Waukesha parade victims named including three members of Dancing Grannies group
Three members of the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies group are among five people dead after a US Christmas parade turned to tragedy.
The group had been performing in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on Sunday afternoon when Darrell E Brooks allegedly drove his Ford Escape into the parade.
Virginia Sorenson, 79, LeAnna Owen, 71, and Tamara Durand, 52, were killed along with Wilhelm Hospel, 81, whose wife Lola was part of the group.
The red SUV was seen seconds before it allegedly hit the parade. Pic: City of Waukesha/Facebook
Also killed was bank employee Jane Kulich, 52.
The Dancing Grannies had been founded in 1984 and usually performed 25 times a year, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The newspaper described the group as “an act…who with their pom-poms, sense of humour and moxie have entertained crowds across the area for decades”.
Mrs Sorenson, a nurse, was a 19-year veteran of the group and, with her husband, had three children and six grandchildren.
Mrs Durand, a former teacher who cared for her grandson four days a week so her daughter could attend nursing school, was making her debut with the group.
Five people died after the vehicle allegedly hit the Christmas parade. Pic: AP
Her husband David told the Journal Sentinel: “She danced her way through life
“She danced when there was no music. She always danced. That describes her personality.”
Ms Owen managed a 32-unit apartment complex and was described as someone who “didn’t have a mean bone in her body”.
On Facebook the group said its members were “devastated by the terrible tragedy”.
They added: “Our group was doing what they loved, performing in front of crowds in a parade putting smile on faces of all ages, filling them with joy and happiness.
“While performing, the grannies enjoyed hearing the crowds’ cheers and applause which certainly brought smiles to their faces and warmed their hearts.”
Those who died had been “extremely passionate Grannies” and were “the glue (that) held us together”, the post said.
Mr Hospel often helped the group, ferrying dancers to various performance venues and making sure everyone had what they needed.
And Ms Kulich was remembered in an online fundraising page as a “loving, beautiful, and charismatic mother, grandmother and friend to so many”.
A vigil was held on Monday night, as nine victims remain in hospital. Pic: AP
A vigil was held on Monday night, as a further nine victims – most of them children – remained in hospital, two of them in critical condition and seven listed as serious.
They were among almost 50 people injured in the incident.
Hundreds of people gathered at a park, holding candles, as volunteers handed out food and hot chocolate.
Amanda Medina Roddy, representing the Waukesha school district, said: “We are parents. We are neighbours. We are hurting. We are angry. We are sad. We are confused. We are thankful. We are all in this together. We are Waukesha strong.”
Darrell Brooks is likely to face five charges of intentional homicide. Pic: AP
Meanwhile, police revealed that Brooks, 39, had left the scene of a domestic disturbance before he allegedly drove into the parade.
Police had not been chasing him at the time, police chief Dan Thompson said, adding that the Milwaukee resident is likely to face five charges of intentional homicide.
Brooks remains in police custody.
Donald Trump has said he wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again.
Speaking at the White House as he held talks with the new South Korean president Lee Jae Myung, Mr Trump told reporters: “I’d like to meet him this year… I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong Un in the appropriate future.”
“I’d like to have a meeting. I got along great with him,” President Trump said, adding they “became very friendly” during his first term in office.
“We think we can do something in that regard,” he said, adding that he would like to help the relationship between the two Koreas.
Trump and Kim at the demilitarized zone in June 2019. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump and Mr Kim held three meetings between 2018 and 2019 during Mr Trump’s first term and exchanged a number of, what the president called, “beautiful” letters.
In June 2019, Mr Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) with South Korea.
The US president on Monday responded to a question about whether he would return to the DMZ by fondly recalling the last time he did so.
“Remember when I walked across the line and everyone went crazy?” especially the Secret Service, Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
But “I loved it”, Mr Trump said. He added he felt safe because he had a good relationship with Mr Kim.
Mr Trump met South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung at the Oval Office on Monday. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump became the first sitting American president to set foot on North Korean soil six years ago.
However, little progress was made in curbing North Korea’s nuclear programme, and Mr Trump acknowledged in March this year that Pyongyang is a “nuclear power”.
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Since Mr Trump’s first-term meetings with Mr Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.
The White House said in June that Mr Trump would welcome communications with Mr Kim.
The attempts at rapprochement come after the election in South Korea of Mr Lee, who has pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea.
As a gesture of engagement in June, Mr Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the DMZ along their shared border.
Analysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Mr Lee and Mr Trump than it was in the president’s first term.
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Since then, North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
And it has developed close ties with Russia through direct support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with Pyongyang providing both troops and weaponry.
Mr Kim told Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will always stand with Moscow, state media reported in June.
US rapper Lil Nas X has pleaded not guilty after being charged with assaulting a police officer while walking in downtown Los Angeles in his underwear.
The musician, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was taken to hospital and arrested after police responded to reports of a naked man shortly before 6am on Thursday.
The district attorney’s office said on Monday that Lil Nas X faces three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.
He was being held on a $75,000 (£55,457) bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet.
He is set to return to court on 15 September for his next pre-trial hearing.
Pic: AP
During the hearing on Monday, Hill’s lawyer Christy O’Connor told the judge he had led a “remarkable” life, adding: “Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”
A law enforcement source told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, on Thursday that the Old Town Road and Industry Baby hitmaker punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter.
The source added officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress.
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NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.
In the videos, Hill tells a driver to “come to the party” in one clip and in another tells the person: “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?”
“Uh oh, someone’s going to have to pay for that,” Hill says as he continues to walk away.
In some clips, Hill struts as if he’s on a catwalk, posing for onlookers, and at one point he places an orange traffic cone on his head.
A man who was wrongly deported from the US to El Salvador has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) again.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old originally from El Salvador, handed himself into the ICE field office in Baltimore, Maryland, for a check-in on Monday.
The visit was a mandatory condition of his release from federal custody earlier this weekend. However, in a court filing on Saturday, his lawyers said they expected Garcia would be detained again upon attending.
Garcia is charged in an indictment, filed in federal court in Tennessee, with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US.
An emotional Kilmar Abrego Garcia appears outside the ICE Baltimore field office on 25 August 2025. Pic: Reuters
According to a court filing by his lawyers, immigration officials made an offer to Garcia to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to the charges.
Otherwise, they would seek to deport him to Uganda.
Pics: Reuters
Speaking at a news conference outside the ICE office on Monday morning, Garcia said via a translator: “This administration has hit us hard, but I want to tell you guys something: God is with us, and God will never leave us.
“God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering.”
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Garcia’s lawyers, also said: “There was no need to take him into ICE detention… the only reason they took him into detention was to punish him.”
A judge later ruled Garcia could not be deported after he filed a challenge asking to be allowed due process to fight any removal attempt.
Judge Paula Xinis ruled the 30-year-old must remain detained in the US until she can hold an evidentiary hearing – set for Wednesday.
She added there appeared to be “several grounds” for her to have jurisdiction to exercise relief, including that Uganda has not agreed to offer Garcia protections, such as being able to walk freely, being given refugee status, and not being re-deported to El Salvador.
After initially being detained in Maryland – where he lived with his American wife and children – by ICE in March, Garcia was sent to El Salvador, where he was then imprisoned in the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
This was despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection from deportation after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.
Garcia was first detained by ICE in March. Pic: CASA/AP
The Trump administration admitted deporting Garcia was an “administrative error”, but said at the time they could not bring him back as they do not have jurisdiction over El Salvador.
After eventually returning him to the US in June, the Trump administration detained Garcia on criminal charges that were filed in May.
The criminal indictment alleges Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.
Minutes after his release on Friday, officials notified Garcia they intended to deport him to Uganda.
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Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and other officials claim Garcia was a member of MS-13 – an international criminal gang formed by immigrants who had fled El Salvador‘s civil war to protect Salvadoran immigrants from rival gangs.
Garcia’s lawyers strongly deny the claims.
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