Alleged ‘master of disguise’ faces federal charges for armed robberies: Officials
Tracy Mingo is accused of using disguises to evade identification so he could target employees at Circle K, Subway and Family Dollar stores throughout the Atlanta area between October 2025 and January 2026, the FBI said. (U.S. Attorney’s Office for the northern District of Georgia)
(NEW YORK) — A man who federal prosecutors in Atlanta nicknamed “master of disguise” is facing federal charges Thursday for allegedly robbing 10 businesses at gunpoint while dressed in different costumes.
Tracy Mingo is accused of using disguises to evade identification so he could target employees at Circle K, Subway and Family Dollar stores throughout the Atlanta area between October 2025 and January 2026, the FBI said.
Mingo allegedly entered each of the stores late at night — after all or nearly all customers had left — and robbed employees at gunpoint, officials said.
He allegedly donned disguises, including a construction worker, a health care professional and a security guard, according to the indictment.
Police and the FBI arrested Mingo in January when they said it appeared he was putting on the same security guard disguise used during the robbery of a Circle K store the night before. Mingo, 33, of College Park, Georgia, is now charged with 20 counts, including Hobbs Act robbery, attempted Hobbs Act robbery, brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
“For months, Mingo allegedly used disguises in an attempt to evade identification and continue targeting innocent workers at gunpoint,” FBI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Marlo Graham said in a statement. “He underestimated the determination of the investigators pursuing him and the strength of the partnerships that exist between the FBI and our state and local law enforcement partners.”
The vast empty plains stretch to the horizon in Springfield, Colorado, the county seat of Baca County, on May 10, 2026. Baca County has received only .78 inches of rain since Jan. 1, 2026. (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Farms all over the country are bracing for the impact of drought after months of little precipitation, experts told ABC News.
More than 60% of the continental United States has been under moderate drought or worse conditions since April 7, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The nation as a whole has experienced a dry, warm period that began in the early autumn of 2025 and has pushed into recent weeks, Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist, told ABC News.
Long-term drought trends have put Midwest crops at risk
Farms in the Midwest that produce winter wheat have been especially impacted, Rippey said. The largest region that produces winter wheat — the Great Plains stretching from Montana to Texas — has been hit the hardest by drought as well as some spring freezes, Rippey added.
Up to 44% of this year’s winter wheat is rated as very poor to poor, according to the latest data from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), released on Tuesday. Nebraska is at the top of the list, with 82% of its winter wheat crop rated very poor to poor, but states like Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas are experiencing high rates of poor crop as well, according to the NASS.
While there was good moisture when the winter wheat was planted in the fall, extremely dry conditions from the beginning of March through the first half of May prevented optimal growing conditions, Brad Fuller, president of the Western Horizons Corporation and a consulting agronomist to many farms in Kansas, told ABC News.
Agriculture experts are expecting a 32% abandonment of winter wheat in the U.S. this year, according to the USDA’s Wheat Outlook. Such a high abandonment rate has only happened once since the Dust Bowl era in 1933 — in 2022 when drought conditions were at record highs, Riddey said.
The issues have also extended to the cattle industry due to poor rangeland and pasture conditions as a result of the dry conditions, Riddey said.
“A lot of the rangeland and pastures out in the middle section of the country are also in pretty rough shape heading into the key hay production season,” Riddey said.
Farmers in the Midwest are holding out hope for the spring-planted crops. But conditions were so dry in recent weeks that some growers skipped planting crops like corn or sorghum, Fuller said.
“We’ve had places in southwest Kansas that have gone well over 200 days without more than a half an inch of rain,” he said.
Farms in the West could be at risk as well
The West is facing dry, hot conditions in the near future, coming off “devastatingly” warm months in March and April, Riddey said. To exacerbate the situation, some reservoirs — especially Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the largest in the country — are experiencing low water levels due to the lack of snowpack during the winter.
These reservoirs are crucial for farms in the West that supply the rest of the country, Steven Fassnacht, a professor of snow hydrology at Colorado State University, told ABC News. About 75% of the nation’s lettuce and leafy greens are grown in California, according to the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture.
When there’s less surface water, farmers in California will turn to groundwater, Amanda Fencl, director of climate science for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News. But overuse of groundwater can decrease the water quality and lower the groundwater table, causing the land above it to sink. Overuse of groundwater can also alter the soil moisture, making it drier and lower, Fassnacht said.
Lake Mead could reach a record-low level of 1,036 feet of elevation in 2026, according to the 24-month study released by the Bureau of Reclamation last week. Lake Powell is also projected to drop to a new record-low level in the coming months, surpassing the previous record of around 3,520 feet set in 2023, Cody Moser, senior hydrologist at the Colorado River Basin Forecast Center, said during a webinar on May 7. The Colorado River basin as a whole is currently sitting at 49% of storage of its historic average, Riddey said.
“There are a lot of pieces of pie for that limited Western water,” Riddey said.
Small, family-run farms would be most impacted by water shortages, Fencl said. They may be faced with having to take certain crops out of production or changing which crops they decide to harvest.
Drought conditions typically lead to lower yields and loss in profits, Fencl added.
What will climate conditions be like in the near future?
While it has been raining in the Midwest in recent days, it’s not nearly enough to make up for the dry conditions over the last eight months, Riddey said.
“It’s not going to recover from just a couple of rain events,” he said. “It will take some time.”
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Monsoon season is expected to start in early July and last through August and September. After that, the development of El Niño conditions in October will bring more drought relief into the fall, winter and spring of 2027, Riddey said.
“All indications are we should see a pretty active monsoon that could provide some relief, but we have to get between now and monsoon onset,” he said.
A video of a police interview with Lance Twiggs is played in the courtroom during a preliminary hearing for Tyler Robinson at the Fourth District Courthouse in Provo, Utah, July 9, 2026. (Utah Courts)
(UTAH) — Over objections from defense attorneys, a video was played in a Utah courtroom on Thursday in which the roommate of Tyler Robinson, the suspect charged in the 2025 killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, claimed Robinson confessed to the shooting.
Lance Twiggs, Robinson’s roommate and romantic partner, claimed in the highly redacted videotaped interview with prosecutors and detectives that Robinson told him in person that he killed Kirk.
“He didn’t go into detail. I just asked him in person what he said was true the night before, and he said it was,” Twiggs said in the video filmed in April 2026 at the Utah County Attorney’s Office. “He started crying a little bit and he said he wishes he hadn’t done it, and kept going around just doing stuff, I think to keep himself busy or distracted, or something.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Savannah Guthrie and mother Nancy Guthrie, June 15, 2023. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — An emotional Savannah Guthrie spoke out on Tuesday following new reports that a ransom note said her mother, Nancy Guthrie, died shortly after she was abducted.
The “Today” show host’s 84-year-old mother was kidnapped from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the early hours of Feb. 1 and remains missing, according to authorities.
Various ransom notes were sent to the media in the days after Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance. The second ransom note received by a Tucson television station, days after Nancy Guthrie’s abduction, said she died shortly after she was taken and was buried in nature, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
Savannah Guthrie wiped away tears as she addressed the news on “Today,” saying, “I’m not involved in our coverage, but I can’t pretend I’m not here.”
“And so, since I am, I wanted to just take the opportunity to ask people — to really, to beg people — to come forward,” she said. “Somebody knows something.”
“This is a news story today that is on your radar, but this is the life that my sister lives, that I live, that my brother lives, that our extended families live, that our children live, every day. And we are in agony,” Savannah Guthrie said through tears.
“Please do the right thing. … We love our mom, and we’ll never stop looking for her, ever,” she said.
Images from Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera showing a masked man at her house were released by authorities early on in the investigation, but the 84-year-old’s whereabouts remain unknown, and the suspect remains unidentified.
Anyone with information is urged to call 911, the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900.
