Small plane bringing hurricane relief to Jamaica crashes in waterway, 2 dead
A plane heading to Jamaica to help with storm relief crashed in a waterway in a community in Coral Springs, Florida, Nov. 10, 2025. (Obtained by ABC News)
(CORAL SPRINGS, Fla.) — Two people died when a small plane heading to Jamaica for Hurricane Melissa relief efforts plunged into a waterway in a Coral Springs, Florida, neighborhood, according to local officials.
The Beech B100 went down at about 10:19 a.m. on Monday behind some homes, according to the National Transportation Safety Board and the Coral Springs Fire Department.
No one on the ground was injured and no houses were hit, fire officials said.
The plane went down about five minutes after takeoff from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport and was heading to Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica, for relief efforts, according to Fort Lauderdale city officials.
Jamaica is working to rebuild after the massive destruction caused by Hurricane Melissa. The storm made landfall on the island on Oct. 28 as a Category 5 hurricane, one of the most powerful landfalls on record in the Atlantic basin.
There were more than 30 deaths in Jamaica from Melissa and 100,000 housing structures were damaged, according to the United Nations.
Stock image of police lights. Douglas Sacha/Getty Images
(KATY, Texas) — A Marine Corps veteran was arrested after allegedly threatening to open fire on a Texas high school and zoo after leading police on a high-speed chase, officials said.
Joshua Finney, 38, is accused of sending Facebook messages to relative threatening to shoot up Morton Ranch High School in Katy, Texas, and the Houston Zoo. The relative said he also sent pictures posing with guns, according to authorities.
Law enforcement confronted Finney on Tuesday, when he took police on a high-speed car chase in Katy, according to investigators. One magistrate told ABC News affiliate ABC 13 that Finney “evaded for eight miles at speeds of 110 miles per hour, driving on the shoulder, weaving through lanes, driving the wrong way head-on at two patrol vehicles and innocent motorists.”
When Finney was stopped, police said they found a loaded gun in his car with 39 rounds of ammunition. Law enforcement also has a video of Finney driving by Morton Ranch High School, according to police.
At his first probable cause court appearance Wednesday, Finney did not appear as he being held in a mental health unit, according to the magistrate.
Finney has been charged with harassment, evading police and illegally possessing a weapon due to a lengthy and violent previous criminal history, according to police.
The investigation is ongoing, police said, and Finney’s bond was raised to $10 million on Thursday.
Luigi Mangione, suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City, arrives at a heliport with members of the NYPD, Dec. 19, 2024, in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — On the eve of court scheduled appearances for high-profile suspected gunmen Tyler Robinson and Luigi Mangione, a new law enforcement assessment warned of calls for further violence against politicians, business leaders and other dignitaries.
The assessment — prepared by the NYPD counterterrorism and intelligence bureau after the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk — said the killing of the conservative pundit last week and UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson late last year stems from the same toxic and violent atmosphere.
“The targeted attack occurred against the backdrop of an increasingly volatile threat environment in the U.S. amid ongoing concerns over the targeting of and violent threats persistently aimed at prominent political figures, CEOs, public officials, and other dignitaries. These individuals likely remain vulnerable at open-air speaking engagements and public events, which have been targeted by malicious actors seeking to advance political or ideological agendas and/or draw attention to unique personal grievances through violence,” the document, obtained by ABC News, said.
“This attack, along with a series of recent high-profile assaults linked to actors with a host of grievances, underscores the continued need for heightened vigilance among law enforcement officers and private-sector security personnel with dignitary/executive protection responsibilities. Rather than aligning with a single extremist ideology, malicious actors may adopt a personalized, hate-filled worldview drawn from a mix of beliefs, amplifying the risk of future attacks by lone offenders that glean tactical/targeting inspiration from prior acts of high-profile violence and find support in permissive online environments,” the bureau said in the document.
Robinson, the suspected gunman in Kirk’s killing, is expected to face capital murder charges in Utah on Tuesday. Authorities have said Robinson may have been “radicalized” online and that ammunition found in the gun used to kill Kirk included anti-fascist and meme-culture writings.
Luigi Mangione, who has been indicted on federal charges in the shooting of Thompson in Midtown, Manhattan on Dec. 4, 2024, is due in a New York court on Tuesday when the judge is expected to rule on several outstanding motions, including defense motions to dismiss state murder charges and exclude certain evidence. Mangione has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors have suggested Mangione inspired other violence, namely the shooting in July targeting the NFL headquarters at 345 Park Av. His attorneys have denied that.
The NYPD assessment said the killing of Kirk could likewise inspire others.
“Regardless of motive, this incident has, and likely will continue to, resonate with a wide range of violent extremists in perceived justifications and calls for further violence. Additionally, the high-profile nature of this assassination will likely be amplified in propaganda messaging and heavily exploited by malicious actors as well as adversarial nation-states in mis/dis/mal-information aimed at fomenting division,” the assessment said.
(NEW YORK) — The fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk has put Utah Valley University (UVU) under scrutiny as security experts said the location of the stage for the outdoor event where the conservative commentator was targeted was particularly vulnerable, and questioned why no metal detectors were in place and bags seemingly were not checked.
More than 3,000 people were on hand Wednesday as the 31-year-old Kirk, CEO and co-founder of the conservative grassroots organization Turning Point USA, spoke in an open-air courtyard on the Orem, Utah, campus, which is at the bottom of a bowl-shaped area surrounded by buildings, law enforcement officials said.
A gunman fired the deadly shot at Kirk with a high-powered bolt-action rifle from the rooftop of a campus building a substantial distance from where Kirk was speaking, hitting him in the throat, officials said.
The suspect in the shooting, identified as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was arrested on Friday night after his father recognized him from surveillance images and video released by investigators, authorities said.
“This is a police chief’s nightmare,” Chief Jeff Long of the Utah Valley University campus police department said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Witnesses told ABC News that the event was not just open to the students on campus, but to the general public as well.
Long said he worked with Kirk’s private security team to establish security protocols for the event, which was the first stop on a nationwide tour of college campuses Kirk launched, called The American Comeback Tour.
“We worked together. He has his team and they do this all over the country. We all know that. It’s not uncommon for them. They’re very comfortable on campuses. And I was coordinating with his lead security guy,” Long said.
Turning Point USA did not respond to an ABC News request for comment.
Long said six campus police officers were working the event, including some in plainclothes who were monitoring the crowd.
“We train for these things, and you think you have things covered, and these things, unfortunately, they happen,” Long said. “You try to get your bases covered and, unfortunately, today [Wednesday] we didn’t. Because of that, we have this tragic incident.”
But multiple witnesses who attended the event told ABC News there seemed to be little to no security at all.
“We walked in, we were kind of surprised because there was like no security check. They didn’t check us for IDs. They didn’t pat us down. You just walked in,” Jasmine Martinez, a mother of five, told ABC News on Thursday.
Justin Hicken, who also attended the event, said he, too, was surprised by the seeming lack of security.
“I just followed the crowd into some of the campus buildings and … once you made your way through the campus buildings, it opens up into a courtyard where the stage or the amphitheater drops down like a pit,” Hicken told ABC News, adding that he also was not scrutinized by any security when he arrived at the free event.
He said that while the crowd was mostly comprised of college-aged people, “There were people of all ages there.”
“There were elderly people with walkers, there were children, there were families. It was a big group,” Hicken said. “I would say it was probably about 97% or 98% pro-Charlie. There were a few people you could tell were in opposition to him being there but for the most part, it was a very pro-Charlie crowd.”
Before the event, an online petition was circulated asking school officials to prevent Kirk from speaking on the UVU campus. The petition stated in part that “Charlie Kirk is known for his divisive rhetoric that often supports policies and laws which aren’t inclusive and can marginalize various communities.” The petition gathered more than 900 signatures.
“We affirm our commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue,” the university said in a Sept. 3 statement in response to the petition. “The university respects the rights of student clubs and organizations to invite various speakers to campus. As a public institution, UVU upholds First Amendment rights and fosters an environment where ideas – popular or controversial – can be exchanged freely, energetically, and civilly.”
However, Don Mihalek, a retired senior special agent for the U.S. Secret Service and an ABC News contributor, questioned the location of the stage with roofs of buildings surrounding the area where Kirk was shot, given that President Donald Trump was shot at a July 13, 2024, campaign rally at an outdoor venue in Butler, Pennsylvania, by a man who fired from rooftop 400 feet from where Trump was speaking.
Investigators said the gunman who shot Kirk fired an older model imported Mauser .30-06 caliber bolt-action rifle from the roof of a building and appeared to have a clear line of sight to where Kirk was seated under a shade canopy more than 100 yards away.
“The location of the event was in the middle of a college quad, it sounds like, which was surrounded by tall buildings, which present line-of-sight issues,” Mihalek said.
Mihalek added, “In my view, in this day and age, you can’t not do proper advanced planning for an event, especially an outdoor event, and take into account all the standard security measures for an event.”
Mihalek said pre-planning for possible security issues, including access control to the event, line-of-sight issues and monitoring of the crowd, “all has to be baked into the event planning process.”
Robert Boyce, the retired chief of detectives for the New York Police Department and an ABC News contributor, said that from a security standpoint, the outdoor venue should have never been chosen for an event featuring such a controversial speaker.
Boyce further said that the venue for the event shouldn’t have been outdoors.
“For a controversial person speaking in any way, with any kind of petition, any outside threats we don’t know right now, you really can’t have it outside,” Boyce said. “You have to have a door to control and that’s important, especially in these times. We’re really at a different point in our history that’s really hard to believe. But you want to control that door. This way, you know who’s inside and you can walk around and see and identify anybody who’s acting out of sorts.”
Boyce also questioned why the event was opened to the general public.
“It’s inexplicable to me why a university would let outside people come in and watch this on their campus, and that has to be answered,” Boyce said.
In response to the questions raised about the security plan for the event, a university spokesperson told ABC News, “I’m not able to answer those specifics at this time.”
The university spokesperson directed ABC News to a page on the school’s website answering some frequently asked questions about the Charlie Kirk event. Under the question “What security measures were taken?” the website states “Kirk’s lead security staff coordinated with UVU Police Chief Jeff Long regarding the security measures,” echoing Chief Long’s statement during the Sept. 10 news conference.
The website page also said that Kirk had previously visited the school with Turning Point USA in 2019.
The Utah Board of Higher Education – the governing body for the Utah System of Higher Education, which is comprised of 16 public colleges and universities, including UVU – issued a statement last week, saying it will “continue working with state leaders to identify ways to keep our campuses safe and welcoming for everyone.”
The statement added, “We believe strongly that Utah’s campuses must remain places where individuals can share and debate differing viewpoints openly and respectfully. Attempts to diminish that freedom have no place here and we will continue working to ensure our students, faculty and visitors feel safe to express themselves.”
