Drone helps capture man suspected of shooting of 2 Virginia sheriff’s deputies, killing 1
Fugitive Michael Puckett, the suspect in a Virginia shooting that left a sheriff’s deputy dead and another injured, is pictured here following his capture, May 31, 2026, in Surry County, N.C. (Carroll County Sheriff’s Office)
(MOUNT AIRY, N.C.) — A manhunt for the suspect who allegedly shot two Virginia sheriff’s deputies, one fatally, ended Sunday night when law enforcement officers used a drone to zero in and capture him in North Carolina, authorities said.
Michael Puckett, 55, was allegedly armed with a handgun and ringing the doorbell of a home in Mount Airy, N.C., when officers moved in at about 8:32 p.m. ET and made the arrest, ending an intense three-day search for the fugitive, according to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI).
Puckett’s capture came after the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service offered a combined $60,000 reward for information on his whereabouts.
The Carroll County Sheriff’s Office identified Deputy Logan Utt, a military veteran and a member of the agency since 2023, as the deputy who was killed in the exchange of gunfire with Puckett on Friday night at a home near Richmond, Virginia.
A second Carroll County sheriff’s deputy was injured in the shooting when a bullet struck him in his bulletproof vest, Carroll County Sheriff Kevin A. Kemp said in a statement over the weekend.
Utt and the other sheriff’s deputy were sent to the home around 9:26 p.m. local time to conduct a welfare check when they came in contact with Puckett, who allegedly opened fire on them, Kemp said.
The deputies returned fire as Puckett allegedly fled the scene, Kemp said, who added that a motive for the shooting remains under investigation.
The search for Puckett expanded to North Carolina after the fugitive was spotted on Sunday around 6:56 a.m. ET on a wildlife game camera in Surry County, north of Mount Airy, the Wytheville, N.C., police department said in a statement on Facebook.
North Carolina law enforcement officers swarmed the Mount Airy neighborhood where Puckett was seen, establishing a perimeter and deploying a drone, according to the SBI.
“SBI Agents, utilizing a drone, located the suspect moving from one location to another and made the arrest as he was ringing the doorbell of the residence. The suspect was still armed at the time of arrest,” the SBI said in its statement.
Kemp called Utt a “hero,” whose “lifelong dream” was to become a sheriff’s deputy.
“Deputy Utt was a devoted husband, loving father, cherished family member, friend, and respected member of our law enforcement family,” Kemp said. “His service, courage, and dedication will not be forgotten.”
ABC News’ Benjamin Stein, Matt Foster and Michael Pappano contributed to this report.
Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student and Palestinian activist, who was arrested by US immigration authorities in mid-April 2025, attends the inauguration ceremony at City Hall in New York, United States, on January 1, 2026. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — For the second time in a little more than a week, attorneys have announced that an immigration court has terminated deportation proceedings against a pro-Palestinian student after Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed they posed a threat to foreign policy.
According to a letter filed in court, attorneys for Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student who was detained at his naturalization interview in April, a judge has found that the Department of Homeland Security “did not meet its burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence” that he is removable.
It comes after an immigration court terminated removal proceedings against Tufts University Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk. Her attorneys announced the order in a letter to the federal judge overseeing the case challenging her detention on Feb. 9.
For Mahdawi’s case, immigration judge Nina Froes appears to have based her decision on the finding that DHS failed to authenticate a memo allegedly signed by Rubio claiming Mahdawi was a threat to U.S. foreign policy.
Mahdawi’s attorneys have argued that, like other pro-Palestinian demonstrators, organizers and students, he was being targeted for his constitutionally protected speech.
Öztürk, like Mahdawi, was also labeled a foreign policy risk by Rubio in a memo.
Both cases can be appealed by the Trump administration, so their habeas petitions will likely continue to play out in federal court.
“I am grateful to the court for honoring the rule of law and holding the line against the government’s attempts to trample on due process,” Mahdawi said in a statement. “This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice.”
“In a climate where dissent is increasingly met with intimidation and detention, today’s ruling renews hope that due process still applies and that no agency stands above the Constitution,” he added.
In response to a request for comment about both cases, the Department of Homeland Security sent a previous statement about Mahdawi and said: “It is a privilege to be granted a visa or green card to live and study in the United States of America. When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans, and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country. No activist judge, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that.”
Mahdawi was detained in Vermont last spring during his citizenship interview. Arguing that he should continue to be detained, lawyers for the Trump administration pointed to a 2015 FBI investigation, in which a gun shop owner alleged that Mahdawi had claimed to have built machine guns in the West Bank to kill Jews.
However, the FBI closed that investigation and Mahdawi was never charged with any crime, a point a federal judge highlighted when he ordered Mahdawi’s release.
In response to the government’s allegations against him, Mahdawi and his lawyers have firmly refuted allegations that he ever threatened Israelis or those of the Jewish faith. He told ABC News he has been advocating for peace and protesting against the war in Gaza.
“So for them to accuse me of this is not going to work, because I am a person who actually has condemned antisemitism,” Mahdawi said. “And I believe that the fight against antisemitism and the fight to free Palestine go hand in hand, because, as Martin Luther King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Öztürk was detained in March by masked federal agents, and the arrest was captured on camera. Attorneys representing her said she was targeted, like other high-profile arrests of students, for her Pro-Palestinian views, specifically, for co-authoring an Op-Ed in the student paper in March 2024 calling on the school’s administration to take steps to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.”
A federal judge ordered her release in May.
“Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system’s flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government,” Öztürk said in a statement on Feb. 9. “Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all.”
Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are seen in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, escorted by heavily armed Federal agents as they make their way into an armored car en route to a Federal courthouse in Manhattan on January 5, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by XNY/Star Max/GC Images)
(NEW YORK) — After three months in jail, ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro appeared thinner and grayer, but still in command, as he appeared in federal court in Manhattan for a status conference on Thursday.
Maduro — was shackled at the ankles and wearing a beige smock over an orange shirt — nodded to the gallery and said “good morning,” in English.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein said he would not dismiss the narcoterrorism and other charges Maduro faces, but appeared to wrestle with how to assure Maduro had access to sufficient counsel.
The defense argued the case must be tossed because the Treasury Department had not given the government of Venezuela a special license to fund Maduro’s defense with funds subject to U.S. sanctions.
“I’m not going to dismiss the case,” Hellerstein said. However, the judge questioned the national security need for sanctions now that Maduro is no longer in charge and he and his wife, Cilia Flores, are in American custody.
“I see no abiding interest in national security in the right to defend yourself,” Hellerstein said. “The right to defend is paramount.”
A federal prosecutor said Maduro should not be allowed to use Venezuelan funds after he was accused of plundering the country’s wealth.
“A defendant has no right to spend a third party’s money,” prosecutor Kyle Wirshba said.
Defense attorney Barry Pollack said the quality of Maduro’s defense would suffer with court-appointed counsel, whose taxpayer-funded resources are often limited.
Pollack said the allegations “against these defendants occurred in Venezuela.”
Hellerstein agreed that defending Maduro would come at “great expense” and deplete the resources of most public defenders.
“Truthfully, we have no case like this,” Hellerstein said.
President Donald Trump said at a Cabinet meeting Thursday that he was hopeful that additional charges will be brought against Maduro and said Maduro should be charged for facilitating the transport of people and drugs into the U.S.
“I hope that charge will be brought at some point,” Trump said.
“He emptied his prisons into our country and was a major purveyor of drugs coming into our country. … I would imagine there are other trials coming,” Trump said.
Maduro and his wife pleaded not guilty to federal charges including narco-terrorism during their first appearance in court in January, and their attorneys have since pushed to have the case dismissed over concerns that the Trump administration is blocking the Venezuelan government from paying their legal fees.
For more than a decade, Maduro enjoyed an opulent life as Venezuela’s president, living in the neoclassical palace in Caracas and accruing a net worth reportedly in the millions. He allegedly owned multiple mansions, two private jets, millions in jewelry and cash, a horse farm, and a fleet of luxury vehicles.
But he’s pushing to have his case dismissed by arguing he doesn’t have enough money to pay for his own legal defense — and his lawyers argue his due process rights will be violated if Venezuela is unable to pay for his lawyers because of U.S. sanctions on the country.
“I understand that the government of Venezuela is prepared to fund my legal defense and it is my expectation that it will,” Maduro said in a sworn declaration. “I have relied on this expectation and cannot afford to pay for my own legal defense.”
As the Trump administration gradually warms relations with Venezuela, Thursday’s hearing marks the second time that the ousted Venezuelan leader has appeared in a U.S. courtroom since special operations forces captured him in Caracas in January.
The Department of Justice initially brought an indictment against Maduro and 14 other Venezuelan officials in March of 2020, arguing they committed narco-terrorism by conspiring with drug cartels to allow the flow of cocaine into the United States.
Nearly six years later, prosecutors filed a new indictment charging Maduro, Flores, Maduro’s son, and three others with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy and weapons offenses.
Maduro “sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking,” the indictment said.
Prosecutors alleged that Maduro allowed “cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit,” including by providing diplomatic cover to drug traffickers and money launderers. Maduro has pleaded not guilty and denies being involved in drug trafficking.
“[Maduro] is at the forefront of that corruption and has partnered with his co-conspirators to use his illegally obtained authority and the institutions he corroded to transport thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States,” the indictment said.
-ABC News’ Emily Chang, Michelle Stoddart and Fritz Farrow
(WASHINGTON) — The FBI warned police departments in California in recent days that Iran could retaliate for American attacks by launching drones at the West Coast, according to an alert reviewed by ABC News.
“We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran,” according to the alert distributed at the end of February. “We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.”
The warning came just as the Trump administration launched its ongoing assault against the Islamic Republic. Iran has been retaliating with drone strikes against targets throughout the Mideast.
A spokeswoman for the FBI office in LA declined to comment.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. intelligence officials have also grown concerned in recent months about the expanding use of drones by Mexican drug cartels and the chance the technology could be used to attack American forces and personnel near the Mexican border.
“An uncorroborated report suggested that unidentified Mexican cartel leaders had authorized attacks using UAS (drones) carrying explosives against US law enforcement and US military personnel along the US-Mexico border,” according to a September 2025 bulletin reviewed by ABC News. “This type of attack against US personnel or interests inside the United States would be unprecedented but exemplifies a plausible scenario, although (cartels) typically avoid actions that would result in unwanted attention or responses from US authorities.”
ABC News contributor John Cohen, the former head of intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security, said he is concerned about the possibility of drone warfare coming from both the Pacific and Mexico.
“We know Iran has an extensive presence in Mexico and South America, they have relationships, they have the drones and now they have the incentive to conduct attacks,” Cohen said. “The FBI is smart for putting this warning out so that state and locals can be better able to prepare and respond to these types of threats. Information like this is critically important for law enforcement.”
While the FBI’s warning did not specify how or when vessels carrying attack drones could get close enough to the U.S. mainland, intelligence officials have long been concerned about equipment being pre-positioned – either on land or on ships at sea — in the event Israel or the U.S. struck Iran.
