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Two weeks after the suspicious disappearance and possible abduction of California 16-year-old Kiely Rodni, the investigation led to the arrest of a local sex offender on unrelated charges, police say.
"The operation, which occurred on Thursday, Aug. 18, resulted in several sex registrants being found in violation of their terms, with one arrest being made and criminal charges to be filed on another," the Placer County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday morning. "The Truckee Police Department routinely conducts similar sweeps and is committed to aggressively pursuing prosecution of those offenders found to be out of compliance with any probation or parole terms."
Rodni’s unsolved disappearance prompted the compliance checks, but the arrests were not directly related to her case, according to investigators. Truckee police did not immediately respond to a request for more information about the arrested suspect.
Across state lines in nearby Incline, Nevada, deputies performed a similar check on a sex offender Wednesday but said it had no connection to Rodni’s disappearance. Back in California, a mutli-agency task force investigating the girl's case is also asking additional witnesses to come forward.
A missing person flyer for Kiely Rodni at the Tahoe National Forest, where she was last seen at a party on Aug. 6. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
Rodni was last seen at an outdoor party within the Tahoe National Forest that stretched from the evening of Aug. 5 into Aug. 6.
The 16-year-old early high school graduate was drinking and "partying" with friends and was likely too inebriated to drive, one partygoer, 18-year-old Sami Smith, told Fox News Digital.
There were about 200 to 300 people in attendance, mostly juveniles and young adults, according to the Place County Sheriff’s Office.
Of those, detectives have interviewed between a third and half of them, according to Angela Musallam, the sheriff’s public information officer.
On Tuesday, the sheriff's office shared a surveillance image that showed Rodni's outfit on the night she went missing. (Findkiely.com, Placer County Sheriff)
"Although our detectives have interviewed over 100 partygoers, they would still like some more cooperation," she told Fox News Digital Friday.
Investigators have still not been able to speak with anyone who actually saw Rodni leaving, and the sheriff’s office is asking for anyone who has not yet spoken with detectives to do so. Authorities are also asking for people to continue submitting tips, including videos and photos taken at the party.
Rodni texted her mother around midnight saying she was headed home. At 12:33 a.m. on Aug. 6, her phone last pinged near the site of the party, a clearing in the woods between the Prosser Family Campground and Prosser Creek Reservoir outside Truckee, California.
Kiely Rodni's SUV is also missing – a silver 2013 Honda CRV with California license plate 8YUR127. It has a small ram-head sticker on the back window, under her rear wiper blade. (Findkiely.com)
More than a week of searches focused on the immediate and surrounding areas turned up no signs of Rodni. Her vehicle, a silver 2013 Honda CRV with a ram head sticker under the rear windshield wiper, is also unaccounted for, police say.
The Placer County Sheriff's Office says Kiely Rodni appeared on video earlier in the night she went missing wearing a pink and white "Odd Future" hoodie. (Placer County Sheriff's Office, FindKiely.com)
The party also included visitors from out of town, and Musallam said that "the majority of them" have been identified.
Investigators said Monday they were scaling down the massive search effort, which involved days of aerial surveillance and dive teams, to a task force-based investigation.
"We are still looking for any clues, videos, tips, any information to help us to put pieces together and help us to direct where we're going and how we're going to continue to do a search," Capt. Sam Brown, of the Nevada County Sheriff's Office, said during a news briefing.
MISSING KIELY RODNI: A TIMELINE OF THE 16-YEAR-OLD'S DISAPPEARANCE FROM CAMPGROUND PARTY
Kiely Rodni was last seen on Aug. 6 at the Prosser Family Campground in Truckee, California. (findkiely.com)
Rodni is described as 5 feet, 7 inches tall and about 118 pounds. She has blonde hair and hazel eyes. She has a tattoo on her ribs of the number "17." She has a nose ring and several other piercings and was wearing three gold necklaces the night she went missing, according to her friends.
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She was wearing green Dickies pants, a black studded belt and a black spaghetti-strap bodysuit, according to authorities. And she was seen on video in a pink and white hoodie reading "ODD FUTURE" earlier on Aug. 5. She may have also been in possession of a dark gray hoodie with Lana Del Rey lyrics.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Placer County Sheriff’s Office’s dedicated tip line at 530-581-6320. Callers can remain anonymous.
There is a $75,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts.
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The search for missing 16-year-old Kiely Rodni will be scaled down to a "task force"-based investigation next week, California investigators said Monday, 10 days after the teen vanished under disturbing circumstances.
"We are still looking for any clues, videos, tips, any information to help us to put pieces together and help us to direct where we're going and how we're going to continue to do a search," Capt. Sam Brown, of the Nevada County Sheriff's Office, said during a Monday news briefing. "We are moving into a more limited but continuous search and rescue effort."
He said the massive interagency search effort has put in more than 9,000 man-hours since Rodni was reported missing on Aug. 6.
"Our biggest problem is where do we go, and how do we keep sustaining this?" he added.
Kiely Rodni was last seen a week ago on Aug. 6 at Prosser Family Campground after midnight. (findkiely.com)
The search started last week in the immediate area of where the girl's phone had last pinged, near the Prosser Creek Reservoir, and has steadily expanded outward. Police have been unable to locate the girl, her SUV or any other signs.
And they say they have still not found anyone who actually saw Rodni leaving the area before she went missing. They are asking for anyone who may have taken photos or videos to share them with investigators.
"I'd like to say that we're putting the pedal down, that we are continuing to work this week, and that after this week we will be modifying things to a task force style," said Lt. Josh Barnhart, of the Placer County Sheriff's Office. "That means our resources will continue to move forward, but in somewhat of a different manner."
MISSING KIELY RODNI: A TIMELINE OF THE 16-YEAR-OLD'S DISAPPEARANCE FROM CAMPGROUND PARTY
Lt. Josh Barnhart of the Placer Co. Sheriff's Office speaks to reporters on Monday, Aug. 15, 10 days into the search for missing Kiely Rodni, 16. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
The FBI has partnered with local detectives to conduct interviews with people at the party and residents who live nearby, and the public has largely been cooperative, Barnhart said.
"I would say for the most part, everyone has been very cooperative," he said.
Detectives have also overcome earlier resistance from at least one parent who allegedly told their children, who had attended the party, not to aid in the investigation.
"Many people have come forward and given us information, but we haven't run into very large roadblocks and people not wanting to give us information," Barnhart said. "I think [that] was probably an isolated incident that we were able to get past."
Kiely Rodni was last seen on Aug. 6 at the Prosser Family Campground in Truckee, California. (findkiely.com)
Rodni, who was last seen at a packed outdoor party with hundreds of other young people just after midnight on Aug. 6, has an outdoorsy upbringing and strong resolve, according to Cassie Hebel, a family friend and spokesperson.
"She has more than the survival skills to make it back," she said Monday. "She was raised in a family where they know how to survive in the outback, in the ‘Back 40’ as I like to say. That is where she was raised."
The party, near the Prosser Family Campground in the Tahoe National Forest, involved between 200 and 300 juveniles and young adults, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office. There was suspected use of drugs and alcohol, and Rodni’s friend told Fox News Digital last week the girl was likely too drunk to have attempted driving.
Kiely Rodni went missing on Aug. 6 just after midnight, shortly after telling her parents she was coming home. (findkiely.com)
Angela Musallam, a spokesperson for the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, said during a Monday news briefing investigators were not ready to release the photo.
Separately, she told Fox News Digital, it contains no person of interest. She declined to discuss the video further, citing the open comment investigation.
At 16, Rodni had a full driver’s license and a silver 2013 Honda CRV, which is also missing, Hebel said Monday. She graduated high school early and with honors and hoped to study pediatric orthopedics and music in college. Her 17th birthday is next month.
The car has a ram head sticker under the rear windshield wiper, according to police. Hebel said it has no particular significance other than being an identifying characteristic, and it may have been on the car already when Rodni acquired it.
Kiely Rodni's SUV is also missing – a silver 2013 Honda CRV with California license plate 8YUR127. It has a small ram-head sticker on the back window, under her rear wiper blade. (Findkiely.com)
Rodni is described as 5 feet, 7 inches tall and about 118 pounds. She has blonde hair and hazel eyes. She has a tattoo on her ribs of the number "17." She has a nose ring and several other piercings and was wearing three gold necklaces the night she went missing, according to her friends.
She was wearing green Dickies pants, a black studded belt and a black spaghetti-strap bodysuit, according to authorities. And she was seen on video in a pink and white hoodie reading "ODD FUTURE" earlier on Aug. 5. She may have also been in possession of a dark gray hoodie with Lana Del Rey lyrics.
The Placer County Sheriff's Office says Kiely Rodni appeared on video earlier in the night she went missing wearing a pink and white "Odd Future" hoodie. (Placer County Sheriff's Office, FindKiely.com)
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Anyone with information is asked to call the Placer County Sheriff’s Office’s dedicated tip line at 530-581-6320. Callers can remain anonymous. Police are also asking anyone with photos of videos of the party to share them with investigators.
The reward for information leading to Rodni’s whereabouts has climbed to $75,000 after an anonymous donor gave $25,000 to the effort over the
Diamond Harbour of West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district has no case of hospital patients missing. (File representative image: PTI)
Diamond Harbour town of West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district now has zero patients in the missing category, a report of the health department said.
Diamond Harbour is now the only town with no incidents of patients going missing from hospitals, while Murshidabad, East Medinipur, Nadia, Maldah and North Dinajpur are five districts where the number of such patients has increased.
During Covid times, Diamond Harbour became a model as increased testing brought down the positivity rate. When the situation in West Bengal was grim during the Covid, Diamond Harbour upped testing and even started mobile testing, bringing the positivity rate down from a 20 per cent to 6 per cent.
Sources in Diamond Harbour say that MP Abhishek Banerjee puts special emphasis on everything in this constitution and he is very particular in getting results. His motto is planning, monitoring, meeting and implementing work, said one local party leader.
The local police headquarters there is also said to be a class apart with all modern equipment.
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A fire set off by a lightning strike at an oil storage facility has raged uncontrolled in the Cuban city of Matanzas, where four explosions and flames injured nearly 80 people and left 17 firefighters missing.
Firefighters and other specialists were still trying to quell the blaze at the Matanzas Supertanker Base on Saturday, where the fire began during a thunderstorm on Friday night, the Ministry of Energy and Mines tweeted.
The government said later that it had asked for help from international experts in “friendly countries” with experience in the oil sector.
The official Cuban News Agency said lightning hit one tank, starting a fire, and the blaze later spread to a second tank.
As military helicopters flew overhead dropping water on the blaze, dense column of black smoke billowed from the facility and spread westward more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) toward Havana.
The Facebook page of the provincial government of Matanzas said the number of injured had reached 77, while 17 people were missing.
The Presidency of the Republic said the 17 were “firefighters who were in the nearest area trying to prevent the spread.”
It’s been a bad week in Cuba. Currency devaluation and poor living conditions sparked nationwide protests. Now, lightning has struck an oil warehouse in Matanzas. This just confirms my School Boys Theory of History: It’s just one damn thing after another.pic.twitter.com/0G3UD4OpQN
— Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) August 6, 2022
'Smell of sulphur'
The accident comes as Cuba struggles with fuel shortages.
There was no immediate word on how much oil had burned or was in danger at the storage facility, which has eight giant tanks that hold oil used to fuel electricity generating plants.
“I was in the gym when I felt the first explosion. A column of smoke and terrible fire rose through the skies,” resident Adiel Gonzalez said. “The city has a strong smell of sulphur.”
Authorities said the Dubrocq neighbourhood closest to the fire was evacuated, while Gonzalez added that some people decided to leave the Versailles district, which is a little farther from the tank farm.
Many ambulances, police and fire engines were seen in the streets of Matanzas, a city with about 140,000 inhabitants that is on Matnzas Bay.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel traveled to the area of the fire early on Saturday, officials said.
Local meteorologist Elier Pila showed satellite images of the area with a dense plume of black smoke moving from the point of the fire westward and reaching east to Havana.
“That plume can be close to 150 kilometres long,” Pila wrote on his Twitter account.
READ MORE: Death toll of Havana hotel explosion rises as rescue operations continue
Source: AP
A Pakistan Army aviation helicopter en route from Quetta to Karachi with important personalities aboard has gone missing on Monday, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) confirmed in a tweet.
A Pakistan army aviation helicopter which was on flood relief operations in Lasbela, Balochistan lost contact with ATC. 6 individuals were on board including Commander 12 Corps who was supervising flood relief operations in Balochistan. Search operation is underway.DTF
— DG ISPR (@OfficialDGISPR) August 1, 2022
Taking to Twitter, the military's media wing said that the aviation helicopter was on a flood relief operation in Lasbela, Balochistan when it lost contact with air traffic control (ATC).
"Six individuals were on board, including Commander 12 Corps who was supervising flood relief operations in Balochistan," the tweet said, adding that a search operation is underway.
According to details available with Geo News, Corp Commander Quetta Lieutenant General Sarfaraz Ali, who was supervising the flood relief operations in the province, was also on board.
Per the details aired by Geo News, Major Syed was the pilot while Major Talha was the co-pilot of the helicopter. The Director-General of Coast Guards Brigadier Amjad, Engineer Brigadier Khalid, and chief naik Mudassir were also onboard.
The civil authorities and the Pakistan Army are currently busy with relief programmes in the province as the heavy rain spell has wreaked havoc there, claiming 147 lives.
Following the incident, the district administration said that a helicopter crashed in the vicinity of the Sassi Punnu Shrine, located near the Windar area, however, the ISPR is yet to confirm whether it was the same helicopter.
Local residents say that the helicopter was seen flying low after which it disappeared. Meanwhile, it was reported that the incident took place minutes before sunset (Maghrib prayers).
Deputy Inspector-General Khuzdar Pervez Imrani said that local police teams are also trying to find the helicopter. The area consists of mountain ranges which are creating difficulties in the search operation.
He further said that despite the difficulties caused by the terrain, police teams are trying to search the helicopter on motorcycles as well. A joint rescue operation of police and Frontier Corps has been underway for the last five hours.
Expressing concern over the disappearance of the helicopter, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif tweeted: "The disappearance of Army Aviation helicopter from Balochistan is alarming. The entire nation prays to Allah Almighty for the safety, security, and return of these sons of the country who came out to help the flood victims. Insha Allah."
PTI Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan also expressed his concern and prayed for the missing.
"Disturbing news of army aviation helicopter missing and praying for all those on board," he tweeted.
A Pakistani army helicopter flying in a rescue and relief mission in the country's flood-stricken southwest has lost contact with a regional control tower and was missing, the military said.
The fate of its six-member crew, including a top commander, was not immediately known.
The military said on Monday a search was under way for the aircraft, without saying whether it had crashed.
The regional commander on board, Lt. Gen. Sarfraz Ali, was supervising relief operations in the flood-affected southwest.
The development came hours after authorities said flash floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed 140 more people over the past week.
The fatalities raised the overall death toll from rain-related incidents since June to 478 in Pakistan.
READ MORE: Heavy flooding caused by monsoon rains in Pakistan kills dozens
Rescue workers backed by the military have evacuated thousands of marooned people, including women and children, from the southwestern Balochistan province, in the northwest and elsewhere since last week, when the government deployed helicopters to expand ongoing relief and rescue operations.
Deluges have completely destroyed or damaged nearly 37,000 homes in the flood-hit areas since June 14, according to a report released by the National Disaster and Management Authority.
On Monday, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited Balochistan, and in a televised speech promised financial support to those who have lost their homes in the floods.
More rains are expected this week in Pakistan, where the monsoon season runs from July through September.
READ MORE: Monsoon rains leave dozens dead in Pakistan
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
6 people on board helicopter on mission to oversee rescue, relief operations in rain-hit Balochistan province
It comes as both congressional and criminal investigators at the Department of Justice seek to piece together an effort by the president and his allies to overturn the results of the election, which culminated in a pro-Trump rally that became a violent riot in the halls of Congress.
The Department of Homeland Security notified the agency’s inspector general in late February that Wolf’'s and Cuccinelli’s texts were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, according to an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight and shared with The Washington Post.
The office of the department’s undersecretary of management also told the government watchdog that the text messages for its boss, undersecretary Randolph “Tex” Alles, the former Secret Service director, were also no longer available due to a previously planned phone reset.
The office of Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari did not press the department leadership at that time to explain why they did not preserve these records, nor seek ways to recover the lost data, according to the four people briefed on the watchdog’s actions. Cuffari also failed to alert Congress to the potential destruction of government records.
The revelation comes on the heels of the discovery that text messages of Secret Service agents — critical firsthand witnesses to the events leading up to Jan. 6 — were deleted more than a year ago and may never be recovered.
The news of their missing records set off a firestorm because the texts could have corroborated the account of a former White House aide describing the president’s state of mind on January 6. In one case, the aide, Cassidy Hutchinson said a top official told her that Trump had tried to attack a senior Secret Service agent who refused to take the president to the Capitol with his supporters marching there.
In a nearly identical scenario to that of the DHS leaders’ texts, the Secret Service alerted Cuffari’s office seven months ago, in December 2021, that the agency had deleted thousands of agents’ and employees’ text messages in an agency-wide reset of government phones. Cuffari’s office did not notify Congress until mid-July, despite multiple congressional committees’ pending requests for these records.
The telephone and text communications of Wolf and Cuccinelli in the days leading up to Jan. 6 could have shed considerable light on Trump’s actions and plans. In the weeks before the attack on the Capitol, Trump had been pressuring both men to help him claim the 2020 election results were rigged and even to seize voting machines in key swing states to try to “re-run” the election.
“It is extremely troubling that the issue of deleted text messages related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol is not limited to the Secret Service, but also includes Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, who were running DHS at the time,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson said in a statement.
“It appears the DHS Inspector General has known about these deleted texts for months but failed to notify Congress,” Thompson said. “If the Inspector General had informed Congress, we may have been able to get better records from Senior administration officials regarding one of the most tragic days in our democracy’s history.”
Neither Cuccinelli nor Wolf responded to requests for comment. DHS’s Office of Inspector General did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The discovery of missing records for the top officials running the Department of Homeland Security during the final days of the Trump administration raises new questions about what could have been learned, and also about what other text messages and evidence the department and other agencies may have erased, in apparent violation of the Federal Records Act.
Wolf and Cuccinelli had remained at DHS as Trump openly challenged the 2020 election results, even though the agency led efforts to help state and local governments safeguard the integrity of the election results.
Starting in late December, numerous DHS intelligence units across the country were warning of extremely worrisome chatter in white nationalist and pro-Trump social media platforms that were promoting coming armed to Trump’s Jan. 6 rally and using violence to block Biden from becoming president.
In late December, Trump railed in a Cabinet meeting that his secretaries were failing to properly help him investigate fraud that had corruptly “given” the election to Joe Biden, but cited unsubstantiated claims. Trump fired Christopher Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in a tweet after Krebs countered Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud, and complained that Wolf should have moved faster to force Krebs out.
On New Year’s Eve of 2020, Trump also called Cuccinelli to pressure him to seize voting machines in swing states and help him block the peaceful transfer of power. Trump falsely told him that the acting attorney general had just said that it was Cuccinelli’s job to seize voting machines “and you’re not doing your job.”
Cuccinelli was in Washington on the day of the attack and toured the Capitol that night to survey the damage. Wolf was on an official trip to the Middle East.
After the Capitol attack, several lawmakers called for hearings into why DHS had failed to anticipate the threat Trump supporters posed to Congress on the day lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence planned to certify the election results.
Wolf had resigned five days after the attack on the Capitol, and cited “recent events” as well as legal rulings questioning his legitimacy to continue leading the department as an acting secretary for 14 months.
“Effective 11:59 p.m. today, I am stepping down as your Acting Secretary,” Wolf wrote in a message to the department. “I am saddened to take this step, as it was my intention to serve the Department until the end of this Administration.”
In an interview days later with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, the departing acting secretary said Trump bore some responsibility for the events of Jan. 6.
“I was disappointed that the President didn’t speak out sooner on that. I think he had a role to do that. I think, unfortunately, the administration lost a little bit of the moral high ground on this issue by not coming out sooner on it,” he said of Trump not swiftly condemning the violence.
A Government Accountability Office report in 2020 found that Wolf and Cuccinelli were ineligible to serve in their positions because their appointments had not followed the proper order of succession, an issue the GAO referred to the DHS Office of Inspector General.
Unlike Trump, Wolf did not dispute the election results and said DHS was preparing for the “orderly and smooth transition to President-elect Biden’s DHS team.”
“Welcome them, educate them, and learn from them,” Wolf said then. “They are your leaders for the next four years — a time which undoubtedly will be full of challenges and opportunities to show the American public the value of DHS and why it is worth the investment.”
Wolf had emerged as Trump’s favorite DHS Secretary, the president’s fourth pick for the job in just four years in office. Trump had promoted his first secretary John Kelly to be his White House chief of staff, then pushed Kelly out of that job for not complying with his orders. He had fired Kelly’s successor Kirstjen Nielsen for balking at some of Trump’s demands for how to handle migrants crossing the border which Nielsen knew were illegal.
The third secretary, Nielsen’s successor Kevin McAleenan, grew frustrated by the way Trump tried to politicize the department during his reelection effort departed after just seven months. Then Trump named Wolf as his acting secretary, and found the fourth time was a charm. Wolf repeatedly touted Trump’s immigration record as stellar and also deployed department personnel to tamp down Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, to help promote Trump’s law-and-order message to voters.
Trump had appointed Cuccinelli to key DHS roles after seeing him defend his immigration agenda on television.
Trump allies still believe Wolf served him well. Wolf is among those mentioned this month in an Axios article as someone whom Trump could ask to return to government service if Trump successfully runs for president in 2024.
