National

Nathan Howard/Getty ImagesBY: MORGAN WINSOR, ABC NEWS    (PORTLAND) -- One person was shot and killed in downtown Portland on Saturday night, as protests in Oregon's largest city entered their fourth month.Portland police officers located the individual with a gunshot wound to the chest, after hearing gunfire in the area of Southeast 3rd Avenue and Southwest Alder Street at 8:46 p.m. local time. Medics responded and pronounced the victim dead at […]

Hennepin County Jail BY: BILL HUTCHINSON, ABC NEWS    (MINNEAPOLIS) -- A defense attorney for the fired Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in connection with the death of George Floyd is asking a judge to drop all charges, arguing the 46-year-old man's death was allegedly from a drug overdose and not caused by the officer planting his knee in the back of Floyd's neck.Defense attorney Eric J. Nelson filed the […]

Oleksii Liskonih/iStockBy KIARA BRANTLEY-JONES, ABC NewsMassachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed an order on Friday obtained by ABC News, activating up to 1,000 National Guard members in the state.The Republican governor did not cite a specific reason for signing the order.The activation began on Friday and will continue until "further order" of the state's senior National Guard officer, according to the statement.The deployment is to "provide necessary assistance to State and […]

z1b/iStockBy ERIN SCHUMAKER, ABC News (KENOSHA, Wisc.) -- The American Civil Liberties Union is calling for Kenosha's top law enforcement leaders to resign after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was paralyzed after being shot in the back by a white Kenosha officer, and resulting protests turned deadly.Two days after Blake was shot, a counter-protester allegedly shot and killed two demonstrators. Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Antioch, Illinois, has been charged […]

playb/iStockBy LUKE BARR, ABC News(NEW YORK) -- Law school graduates in Florida were required to download software to take the bar exam virtually amid coronavirus -- and a number of them now say they encountered significant data breaches, including, in some cases, attempted hacks on bank accounts because of the software.A number of Florida students who planned to take the online bar exam in August 2020 claim there were attempts […]

ABC NewsBy MAX GOLEMBO, ABC News(NEW YORK) -- When Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana this week as a Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds, it was the strongest storm to hit the state since 1856.For all continental U.S. landfalling hurricanes, Laura tied for the fifth strongest to ever hit the U.S. Pressure wise, Laura was the fourth-strongest hurricane in U.S. history.Laura, while not as destructive as many forecasted, reached wind […]

kuzma/iStockBy KARMA ALLEN, ABC News(STANLY COUNTY, N.C.) -- A North Carolina man hugged his family as a free man for the first time in decades this week after serving 44 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.Ronnie Long was greeted by family and community members who had long proclaimed his innocence on Thursday afternoon when he made his long-awaited exit from the Albemarle Correctional Institution in Stanly […]

Anthony Peltier/iStockBy ADIA ROBINSON and KIARA BRANTLEY-JONES, ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Thousands seeking criminal justice reform gathered at the National Mall on Friday under the rallying cry "Get Your Knee Off Our Necks," a reference to the manner in which George Floyd was killed while in police custody in May and reminiscent of the 1963 March on Washington."We've come, like Dr. King came 57 years ago, to say we're tired of […]

nito100/iStockBy KARMA ALLEN, ABC News(ELIZABETH, N.J.) -- New Jersey officials approved a piece of land to build a monument dedicated to transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson in her hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey. The monument would be the first in the country to honor a transgender person, according to Union County officials.City and county officials met with members of the Johnson family on Thursday afternoon to formally announce that the […]