Failed ATM robbers crash truck into Walgreens storefront, leave empty-handed
Pierce County Sheriff’s Department
(TACOMA, WA) — Two individuals drove a flatbed truck through the front doors of a store in Washington state in what appears to be a failed ATM robbery, according to surveillance footage recently released by the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
Police are now seeking the two would-be robbers who quickly fled the scene after failing to remove the automated teller machine from the Walgreens where it was installed.
The attempted robbery took place just before 5 a.m. on Dec. 9, according to ABC News’ Washington affiliate KOMO.
It involved a flatbed truck backing into and shattering the front windows of the entryway to a Walgreens in Pierce County.
Once the truck has successfully smashed its way into the store, two individuals can be seen getting out and running toward the ATM.
The two individuals, who are wearing reflective garments and balaclava-style masks during what the police have labeled a “commercial burglary,” then attempt to loop a cable around the machine. However, they appear to be unsuccessful in their attempts to dislodge it.
Realizing that they have not been successful, the individuals then decide to give up and instead flee the glass-spackled scene, according to the store’s security video.
The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department is now seeking information from the public about the crime.
(NEW YORK) — Planning to travel by air in the U.S. later this year? A regular driver’s license may not cut it.
Travelers flying through U.S. airports will soon need to show TSA agents a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license, a passport or another form of REAL ID-compliant identification if they want to pass through the security screening.
In an announcement this week, the TSA said it’s sticking with a May 7, 2025, deadline to start enforcing REAL ID requirements. However, officials also said they’re planning for a two-year “phased enforcement” that could allow travelers who don’t have REAL IDs to board flights — with a warning notice.
REAL ID is an effort by the federal government to make driver’s licenses and ID cards more reliable, accurate and standardized. Depending on which state your license or ID is from, REAL IDs will have a gold or black star (or a star in a bear, in the case of California) in the upper portion of the card.
The REAL ID requirement was supposed to go into effect years ago, but was delayed — in part due to state motor vehicle departments working through COVID-19 backlogs.
Federal officials are concerned about how many Americans still don’t have a REAL ID. In January 2024, only about 56% of driver’s licenses and IDs in circulation across the country comply with REAL ID. The Department of Homeland Security estimated that only 61.2% of driver’s licenses and IDs will be REAL ID-compliant by the May 7 deadline.
“We have four months ahead of us,” said Stacey Fitzmaurice, TSA’s executive assistant administrator for operations support. “There’s definitely work to be done, so we want travelers to take the time now to get their REAL ID before the deadline.”
What is REAL ID? The REAL ID Act was passed by Congress in 2005 after the 9/11 Commission recommended the federal government set security standards for states to issue driver’s licenses and identification cards.
“This came out of a recommendation that looked at the events of 9/11 and the vulnerabilities associated with that,” said Fitzmaurice. “The REAL ID requirement is as important today as it first was coming out of the recommendations from the 9/11 Commission, and we are in a much better spot today, given that all of the states have implemented the changes for REAL ID and are implementing the REAL ID licenses today.”
How to get it? You can get a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license from your state’s DMV. You must be able to prove who you are by bringing documentation that includes your full name, date of birth, Social Security number, two proofs of residence and lawful status. Documents with this information could include a birth certificate, Social Security card or passport.
Who needs it? While travelers boarding commercial flights need a REAL ID or an alternative form of approved documentation, children under 18 do not need to have a REAL ID.
For foreign travelers, foreign passports are an acceptable form of identification, according to a TSA spokesperson. The spokesperson said noncitizens who are lawfully admitted for permanent or temporary residence, have conditional permanent residence status, have an approved application for asylum or entered the country as refugees can obtain a REAL ID at their state’s DMV.
REAL ID does not work for international travel. If you’re traveling outside of the country, you’ll still need to bring your passport.
What is the ‘phased enforcement’ of the REAL ID deadline? On Jan. 13, TSA published a final rule sticking with the May 7 deadline but allowing two-year phased enforcement of REAL ID until May 2027.
The agency described the need for a phased deadline.
In the example of TSA, if large numbers of individuals arrive at an airport security checkpoint with noncompliant driver’s licenses or ID cards, they would not be able to proceed through screening, “potentially resulting in missed flights,” the published final rule stated. “Additionally, long lines, confusion, and frustrated travelers at the checkpoint may greatly increase security risks both to passengers and TSA personnel by drawing the resources and attention of TSA personnel away from other passengers, including those known to pose an elevated risk.”
A TSA spokesperson told ABC phased enforcement would “introduce and enable a temporary warning period for those travelers.”
The TSA has not yet unveiled its plan for phased enforcement.
The regulations published this week state that agencies could choose to issue a written or verbal warning if someone attempts to use a non-REAL ID after the deadline.
“We want travelers to be prepared so that they don’t come to the checkpoints in May without a REAL ID-compliant or another acceptable form of ID,” said Fitzmaurice. “If they do — come May — not have their real ID, they could experience delays…We need to verify everyone’s identity who is going through the TSA checkpoints. And for those individuals who don’t bring identification or do not have acceptable forms of identification, we oftentimes will have to do additional requirements before they are able to go through security.”
John Kuklis, a clerk at the Horseshoe Curve Lodge in Altoona, Penn., is seen on “Good Morning America,” on Dec. 11, 2024. ABC News
(ALTOONA, Penn.) — Before he was arrested Luigi Mangione walked into the Horseshoe Curve Lodge in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday looking for a room, according to the desk clerk who greeted him and noticed what he described as the man’s shifty behavior.
“He basically just walked in kind of cagey, just looking around, making sure he wasn’t being watched, asked if he could get a room here,” the hotel clerk, John Kuklis, told ABC News.
But that wasn’t the reason Kuklis had to turn the man away. They didn’t have a clean room available at that early hour, he said.
“I told him that he wouldn’t be able to get one right now, that our housekeeper hadn’t cleaned the rooms yet, that he had to come back at one o’clock. He asked if he could wait here. I told him no, because at the time, I didn’t know that I could just allow him to wait for, you know, half the day. And he said, ‘OK.’ And he turned around and just left. Didn’t say nothing. Never took his mask down,” Kuklis said.
Mangione’s arrival on Monday, the morning he was later arrested, came days after last week’s fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. Mangione faces a second-degree murder charge in connection with that killing. His defense attorney, Thomas Dickey, said he anticipates that Mangione will plead not guilty.
The Horseshoe Curve Lodge is roughly a 17-minute walk from the McDonald’s where authorities would later confront Mangione, and take him into custody. Rooms at that hotel cost around $60 a night, according to a review of online price quotes.
At first, Kuklis thought the young man might be a veteran just returned to civilian life — there are “a lot of vets that stay here,” Kuklis said, and thought that might perhaps be why the young man was acting somewhat circumspect.
He added, “When [vets] come back, they have — anybody that walks up behind ’em, or you feel a little shadow, or you hear a specific noise, you just kind of look over your shoulders, watch yourself, and he just, he was like, wouldn’t turn his head, but his eyes were constantly looking like, is there somebody coming behind me, watching his surroundings?”
Had Mangione been able to get a room, Kuklis said, he would have been asked to show ID — but that didn’t happen. Mangione has been charged with falsely identifying himself to police, according to a complaint filed in Blair County, Pennsylvania.
Tuesday, officers called the hotel, asking if the suspect had stayed there, the clerk said.
“They called this morning and asked if he had stayed here, I says, no,” Kuklis said, but mentioned to police the young man’s earlier attempt to book a stay. “The officer goes, ‘did he have a mask on? Did he ever take a mask off?'” Kuklis said, realizing in real time to the officer, “No, he never did take the mask off.'”
“Next thing I know there’s three Logan Township police cars pulling in the parking lot. I’m like, holy crap” Kuklis said. “We pulled up our surveillance stuff, they go, ‘Yeah, that’s him.'”
Looking back, Kuklis said he “didn’t even realize” that furtive young man might have been carrying the very weapon allegedly used to gun down the CEO. “I mean, theoretically, I guess he could have just pulled it out and shot me.”
(WASHINGTON) — Senior Justice Department officials serving under Donald Trump’s first administration may have violated federal law in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election by pushing for pandemic-related investigations that targeted states with Democratic governors, and then leaking private information about those investigations to friendly media outlets in a potential attempt to influence the election, according to a previously-undisclosed report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog.
The inspector general’s report, obtained by ABC News, concluded that for one of the officials — a senior member of the department’s public affairs team who the report said first hatched the alleged plan to leak investigative information — “the upcoming election was the motivating factor.”
The report specifically pointed to a text message he sent in mid-October 2020, describing a proposed leak to a major New York-area tabloid about reviews of COVID-related deaths at nursing homes in New York and New Jersey as “our last play on them before [the] election” — “but it’s a big one,” he added, according to the report.
The inspector general’s report comes just weeks before Trump takes office again, after winning reelection two months ago in part by promoting questionable claims that the Biden administration had used the Justice Department to further its own political agenda.
Last week, the inspector general’s office released a brief and vague summary of its report, saying only that three former officials had violated Justice Department policies by leaking “non-public DOJ investigative information” to “select reporters, days before an election.”
The summary said the officials may have even violated the Hatch Act, a non-criminal law that prohibits federal employees from using their positions to engage in political activities.
The summary did not say when the alleged violations occurred or which election may have been implicated, but some of Trump’s supporters and at least one major conservative media outlet claimed that it involved the Biden administration trying to harm Trump’s most recent reelection bid.
The partially-redacted report, obtained by ABC News through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows otherwise.
According to the report, in the summer of 2020, leaders of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division at the time pushed for reviews of government-run nursing homes in several states, looking to find any connections between deaths there and orders from governors directing nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients.
In late August 2020, when the Justice Department then sent letters to the governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York seeking relevant data — “despite having been provided data indicating that the nursing homes with the most significant quality of care issues were in other states” — the Justice Department’s public affairs office issued a press release about the move, the report said.
Though the inspector general’s office said it did not find evidence that any officials, even career officials, raised concerns at the time, the report said current and former officials more recently described the press release as “unusual and inappropriate.”
The report further details how over the next few months, leadership in the Civil Rights Division pressured officials in the department’s Civil Division to send a letter to New York officials seeking data regarding COVID-19-related deaths in private nursing homes throughout the state, the report said. The Civil Division officials were reluctant to do so, but they ultimately complied because they were “led to believe” that the directive to make the investigative activity public was “coming from Attorney General [Bill] Barr,” the report said.
Then in October 2020, in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign, the senior official with the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs proposed his plan to leak information about the letter and other information about an investigation of state-run facilities in New Jersey, according to the report.
On Oct. 17, 2020, the senior public affairs official texted colleagues: “I’m trying to get [them] to do letters to [New Jersey and New York] respectively on nursing homes. Would like to package them together and let [a certain tabloid] break it. Will be our last play on them before election but it’s a big one,” according to the report.
A week before the election, on Oct. 27, 2020, the investigative information was provided to the New York-area tabloid, which published a story that night, accusing New York authorities of undercounting deaths in nursing homes, the report said. The inspector general’s report noted that official statistics released at the time did in fact undercount the actual number of deaths.
Nevertheless, “the conduct of these senior officials raised serious questions about partisan political motivation for their actions in proximity to the 2020 election,” inspector general Michael Horowitz said in his report.
“[T]he then upcoming 2020 election may have been a factor in the timing and manner of those actions and announcing them to the public,” Horowitz added, concluding that the three officials violated the Justice Department’s media contacts policy.
Horowitz said his office has referred its findings to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which is tasked with investigating potential violations of the Hatch Act.
A spokesperson for the Office of Special Counsel confirmed to ABC News that his office received the referral and is now reviewing it.
The inspector general’s report noted that Barr declined to be interviewed in connection with Horowitz’s investigation.
A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
