Month: May 2023

A grand jury has indicted Bryan Kohberger, the 28-year-old suspect in the stabbing murders of four Idaho college students in November 2022. The Latah County district clerk and an Idaho Supreme Court spokesperson confirmed a multicount indictment against Kohberger; later, a spokesperson for the State of Idaho Judicial Branch confirmed that Kohberger faces four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary for his alleged involvement in the killings.

The indictment allows prosecutors to bypass a week-long preliminary hearing that was scheduled to start on June 26. Prosecutors originally set the preliminary hearing for Kohberger after his arrest in December on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary; however, prosecutors later opted to impanel a grand jury, bypassing a hearing that could have publicly revealed their evidence against Kohberger.

Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania six weeks after the stabbing deaths of Madison Mogen and her friend Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, and Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, both 20, at their King Road residence. He was extradited to Idaho and is currently being held in the Latah County Jail without bond, according to jail records. Kohberger has yet to enter a plea and he is waiting to learn whether prosecutors in the high-profile case will pursue the death penalty.

The Idaho court spokesperson said that a district court arraignment hearing for Kohberger is set for Monday morning.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will send more than 1,000 personnel from Florida, including 800 Florida National Guard members, to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. In addition to the National Guard members, DeSantis is sending 101 Florida Highway Patrol troopers, 200 Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers, 20 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers, 20 emergency management personnel, five aircraft, two mobile command vehicles, 17 drones and 10 boats.

DeSantis said in a statement that the move is needed to help Texas deal with an influx of immigrants and added that “the impacts of Biden’s Border Crisis are felt by communities across the nation, and the federal government’s abdication of duty undermines the sovereignty of our country and the rule of law. At my direction, state agencies including law enforcement and the Florida National Guard are being deployed to Texas, with assets including personnel, boats and planes. While Biden ignores the crisis he created, Florida stands ready to help Texas respond to this crisis.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter to 49 other state governors on Tuesday asking for assistance in dealing with the surge of migrants at his border due to the end of Title 42 — a COVID-19-era regulation allowing the federal government to immediately expel migrants. The COVID-19 pandemic emergency regulations ended earlier this month. Biden administration officials have said the initial influx after the end of Title 42 has subsided, but Abbott said in his letter: “with the end of Title 42 expulsions, President Biden’s own administration estimates that at least 150,000 migrants are waiting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border and enter our country illegally. The flood of illegal border activity invited by the Biden Administration flows directly across the southern border into Texas communities, but this crisis does not stop in our state. Emboldened Mexican drug cartels and other transnational criminal enterprises profit off this chaos, smuggling people and dangerous drugs like fentanyl into communities nationwide.”

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President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met Tuesday afternoon to discuss a way to raise the debt ceiling. McCarthy, R-Calif., said after exiting the meeting that the sides remain “far apart .. but it is possible to get a deal by the end of the week.”  McCarthy acknowledged a “lot of work to do in a short amount of time and unfortunate that we are where we are,” but said, “If this is where we were in February … I’d be very optimistic that we’d get this done right away.”

Biden said there was an “overwhelming consensus” among the leaders that defaulting on the debt was not an option. That outcome would threaten a recession, devastate retirement accounts, force layoffs, and prompt a blow to the nation’s reputation around the world. Biden called Tuesday’s meeting ‘good and productive,’ and expressed confidence that a default could be averted.  The White House said the meeting was “productive and direct” and that Biden hopes to check in with the leaders by phone while traveling overseas this week and meet with them again when he returns.  The President is leaving for Japan on Wednesday to attend a summit of the Group of Seven major industrial countries; the White House said Tuesday that Biden would cut his trip short and will return Sunday.

Failure to reach an agreement to lift the borrowing limit threatens the first-ever default on the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt, an outcome that could prove catastrophic for the U.S. economy and upend the political landscape.

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