Idaho mayor dies after suffering medical emergency at town hall: ‘A shock and a tragedy’
Nampa Mayor Rick Hogaboam is seen in a photo released by the city of Nampa, Idaho. (City of Nampa, Idaho)
(NAMPA, Idaho) — An Idaho mayor months into his first term died after experiencing a medical emergency during a town hall, in what officials called “a shock and a tragedy.”
Nampa Mayor Rick Hogaboam, 47, was attending a Treasure Valley Partnership town hall on Wednesday in nearby Eagle when he died, according to Eagle city officials.
Eagle Mayor Brad Pike, a former firefighter, and Eagle Police Chief Travis Ruby immediately went to his aid, officials said.
“911 was called, CPR was administered, EMS arrived promptly, but their efforts were, sadly, unsuccessful,” the city of Eagle said in a statement.
Nampa officials said Hogaboam “suffered a medical emergency.” ABC News has reached out to the Ada County Coroner’s Office for an update on his cause of death.
Hogaboam began serving in early January as the mayor of Nampa, located about 20 miles west of Boise and home to over 100,00 people — making it the third-largest city in Idaho.
He previously served as the Canyon County clerk; was chief of staff to the previous Nampa mayor, Debbie Kling; was elected a Nampa councilman; and briefly served as a substitute Idaho state senator in 2021, according to his city biography.
“He hopes to utilize his experience and knowledge to advocate for transparent and efficient governance that is responsive and accountable to the citizens,” his bio, which he wrote, noted.
Hogaboam was a husband, father and grandfather who was “committed to a vision for Nampa where families thrive in a community where citizens are proud to live, work, eat, play, and worship,” his bio stated.
He was an avid reader, baseball fan and lover of sushi and Korean food, his bio said.
“We ask the community to please keep his family and loved ones in your prayers during this incredibly difficult time,” Nama city officials said in a statement. “As we begin to mourn this unbelievable loss, please provide grace while we navigate the loss of not only our Mayor, but also our friend.”
Eagle city officials said Hogaboam “lived as an example of integrity and civil service.”
Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Thursday ordered the lowering of U.S. and Idaho flags at the state Capitol building and state buildings in Canyon County in honor of Hogaboam, calling his sudden death a “tremendous loss.”
“Rick served with a genuine heart for public service and an unwavering commitment to the people of Nampa,” Little said in a statement. “He cared deeply about his community and worked every day to make it stronger and better for those he served.”
The city of Nampa was holding an emergency council meeting on Thursday in the wake of Hogaboam’s death to discuss maintaining city operations and the process for appointing a new mayor.
American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa credit cards are displayed for a photograph in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, May 18, 2010. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — U.S. household debt, including mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and student loans, reached an all-time high of $18.8 trillion in the first three months of the year, according to new data Tuesday from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The increase in overall debt was driven by higher balances on mortgages and auto loans.
Student loan debt slightly decreased to $1.66 trillion. However, many borrowers are falling behind on their payments, with more than 10% of student loan balances now past due, nearing pre-pandemic levels, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said.
Credit card debt dipped by $25 billion during the first quarter of the year, with outstanding card balances at $1.25 trillion. Credit card debt is up by $70 billion over the past year.
On a call with reporters Tuesday morning, researchers at the New York Fed described Americans’ overall credit as “stable,” but noted there are weaknesses among younger consumers and lower-income households.
According to officials, mortgage balances are $13.2 trillion and auto debt stands at $1.69 trillion.
The record-high household debt comes amid rising inflation, which rose for a second consecutive month, government data on Tuesday showed.
Prices rose 3.8% in April compared to a year earlier, marking an increase from a year-over-year inflation rate of 3.3% in the prior month. Annual inflation jumped to its highest level in three years, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data showed.
An F/A-18E Super Hornet, attached to Strike Fighter Squadron 151, prepares to make an arrested landing on the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in support of Operation Epic Fury, March 2, 2026. (U.S. Navy)
President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff revealed in an interview this week that Iranian negotiators told him in the lead-up to the U.S.-Israeli military operation in Iran that they had enough enriched uranium to “make 11 nuclear bombs.”
But since the major combat operations were launched on Saturday with the intent of crushing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the administration has yet to publicly produce any concrete evidence on the whereabouts of the nuclear material or who is in control of it. The Israel Defense Forces claimed that at least 40 top military commanders were killed in the opening strikes of the conflict.
In an interview on Fox News, Witkoff told host Sean Hannity that as soon as he and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, sat down with the Iranian negotiators for denuclearization talks last month, their counterparts spoke of their stockpile of enriched uranium.
“Jared and I opened up with the Iranian negotiators telling us they had the inalienable right to enrich all the nuclear fuel they possessed,” Witkoff said. “We, of course, responded that the president feels we have the inalienable right to stop you in your tracks.”
Witkoff claimed the Iranian negotiators openly shared details about their supply of nuclear material.
“In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly with, you know, no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% [enriched uranium] and they’re aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs,” Witkoff said.
Witkoff said the 60% enriched uranium can be brought to weapons-grade in about a week and that the 20% enriched uranium can be brought to weapons-grade in three to four weeks.
“They manufacture their own centrifuges to enrich this material,” Witkoff said. “So, there’s almost no stopping them. They have an endless supply of it.”
The statement appears to contradict what the Pentagon said last summer about Iran’s ability to develop weapons-grade uranium following U.S. strikes on its nuclear facilities.
In July 2025, Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said at a news conference that that the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June set back Iran’s capability to develop a nuclear weapon by “closer to two years.”
“It’s not just … enriched uranium or centrifuges or things like that. We destroyed the components that they would need to build a bomb,” Parnell said at the time.
But on Tuesday, that assessment fell to the wayside as the administration defended the U.S. military operation by insisting Iran posed an imminent threat to Americans. A senior administration official told reporters in a briefing that among the factors in the operation was that Iran had the ability to rebuild those components destroyed in the bombing, including its own centrifuges.
The official said a lot of the enriched uranium remained mostly in Isfahan with some still at Natanz and Fordo.
“It can be a long and cumbersome process in extracting it and covering it up,” the official said. “I think the first question is, where is it? The second question is, how do we get to it, and how do we get physical control? And then after that, it would be a decision of the president and department, the Department of War, CIA, as to whether we wanted to physically transport it or dilute it on premises.”
Iran has stated numerous times that it doesn’t want nuclear weapons, but believes it has the right to use nuclear power for civilian purpose. It had also been part of a nuclear deal with the U.S., which Trump withdrew from during his first term.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told ABC’s “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that the attack on his country was “unprovoked and unwarranted.” He said Iran was negotiating with the United States in good faith prior to the attacks.
“A deal was at our reach, and we left Geneva happily with the understanding that we can reach a deal next time we meet,” Araghchi said.
In their two public briefings on “Operation Epic Fury” in Iran, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not address what has become of Iran’s nuclear material since the widespread military strikes began on Saturday.
In several speeches since the attacks commenced, Trump has also not been specific about the status of Iran’s nuclear material.
Hegseth, Caine, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio conducted a closed-door briefing with members of the U.S. Senate and House on the Iran operation on Tuesday afternoon.
In a letter sent on Monday to the administration’s briefers, five top House Democrats — including Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee — asked for information on nuclear security in Iran.
“Who currently controls Iran’s nuclear facilities and materials, and what safeguards are in place to prevent diversion or proliferation, or complete loss of control?” the Democratic lawmakers asked in their letter.
But following the briefing, Meeks said the briefers offered few answers.
“Here we are again without answers. Here we are again without complete transparency,” Meeks said. “Here we are again trying to go around Congress.”
Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said the briefers provided “no additional” information on the imminent threat that prompted the military operation, adding, “There’s nothing that we got that you don’t have.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., challenged any suggestion that the Trump administration was unclear during their briefing with House members about their objectives in Iran.
“This is really a very simple matter. It’s about the building of ballistic missiles. That’s what Iran was engaged in, and they were doing it at a speed and in a scale that was exceeding the ability of our regional allies to respond appropriately,” Johnson said. “This created an imminent and serious threat. It also gave them cover to continue with their nuclear ambitions.”
Johnson added, “As you know, we tried very hard to negotiate with them about that nuclear enrichment of uranium … and the buildup of their missiles was so important and so serious that the President of the United States, this president, thought that it was a great enough threat that we needed to act.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said in a social media post on Tuesday that, based on the latest available satellite imagery, it “can now confirm some recent damage to entrance buildings of Iran’s underground Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant [FEP].”
“No radiological consequence expected and no additional impact detected at FEP itself, which was severely damaged in the June conflict,” the IAEA said in the post.
In June 2025, the U.S. and Israeli militaries launched “Operation Midnight Hammer,” targeting three of Iran’s nuclear facilities — Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan — with “bunker-buster” bombs, according to the White House.
At the time, Trump said the operation “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s key uranium enrichment sites.
In a speech on Monday at the White House, Trump said that after “Operation Midnight Hammer,” Iran attempted to rebuild its nuclear facilities in another location, “because they were unable to use the ones we so powerfully blew up.”
“In addition, the regime’s conventional ballistic missile program was growing rapidly and dramatically, and this posed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas,” Trump said. “The purpose of this fast-growing missile program was to shield their nuclear weapon development and make it extraordinarily difficult for anyone to stop them from making these highly forbidden, by us, nuclear weapons.”
The Institute for Science and International Security said in a statement on Tuesday that its analysis of satellite imagery indicates the Natanz nuclear complex, Iran’s main uranium enrichment site, was struck twice during Saturday’s joint U.S.-Israeli attack.
Neither the Trump administration nor the Israeli government have confirmed the alleged strikes on the Natanz complex.
Meanwhile, Israel targeted a compound near Tehran linked to the regime’s nuclear weapons “capabilities,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in statement Tuesday.
After the U.S. targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, Israel, which participated in the operation under the code-name “Rising Lion,” continued to track scientists connected to the Iran’s nuclear weapons program “and located their new location at this site in a manner that enabled a precise strike on the covert underground compound,” the statement said.
“The strike removes a key component in the Iranian regime’s capability to develop nuclear weapons and joins a series of strikes conducted during Operation ‘Rising Lion’ that were essential to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat,” the IDF said.
-ABC News’ Mary Kekatos and Jordana Miller contributed to this report.
Dayton Webber is seen in this undated booking photo. (Charles County Sheriff’s Office)
(LA PLATA, Md.) — An attorney for a quadruple amputee cornhole champion who has been charged with murder says the Maryland man acted in self-defense when he shot and killed his friend last month.
Dayton James Webber, 27, is accused of fatally shooting the victim during an argument in Webber’s vehicle on March 22 in La Plata, Maryland, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office.
The victim — 27-year-old Bradrick Michael Wells, who was sitting in the front seat of the car — was found dead in a yard in Charlotte Hall, Maryland, according to the sheriff’s office.
Webber was later located in a hospital in Virginia and taken into custody, authorities said. He has been charged with first- and second-degree murder, as well as assault and firearm charges. He has not yet entered a plea.
Following Webber’s extradition from Virginia, a judge ordered him held without bond during a hearing in Charles County on Wednesday. Prosecutors argued he was a danger to society and a flight risk, according to WJLA, the ABC affiliate for the Washington, D.C., area.
Two people who were in the back seat of the vehicle witnessed the deadly shooting, the sheriff’s office said. Deputy State’s Attorney Karen Piper Mitchell said Wednesday that, according to the witnesses, a friend of Wells’ allegedly stole a weapon from Webber, and Webber was upset the two were still friends and shot Wells in anger, WJLA reported.
Defense attorney Andrew Jezic claimed that Webber acted in self-defense.
“He was 100% justified in defending his life from an immediate lethal threat,” Jezic told reporters outside the courthouse on Wednesday. “Dayton was terrified of being killed. Dayton knew that he had to shoot or be killed.”
A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for May 6.
The two witnesses reported the shooting shortly before 10:30 p.m. on March 22, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office. Webber allegedly asked them for their help in disposing of the body, but they refused, got out of the car, left the scene and ultimately flagged down officers with the La Plata Police Department, authorities said.
Nearly two hours later, the victim’s body was found in a yard in Charlotte Hall, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office.
An officer with the Albemarle County Police Department subsequently located Webber’s vehicle at a gas station in Charlottesville, Virginia, authorities said. The suspect was then found at a nearby hospital seeking treatment for an unspecified medical issue and taken into custody, authorities said.
Webber is a notable professional cornhole player who was profiled by ESPN in 2023. He was crowned the best cornhole player in Maryland in 2020 and competed in the American Cornhole League World Championships the following year, according to ESPN.
Webber called cornhole his “calling” in the ESPN feature. He became a quadruple amputee after contracting a bacterial infection that led to sepsis at 10 months old, according to ESPN.
