New York:

The mother of the teenager charged with fatally shooting two students and two teachers at a Georgia high school on Wednesday called the school that morning and warned a counselor about an “extreme emergency,” the Washington Post reported.

Marcee Gray, the mother of the suspected shooter, 14-year-old Colt Gray, said she told the counselor to find her son immediately, the newspaper reported. Phone records provided by a relative to the Post show a 10-minute call to Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, at 9:50 a.m., about 30 minutes before the attack began.

Gray declined to detail what prompted her call but told the Post on Saturday she had shared that with law enforcement. She expressed remorse for the “pain and suffering” that the victims and their families are going through.

A school administrator went to her son’s math class that morning, according to another student, the Post reported, but he was not in the room.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the lead investigative agency, referred questions to the Piedmont Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case. The office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

Colt Gray has been charged as an adult with four counts of murder. His father, Colin Gray, is also charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children, in an emerging legal strategy to hold parents responsible for allowing access to firearms to minors who carry out attacks.

Prosecutors say Colin Gray provided the weapon used in the shooting.

In May 2023, investigators from a neighboring county interviewed both Colin and Colt Gray about online threats to carry out a school shooting. Colt Gray said he had not made the threats, and his father said his son did not have free access to his hunting rifles.

The case was closed after investigators could not substantiate that either Gray was connected to the threats.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New York:

Eight people including an infant were killed in a bus crash in the southern US state of Mississippi in the early hours of Saturday, local media reported.

A chartered bus carrying 47 people overturned in Warren County, killing seven people while one passenger succumbed to their injuries in a hospital, the Vicksburg Daily News reported.

More than 30 of the passengers were taken to hospital, with a local official telling CBS that two of the dead were siblings, a six-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl, from Guatemala.

Images showed the red coach sitting in a ditch beside a highway, apparently with a ruptured tire.

The crash was being investigated by the Mississippi Highway Patrol, the images showed.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israel:

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US “bridging proposal” for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since the Palestinian operative group’s October 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, was scheduled to fly from Tel Aviv to El Alamein, the Mediterranean city famous for a World War II battle in 1942, to speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at his summer palace.

Afterwards, he will head to a meeting with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, in Doha, the scene of ceasefire talks last week.

Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce in the 10-month Gaza conflict.

Washington put forward the latest proposal last week after the talks in Doha.

Blinken said Monday he had “a very constructive meeting” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who “confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal”.

Ahead of those talks, Hamas called on the mediators to implement the framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations.

The movement said on Sunday that the current US proposal “responds to Netanyahu’s conditions” and leaves him “fully responsible for thwarting the efforts of the mediators”.

Earlier on Monday, the US secretary of state had said: “This is a decisive moment — probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security”.

Months of on-off negotiations with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to produce an agreement.

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in reaching an accord that diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“There is, I think, a real sense of urgency here, across the region, on the need to get this over the finish line and to do it as soon as possible,” Blinken said.

The Biden administration is under domestic pressure over Gaza, with pro-Palestinian protests taking place outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday.

Biden said in his farewell speech to the convention that the protesters “have a point”, adding that “a lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides”.

Permanent ceasefire

Israel and Hamas have traded blame for delays in reaching a truce deal.

Hamas insisted on “a permanent ceasefire and a comprehensive (Israeli) withdrawal from the Gaza Strip”, saying Netanyahu wanted to keep Israeli forces at several strategic locations within the territory.

Western ally Jordan, hostage supporters who protested in Tel Aviv during Blinken’s visit, and Hamas itself have called for pressure on Netanyahu in order for an agreement to be reached.

Far-right members crucial to the prime minister’s governing coalition oppose any truce.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,139 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and operative deaths.

Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 111 are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

The Biden framework would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.

Netanyahu said on Monday that negotiators were aiming to “release a maximum number of living hostages” in the first phase of any ceasefire.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris finish speaking about their administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug costs during an event at Prince George’s Community College in Largo on August 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Stephanie AP

Joe Biden shared a key economic victory with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Thursday (August 15, 2024), after securing a cut on drug prices that could resonate with U.S. voters worried about the cost of living.

The 81-year-old president and 59-year-old vice president announced the deal as they prepared to make their first joint trip since Mr. Biden’s seismic decision to drop out of the presidential election less than a month ago.

The “historic” agreement with drugmakers will reduce the price of 10 key medicines for seniors, for conditions including diabetes, heart failure and blood clots, they said in joint statements released by the White House.

The deal will save older Americans $1.5 billion and the Medicare federal health insurance scheme $6 billion in the first year, the statements added.

While the deal was Mr. Biden’s brainchild, he appears to have chosen to share the credit with Ms. Harris as she ramps up her battle with Republican Donald Trump ahead of November’s election.

Ms. Harris has already made bringing down high prices a key plank of her election campaign and will hope the announcement on medicines will win over voters who have long been struggling with inflation.

U.S. residents face the highest prescription drug prices in the world, leaving many people to pay partly out of their own pocket, despite already exorbitant insurance premiums.

The pair will hail the drug price deal at an event in Maryland — their first outing together in the aftermath of Mr. Biden’s withdrawal from the election following a disastrous debate with Trump.

Mr. Biden highlighted Ms. Harris’s role, saying the “historic milestone” was only possible because the post-COVID Inflation Reduction Act was passed by Congress after his vice president cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

Ms. Harris added in her statement: “President Biden and I will never stop fighting for the health, wellbeing, and financial stability of the American people.”

‘Break with Biden’

It comes a day before Ms. Harris is due to set out her own economic agenda in a speech on Friday, and ahead of her star turn at the Democratic National Convention next week.

The United States’s first female, Black and South Asian vice president has already breathed new life into the Democratic Party after the trauma of Mr. Biden’s departure.

But while she has wiped out Trump’s lead in the opinion polls and drawn huge crowds to her rallies, she has yet to spell out her policies beyond broad brush strokes.

That includes largely adopting Mr. Biden’s economic agenda so far, including his vows to eradicate “junk fees” and bring down housing costs.

Ms. Harris is also trying to keep some distance from Mr. Biden’s policies and set out her own stall.

The news outlet Axios reported on Wednesday that Ms. Harris wants to “break with Mr. Biden on issues on which he’s unpopular,” with rising prices being top of the list.

Inflation has dogged Mr. Biden’s presidency, with many voters rating him poorly on the economy despite otherwise good numbers for jobs and growth.

Conversely, more people now trust the vice president to handle the economy than Trump, at 42% to 41%, according to a Financial Times and University of Michigan poll.

Before she took the reins, Mr. Biden was at 35%, while Trump’s number is unchanged.

Trump will try to steal their thunder as he holds a press conference shortly after the event.

The Republican former president, who survived an assassination attempt on July 13, has so far struggled to deal with an upended election campaign after the Democratic Party’s candidate switch.

Trump gave a speech that was meant to focus on the economy on Wednesday — but ended up veering off into personal insults, calling Ms. Harris a “crazy person,” Mr. Biden “stupid” and Ms. Harris’s running mate Tim Walz a “clown.”

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said that it had been hacked and suggested Iranian actors were involved in stealing and distributing sensitive internal documents.
| Photo Credit: AP

Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said on Saturday (August 10, 2024) that it had been hacked and suggested Iranian actors were involved in stealing and distributing sensitive internal documents.

The campaign provided no specific evidence of Iran’s involvement, but the claim comes a day after Microsoft issued a report detailing foreign agents’ attempts to interfere in the U.S. campaign in 2024.

It cited an instance of an Iranian military intelligence unit in June sending “a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung blamed the hack on “foreign sources hostile to the United States.” The National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday by AP.

Politico first reported Saturday on the hack. The outlet reported that it began receiving emails on July 22 from an anonymous account. The source — an AOL email account identified only as “Robert” — passed along what appeared to be a research dossier the campaign had apparently done on the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. The document was dated Feb. 23, almost five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.

“These documents were obtained illegally” and “intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Mr. Cheung said.

He pointed to the Microsoft report issued Friday and its conclusions that “Iranian hackers broke into the account of a high-ranking official’ on the U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee.”

“The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House,” Mr. Cheung said, adding a warning that “any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want.”

In response to Microsoft’s report, Iran’s United Nations mission denied it had plans to interfere or launch cyberattacks in the U.S. presidential election.

Mr. Cheung did not immediately respond to questions about the campaign’s interactions with Microsoft on the matter. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday from the AP.

Microsoft stated in its report Friday that “foreign malign influence concerning the 2024 U.S. election started off slowly but has steadily picked up pace over the last six months due initially to Russian operations, but more recently from Iranian activity.”

The analysis continued: “Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations have been a consistent feature of at least the last three U.S. election cycles. Iran’s operations have been notable and distinguishable from Russian campaigns for appearing later in the election season and employing cyberattacks more geared toward election conduct than swaying voters.” “Recent activity suggests the Iranian regime — along with the Kremlin — may be equally engaged in election 2024,” Microsoft concluded.

Specifically, the report detailed that in June 2024, an Iranian military intelligence unit, Mint Sandstorm, sent a phishing email to an American presidential campaign via the compromised account of a former adviser.

“The phishing email contained a fake forward with a hyperlink that directs traffic through an actor-controlled domain before redirecting to the listed domain,” the report states.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported hacking or on the Democratic nominee’s cybersecurity protocols.

A 44-year-old woman in the United States has been left with horrific injuries after being attacked by a cluster of highly venomous spiders. According to the New York Post, Jessica Rogue was cleaning out a shed outside her home in Atlanta when she encountered several brown recluse spiders. Less than 24 hours later, she was rushed to the hospital as her face, arms and throat swelled up and she was covered in rashes. 

A bite of a brown recluse spider can cause necrotic (rotting) skin lesions and lead to serious reactions or even death in some. In Ms Rogue’s case, the brown recluse spiders bit her in multiple places. As per Post, She suffered horrific injuries, with her face swollen and her skin feeling “on fire”. 

“I was just in there sweeping, I immediately felt something on my face next to my eye. I felt I got bit,” Ms Rogue said. “There were spiders on me. Where I was, it was a really messy web, and I was trying to clean that up,” she continued. 

According to her GoFundMe page, the 44-year-old suffered numbness and loss of mobility in her hand and foot too. And she said she is “really worried” about her eye. “My eye is, I’m having a lot of pain. I just don’t know what’s going to happen with my eye,” she told the local news outlet while wearing an eyepatch.

Also Read | US Woman, 22, Found Beaten To Death Days After Judge Released Ex-Boyfriend From Jail

A GoFundMe to help Ms Rogue with medical costs has collected $8,097. “She has numbness and loss of mobility in her hand and foot (still unsure if it’s temporary or permanent yet) and her skin is on fire,” fundraiser organiser Morgan Underwood wrote. “She’s unable to work and has three beautiful daughters,” the page read. 

In an update, Ms Underwood added that Ms Rogue is out of hospital and recovering. “The swelling on her face has gone down a great deal,” it is “now covered in an itchy, painful rash,” the page read. “Her arms, neck and chest are also covered in an itchy, painful rash, and the areas where she was bitten are blistered up, so we’re keeping an eye on that,” the update said.

Notably, the brown recluse spider is the most common and widespread of the brown spiders, but it is usually found only in the South and Central United States. It is a small species that can grow up to 0.5 inches long. Its bite, however, can pack a powerful venomous punch. 

A US-based welding company tried to pay a subcontractor a five-figure settlement in loose coins – a gesture that was later rebuked by a judge. According to CBS News, JMF Enterprises was ordered to pay subcontractor Fired Up Fabrication $23,500 in 2022 over an alleged breach of contract. The wielding company initially paid this amount in change weighing 3 tons. However, in a recent ruling, the court said that the welding firm acted “maliciously and in bad faith” when it paid the settlement in an unconventional way. 

According to CBS News, Judge Joseph Findley on Monday ordered JMF Enterprise and its owner John Frank to pay the subcontractor by a more conventional method like a cheque. The court ordered the Northern Colorado company to pay Fired Up Fabrication’s attorneys fees and costs as well. In the ruling, Judge Findley also noted that JMF’s coin stunt only delayed the case being closed, and was intended to annoy and harass Fired Up Frabrication. 

The case stems from a 2022 lawsuit filed against JMF over an alleged breach of contract. According to PEOPLE, Fired Up Fabrication was hired as a subcontractor to do welding work on an apartment building. The subcontractor alleged that JMF made only partial payments for the job, despite their repeated requests to receive the agreed-upon amount in full. 

Over the summer, the two firms then agreed to settle, with JMF paying its subcontractor $23,500. However, in August, the welding company sent a flatbed truck loaded with a specially constructed box jammed with coins that weighed nearly 6,500 pounds. The box was filled with loose quarters, nickels, and pennies, the outlet reported. 

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Fired Up Fabrication’s attorney, Danielle Beem called this stunt a “pretty and grand waste of time” and said that the coin delivery was a “symbolic middle finger”. Ms Beem also called the attempted coin delivery a “major F-U”. 

JMF’s lawyers, on the other hand, claimed that the coins “constituted a tender of the settlement funds, and therefore, JMF has complied with the terms of the agreement. The settlement agreement did not outline any specific form for the payment”. Lawyers for the company also added that they had no intention of harassing the subcontractor. 

However, Judge Findley appeared to agree with Fired Up Frabrication’s lawyers. He noted, “The defendants apparently obtained the coins in various denominations in neatly organized boxes but then took the extra step of removing the coins from the boxes and dumping them loosely and randomly into the large metal container. The court finds that the defendants acted maliciously and in bad faith.”

The judge has now given JMF 14 days to pay Fired Up Fabrication using a certified bank cheque or some other standard manner of payment. 

Photo for representational purpose
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

A heavily armed man killed himself rather than carry out an apparent plan to shoot up a mountaintop amusement park in Colorado, U.S.A, his body discovered in a bathroom next to words scrawled on the wall, “I am not a killer,” authorities said Monday.

Diego Barajas Medina, 20, was found dead in a women’s bathroom at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park by a maintenance crew on Saturday morning, before the park opened to the public. He died of a self-inflected gunshot wound, Garfield County Coroner Robert Glassmire said.

Medina apparently entered the park while it was closed, armed with an AR-style rifle, a semi-automatic handgun and explosives and was wearing body armour and tactical clothing, similar to what a police SWAT team member might wear, authorities said.

A message saying, “I am not a killer, I just want to get into the caves,” was written on a wall of the bathroom where Medina’s body was found lying on the floor, Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario said. Nearby was a handgun and explosive devices, some real and some fake, he said. The AR-style rifle was on a counter nearby along with a duty belt holding several ammunition magazines.

Vallario could not say for certain that Medina wrote the message.

There were no prior indications, either at home or school, suggesting he was planning an attack, Vallario said. But the sheriff noted that investigators have not conducted any in-depth interviews yet. The FBI will help review Medina’s phone records and social media postings as part of the investigation, he said.

“Given the preparation, given the amount of weapons and ordinance he had it almost seemed very highly likely he intended to use those against the community. He chose not to,” Vallario said.

Multiple improvised explosive devices were found in the vehicle used by Medina, police said. Authorities searched the rest of the park for other explosives but suggested no others were found.

Medina’s body was removed Sunday after the scene was deemed safe, according to the coroner.

The park likely would have been crowded on a fall weekend during hunting season when people go to the mountains to see the changing autumn colors, Vallario said. Given the park’s isolated location, which visitors take a gondola to normally, it would have been difficult to get any wounded to the hospital, he said.

Medina was from the nearby town of Carbondale, where he lived with his mother and brother, Vallario said. In a list of high school graduates published in a local newspaper in 2021, Medina said he planned to work for a year after graduation before attending Colorado Mountain College, a community college with several locations in western Colorado.

A search of his room by law enforcement found nothing to indicate explosives or bomb-making, and he had no known criminal history or prior encounters with police, the sheriff said.

The weapons found on Medina were ghost guns, which do not have serial numbers and therefore cannot be traced. His clothing had patches and emblems that gave the appearance of Medina being associated with law enforcement.

Some of the suspected explosives turned out to be fakes — including several that looked like hand grenades — but others were real, the sheriff said. However, there was no evidence to suggest that explosive devices had been placed elsewhere inside the park, he said.

Investigators believe Medina drove up to the park on a service road.

The park, which is surrounded by state-owned public land, is on a mountain above the Colorado River in western Colorado. Its attractions include cave tours, an alpine coaster and a pendulum swing ride perched on the edge of a cliff that sends riders over the river canyon.

No employees or visitors were on scene when Medina entered the park, according to a statement issued Monday by Glenwood Caverns, and his body was found outside of restricted areas where rides are located.

“This very sad and tragic incident reminds us how much our Glenwood Springs community means to us,” Glenwood Caverns General Manager Nancy Heard said in the statement.

A 2-year-old girl who went missing in Michigan, US, with two family dogs was found asleep in the woods hours later using one of her pets as a pillow. According to Sky News, the little girl wandered away from her home on Wednesday night. Her disappearance sparked a major hunt, with drones and police dogs joining the cops and local residents to search the remote wooded area.

After several hours missing, the girl was found asleep by authorities using the smaller dog of the two as a pillow. “She laid down and used one of the dogs as a pillow, and the other dog laid right next to her and kept her safe,” lieutenant Mark Giannunzio said, as per the outlet. “It’s a really remarkable story,” he added. 

The girl, identified as Thea Chase, was first reported missing in Faithorn at about 8pm Wednesday, as per People. At about midnight, she was found around three miles away from her home by a local riding an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) with her two dogs lying beside her. Mr Giannunzio said that the little girl was assessed by medical staff and appeared to be healthy. 

Also Read | Parents, Aunt Arrested After 6-Month-Old Baby In US Nearly Dies From More Than 50 Rat Bites

Speaking to People, a Michigan State Police public information officer said that the smaller dog she was using as a pillow was a cocker spaniel, while the bigger dog, a rottweiler, was in “guardian mode”. As far as the police investigation, authorities don’t believe foul play or negligence played any part in the whole ordeal.

Notably, Faithorn – the region where the girl went missing – is an unincorporated village located just east of the Wisconsin state line and about 97 kilometers southwest of Marquette, Michigan. 

According to People, in May an 8-year-old boy also went missing for two days during a family camping trip in Michigan. He was discovered underneath a log where he had sought warmth and shelter. Back then, authorities said that more than 150 personnel from Michigan State Police and local police partners searched for the missing boy on foot, by air and by water. 

A 6-month-old baby in the United States was nearly eaten alive by rats that bit him over 50 times while he slept in his crib last week, police said. According to USA Today, the incident took place in Indiana on September 13. Evansville Police Department officers responded to a home after the child’s father called and said his 6-month-old son appeared to have suffered serious bite wounds. 

The boy’s parents, David and Angel Schonabaum, were arrested and charged with multiple counts of neglect and other criminal charges. The child’s aunt, Delania Thurman, who lived in the same home, was also arrested on the same charge, the outlet reported. The baby boy, on the other hand, has been released from the hospital and placed in foster care. 

The couple lived at the home with their three children, including the baby, and another family member and her two children. According to the cops, when they reached the home, they found the 6-month-old covered in blood, suffering from more than 50 bite wounds to his head and face. 

“All four of (the victim’s) fingers and thumb on his right hand were missing the flesh from the top of them, exposing fingertip bones,” police detective Jonathan Helm wrote in an arrest affidavit, as per USA Today. “The damage to (the victim’s) index and pinky fingers were the most severe, as they were missing the flesh halfway down each finger,” he added. 

The baby boy was flown to a hospital in Indianapolis, where doctors gave him a blood transfusion after his temperature dropped to 93.5 degrees. Notably, as per Mayo Clinic, the average body temperature is 98.6 degrees. The boy’s vitals show that he was suffering from moderate hypothermia as well as hypoxemia.  

Also Read | Popular DJ In London Tortured To Death By “Sadistic Thugs”, UK Court Told

According to the New York Post, the little boy’s home was full of clutter, trash and rat feces, the police said. The boy’s father told investigators that they began having a rodent issue in march and that the Terminix exterminators were treating the house. However, the cops also revealed that the rat’s mauling of the baby was not the first time as the rodents snacked on other children in the home as well in early September. 

Two kids in the house told their school teacher on September 1 that mice had bitten their toes while they were sleeping. Days later, when the Indiana Department of Child Services visited the home, their mother told officials that their house had a normal amount of rodents, and denied wounds to one child’s feet were caused by rats. The department then went over a safety plan with the family and scheduled a return to the home just one day after the baby was bitten by rats. 

Now, all children in the home have since been removed from their parent’s care by the  Department of Child Services. The baby boy’s father has been jailed without bond on Friday and his wife is being held on a $10,000 bond. The aunt, who has also been booked into the jail Thursday, is charged with two counts of neglect of a dependent and remained jailed Friday on $2,500 bond.