Truck driver who went missing in possible hijacking found dead: FBI
Alejandro Jacomino Gonzalez is seen circa October 2024 in a photo released by the FBI. (FBI)
(FLORIDA) — A truck driver who went missing in a possible hijacking while transporting vehicles from Georgia to Florida has been found dead, the FBI said Wednesday.
Alejandro Jacomino Gonzalez, 41, was last seen alive in the early morning hours on April 17 at a rest stop on I-95 south in Brevard County, Florida, according to the FBI’s Tampa field office.
The truck was located in Port Wentworth, Georgia, that day, though Gonzalez was not there, according to the FBI, which called his disappearance “suspicious.” Several vehicles were also missing from the hauler.
On Wednesday, the FBI field offices in Tampa and Atlanta said a body found in coastal Georgia is confirmed to be Gonzalez. They did not say where or when the body was located.
The FBI Tampa and Atlanta divisions are leading the investigation into Gonzalez’s death.
Gonzalez, a CDL driver for an unidentified trucking company, had picked up multiple vehicles from the Port of Brunswick in Georgia on April 16 and was supposed to drop them off in Miami, the FBI said.
He arrived at the truck stop in Grant-Valkaria at approximately 1:21 a.m. on April 17 and rested for several hours, the FBI said. At 7:49 a.m., the truck drove south one exit and then turned north, according to the FBI.
“Soon after, Gonzalez became unreachable and the truck was reported missing,” the FBI stated in a missing person bulletin.
Three vehicles that went missing from the hauler have since been located in Florida, the FBI said.
Anyone with information on the investigation is asked to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit tips online.
A man is arrested after throwing a hand-made smoke grenade at a protest near Gracie Mansion, on March 7, 2026, in New York. (Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Two improvised explosive devices brought to a counterprotest outside Gracie Mansion in New York City Saturday are being investigated as “an act of ISIS-inspired terrorism,” and the two suspects arrested in connection with the incident are facing federal terrorism charges, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Monday.
According to a federal criminal complaint released Monday, both suspects openly pledged allegiance to ISIS while in the presence of police, and one suspect allegedly told officers they “wanted to carry out an attack bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing,” which the suspect noted “caused only ‘three deaths.’”
The explosive devices contained the volatile substance triacetone triperoxide, known as TATP, and were made to “injure, maim or worse,” Tisch said of Saturday’s incident.
“These were not hoax devices or smoke bombs. They were improvised explosive devices,” Tisch said during a news conference outside the Gracie Mansion mayor’s residence with New York City Mayor Zohran Mandami, the city’s first Muslim mayor.
One of the devices was ignited and deployed at protesters in a crosswalk on East End Avenue and East 87 Street, and the other device was detonated close by, Tisch said.
Tisch said a third suspected IED was found in the car of the two suspects, a black 2010 Honda with New Jersey license plates, parked on the Upper East Side of Manhattan near Gracie Mansion, prompting an immediate evacuation of homes in the area. She said the device did not test positive for explosives.
All of the devices are being sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, for additional testing, Tisch said.
Two Pennsylvania men who are in custody are charged in a five-count federal complaint with attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS, use of a weapon of mass destruction, transportation of explosive materials, interstate transportation and receipt of explosives, and unlawful possession of destructive devices.
The suspects were identified as Emir Balat of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, and Ibrahim Kayumi of Newton, Pennsylvania, according to Tisch and the federal complaint.
The suspects were ordered to be held without bail after they made their initial appearances, both in shackles, in Manhattan federal court on Monday afternoon. They did not enter a plea to the charges.
“They’re suspected of coming here to commit an act of terrorism,” Mamdani said Monday. “Let me say this plainly: Anyone who comes to New York City to bring violence to our streets will be held accountable in accordance with the law.”
The explosives were deployed at an anti-Muslim protest outside Gracie Mansion that was organized by far-right, anti-immigrant provocateur Jack Lang, officials said. The event was called “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City.”
The anti-Muslim protest drew counterprotesters who called their response “Run Nazis Out of New York City,” according to the criminal complaint.
“FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the matter with our partners at NYPD as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York,” the FBI said in a statement Sunday.
Balat and Kayumi are suspected of attending the event as part of the counterprotest to the anti-Muslim demonstration, authorities said Monday.
Neither Mamdani nor his wife, Rama Duwaji, were in Gracie Mansion when the incident occurred, the mayor said Monday.
Immediately following his arrest, Kayumi was asked by someone in the surrounding crowd why he allegedly attempted to bomb the protest, according to the complaint.
“Kayumi responded in part and as captured on NYPD body-worn camera footage, ‘ISIS,'” the complaint states.
Balat waived his Miranda rights to remain silent following his arrest, according to the complaint, and allegedly provided a written statement in which he “pledge[d] [] allegience [sic] to the Islamic State,” the complaint states.
Balat also allegedly told police that “they wanted to carry out an attack bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing, which Balat noted caused only ‘three deaths,'” according to the complaint.
The April 15, 2013, Boston Marathon bombing also left more than 500 people injured.
Kayumi, whom the complaint said also waived his Miranda rights, allegedly “stated, in substance and in part, that he was affiliated with ISIS; watched ISIS propaganda on his phone; and was partly inspired to carry out his actions that day by ISIS,” according to the complaint.
“Anti-Muslim bigotry is nothing new to me, nor is it anything new for the one million or so Muslim New Yorkers who know this city as our home,” Mamdani said at Monday’s news conference.
“While I found this protest appalling. I will not waver in my belief that it should be allowed to happen. Ours is a free society, where the right to peaceful protest is sacred. It does not only belong to those we agree with. It belongs to everyone,” Mandani added.
Many of the counterprotesters on Saturday confronted the “display of bigotry,” the mayor said. He also praised NYPD officers who swiftly responded to the incident and arrested the suspects, saying they were “faced with a chaotic situation that quickly could have become far more dangerous.”
The mayor specifically cited the “courageous and selfless” acts of two NYPD officers, Assistant Chief Aaron Edwards and Sgt. Luis Navarro, who attended Monday’s news conference. Mamdani said the officers “ran towards the danger so that others could run safely.”
Tisch said the last incident in New York City in which an IED was deployed occurred in December 2017, when Akayed Ullah detonated a homemade bomb he had strapped to his torso in a pedestrian underpass connecting the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the Time Square subway station.
Ullah, a permanent resident of Bangladesh who was living in Brooklyn at the time, was the only person injured in the act, which federal prosecutors said was committed on behalf of ISIS of Iraq. Ullah was convicted in April 2021 by a federal jury on all six counts of the indictment and was sentenced to life in prison.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department announced on Sunday that a woman missing in Arizona is the mother of “Today Show” host Savannah Guthrie. (Pima County Sheriff’s Department)
(NEW YORK) — An 84-year-old woman who was reported missing in Arizona has been identified by officials as the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department announced during a news conference on Sunday that Nancy Guthrie was last seen in the Catalina Foothills area on Saturday night at approximately 9:45 p.m.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said a family member reported her missing on Sunday, around noon.
Nanos said search and rescue teams have been out at Nancy Gutherie’s home, along with homicide teams and detectives.
Foul play is notbeing ruled out at this time, he said.
Nancy Guthrie is described as having some physical ailments, but does not have cognitive issues, her family said, according to the sheriff.
An NBCUniversal spokesperson confirmed early on Monday that Nancy Guthrie was missing.
“We can confirm this is a missing persons case, and the family is working closely with local law enforcement,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “If anyone has any information, please contact the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900. The family is grateful for the outreach, thoughts and prayers.”
ABC News’ Cecilie Larcher contributed to this report.
Ice agents look on as travelers stand in long lines at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, March 23, 2026 in Atlanta. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began fanning out at more than a dozen airports across the nation on Monday to assume some of the duties of Transportation Security Administration officers affected by a federal government funding crisis.
“What I see ICE agents doing is helping TSA plug the holes of security,” White House Border Czar Tom Homan told ABC News on Monday.
President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that the ICE agents assigned to airports will also continue to enforce immigration laws.
“They really are a high-level group of people and they love it because they’re able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country. That’s very fertile territory,” Trump said during a gaggle with reporters on the tarmac in Palm Beach, Florida. “But that’s not why they’re there. They’re really there to help.”
Homan said that if ICE agents see “illegal activity,” they will take action because they are federal law enforcement officers.
Asked whether the ICE agents will be carrying out immigration enforcement at airports, Homan said, “We’re not going to ignore illegal conduct in the airport whether it’s human trafficking, whether it’s alien smuggling with somebody that’s wanted, whether it’s … someone that they believe they have reasonable suspicion to talk to because they feel there’s a criminal activity in front of them.”
“Of course, anybody would need probable cause to make any arrests, but yeah, their law enforcement officers and they’re not going to ignore the law while we’re there,” Homan said.
“I’m leaving it up to the TSA Administrator, who’s an expert airport operations,” Homan added. “Where can we plug the holes? Where can we increase security, especially in this heightened security environment, because what’s going on the world? Where can we help you to move those lines and American people quicker to inspections while the same time maintaining security at the airport?”
As ICE agents began showing up at airports on Monday, Trump earlier posted a message on social media asking them to refrain from wearing masks while helping with airport security.
“I would greatly appreciate, however, NO MASKS, when helping our Country out of the Democrat caused MESS at the airports,” Trump said in his post, adding that he is a “BIG proponent” of ICE agents wearing masks when they “search for, and are forced to deal with, hardened criminals.”
Asked by reporters on Monday on Air Force One why he wants ICE agents to remove their masks at airports, Trump replied, “Because the people coming into the airport, typically speaking, aren’t murderers, killers, drug dealers, etc. There may be a few of them. But there aren’t many.”
Immigration officials wearing masks has been a key issue for critics in Trump’s nationwide mass deportation program.
Trump added that typical travelers at airports are “people that want to come into the country, and that want to leave the country, going to maybe their home countries, so I didn’t think it was an appropriate look for an airport.”
ICE agents were spotted by ABC News at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport early Monday.
The agents appeared to be helping with crowd control at the airport amid long lines of travelers trying to get through security. At one point, lines stretched outside the Atlanta airport’s terminals.
DHS funding battle continues
Democrats have blocked funding for the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to push for policy reforms to ICE, whose aggressive tactics in enforcing immigration laws have prompted protests and lawsuits across the country.
The DHS reforms that Democratic lawmakers have proposed include requiring ICE agents not to wear face masks, be equipped with body cameras and have warrants signed by a judge before entering homes and businesses.
Republicans have, so far, rejected those proposals.
ICE and TSA are both under the umbrella of DHS. But while ICE has remained funded through appropriations from Trump’s tax and spending bill passed last summer, key DHS agencies like TSA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard are left unfunded.
Approximately 60,000 TSA officers have gone over a month with partial pay and last week began getting no paychecks as the stalemate over DHS funding continues.
Some TSA officers have begun calling out sick or quitting as they missed their first paycheck since the shutdown began on Feb. 14. DHS said that more than 400 TSA officers have quit so far.
Confusion over duties of ICE agents
On Sunday, Homan said the deployment of ICE would largely free up TSA agents for specialized tasks, like passenger and bag screening.
Homan, however, said ICE agents are not trained to do specialized work like screening passengers and running X-ray machines.
“But there are roles we can play to release TSA officers from the non-significant role, such as guarding an exit, so they can get back to the scanning machines and move people quicker,” Homan said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Homan said that “ICE can check identification before people enter the screening area.”
But in an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy seemed to contradict Homan.
Asked by Jon Karl, ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent, whether the ICE agents have any practical experience in manning airport security lines, Duffy said, “They run those same type of security machines at the Southern border, right? Packages come through or people come through. They run similar assets.”
Duffy added that ICE agents could also manage the flow of travelers through airport security and help TSA with administrative tasks.
“It depends on who shows up. Every single day will dictate how long these lines are,” Duffy said. “And you don’t know as travelers are trying to figure out, do I have to come an hour-and-a-half early? Do I have to come four hours early? They don’t know until the day of or the afternoon of their flight.”
Homan attempted to clarify what duties ICE agents would have at the airports during an interview on Monday with ABC News. Homan said that Duffy might have been referring to machines used for luggage and other packages that ICE agents already run at airports.
Homan told ABC News that ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) “have a footprint of all the airports, because that’s where we open investigations on currency smuggling and human trafficking.”
“So ICE is involved with baggage investigations on that. So there is a sort of screening,” Homan said.
