A Hawaii woman who was found alive in a forest on Maui island after going missing more than two weeks ago says she at times struggled not to give up.
Amanda Eller tells the New York Times that despite these moments, she told herself "the only option I had was life or death."
Eller added: "I heard this voice that said, 'If you want to live, keep going.' And as soon as I would doubt my intuition and try to go another way than where it was telling me, something would stop me, a branch would fall on me, I'd stub my toe, or I'd trip. So I was like, 'OK, there is only one way to go.' "
In this Friday, May 24, 2019, photo provided by Troy Jeffrey Helmer, shows Amanda Eller, second from left, after being found by searchers, Javier Cantellops, far left, and Chris Berquist, right, above the Kailua reservoir in East Maui, Hawaii, on Friday afternoon. The men spotted Eller from a helicopter and went down to retrieve her. She was taken to the hospital and was in good spirits, her family said. Eller had been missing since May 8. (Troy Jeffrey HelmerFind Amanda via AP)
Eller was found injured Friday in the Makawao Forest Reserve.
The physical therapist from the Maui town of Haiku went missing on May 8.
Information from: The Maui News, http://www.mauinews.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.
While U.S. officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death — which came soon before the Russian president's reelection — or directly ordered it, according to the official.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Soon after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.
At the time, Biden said the U.S. did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died Feb. 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.
He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement both in the poisoning and in his death.
In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.
The Wall Street Journal first reported about the U.S. intelligence determination.
FILE - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking during his interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 18, 2017. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, in February of 2024. An official says the U.S. intelligence community has found "no smoking gun" that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death or directly ordered it. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
