Report of 5-year-old girl left unattended in running vehicle that was then stolen a ‘hoax’: Police
Police in St. Louis County said they are searching for a missing-5-year-old girl. (St. Louis County Police Department)
(AFFTON, Mo.) — Police in Missouri said the report of a 5-year-old girl who went missing after she was left unattended in a running vehicle that was then stolen was a “hoax” — and that two women involved are expected to face charges.
An Amber Alert had been issued for an “Aleise Dawson,” who had been reported taken shortly before 8 a.m. local time in Affton, Missouri, according to the St. Louis County Police Department.
The Amber Alert has since been canceled after detectives learned a child had never been abducted, police said Monday afternoon. The reporting party recanted their story “after an intense investigation,” according to the St. Louis County Police Department.
“While we are extremely grateful that there is no child in danger, we want to be very clear — we will use all available resources to ensure our community members, especially the most vulnerable among us, are safe,” the St. Louis County Police Department said in a statement.
St. Louis County Police Lt. Col. Jerry Lohr said the department is seeking charges for filing a false police report.
“It’s important to note the amount of time and resources and the allocation of our resources that go into something like this. We take this very, very seriously,” he said during a press briefing Monday afternoon.
The story “unraveled” as police began to ask more questions about the reported missing child, Lohr said.
According to Lohr, one of the women involved told police that she was taking care of her dead sister’s child, who had been left in her car that was then stolen. The woman’s roommate had a similar story, he said.
Once detectives began contacting other family members, “it became apparent that that was not the case,” he said.
Amid the search, the police department said it did not have a photograph of the child. The lack of photos, as well as any children’s clothing or sightings of the child by other people, were “indicators” that led police to believe there was no missing child, Lohr said.
There was, however, a stolen car, Lohr said. A motive remains under investigation as to why a child was falsely reported missing, he said.
“I don’t know if there was a sense of panic. I don’t know if the individual thought that they would get more response to the fact that theirvehicle had been stolen,” Lohr said. “I can’t speak to the motivation of the individual.”
It was reported to police that the guardian had placed the child in the car, gone inside a residence to get something and “came back out and the car was gone,” St. Louis County Police Department spokesperson Vera Clay during a press briefing earlier Monday.
Officers responded to search for the reported missing child, and the vehicle was located several blocks away about two hours after the 911 call, according to Lohr.
(NEW YORK) — A large swath of the country is expected to face dangerous heat and fire weather conditions this weekend, forecasts show.
The National Weather Service has issued red flag warnings for more than 47 million Americans from the Great Plains to the Southeast on Saturday due to widespread critical fire weather danger.
Wind gusts in the Plains are expected to reach 30 to 60 mph on Saturday. Combined with very low humidity and dry fuels, conditions could be conducive for rapid wildfire growth and spread.
Gusty winds and dry conditions will also be in place from the Gulf Coast inland across the Southeast, including cities such as Lake Charles, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; Tallahassee, Florida; Charleston, South Carolina; and Asheville, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, a temperature roller coaster is expected in other parts of the country this weekend.
A cooldown has swept across the Midwest and Northeast following warm spring days earlier in the week.
Places in the Midwest and Northeast, like Chicago and New York City, will be noticeably cooler for Saturday, but will rebound to seasonable highs by the beginning of the new workweek.
In some regions, temperatures on Saturday will be at least 10 to 20 degrees cooler than Friday — following record high temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday and seasonably warm temperatures on Friday — forecasts show.
On Friday, some regions in the mid-Atlantic broke or tied their daily record highs for March 27, including Savannah, Georgia, which reached 89 degrees Fahrenheit, and Columbia, South Carolina, which reached 88 degrees.
As March wraps up, a pattern change will bring likely warmer than normal temperatures for the eastern half of the nation and near normal temperatures for the western half for the beginning of April.
But record-shattering heat will continue in the Southeast, with no relief coming this weekend.
Friday saw another day of record-breaking temperatures.
Phoenix reached 102 degrees; Death Valley reached 101 degrees; and Tucson, Arizona, reached 98 degrees.
Daily record highs are possible again this weekend for Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Between March 15 and March 26, more than 100 monthly records were broken or tied, and 700 daily records were broken or tied across the country, according to the National Weather Service.
Since March 1, there have been more than 1,100 daily records broken or tied across the nation.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt displays steps for U.S. citizens in the Middle East to take following U.S. strikes on Iran as she speaks during a news briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on March 04, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The State Department announced on Wednesday that a charter flight for American citizens stuck in the Middle East was en route to the United States — days after the war with Iran left thousands of American travelers stranded as combat operations led to the closure of airspace around the region.
The department said the flight is “part of our ongoing efforts to assist Americans return home” and said additional flights will be departing from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The move comes as hundreds of thousands of Americans stranded across the Middle East are trying to leave the region, faced with canceled flights and other travel disruptions.
Chris Elliott, a pastor from Lexington, North Carolina, told ABC News that he and his family were stranded while visiting sites in Jerusalem. He said they ended up in a bomb shelter as sirens sounded and incoming missiles were intercepted.
“We want Americans to be on American soil right now,” Elliott said.
Eliott’s daughter, Riley, said it’s been frustrating and frightening to be forced to shelter in place since the joint U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran began on Saturday.
“The scariest for me was trying to go to bed at night and then being woken up by the sounds of sirens,” Riley Elliott told ABC News.
The U.S. State Department issued an advisory on Monday, three days into the military operation, urging Americans to immediately leave 14 countries in the region via commercial flights, but stranded U.S. citizens have said that’s become extremely difficult, given the significant disruptions to air travel.
The Trump administration is facing some criticism for apparently not having a plan in place to get American citizens out of harm’s way ahead of the joint operation.
Responding to a question on Tuesday from ABC News about why so many Americans became stuck in the Middle East absent any advance warning of the attack on Iran, President Donald Trump said, “Well, because it happened all very quickly.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Wednesday press briefing that the U.S. did communicate the danger of traveling to the region.
“There was many signs, put out by the State Department,” Leavitt said. “The secretary of state issued level four travel advisories dating back to January for many of these countries in the region,” adding that they were “advising extreme caution and do not travel alerts to Americans in the region.”
However, a review of travel advisories issued by the State Department indicates that prior to the start of the conflict, of the the 14 countries American travelers were later urged to depart, eight of them were only listed at a Level 1 or Level 2 — meaning to exercise normal precautions or increased caution.
Leavitt also claimed that since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, over 17,500 Americans “have safely returned home from the Middle East, with over 8,500 American citizens returning home to the United States just yesterday alone.”
Multiple U.S. embassies in the region, including some that have been attacked, have said they are unable to help citizens trying to leave.
“Our embassies and our diplomatic facilities are under direct attack from a terroristic regime,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday in Washington.
Asked if there were plans in place to evacuate Americans before the attack took place, Rubio said, “That’s the plan we’re trying to carry out.”
“The problem is, or the challenge we are facing, is airspace closures,” Rubio said, adding that some airports were closed after being hit in strikes. “So, that’s a challenge, but rest assured, we are confident that we are going to be able to assist every American.”
Odies Turner, a private chef from South Carolina, told ABC News that he’s been stuck in his hotel in Doha, Qatar, since the military operation began. He said the unexpected experience of being in a war has left him “frustrated, anxious” and feeling helpless.
“How do you expect us to leave a country where the airspace is closed? People are really stranded here,” Turner said in a self-video recorded on Tuesday. “I really don’t know what to do. I’ve reached out to the embassy, consulate and airlines. There’s no information on when I will get back home. It’s a mess.”
American Lisa Butler said the military conflict left her and her family, who were part of a large travel group, stranded in Abu Dhabi before they were evacuated to Dubai.
“We were standing … outside of this beautiful mosque, looking up in the sky and seeing these missiles that have been intercepted,” Butler told ABC News about how she and her family learned while in Abu Dhabi that they were vulnerable to a major military conflict breaking out in the region.
Oliver Sims, an American from Texas, told ABC News that he has been stuck in Qatar.
“I was just a few minutes ago, listening to some explosions that are going off above my head,” Sims said. “And, you know, I know that officials have said use commercial means, but there are really no commercial means here for us to use. So it’s really difficult to try and figure out a way out.”
Asked to describe conditions in Qatar, Sims said that he has been awakened at night by “extremely loud explosions” that shook the windows of his hotel room.
“I looked out my window and I saw a bunch of debris that was raining down outside of my hotel window,” Sims said. “And it’s very jarring, too, because it’s not just how loud it is, just how it actually physically shakes you. The rumbling is really, really just as violent.”
In this image released by the Walton County Sheriffs Office, law enforment vehicles are shown at the scene of a stabbing investigation at Walton Middle School in Defuniak, Fla., on March 24, 2026. (Walton County Sheriff’s Office, Florida)
(DEFUNIAK SPRINGS, Fla.) — A middle school student is in custody after allegedly stabbing two children and one adult at his Florida school on Tuesday, authorities said.
The attack — which happened in less than 45 seconds — unfolded after the suspect was dropped off at 7:17 a.m. at Walton Middle School in DeFuniak Springs in the Florida Panhandle, Sheriff Michael Adkinson said.
The school was not fully open at the time and there were about 40 students in the building, Adkinson said at a news conference.
The suspect allegedly went into a bathroom and then emerged a few minutes later wearing a mask and armed with a “sharp implement,” the sheriff said.
The boy allegedly went up to a fellow student and stabbed them multiple times, Adkinson said. He then allegedly went down the hall and attacked an adult, and then stabbed another child, the sheriff said.
The suspect fled but was apprehended near the school about seven minutes after the stabbings, Adkinson said.
The two children were seriously injured: one was life-flighted to a hospital in Pensacola and the other was taken to Fort Walton-Destin Hospital, a level two trauma center, the sheriff said. The wounded adult was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, he said.
The sheriff did not discuss a potential motive.
The school canceled classes for the day, the sheriff’s office said.
