(LOS ANGELES) – Five people were injured and rushed to hospitals after a helicopter crashed in Huntington Beach, California, on Saturday.
The helicopter came down around 2 p.m. local time in a beach parking lot between Twin Dolphins Drive and Beach Boulevard, according to city officials.
Videos taken by bystanders showed the wreckage lodged in palm trees near a hotel.
Two people were pulled from the helicopter wreckage and three others on the ground were hurt, a city of Huntington Beach spokesperson said in a statement.
The victims were all taken to area hospitals in unknown conditions, the spokesperson said.
The city said in a news release the helicopter was associated with a “Cars and Copters” event scheduled for Sunday.
There’s no word yet on a cause of the crash.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have been notified, the city said.
Timothy Bartlett said he was filming a TikTok video of helicopters landing when he captured the moment of the crash.
“I was stunned,” Bartlett said. “As soon as I saw it spinning, I knew it was going to crash because it just didn’t look right, and I knew something was wrong.”
People ran to the site of the crash and police started moving everyone back, Bartlett told ABC News. From what he witnessed, he said it appeared a tail rotor broke off from the helicopter.
Bartlett said that while the helicopter did not burst into flames, he saw what appeared to be helicopter fuel leak out.
“I just was hoping, praying that everyone was OK,” Bartlett said.
(LELAND, Miss.) — Two more people have died from injuries they suffered in a shooting that erupted Friday night in Leland, Mississippi, bringing the death toll to six, authorities said on Sunday morning.
At least 10 other people were injured in the mass shooting in the small town’s downtown area, officials said.
Leland Mayor John Lee, speaking at a Saturday evening news conference, said the city was experiencing a “great loss” and asked for prayers.
On Friday, state Sen. Derrick Simmons told Jackson ABC affiliate WAPT the people were at a gathering following the Leland High School homecoming football game when the shooting happened.
Aside from providing the number of dead and wounded, the mayor did not provide many other details about the shooting.
“Everything else is under investigation,” he said during Saturday’s news conference. “We don’t have any information as far as who did the shooting or any of that. But we are here to get to the bottom of this.”
The Washington County Coroner’s Office said it received notifications on Saturday that two additional victims had died from their injuries. The coroner’s office identified those deceased victims as 18-year-old Amos Brantley Jr. and 34-year-old JaMichael Jones.
The other victims who were pronounced dead at the scene of the shooting were identified by the coroner’s office as 18-year-old Kaslyn Johnson, 19-year-old Calvin Plant, 41-year-old Oreshama Johnson and 25-year-old Shelbyona Powell.
Robert Eickhoff, special agent in charge of the Jackson, Mississippi, FBI Field Office, did not provide specifics but said multiple times that authorities were searching for “subjects” in connection with the shooting.
“People who were enjoying themselves last found themselves faced with violence that no community should be faced with,” Eickhoff said, urging members of the public to come forward with any information they may have.
“You may have seen something,” he said. “You may have heard something or know someone who did.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also assisting in the investigation, providing DNA analysis and also working to potentially match shell casings to other firearms using a national automated system.
“This could have easily been in another city just like it was here in Leland, Mississippi,” Lee, the mayor, said.
The city of about 3,600 people is located about 115 miles north of Jackson.
String of other shootings in Mississippi The update on Friday night’s shooting came amid a string of shootings throughout the state this weekend.
On Saturday, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said it was investigating a shooting at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi, that left one person dead and two others wounded.
The shooting led to a shelter-in place order being issued for the campus.
Authorities said the shooting occurred at about 6:30 p.m. local time near the campus’ Industrial Technology Building. No arrest had been made.
About a half hour later, authorities in Jackson said a child was shot in the abdomen near a tailgate section at Jackson State University stadium. The child was taken to the hospital. There is no update on their condition.
On Friday evening, two people were killed in a shooting in Heidelberg, Mississippi, on the grounds of a high school, according to ABC affiliate WDAM.
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office later said it had taken an 18-year-old man into custody for questioning in connection with the shooting.
(NEW YORK) — At least four people were killed and 20 injured early Sunday in a shooting at a bar in St. Helena Island, South Carolina, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
The shooting unfolded around 1 a.m. at Willie’s Bar and Grill, 7 Dr. Martin Luther Drive on St. Helena Island, located about an hour north of Savannah, Ga., according to the sheriff’s office.
When deputies arrived at the scene, there was a large crowd at the bar with several people suffering from gunshot wounds, according to the sheriff’s office.
Four people were pronounced dead at the scene, the sheriff’s office said.
“It was learned that hundreds of people were at the location when the shooting occurred. Multiple victims and witnesses ran to the nearby businesses and properties seeking shelter from the gun shots,” according to the statement from the sheriff’s office.
Of the 20 victims being treated at hospitals, four were in critical condition, the sheriff’s office said.
Several victims were taken to hospitals by ambulance, but other people injured in the shooting showed up at emergency rooms on their own, the sheriff’s office said.
No arrests have been announced in the incident, though the sheriff’s office said it was investigating a “person of interest.”
The names of the victims killed in the shooting are being withheld pending notification of their relatives, officials said.
“This is a tragic and difficult incident for everyone,” the sheriff’s office said in its statement. “We ask for your patience as we continue to investigate this incident.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who represents Beaufort County, said in a social media post that she is “COMPLETELY HEARTBROKEN to learn about the devastating shooting in Beaufort County.
“Our prayers are with the victims, their families, and everyone impacted by this horrific act of violence,” Mace said.
Mace asked that anyone with information about the mass shooting contact the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office “as soon as humanly possible.
(NEW YORK) — The federal charge that makes accused killer Luigi Mangione eligible for the death penalty must be dismissed because it does not meet the legal threshold, his defense attorneys argued in a new court filing.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that accuse him of shooting and killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December of 2024.
Federal prosecutors allege Mangione stalked Thompson in Manhattan, where the executive was due to attend an investor conference at the New York Hilton Midtown. Mangione allegedly waited for Thompson to pass by and then shot him at close range.
“It is clear that, in its generic form, this crime can be committed without the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another,” the defense said in the filing.
The defense also argued that evidence recovered from the backpack Mangione was carrying when he was arrested at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s should be suppressed.
“Altoona law enforcement failed to follow fundamental Fourth Amendment case law (and basic police procedure) by failing to obtain a search warrant before searching through Mr. Mangione’s backpack and the closed containers within the backpack,” the defense said.
Prosecutors have previously defended the police handling of the arrest and search, which resulted in the recovery of the alleged murder weapon and writings that investigators said helped explain a motive.
Mangione is accused of shooting and killing Thompson with a 9mm handgun equipped with a silencer on a Midtown Manhattan street on Dec. 4, 2024.
After a several-day manhunt, Mangione was captured in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where police found a backpack that investigators said contained the alleged murder weapon, a fake ID and a red notebook he used as a diary.
“I finally feel confident about what I will do,” one entry said, according to authorities. “The target is insurance. It checks every box.”
A federal grand jury charged Mangione in April with two counts of stalking, firearms offense and murder through the use of a firearm, a charge that makes him eligible for the death penalty, if convicted.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state charges in New York and Pennsylvania as well as the federal charges. The simultaneous prosecutions put him in what his attorneys have called an “untenable situation” and they’ve asked Judge Gregory Carro to dismiss the state case, or at least put it on hold.
Mangione is also being ordered to appear in a Pennsylvania courtroom regarding those state charges. While he is currently being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, the Blair County District Attorney’s Office in Pennsylvania wants the accused killer to appear in court for a pretrial motion hearing scheduled for Nov. 7.
In Pennsylvania, Mangione has pleaded not guilty to charges of forgery, possession of an instrument of a crime and giving a false ID to an officer.
In September, a New York judge dismissed two murder charges related to acts of terrorism, including the most severe charge, first-degree murder. The judge said the evidence presented to the grand jury was insufficient to support the terrorism charge.
Mangione is due back in federal court in December.
(NEW YORK) — Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, has called “rapidly reusable, reliable rockets” the key to humans becoming a multiplanetary society. And when it comes to his company’s Falcon 9, SpaceX has shown that a rocket can do all those things.
The Falcon 9 has now completed 542 missions, 497 landings and 464 reflights, according to the SpaceX website.
But to reach the Moon and Mars and establish settlements on both, SpaceX will need its larger, more complex and significantly more powerful Starship and its Super Heavy booster to reach Falcon 9’s level of reliability and reusability.
Soon, SpaceX will have the chance to show that Starship’s successful August flight, the first to complete all its primary mission goals, was no fluke.
Barring a delay due to bad weather or mechanical issues, the stainless steel Starship and Super Heavy booster will conduct its 11th flight test on Monday, Oct. 13, at 7:15 p.m. ET, from the company’s Starbase in South Texas. A mission the company hopes will build on the much-needed success of its previous test. SpaceX will be operating Starship autonomously and there will be no astronauts aboard during the flight.
In late August, Starship and its Super Heavy booster successfully reached space on a suborbital trajectory at a near-orbital velocity, deploying a series of Starlink simulators before returning to Earth with such navigational precision that the reentry was captured on a camera attached to a remote buoy in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
“I would give [flight test 10] an A-plus. That was an A-plus performance. The only thing that was a little bit off was that there was some damage in the aft skirt compartment of Starship during the flight, but most of the mission objectives were achieved,” said Olivier de Weck, the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics and Engineering Systems at MIT and editor-in-chief of the “Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets.” “I don’t think this could have gone much better,” he added.
But now, de Weck says SpaceX needs to demonstrate that it can build on its August success and move the program forward with new mission objectives.
“I think the next step is to actually land the Starship, still not go into orbit and stay over multiple orbits, but actually land and recover the actual Starship,” said de Weck. “Recovery of the Starship, an upright landing, with retro propulsion on a fixed platform, that’s the next step.”
SpaceX is not planning an upright, fixed platform landing for the upcoming 11th flight test. Like the previous mission, the Starship will splash down in the Indian Ocean. The Super Heavy first stage booster, with its 24 Raptor engines, which SpaceX said was previously used during flight test eight, is also scheduled to splash down in the ocean. In several previous missions, it returned to the launch site and was caught by the tower’s mechanical “chopstick” arms.
The development of Starship hasn’t come easily for SpaceX, with several high-profile setbacks along the way. However, despite an explosion on the launch pad during a pre-flight engine test and several explosions and mechanical failures during previous test flights, Musk has long maintained that learning from failures is an integral part of SpaceX’s engineering process.
“I’m not surprised where the program is. It’s moving forward through the usual SpaceX iterative development model, and not surprisingly, it’s behind SpaceX’s ambitious schedule projections,” said Greg Autry, associate provost for space commercialization and strategy at the University of Central Florida. “But that wouldn’t make it any different than almost everything else that they’ve done in the past, other than that the scale of this is so large,” he added.
Autry is President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the chief financial officer of NASA.
Autry says he’s confident that SpaceX is headed in the right direction and said that Elon Musk and his companies tend to prove their critics wrong in the long run, delivering results even if it takes longer than anticipated.
“About ten years ago, Elon Musk promised me I was going to have a self-driving car shortly, and a lot of people said that was completely crazy. It wasn’t shortly, but I now have a self-driving car. I literally get in my car, push the button, and fifty miles later, I arrive at work. It is amazing. He delivers eventually,” Autry said.
Experts say that making the next generation of U.S.-designed and built rockets and spacecraft work is critical to achieving NASA’s goals of not only returning to the Moon but building a permanent lunar settlement and doing it before the Chinese.
During a late September ceremony at the Johnson Space Center announcing the new class of NASA astronauts, Acting NASA Administrator and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy spoke about the competition for space dominance.
“Now some are challenging our leadership in space, say, like the Chinese, and I’ll just tell you this, I’ll be damned if the Chinese beat NASA or beat America back to the Moon,” said Duffy. “We are going to win. We love challenges. We love competition, and we are going to win the second space race back to the Moon,” he added.
Autry, who first wrote about a new space race with China back in 2010, says China is determined to reach the Moon and dominate low-Earth orbit, but he believes the global competition will push American efforts forward.
“There are very credible people saying that they’re about to eclipse us in the next five years. I think that’s great for the prospect of competition that spurs us to work harder and take our role more seriously, and frankly to put funding into programs that we badly, badly need to fund,” said Autry.
Autry says that today’s space race should be compared to the “Age of Exploration” in the 15th and 16th centuries. He points out that while China had “an ambitious sailing-exploration program” in the early 1400s, European countries overtook the Chinese when the Europeans accelerated their global exploration efforts later in the century, at a time when China was pulling back.
“We are at that same moment in time right now. The countries that aggressively pursue going to the Moon and using the assets of space will dominate human history for the next several hundred years,” Autry said.
Autry believes that the billions of dollars being spent by companies like SpaceX and the federal government to support space exploration, return to the Moon and potentially get to Mars is money well spent.
“The countries that choose to take advantage of space resources will be wealthy, prosperous and happier than the countries that don’t. We have plenty of history to show that,” Autry said.
Autry says you just have to look at the first space program to see the benefits of this kind of investment.
“We would not have the computing environment, AI, the internet, solar power, fuel cells, and a variety of technologies at the level they are now if we had not made those investments that drove so much effort into engineering development and STEM education. It created the boom we’ve experienced since the second half of the 20th century,” he added.
Benny Johnson, a political commentator and podcast host, during a press briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. Eric Lee/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(TAMPA, Fla.) — Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday the arrest of a man who allegedly sent a letter with death threats targeting right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson in the days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Bondi held a news conference in Tampa, Florida, to make the announcement.
“Benny is a well-known media personality carrying a message very similar to Charlie’s, grounded largely in faith and love of country,” Bondi said during a news conference in Tampa, Florida.
Kirk, 31, the founder of the conservative youth activist organization Turning Point USA, was killed on Sept. 10 during a campus event at Utah Valley University (UVU) in Orem, about 39 miles south of Salt Lake City.
“Just days after Charlie’s assassination, Benny received a letter at his home, where he and Kate are raising their beautiful, beautiful young family. The author of this letter made it very clear that he hated Benny, because of his views and he wanted him dead. This was a coward hiding behind a keyboard who thought he could get away with this,” Bondi said during the press conference Friday.
Bondi said authorities arrested George Isbell Jr. in connection with the threatening letter, which she described as “horrific” in nature.
He was arrested on Oct. 7 in San Diego, California.
Isbell was charged federally with mailing a threatening communication, according to the DOJ.
“We cannot allow this political violence to continue any longer,” Bondi said. “This arrest will serve as a reminder to many: Do not do this. We will find you.”
U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida Greg Kehoe further detailed Isbell’s letter to Johnson, saying he threatened Johnson’s “extermination” and that he “should be strangled by an American flag” and “hoped somebody blows his head off.”
If convicted, Isbell faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, according to the DOJ.
“The FBI and our partners will not tolerate threats of violence like the kind allegedly made by the defendant about a media personality,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a DOJ press release on the arrest. “We will continue to investigate, pursue, and find those responsible for this conduct and ensure such criminals are held to full account in our justice system.”
Isbell has not yet entered a plea in the case, and contact information for his attorney was not available as of Friday afternoon.
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.
Crosses dedicated to the 21 victims of the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary are placed in front of the school. (Photo by Aaron E. Martinez/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
(UVALDE, Texas) — Three and a half years after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the community honored the 21 victims killed in the tragedy at the “bittersweet” opening of a new school.
“Today, as we open the doors of this beautiful elementary school, we do so with reverence for the precious lives lost and with resolute confidence in the legacy we will build within it,” Ashley Chohlis, the superintendent for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday.
The new school, Legacy Elementary School, a two-story campus totaling 116,000 square feet, opened on Friday, with classes beginning on Oct. 20. The new school is not located on the Robb Elementary property, which remains closed off with no immediate plans to demolish it.
The campus features a “large oak tree with two large branches” along with 19 “smaller branches,” paying tribute to the two teachers and 19 children who were killed in the May 2022 rampage.
At the start of the emotional ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, Chohlis asked for those in attendance to pause for 21 seconds of silence in honor of the victims of the shooting.
“The path to this ribbon cutting has been long and deeply emotional in the wake of unimaginable tragedy. Texans from across the state and here in Uvalde, with sorrow gripping their hearts, vowed to do something, anything they could to offer their deep sympathy, love and support. During the darkest of times, many people came together. From their love, this beautiful building stands proudly,” Chohlis said.
The school, which was built using $60 million in “donations, grants and community support,” will teach third, fourth and fifth graders, school officials said.
Jesse Rizo, the uncle of one of the victims who was killed in the shooting, said the opening of this campus is a “bittersweet” and “heart-wrenching moment.”
Laura Perez, the Uvalde CISC school board president, said the school “stands a testament” to the memory of the victims.
“This school is not about forgetting but remembering with dignity, rebuilding with courage and choosing to believe in the future even when the past still hurts,” Perez said on Friday.
The campus, which includes 36 classrooms, can house up to 800 students, according to a press release from Uvalde CISD Moving Forward Foundation, an organization that was created in the wake of the tragedy.
The opening of the school comes days after a trial date was set for one of the two senior police officers charged in connection with the failures on the day of the shooting, the judge overseeing the case told ABC News.
Former Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo, who was the on-site commander at Robb Elementary School on the day of the shooting, and former school officer Adrian Gonzales, were charged in June 2024 with multiple counts of child endangerment and abandonment.
On the day of the shooting, law enforcement waited some 77 minutes at the scene before breaching a classroom and killing the gunman.
Gonzales’ trial is set to begin on Jan. 5, with Arredondo’s case remaining on hold pending the outcome of ongoing litigation between the Uvalde District Attorney’s Office and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
(MCEWEN, Tenn.) — Multiple people are dead following a “devastating blast” at an explosives manufacturing plant in Tennessee on Friday, according to authorities.
The explosion occurred Friday morning at Accurate Energetic Systems in McEwen, located about 50 miles west of Tennessee.
Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis confirmed to reporters there are “some” fatalities and several people missing in the blast, though he did not give specific numbers.
At least 13 people are unaccounted for, Hickman County Mayor Jim Bates told ABC News.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — A potential nor’easter is beginning to develop off the coast of Florida on Friday, which could pose a threat to the East Coast this weekend into next week. Major cities and coastal areas in the Northeast could see heavy rain, gusty winds, coastal flooding and beach erosion.
The cold front that has brought chilly temperatures across the Northeast stalled out over the Florida Peninsula on Friday morning, with a low-pressure system developing in its wake along the Southeast coast later on Friday into Saturday that will track parallel to the East Coast.
By Sunday into Monday, the storm will skirt North Carolina’s Outer Banks and spin off the Jersey Shore before pulling away later in the day on Tuesday into Wednesday.
Over the next several days, this potential nor’easter will bring a plethora of impacts to the East Coast, with some threats even extending well inland.
Coastal areas from the Carolinas up to Long Island and southern coastal New England will bear the brunt of this storm, with winds reaching up to 60 mph, rain totals hitting between 2 to 5-plus inches, moderate to major tidal flooding and significant beach erosion.
Inland areas, including along the Interstate 95 corridor, could see up to 2 inches of rain and wind gusts reaching anywhere between 20 to 40 mph.
The heaviest rain totals will come from Saturday through Tuesday, bringing concerns of flash flooding, gusty winds and coastal flooding.
High wind watches have been issued for southern Delaware, coastal New Jersey and Long Island from Sunday morning through the overnight hours into Monday, with sustained winds of 20 to 30 mph and gusts of 60 mph or more.
Coastal flood watches have also already been issued from the Outer Banks of North Carolina up to coastal Massachusetts for Sunday through Monday for at least minor to moderate flooding. Areas from Delaware up to the Jersey Shore and Long Island could see moderate to potentially major impacts, with structural damage possible in coastal and bayside communities.
Additionally, significant beach erosion is also possible along the East Coast, especially from the Outer Banks up to coastal New England.
