11-year-old boy accidentally shot to death by sibling inside of their home
(RACINE, WI) — An 11-year-old boy was accidentally shot to death by his sibling inside of their Wisconsin home, police said.
The incident occurred on Friday when the Racine Police Department in Wisconsin received a call at 10:33 p.m. reporting that a juvenile had been struck by gunfire and was being taken to the hospital by his family, according to a statement from the Racine Police Department.
“When officers arrived at the hospital, they located an 11-year-old male suffering from a single gunshot wound,” police said. “The 11-year-old male did not survive his injury.”
Preliminary information indicate that the incident took place inside a home in the 2600 block of Prospect Street in Racine and that the victim was “accidentally shot by a sibling,” authorities confirmed.
“A suspect has been identified and apprehended,” police said.
Authorities did not disclose what may have happened leading up to the incident or how the juveniles came into contact with a firearm inside the home.
The investigation is currently ongoing and more information about this case will be released in due course.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Homeland Security and FBI are warning that large-scale events are prime targets for violence, highlighting the potential for violence at events this summer.
However, the DHS and FBI did not indicate there are any known threats in a joint intelligence bulletin sent to law enforcement on May 23.
“Violent extremist messaging continues to highlight major sporting and cultural events and venues as potential targets, and threat actors — including domestic violent extremists (DVEs), homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) inspired by Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), and other mass casualty attackers not motivated by an ideology — previously have targeted public events with little to no warning,” according to the bulletin.
Some attacks, such as the New Year’s Day truck attack in New Orleans, could serve as inspiration for future attacks, the bulletin said, noting that calls for violence typically increase in the days leading up to holidays or big events.
Domestic and homegrown extremists “not primarily motivated by an ideology, likely will see public events as potential attack targets, given the number of high-profile events this summer that are expected to draw large crowds and recent attacks and plots in the West targeting mass gatherings, which could serve as inspiration,” the bulletin said.
“We advise government officials and private sector security partners to remain vigilant of potential threats to upcoming public celebrations and large gatherings,” it added, highlighting World Pride 2025, Independence Day and the 250th Army anniversary parade as possible targets.
The bulletin also said some attackers could use a variety of means to carry out an attack.
“Attackers in the United States historically have used a variety of tactics to target public events, including vehicles, firearms, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs),” it said. “The use of vehicle-ramming alone or in conjunction with other tactics, such as edged weapons, firearms, or IEDs used after the vehicle has stopped, is a recurring tactic that a variety of threat actors in the West have employed when targeting crowded pedestrian areas.”
Last week’s shooting that targeted Israeli Embassy staffers and killed two in Washington, D.C., could inspire other attacks in the United States, the DHS said in a separate bulletin obtained by ABC News.
“The 21 May attack that killed two Israeli embassy staff members at an event in Washington, DC, underscores how the Israel-HAMAS conflict continues to inspire violence and could spur radicalization or mobilization to violence against targets perceived as supporting Israel,” according to the bulletin, which was also dated May 23.
The department noted that it has seen online users sharing the suspect’s alleged writings and “praising the shooter and generally calling for more violence.”
“If calls for violence continue, particularly if other violent extremists in the Homeland or abroad reference the Capital Jewish Museum shooter, our concern for additional violence in the Homeland would increase,” the bulletin said.
The suspect in the fatal shooting last Wednesday outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., is a 31-year-old Chicago man who police say shouted “free, free Palestine” following the attack.
The suspect, identified as Elias Rodriguez, was promptly taken into custody at the scene of the shooting and was questioned by police, according to Pamela Smith, chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia.
(CHANDLER, AZ) — Lori Daybell, the mother convicted of murdering two of her children in a so-called doomsday plot, has now been found guilty of conspiring with her brother to kill her fourth husband.
The jury in Maricopa County, Arizona, was handed the case Monday afternoon before reaching a verdict Tuesday afternoon.
Lori Daybell, 51, represented herself in the Phoenix trial. She did not take the stand or call any witnesses.
Dubbed the “doomsday mom,” Lori Daybell has maintained that her brother shot her then-husband of 13 years, Charles Vallow, in self-defense in her home in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019. Her brother, Alex Cox, died from natural causes months after the shooting.
She had pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, said the shooting was a ploy for Daybell to get rid of her estranged husband so she could get his $1 million life insurance policy and be with her current husband, Chad Daybell, whom she married four months after the shooting.
Prosecutors further said she invoked their “twisted” religious beliefs as justification for the murder and gave her brother “religious authority” to kill Vallow because they believed he was possessed by an evil spirit they referred to as “Ned.”
Over two weeks, the state called more than a dozen witnesses, including Daybell’s other brother, Adam Cox, who testified that he had “no doubt” his two siblings conspired to kill Vallow upon learning that his brother had fatally shot him.
In her closing argument, Maricopa County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Treena Kay said the evidence at the scene showed that Vallow was not shot in self-defense, but was “executed” and the scene “staged.” She recounted text messages sent from Lori Daybell to her husband, Chad, seven days after Vallow was killed, discussing her now-deceased husband’s life insurance policy. Kay said that, upon learning she was no longer the beneficiary of the plan, the defendant messaged Chad that “Ned” probably changed it “before we got rid of him.”
The prosecutor also discussed a text message the defendant sent Alex Cox days before the deadly shooting in which she said they could “be like Nephi,” a prophet in the Book of Mormon who God commanded to kill Laban.
“Lori Vallow wanted the million dollars, and she wanted Chad Daybell, and she and Alex used that twisted religious beliefs they had so that they could kill the evil, possessed Charles and ‘be like Nephi,'” Kay said.
Three jurors who spoke to reporters following the verdict said the text message evidence in the case had stood out while they were deliberating. The jurors said they had no knowledge of Lori Daybell’s prior convictions, which were not discussed during the Phoenix trial.
Members of Vallow’s family expressed relief at the guilty verdict.
“I’m ready to move on,” Vallow’s sister, Kay Woodcock, told reporters outside the courthouse.
“This was thrust upon us, and our lives just went into, like a tornado, for a long time,” she said.
Following the guilty verdict, Lori Daybell agreed to several aggravating factors in the case, instead of having a jury make a finding on them. Among them, she agreed that this was a dangerous offense and that it involved the presence of an accomplice. When asked if she agreed that as a result of her conduct, the victim or the victim’s family “suffered emotional or financial harm,” she said, “Absolutely.”
She will be sentenced following another upcoming trial in Maricopa County, where she is further accused of scheming with her brother Alex Cox to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of her niece.
Three months after the shooting of Vallow, Boudreaux called 911 to report that someone driving by in a Jeep shot at his vehicle outside his home in Gilbert, Arizona.
She has pleaded not guilty in that case.
Both Lori and Chad Daybell were found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of her children, Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, who went missing months after Charles Vallow was killed. In separate trials in 2023 and 2024, prosecutors argued the couple thought the children were possessed zombies and murdered them so that they could be together. The children’s remains were found on an Idaho property belonging to Daybell in June 2020 following a monthslong search.
Lori Daybell is currently serving life in prison without parole for the murders of her two children. She has denied killing them.
Chad Daybell was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering the two children, as well as his first wife, Tamara Daybell, and now awaits execution on Idaho’s death row.
(WASHINGTON) — On the same day that the Trump administration is proposing billions of dollars in cuts to renewable energy, environmental and climate programs, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a significant reorganization of his agency.
“EPA is creating the first-of-its-kind Office of State Air Partnerships within the Office of Air and Radiation. This office will be focused on working with, not against, state, local and tribal air permitting agencies to improve processing of State Implementation Plans and resolving air permitting concerns,” Zeldin said in a video posted to YouTube.
Zeldin said the EPA is also creating an Office of Clean Air program that “will align statutory obligations and mission essential functions based on centers of expertise to ensure more transparency and harmony in regulatory development.”
Further, the agency is making changes to its Office of Water and creating a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions, which Zeldin says will “prioritize research and put science at the forefront of the agency’s rule makings and technical assistance to states.”
Zeldin says the EPA will add more than 130 new employees to address the backlog of new chemicals and pesticides waiting for a review and “elevate” the issues of emergency response, cybersecurity, water reuse and conservation.
On Monday, the agency announced a new initiative to address contamination by PFAS, which are also known as forever chemicals. During his remarks, Zeldin said the new EPA structure would help the agency better understand how the chemicals impact human health and the environment.
The restructuring moves come on the same day the Trump administration released its 2026 fiscal year budget.
The administration’s budget cuts $15 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a Biden administration initiative that provided funds for carbon capture and renewable energy projects. The budget also calls for slashing $6 billion for EV chargers.
The budget proposal also calls for cutting grants to environmental organizations and eliminating the EPA’s Environmental Justice Program, a division that enforced civil rights laws and ensured that all people received the same level of environmental protection.
Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce wrote in a statement, “This budget outline would dangerously slash funding to protect our air and water, disinvest in the clean energy manufacturing boom that has powered our economic recovery, and raise costs for working families who are already struggling to get by amidst the chaos and uncertainty that this administration has created in just three short months.”
Zeldin said the reorganization would save more than $300 million a year and that the agency’s goal is to reduce staffing to match the level of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
“EPA will strive to accomplish all this while fulfilling our commitment to the rule of law, advancing cooperative federalism, and being good stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars,” Zeldin said in his remarks.
