Jamke NEWS

New York City prosecutors moved on Monday to vacate the convictions of two men who both spent more than 20 years in prison after being convicted in the 1990s in separate murder cases.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Jabar Walker, 49, who is also known as Jabar Moore, and Wayne Gardine, also 49, were both wrongfully convicted.

In the case of Walker, who was convicted in 1998 in a murder-for-hire case, Bragg’s office cited the existence of “newly discovered evidence” of his wrongful conviction and said Walker did not receive meaningful legal representation.

“Not only was the case against Jabar Walker built upon unreliable and recanted testimony, he did not have the benefit of an effective defense attorney — one of the constitutional bedrocks of our criminal justice system,” Bragg said in a statement. “Despite these serious issues, Mr. Walker received a sentence that could have kept him in prison for his entire life. I am thrilled he can now finally return home, and thank the Innocence Project for its steadfast advocacy throughout this matter.”

In Gardine’s case, Bragg’s office agreed with a court filing by the Legal Aid Society’s Wrongful Conviction Unit that there was never physical or forensic evidence connecting Gardine to a 1994 fatal shooting.

“The only evidence against him at trial was the word of a teenager who claimed to have witnessed the murder, was on felony probation for selling drugs at the time he first incriminated Mr. Gardine, and changed his story several times between the incident and trial in statements to police, in the grand jury, at trial and post-conviction,” according to the Legal Aid filing.

Gardine issued a statement, thanking “the whole team at Legal Aid” for working on his case.

Gardine also thanked Bragg and his staff “for their honest investigation, their respect for the truth, and for how quickly they worked on my case.”

“I also want to thank my mom for being there all these years, and I want to thank myself for never giving up,” Gardine said. “I’m happy that the justice system finally worked.”

Gardine had been serving a sentence of 18 1/2 years to life in prison after a jury convicted him in the Sept. 2, 1994, slaying of Robert David Mickens, who was shot 11 times on a street in the Harlem neighborhood of New York.

“Unjust convictions are the height of injustice and while we can never completely undo the pain he has experienced, I hope this is the first step in allowing Mr. Gardine to rebuild his life and reunite with his loved ones,” Bragg said.

Gardine, who moved to the United States from Jamaica with his family when he was 13, served nearly three decades in prison before he was released on parole in 2022. He was then transferred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), where he remains in custody, according to Bragg’s office.

Following Monday’s hearing, the Legal Aid Society called for Gardine’s release from ICE custody and the termination of pending deportation proceedings.

Walker, who was serving a sentence of two consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison, was convicted of killing two men, William Santana and Ismael De La Cruz, who were found fatally shot in a car in Harlem on May 25, 1995.

Walker entered a courtroom Monday in handcuffs and exited a free man after serving 25 years in prison.

Bragg said in a statement that his office “agreed not to re-prosecute Walker in the interest of justice and because the case cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Walker and Gardine are just a few of the more than a dozen people who have been exonerated so far this year due to wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, false confessions, police failure to disclose evidence and more.

The exonerations have been recorded by the National Registry of Exonerations, an exoneration-tracking project hosted by the University of California Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law.

There have been at least 3,287 exonerations recorded by the National Registry of Exonerations since 1989.

More than 29,100 years have been “lost” in prison due to “wrongful convictions” that have been uncovered thus far, according to the registry.

Attackers who seized a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden this weekend appear to have been Somali pirates, the Defense Department’s top spokesman told reporters at the Pentagon Monday.

A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer and allied ships belonging to a counter-piracy task force on Sunday responded to a distress call from the crew of the Central Park, which had been boarded by five armed individuals, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Monday.

“They attempted to access the crew cabin. The crew, essentially, were able to lock themselves into a safe haven. These individuals attempted to access and take control of the ship,” he said.

The U.S. and coalition ships arrived on scene and demanded release of the vessel, according to U.S. Central Command.

“When the combined task force responded, they essentially fled,” Ryder said.

A “visit board search and seizure” (VBSS) team from the USS Mason gave chase and fired warning shots at the fleeing assailants, who surrendered and were detained. The VBSS team then boarded the Central Park to clear the vessel and ensure the crew was safe, according to Ryder. The five are currently aboard the USS Mason, he said.

Ryder said there were three Chinese navy ships in the area of the Central Park, but they did not respond to the commercial vessel’s distress call.

“Supposedly, those ships are there as part of a counter-piracy mission, but they did not respond,” he said.

About an hour and 40 minutes after U.S. forces boarded the Central Park to check on its crew, two ballistic missiles were fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen “toward the general location” of the Mason and Central Park, which were still near each other, according to Central Command.

The Mason tracked the projectiles, but did not need to take defensive measures, as they fell into the Gulf of Aden about 10 nautical miles from the ships, according to defense officials.

“It is not clear at this time what they were targeting,” Ryder said of the missiles.

The two incidents do not seem to be directly related, a U.S. defense official told ABC News on Monday.

The ship seizure was “clearly a piracy-related incident,” according to Ryder, who said that while the U.S. continues to assess the situation, “we know that they’re not Houthi.”

Earlier this month, Iran-backed Houthi militants downed an American Reaper drone as it was flying in international airspace near Yemen, a U.S. defense official said at the time.

“We can confirm that a U.S. military MQ-9 remotely-piloted aircraft was shot down off the coast of Yemen by Houthi forces,” the official said.

Meanwhile, other Iran-backed groups have launched at least 73 drone and rocket attacks against U.S. troops based in Iraq and Syria since mid-October, after the Hamas terror attack on Israel. At least 70 American service members have been injured in this ongoing spate of attacks, the last three of which occurred on Thanksgiving, according to U.S. defense officials.

More than 40,000 Oregon students returned to classes Monday for the first time this month as Portland teachers ended the longest U.S. teachers strike in 2023.

Over the weekend, Portland Public Schools (PPS), the largest school district in the state, reached a tentative agreement to end the more than three-week strike that started on Nov. 1. However, the $175 million contract agreement still needs to be approved by the union as classes resume.

“This contract is a watershed moment for Portland students, families, and educators,” Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) President Angela Bonilla said in a statement to ABC News. “Educators walked picket lines alongside families, students, and allies — and because of that, our schools are getting the added investment they need,” Bonilla added.

Veteran teacher Tiffany Koyama Lane was swarmed by her third grade students and parents when she returned to Sunnyside Environmental School today.

“I walked out this morning – as did every other teacher at my school – and like, the families and kids cheered and started crying and like, tackled me in like one giant group hug,” Koyama Lane told ABC News. “The magnitude of the community showing up so strongly. That’s something that I’m still sitting with and processing – like it was – it was really beautiful.”

The city’s first-ever strike lasted 11 instructional days when factoring in weekends and holidays. After months of negotiations, Portland’s nearly 4,000 educators received “key wins” for mental health support, smaller class sizes and cost of living compensation increases, according to the statement.

Oregon Education Association (OEA) President Reed Scott-Schwalbach called the tentative agreement “historic.”

“This is a transformative deal that will improve the lives of students in Portland and have far-reaching positive effects for our students across the rest of the state,” Scott-Schwalbach wrote.

In recent strikes across the nation, teachers have demanded fair wages and called attention to other grievances included in the negotiations, like guaranteed planning time. Many teachers have said their prep periods were stripped from them due to a massive teaching shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Portland’s teachers also agreed to a roughly 14% overall pay raise over three years, $20 million dollars for classroom renovations and a first-ever contract article dedicated to special education.

Posting to X (formally known as Twitter), Suzanne Bonamici, D-Oregon, said post-pandemic teaching remains a challenge as more students have greater academic and social needs. The proposed agreement “fairly compensates PPS teachers and gives them the resources and support they need to provide their students with a path to success,” Bonamici added.

Students and teachers will make up the missed class time over winter break and throughout the new year.

Black Friday sales did gangbusters as the nation enters a holiday shopping season expected to test shoppers, who account for nearly three-quarters of U.S. economic activity.

Consumers spent a record $9.8 billion online on Black Friday, which marks a 7.5% increase over the year prior, according to Adobe Analytics.

Shopper visits, a metric used to assess in-person sales, rose 4.6% compared to a year ago — a rate nearly double the average overall increase in foot traffic so far this year, retail data firm Sensormatic Solutions said.

Even more, consumers are expected to spend between $12 billion and $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday, which would make it the biggest online shopping day ever recorded, Adobe Analytics said.

A significant reduction of inflation over the past year has delivered some relief for consumers. At the same time, they’ve been squeezed by a decline in savings built up during the pandemic and a spike in borrowing costs for loans like credit cards and mortgages.

“The Christmas buying season got off to a good start, as Black Friday sales appear to be strong,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told ABC News. “Consumers are hanging tough.”

A host of key indicators bode well for consumers as the holiday season takes hold. The unemployment rate stands near a 50-year low, wage growth outpaces inflation and savings have been resilient for upper- and middle-income households, Zandi said.

The U.S. economy grew at an annualized pace of 4.9% over three months ending in September, more than doubling growth in the previous quarter and rebuking worries about a possible recession, a government report last month showed.

Black Friday sales data suggests that the good times for consumers may continue for the remainder of the year, Zandi said.

“While Black Friday isn’t always a good guide to overall Christmas sales, this is a good sign,” he noted.

Still, potential pitfalls remain for consumers and, by extension, the U.S. economy, Simeon Siegel, a retail analyst at BMO Financial Group, told ABC News.

Credit card debt climbed to a record high in the third quarter of 2023, surging nearly 5% from the previous quarter and leaving a growing share of borrowers late on payments, a Federal Reserve report earlier this month showed.

The growing debt has emerged alongside a spike in borrowing costs for loans from credit cards to mortgages that stems from interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

Since last year, the Fed has raised its benchmark interest rate at the fastest pace in more than two decades, seeking to slash price hikes by slowing the economy and reducing consumer demand.

In theory, the economy should eventually falter as it becomes more expensive for businesses and consumers to borrow. The job market, for instance, remains robust but has slowed in recent months.

Broad economic trends offer ample “reason to be concerned,” Siegel said. He noted, however, that Black Friday sales appeared to dispel fears of a worst-case scenario for consumers.

“The question was, ‘Is it going to be such an overhang that it closes the cash registers and keeps people from going online and in stores?'” Siegel said. “The retailers’ response would suggest that it was not.”

Rosy inferences from the data deserve a note of caution, Siegel said. Consumers often spend during the holidays, even if it means shopping beyond their means, Siegel added, making Black Friday sales an imperfect shorthand for consumer health.

“The holidays have gotten off to a good start,” Siegel said. “What you and I can see from revenues is what people spent. But what we can’t see is what they have in their bank accounts.”