Boy, 13, dies after getting trapped in a storm drain during East Coast flooding

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MOUNT AIRY, Md. (AP) — A 13-year-old boy died after he was trapped in a storm drain in Maryland during heavy rainfall and flooding on the East Coast that also led to rescues from cars that were submerged in floodwaters, officials said.

Kids were playing in the rain Thursday in a common area between apartment buildings in Mount Airy, a town of about 10,000 people about 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of Baltimore, but floodwaters rushed in and the boy was swept into the pipe, according to Mount Airy Volunteer Fire Company spokesperson Doug Alexander.

People tried to rescue the boy, but the water pressure was too strong and kept pushing him further into the pipe, he said. After the rain slowed, they were able to free him, but it was too late, Alexander said.

In Maryland’s Washington, D.C. suburbs, first responders received a handful of calls about cars submerged in floodwaters Thursday afternoon. In one instance, firefighters in Montgomery County found an 8-year-old boy standing on top of a submerged SUV while a woman and toddler were trapped inside, officials said. All three were successfully brought to safety, said Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service Assistant Chief Daniel Ogren.

More storms might bring flash and urban flooding to the northern mid-Atlantic and southern New England through Friday night, the National Weather Service warned.

Parts of the Baltimore area received 2.5 to 4 inches Thursday, according to the weather service, but isolated areas received more, including 5 inches in Mount Airy and 6 inches in Joppatowne northeast of Baltimore, where people were rescued from flooded cars.

A few areas in New York and New Jersey saw 3 inches or more of rain and one part of central Long Island reported more than 4 inches, according to the weather service.

By Friday morning, subways and commuter rail routes in the New York area were running on normal schedules after some sections were inundated by floodwaters. The city’s Department of Transportation also reported that roads and highways that had been shut down due to high water Thursday were reopened.

A few dozen flights were delayed or canceled at major airports in the New York, Boston and Washington regions Friday morning, but most were running on time, according to the FlightAware tracking service.

Power remained out to thousands of homes and businesses along the Eastern Seaboard on Friday morning, including nearly 5,000 in New York, 3,800 in Virginia, 2,500 in Maryland and 2,500 in Pennsylvania, according to PowerOutage.us.

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Amtrak trains between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware, were stopped Thursday evening because of high water over the tracks, but Amtrak announced a few hours later that service had been restored and water was receding from the tracks.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and other local officials pleaded with people Thursday to stay off the roads and urged residents in basement apartments to move to higher locations as rain was expected to fall through Friday afternoon.

Multiple people shot at a Montana business, ATF says

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ANACONDA, Mont. (AP) — The ATF says multiple people have been shot at a Montana business, and authorities are searching for a suspect.

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Officials warned people to avoid the area of Anaconda. The suspect’s home was cleared by a SWAT team and the suspect was still at large, the Granite County Sheriff’s office said in a social media post.

Authorities have yet to release details about what led to the shooting or the conditions of those who were injured.

Sandra Barker, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Salt Lake City office, which covers Montana, said the FBI is assisting in the response to the shooting but referred questions about it to local authorities.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.

Stevie Nicks moves August show at the X to November due to shoulder injury

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Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Stevie Nicks has postponed her Aug. 19 stop at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center to Nov. 12. A post Friday on Instagram said it’s “due to a recent injury resulting in a fractured shoulder that will require recovery time.”

Ticketholders can use their tickets on the new date or return to the point of purchase for a refund. St. Paul is one of nine shows that have been moved.

Nicks, 77, is the first woman to have been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first with Fleetwood Mac in 1998 and then as a solo artist in 2019.

She returned to the headlines last week with the announcement that Rhino Records will reissue “Buckingham Nicks” next month. She recorded the album in 1973 with her then-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham. It was a commercial failure, but it led to Mick Fleetwood inviting the pair to join Fleetwood Mac. Until now, the album has never been reissued or made available to streaming services.

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Veteran federal judge T.S. Ellis III, who presided over trial of Trump aide Paul Manafort, has died

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By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Federal judge T.S. Ellis III, whose legal scholarship and commanding courtroom presence was evident in numerous high-profile trials, has died after a long illness. He was 85.

Ellis oversaw the trials of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and former U.S. Rep. William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson as well as the plea deal of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh across a judicial career that lasted more than 35 years.

His acerbic wit sometimes drew muted complaints at the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, where Ellis was based, but his legal reasoning was unquestioned.

Ellis died Wednesday at his home in Keswick, according to the Cremation Society of Virginia.

Thomas Selby Ellis III was born in Colombia in 1940 and frequently found ways in court to utilize his Spanish-language skills. He often told Spanish-speaking defendants who relied on interpreters to speak up as they pleaded for leniency, saying he wanted to hear their words for himself.

He joined the Navy after receiving an undergraduate degree from Princeton, and completed graduate studies at Oxford. He received his law degree from Harvard, graduating magna cum laude.

He was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

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In a courthouse known as the “Rocket Docket” for its speedy disposition of cases, Ellis’ courtroom reflected his iconoclastic nature. Rarely did his hearings start on time, though when he presided over jury trials his punctuality improved as he zealously guarded jurors’ time commitments.

He frequently chastised lawyers to cut short long-winded arguments, in what he called “a concession to the shortness of life.” But he was easily coaxed or diverted into telling stories from the bench recalling episodes from his long legal career.

He snapped at lawyers who annoyed him, but would often adopt a more conciliatory tone later in the same hearing, and apologize for his short temper.

His penchant for speaking freely drew raised eyebrows at what was arguably the highest-profile trial over which he presided: the prosecution of Manafort, on charges of tax and bank fraud related to his work advising pro-Russia Ukrainian politicians before managing Trump’s campaign.

Ellis ultimately delivered a 47-month sentence, and said as an aside that Manafort appeared to have lived “an otherwise blameless life,” a phrase he often used at criminal sentencings. Critics who found much to blame in Manafort’s long career working for clients including the tobacco industry and international despots were outraged by the comment.

In 2009, Ellis sentenced Jefferson, a former Louisiana congressman, to 13 years in prison for taking bribes, including $90,000 found hidden in his freezer. The case threw multiple curveballs at Ellis, including a sexual relationship between a key witness and an investigating FBI agent.

In 2017, Ellis reduced Jefferson’s sentence to time served after a Supreme Court case changed the rules for what constitutes bribery of public officials. He made clear, though, that he believed Jefferson’s actions were criminal, and called his conduct “venal.”

“Public corruption is a cancer,” he said at the time of Jefferson’s resentencing. “It needs to be prosecuted and punished.”

Ellis’ sentencing hearings often followed a familiar script in which he invited defendants to explain themselves “by way of extenuation, mitigation, or indeed anything at all” that they wanted to say on their behalf. He invariably told defendants before passing judgment that “you write the pages to your own life story.”

Ellis took senior status as a judge in 2007 but regularly worked an extensive docket. In recent years, with his failing health, his cases were reassigned.