School shooter’s mom asks to be freed, but prosecutor argues her reasoning is flawed

Jennifer Crumbley, the convicted mother of the Oxford school shooter, requested that a judge release her from prison, maintaining it would be “grossly unfair and unjust” to keep her locked up during her ongoing appeals process.

The request to be released came after Crumbley was convicted on four counts of involuntary manslaughter for the shooting son, Ethan, carried out on Nov. 30, 2021. The shooting at Oxford High School killed Tate Myre, 16; Justin Shilling, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and injured seven others. Her husband, James Crumbley, was later convicted on the same charges.

Crumbley’s attorney, Michael Deszi, filed a motion in the Oakland County Circuit Court on Thursday, arguing that Crumbley is not a “flight risk” and “poses no danger to the public.”

“This case has been bungled starting with the prosecution’s overreaching charge of involuntary manslaughter of a parent for the intentional criminal acts of her son who was charged and treated as an adult in the eyes of the law,” Deszi wrote in the court filing. 

JENNIFER CRUMBLEY TRIAL: MICHIGAN JURY FINDS SCHOOL SHOOTER’S MOM GUILTY OF INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER

Deszi argued that Crumbley should not have to be locked up until her case reaches the Michigan Supreme Court.

“… It would be grossly unfair and unjust to keep Mrs. Crumbley locked up for years while this matter proceeds slowly — likely for years — before the appellate courts,” Dezsi wrote, noting she has already been locked up for more than three years.

MICHIGAN SCHOOL SHOOTER’S MOTHER JENNIFER CRUMBLEY CALLED SON AN ‘OOPSIE BABY,’ WITNESS SAYS

“Given the overtly tenuous nature of these charges, the prosecution should not reap the reward of a lengthy unlawful incarceration before the Michigan Supreme Court can hear and decide this case,” he said.

In a statement on Thursday, Oakland County’s Chief Assistant Prosecutor David Williams said Jennifer Crumbley needed to stay locked up due to her actions – not the actions of her then-15-year-old son.

“Jennifer Crumbley was tried by a jury of her peers for her own actions and inactions leading to the shooting at Oxford High School — not for the actions of her son,” he said.

MICHIGAN MOM ON TRIAL FOR SON’S DEADLY SHOOTING MASSACRE RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT PARENT CULPABILITY IN SHOOTINGS

“A jury of 12 individuals listened to testimony and reviewed countless pieces of evidence before they unanimously found her guilty as charged, and she was sentenced by the judge accordingly,” he said. “This was an egregious set of facts that resulted in a conviction along with a 10-15-year prison sentence.”

The Crumbley parents made history as the first parents to be convicted for a mass shooting committed by their child.

Jennifer was sentenced to serve between 10 and 15 years in prison after an Oakland County courtroom heard evidence arguing the now-46-year-old neglected her son’s cries for help over the years leading up to the shooting. 

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She and James also showed up at Oxford High on the same day Ethan shot people in the hallways to discuss violent images the then-15-year-old drew on a worksheet in class with school administrators, but they left and went back to work shortly afterward. 

Earlier this month, Jennifer Crumbley asked the court to overturn her conviction or grant her a new trial.

Agency accused of censoring, ‘blacklisting’ Americans officially forced to shut down

The State Department’s foreign disinformation center, accused by conservatives of censoring U.S. citizens, shut its doors due to lack of funding this week. 

Elon Musk had deemed the Global Engagement Center (GEC), established in 2016, the “worst offender in U.S. government censorship & media manipulation,” and its funding was stripped as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Pentagon’s yearly policy bill. 

“The Global Engagement Center will terminate by operation of law [by the end of the day] on December 23, 2024,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. “The Department of State has consulted with Congress regarding next steps.”

Lawmakers had originally included funding for the GEC in its continuing resolution (CR), or bill to fund the government beyond a Friday deadline. But conservatives balked at that iteration of the funding bill, and it was rewritten without money for the GEC and other funding riders.

The agency had a budget of around $61 million and 120 people on staff. 

At a time when adversaries like Iran and Russia sow disinformation throughout the world, Republicans saw little value in the agency’s work, arguing that much of its disinformation analysis is already offered by the private sector. 

The GEC, according to reporter Matt Taibbi, “funded a secret list of subcontractors and helped pioneer an insidious — and idiotic — new form of blacklisting” during the pandemic. 

Taibbi wrote last year when exposing the Twitter Files that the GEC “flagged accounts as ‘Russian personas and proxies’ based on criteria like, ‘Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,’ blaming ‘research conducted at the Wuhan institute,’ and ‘attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA.’” 

“State also flagged accounts that retweeted news that Twitter banned the popular U.S. website ZeroHedge, claiming that it ‘led to another flurry of disinformation narratives.'” ZeroHedge had made reports speculating that the virus had a lab origin.

The GEC is part of the State Department but also partners with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Special Operations Command and the Department of Homeland Security. The GEC also funds the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).

SPENDING BILL TO FUND STATE DEPARTMENT AGENCY ACCUSED OF CENSORING, BLACKLISTING AMERICANS

DFRLab Director Graham Brookie previously denied the claim that they use tax money to track Americans, saying its GEC grants have “an exclusively international focus.”

A 2024 report from the Republican-led House Small Business Committee criticized the GEC for awarding grants to organizations whose work includes tracking domestic as well as foreign misinformation and rating the credibility of U.S.-based publishers, according to the Washington Post. 

The lawsuit was brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, The Daily Wire and The Federalist, who sued the State Department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other government officials earlier this month for “engaging in a conspiracy to censor, deplatform and demonetize American media outlets disfavored by the federal government.”

The lawsuit stated that the GEC was used as a tool for the defendants to carry out its censorship. 

​​”Congress authorized the creation of the Global Engagement Center expressly to counter foreign propaganda and misinformation,” the Texas Attorney General’s Office said in a press release. “Instead, the agency weaponized this authority to violate the First Amendment and suppress Americans’ constitutionally-protected speech. 

STATE DEPARTMENT FUNDS ‘DISINFORMATION’ INDEX TARGETING NON-LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE NEWS OUTLETS: REPORT

The complaint describes the State Department’s project as “one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press in the history of the nation.’”

The lawsuit argued that The Daily Wire, The Federalist and other conservative news organizations were branded “unreliable” or “risky” by the agency, “starving them of advertising revenue and reducing the circulation of their reporting and speech — all as a direct result of [the State Department’s] unlawful censorship scheme.”

Meanwhile, America First Legal, headed up by Stephen Miller, President-elect Trump’s pick for deputy chief of staff for policy, revealed that the GEC had used taxpayer dollars to create a video game called “Cat Park” to “Inoculate Youth Against Disinformation” abroad. 

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The game “inoculates players … by showing how sensational headlines, memes, and manipulated media can be used to advance conspiracy theories and incite real-world violence,” according to a memo obtained by America First Legal. 

Mike Benz, executive director at the Foundation for Freedom Online, said the game was “anti-populist” and pushed certain political beliefs instead of protecting Americans from foreign disinformation, according to the Tennessee Star.

Chiefs great vows to pay Travis Kelce’s fine after record-breaking touchdown and tribute

Tony Gonzalez is a man of his word. 

Travis Kelce surpassed the Hall of Fame tight end to break the Kansas City Chiefs’ franchise record for touchdown receptions in the team’s Christmas Day win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. 

Kelce hauled in his 77th career receiving touchdown in the fourth quarter to put his name in the record books alongside Gonzalez. Paying tribute to the Chiefs’ great, Kelce then dunked the ball over the goal post. 

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The celebration drew a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, but it didn’t make a difference to veteran kicker Harrison Butker, who nailed the extra-point attempt. 

During Prime Video’s pregame broadcast, Gonzalez vowed to pay Kelce’s fine in the event that he emulated his famous touchdown celebration. 

“I am so happy for him. He is one of the best tight ends to ever do it on [and] off the field,” he said. “I’ve been following him since he was a rookie, and I’m not surprised by it. He is one of the greatest tight ends of all time. 

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“If he dunks it, I will pay that fine.”

Kelce responded to Gonzalez’s post on X celebrating the accomplishment and reminded him of the offer he made prior to the game. 

“​​You know I had to show love to the greatest of all time,” Kelce wrote. “You did mention you’d help me with the fine tho.”

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Gonzalez obliged, happily. 

“I got you!”

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‘Home Alone’ director puts to rest one of the movie’s biggest mysteries

“Home Alone” is a holiday classic that has left viewers with many questions over the years.

During a recent interview on The Hollywood Reporter’s “Awards Chatter” podcast, the film’s director, Chris Columbus, answered one of the internet’s most burning questions: What did the McCallister parents do for a living?

In the film, not only does the family live in a mansion in Chicago, but the parents, played by Catherine O’Hara and John Heard, are able to pay for a trip to Paris, for 15 people, including both their immediate and extended family members. Many fans of the film have been wondering, since the movie’s 1990 release, how the couple were able to afford everything.

“Back then, John and I had a conversation about it, and we decided on what the jobs were,” Columbus said. “We thought the mother, at the time, because we used mannequins in the basement — I do remember having a conversation — she was a very successful fashion designer. The father could have, based on John Hughes’ own experience, worked in advertising, but I don’t remember what the father did.”

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Columbus also dispelled the popular belief the dad worked in organized crime, explaining that “even though there was, at the time, a lot of organized crime in Chicago,” the father was definitely not involved.

The movie focuses on a large family who leave for a vacation to Paris, only to realize they have left behind their youngest son, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin). Kevin must then reconcile with being left behind, while also defending his home from burglars, played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.

“We thought the mother, at the time, because we used mannequins in the basement — I do remember having a conversation — she was a very successful fashion designer.”

— Chris Columbus

While “Home Alone” went on to become the movie child star Culkin is most known for, Columbus shared he wasn’t sold on casting him as the lead when he first signed on to the project. In the end, he conceded that Culkin “was obviously the right kid,” but that he had to get over “the ego” he had as a director to recognize it.

“This is why John Hughes was a great producer for a director, and I learned a lot from him,” Columbus explained. “He said, ‘Will you take a look at meeting Macaulay?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’d like to meet Macaulay, but I’d like to meet everyone else, too.’ I ended up meeting 300 other kids, too. Total colossal waste of time, because then I met Macaulay again, and it was magical.”

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Culkin, of course, would go on to be the ultimate child star of the 1990s, going on to star in the film’s sequel, “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” “My Girl,” “Richie Rich,” “The Pagemaster” and many others.

When it came to casting the other characters, Columbus said he knew the moment he saw Pesci and Stern onscreen together that they were the perfect duo. He also confirmed the rumor that legendary comedian Chris Farley was also up for a role in the movie.

“Farley was just starting out at the time,” Columbus said about inviting Farley to an audition. “This guy came in at 7 a.m. for our first reading for the guy who played Santa Claus in the movie. He was not in any particularly great shape. He had just come out from all night being in Chicago.”

Ultimately, Columbus said, “We had to say, ‘Well, not this time.’” He also shared that later in life, he and Farley became good friends and would often discuss his audition for the film.

In the interview, Columbus also shared how he came to direct the classic movie, explaining he was supposed to helm another Christmas classic, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” but his interactions with star Chevy Chase led him to pass on the opportunity.

“I’m asking him all these questions, and he was just dead and not interested and distracted,” Columbus said on the THR podcast. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is weird. For an actor who’s committing to this movie, he really doesn’t want to talk about it.’”

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He continued: “Then, 40 minutes into the conversation, he says the most surreal thing I’ve ever heard in a meeting, before or since. He said to me, ‘Wait a second, you’re the director?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I thought you were a drummer.’ I don’t even know what the hell that meant.”

A second meeting with the actor didn’t help persuade him, as Columbus shared that Chase ignored him throughout the dinner and “was like I wasn’t even involved in the film.” “Every time I brought up the film, he changed the subject,” he explained.

It was then that Hughes presented him with the opportunity to direct “Home Alone.” He also famously directed “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” “Gremlins” and “Mrs. Doubtfire.”

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Bowl game goes through six overtimes in five-hour contest that becomes instant classic

Bowl season is always crazy, but on the day after Christmas, college football fans saw something they had never seen before.

Thursday’s GameAbove Sports Bowl between Pittsburgh and Toledo took nearly five hours to finish because of a bowl game first.

The contest saw six overtimes, the most ever in a bowl game, en route to Toledo’s 48-46 victory.

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Overtime was established in college football in 1996, and it was just a month ago that we saw Georgia and Georgia Tech go to eight overtimes. The most in any game is nine from an Illinois-Penn State battle in 2021.

In the first half, Toledo was down 12-6 but scored two touchdowns in a 14-second span – a 67-yard pass and then a 40-yard pick-six – to take a 20-12 lead.

Pitt rallied to go up 30-20 at a point, but Pitt tied the game with just under five minutes to go in regulation.

Both teams scored field goals on their first overtime possession, and then they matched one another with field goals on their next. New overtime rules state that from the third overtime on, teams must convert two-point conversion plays.

Both teams converted on each of their first three tries, but in the sixth overtime, after Toledo hit their fourth-straight, Pitt’s pass fell incomplete.

In the fourth overtime, though, Toledo had actually celebrated twice. But their first stop was called back due to a penalty, and after thinking they stopped Pitt again, replay review reversed the call and continued the game. The Rockets got the victory anyway.

Toledo’s Tucker Gleason went 26-for-50 for 336 yards, two touchdowns and one interception while also rushing for a score. Junior Vandeross III had 12 catches for 194 yards and a touchdown.

Desmond Reid ran for 165 yards on 32 carries for Pitt in the losing effort.

Toledo is now 12-10 in their bowl game history; it was the fourth year in a row they made a bowl game.

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Pitt missed a bowl opportunity last year after taking home the 2022 Sun Bowl.

Roughly 1,000,000 Americans set to receive IRS tax rebates — what you need to know

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced plans to issue automatic payments to eligible taxpayers who didn’t claim the Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 tax returns.

IRS officials announced the move on Friday and said the payments will be made automatically before the end of December. It follows an analysis by the agency that found roughly 1 million taxpayers didn’t claim the pandemic-related credit in their 2021 return when they were eligible to receive it.

“The IRS continues to work hard to make improvements and help taxpayers,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel in a statement. “These payments are an example of our commitment to go the extra mile for taxpayers.”

“Looking at our internal data, we realized that one million taxpayers overlooked claiming this complex credit when they were actually eligible,” Werfel said. “To minimize headaches and get this money to eligible taxpayers, we’re making these payments automatic, meaning these people will not be required to go through the extensive process of filing an amended return to receive it.”

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Most of the taxpayers who were eligible for the Recovery Rebate Credit or for one or more stimulus payments (EIP), also known as stimulus payments, have already received those credits and payments. The credit and stimulus payments were created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The special payments announced by the IRS are for qualified taxpayers who filed a 2021 tax return with the data field for the Recovery Rebate Credit left blank or filled out as $0 when the taxpayer was, in fact, eligible for the credit.

Taxpayers who didn’t claim the credit, or a portion of it, on their 2021 tax return are expected to receive the payments from the IRS by late January 2025. The payment will be sent to the bank account listed on the taxpayer’s 2023 tax return or to their address of record.

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The amounts of the Recovery Rebate Credit that are set to be paid are variable based on several factors, though the maximum payment is $1,400 per individual. The IRS estimates that the total amount of payments to be distributed is roughly $2.4 billion.

The IRS will include a letter to taxpayers receiving their 2021 Recovery Rebate Credit payment. If a taxpayer has closed the bank account associated with their 2023 tax return since they filed, taxpayers don’t need to take any action as the bank will return the payment to the IRS, which will reissue the refund to the taxpayer’s address of record.

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There is also a deadline looming in the first half of 2025 for taxpayers who haven’t filed their 2021 tax returns, as they have to file the return by April 15 to still receive a Recovery Rebate Credit that they’re eligible for.

NHL legend’s wife sends signal after Trump says her husband should replace Justin Trudeau

Potential life-saving ‘miracle therapy’ that could ‘transform’ medical care for sick kids

Renowned visionary English physician William Harvey wrote in 1651 about how our blood contains all the secrets of life.

“And so I conclude that blood lives and is nourished of itself and in no way depends on any other part of the body as being prior to it or more excellent,” he wrote. “So that from this we may perceive the causes not only of life in general … but also of longer or shorter life, of sleeping and waking, of skill, of strength and so forth.”

Dr. Kevin Watt, team leader of the Heart Regeneration and Disease Laboratory at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne, Australia, understands this concept deeply. 

STEM CELL RESEARCH SHOWING NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR TREATING INFANT HEART DISEASE

He lives it every day, as he and his fellow researchers study and reprogram the potential of the blood to treat disease, specifically heart failure in children. 

Building on the work of Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan, who discovered that specialized cells could be reprogrammed back to immature stem cells, Watt and his collaborators have taken this work several steps further. 

They have used small molecules to turn these new stem cells from the blood into heart cells.

Small heart organoids are developed in the lab — which can then be injected into the failing hearts of children. 

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Relying on the philanthropic support of the Murdoch Institute, the work is progressing rapidly and has been shown to be effective already in mice, pigs and sheep.

“The vision of our research is to develop new therapies that can transform the lives of children with heart failure.”

Clinical trials in humans will be starting soon, and as Dr. Watt told me in an interview from Australia, “Large sheets of heart tissue will be stitched into the failing heart.” 

Congenital heart failure as well as side effects of chemotherapy in children will be targets for this miracle therapy. Millions of children around the world suffer daily from these conditions. 

Watt said that certain chemotherapy (anthracyclines) have a higher risk of heart failure – up to 15% of the time – and this treatment may be useful to protect the heart.

Watt said, “Heart failure remains an urgent, unmet clinical challenge across the world. While we have made significant advances over several decades in managing the disease, we lack targeted therapies to treat these devastating conditions.”

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He added, “More than 500,000 children around the world live with advanced heart failure that requires transplantation. The vision of our research is to develop new therapies that can transform the lives of children with heart failure.”

To achieve this, he said, “we use a technology called induced pluripotent stem cells, where we can convert blood or skin cells of patients with heart failure into stem cells that we then turn into heart cells … or even make engineered heart tissues that can be stitched onto the patient’s heart to help it pump.” 

The cells that are targeted in the blood are known as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). 

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They are “pushed back in time to an earlier time before they became differentiated into heart or kidney cells,” he said. 

Then they can be pushed forward to become healthy heart cells or mutations — or other abnormalities can be corrected.

While the team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute is making heart cells from stem cells in the blood for clinical use, it’s also using these stem cells to figure out new drugs to treat heart failure directly.  

Said Watt, “Using stem cells from patients with heart failure caused by chemo, we are actively developing new drugs and cell-based treatments that we believe will transform the lives of patients with these conditions … Our research group has pioneered methods to turn these stem cells into miniature heart tissues that can be used to model disease-in-a-dish, to identify new drug targets for the development of new therapies.”

These treatments are personalized and highly expensive, but they’re also highly effective. 

Correcting heart failure in young children is only a few years away from becoming a reality. 

It’s a Christmas miracle that relies on the kind of philanthropic support that MCRI is famous for arranging.

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“Philanthropic support plays a critical role in accelerating the development of these new, transformative treatments,” said Watt, “and this support will be essential as we work toward bringing stem cell-based precision therapies for heart failure to every child who needs it.” 

Visit go.fox/MCRI to donate or to learn more about MCRI’s important research.