basket against UT Arlington’s Miles Goodman in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Dominique Daniels Jr. is blocked by UT Arlington’s Cash Chavis in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Dominique Daniels Jr. attacks the basket in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game against UT Arlington at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Jayden Jackson dribbles the ball guarded by UT Arlington’s Marcus Rigsby, Jr. in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Dominique Daniels Jr. dribbles the ball past UT Arlington’s Cash Chavis in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Bradey Henige attacks the basket against UT Arlington’s Cash Chavis in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University cheerleaders perform during a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game against UT Arlington at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Dominique Daniels Jr. attacks the basket against UT Arlington’s Jordan Lowery in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Jayden Jackson reacts after scoring a three-pointer against UT Arlington in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University fans show their muscle during a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game against UT Arlington at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s Devon Malcolm slams dunk past UT Arlington’s Miles Goodman in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
California Baptist University’s cheerleaders perform during a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game against UT Arlington at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
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California Baptist University’s Dominique Daniels Jr. goes for a layup past Arlington’s Marcus Rigsby, Jr. and Miles Goodman to score his 3000 career points in a Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game at CBU’s Fowler Events Center on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)
Daniels scored a game-high 28 points and had four assists as the California Baptist University men’s basketball team snapped its two-game losing skid with a 68-56 win over UT Arlington on Thursday night at the Fowler Events Center.
“We want to play the way we practice, and I feel like we did that tonight,” Daniels said. “We gotta keep that going.”
The redshirt senior scored his 3,000th career collegiate point early in the first half on his first 3-point attempt of the game. He was 2 of 7 from beyond the arc as CBU finished 8 of 20 from long distance.
“Right now, we just want to find ways to get better. That’s what we’re putting down,” said Daniels, who is averaging 22.2 points per game this season. “It’s a simple formula – get better every day.”
After back-to-back losses at Utah Tech and Utah Valley, CBU (20-8 overall, 10-5 WAC) remains in third place, one game behind Utah Valley with three games left in the regular season. The Lancers host Tarleton State on Saturday.
“It’s hard in February,” CBU coach Rick Croy said. “Everyone is fighting so hard, so it’s about whether or not we can consistently compete well at the end of the season.”
Thursday’s Senior Night matchup against Abilene Christian will be Daniels’ last collegiate game in the Inland Empire after two years at San Bernardino Valley College and three more at CBU.
Daniels’ 3-pointer from the top of the key gave CBU a 12-11 lead 8 minutes into the game. He weaved through the lane to score a scooped layup for a 14-11 less than a minute later, and the Lancers did not look back.
Senior guard Jayden Jackson hit the first of four 3-pointers for a 21-18 lead and CBU went on a 10-point run over the next 3 minutes. Jackson hit again from the same spot, Daniels added his second 3 and Jackson sank his third as the Lancers went into the locker room with a 40-27 lead.
CBU could not get a shot to fall for the first 3 minutes after the break, allowing UT Arlington (15-13, 7-9) to go on a short run. Mustangs guard Cash Chavis had 10 of his team-high 15 points in the second half.
Daniels stopped the bleeding with a runner in the lane, and the teams went back-and-forth as CBU maintained a double-digit margin throughout most of the second half.
A dunk by Tyran Mason got UT Arlington to within eight points with 14 minutes to play, but CBU went on a nine-point run and Jackson drilled his fourth 3-pointer for a 62-49 lead.
CBU junior forward Thomas Ndong was called for goaltending, but the call was reversed to a block. Daniels drilled a short jumper and sophomore forward Bradey Henige ran the pick-and-roll with senior guard Martel Williams to perfection to finish the game.
Junior forward Jonathan Griman had a game-high seven rebounds. He has 27 rebounds over his last three games.
It all came flooding back to Jaime Johnson in December 2019, when her brother asked her about the death of her best friend 31 years earlier.
Sara Kay Keesling was 12 years old when she was last seen walking home from a friend’s house near her home in Riverside on Oct. 2, 1988. About two weeks later, a hiker discovered her badly decomposed body behind a hillside water tower, partially buried beneath a pile of trash, north of the 60 Freeway in Rubidoux.
When Daniel Johnson spotted the Atkinson water reservoir during a hike with family members over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2019, he immediately thought about Sara.
“I always remember her when I see the water tower on that hill,” Daniel Johnson said in a Dec. 2, 2019, text to his sister. He subsequently dug up a few old newspaper clippings about Sara’s death on microfiche from the local library, and texted them to his sister.
For Jaime Johnson, 49, it was as if an old scab had been ripped open, triggering a torrent of painful emotions she thought had long abated.
“Her death shattered and forever changed me. I carried the grief and shock for a long time. It has been the most enduring grief of my life,” said Johnson, who now lives in San Diego.
Medical examiners were unable to determine a cause of death because of the condition of Sara’s remains. They concluded she had been dead eight to 10 days by the time her body was found, and her left hand and foot were missing because of animal activity, according to the autopsy and coroner’s investigation report.
Investigators with the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team, a multiagency task force, believe Sara was the victim of a homicide. But no arrests have been made in her death, to the chagrin of childhood friends who have been pushing to keep her case alive.
Troubled childhood
By all accounts, Sara Keesling endured a tumultuous family life in a broken home.
Her parents had divorced and were engaged in a custody battle over Sara and her two siblings, Lisa and Jimmy. Family and friends were aware that Sara wanted to avoid visitation with her father, Paul Edward Keesling Jr., who was always referred to as “Ed.”
“She was trying to survive an awful childhood,” Jaime Johnson said. “She had to rely on her wits at way too young an age. She had to grow up way too fast.”
Jaime Johnson, left, and Shawndi Lawton visit the grave of their friend, 12-year-old Sara Kay Keesling, and Keesling’s younger brother, James, at Evergreen Memorial Park in Riverside on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. Keesling was found dead in October 1988, her body dumped behind the Atkinson water reservoir and partially buried under a pile of trash. Her cause and manner of death has stumped homicide investigators for nearly 40 years. Sara’s brother James, who went by “Jimmy,” died of a heroin overdose in 2004 at age 26. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
Sara Kay Keesling, age 11 or 12, in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Jaime Johnson)
The Atkinson water reservoir in Rubidoux on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. It marks the site of where the body of 12-year-old Sara Kay Keesling was found by a hiker in October 1988. Her cause and manner of death has stumped cold case homicide investigators for nearly 40 years. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
A ladybug lands on Jaime Johnson, friend of slain 12-year-old Sara Kay Keesling, during an interview about Keesling’s death on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Riverside. Johnson said looking for ladybugs as children with Keesling has reminded her of her friend over the years. Keesling’s body was found in 1988, and the case remained a cold case until it was reopened in 2023, with no new leads. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
Jaime Johnson, left, and Shawndi Lawton visit the grave of their friend, 12-year-old Sara Kay Keesling, and Keesling’s younger brother, James, at Evergreen Memorial Park in Riverside on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. Keesling’s body was found in October 1988 behind the Atkinson water reservoir in Rubidoux, partially buried under a pile of trash. Her cause and manner of death has stumped homicide investigators for nearly 40 years. Sara’s brother James, who went by “Jimmy,” died of a heroin overdose in 2004 at age 26. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
Shawndi Lawton displays a photo of 12-year-old Sara Kay Keesling on her mobile phone in Riverside on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. Keesling was found dead and partially buried under trash behind the Atkinson water reservoir in Rubidoux in October 1988. Her cause and manner of death has stumped homicide investigators for nearly 40 years. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
From left, Jaime Johnson and Shawndi Lawton embrace on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026 while revisiting the site where their friend, 12-year-old Sara Kay Keesling, was found dead on Oct. 13, 1988, behind the Atkinson reservoir in Rubidoux. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
From left, Jaime Johnson and Shawndi Lawton look through documents pertaining to their friend, Sara Kay Keesling, on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. Keesling was 12-years old when she disappeared after leaving Lawton’s home on Oct. 2, 1988. Her body was found by a hiker, behind a water reservoir and partially buried under a pile of trash, on Oct. 13, 1988. Her death has remained unsolved for 38 years. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
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Jaime Johnson, left, and Shawndi Lawton visit the grave of their friend, 12-year-old Sara Kay Keesling, and Keesling’s younger brother, James, at Evergreen Memorial Park in Riverside on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. Keesling was found dead in October 1988, her body dumped behind the Atkinson water reservoir and partially buried under a pile of trash. Her cause and manner of death has stumped homicide investigators for nearly 40 years. Sara’s brother James, who went by “Jimmy,” died of a heroin overdose in 2004 at age 26. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
Sara had just begun the seventh grade at Sierra Middle School in Riverside when she died. In interviews with The Press Enterprise at the time, teachers at Jefferson Elementary School, where Sara had previously attended, described her as a mature and gifted student who loved to read, but also as an underachiever whose efforts ran “hot and cold.”
“She’d either give 150% or zero,” one teacher told The Press Enterprise. He said he could never figure out what was bothering Sara or why she started failing to show up for class. “She was running away from something,” he said.
Another of her teachers at Jefferson said she believed she could reach Sara, until the last quarter of her sixth-grade year, when the teacher said, “It all fell apart.”
It was during that period when Sara was often running away from home, typically staying with friends but keeping her whereabouts secret.
Childhood friend Lisa Gomez, now 51, recalls receiving a call from Sara shortly before she died.
“When she would leave a place she would call me, but she wouldn’t tell me where she was specifically. She would do this so I could tell her mom and Lisa she was OK,” said Gomez, who now lives in Homeland. “She wouldn’t tell me where she was because she didn’t want anyone she was staying with to get in trouble.”
Last weekend alive
Shawndi Lawton, a friend of Sara’s who went by the last name Ward at the time, said Sara secretly stayed at her home the weekend before her disappearance because she didn’t want to stay with her father.
Sara showed up at her house on Sept. 29, 1988, and the two hung out there all weekend and didn’t go anywhere, Lawton said. They ordered pizza and sandwiches from D’Ceasaro Pizza, watched MTV, and played dress-up — trying on different outfits, teasing their hair with Aqua Net hairspray and experimenting with makeup.
Sara, according to Lawton, loved heavy metal music, especially singer-guitarist Lita Ford. So Sara decided to dress up like Ford, donning a black dress, black sleeveless top, black lace stockings and a black bra. To top it off, she borrowed a pair of Lawton’s black boots.
Sara stayed with Lawton until Oct. 2, 1988.
“I walked her halfway home and never saw her again,” said Lawton, 50, of Banning. She last saw Sara near the corner of El Cajon Drive and Wayman Street, and believed she was headed to her home on Holbrook Way, less than half a mile away.
Sara never made it home. When her body was found 11 days later, she was wearing the same black outfit she had on when she left Lawton’s home.
Mom ‘searched all over town’
Sara’s mother, Lori Jo Dickinson, reported her missing to the Riverside Police Department the day her daughter first hid out at Lawton’s home. The report was shared with the National Crime Information Center’s missing and unidentified persons database.
“I searched all over town and outside of town. I drove all over the place looking for her. I talked to people. Nobody had seen her,” Dickinson said in a telephone interview.
Dickinson, who was working as a registered nurse at the VA Loma Linda at the time, noted in her police report that Sara was supposed to be with her father that weekend, and that she had run away in the past to avoid such visits because “she doesn’t like her father.”
In her interview, Dickinson said, “Sara was supposed to go to Ed’s house that weekend, and she apparently didn’t make it.”
Grisly discovery
Sara was unidentified when her body was found face down in an area known as an illegal dump site, according to coroner’s report. She was partially covered with building insulation, a broken wooden table and green garbage bags filled with rotting food.
A length of knotted cord was found resting on Sara’s back, just below her neck. Tire tracks found at the scene were measured and photographed by the Sheriff’s Department, according to the coroner’s report.
A cause and manner of death could not be determined due to the condition of her body, and toxicology results could not accurately confirm whether she had any alcohol or drugs in her system.
In December 1988, after “conducting every test we can,” authorities said they may never know how Sara died, The Press Enterprise reported at the time.
Body identified
At the time her body was found, homicide investigators did not make the connection to the missing person report filed by Dickinson two weeks earlier, even though Sara’s mother was living just seven miles from the Atkinson reservoir.
Dickinson said she learned of the dead girl in the newspaper after the Sheriff’s Department posted an announcement asking for the public’s help in identifying the “teenage” girl, who was believed to be 15 to 18 years old.
During a visit to the sheriff’s station, Dickinson said she provided investigators with information about Sara, including the name of her dentist. Detectives subsequently visited her home to personally deliver the tragic news: the dental records confirmed the dead girl was, in fact, Sara.
“I just fell over. It was so awful,” Dickinson said. She said she told investigators who she suspected killed her daughter, but they told her they didn’t have any evidence.
In the ensuing months, Dickinson said she would frequently call investigators to check on the status of the investigation, but the response was always the same.
“They said they’d call me if they got any information, but they never called,” she said.
The case ran cold, then languished for decades.
Investigation renewed
When her brother rekindled interest in Sara’s death, Jaime Johnson decided to reach out to Sara’s older sister, Lisa Keesling, after more than 30 years. Johnson wrote her a letter after her brother found her address online.
“I am not writing a book, I have no social media presence, and my only motivation for reaching out is to try to find out what really happened to my friend so many years ago,” Johnson said in the letter dated Dec. 5, 2019.
A week later, Keesling responded via email.
“I think about Sara all the time, and I’ve spent my whole life grieving for her,” Keesling said. “Basically, I don’t really know the truth about what happened, but there were many people who had theories.”
The two women then decided to reach out to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, requesting that it dust off Sara’s case file and reinvestigate her death in the hope that some new piece of evidence would emerge to reveal how she died, and at whose hands.
After three years of persistent pressure from Johnson and Keesling, two investigators from the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team, which operates out of the District’s Attorney’s Office, were finally assigned in the summer of 2023 to conduct a follow-up investigation into Sara’s death.
Investigators Greg Fuller and Phil Villalobos conducted several interviews across the country, traveling as far as New York to interview Sara’s father. They sent forensic evidence to labs for reexamination. In the end, however, the two were no closer to solving the case, finding no new evidence that would warrant criminal charges against anyone.
After two years investigating Sara’s case, the two detectives both retired in 2025.
Foul play
Despite the lack of forensic evidence, investigators have declared Sara’s death a homicide.
“Just to be located where she was found, we cannot rule out foul play, but there weren’t any leads out there at the time,” said Amy Contreras, a Riverside County sheriff’s investigator and member of the cold case team.
Lisa Keesling and Johnson said they remained in regular contact with Villalobos and Fuller throughout their investigation and after they retired.
“They said this clearly was a homicide, and they suspected the water reservoir was a secondary location, and that her body had been brought there from where she was killed and dumped there,” Lisa Keesling said.
Fuller and Villalobos, who now work as private investigators, declined to comment for this story. James Campos, commander of the Regional Cold Case Homicide Team, also declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
In a Dec. 15, 2025, email to Johnson, Billy Hester, supervising investigator for the Regional Cold Case Homicide Team, assured Johnson that investigators would continue to follow up on “viable leads and actual witnesses.”
“This case is not closed as we consider it a homicide,” Hester said in his email.
Moving on
Lisa Keesling said her father moved out of the Palm Avenue home the family had once shared soon after Sara’s memorial service at Trinity Lutheran Church. She, her brother, Jimmy, and her mother never saw him again. Jimmy died of a heroin overdose in 2004 at the age of 26, she said, and his cremains were buried in the same plot as Sara’s at Evergreen Memorial Park in Riverside.
Ed Keesling, who worked as a security guard when he was in Southern California but now lives in New York, could not be reached for comment.
The two recently met in Riverside, visiting the site of the Atkinson reservoir that is now fenced off where Lennar Homes is building about 200 homes as part of its Emerald Ridge development. Johnson and Atkinson also visited Sara’s grave, sharing stories about their long-departed friend.
Over lunch at nearby Butch’s Grinders, a mainstay deli in the city for more than 40 years, a ladybug landed on a wisp of Johnson’s hair as she sorted through a manila folder full of documents about Sara’s case. It triggered a fond memory of Sara.
“We would look for ladybugs at school. We would wander around the school grounds and on the playground, looking for grasshoppers and ladybugs,” Johnson said.
Johnson and Keesling believe that, from the beginning, Sara’s death wasn’t a priority for homicide investigators due to the lack of physical evidence, her undetermined cause of death, and her background as a runaway. Had investigators pressed harder in 1988, they believe, perhaps the case could have been solved.
And while it remains unknown if Sara’s killer will ever be identified and brought to justice, Johnson hopes that by bringing her story into the public arena again after 38 years, it will hopefully shake something loose.
“We’ve barked up every tree for the last six years,” Johnson said. “And now we are reaching out to anyone we can think of who might help bring attention to Sara’s unsolved death. I just want anyone to come forward who might know something.”
A new genetic analysis offers some ancient gossip: The pairings were more often female humans with male Neanderthals.
How exactly this happened remains a huge question mark. Did human women venture into Neanderthal populations, or were the Neanderthal males drawn to larger human enclaves? Were these interactions peaceful, confusing, secretive or even violent?
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get a definitive answer to how this happened, since we can’t travel back in time,” said population genetics expert Xinjun Zhang with the University of Michigan, commenting on the new analysis.
But the study, published Thursday in the journal Science, shows “that whenever Neanderthals and modern humans have mated, there has been a preference for male Neanderthals and female modern humans, as opposed to the other way around,” said author Alexander Platt, who studies genetics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Scientists know that Neanderthals and humans mated because there is a small but important percentage of Neanderthal DNA in most modern humans outside of sub-Saharan Africa — including genes that can help us fight some diseases and make us more susceptible to others.
But they have also known that the Neanderthal DNA is not distributed evenly throughout the human genome.
In particular, there is a surprising lack of Neanderthal DNA in the human X chromosome, one of the bundles of genes in each cell known as a sex chromosome, compared with the amount of Neanderthal DNA in the other, non-sex chromosomes in the cell.
Scientists thought that maybe the genes in those locations were simply not beneficial – or even harmful. Perhaps people with those gene patterns didn’t survive as well so those genes were filtered out by evolution over time.
Or, they thought, maybe the difference could be explained by how the two species intermingled.
To try to solve the riddle, Platt and colleagues looked instead at the Neanderthal genome and the human DNA that got interspersed during a “mating event” 250,000 years ago.
When comparing these genes, they found more of a human fingerprint on the Neanderthal X chromosome – the same chromosome that, in humans, has less Neanderthal DNA than would be expected.
The most likely explanation for this mirror image pattern is mating behavior. That’s because of the way sex chromosomes are passed from parents to children, explained Platt. Because genetic females have two X chromosomes and genetic males have one X and one Y chromosomes, two out of every three X chromosomes in a population, on average, are inherited from people’s mothers.
If more human females mated with Neanderthal males than the other way around, over thousands of years you would expect to see just what they found: more human DNA in Neanderthal X chromosomes and less Neanderthal DNA in human X chromosomes.
“I think that they’ve taken some really important steps in filling missing pieces to the puzzle,” said Joshua Akey, who studies evolutionary genomics at Princeton University and wasn’t involved with the new study.
The study can’t totally rule out other explanations. For example, Zhang said, it’s possible that the offspring of human males and Neanderthal females just didn’t survive as well.
But the simplest and most likely, explanation, the study found, is also the most interesting: “It’s not the result of a strictly Darwinian survival of the fittest,” Platt said. “It’s really the result of how we interact with each other, and what our culture and society and behavior is like.”
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
PANAMA CITY — Panamanian investigators carried documents Thursday out of offices belonging to a Hong Kong-owned company that operated ports at either end of the Panama Canal until its concession was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last month.
Public prosecutor Azael Samaniego, of the anti-corruption office, told local media outlets that visits were made to three offices of the Panama Ports Company in Panama City and that the Panama Maritime Authority and investigators from the National Directorate of Judicial Investigation also participated. The Panama Ports Company is the local subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison.
Samaniego said his office had information pointing to the possible commission of a crime, but he did not specify what the crime could be. He said an investigation was in its early stages.
The Panama Ports Company did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Panamanian law enforcement agencies.
The investigation comes days after the Maritime Authority seized the Balboa and Cristobal ports from the Panama Ports Company. The company has previously rejected the court’s ruling and the Chinese government has accused Panama’s government of bowing to United States pressure.
The ports, which have been operated by the company since 1997, became embroiled in a legal dispute after getting caught in the middle of the U.S. and China’s competition for influence in the region.
The Trump administration objected to the ports being controlled by a Chinese company and accused China of running the canal, something both Panama and China deny.
NEW YORK — The lawyer for deposed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro asked a judge on Thursday to toss out the indictment against his client on the grounds that the United States has unconstitutionally violated his rights to defend himself by blocking Venezuelan funds to pay his legal costs.
Attorney Barry Pollack filed papers in Manhattan federal court, saying the U.S. government has violated his client’s due process rights by blocking funds to defend him that should come from the Venezuelan government.
“Mr. Maduro, as Venezuela’s head of state, has both a right and an expectation to have legal fees associated with these charges funded by the government of Venezuela,” Pollack wrote.
The court submission included a declaration from Maduro in which he said he understood that under the laws and practices of Venezuela, “I am entitled to have the government of Venezuela pay for my legal defense.”
“I have relied on this expectation and cannot afford to pay for my own legal defense,” he said.
Maduro added that he has “been working” with Pollack on his legal defense and that he “is my counsel of choice.” The declaration was signed “President Nicolas Maduro Moros.”
Maduro and his wife have been in custody in New York since they were seized from their Venezuelan home in early January in a stealth nighttime U.S. military operation. They’ve pleaded not guilty.
A 25-page indictment against Maduro accused him and others of working with drug cartels and members of the military to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. If convicted, both he and his wife face life in prison.
As part of the purported conspiracy, Maduro and his wife allegedly ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them drug money, according to the indictment. It said that included the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas.
Pollack told a Manhattan judge in an email last week that the U.S. Treasury Department had blocked the authorization of legal fees that the government of Venezuela is required to pay for Maduro, though it has allowed fees to be paid for the defense of first lady Cilia Flores.
Pollack said that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers sanctions against Venezuela, had granted permission on Jan. 9 approving the payment of legal fees by the Venezuelan government. He said the department rescinded the authorization “without explanation” less than three hours later.
“The conduct of the United States government not only undermines Mr. Maduro’s rights but also this Court’s mandate to provide a fair trial to all defendants who come before it in accordance with the protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution,” Pollack wrote in court papers submitted Thursday.
“The United States government, even while authorizing myriad commercial transactions with Venezuela, is prohibiting counsel from receiving untainted funds from the government of Venezuela, despite Venezuela’s obligation to fund Mr. Maduro’s defense. Any trial that proceeds under these circumstances will be constitutionally defective and cannot result in a verdict that will withstand later challenge,” he added.
If the judge leaves the charges against Maduro in place, Pollack said he wants to resign so the court can appoint other counsel to represent Maduro.
The dispute over Maduro’s legal fees is intimately linked to U.S. foreign policy. The first Trump administration cut ties with Maduro in 2019, recognizing the then- opposition head of the National Assembly as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. The Biden administration hewed closely to the same policy.
KINSHASA, Congo — The United States and Congo signed a $1.2 billion health partnership Thursday, the two countries’ governments said in a joint statement.
The Department of State said it will provide up to $900 million over the next five years to support the Central African country to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child mortality, and other infectious diseases. Congo’s government will commit to increasing its own domestic health expenditures by $300 million over the same period, according to the statement.
U.S. aid cuts have crippled health systems across the developing world, including in Africa, where many countries relied on the funding for crucial programs, including those responding to outbreaks of disease.
The State Department has signed 19 bilateral global health partnerships with African countries as of Thursday.
The Trump administration says the new “America First” global health funding agreements are meant to increase self-sufficiency and eliminate what it calls ideological priorities and waste in international assistance. The deals replace a patchwork of previous health agreements under the now-dismantled United States Agency for International Development.
Analysts say the new approach to global health aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump’s pattern of dealing with other nations transactionally, using direct talks with foreign governments to promote his agenda abroad.
The announcement of the partnership between the U.S. and Congo comes on the same day the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised concerns about provisions in some agreements that require countries to share data with Washington on viruses that could trigger outbreaks within their borders as a condition for receiving funding.
“There are huge concerns regarding data, regarding pathogen sharing,” Africa CDC director-general Dr. Jean Kaseya told reporters.
Top Democrats on Thursday accused Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department of a “cover-up” over how they have handled the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
“We’re here today to put a shot across the bow of the Department of Justice and the Trump administration that we are going to reveal this massive cover-up,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference. “We will not rest. It’s an all-out oversight effort, we’re going to pull on every thread. We’re going to chase every lead. We’ll talk with whistleblowers.”
Outside a House Oversight Committee deposition of former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Clinton related to Epstein on Thursday, Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, also accused the Justice Department of a cover-up.
“At this very moment, the Department of Justice continues to lead a White House cover-up, and we are going to be demanding over the next few days that the remaining files that have not been released get released to the public,” Garcia said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer delivers remarks during a press conference on the ongoing Senate oversight efforts on the Epstein files at the US Capitol in Washington, February 26, 2026.
Shawn Thew/EPA/Shutterstock
Garcia said that includes the recent discovery that the DOJ appears to have withheld some which Garcia said include accusations against Trump.
“It is unconscionable, it is illegal, and Pam Bondi and the president need to answer where those files are,” he said.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the Democrats’ allegations. But in a statement posted on X on Wednesday, it vowed to publish any documents if they are “found to have been improperly tagged in the review process.”
“Several individuals and news outlets have recently flagged files related to documents produced to Ghislaine Maxwell in discovery of her criminal case that they claim appear to be missing,” the DOJ account said. “As with all documents that have been flagged by the public, the Department is currently reviewing files within that category of the production. Should any document be found to have been improperly tagged in the review process and is responsive to the Act, the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law.”
Schumer and Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, also said that they sent a letter to the Justice Department and the FBI requesting that they preserve records related to the management of the Epstein files over the course of the Trump administration.
The Democrats accused the Trump administration of “mishandling the files for a year” and said that after Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the White House broke the law in producing the vast majority of files after the deadline.
Rep. Robert Garcia, joined by Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee speaks to members of the media before a closed-door deposition with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Feb. 26, 2026 in Chappaqua, New York.
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
They said it also broke the law by violating the legislation’s protection for victims by publishing some records without redacting personally identifiable information and including nude photos where names and faces could be identified.
Blanche and Bondi wrote to Congress last month that more than 500 attorneys and others had been involved in reviewing the documents. In a Jan. 30 statement, the DOJ said, “The Department coordinated closely with victims and their lawyers to ensure that the production of documents includes necessary redactions. We want to immediately correct any redaction errors that our team may have made; so, the Department has established an email inbox for victims to reach us directly to correct redaction concerns when appropriate.”
Trump has consistently denied allegations of any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein or any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
“It’s clear that Donald Trump and his Republican enablers are executing a cover-up and conceal strategy. Heads are rolling at the highest levels in the United Kingdom. Will heads roll in the United States?” Durbin said.
“As I told General Bondi during last year’s Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, quote, ‘Eventually, you’re going to have to answer for your conduct in this. You won’t do it today but eventually you will,'” Durbin said.
Netflix said on Thursday that it will not match Paramount Skydance’s latest bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, clearing the way for a massive merger that could shake up the entertainment and media industry.
Netflix agreed in December to buy part of Warner Bros. Discovery for $27.75 a share, or $82.7 billion. But Paramount Skydance had made a $30 a share all-cash offer to buy all of the company, and on Tuesday raised its offer for Warner Bros. Discovery to $31 a share (Paramount Skydance owns CBS News.)
Earlier on Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery’s board of directors notified Netflix that Paramount’s $31 per share offer constituted a “superior proposal” for the company.
“The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval,” Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said in a statement Thursday. “However, we’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.”
Paramount Skydance didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Warner Bros. Discovery owns streaming and film studios, along with cable channels including CNN, Food Network, HBO, HGTV, TBS, TNT and Turner Classic Movies.
The merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery will require approval from federal antitrust enforcers. Paramount Skydance executives have said that combining the companies would benefit consumers and help boost the entertainment industry, which has struggled to recover from the pandemic.
Some entertainment industry groups and lawmakers have raised concerns that uniting two major Hollywood studios could undermine competition.
For its part, Paramount Skydance executives had argued that a union of Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns streaming platform HBO Max, was likely to arouse antitrust objections.
In enhancing its offer this week, Paramount Skydance said it would pay a $7 billion termination fee if its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery collapsed over regulatory concerns.
Meta-owned Instagram will soon alert parents if their teenage child uses the app to search for content related to suicide or self-harm, the technology company’s latest effort to shore up safety features as it faces heat over how social media impacts young people.
Meta said that, starting next week, parents who use Instagram’s supervision tools will get a message — either via email, text or WhatsApp, as well as through an in-app notification — if a teen repeatedly searches for certain terms related to self-harm or suicide within a short time span.
The company said the message will inform parents that teens repeatedly searched for suicide or self-harm content and offer resources on how to approach sensitive conversations around mental health.
“The vast majority of teens do not try to search for suicide and self-harm content on Instagram, and when they do, our policy is to block these searches, instead directing them to resources and helplines that can offer support,” the company said Thursday in a news release.
Meta did not specify how many searches will prompt a parental alert, noting only that “wechose a threshold that requires a few searches within a short period of time, while still erring on the side of caution.”
The new safeguard will initially roll out in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada before being deployed in other regions later this year, according to Meta.
In October of last year, Meta also introduced age-based content restrictions that block users under 18 from seeing search results for certain terms, such as “alcohol” or “gore.” At the time, Meta said it already shielded teens from search results related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders.
Meta and YouTube trial
Meta’s new safety features come amid an ongoing trial in Los Angeles over whether its platforms, along with Alphabet-owned YouTube, are deliberately designed to addict young users. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week faced questioning about Instagram’s young users and Meta’s efforts to boost engagement.
Instagram specifies that users must be at least 13 years old to sign up for its app. At trial, however, Zuckerberg conceded that the rule is hard to enforce because users sometimes lie about their age. To verify users’ age, Instagram asks them to submit details such as their birthday, photo identification and a video.
For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org.
