Day: September 19, 2023

(NewsNation) — Last November, a North Carolina girl got off her school bus and vanished. The case has had many twists and turns, but as the anniversary of her disappearance approaches, there are still no answers to what happened to Madalina Cojocari.

Police in Cornelius, North Carolina, have been searching for Madalina for more than nine months. Her mother and stepfather have been charged with failing to report her missing because they waited three weeks before filing a police report. That report came only after the girl’s school demanded to see her.

Since NewsNation last reported on Madalina’s case, unsealed warrants have revealed new details about her mother’s trips to the mountains of Western North Carolina, recorded jail calls discussing bags of money, potential sightings of Madalina and a distant relative appearing in theories about the case.

This time of year, Madalina should be preparing for her first day of seventh grade. She should be picking out what to wear on the first day back and deciding how to style her hair.

New video of Madalina and the reminder of what the child should be doing right now are part of the latest efforts by Cornelius Police to keep the case on people’s minds.

We will be discussing this case in a livestream at 1 p.m. ET Thursday. Join the conversation by submitting a question on this page, and we’ll answer it during the stream!

“We’ll do anything and everything we can do to draw attention to this case so that we can hopefully find the information that we need to lead us to her,” said Cornelius Police Department Chief David Baucom.

In an exclusive interview with NewsNation, Baucom talked about the efforts to bring Madalina home.

“I can say with confidence that we have followed up on hundreds of leads and spent thousands of man-hours between our agency and all of our partner agencies,” he said.

The last images of Madalina are from Nov. 21, 2022, showing her getting off her school bus.

Police say Diana Cojocari, Madalina’s mother, told them she last saw her daughter on Wednesday night, Nov. 23, 2022. Diana and her husband, Christopher Palmiter, had an argument, and he drove to his family’s home in Michigan.

When Diana went to check on Madalina on Thanksgiving morning, she was gone. A backpack full of clothing and some of her favorite toys were also missing.

Both parents are facing charges for not reporting their daughter missing for three weeks.

In the latest development, two conflicting theories have begun to emerge about what happened to Madalina.

Brandon Roseman, Palmiter’s attorney, says his client has cooperated with police and believes Diana is hiding her daughter away.

“He told police on several occasions that he believes that Diana had taken Madalina somewhere into the mountains,” Roseman said. “He told detectives specifically that he believes Diana took her somewhere and that she is safe.”

What reason could Diana have for hiding her daughter away?

Palmiter says Diana believed that he was putting Madalina in danger by naming her as a beneficiary on an investment account.

“In these interviews he gave to police, he’s adamant that he does not believe Diana harmed Madalina. He believes that Diana fervently believes that Madalina is in danger from some unknown third party, apparently related to him placing money and assigning benefits to her in a 401K account, something that doesn’t make any sense,” Roseman said.

According to police, in a text message from Dec. 2, 2022, more than a week after Madalina’s disappearance, Diana indicated she was in the presence of the missing girl.

That was the same day she allegedly had extensive conversations with a male cousin, identified as Octavian Cebanu, about smuggling her and Madalina away from Palmiter.

On Dec. 3, 2022, Diana was seen in Hickory, North Carolina, an hour west of her home, getting her oil changed. An attendant said there were children’s toys in the car, but no child was present.

The warrant states that on Dec. 4, 2022, Diana traveled toward the North Carolina mountains. A local TV station reported that a sheriff’s deputy found Diana sleeping in her car that night near Lonesome Mountain.

Police have asked any witnesses who saw Diana or her Prius in the area around that time to come forward.

NewsNation traveled to the mountains of Western North Carolina to investigate a possible sighting of Madalina, the description matching her and a male relative.

On Dec. 16, 2022, a woman reported seeing a girl resembling Madalina with a male companion at a Lowes grocery store in Sugar Mountain, North Carolina.

“There was a possible sighting at the Lowes Foods here in Sugar Mountain. We were able to track down video-still footage of that and forwarded that to Cornelius,” said Sugar Mountain Police Department Chief Casey Turbyfill.

Police said the sighting, along with another one in California, did not turn out to be Madalina.

But the area is vast, and outdoor experts say it would be easy to stay hidden.

“There’s a lot of remote locations here. It would be easy to hide somebody if you really wanted to. Or to spend time away from anything you want,” said local store owner Mark Russ.

“There’s just a lot of open space. A lot of places without internet or cell phone signal. A lot of woods. A lot of roads that go way off and dead end,” resident Jon Council said. 

Affidavits also revealed recorded jail calls. One was between Palmiter and his brother, saying Diana had a lot of cash with her, and he didn’t know where it came from.

Another call was between Diana and her mother, discussing a bag of money, withdrawing cash and a theory that Palmiter gave Madalina away for money.

Diana’s mother repeated the claim, speaking in Russian to reporters outside the courthouse.

“My children were caught up by child traffickers. My granddaughter is alive. She was sold along with Diana for $5 million,” Rodica Cojocari said.

Warrants show police have combed through the couple’s financial records as well as social media, messaging accounts and phone data.

Cornelius police declined to give details, only saying they are looking into every lead.

“We’re taking everything that the grandmother has said into consideration during this investigation, and we’re following up on all possibilities,” Baucom said. “But we have no indication right now that there’s any sort of trafficking ring in our community.”

Both Palmiter and Diana Cojocari have pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to report a missing child.

Palmiter was released on Aug. 18, 2023, after posting a reduced bail of $25,000, ignoring questions from reporters.

Baucom has pledged his department won’t give up on the search.

“I’m confident we will solve this case, and we will find Madalena,” he said.

Diana Cojocari remains in jail, with a bond set at $250,000.

“Net-zero” financing commitments from banks and asset managers should align with goals to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius and be backed by “credible” metrics and targets, the U.S. Treasury said on Tuesday.

The Treasury released the new, voluntary principles as world leaders, celebrities and business moguls, converged on Manhattan to focus attention on the climate crisis during the U.N. General Assembly week.

The nine principles aim to promote consistency, credibility and transparency across net-zero pledges by financial institutions.

Among them, the Treasury prescribed that financial institutions should practice “transition finance” that can support decarbonization in high-emitting sectors that are difficult to abate. This includes providing financing, investment, or advisory services to support “a managed and accelerated transition from high-emitting to zero- or near-zero-emissions assets.”

Examples of this would be to phase out coal-fired power plants before the end of their useful lives, to be replaced with wind or solar power, the Treasury said.

Institutions also should bring their clients’ and portfolio company investments into line with temperature limits. U.S. Treasury officials told reporters that this goal can fit in with institutions’ fiduciary responsibilities to clients.

The Treasury also announced that several philanthropic groups have pledged $340 million to help develop research, data and technical resources intended to help financial institutions develop and execute “robust, voluntary net-zero commitments.”

The funding will also support work to facilitate the transition planning efforts of non-financial sectors of the economy, the Treasury said.

Groups included in these commitments include the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Climate Arc, ClimateWorks, Hewlett Foundation, and Sequoia Climate Foundation.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a group of top finance CEOs, including BlackRock’s (BLK.N) Larry Fink and HSBC’s (HSBA.L) Noel Quinn that They help set “shared expectations for net-zero commitments.”

“Following the principles is, of course, voluntary, but many of those in this room are taking or have already taken actions consistent with some of the best practices they

highlight,” Yellen said. “And for those that haven’t, we think they can be useful in clarifying what to consider.”

She said in excerpts of remarks to be delivered later on Tuesday that there would be $3 trillion in global investment opportunities associated with the transition to net zero each year between now and 2050.

Mark Carney, the U.N.’s Special Envoy for Climate Action, endorsed the principles as aligning with the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero’s own planning framework.

He said in a statement that encouraging financial institutions to consider climate solutions to decarbonize existing businesses, “will help investment flow where it needs to get the entire economy to net zero,”

“This will strengthen growth, create jobs, and reduce energy prices – all while lowering emissions,” Carney added.

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The U.S. House of Representatives voted 393-27 on Tuesday to send its version of a sweeping bill setting policy for the Pentagon to conference with the Senate, paving the way for negotiations to narrow the deep divide between the two chambers over issues like abortion access and diversity initiatives.

The massive bill – this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA – authorizes a record $886 billion in military spending. It typically passes both congressional chambers in a largely bipartisan way.

But this year, the Republican-controlled House passed its version of the bill by a narrow 219-210 majority, with Democrats voting no after hard-right Republicans added amendments addressing hot-button social issues such as a repeal of a Pentagon policy of reimbursing expenses for service members who travel to obtain an abortion.

The broad support to send the measure to conference reflected many Democrats’ hope that a conference with the Democratic-majority Senate would yield a more moderate NDAA.

The Senate passed its version of the bill, without such provisions, by 86-11.

Representatives from the two chambers will now conference in order to iron out differences between the two versions of the legislation and write a final bill. That in turn must pass both chambers before being sent to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law or veto.

The NDAA, which is separate from the appropriations bills setting government spending levels, governs everything from pay raises for the troops – this year’s will be 5.2% – to purchases of ships and aircraft to policies such as support for Ukraine.

It is one of the few major pieces of legislation that Congress passes every year, having become law annually since 1961.

Former U.S. Congressman Stephen Buyer was sentenced to 22 months in prison on Tuesday for trading on inside information he learned in 2018 as a consultant to T-Mobile US Inc (TMUS.O) ahead of its $23 billion merger with Sprint.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in New York sentenced Buyer, who was found guilty on four counts of securities fraud at a trial in March. Buyer was a Republican from Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives between 1993 and 2011 before working as a corporate consultant.

Prosecutors said at trial that Buyer bought Sprint stock after learning from a T-Mobile executive that the telecommunications companies were in merger talks in 2018 and made illegal trades again the following year.

According to prosecutors, Buyer made more than $100,000 from the Sprint trades and more than $200,000 from buying stock in Navigant Consulting Inc. before it was acquired by Guidehouse in 2019.

Buyer took the stand at trial and denied trading on inside information. He has said he plans to file an appeal.

Prosecutors sought three years in prison for Buyer in court filings, saying that he had abused his clients’ trust and lied on the stand.

Buyer asked to be sentenced to home confinement, citing his service in Congress and the U.S. military.

The case is U.S. v. Buyer, No. 22-00397, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

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A roadmap and guide to help all New York State schools transition their gas-guzzling bus fleets to electric was released by New York Governor Kathy Hochul last Friday.

The roadmap, the New York State Electric School Bus Roadmap, and the guide, The Electric School Bus Guidebook, are the state’s newest resources that provide school districts and bus operators with the technical and financial assistance required to remove vehicles that use fossil fuel from service. The roadmap and guide focus on high-need school districts.

Last April, New York became the first state in the nation to pass a school bus electrification mandate. The state has the largest school bus fleet in the country — with more than 45,000 traditional school buses that comprises 10% of the nation’s total fleet.

The release of the electric school bus roadmap and guidebook are part of the state’s requirements for all new school buses sold in New York State to be zero emission by 2027, and to have all school buses on the road be zero emission by 2035. The state is aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050. 

Hochul stated that in an attempt to lead the way in the fight against climate change, the state must address the ways that transportation contributes to issue.

The transportation sector contributes 30% of New York State’s greenhouse gas emissions, which is roughly the same amount that transportation in New York City contributes, according to past city reports.

“Providing the tools for school districts to swap out diesel and gas school buses with zero-emission bus fleets will help students and their communities across the state breathe cleaner air and enjoy a healthier way of life,” Hochul stated.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has produced both the guidebook and the roadmap.

Doreen Harris, president of the NYSERDA, stated that “our roadmap and guidebook will provide school districts and bus operators with the latest information to enhance their fleets with zero-emission buses through proper planning, purchasing, and financing.”

The New York State Electric School Bus Roadmap is an overview of the key challenges, costs, funding mechanisms, and policy options to transition all school buses in the state to a zero-emission fleet by 2035. The roadmap points to both battery-powered and hydrogen fuel cell-powered electric buses as ones that meet the definition of zero-emission buses.  

Currently, only battery-powered buses are available for school districts and bus operators. The roadmap could potentially include hydrogen fuel cell-powered buses as the market develops, according to the NYSERDA.

The roadmap states that it will cost around an estimated $780 million to transition 3,000 vehicles to electric school buses by 2027. Both federal and state funding are expected to be available to support this transition, and most of these costs can be covered by federal and state funding sources, especially for high-need school districts.

The Electric School Bus Guidebook will likewise provide the benefits, costs, and challenges of transition to electric school buses, but also provide details on utilities such as bus chargers and equipment, manufacturers, and operators that school districts can use. The guidebook also details vehicle choice, procurement, and fleet planning options.

The guidebook ensures that “electric school buses can meet the bus route needs of most schools, which have an average bus route of 80 miles per day.” 

The state plans to update the roadmap every three years to reflect changing zero-emission school bus market conditions, according to the announcement made on Friday. The state will add additional information to the main guidebook to cover best practices for bus routing, safety, workforce development, and technician training. 

  

Both the roadmap and guidebook pinpoint critical factors and decisions that school districts and bus operators face when considering clean bus options. Zero-emission buses include both battery electric buses and hydrogen fuel cell buses that are expected to be available for purchase in New York State in the coming years. Both types of buses eliminate diesel and gasoline fumes that can drift into, and then linger within buses – negatively impacting air quality and child health. 

A $500 million investment towards the Public School Bus Electrification Program from the Environmental Bond Act is supporting the transition to electric school bus fleets in New York State.

Those in support of the announcement include the New York School Bus Contractors Association, the New York Association for Pupil Transportation, and the World Resources Institute, and several elected officials including State Senators Kevin Parker, Shelley Mayer, and Timothy Kennedy.

Assemblymember Didi Barrett acknowledged in a statement that the roadmap and guidebook are “welcome tools” for rural school districts across the state who have expressed concerns about the challenges of electrifying their school buses. 

New York Power Authority’s CEO Justin Driscoll stated that the roadmap and guide will answer many of the important questions that school districts will have as they start transitioning. 

“At the Power Authority, we are preparing to assist public fleets, including school districts, in procuring and installing necessary electric bus and vehicle charging infrastructure,” Driscoll stated.

Betty Rosa, the state’s education commissioner, reiterated the need to improve the environment by reducing air pollution, especially in underserved communities where the issue disproportionately impacts its residents.

“Zero-emission school buses not only improve the environment for our students, they also promote the importance of sustainability and clean energy,” Rosa stated. “We are confident that this guide can be a helpful resource to mitigate some of the challenges associated with this worthwhile endeavor for our schools and districts across the state.”