The man who opened fire at his home in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, killed his wife, his pregnant daughter, his two adult sons and two young grandchildren, along with two women who had come to the house, before taking his own life, the Erie County coroner said.

Coroner Lyell Cook identified the gunman as Matthew Stone, 45, NBC News and Cleveland 19 reported. Police said he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside the house on Perry Street.

Who was killed

Six of the eight victims were found inside the home where they lived, Cook told NBC News: Stone’s wife, Michelle Stone; his daughter, Angelina Stone, 24; his sons, Matthew Stone Jr., 21, and Jonathan Stone, 19; and two children, a 5-year-old boy and a girl who was not yet 2.

Angelina Stone was pregnant, and her baby was due within days, according to the coroner.

Two women were shot outside the house: Lora Lee Roberts, 37, and Twila A. Tanner, 51. Police said the gunman was related to seven of the eight people he killed, and that the eighth was a friend.

What police say happened

A gunshot-detection system alerted Erie police shortly before 5 p.m., and officers arrived within minutes, Police Chief Rick Lorah said.

Video and audio recovered by investigators captured muffled gunshots inside the home just before two “distressed” women arrived and pounded on the door, Lorah said, according to The Associated Press. The gunman then came outside, shot both women as they ran toward him, and went back in.

All of the deaths happened before officers got there, and no shots were fired after police arrived, Lorah said. The loud bangs neighbors heard later came from flash-bang devices used by the tactical team, he told reporters, CBS News reported.

“When we arrived on scene, we did not hear a gunshot,” Lorah said. “We did not hear a cry for help. We did not see movement inside.”

No motive yet

Lorah said it was too soon to discuss a motive, though he suggested mental health may have played a role. He said investigators would talk to relatives and examine the phones of the two women killed outside. “They knew something was going on at that house,” he said.

The city of Erie said in a statement that the shooting had brought “shock and sorrow” to the community. “Our thoughts are with the victims, their loved ones and everyone impacted by tonight’s tragedy,” the statement said.

Erie is about 120 miles north of Pittsburgh.

Sources

• NBC News: Victims of Pennsylvania mass shooting included pregnant daughter of gunman (Oct. 12, 2026)
• The Associated Press via ABC News: Erie shooter who killed 8 was family’s patriarch, slain toddler’s dad says (Oct. 11, 2026)
• CBS News: 8 killed, including 2 children, in mass shooting in northern Pennsylvania, officials say; suspect also dead (Oct. 10, 2026)
• Cleveland 19: Coroner identifies nine victims and shooter in Erie mass shooting (Oct. 12, 2026)
• Scripps News: Erie, Pennsylvania, shooting kills 9, including 2 children (Oct. 10, 2026)

A Philadelphia police officer was killed and his partner was badly wounded early Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, after the two answered a call about a man with a gun on a porch in West Philadelphia. A 35-year-old man is charged with murder.

Officer Shane Seiber, 40, a 10-year veteran of the department, was shot three times and died at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said. His wife and other relatives were with him at the hospital.

“He fought valiantly, but he lost his life today,” Bethel said at a news conference, as reported by CBS News Philadelphia and Fox News.

What police say happened

The two officers came under heavy gunfire as they approached the porch, Bethel said. The second officer, a 33-year-old father of five who has not been publicly named, was shot 12 times. He was later listed in stable condition.

More officers and a SWAT team were sent to the scene. District Attorney Larry Krasner said the gunman also fired at nine other officers, none of whom was hit, according to CBS News Philadelphia and The Associated Press.

Police pulled the suspect from a tree, where he had been hiding, and took him into custody. Officers recovered two handguns and a shotgun. One of the handguns had been taken from one of the wounded officers, Bethel said.

The charges

Krasner identified the suspect as Eric Lewis, 35. He is charged with homicide of a law enforcement officer, murder and attempted homicide of a law enforcement officer, along with other offenses. Lewis is being held without bail, and his next court date is set for Oct. 26, 2026.

Lewis works for the Philadelphia Water Department, according to the union that represents many city workers, CBS News Philadelphia reported. Fox News also reported his employment with the department.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

A father of two

Seiber is survived by his wife, a 7-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter. Before joining the department, he served in the Air Force at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, according to the Delaware Fraternal Order of Police State Lodge.

Gov. Josh Shapiro ordered flags flown at half-staff in his honor.

Sources

• CBS News Philadelphia: Gunman charged after 1 Philadelphia police officer killed, another wounded in shooting (Oct. 11, 2026)
• The Associated Press via ABC News: Philadelphia cop killed, another hurt responding to reports of man with gun (Oct. 10, 2026)
• Fox News: Suspect in deadly Philadelphia police ambush faces 76 charges, ordered held without bail (Oct. 12, 2026)

Five adult members of one family died in what police are calling an apparent murder-suicide at their home in Douglas, Georgia, late on Friday, Oct. 9, 2026.

“Investigators believe this was an apparent murder-suicide involving immediate family members who reside in the home,” Douglas Police Chief Brannen Pruette said at a news conference on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, according to The Associated Press and WSB-TV.

A call from inside the house

Police were called to the home shortly after 11 p.m. Friday. Officers found four adults dead inside. A fifth person, a woman, was alive when officers arrived but died after she was taken to a hospital.

One of the victims called for help from inside the home before she died, Pruette said. “It’s my understanding the call was placed by the wife, the female victim,” he said. “She called, and was complaining about the husband who was in the house smoking and she said he was killing her with the smoke.”

What is not known

Police have not released the names of the dead. They have not publicly said who fired the shots or what led to the shooting.

Douglas is a small city roughly 200 miles southeast of Atlanta.

Sources

• The Associated Press via ABC News: 4 family members and shooter dead in rural Georgia shooting (Oct. 11, 2026)
• WSB-TV via Yahoo News: 5 family members dead in apparent murder-suicide at Georgia home, police say (Oct. 11, 2026)

A retired San Francisco police sergeant shot and killed his wife, a former deputy chief of the department, and their adult daughter before taking his own life at the family’s home near Mill Valley, California, on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office said.

The sheriff’s office identified the three as Ann Mannix, 65, a retired San Francisco Police Department deputy chief; her husband, Kevin Mannix, 68, a retired sergeant; and their daughter, Katherine Mannix, 24. A preliminary investigation points to a double murder-suicide, with Kevin Mannix as the suspected shooter, the sheriff’s office said, according to CBS News San Francisco and Fox News.

A 911 call from the house

Deputies were called to a home on Strawberry Circle, in the unincorporated community of Strawberry near Mill Valley, at about 5 p.m. Sunday after a 911 call reporting a shooting. The person who called got out of the house safely, the sheriff’s office said. Deputies then went inside and found the three dead.

The sheriff’s office said there was no ongoing threat to the community. No motive has been released. Autopsies were scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026.

“A trailblazer”

Ann Mannix was the first woman to join and to lead the department’s SWAT team, and she went on to lead its field operations and special operations bureaus, the San Francisco Police Officers Association said. She retired as a deputy chief in 2021. Kevin Mannix retired from the department in 2018, KTVU reported.

“There are no words that can fully capture the depth of this tragedy, nor are there simple answers to the painful questions we are all asking,” association president Louis Wong said in a statement. He called Ann Mannix “a trailblazer in our department.”

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Sources

• CBS News San Francisco: Former SFPD deputy chief, sergeant husband, daughter identified in Marin County murder-suicide (Oct. 12, 2026)
• KTVU: Retired police sergeant killed wife, daughter in Mill Valley murder-suicide: union (Oct. 12, 2026)
• Fox News: Retired police sergeant shoots deputy chief wife and their daughter in wealthy, coastal enclave home (Oct. 12, 2026)

Actress Selma Blair was taken into custody after two flight attendants were injured on a Delta Air Lines flight from Los Angeles to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sunday night, Oct. 11, 2026, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Port Authority police were called at about 11 p.m. about a passenger who had been physically abusive on the flight, a spokesperson said. The agency identified the passenger as Blair, 54, and said she was taken to a hospital for evaluation after the plane landed. One of the two injured flight attendants was also taken to a hospital, NBC News reported.

What law enforcement sources describe

One flight attendant was bitten and the other was cut, law enforcement sources told CBS News and NBC New York. The crew restrained her during the flight, the sources said.

After landing, Blair was taken to Jamaica Hospital in Queens. On the way, she allegedly kicked a Port Authority officer, and at the hospital she allegedly assaulted a nurse, according to the sources cited by both outlets.

Blair was traveling with a support dog. Her lawyer took the dog, the sources said.

Investigations

The FBI said it had been contacted about a “potential assault aboard a flight that arrived into JFK.” The Federal Aviation Administration said it would investigate a “passenger disturbance” on the flight. Initial reports did not make clear what charges Blair would face.

“Delta has zero tolerance for unruly or unlawful behavior, as the safety of our customers and crew always comes first,” the airline said in a statement. Delta did not name Blair.

Her representative’s statement

“Selma experienced a medical emergency that led to the alleged conduct,” a representative for Blair said. “Upon landing, she received immediate medical attention and is currently in stable condition.” The representative did not describe the medical emergency.

Blair, known for films including “Cruel Intentions” and “Legally Blonde,” said in 2018 that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

Sources

• NBC News: Selma Blair taken into custody after being physically abusive on Delta flight, officials say (Oct. 12, 2026)
• CBS News: Actress Selma Blair arrested after allegedly biting flight attendant, being restrained on flight from LAX to JFK, source says (Oct. 12, 2026)
• NBC New York: Selma Blair attacks 2 flight attendants on plane to JFK: Sources (Oct. 12, 2026)

Federal agents searched the Washington, D.C., home of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota on Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, as part of a criminal investigation, three weeks before the midterm elections in which she is running for reelection.

The Justice Department said in a statement that Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant in the Washington area. The search was “part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” the department said. Its statement did not name Omar or describe the investigation, NBC News and The Associated Press reported.

What the investigation is about

The department has not announced any charges, and the scope of the investigation is unclear. Sources told CBS News that it centers on immigration paperwork from Omar’s childhood, filled out by her late father. A person familiar with the probe told NBC News that it deals partly with immigration and fraud but goes beyond those issues.

Trump administration officials said in September 2026 that Omar was under investigation. Omar said at the time that she had not been contacted about any investigation, CBS News reported.

Omar: “I will not be silenced”

Omar called the search “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement” in a post on X. “For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation,” she wrote. “I will not be silenced.”

House Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar called the search “deeply disturbing” in a joint statement.

The timing

The Justice Department has long tried to avoid overt investigative steps involving candidates close to an election. There is no written rule barring such steps within 60 days of a vote, but department policy says prosecutors and agents may not time investigative actions to influence an election, NBC News reported.

Omar, who came to the United States from Somalia as a child, was first elected to the House in 2018. She represents Minnesota’s 5th District, which includes Minneapolis.

Sources

• The Associated Press via Scripps News: Agents search Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington home in criminal probe as she vows she won't 'be silenced' (Oct. 12, 2026)
• CBS News: Rep. Ilhan Omar's D.C. home searched by Homeland Security investigators (Oct. 12, 2026)
• NBC News: Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home searched by federal agents in criminal probe (Oct. 12, 2026)

Alvaro Pulido, a Colombian businessman wanted for years in the United States over an alleged scheme to bribe Venezuelan officials for government contracts, has been taken into U.S. custody, American officials said on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026.

Pulido, 62, was indicted in Miami federal court in 2019 and again in 2021. He was scheduled to make his first appearance in federal court in South Florida on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, according to the Justice Department, as reported by Fox News and The Associated Press.

Officials did not say how Pulido came to be in U.S. custody. The investigation was led by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations.

What prosecutors allege

Prosecutors allege that Pulido and his associates paid bribes to win Venezuelan government contracts to import food, medicine and low-cost housing, and moved the proceeds through the U.S. financial system.

“Pulido is charged in two separate, significant money laundering schemes, both using the U.S. financial system to hide the profits from his bribery and greed off the backs of the Venezuelan people,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said, according to Fox News.

The newer of the two cases, United States v. Alvaro Pulido Vargas, centers on contracts for a government food-distribution program and also names a former Venezuelan state governor, Jose Gregorio Vielma-Mora.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the arrest on X. “His alleged actions show a blatant disregard to the Venezuelan people by corrupting government programs intended to provide critical food, medicine, and housing for personal enrichment and exploiting the American financial system to do it,” he wrote.

The Justice Department also said Pulido was convicted of drug trafficking in Italy in 1997 under an alias, German Enrique Rubio.

The allegations in the U.S. cases have not been proven in court.

A wider push

Pulido’s arrest comes as U.S. authorities pursue other cases tied to the government of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was captured by U.S. forces in January 2026 and is being held in New York. Days earlier, prosecutors added torture charges to the case against Maduro and his wife. Read about that indictment.

Sources

• The Associated Press via ABC News: Fugitive businessman taken into US custody in Venezuela bribery case (Oct. 11, 2026)
• Fox News: Maduro-linked fugitive nabbed over alleged scheme to cash in on Venezuelans’ basic needs (Oct. 11, 2026)
• U.S. Department of Justice: United States v. Alvaro Pulido Vargas et al., No. 21-cr-20509 (S.D. Fla.)

A Tucson, Arizona, man has been charged with threatening to carry out bombings at the White House and other sites in the Washington, D.C., area in an email he allegedly sent to a local television station, federal prosecutors said.

Jacob Aaron Hicks, 46, was arrested on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, and charged by criminal complaint with making an interstate threat to injure, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. He made his first appearance in federal court on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, 13 News and Newsweek reported.

The email

According to the complaint, Hicks emailed Tucson station KGUN 9 on Sept. 23, 2026, claiming there would be an imminent bomb attack on the White House and other locations in Washington. Part of the email read, “You Americans will pay. Allah, to Allah.”

The station passed the email to authorities, and the FBI opened an investigation that identified Hicks as the alleged sender, KGUN 9 reported. Investigators also found unsent drafts in the same email account, dated Sept. 23, 2026, addressed to other news organizations and containing similar threats, according to the complaint.

“We must take threats of violence like this one seriously,” U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine said. “I am grateful to our local news station for referring this threat to law enforcement, and to the FBI for addressing the situation quickly, professionally, and with the level of commitment it required.”

The Justice Department has not announced a motive.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

Sources

• KGUN 9 via Scripps News: Arizona man arrested, charged after allegedly threatening to bomb White House (Oct. 8, 2026)
• 13 News / azfamily: DOJ: Tucson man threatened to bomb White House (Oct. 8, 2026)
• Newsweek: Who Is Jacob Aaron Hicks? Man Charged Over White House ‘Mass Bombings’ Threat (Oct. 9, 2026)

Federal prosecutors in New York have charged former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, with conspiring to torture political opponents and others, including U.S. citizens held in Venezuelan custody.

A superseding indictment unsealed on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, charges each of them with one count of conspiracy to commit torture, The Associated Press and NBC 10 WJAR reported. The new count is added to the drug-trafficking case the couple already faces in Manhattan federal court.

What the indictment alleges

The indictment alleges that Maduro authorized torture, arbitrary detention and violence to suppress the political opposition while he was in power. The alleged abuse included electric shocks, beatings and asphyxiation.

Flores, a former Venezuelan legislator and attorney general, is accused of helping to develop the system and of ordering torture in some cases.

The indictment describes the alleged abuse of three U.S. citizens who were held in Venezuela. FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X that the government “subjected over a dozen American citizens to torture while held in custody of the Venezuelan government.”

Where the case stands

Maduro and Flores were captured in Caracas by U.S. forces in January 2026 and have been held in Brooklyn since. They have pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges, which include narco-terrorism and cocaine-trafficking counts. It was not immediately clear when they would be arraigned on the new count. Their trial is scheduled for June 2027.

Maduro has called his capture a kidnapping and himself a prisoner of war. His lawyers have asked for the case to be dismissed, arguing that he has immunity as a former head of state.

On the same day the indictment was unsealed, Flores was in court to ask to be released to home confinement because of heart problems. Prosecutors opposed the request, calling her an extreme flight risk and a danger to the public.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

Separately, a businessman wanted in a bribery case tied to Maduro’s government was taken into U.S. custody on Oct. 11, 2026. Read about Alvaro Pulido’s case.

Sources

• The Associated Press via Scripps News: Nicolás Maduro charged with torture, human rights abuses in new US indictment (Oct. 8, 2026)
• NBC 10 WJAR (Sinclair): Maduro regime used electric shocks, severe beatings to torture detainees, indictment says (Oct. 8, 2026)

A Pentagon plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, has drawn objections from Republican lawmakers and from the archbishop who serves Catholics in the U.S. military.

Hasan is scheduled to be executed on Dec. 3, 2026, in what would be the U.S. military’s first execution since 1961, CBS News and The Associated Press reported. President Donald Trump approved the firing-squad execution in early October 2026.

Who objects

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the plan to livestream the execution. House Speaker Mike Johnson told CBS News that some Republicans in the House had concerns. “The concern would be that you would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists,” he said. He said he would not watch.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska urged the Pentagon to reverse what she called a “gruesome decision.” “It would give this individual, who deserves no further notoriety, the martyrdom he seeks,” she wrote on X. Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said in a statement that “the death penalty is not entertainment.”

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who leads the Catholic Church’s ministry to the U.S. military, said in a statement on Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, that any Catholic soldier assigned to the firing squad should ask to be excused. Hasan’s crime “was heinous, but does exposing the public to his execution serve any purpose?” he asked.

Who supports it

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin defended the plan on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026. “I think people need to understand, if you attack America, we will come after you and we will make sure that the punishment fits the crime,” he said. “No one has to watch it if they don’t choose to.”

Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee was the only Republican member of Congress to publicly voice clear support for the livestream, CBS News reported. “Public execution is what this terrorist deserves,” he wrote on X.

Trump says the decision is his

Trump told reporters on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, that he had not settled the question. “There are two thoughts: don’t show it and show it,” he said. “I’ll make a decision ultimately.” Vice President JD Vance said he would not watch if the execution is livestreamed.

The case

Hasan opened fire in a medical building at Fort Hood in 2009, killing 13 people and wounding more than 30. A military jury convicted him and sentenced him to death. Four men, including Hasan, are on the military’s death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, according to the AP.

Trump approved the execution days after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection. Read about what happened in that case.

Sources

• CBS News: Republican concerns mount over livestreaming Fort Hood shooter's execution (Oct. 12, 2026)
• CBS News: DHS secretary defends livestream of Fort Hood shooter's execution, says he doesn't see an "elevated risk" to U.S. (Oct. 11, 2026)
• The Associated Press via ABC News: Archbishop of US military says Catholic soldiers should not serve on firing squad (Oct. 12, 2026)
• The Associated Press via Scripps News: Trump approves firing squad execution for Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan (Oct. 6, 2026)

A couple who ran their own surrogacy company were charged on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, with abusing at least 14 surrogate-born children at their mansion in Arcadia, California, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and the BBC.

Guojun Xuan, 66, and Silvia Zhang, 39, pleaded not guilty at their arraignment that afternoon, NBC News and ABC7 reported. Prosecutors had asked for $100 million bail for each of them; the judge set it at $20 million each, according to both outlets. The allegations have not been proven in court.

The charges

Xuan and Zhang are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit child abuse, the district attorney’s office said. Xuan also faces one felony count of child abuse, one felony count of accessory after the fact and five felony counts of dissuading a witness. Zhang also faces one count of accessory after the fact and four counts of dissuading a witness.

Prosecutors accuse the pair of conspiring to subject 15 of the 16 children living in their home to repeated physical abuse, according to the district attorney’s office and the BBC.

“The number of children who were subjected to this alleged horrific abuse is unprecedented,” District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement.

If convicted as charged, Xuan faces up to 17 years and four months in state prison and Zhang up to 11 years and eight months, according to the district attorney’s office and the BBC.

What prosecutors allege

The couple hired nannies to supervise and discipline the children, who spent several hours a day in makeshift classrooms inside the home, the district attorney’s office said. More than 30 cameras inside the home monitored the children and nannies, according to the criminal complaint.

Between April 27, 2025, and May 7, 2025, some of the nannies were caught on video spanking, slapping or hitting the children, the complaint says. On April 30, 2025, Xuan allegedly told a nanny to strike a child harder and then hit the child himself, according to the district attorney’s office and The Associated Press.

The case came to light after a 2-month-old boy in the home suffered a head injury. Prosecutors say a nanny, Chunmei Li, hit the baby on May 4, 2025, and that Xuan and Zhang did not seek medical treatment until two days later, when they told medical staff he had fallen from a bed, according to the district attorney’s office and the BBC.

Li was previously charged with one felony count of child abuse, and a $105,000 warrant for her arrest remained outstanding as of Oct. 6, 2026, according to the district attorney’s office and the BBC.

Prosecutors also say Xuan and Zhang told some of the children to deny that the nannies had beaten them before police arrived, according to the district attorney’s office and the AP.

The pair ran their own surrogacy company and allegedly made false statements to at least two women who became surrogates, indicating that Zhang was struggling to conceive, the district attorney’s office and the BBC said.

The children and the defense

As of Oct. 6, 2026, all 21 children connected to the case were in state custody, according to NBC News and ABC7. Authorities have said the children ranged in age from 2 months to 13 years, most of them between 1 and 3, the AP and the BBC reported.

Xuan’s attorney, Mitchell Krems, said his client is innocent and did not commit child abuse, according to ABC7 and NBC News.

Hochman described the mansion as “a house of horrors,” according to the AP and ABC7.

Sources

• Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office: Pair Charged With Conspiracy, Abusing Surrogate-Born Children in Arcadia Mansion (Oct. 6, 2026)
• NBC News: California couple with 21 children, most born via surrogates, charged in ‘house of horrors’ abuse case (Oct. 6, 2026)
• ABC7 Los Angeles: Arcadia couple at center of surrogacy scandal pleads not guilty to child abuse charges (Oct. 7, 2026)
• The Associated Press via ABC News: Couple arrested on child abuse charges in surrogacy investigation, police say (Oct. 6, 2026)
• BBC: California pair charged with abusing at least 14 surrogate-born children (Oct. 7, 2026)

Fourteen years after University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student Faith Hedgepeth was found dead in her off-campus apartment, the man accused of killing her went on trial in Durham, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, according to The Associated Press and WRAL.

Miguel Salguero Olivares is charged with first-degree murder, rape and burglary in her death, the AP and WRAL reported. The allegations have not been proven in court.

Hedgepeth, 19, was a sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill. She was found dead on Sept. 7, 2012, according to WRAL and ABC7. Salguero Olivares was arrested in 2021, more than nine years later, after a DNA match, the AP reported.

What prosecutors told the jury

“The evidence in this case is louder than the noise around it,” Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca told jurors, according to the AP and WRAL.

She said the defendant’s DNA was found on a blood-covered rum bottle that prosecutors say was the murder weapon, on a fast-food bag at the scene and on Hedgepeth’s body, the AP and WRAL reported.

Prosecutors say Salguero Olivares and Hedgepeth did not know each other. Garcia-Lamarca told jurors that was the reason it took years to find him, according to WRAL, and the AP reported that she described the killing as an attack by a stranger in a fit of rage.

“This case is not complicated,” she told jurors, according to both outlets.

Garcia-Lamarca also described Hedgepeth as hoping to become the first person in her family to graduate from college, the AP and WRAL reported.

What the defense argued

Defense attorney James Rainsford told jurors the DNA evidence does not prove what prosecutors claim. “Finding something doesn’t mean a crime occurred,” he said, according to the AP and WRAL. “You have to connect them.”

Rainsford pointed jurors to details he said do not add up, including a friend’s statement to police that he saw what appeared to be blood on the hand of Hedgepeth’s roommate that night, and evidence of what appeared to be blood in the apartment’s bathroom that police later lost, according to the AP and WRAL. “Maybe that’s noise to some people,” Rainsford said, according to both outlets.

What comes next

A 12-member jury will decide the case, WRAL and ABC7 reported.

Sources

• The Associated Press via WKMG: Trial begins for a man accused of killing UNC student Faith Hedgepeth 14 years ago (Oct. 7, 2026)
• WRAL: ‘Noise’ or ‘evidence?’: Opening statements in UNC student murder trial (Oct. 7, 2026)
• WRAL: Attorneys in UNC student murder trial agree on jury, still selecting alternates (Oct. 5, 2026)
• ABC7 / WTVD: Court seeks final alternate juror in murder trial of NC college student Faith Hedgepeth (Oct. 6, 2026)

Federal prosecutors say an 18-year-old Twin Cities man planned to open fire at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, and was arrested after buying an AK-47 rifle from an undercover FBI employee posing as a member of ISIS, according to The Associated Press and the Star Tribune.

Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud was arrested on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in the parking lot of a park in Richfield, Minnesota, after paying $600 for the rifle, four magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition, according to the criminal complaint as reported by the AP and the Star Tribune.

He is charged with receiving a firearm and ammunition to commit a federal crime of terrorism, CBS News Minnesota and CNN reported. The allegations have not been proven in court.

What prosecutors say he planned

According to the complaint, Mohamud told an FBI informant he wanted to carry out an attack at the mall during the Hmong Arts Celebration on Oct. 24, 2026, because “it will be a lot of people,” CBS News Minnesota and KSTP reported.

He also discussed an attack at the Valleyfair amusement park in Shakopee, the complaint says, according to CBS News Minnesota and the Star Tribune. Prosecutors say he wrote that he wanted to target the mall because it is “owned by Jewish,” the two outlets reported.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said investigators stopped the threat before the defendant “carried out his intention to kill, in his words, maybe 30 to 60 people,” according to the AP and CBS News Minnesota.

The complaint also says Mohamud sent the informant a video in which he pledged allegiance to ISIS, CBS News Minnesota and the Star Tribune reported.

A nearly two-year investigation

The FBI’s investigation began in December 2024, when a confidential source started exchanging messages with Mohamud on social media and encrypted apps, according to CBS News Minnesota and CNN.

In those messages, prosecutors say, he talked about traveling to Somalia to join a terrorist group, then turned to planning an attack in Minnesota when he did not have the money to travel, the Star Tribune and KSTP reported.

FBI agents tried to speak with his parents in May 2025 about his radicalization but were turned away, according to CBS News Minnesota and the Star Tribune. Rosen urged parents who receive such a warning from federal agents to take it seriously, CBS News Minnesota and CNN reported.

“Mohamud allegedly sought martyrdom in carrying out his plans to murder innocent civilians,” said Christopher Dotson, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, according to the Star Tribune and CBS News Minnesota.

Where the case stands

Mohamud was in custody as of Oct. 7, 2026, according to KSTP and the Star Tribune.

Max Crime has previously covered another case linked to an alleged ISIS plot.

Sources

• Star Tribune: Federal prosecutors accuse man of plotting attack on Mall of America (Oct. 7, 2026)
• CBS News Minnesota: Man eyed Minnesota’s Mall of America for attack, pledging allegiance to ISIS, federal prosecutors say (updated Oct. 7, 2026)
• KSTP: FBI arrests man who planned to shoot up Mall of America in support of Islamic State group (Oct. 7, 2026)
• CNN: Man charged in alleged plot to attack Mall of America (Oct. 7, 2026)
• The Associated Press via Scripps News: Alleged Mall of America attack foiled after FBI sold teen suspect rifle in sting (Oct. 7, 2026)

Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate who survived the state’s attempt to execute her, woke up in a hospital on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. Her first words were “Where am I and who are you?” according to her attorney Randy Spivey, who said he was not in the room at the time, USA TODAY and NBC News reported.

A day later, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, a judge in Nashville ordered the state to preserve evidence from the failed execution, including the drugs, IV lines, needles and medical supplies used that night, according to CBS News and NBC News.

What happened on Sept. 30, 2026

Tennessee tried to execute Pike, 50, by lethal injection on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer, 19. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing, CBS News and NBC News reported. She had been set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years, as Max Crime reported before the execution date.

Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital and was taken to a hospital. She is believed to be the first person in the U.S. to survive after receiving execution drugs, according to USA TODAY and CBS News.

Her attorneys have said they believe her IV lines were improperly placed or a vein had blown, sending the drug into her arm rather than her bloodstream, USA TODAY and CBS News reported.

From ‘brain dead’ to awake

Speaking to reporters on Oct. 7, 2026, Spivey said he had been told Pike was brain dead on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, and that life support was to be removed the next day. Instead, she woke up on Tuesday and began talking. “I don’t have an explanation for what happened,” he said, according to CBS News.

Spivey said Pike is “angry and confused,” USA TODAY and NBC News reported.

Her recovery is far from over. Spivey said she has pneumonia and a blood clot in one arm, cannot swallow, and cannot move her badly swollen arms, according to CBS News, NBC News and USA TODAY.

The court order

Chancellor I’Ashea Myles of the Davidson County Chancery Court granted the request from Pike’s attorneys. Besides physical items, the order covers written records and witness accounts, and Myles said that if anything had already been discarded, the state must try to claw it back, CBS News and NBC News reported.

Pike’s attorney Luke Ihnen told the court the state has made no promise that Pike will not face another execution attempt, and that the evidence would matter for any future challenge, according to CBS News and NBC News.

A lawyer for the state told the judge that, as of the Oct. 7, 2026, hearing, there was no indication Pike faced another execution attempt, Scripps News and USA TODAY reported.

Calls for clemency

Pike’s attorneys are asking Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to Scripps News, CBS News and USA TODAY.

After the failed execution, Lee ordered a review of what went wrong, called off the only other execution scheduled in Tennessee for the rest of 2026, and announced that Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada would step down, USA TODAY and CBS News reported.

Pike’s was Tennessee’s second failed lethal injection of 2026. Earlier in the year, the state halted Tony Carruthers’ execution when staff could not set an IV line, according to NBC News and USA TODAY.

Sources

• USA TODAY: ‘Angry and confused.’ Christa Pike still suffering after botched execution (updated Oct. 7, 2026)
• USA TODAY / Tennessean: Christa Pike lawyers say phone frenzy wasted time as execution failed (Oct. 7, 2026)
• CBS News: Christa Pike suffering from pneumonia, unable to move arms after botched execution, lawyers say (updated Oct. 7, 2026)
• NBC News: Christa Pike has pneumonia and no function in her arms after failed execution, lawyer says (Oct. 7, 2026)
• Scripps News: Judge orders Tennessee to preserve evidence from Christa Pike’s failed execution (Oct. 7, 2026)
• Scripps News / AP: Christa Pike is conscious and speaking after Tennessee failed execution, her attorneys say (Oct. 6, 2026)

A fire heavily damaged a Midway game booth at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas early Tuesday, October 6, 2026. No injuries were reported, and the fair said it would open as scheduled.

Dallas Fire-Rescue crews were called to Fair Park at about 7:08 a.m. and found a large column of smoke coming from a game stand, KRLD reported. Fire officials identified it as a balloon-pop game. An early CBS Texas report described a ring-toss stand, but its updated report also identifies a balloon-pop stand.

Fire out in under 20 minutes

Crews declared the fire out at 7:26 a.m., according to Dallas Fire-Rescue, which said the stand sustained significant damage. CBS Texas reported that firefighters put out the blaze about 15 minutes after arriving. The CBS Texas report said the stand and its prizes, including large stuffed animals, were destroyed.

Even after the flames were out, firefighters kept working on hot spots inside several stuffed animals and other prizes.

The fair had not opened for the day when the fire started, so no game stands were operating. No injuries were reported.

Electrical short blamed

Dallas Fire-Rescue said an electrical short caused the fire, KRLD reported. CBS Texas also reported that investigators had determined the fire was sparked by an electrical short.

Fair stays open

Karissa Condoianis, the fair’s senior vice president of public relations, told KRLD the fire appeared to be isolated to a couple of booths near the greenhouse. “It will not impact fair operations today,” she said, adding that the most important thing was that nobody was hurt.

She said that part of the Midway would be blocked off while crews and fair officials investigate and assess the damage. The fair told CBS Texas it would open at 10 a.m. as scheduled, with the Midway opening at 11 a.m., and a perimeter was set up around the affected area.

“The safety of our fairgoers, vendors, volunteers, and team members remains our top priority,” fair officials said in a statement to CBS Texas.

The 2026 State Fair of Texas runs from September 25, 2026, to October 18, 2026, at Fair Park, according to the fair’s official website.

Featured image: File photo of the Midway at Fair Park during the 2026 State Fair of Texas. Photo: IcedCowboyCoffee / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

A 17-year-old from Lethbridge, Alta., faces six charges, including three terrorism offences, after an RCMP investigation that police allege connected the teen to the violent online network known as 764, according to the Calgary Herald and CTV News Calgary.

The Charges

Members of the RCMP’s Federal Policing Northwest Region INSET arrested the teen on Sept. 3, 2026, CTV News Calgary reported.

The Calgary Herald listed the charges as participation in activity of a terrorist group; facilitating terrorist activity; commission of offence for a terrorist group; distribution of child sexual abuse and exploitation material; possession of child sexual abuse and exploitation material; and causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. The allegations have not been proven in court.

The teen, who cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is scheduled to appear in court in Lethbridge on Oct. 14, 2026, the Calgary Herald reported.

How the Investigation Began

The case began with a tip from the Lethbridge Police Service, Global News reported. According to an RCMP release issued Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, and reported by the Calgary Herald, Lethbridge police referred INSET to a Discord user whom police alleged was affiliated with an online group involved in ideologically motivated violent extremism.

Investigators determined that the user’s online activity was consistent with that of the 764 network, Global News reported.

On Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, police would not say when the investigation began or what the teen is alleged to have done to warrant the charges, and the RCMP said it would not share other details because the case was ongoing and before the courts, Global News reported.

The 764 Network

The 764 network was added to Canada’s list of terrorist entities in December 2025, the Calgary Herald reported. CBC News reported that Canada was the first country to list it.

According to police, the network targets children and teens through social media, messaging, livestreaming and gaming services, including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Twitch, Telegram, Roblox, Steam and Minecraft, Global News reported.

Earlier Cases

In February 2024, a 14-year-old in Lethbridge was charged with several offences, including making and distributing child pornography, Lethbridge News Now reported.

According to reporting by CBC’s the fifth estate, at least one school shooting in the United States has been linked to the network.

Where to Report

Anyone with information about suspected terrorist activity or radicalization to violence can contact the RCMP’s National Security Information Network at 1-800-420-5805, according to the RCMP. For an immediate threat, call 911 or local police.

Two juveniles were wounded in a shooting after a football game at Warren Central High School on Friday night, Oct. 2, 2026, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said, according to WTHR and FOX59.

The shooting happened in a parking lot outside the stadium after Warren Central’s 53-37 win over Lawrence North, IndyStar reported.

What happened

Officers were called to the 9500 block of East 16th Street on a report of a person shot around 10:30 p.m., FOX59 reported, citing IMPD. An IMPD spokesperson told WTHR that officers with MSD Warren Township reported shots being fired near the school at 10:35 p.m. According to FOX59, IMPD confirmed that the game had concluded by the time the shooting occurred.

At 11:15 p.m. Friday, a large police presence could be seen on the school’s campus, with crime tape stretched around a parking lot, WTHR reported. Players and coaches were told to wait in the locker rooms until officers cleared them to exit, IndyStar reported.

“It’s a shame,” IMPD Night Watch Captain Don Weilhammer said during a media briefing Friday night, according to FOX59. “I don’t know what this was over, but as far as I know, there’s nothing out here that should have resulted in violence.”

The victims

An IMPD spokesperson told WTHR that as officers responded, they learned a juvenile female had reportedly been shot. When officers arrived, they found a juvenile male who had been shot, the spokesperson said.

Police said the female was taken to a hospital in stable condition and the male in serious condition. Around 6:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, IMPD said both victims were in stable condition, WTHR reported.

The investigation

Police said there was no information about a possible suspect or what may have led to the shooting, according to WTHR’s report updated Oct. 3, 2026.

As of FOX59’s report containing the school district’s Oct. 3, 2026, statement, no persons of interest had been taken into custody, and IMPD said its detectives believed there was no longer a threat to the community. In the same report, FOX59 said it was unclear whether police had identified any potential suspects.

What the schools said

In a statement to families and staff on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township said it was aware of “a reported drive-by shooting” following the game and that “at least two individuals were injured,” WTHR reported. The district said it had been in contact with the families of those injured. It did not say whether they were students, FOX59 reported.

“Because this is an active police investigation, we cannot share additional details at this time,” the district wrote.

A Lawrence Township schools spokesperson said in a statement that none of its students were involved, adding, “Our community supports Warren during this unbelievably difficult time,” WTHR reported.

How to help

Anyone with information is asked to call IMPD Det. Best at 317-327-3475 or contact Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-TIPS (8477), according to WTHR.

Tennessee plans to execute Christa Pike on September 30, 2026, for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused on September 29, 2026, to halt it. If it goes ahead, Pike, 50, would be the first woman executed by the state in more than 200 years. Gov. Bill Lee denied her request for clemency on September 28, 2026.

• Scheduled: 10 a.m. CDT, September 30, 2026, at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville
• Clemency: denied by Gov. Bill Lee on September 28, 2026
• U.S. Supreme Court: stay request and petition denied on September 29, 2026, with no dissents noted in the order
• Victim: Colleen Slemmer, 19, killed in 1995

Clemency and a Supreme Court stay both denied

The Tennessee Department of Correction has scheduled the execution for 10 a.m. CDT at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. The Tennessee Supreme Court set the date in an order issued a year earlier, on September 30, 2025.

Lee announced on September 28, 2026, that he would not intervene. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, he said that after “a thorough review of the case” he would uphold “the sentence of the State of Tennessee.”

Separately, Pike’s lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a judicial stay of execution. On September 25, 2026, they filed an application for a stay of execution, submitted to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, along with a petition asking the justices to review a September 23, 2026, decision of the Tennessee Supreme Court. Tennessee filed its opposition on September 28, 2026, and Pike’s lawyers replied the same day.

That request challenged how the execution would be carried out, not her conviction. Her lawyers argued that Pike, who they say has post-traumatic stress disorder linked to childhood sexual abuse, would suffer severe mental suffering under Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. They also argued that a Tennessee Supreme Court rule unlawfully limits prisoners’ ability to challenge execution methods.

On September 29, 2026, the Supreme Court denied the stay application, which Kavanaugh had referred to the full court, and declined to hear the case. The one-paragraph order gave no reasons and noted no dissents.

The killing of Colleen Slemmer

At the heart of the case is Colleen Slemmer, who was 19 when she was killed in 1995. She and Pike were classmates at Knoxville Job Corps, a federal job-training program, the Associated Press reported. Pike, who was 18, and her boyfriend at the time were convicted in her death. Pike was sentenced to death in 1996.

Slemmer’s mother wants the execution to go forward, AP reported, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.

What Pike’s lawyers asked the governor for

In their clemency petition, Pike’s lawyers asked Lee to commute her death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Commutation would not have meant release. It would have kept Pike in prison for the rest of her life.

Their argument rested on her history and her age. The petition described a childhood of repeated sexual abuse and neglect that, her lawyers said, the adults and state systems around her failed to address. AP reported that Pike has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and PTSD, and that her lawyers said her untreated mental illness and background left her unable to “put the brakes on.” They also pointed out that she was 18 at the time. She was legally an adult, but her lawyers argued that her age should still weigh against a death sentence.

According to the center, the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office told a court during an August 13, 2026, hearing that the state does not contest the abuse Pike suffered.

Why the execution would be historic

Pike is the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which says the state last executed a woman in 1820. Historical records on early executions are incomplete, and Pike’s own court filings question one of the entries from that era, but both put the last execution of a woman in Tennessee more than 200 years ago.

Tennessee has executed men since then. What would be new is the execution of a woman. The center also says Pike would be the first person executed in Tennessee in the modern death penalty era for a crime committed at age 18, 19 or 20.

As of 5:28 p.m. CDT on September 29, 2026, the execution remained scheduled for 10 a.m. CDT on September 30, 2026. This report will be updated.

If this one has turned up in your feed — a morgue worker in Missouri, arrested after giving birth to a dead man’s baby — it is not a news story. It is fiction, and it is old. Fact-checkers have been knocking it down since 2010: Snopes, Lead Stories, Truth or Fiction, Check Your Fact and Africa Check each time it surfaced somewhere new.

What the story said

The version examined by these fact-checkers put an assistant pathologist in a Missouri medical examiner’s office, added a birth, and added a DNA test said to name the father as a man whose body she had been assigned to autopsy. It called her Jennifer Burrows.

That name belongs to the story, not to an identified person. So do the ages, the totals and the quotes. They were written, not reported.

Where it came from

It did not start with World News Daily Report.

The earliest version ran on Dead Serious News, a satire site, built around a different invented character. The archived page shows the date 11 November 2010, and Snopes gives the same date. Dead Serious News was not hiding anything either: Snopes quotes its About page saying that “with the exception of the names of public figures, all names are fictional.”

Snopes debunked it on 2 December 2010 — three weeks later — and rated it “Labeled Satire.” The story has been circulating, and on the record as fiction, ever since.

The version naming Jennifer Burrows was published by World News Daily Report and was circulating by 26 January 2016, when Lead Stories debunked it and pointed readers to the publisher’s fiction disclaimer. That disclaimer states that the site “assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content.”

So neither site that wrote this story passed it off as reporting. Both told readers it was made up. The people who stripped that label off came later.

The details change with each retelling

Here is the part worth slowing down for. Put the versions side by side and the basic facts will not sit still.

These are not small discrepancies. The suspect’s name changes. Her age changes. The year the man died moves by two years between one telling and the next. Documented cases get corrected; they do not get rewritten.

How it kept coming back

Lead Stories came back to it on 20 July 2018, the day after a site called 8Shit ran it again. 8Shit labelled itself too — Lead Stories quotes its disclaimer describing it as “a satire news and humor website” whose content is fiction. Truth or Fiction caught another round in October 2020, when the account appeared on DesignSalad and travelled through a NewsBreak link. Check Your Fact found a further copy in April 2021: Lansing Daily had taken the World News Daily Report text word for word and published it without the satire disclaimer.

Africa Check picked it up again on 31 August 2022, after a screenshot of a 25 August tweet spread on Facebook. It noted the claim had been posted there earlier still, as far back as 20 May, and that one Facebook version had been viewed more than 332,300 times.

About that police quotation

The story puts a statement in the mouth of a Kansas City police chief. Check Your Fact looked for it and found no credible media reports attributing that statement to him, and noted he had left the job by 2018 to become interim sheriff of Jackson County.

It also reported that neither the named woman nor any comparable case appears in the department’s press releases, and that a wider search turned up nothing except debunks. Those were Check Your Fact’s searches. We have not reviewed police or court records ourselves, and we are not claiming to have.

The investigations cited here document repeated publication of the fictional account, including copies that omitted its satire disclaimer. Those republications do not establish that the alleged arrest or birth occurred.

Sixteen years. The sites that wrote it told readers it was fiction. At least one that copied it left that part out. And the story still cannot keep its own names and dates straight. That is not an arrest report. It is one invention, retold.

A 12-year-old boy is facing firearms and terroristic threatening charges after police say he pulled a gun on a 13-year-old girl in Ewa Beach and threatened to shoot her brother.

It happened at about 7:40 a.m. on Thursday, September 17, 2026, near a business on Fort Weaver Road. The Honolulu Police Department says the boy walked up to the girl and brandished a firearm.

The girl reported it at school later. Staff there found a gun in the boy’s backpack and called police, KHON2 reported.

Officers found the boy, confirmed who he was and arrested him on suspicion of first-degree terroristic threatening and a firearms charge known as place to keep.

The next day, Friday, September 18, 2026, police charged him, and a third count was added. Alongside first-degree terroristic threatening and place to keep, he now faces a prohibited weapons charge, Hawaii News Now reported.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

Police say he was not charged as an adult. His name has not been released because he is a minor, and he was still in police custody as of Friday, according to KITV.

No one was hurt. The investigation is continuing, and police have not released further details, including where the boy got the gun or which school he attends, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

Related: Guns Recovered From Schools In Queens And Staten Island — school safety agents found a loaded gun in a student’s bag in Staten Island days earlier.

Deputies pulled a car over on Interstate 87 in Clifton Park for tailgating and a faulty tail lamp. They left the stop with 489 pounds of cannabis.

Kevin C. Wilbur, 46, of Brushton, and Quinton L. Carle, 23, of Bombay — both Franklin County men — were arrested on felony charges, the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office said. The stop happened at around 2:28 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8, 2026. The Sheriff’s Office announced the arrests the following Monday, September 14, 2026.

What Deputies Found

The vehicle was stopped for following too closely and having insufficient tail lamps, CBS6 Albany reported. After identifying Wilbur and Carle, deputies investigated further and found the cannabis inside. Images released by the Sheriff’s Office show it packed in vacuum-sealed bags.

Saratoga County Sheriff Jeffrey R. Brown called it excellent police work by his deputies. “They single handedly prevented nearly one-quarter ton of illicit cannabis from reaching our streets and made sure that the other negatives we often see with drug trafficking will never come to fruition,” he said.

The Charge, And What It Carries

Wilbur and Carle are accused of knowingly and unlawfully possessing 489 pounds of cannabis. Both were charged with criminal possession of cannabis in the first degree. Wilbur was also cited for following too closely and having insufficient tail lamps.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

The charge applies to anyone knowingly and unlawfully holding more than 10 pounds of cannabis under New York Penal Law § 222.40. It is a class D felony, carrying a maximum term of seven years. The 489 pounds deputies reported seizing is roughly 49 times the threshold.

What Happened In Court

The two men were arraigned before Judge Jennifer Jeram in Clifton Park Town Court. Wilbur was remanded to the Saratoga County Jail. Carle was released on his own recognizance pending further proceedings in that court.

MaxCrime has also covered other recent court cases, including a 20-year federal sentence for a Glenville man and a guilty plea in a Pennsylvania sword attack.

A Glenville man will spend the next two decades in federal prison after admitting he encouraged the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old child and passed videos of it to other men online.

Gregory Magin, 46, of Glenville, was sentenced on August 4, 2026, to 20 years in federal prison, CBS6 Albany reported. He had pleaded guilty five months earlier, on March 2, 2026, to one count each of distribution and possession of child pornography.

What Magin Admitted

The conduct dates to July 2024. As part of his plea, Magin admitted he used an internet-based messaging application to encourage another user, someone who was actively sexually abusing a 14-year-old child, to produce multiple videos of that abuse, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York. Once he had one of those videos, he used the same app to send it on to another user.

It did not stop there. During that same month, prosecutors said, Magin held roughly 14 child pornography videos and distributed them to other users of the application. One of them showed the sexual abuse of a prepubescent child.

“Words Cannot Describe the Horror”

First Assistant U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III, announcing the sentence, said the damage outlasts the crime itself. “Words cannot describe the horror that child victims endure at the hands of people like Gregory Magin,” he said. “That nightmare does not end when the abuse stops but sticks with these children for the rest of their lives.”

Magin, he added, “will have 20 years in prison to think about the pain that he has caused to these children.” He thanked the federal, state and local partners who “investigated this case and uncovered Magin’s crimes.”

Craig Tremaroli, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Albany Division, said Magin’s actions were “horrifying,” and “exactly why he’s going to federal prison for two decades.” He turned to the children in the videos: their abuse, he said, was “not just encouraged by this monster but perpetuated through his distribution.”

New York State Police Superintendent Steven G. James framed the sentence as a warning. “Anyone who engages in any type of predatory acts against children should understand that such crimes will not be tolerated,” he said, crediting evidence gathered by troopers and their law enforcement partners for the outcome.

20 Years, Then 15 Years of Supervision

Beyond the prison term, U.S. District Court Judge Mae A. D’Agostino imposed 15 years of supervised release, a $40,000 fine, special assessments and forfeiture, and directed restitution to the victims. CBS6 did not specify the restitution amount. Magin will also be required to register as a sex offender upon his release.

Who Worked the Case

The FBI investigated with assistance from the Colonie Police Department and the New York State Police. Assistant U.S. Attorney A.J. Vickey prosecuted the case as part of Project Safe Childhood, the Justice Department’s national initiative against child sexual exploitation.

MaxCrime has also covered other recent federal and state court cases, including a guilty plea in a Pennsylvania sword attack. More coverage is available in MaxCrime’s Crime News section.

On Monday morning (September 14, 2026), at Curtis High School in Staten Island, an 18-year-old high school student, Samuel Owusu, was caught with a loaded gun in his bag by school safety agents and was subsequently taken into police custody.

According to reports, the student was fighting with another student on Hamilton Avenue in the St. George neighborhood around 10:20 AM when school safety agents intervened and broke up the fight. It was during this incident that they found the loaded gun in the backpack. The school reportedly does not have metal detectors.

The statement released by the Department of Education read, “Weapons have no place in our schools or our city. The incident was quickly and safely addressed by our School Safety Agents, and no students or staff were injured. The gun was safely recovered after a search was conducted of the student’s bookbag. NYPD was called immediately upon discovery of the firearm.”

The authorities revealed that the teen did not pull out the gun and no one was harmed during the incident. However, Owusu was charged with multiple gun possession charges and unlawful possession of cannabis. (More details on this incident can be found on Univision).

The allegations have not been proven in court.

Second Firearm Detected at Queens High School

There was another similar incident at a high school in Queens on Monday (September 14, 2026), where another gun was found in a bag. Police revealed that the weapon was discovered when the bag went through a scanner. Contrary to earlier ambiguities, reports from Roosevelt Island Daily News confirm that the recovered firearm was indeed loaded.

Student Stabbed Outside Bronx Campus

In another case, a 17-year-old student was stabbed outside Taft Educational Campus in the Bronx around 9:30 AM, while he was accompanied by his mother to register at a school. According to Gothamist, the teen was approached by two suspects; one punched him in the face and another stabbed him. While the victim was taken to a hospital and is recovering, the suspects remained at large as of Sept. 17, 2026.

A Fort Worth green card holder was never charged with a crime. She agreed to be sent back to Afghanistan in the first case heard by a special court that had gone unused for 30 years. Her lawyers say they were never shown the classified evidence against her.

A 47-year-old Afghan woman who lived in Fort Worth, Texas, as a lawful permanent resident has been deported to Afghanistan. Hers is the first case ever heard by the Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC), a special federal court that Congress created in 1996. No administration had used it until this summer.

The Justice Department announced on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, that Nazira Haji Zada had been removed from the country. With her attorneys, she admitted that she counts as an “alien terrorist” under the law and gave up her right to appeal. That ended her permanent resident status, and she is now permanently barred from returning to the United States.

Haji Zada came to the U.S. as a permanent resident in 2018 and was never charged with a crime. Her case was a civil deportation proceeding, not a criminal prosecution. According to court records reported by NPR, her admission cannot be used against her in a criminal case.

Timeline of the case

• July 15, 2026: The Justice Department filed its request to deport her. Todd Blanche, then acting attorney general, had signed off on it. The Senate confirmed him as attorney general on Aug. 8, 2026.
• Late July: She was arrested at her Fort Worth home.
• July 30, 2026: The court held its first-ever public hearing, in Washington, D.C., before Chief Judge Joan N. Ericksen, who normally sits as a federal judge in Minnesota. Ericksen turned down the defense’s request to free her, and she stayed in custody.
• Aug. 20, 2026: Haji Zada agreed to be deported and gave up her right to challenge her detention. Judge Ericksen signed the removal order the same day.
• Sept. 11, 2026: The order and related court filings were made public. They had stayed sealed until she arrived in Afghanistan.

How the court works

The ATRC is made up of five federal judges from different parts of the country, appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States. It lets the government deport non-citizens it labels terrorists using classified evidence that is kept secret when releasing it would put national security at risk. The government only has to prove its case by a “preponderance of the evidence,” meaning more likely than not. That is a much lower bar than “beyond a reasonable doubt” in a criminal trial. Either side can appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

The Justice Department said it used classified information to show that Haji Zada is a terrorist. It also said it gave her and her lawyers about half a terabyte of other documents supporting its case, and the government filed an unclassified summary of its allegations. People facing the court cannot review the classified evidence itself and, unlike criminal defendants, cannot challenge how that evidence was gathered.

The Election Day plot behind the case

The case grew out of a foiled 2024 terror plot hatched in Oklahoma.

On Oct. 7, 2024, federal authorities arrested her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, an Afghan national living in Oklahoma City, and her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, who was 17. The two were arrested at a rural spot in Oklahoma right after buying two AK-47-style rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition from an undercover FBI employee. Prosecutors said they planned an ISIS-inspired mass shooting on or around Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024. The plot was stopped before any attack.

Neither man went to trial. Both pleaded guilty in federal court in Oklahoma City:

• Abdullah Haji Zada was prosecuted as an adult. He pleaded guilty in April 2025 to receiving guns and ammunition for use in a terrorism crime. In November 2025 he was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, the maximum for that charge.
• Tawhedi, now 28, pleaded guilty in June 2025 to trying and conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, and to a related firearms charge. He faces up to 35 years in prison but has not been sentenced. In February 2026, after a court-ordered psychological evaluation, U.S. District Judge Scott Palk ruled him mentally incompetent to be sentenced. Palk ordered more evaluation and treatment at a federal prison medical facility.

As part of their plea deals, both men agreed to be deported to Afghanistan after serving their sentences.

What the government accused her of

Federal officials called Haji Zada the family’s matriarch and said she supported the attack plan. According to government filings described by the Justice Department, NPR and NBC News, prosecutors alleged that:

• she pledged loyalty to ISIS and, with her son-in-law, pushed her children to adopt the group’s beliefs and swear loyalty to it;
• while the family sold furniture, computers, a phone and both cars to raise money, she signed a contract to sell the family home;
• the family bought one-way tickets to Kabul for her and her younger children, but not for Abdullah or Tawhedi, so they could leave before the attack. Prosecutors said she hid the plan from her husband, who had worked at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2016.

These allegations were never tested in a criminal trial, and her lawyers say they were not allowed to see the classified evidence behind them.

Officials: a national security win

Attorney General Blanche called the outcome a landmark case and a win for national security and the rule of law. He said supporters of terrorism should not live in the United States and that the department would use every tool it has. FBI Director Kash Patel called the removal historic. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said Haji Zada had been a clear threat to national security. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the government would use every lawful tool to remove people who plot terrorism against the country.

Defense: agreeing to leave is not approval of the court

Haji Zada’s court-appointed lawyers, federal public defenders Matthew Farley and Mary Manning Petras, issued a statement Friday. They said her agreement to leave “should not be seen as an endorsement of this court’s legitimacy.”

They argued that hauling permanent residents into court while refusing to show them or their lawyers the evidence against them violates the Constitution’s due process guarantee. They predicted the ATRC will be struck down as unconstitutional once a judge rules on the question. At the July 30, 2026, hearing, Farley argued that the proceeding violated several of her constitutional rights and asked the judge to throw out the case. Right up to her deportation, the defense was pressing the court to make the Justice Department share its evidence.

Because Haji Zada agreed to removal and gave up her appeal, her case ended before any court ruled on whether the ATRC is constitutional. That question remains open for the next person brought before it.

A 36-year-old man is facing a murder charge in connection with a shooting that killed a man in uptown Charlotte over Labor Day weekend, police say.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police announced on Monday, Sept. 7, 2026, that detectives had identified Tyrell Deshawn Valentine as a suspect in the death of 33-year-old Manuel De Jesus Martinez, obtained warrants for his arrest, and taken him into custody in South Carolina, according to CMPD’s homicide investigation report.

What Police Say Happened on West Trade Street

Officers were called to the 700 block of West Trade Street — near the Johnson & Wales University campus — shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026, for what was reported as an assault with a deadly weapon, according to CMPD.

When they arrived, they found a man with an apparent gunshot wound. Medic pronounced him dead at the scene. Police later identified him as Martinez and said his family had been notified.

Homicide detectives, Crime Scene Search investigators, and Victim Services staff all responded that morning.

Arrest Made in Union County, South Carolina

Valentine was located and arrested without incident by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and the Union County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina, working alongside CMPD’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Team.

CMPD detectives traveled there to interview him. Police say he’ll be extradited back to Mecklenburg County in the coming weeks and turned over to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, where he faces a murder charge.

One note on timing: CMPD’s own release lists the arrest date in a way that conflicts with itself, and local outlets have reported it differently as a result. What’s clear is that police announced the arrest on Sept. 7, 2026 — within roughly a day of the shooting.

What Police Had Not Said

As of the department’s Sept. 7, 2026, announcement, CMPD had not released a motive, described what led up to the shooting, or said whether Martinez and Valentine knew each other. The department said the investigation was active and ongoing, and that more would be released as it developed.

Valentine has been charged, not convicted.

Anyone with information is asked to call CMPD’s Homicide Unit at 704-432-8477 and ask for a detective, or contact Crime Stoppers anonymously at 704-334-1600.

MaxCrime has covered other recent Labor Day weekend shooting investigations across the country, including a fatal shooting at a Taunton house party, separate Saturday-night shootings in Chicago, and a backyard celebration shooting in Fresno. Additional local reports are available in MaxCrime’s Crime News section.

One person is dead and seven others were injured after a shooting at a house party in Taunton, Massachusetts, early Sunday, according to CBS Boston and NBC Boston, both citing Taunton Police and Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III. The fatality was confirmed in updated reporting after Taunton Police’s initial release on the shooting had said there were no known fatalities.

Officers Respond to Weir Street Home

Taunton Police received several 911 calls around 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026, reporting shots fired and multiple people shot in the area of Weir and Sumner streets, according to a police release issued through John Guilfoil Public Relations. Responding officers determined the shooting occurred at a home on Weir Street near its intersection with Sumner Street, where they located multiple gunshot victims.

Eight Shot, One Fatally

Police identified eight shooting victims from the gathering, all in their early twenties, CBS Boston and NBC Boston reported. Zirovick Depina, 22, of Brockton, was pronounced dead early Sunday morning. Of the surviving victims, one is in serious but stable condition, and the remaining six suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to Bristol County DA Thomas Quinn.

Multiple victims were taken to area hospitals by ambulance, police said. Investigators also learned that other victims had left the scene and sought medical treatment on their own, which is why the full victim count wasn’t established in Taunton Police’s initial release.

Local and State Police Investigate

The Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office is investigating alongside Taunton Police, with the State Police Crime Scene Services Section assisting at the scene. CBS Boston reported that the DA’s office did not say whether any arrests had been made.

The investigation remains active. Anyone with information is asked to call the Taunton Police Department.

This report is based on reporting from CBS Boston and NBC Boston, both citing Taunton Police and the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office, and an initial Taunton Police release via John Guilfoil Public Relations.

MaxCrime has covered other recent weekend shootings at social gatherings and residential areas, including a shooting during a Fresno backyard celebration and a weekend triple shooting in Buford, Georgia. Additional local crime reporting is available in MaxCrime’s Crime News section.

A 2-year-old boy was among three people shot during a backyard celebration at a Fresno home Saturday night, according to The Fresno Bee, which cited Fresno police. The Fresno backyard shooting also left one adult victim with serious injuries.

Police Respond to East Washington Avenue

Fresno police officers responded around 10:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026, after a ShotSpotter activation in the 3100 block of East Washington Avenue, near First Street, Fresno Police Lt. Justin Hoagland told the Fresno Bee.

A police helicopter spotted a black vehicle leaving the area at a high rate of speed, heading toward downtown. The 2-year-old boy, who had been shot in the leg, was inside that vehicle.

Victim Conditions and Investigation

The child was reported to be in stable condition, according to Hoagland. Officers separately found two more shooting victims at the home: one in the backyard with serious injuries, and another in stable condition.

Hoagland told the Fresno Bee that a celebration was underway in the backyard when the alleged shooter got into an argument with someone and opened fire, striking all three victims.

According to the Fresno Bee’s reporting, the person police believe is responsible for the shooting has been detained, and officers are canvassing the area for surveillance video as the investigation continues.

This article is based on reporting by Anthony Galaviz of the Fresno Bee. Read the original report here.

MaxCrime has reported on other recent multi-victim shooting investigations, including a Saturday morning triple shooting in Buford and a fatal shooting outside a Dover restaurant. Additional local coverage can be found in MaxCrime’s Crime News section.

Two teenage boys were wounded in separate shootings in Chicago on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026, according to local reports citing police. Both were taken to hospitals and initially reported in good condition.

15-Year-Old Wounded on South Dorchester Avenue

Officers responded to the 6800 block of South Dorchester Avenue around 8:07 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026, and found a 15-year-old boy who had been shot in the leg and buttocks, FOX 32 Chicago reported, citing police. He was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, where he was initially listed in good condition. The available reporting does not establish what preceded the shooting.

16-Year-Old Shot on South Claremont Avenue

Around 11:09 p.m., a 16-year-old boy was shot while walking in the 6400 block of South Claremont Avenue in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood, according to FOX 32 Chicago, citing police. A dark-colored SUV drove past and someone inside opened fire, striking the teen in the left leg. He was taken to Holy Cross Hospital, where FOX 32 Chicago listed him in good condition; the Chicago Sun-Times, which put the shooting at approximately 11 p.m., described his condition as stable.

Police Investigate Both Shootings

Neither shooting had anyone in custody as of Sunday morning, Sept. 6, 2026, CBS Chicago reported. The available reports do not establish a connection between the incidents.

This report is based on coverage from FOX 32 Chicago, the Chicago Sun-Times, and CBS Chicago.

MaxCrime has covered other recent weekend shootings and incidents involving juvenile victims, including a fatal shooting involving a teenager outside a Dover restaurant and a weekend triple shooting in Buford. Further updates and local crime reports are available in MaxCrime’s Crime News section.

One man died and two other people were hospitalized after a Buford triple shooting Saturday morning, according to Gwinnett County Police, as reported by FOX 5 Atlanta. The man who died has not been publicly identified, pending notification of relatives.

Buford Shooting Reported Near Laurel Crossing Parkway

Officers responded to an apartment complex near 1400 Laurel Crossing Parkway in Buford, where detectives were conducting interviews and processing evidence, according to the report.

Investigators Seek Information

As of FOX 5 Atlanta’s September 5, 2026, report, police had not publicly identified a suspect or disclosed a motive. The report did not include an update on the two hospitalized people’s conditions.

Anyone with information is asked to call detectives at 770-513-5300. Tips can also be submitted anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 404-577-8477.

More local crime coverage is available in MaxCrime’s Crime News section.

A Bradford man has pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in the Bradford sword attack, admitting to stabbing another man with a sword on a city walking trail in May 2026. Adrian Washington entered the plea on September 3, 2026, during a conference at the McKean County Courthouse in Smethport, Pennsylvania, and District Attorney Stephanie Vettenburg-Shaffer’s office announced the plea the next day, a development also reported by Fox56.

Police Describe the Bradford Sword Attack

The case traces back to May 18, 2026, when a man walking a trail near Country Fair in Bradford got into an argument with Washington. Police say Washington left the area, then returned carrying a katana-style sword. A second confrontation followed, and Washington stabbed the man in the abdomen, according to the original police report. The wound required an airlift to Penn Highlands DuBois for treatment, and officers arrested Washington two days later, on May 20, 2026.

Washington Pleads Guilty to Aggravated Assault

Police originally charged Washington with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, terroristic threats and recklessly endangering another person. The district attorney’s September 4, 2026, announcement confirms that he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault.

Sentencing Scheduled for October 16, 2026

Washington is scheduled to be sentenced October 16, 2026, according to the district attorney’s office.

MaxCrime has also covered other recent violent crime cases, including a fatal shooting outside a Dover, Delaware restaurant and a fatal assault in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood. More coverage is available in MaxCrime’s Crime News section.

Dover police have identified an 18-year-old Dover man as the victim of a fatal shooting outside a CAVA restaurant, and investigators are asking anyone with information to come forward. Police say Foster Trader was found on the sidewalk outside the restaurant with multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead a short time later. No arrests have been announced, and no suspect or suspect-vehicle description has been released.

Police Identify Victim as Foster Trader

According to the Dover Police Department, officers received multiple reports of gunfire in the area of CAVA, located at 1037 North DuPont Highway, at approximately 9:47 p.m. Friday night, according to police and an earlier report from First State Update. Responding officers found Trader on the sidewalk outside the restaurant suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.

Officers provided emergency assistance at the scene, and Trader was pronounced dead at approximately 10:04 p.m., police said.

Investigation Remains Open

Investigators recovered spent shell casings from the scene, according to police. As of the department’s September 5, 2026, release, no arrests had been announced, and no description of a suspect or a suspect vehicle had been released. Police have not publicly stated what led to the shooting, and no motive has been released.

Dover Police Ask Witnesses to Come Forward

Investigators are asking anyone who witnessed the shooting, or who has relevant surveillance footage or other information, to contact Detective Goad at 302-736-7143. Tips can also be submitted online directly to Dover police, or anonymously to Delaware Crime Stoppers at 1-800-TIP-3333.

This is a developing story. MaxCrime will update this report as the Dover Police Department releases additional information. For more coverage, visit MaxCrime’s Crime News section.

A 42-year-old Bushwick man died after an early-morning confrontation outside his building on Grattan Street, and the suspected attacker remained at large as of Sept. 4, 2026, according to News 12 Brooklyn and ABC7 New York.

Florencio Ramos Martinez was found outside 152 Grattan Street, between Varick and Porter avenues, early Friday, September 4, 2026. amNewYork and the New York Daily News reported that he was attacked outside his building. The New York Daily News also identified him and placed the confrontation at around 3:40 a.m.

How the Confrontation Unfolded

According to police sources, Martinez was outside his building when he got into an argument with another man that turned physical. Police sources said the other man punched Martinez, causing him to fall and strike his head on the pavement. Accounts differ on where the blow landed — News 12 Brooklyn reported it struck the back of his head, while the New York Daily News reported he was punched in the face. Police have not disclosed what the argument was about or whether the two men knew each other.

Emergency Response and Death

Officers responded to a report of an assault shortly before 3:50 a.m. and found Martinez unconscious and unresponsive at the scene. He was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital in critical condition, where he was later pronounced dead, according to the reports.

Search for the Attacker

The suspected attacker fled on foot and had not been identified as of the reports available on Sept. 4, 2026. Those reports said no arrest had been announced and police had not released a suspect description. The available reports do not say whether investigators recovered surveillance footage.

The NYPD Crime Stoppers program generally offers rewards of up to $3,500 for anonymous information leading to the arrest and indictment of a violent felon. Anyone with information can call 1-800-577-TIPS.

Note: ABC7 New York spells the victim’s surname “Martiniz,” while amNewYork and the New York Daily News use “Martinez.” News 12 Brooklyn and Hoodline do not provide his name. This article uses “Martinez,” the spelling corroborated by multiple other reports.

A dispute involving a basketball preceded a fatal shooting at Hemisfair, the downtown San Antonio park and event space, according to newly released arrest records. Police have since charged a 23-year-old man with murder.

What Happened at Hemisfair

San Antonio police responded to a shooting call just before 5 a.m. on Sunday, August 30, 2026, in the 600 block of Hemisfair Plaza Way, near South Alamo Street. Officers found 35-year-old Jonathan Alderete with a gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital, where he later died.

Investigators said at the time that Alderete had been in a physical altercation with another man before the shooting, and that the fight appeared to involve a dispute over property. Police did not immediately identify a suspect.

Arrest Records Detail the Basketball Dispute

According to an arrest affidavit, surveillance video from the area showed 23-year-old Isean Hardeman and three others picking up a basketball belonging to Alderete’s group and taking it to a nearby court. Investigators say that encounter escalated into the confrontation in which Alderete was shot. The affidavit does not explain what prompted the fight after they picked up the basketball.

The same surveillance footage helped investigators identify Hardeman as a suspect, according to the affidavit: he fled the scene on an e-scooter, ditched it, ran past a downtown hotel, and boarded a VIA bus.

Investigators later traced Hardeman to a South Side apartment. He was booked into the Bexar County Jail on September 3, 2026, four days after the shooting. He was charged with murder, a first-degree felony, and was being held on $250,000 bond.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

The Investigation

Police have not said what led to the initial dispute over the basketball or why it turned violent. The case remains under investigation by San Antonio police.

Hemisfair, once the site of the 1968 World’s Fair, has been redeveloped in recent years into a downtown park and gathering space with a basketball court, event lawns and civic programming.

If you have seen the headline about a San Diego zookeeper arrested for assaulting a 500-pound gorilla, it is not a news story. It started as fiction, on a website called World News Daily Report, whose disclaimer tells readers plainly that its articles are satire and its characters invented. Two fact-checking teams have followed it back to that source: Lead Stories in December 2017, and Africa Check in June 2019.

What the story claimed

The piece described a zoo worker accused of misconduct involving a male gorilla. It had everything a real report has: a named suspect, a location, a weight for the animal, quotes from officials. None of that makes it true. The names, the numbers and the quotes were written as part of the story. They are not facts about a real person or a real animal.

How we know it is fiction

Lead Stories published its findings on 3 December 2017. It traced the story to World News Daily Report and printed the site’s own disclaimer, which says it “assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content.”

Then it followed the trail. A site called ActionNews3 had copied the article out, but left the satire disclaimer off. Huzlers ran a version too, this one crediting World News Daily Report and carrying a satire notice of its own.

That is the whole mechanism, and it is worth seeing clearly. Take the disclaimer off a satirical article and what is left looks exactly like reporting — a place, a name, a quote, a number. The format survives the copying. The label does not. Everyone downstream sees only the format.

The photographs do not hold up

Two images travelled with the story. Africa Check examined both in June 2019, and neither one supports it.

A reverse image search turned up the photograph of the man circulating online as early as January 2010 — well before the story existed, and with nothing to do with it. Africa Check also noted the picture had been visibly edited. It did not name the man, and neither will we.

The second photograph was captioned in the original as an animal at the San Diego Zoo. Africa Check identified him as Shabani, a gorilla who lives at a zoo in Japan and had drawn press attention some years earlier for reasons entirely unconnected to any of this.

One date worth getting right

Africa Check refers to a 2018 article. But Lead Stories was already debunking the claim in December 2017, which means it was circulating by that date. Nobody has pinned down the day it first appeared, and we are not going to guess at one.

This headline should not be shared as a factual arrest report. The claim comes from a story its own publisher labels fiction. Africa Check found that the man’s photograph had circulated years before the story and identified the pictured gorilla as Shabani in Japan. Neither image substantiates the alleged incident.

Corrected and updated 23 September 2026.

The claim that a New York rabbi was arrested for selling thousands of foreskins on Craigslist originated in a fictional article published by World News Daily Report, a website whose own published disclaimer states that its articles are satirical and its characters fictional.

The claims, one by one

The following claims appear in the World News Daily Report story. They are summarized here as elements of that fictional account, not as verified facts.

That article does not establish that the alleged arrest occurred.

What the publisher disclosed

The basis for this correction is the publisher’s own disclosure, not the story’s implausibility. The footer of the archived article reads:

“World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional …”

The same language appears on the site’s separate disclaimer page. The article used the language of crime reporting, while its footer identified the publisher’s content as fictional.

The disclaimer was not hidden. It sat at the foot of the article page itself, below the story, and again on a page of its own. A publisher’s account of its own content is usually in one of those places, or on an “About” page, and reading it takes less time than the article does.

Publication and republication history

The archived page’s publication metadata dates the story to 7 June 2019. This page republished the text on 17 November 2020, the date recorded on the archived copy of this page.

Those are two separate events: the publication date recorded in the original page’s metadata, and the date this page reproduced the text. Neither records an arrest, and neither should be read as one.

What happened to the original

The World News Daily Report homepage now redirects to an unrelated website. An archived copy preserves the original article and its disclaimer.

That matters for a practical reason. A claim can outlive the page that produced it, and a headline can keep circulating after the source — and the disclaimer attached to it — has stopped being reachable at its original address.

The bottom line

This story should not be treated as a verified arrest report. It was published as fiction in 2019, and republishing it here did not make it otherwise.

The check that resolved it did not depend on the story sounding unlikely. It meant following the claim back to the publisher that first ran it, and reading what that publisher says about its own work.