Category: US

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A California hiker reported missing on Friday has been found dead after he failed to return from Carbon Canyon Regional Park, authorities said.

Jeffrey Paul Morton, 63, was located Saturday afternoon and authorities are investigating the circumstances of his death, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said. 

Morton was reported missing after he left his home in Yorba Linda around 2:30 a.m. on Friday for his daily morning hike and never returned, according to the Sheriff’s office.

Officials said Morton did not take a cell phone and had been expected to return home by 6 a.m.

MAN REPORTED MISSING IN VIRGINIA’S SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK MORE THAN 2 MONTHS AFTER BACKCOUNTRY TRIP

Morton’s vehicle, a white 2004 Acura MDX, was found across the street from Carbon Canyon Regional Park on the corner of Brea Hills Drive and Carbon Canyon Road, authorities said. 

CALIFORNIA CAR CRASH: TESLA PLUNGES 250 FEET OFF CLIFF AT ‘DEVIL’S SLIDE’

Search and rescue crews found Morton a short distance from the start of his hiking route after they learned of his specific route, sheriff’s officials told FOX11 Los Angeles.

Authorities said that while Morton did not appear to be a victim of foul play, homicide detectives and the Orange County coroner’s office are investigating.

The 124-acre Carbon Canyon Regional Park is located in Brea, California, upstream from the Carbon Canyon Dam, according to the county’s website. The park features three acres of Coastal Redwoods, the only grove of redwoods in the county.

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House Democrats are slamming the incoming GOP majority’s priorities for the 118th Congress, labeling it as “extreme MAGA” and out of touch.

“The Extreme MAGA Republicans have apparently learned nothing from their historic underperformance in the midterm elections. Instead of seeking common ground to solve problems for everyday Americans, the new majority is clearly determined to put extreme partisan politics over the people we are all privileged to represent,” incoming House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, said in a statement Monday.

“House Democrats will continue to fight for lower costs, better-paying jobs and safer communities. On the other hand, House Republicans will quickly move to restrict reproductive freedom and abortion care, while making it easier to cut taxes for the wealthy, well-off and well-connected,” he continued.

The GOP rules package sent to members Sunday evening by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., included proposed tax cuts and a new Judiciary subcommittee for investigations into the Biden administration, and prevents congressional staff from unionizing.

MCCARTHY SHORT OF VOTES AS HOUSE SPEAKER CONTEST ENTERS FINAL HOURS

McCarthy’s central concession in the rules package would allow any five Republican representatives to force a vote of no confidence in the speaker. He also vowed to end the practice of proxy voting and virtual participation in hearings, requiring lawmakers to be in Washington to participate in hearings and votes.

Previous House rules, put in place by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, required a member of the House leadership from the majority party to initiate a vote to remove the current speaker.

Lawmakers elected to the 118th Congress convene for the first time on Tuesday at noon and are expected to vote on a House speaker in the early afternoon.

It’s far from certain that McCarthy will become speaker due to opposition from some hard-line conservatives. If the entire House of Representatives is present for the speaker vote, McCarthy will need 218 votes. Republicans will seat 222 lawmakers, so McCarthy can leave only four GOP minds unchanged.

KEVIN MCCARTHY MAKES MAJOR CONCESSION TO CONSERVATIVES AS HIS SPEAKER BID HANGS BY THREAD

Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., accused Republicans of caving to “the most extreme” of their caucus members.

“Regrettably, I am very disappointed by the proposed rules package put forward by the incoming Republican majority,” he said.

“Instead of building on Democrats’ work to create a more accommodating Congress, Republican leaders have once again caved to the most extreme members of their own caucus: allowing the far-right to hold the incoming Speaker hostage; attempting to end Congressional staff unionization; reinstating CUTGO so they can more easily cut taxes on billionaire corporations while slashing the social safety net; giving committee chairs unbalanced discretion over which witnesses can and cannot testify; rejecting commonsense pandemic safety procedures like remote voting by proxy; and reinstating the Holman rule so they can target civil servants they disagree with,” McGovern, the top Democrat on the Committee on Rules, said.

The Holman rule allows amendments to bills that cut specific federal agencies and even target specific federal employees to reduce their salaries.

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Jeffries added: “In addition, Republican leadership will empower the extremists in their conference to grind the work of the House to a halt, while targeting civil servants to settle political scores on behalf of the twice-impeached former President. House Republicans will end our bipartisan committee to address the climate crisis while making it easier for big oil companies to pollute our environment without consequence.”

“It is disappointing, but not surprising, that House Republicans have put forward a rules package that undermines mainstream values and furthers an extreme agenda,” Jeffries continued. “House Democrats stand ready to work on a bipartisan basis to tackle the pressing issues facing everyday Americans. Hopefully, we will find willing partners on the other side of the aisle.”

Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report.

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The group of Republicans threatening to block House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s bid to be the next House speaker dug in their heels even more over the long weekend and into Tuesday morning, when another GOP lawmaker made it clear McCarthy would not get his vote.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who was already indicating he would likely oppose McCarthy, left little doubt he would vote for someone else.

“We’ve worked in good faith for months to change the status quo,” Perry said. “At nearly every turn, we’ve even sidelined or resisted by McCarthy, and any perceived progress has often been vague or contained loopholes that further amplified concerns as to the sincerity of the promises being made.”

Perry said McCarthy has never shown “any desire” to change the status quo in Washington, and offered only “vague” promises to change the way the House operates in response to demands from GOP hardliners.

NEWT GINGRICH BLASTS REPUBLICANS WHO OPPOSE KEVIN MCCARTHY AS SPEAKER: ‘IT’S HIM OR CHAOS’

“Kevin McCarthy had an opportunity to be Speaker of the House,” Perry wrote. “He rejected it.”

McCarthy, R-Calif., is still hoping to capture a minimum of 218 votes when elected members of the House meet Tuesday at noon to vote on who will be the 118th Congress’s next speaker and be second in line to the presidency. However, Perry’s statement opens up the possibility that several members of the House Freedom Caucus will vote against him today, which could mean several days of voting before the GOP settles on a speaker.

In the last few weeks, four Republican members have indicated McCarthy can never get their vote, and their Twitter traffic on Monday showed they have not budged. 

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who directly challenged McCarthy for the speakership and may do so again on the House floor this week, tweeted that McCarthy’s rules proposal shows that McCarthy has “gone into total bargaining mode” to win the votes for speaker.

“There are no principles anymore,” Biggs wrote Monday. “It’s become a take-whatever-you-need motto. This is what a McCarthy speakership would look like and would put our country last.”

MCCARTHY SHORT OF VOTES AS HOUSE SPEAKER CONTEXT ENTERS FINAL HOURS

Biggs predicted that McCarthy would never reach the 218 votes he needs and accused him of trying to “smear” Biggs’s name.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., tweeted out an op-ed he wrote for the Daily Caller, “Republicans Need a Real Leader, Not Kevin McCarthy,” in which he said every Republican in Congress knows McCarthy “has no ideology.” Gaetz accused McCarthy of falling for the hoax that Russia helped former President Trump win the White House in 2016 and voted too often with Democrats over the last several years.

“This is who Kevin is,” Gaetz wrote. “He sticks his wet finger in the air to decide what position to take.”

Among other things, McCarthy has proposed a rule change allowing just five members of the House to put forward a motion to dismiss the House speaker and seek a new one, a process known as vacating the chair. McCarthy also agreed to end proxy voting and virtual attendance at hearings, focus on spending cuts and executive branch oversight and other procedural changes demanded by hardliners.

However, one of those hardliners, Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana, tweeted that more serious reforms are needed, and said he doubted McCarthy would follow through.

LAUREN BOEBERT, MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE SNIPE AT EACH OTHER OVER MCCARTHY SPEAKER SUPPORT

“Now, it’s disingenuous and not reliable to believe that his proposed changes would ever be implemented,” he wrote Monday. “We need a Republican Speaker who will challenge the status quo and ensure that every member has a voice.”

Rosendale also predicted “multiple rounds of votes” until a speaker is decided, a sign that GOP hardliners plan to stick to their guns and not vote for McCarthy and not vote “present,” which would make it easier for McCarthy to win the gavel.

The fourth hardliner, Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, said on Fox & Friends that McCarthy is “part of the problem” and that his constituents do not want him to support McCarthy.

McCarthy can get to the 218 votes he needs if only these four Republicans vote against him, but several others are likely to oppose him, at least in the early rounds of voting. Good said he thinks 10-15 Republicans will vote against McCarthy – he thinks that number will grow as voting continues and that support will coalesce around an unnamed candidate.

Another Republican that appears to be lining up against McCarthy is Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. He tweeted Monday that the GOP has “trust issues” with McCarthy in part because “every major budget bill that passed under his leadership of the last GOP-controlled House was passed with more D than R support.”

Another, Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, complained that McCarthy sent his rules package far too late in the process. “Why didn’t we get McCarthy’s proposed rules package at least 72 hours in advance?” he asked, in a nod to one of the hardliners’ demands on giving lawmakers time to review bills before passing them.

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The Pennsylvania man accused of killing four University of Idaho college students in November is a criminal justice Ph.D. candidate who studied under a leading expert on serial killer Dennis Rader, known as the BTK Killer.

Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was arrested in the Poconos Friday nearly seven weeks after police claim he snuck into the home of a group of sleeping coeds and attacked four of them in their sleep.

The ambush killed Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, 21-year-old best friends, as well as their housemate, Xana Kernodle, and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, both 20. Two other women on the bottom floor of the three-story, six-bedroom house were not attacked.

As part of his prior studies at DeSales University, Kohberger worked under the tutelage of BTK expert Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a fact that shocked the infamous serial killer’s daughter after news of Kohberger’s arrest broke Friday.

UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO MURDERS TIMELINE

Rader’s daughter Kerri Rawson revealed on Twitter over the weekend that she became sick to her stomach when she learned of the connection.

Ramsland is an expert on serial killers and has, or had, both an academic relationship and friendship with Rader, Rawson says – voicing fears that Kohberger may have been in touch with her father before the crimes.

“It’s really common for criminology students in general to write my father,” she said. However, she previously cut off contact with her father and said she has not spoken to Ramsland in several years. “Ramsland would know, but she’s not talking.”

IDAHO MURDER SUSPECT KOHBERGER’S PENNSYLVANIA CLASSMATES SAY HE WAS ‘BRIGHT,’ AWKWARD, BULLIED IN SCHOOL

Kohberger, after obtaining his master’s degree at DeSales, went on to seek a Ph.D. in the department of criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University, just a few miles from the home near the University of Idaho where police allege he brutally stabbed four coeds on Nov. 13.

After the slayings, Kohberger reportedly continued classes at WSU both in his Ph.D. program and as a teaching assistant.

“The suspect is a criminology student, [and] my father has a degree in criminal justice,” Rawson told Fox News Digital. “And after his first murders, which was of people at the age of 28, he enrolled at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas, for criminal justice.”

That was the first connection she made, she said.

“And then sometime Friday I put together the Ramsland one, so that really bothered me,” she added. That is the part that made her stomach turn.

WATCH: BTK’s daughter opens up about her father in revealing new documentary 

Ramsland has declined to comment publicly on the case so far.

Her work on serial killers includes several books such as “The Criminal Mind: A Writer’s Guide to Forensic Psychology,” and “Confession of a Serial Killer” co-written with Rader.

Rader’s daughter also said she sympathizes with Kohberger’s relatives who could have been ignorant to the alleged misdeeds of a family member – just as she was.

IDAHO MURDERS: SUSPECT BRYAN CHRISTOPHER KOHBERGER ARRESTED IN KILLINGS OF 4 UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

“It’s hard place to be for Kohberger’s family, for the victims families; it’s just an awful, awful thing,” she told Fox News Digital. “It’s not easy on LE (law enforcement)…It’s frustrating to be the daughter of somebody like this and just continually watch this to happen. Did my dad have a connection to this guy? What was his connection to Ramsland? It’s frustrating.”

Kohberger was due in a Pennsylvania court Tuesday morning and was expected to waive his extradition to Idaho, where he faces four charges of first-degree murder and a count of felony burglary with intent to kill.

Through his Pennsylvania public defender, he has expressed confidence he will be exonerated.

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Federal air marshals are outraged as the Biden administration continues to send them to the southern border despite a renewed terror threat from al Qaeda. 

Air Marshal National Council Executive Director Sonya Labosco joined “Fox & Friends First” Tuesday to discuss why the diversion has put Americans at risk and why they are going to “suffer” as a result of the move. 

“It looks absolutely insane,” Labosco told co-host Todd Piro. “We don’t understand why these decisions are being made. The intel is clear. Al Qaeda is watching for our weak areas. Our aviation is a high-risk area. We’re not protecting our aviation domain, and we’re going to the border. It is absolutely madness.”

US OFFICIALS MEET WITH TALIBAN IN PERSON FOR FIRST TIME SINCE DRONE STRIKE KILLED AL QAEDA CHIEF IN KABUL 

High-level Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sources told Judicial Review that “al Qaeda says upcoming attacks on US possibly involving planes, will use new techniques and tactics.”

Despite the looming terror threat, the Biden administration announced mandatory deployments to the border as the migrant surge continues to strain already-worsening conditions amid staffing shortages. 

Many agents pushed back on the Biden administration over the move, expressing willingness to refuse the deployment and face possible termination.

Labosco suggested the mandatory diversions may not have sufficient legal grounds.

US TAKES OUT AL QAEDA LEADER AYMAN AL-ZAWAHRI IN ‘SUCCESSFUL’ AFGHANISTAN COUNTERTERRORISM OPERATION 

“We do believe it’s a violation,” Labosco said. “We do believe that DHS has overstepped their bounds. We are waiting for Congress to get sworn in, hopefully today, and we can get some movement here. We need someone to step in, in Congress, and stop the deployment of federal air marshals.”

“This statute, when it was originally a tent and set by Congress, was not to deploy air marshals to the border, and to be clear, there is no national emergency,” she continued. “There’s been no national emergency declared at this point. So we’re still saying that it is we need an injunction from Congress that they cannot send us to the border.”

The Air Marshal National Council sent a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the weekend, calling out the administration for the policy since the border crisis has garnered little attention. 

“How can you justify sending FAMs to the border in huge numbers, when the border is in your words secure, and there is no emergency yet?” the letter read. “Yet we have major security incidents happening right now affecting our aviation security.“

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Even amid the diversion, Labosco noted the American people have not forgotten the critical lessons learned following the devastating 9/11 attacks, more than two decades after thousands lost their lives. 

“I can tell you who hasn’t forgotten, we haven’t forgotten,” Labosco said. “The American people, the family and friends of those that died on 911, they haven’t forgotten.”

“We’re not we’re not going to catch al Qaeda trying to grab an airplane down in El Paso,” she continued. “It’s going to happen right here in a commercial airport, in a commercial aircraft.”

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