KEYT, CNN

By Josh Campbell, Michelle Watson, CNN

(CNN) — The multi-state hunt for Melodee Buzzard, a missing 9-year-old California girl, came to a close when her remains were discovered in a rural area of southern Utah, authorities announced Tuesday.

Members of the sheriff’s office and the FBI arrested Ashlee Buzzard, Melodee’s mother, Tuesday morning on a charge of first-degree murder, Santa Barbara County Sheriff-Coroner Bill Brown said Tuesday.

Authorities say she deliberately tried to hide her steps, such as backing a rental car at gas stations in an attempt to avoid detection by their surveillance cameras.

The body was initially discovered by a couple who were taking photos in a remote part of Wayne County, Utah, Brown said.

The remains couldn’t be immediately identified, he said, but “it was apparent that the decedent was a female who had died from gunshot wounds to the head.”

But DNA analysis found it was a familial DNA match to Melodee’s mother, he added.

“We have recovered a significant amount of evidence that clearly indicates that this heinous crime was committed by Ashlee Buzzard, Melodee’s mother, and the very person upon who she relied upon and trusted the most in this world,” Brown said at a news conference.

CNN is attempting to determine whether Buzzard has an attorney.

Investigators do not have the murder weapon and it’s unclear as to the motive of the killing as Ashlee is “uncooperative,” authorities said Tuesday.

Melodee’s paternal grandmother Lilly Denes told CNN affiliates KEYT and KSBY earlier Tuesday the sheriff’s office informed her Melodee’s body had been discovered.

CNN has reached out to the grandmother, who declined to comment because she was on her way to the news conference.

Brown went through a timeline on Tuesday that explained what led investigators to Melodee’s body.

Melodee was last seen October 9

Buzzard went on a road trip with her 9-year-old daughter on October 7, when surveillance footage captured the girl at a local car rental agency dressed in what seemed to be a disguise, authorities said.

Melodee was wearing a hoodie pulled over her head and “what appears to be a wig that is darker and straighter than her natural hair,” the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s previously Office said. “Investigators believe the wig may have been used to alter her appearance.”

The rental car traveled through Nebraska, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Kansas before returning home to Lompoc, about 55 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, authorities said.

At some point along the trip, Ashlee switched the license plates on the vehicle she had rented to a New York plate, Brown said Tuesday.

“Investigators have confirmed that Ashlee was seen returning to her Lompoc residence on Octo

By Tami Luhby, CNN

(CNN) — Some Medicare enrollees may soon be able to access super-popular drugs for obesity under a voluntary model program, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Tuesday. Eligible beneficiaries will have to pay only $50 a month.

Medicare is currently banned by law from covering medications for weight loss, but the administrations of President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden have argued GLP-1 drugs are crucial to addressing chronic diseases.

The Trump administration recently negotiated a deal with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to provide their weight loss drugs to Medicare at a discounted rate. The model — titled Better Approaches to Lifestyle and Nutrition for Comprehensive hEalth, or BALANCE — aims to improve beneficiaries’ health through greater access to these medications in their Medicare Part D drug plans, along with lifestyle supports, while controlling costs for patients and taxpayers.

The effort builds upon the administration’s goal of “democratizing access to weight-loss medication, which has been out of reach for so many in need,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, CMS administrator, said in a statement. It pairs “breakthrough science with healthy living to cut costs while empowering Americans to take control of their health,” the statement said.

CMS will negotiate prices with the GLP-1 drug makers to provide lower prices under both Medicare and Medicaid, which is administered by states. The negotiations will also cover eligibility criteria for beneficiaries.

Participation will be voluntary for manufacturers, states and Medicare Part D insurers, the agency said.

State Medicaid agencies can join the model in May 2026, and Part D plans in January 2027. But Medicare beneficiaries should be able to access GLP-1s by July through a separate short-term demonstration program. The test will end in December 2031.

The Biden administration last year proposed reinterpreting the law to allow coverage for the treatment of obesity as a chronic disease. Trump administration officials halted that effort earlier this year.

Last month, the Trump administration announced an agreement that calls for eligible Medicare enrollees to pay $50 for certain GLP-1 medications approved for obesity and diabetes and for Medicare to pay $245 for the drugs, which will help pay for the expanded coverage.

Under the agreement, consumers who are overweight and have prediabetes or who have had a stroke or other cardiovascular disease will be eligible, as will those who have obesity and diabetes or uncontrolled high blood pressure and severe obesity.

About 10% of Medicare enrollees would be eligible for expanded access under the deal, senior administration officials said. Medicare already covers certain weight loss drugs if they are also approved to treat certain medical conditions.

The Trump administration noted that the price reductions will make the expansion cost-neutral, while the Biden administration did not include price cuts. The Biden proposal was estimated to cost Medicare $25 billion over a decade.

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk also agreed to provide the GLP-1 medications at lower prices to state Medicaid programs, though the timing will depend on negotiations with each state. Sixteen state Medicaid programs reported covering GLP-1s for obesity as of October 1, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy think tank. However, some states, such as North Carolina and Michigan, have announced they are dropping or restricting coverage bec

VENTURA COUNTY, Calif.—Laurie Bennett’s backyard burned in the mountain fire last year, but now she’s bracing for potential flooding.

“When it rains, whether we had, you know, fire or not, the water pools down here. And then inundates the driveway. So going to try to mitigate that,” said Laurie Bennett.

The Ventura County Fire Department says parts of the county like Ojai may see up to 12 inches of rain.

“One of the things that we can see sometimes is that drainage systems can become overwhelmed. We can see drainage systems that get clogged. And so even areas that may not be typical to see flooding, we might see roadways or other areas flooded because of the volume of rain and how quickly. So it's really important that everybody in our community has a plan and is prepared for what to do. In the case of flooding,” said Ventura County Fire Spokesman Andrew Dowd.

 Ventura County Fire has staffed an additional 50 firefighters, and they have a swift water team on standby.
 
The Oxnard Fire Department also has a swift water rescue team ready.
 
“It's very important to not cross waterways that may be flooded. Six inches of moving water can knock a person off their feet, and 12in of water can sweep away a car,” said Dowd.
 
It’s not just water that’s an issue. strong winds can knock down trees and even power lines.

“If you see power lines down, stay away and call 911. Even though those power lines may not be energized, they can re-energize at any time,” said Dowd.

An extra aviation unit, dispatchers, two hand crews, and heavy equipment operators with bulldozers have been put in place.

For more information regarding emergency updates visit www.vcemergency.com

The post Ventura County Firefighters brace for powerful storms appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Katelyn Polantz, CNN

(CNN) — The Justice Department’s leadership asked career prosecutors in Florida to volunteer over the “next several days” to help redact the Epstein files, in the latest Trump administration push toward releasing the hundreds of thousands of photos, internal memos and other evidence around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

A supervising prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida’s US Attorney’s Office emailed the entire district office on Tuesday — two days before Christmas — announcing an “emergency request from the [Deputy Attorney General’s] office the SDFL must assist with,” according to a copy of the email reviewed by CNN. “We need AUSAs to do remote document review and redactions related to the Epstein files,” the email said.

The email raises the possibility of more Epstein files being released over the coming days, including the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. It also underlines the public and political backlash the Justice Department has faced since the deadline passed on Friday to release all documents in the federal government’s possession, as mandated by an act of Congress calling for transparency around Epstein files. The Justice Department acknowledged it had not gotten through redacting many of the files by Friday and has continued to release documents this week.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to questions from CNN about the email on Tuesday.

The Christmas-week request, from a top career prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office, attempts to entice volunteer attorneys to work on the files now, in exchange for days off later. It’s also possible that the call for volunteers frustrates busy career Justice Department employees after a year of departures and firings across the ranks by Trump administration leadership, as well as several in-court incidents that have hurt the department’s reputation in the legal community.

“I am aware that the timing could not be worse,” the US Attorney’s Office leadership wrote on Tuesday. “For some the holidays are about to begin, but I know that for others the holidays are coming to an end.”

The Justice Department was using hundreds of lawyers at its headquarters, especially national security specialists, to process the files over the past month, picking up a project the FBI and other agencies had worked on in slivers previously. The Tuesday request appears to seek to add lawyers to the project, more than a month after Congress passed the transparency act and President Donald Trump signed it into law.

The redaction guidelines provided by the department have been described by some sources familiar with them as being as being confusing or overly cautious on what is being redacted.

And the department also failed to meet the deadline, only releasing on Friday a portion of the files — many of which had already been in the public domain. Overnight, the Department released nearly 30,000 more records that contained many more new documents such as a prosecutor email noting Trump’s name on flight logs found in the criminal investigation of Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, and the paperwork documenting investigative subpoenas and interviews in 2019 through 2021, whe

VENTURA, Calif. (KEYT) – The Ventura County Emergency Office issued an evacuation order for Ventura Beach alongside warnings for several other areas starting at 6:00 p.m. today due to upcoming storms.

Warnings for the Mountain Fire burn scar, the area of Matilija Canyon/North Fork/Camino Cielo and the communities of Camp Chaffee/Foster Park paired with the beach order are in affect until 6:00 p.m. Christmas Eve, according to the VC Emergency Office.

A hazardous weather advisory is also underway until 6:00 p.m. Christmas Eve for Creek Road from Highway 33 East to Encino Drive where the VC Emergency Office advises extreme caution driving during the storm.

A map for affected areas is available on the VC Emergency website.

The post Ventura County Emergency Office issues evacuation order for Ventura Beach, warnings elsewhere appeared first on News Channel 3-12.