At least one person was injured after a rare tornado hit a city just southeast of Los Angeles Wednesday, local officials said.

The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado “briefly touched down” in an industrial park and warehouse district in the city of Montebello and rated the tornado an EF-1 with estimated peak winds of 110 mph – the strongest tornado to hit the Los Angeles area since 1983.

The “intense microcell” damaged at least 17 buildings, 11 so severely the fire department deemed them too dangerous to use, according to Michael Chee, a city public information officer.

“There was flying debris and everything!!!!” tweeted one person who shared a video of the storm. The video zooms in on a mass of dark gray clouds consuming the sky and tapering down toward land.

The reported injury is considered minor, Chee said at a news conference.

The tornado collapsed one building’s roof, snapped a power pole, ejected an HVAC unit from the top of a building, broke skylights, damaged cars and uprooted a healthy pine tree with a 1-foot wide trunk, the weather service reported after assessing the storm damage in Montebello Wednesday.

Tornadoes are rare in California, with fewer than 10 per year on average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Most tornadoes in the state are small and short lived.

They are commonly referred to as landspouts (similar to a waterspout, but over land). These differ from more traditional tornadoes that form from rotating thunderstorms, like those common in the Central Plains and the Southeast. While landspouts can cause damage, it is generally not extensive or severe.

On Tuesday evening, a weak tornado hit a mobile home park in Carpinteria – a seaside city northwest of Los Angeles, the weather service confirmed Wednesday. The service rated it as an EF-0, with winds of 75 mph.

The tornado damaged 25 mobile home units in the Sandpiper Village mobile home park and caused minor tree damage to an adjacent cemetery.

Additional video of the Montebello storm shows a swirling cloud of black debris as the roof of a nearby building gets blown off. Vehicles can be seen with damage and shattered windows.

“The roof came off this building,” a witness says as he records a parking lot full of damaged vehicles.

“This is stuff you see in Ohio, Arkansas… Not Montebello,” another witness is heard saying.

Wednesday’s intense weather comes as California has been plagued in recent months by at least 12 atmospheric rivers that have brought devastating flooding and hurricane-force winds. An atmospheric river is like a fire hose that carries saturated air from the tropics to higher latitudes, dumping relentless rain or snow.

At least five people died due to the storm in the San Francisco Bay Area as fierce winds lashed cities on Tuesday, toppling trees and power lines. The city of San Francisco said its 911 call center had four times its normal call volume during the peak of the storm, which resulted in over 700 fallen trees and limbs and reports of glass and debris falling from high rise towers.

While other European train services are beset by striking workers, infrastructure costs and extreme weather, Dutch railways are facing a more unusual threat: Badgers.

Badgers are causing railway mayhem in the Netherlands, as they have burrowed under tracks, leaving many passengers facing delays.

The Netherlands is home to about 7,000 badgers. Local media has reported 40 locations across the country where badgers have potentially compromised the railway service, choosing inconvenient locations to build their or setts.

Train traffic has been halted, possibly for weeks, between two major southern cities, Den Bosch and Eindhoven, due to concerns that the badgers’ tunnels have weakened the ground under the tracks, Reuters news agency reported.

“A badger digs his home in sandy soil. That is why they like to settle in a railway embankment,” said a spokesperson in a statement for ProRail, the Dutch government organization that maintains the country’s railway network.

“But they have to get out,” the statement added. “The track is sinking because of the digging. That is not safe for train traffic. That is why there are no trains running between Workum and Stavoren at the moment.”

Workum and Stavoren are in the northern province of Friesland.

On Thursday morning, ProRail “built an artificial stronghold” in Molkwerum, a village located between Workum and Stavoren, as they try to tempt badgers into man-made setts built at a safe distance from the tracks.

ProRail also announced plans to “install a badger-resistant fence several kilometers long” to prevent further encroachments.

But the removal of the badgers will take time. According to Thursday’s statement, the badgers will get “a week of rest” to allow them to migrate to the new setts themselves “under the guidance of an ecologist.”

If the badgers do not migrate unassisted, ProRail announced they will begin excavation works on April 3.

A vet will be present to anesthetize any badgers that remain under the tracks. “These badgers (will) then temporarily taken to a shelter and then returned to the new artificial strongholds next to the railway,” the statement added.

The work will last until April 24. ProRail advised passengers to check travel planners for disruptions before using the rail service.

Some thrill seekers describe bungee jumping as a near-death experience, but few come quite as close as one man who managed to survive his cord snapping in Thailand.

Footage of the terrifying ordeal went viral this week after the 39-year-old tourist from Hong Kong went public with his story.

The tourist, who asked to use only his first name Mike to avoid online harassment, took a swan dive off of a 10-story-high podium in the town of Pattaya while on holiday in January this year.

Fortunately, the jump was made over a body of water. The bungee rope snapped milliseconds before Mike neared the bottom of his jump, slamming him into the water below.

His plunge was witnessed by friends who were with him at the Changthai Thappraya Safari and Adventure Park.

Located in the northwest of Pattaya, the amusement park offers activities ranging from ziplines to live-round shooting.

Mike said he originally went to the park to try out the firing range, but plucked up the courage to do a bungee jump after his friends dared him.

“It was really high so I closed my eyes. I planned to open my eyes again when I bounced back up,” said Mike. “I realized the cord had snapped when I opened my eyes and I was surrounded by water.”

He managed to resurface and swim despite his feet being tied together by the lower half of the snapped bungee cord.

“If the person doesn’t know how to swim, he or she will be in big trouble,” he said.

Mike said the park refunded the cost of his jump and paid for x-ray and ultrasound scans in Thailand.

Nithit Intim, founder of the park, confirmed the accident took place and said it was first time he had seen a cord snap.

Intim said Mike had signed a liability waiver before making the jump. He also sent a photograph of what he said was the signed waiver, as well as copies of the medical bills in Thailand.

“Our staff explained that if any mishap happens or any accident takes place, our company will compensate medical bills. But the client can’t demand for compensation on other kind of expenses,” Intim said.

He added that the park would be willing to pay any further direct medical expenses in Hong Kong if receipts were provided.

New Zealand thinks it’s time for its teenagers to say “thank u, next” to their exes and they’re spending millions to make it happen.

The campaign is being driven by New Zealand’s youth and what the government says they’ve identified as one of their key issues.

“Over 1,200 young kiwis told us they need support to deal with early experiences of love and hurt, and breakups were identified as a common challenge,” Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment Priyanca Radhakrishnan said in a statement.

“Breakups suck,” a promotional video for the campaign declares. The video features clips of teens talking about needing to block their exes and move on from their past relationships, with one saying: “This is getting ridiculous. This is getting so out of hand. I need to sleep at night. I need to get over her.”

Part of the campaign – which uses the tagline “own the feels” – includes a dedicated phone, text or email helpline for young people going through a breakup, run by Youthline, an organization dedicated to supporting people ages 12 to 24. Youthline is receiving a portion of the $4 million to support this expansion of its existing helpline service.

“This is an authentic way to inspire others to build their own strength, self-worth, and resilience,” Radhakrishnan said in the statement, noting the Love Better campaign’s approach leveraging social media and creating a community to address the impact of breakups has not been tried before.

“We know there can be very negative impacts from breakups done badly – both at a personal and community level,” Youthline’s chief executive Shae Ronald said, adding that relationship issues were one of the top reasons young people generally contacted the helpline, RNZ reported.

According to the Ministry of Social Development, a survey of 1,200 young New Zealanders found that 68% had experienced something bad “beyond the ‘normal’ hurt of breaking up.”

Radhakrishnan said the goal of the campaign is to support young people through “these formative experiences” in hopes of positively impacting how they approach future relationships.

The Love Better campaign is part of the government’s broader national strategy to eliminate family violence and sexual violence.

“New Zealand has shameful statistics of family and sexual violence and we need innovative approaches to break the cycle,” Radhakrishnan added.

According to the Ministry of Justice, each year, the New Zealand Police investigate more than 100,000 incidents of family violence.

In 2020, police received 9,723 reports of sexual violence and about half of the people who reported a sexual violence offense in New Zealand were under age 18 at the time of the incident, according to the Ministry of Justice.

A Russian soldier who allegedly shot a civilian in an extraordinary attack caught on camera by a Ukrainian drone is being accused of war crimes in absentia by the Ukrainian police.

The dossier of evidence against him includes phone calls between the soldier and his wife and friend intercepted during a months-long investigation into the Russian attack near the city of Izium last June.

Police identified the soldier as Klim Kerzhaev – a 25-year-old commander from Moscow, who served in the 2nd Motorized Rifle Division of the 1st Tank Army in the Western Military District. He is accused of the attempted murder of a civilian – a war crime under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

The attack was also captured on aerial footage by Ukrainian soldiers, who launched a unique rescue mission by attaching a piece of paper with the words “follow me” to a small drone – an operation which featured in a recent documentary by Ukrainian filmmaker Lyubomyr Levytsky.

In addition to the drone footage, Bolvinov said their investigation included forensic examinations of the vehicle and the scene – conducted after Izium was liberated by Ukrainian troops in September – along with evidence gathered by cyber police who tracked down the soldier’s social media accounts and phone calls.

Bolvinov said this is just one of hundreds of alleged Russian war crimes that his team are currently investigating in the Kharkiv region alone, including the discovery of hundreds of bodies in mass graves in Izium. He has more thant 900 investigators on his team, and most of their current work is focused on war crimes cases.

On Friday, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian official Maria Lvova-Belova – on the charge of illegally deporting thousands of Ukrainian children into Russia.

‘Their lives could have ended’

Last summer, married couple Valeria Ponomarova and Andrii Bohomaz were driving to Izium in Ukraine to help Bohomaz’s sick, elderly parents escape the Russian-held city.

The couple took a wrong turn and inadvertently strayed close to the frontlines where Russian troops were based, and their car was hit by incoming fire.

Ukrainian soldiers based nearby had spotted the incident from afar using a reconnaissance drone – which they dispatched closer to the scene to capture the extraordinary footage of the couple attempting to flee.

The video shows the couple abandoning the car to run to safety, but turning around when explosions landed too close to them. They were fired upon again, leaving Bohomaz badly injured. Ponomarova tried to move her husband behind the car and wrap towels around his wounds to stem the bleeding.

Russian soldiers were based around 30 meters (98 feet) away from the couple’s car, according to police, so it was too dangerous for Ukrainian troops to extract the couple.

So they sent the drone back after recharging it and attaching a white piece of paper to it with the words “follow me” – to guide Ponomarova to safer territory.

She saw a drone overhead, but wasn’t sure whose side it was on. “I turned and just fell on my knees and I just screamed with the most agonizing cry,” said Valeria Ponomarova. “I didn’t know [whose drone] it was. Our forces, or the enemy,” she later said during the documentary.

Ponomarova said she eventually followed the drone, thinking it was the only way to get help to her injured husband.

But soon after she left, a team of Russian soldiers approached the car on foot, and picked up the injured Bohomaz and threw him in a nearby ditch.

Miraculously, he survived.

‘Expletive-laden conversations’

The drone footage showed that Ponomarova didn’t see this happening behind her, as she continued on foot down the battle-scarred road, even stepping around lines of anti-tank mines.

When the soldiers successfully got Ponomarova to safety, they told her it wasn’t possible to return for her husband, as Russian troops were at the scene.

So far, one Russian soldier has been accused. In addition to the drone footage, the evidence compiled by Ukrainian investigators against him includes recordings of intercepted phone calls with his wife and a friend.

In one of the expletive-laden conversations, the soldier told his wife that he “f***ing killed a man today,” after firing on a car from his Soviet-era infantry fighting vehicle. Immediately after this, the soldier reverts back to casual conversation, asking his wife to “put some money on my phone today, okay?”

Bohomaz managed to pull himself out of the trench to seek help despite serious injuries.

“I heard that it was starting to rain and I began to shiver,” Bohomaz said in the “Follow Me” documentary. “After a night in the trench I came to my senses from the rain.”

“I understood that I had to get out somehow,” he added.

Bohomaz managed to limp to safety towards the Ukrainian position.

“It took about 30 or 40 minutes,” he said. “But I walked with stops, because I felt a lot of pain.”

Nine months since surviving the attack, Bohomaz is still in treatment for multiple shrapnel wounds to his brain, chest and spine.

“It’s a terrible crime,” Bolvinov said. “Their lives could have ended at this crossroads, but luckily they managed to survive.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated Klim Kerzhaev’s age. He is 25

During Guatemala’s violent, decades-long civil war, an estimated 200,000 people were killed. Among them was Brenda Lemus’s father, Bernardo Lemus Mendoza, a prominent academic and intellectual who spoke out against the government.

“There were many people who were fighting for their rights, who were being repressed,” Brenda Lemus said. “My father (fought for) … their right to an education and access to work. He was persecuted, he was exiled from the country many times, and he was ultimately assassinated.”

Lemus’s father grew up in poverty in the small rural town of Purulhá, several hours outside of Guatemala City. Despite the odds, she said he managed to graduate school and eventually become the financial director at the San Carlos de Guatemala University.

During the peace process, the Guatemalan government wanted to dignify the memory of those killed by the state. To commemorate Bernardo and his love of literature, the government donated 180 books to his family to start a library in his hometown. In 2011, the Bernardo Lemus Mendoza Library opened in Purulhá.

Lemus relocated her family there and dedicated herself to getting the library off the ground. Today, it serves as a beacon of hope and a center of learning for young people living in extreme poverty.

From the start, Lemus saw how the community was struggling in many ways.

“The community’s youth had a lot of needs, especially in education,” Lemus said. “But all the books that were given to us … were about the armed conflict. None of them were for kids or young people, and there were no schoolbooks at all.”

Children would arrive at the library looking for books so they could attend school and do their homework. Many families couldn’t afford school supplies. So, Lemus got schools to agree to donate books, and she started giving them to children in the community.

She also saw that students needed notebooks for class. Some were writing on crumpled, old, torn pieces of paper.

“It made me think about when I was younger, going to school and hiding my notebooks because I didn’t want to do my homework. I had everything. And yet here were a bunch of kids who had nothing, holding on to a rotten piece of paper to be able to take notes,” Lemus said. “That filled me with compassion for these kids. I wanted to help them as much as I could.”

Realizing that young people in Purulhá were growing up under similar conditions as her father had, Lemus wanted not only to address their needs but to help them break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

In 2012, she co-founded Yo’o Guatemala, a nonprofit whose name means “together we go.”

She began providing after-school programming and noticed many students had trouble focusing.

“I had to repeat the subjects often until one of the kids said to me, ‘Please, don’t repeat it to me again. I just can’t concentrate because I’m so hungry,’” Lemus said. “We realized that many of our kids were malnourished, some chronically, and it was impossible for them to focus on anything else.”

Her organization started a nutrition program for more than 40 families suffering from chronic malnutrition and has since expanded, providing extensive literacy, health, and community building programs.

“My goal with all of this is to make sure the kids in this community get a proper education, eat well, and get ahead with the same opportunities as if they were my own kids or yours,” Lemus said. “We are dignifying the memory of my father, and we are dignifying the lives of the children of Purulha.”

Brenda Lemus: In Purulhá, girls stop studying very early, get pregnant, get married, and the cycle repeats itself. It’s a cycle of poverty that seems endless; it’s like a spiral that takes them to the bottom. We want to break (that) through education.

Parents usually reject sending their daughters to school because they help mom at home. The girls don’t perform the same as boys in school because it’s different: The boy goes to school, and when he leaves, he goes to play soccer. The girl goes to school, and comes home to cook, take care of siblings, wash clothes. And so she drops out of school because she doesn’t do her homework. Of course she doesn’t do her homework because she has too much of a burden at home. The girls have the entire burden, and it isn’t easy.

We currently have 10 girls in our residency. The girls come on Mondays, leaving on Fridays. They spend weekends at home. We are in charge of everything with respect to them during that time. And we give the opportunity to the girls who are much more vulnerable when it comes to dropping out of school. I’m convinced that by giving the girls an integral educational opportunity, with quality, we can break the cycle of poverty.

Lemus: We began a daycare program for children. We receive them very early because most of their mothers work in the local market. We give them a warm breakfast. We give them all the stimulation that they should have according to their age, but we teach the children to be independent.

They are usually the youngest in their house and the last in the food chain, so they have to fight for a piece of bread. We teach them to wash their dishes, to clean up if they spilled. We give them pediatric check-ups with vitamins, taking care that they don’t get sick. They become very independent children who then excel.

Lemus: The eco-brick program has a special magic because it is the education of the children, by the children, through garbage. Children whose parents are unable to buy them school supplies have the opportunity to recycle materials such as non-recyclable aluminum or single-use plastics, encapsulating them in PET bottles forever.

The children collect garbage, clean the environment, recycle, and they receive school supplies as the tradeoff – for 10 eco-bricks, they have their full list of school supplies. If they deliver five more bricks, they get to take a brand-new backpack. With (the eco-bricks), schools are built in other parts of Guatemala by volunteers who come from the United States.

The value and dignity of the hard work they do is instilled in all the children. They provide their community with cleanliness and sanitation through recycling; this gives them dignity. The children come here in hopes of being able to finish their studies without dropping out. But they earn it with pure, hard work. This has allowed youth to have better opportunities for more dignified paid jobs.

Want to get involved? Check out the Yo’o Guatemala website and see how to help

To donate to Yo’o Guatemala via GoFundMe, click here

Argentine goalkeeper Leandro Requena scored one of the most outrageous goals you are ever likely to see during his Cobresal side’s 3-1 win over Colo-Colo in Chile’s top soccer league.

With his team already leading 2-0 in the 77th minute, Requena took what initially looked like a fairly innocuous goal kick.

However, with Colo-Colo goalkeeper Brayan Cortés well outside of his penalty area, the ball bounced over his head and towards goal.

To add to his embarrassment, Cortés stumbled as he tried in vain to chase the ball as it crossed the line.

According to TNT Sports Chile, the goal was scored from a distance of 101 meters which, if ratified by Guinness World Records, would break the record for the longest range goal in history.

The current record is 96.01 meters, set by Tom King in 2021 during a match between Newport County and Cheltenham Town in England’s fourth tier.

“I asked Juan Silva, the club’s manager, if the request for the record application was really going to be made and he told me ‘obviously yes,’” Requena told Radio Bio Bio.

El primer gol arco a arco del #CampeonatoBetsson

Así fue la anotación de Leandro Requena desde su propia puerta y que dejó a Brayan Cortés quieto, provocando el error del portero albo en el #CSLvsCCxTNTSports. pic.twitter.com/HDL2K22QnS

— TNT Sports Chile (@TNTSportsCL) March 18, 2023

“So now we are waiting for what is needed to verify what the distance really was. [Silva] did tell me that the ANFP [Chilean Football Federation] called him to check the measurements of the field, which is 150 meters and a bit.

“If so, since the area is five meters, it would be logically over 100. The truth is that I am happy with all this, more than anything personally, but also for the institution, for Chilean football. Going down in history with an event like this makes me happy.

Requena said he thought altitude – Cobresal’s stadium is 2,400 meters above sea level – might have played a part in his remarkable goal.

“I wanted to take the kick quickly as we have done so many times at altitude, to try to catch the rival off guard and it came out a little stronger than normal,” Requena told Radio Bio Bio.

“The first thing I did as soon as the ball left my foot was hold my head because there were two players in a clear position to counterattack and I realized that it had gone long.

“When I saw the bounce made it difficult for Brayan and it went past him, I thought the ball could go in.”

Mesut Özil, the Arsenal and Real Madrid midfielder who won the World Cup with Germany in 2014, has announced his retirement from professional football aged 34.

Once regarded as one of the best players in the world in his position, Özil won the La Liga title with Real Madrid in 2012 and four FA Cup titles with Arsenal between 2014 and 2020.

He was also part of the Germany squad at the 2010, 2014 and 2018 World Cups and scored 23 goals in 92 appearances for his country.

“I’ve had the privilege to be a professional football player for almost 17 years now and I feel incredible thankful for the opportunity,” Özil wrote on social media.

“But in recent weeks and months, having also suffered some injuries, it’s become more and more clear that it’s time to leave the big stage of football.”

Starting his club career in Germany with Schalke and Werder Bremen, Özil spent three years at Real Madrid and eight with Arsenal before moving to Turkey to play for Fenerbahçe and, most recently, İstanbul Başakşehir.

He developed a reputation as a superb passer and playmaker, recording at least 20 assists in each of his three seasons with Madrid.

At Arsenal, his 19 assists in the Premier League during the 2015/16 season is one shy of the league record held by Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne.

Having arrived in North London for a then club-record fee of $54.8 million, Özil scored 44 goals in 254 appearances for Arsenal but was frozen out of Mikel Arteta’s squad in his final season, despite reportedly being one of the team’s highest-paid earners.

He failed to win more silverware in the final two years of his career in Turkey and had limited playing time with Başakşehir due to injury problems.

Named Germany’s player of the year on five occasions, Özil played in all his country’s World Cup games in 2010 and 2014, when he was an instrumental part of the team that beat Argentina 1-0 in the 2014 final.

He played his final game for the national team at the 2018 World Cup before announcing his international retirement, citing racism and disrespect.

In a lengthy statement explaining the decision, Özil, who is of Turkish descent, said he felt “German when we win” but like “an immigrant when we lose,” with the German Football Federation saying it was “regrettable that Mesut Özil felt that he had not been sufficiently protected as a target of racist slogans.”

Writing on social media on Wednesday, Özil thanked fans, his friends and his family for supporting him throughout his career.

“Now I’m looking forward to everything that is in front of me with me beautiful wife, Amine, and my two beautiful daughters, Eda and Ela – but you can be sure that you will hear from me from time to time on my social media channels,” he said.

Olympic distance runner Zane Robertson has received an eight-year ban after failing a drug test and tampering with the doping control process, the Sports Tribunal of New Zealand announced on Wednesday.

Robertson – the New Zealand record holder in the marathon, half marathon and road 10km – tested positive for erythropoietin, commonly known as EPO, at a race in Manchester, England, last May.

EPO is a hormone naturally produced in the kidneys which controls the formation of red blood cells. When administered to athletes, it can increase the amount of oxygen delivered to muscles, improving recovery and endurance.

The 33-year-old Robertson was given a four-year ban for the positive test and a further four-year ban after the sports tribunal ruled that he had “sought to subvert the doping control process.”

According to the tribunal judgment, Robertson claimed as part of his defense that he had attended a medical facility in Kenya to get a Covid-19 vaccine; instead, though, he said he was treated for Covid-19, which he claimed involved the administration of EPO.

He provided sworn affidavits from Kenyan doctors, hospital notes, a hospital report and a witness statement from a Kenyan detective to support his claims, arguing that there was “no fault or negligence” on his part.

However, Drug Free Sport New Zealand (DFSNZ), the party opposing Robertson during the tribunal, highlighted the “clinical implausibility” of the treatment the athlete said he received.

According to the judgment, DFSNZ presented evidence at the tribunal from the vice president of the medical center Robertson said he attended, who claimed that Robertson was not administered EPO at the facility, that he had not attended the facility on the alleged date, and that the medical notes submitted were not generated at the facility.

The medical center vice president also said that, of the two doctors Robertson had said treated him, one was a lab technician and the other was not employed at the facility.

DFSNZ alleged that Robertson had submitted falsified documents and false testimony – a tampering breach he chose not to contest after deciding not to rely on the evidence he originally filed, the judgment said.

“Doping denies clean athletes the chance to excel on a level playing field,” said DFSNZ chief executive Nick Paterson.

“Mr Robertson’s actions are not just deeply disappointing, but undermine the high levels of sporting integrity we see and expect from athletes who represent our country.”

In a social media post in February, Robertson said he had stopped running professionally and was enjoying the sport for “what it is” while also focusing on his business and studies.

Without explicitly mentioning the tribunal, he added: “A lot of people/companies involved in almost making me lose interest in the sport completely. A lot of things going on outside the sport also, people sometimes forget that we are humans before we are athletes!”

During his career, Robertson twice competed at the Olympics – at Tokyo in 2021 and Rio in 2016 – and won a Commonwealth Games bronze medal in Glasgow in 2014.

Following the tribunal’s verdict, Robertson is ineligible to compete in competitive sports, which includes coaching, until September 2030. His result from the Great Manchester Run in May will also be disqualified.

University of Virginia fifth-year running back Mike Hollins said Tuesday it’s a “miracle” that he’s able to return to the practice field, four months after surviving a shooting that killed three of his football teammates.

“It’s literally a miracle that I’m here today and just living that out,” Hollins told reporters after practice.

“I just feel really blessed to be back on ground and to be able to continue my dreams, my former teammates’ dreams. A lot of blessings in some tough times that are hard to see, but I try to continue to move forward.”

Hollins, a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was one of two people wounded when a fellow student opened fire on a bus returning to Charlottesville, Virginia, from a class field trip, killing football players Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry.

The deaths of Chandler, Davis Jr. and Perry left three enormous holes on a team that felt more like family than anything, said University of Virginia head coach Tony Elliott. He went on to describe them, calling Chandler “the life of the party,” Davis “the big man on campus” and Perry “the quiet guy everyone wanted to know about.”

Hollins also added that he considered leaving the school to get a fresh start but decided it was best for him to stay.

“I feel like anyone would think about leaving after something like that. But I also thought what better place to re-find who I am and reestablish my mental than the place that everything took place,” Hollins said.

The running back, who was hospitalized for days, learned about the deaths of his teammates days after the shooting.

“I’ve never cried like that before,” Hollins told ABC. “I mean, I lost a brother that day. I love Lavel with all my heart, love Devin with all my heart. But D’Sean – it was different with him.”

“That was my brother,” Hollins said, getting visibly emotional. “It was tragic hearing that he was gone.”

The suspect in the University of Virginia shooting, former UVA walk-on football player Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., faces three charges of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony, authorities said. Jones also faces two counts of malicious wounding, each accompanied by a firearm charge.

Jones had his first court appearance on November 16 and a court ordered that he be held without bond.