In a screen grab from a video released by Secretary Kristi Noem, the US Coast Guard apprehends an oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela, on Dec. 20, 2025. (@Se_Noem)
(WASHINGTON) — A U.S. official tells ABC News that the U.S. Coast Guard is “in active pursuit of a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion.”
“It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order,” the official added.
The action comes after the U.S. Coast Guard seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Saturday, just ten days after the seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker.
Unlike that first vessel seized, the tanker seized Saturday is not on any sanctions list maintained by the U.S., EU, U.K. or U.N., according to Kpler, a data firm that tracks transportation and logistics networks.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed Saturday’s operation in a post on social media, saying that the Coast Guard “apprehended” the tanker with support from the Department of Defense in a pre-dawn action. She said the tanker had last made port in Venezuela.
“The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region,” Noem said in the post. “We will find you, and we will stop you.”
Last week, President Trump threatened to impose what he called “a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers” traveling to and from Venezuela – a move that could devastate the Venezuelan economy, since oil exports are the lifeblood of President Nicholas Maduro’s regime.
In response to Trump’s announcement, Maduro said Venezuela would continue to trade oil and that Trump’s “intention” is regime change.
“This will just not happen, never, never, never – Venezuela will never be a colony of anything or anyone, never,” Maduro said.
The U.S. has amassed the largest military presence in the Caribbean in decades, including the world’s largest aircraft carrier.
The Pentagon also has so far struck 28 alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing at least 100 people, without providing any public evidence that the boats were carrying illegal drugs or identifying those killed.
(NEW YORK) — Repeat atmospheric rivers continue to point relentless streams of rain and gusty wind toward the West Coast.
The current system over the Northwest has diminished, but it is still raining in Washington and Northern California and more significant precipitation is on the way later this weekend.
Another Flood Watch is in effect for parts of western Washington and western Oregon until Saturday afternoon for lingering flooding and some spotty rain that could add to it.
The ground remains saturated in these areas and streams remain elevated. This will lower the threshold for additional flooding in the days ahead.
The next atmospheric river will focus primarily on northern California this time, beginning later Saturday and continuing through Sunday.
A Flood Watch is up for much of Northern California, including Redding and Sacramento. Some areas could get up to 4 to 6+ inches.
The extreme Pacific Northwest won’t see as much rain but won’t be completely spared, with a widespread 1 to 2 inches likely. Mountain snow in the Cascades will also come in the order of feet.
On Christmas Eve Wednesday, another coastal storm will set its sights on the West Coast, but this time Southern California will bear the brunt.
Places like Los Angeles and San Diego are facing the threat of over 4 inches of rain, as well as gusty winds. The Sierra Nevada mountains are also looking at 2 to 4 feet of snow, which would render many mountain passes impassible.
Meanwhile, the Northeast has quieted down after being battered by rain and wind on Friday. This made life difficult for those beginning to travel for the holidays.
Many spots saw wind gusts greater than 60 mph, knocking down trees and power lines as well as causing flight delays.
In the storm’s wake, chilly but quieter weather has moved in. Winds have also eased, making for improved travel conditions.
Much of the holiday week will be well above average temperature-wise across the country, with dry and quiet conditions apart from the West Coast.
Dozens of cities are facing record high temperatures across the center of the country. This list includes St. Louis, Kansas City, Tulsa, Amarillo, Sioux Falls, Amarillo and Albuquerque.
Luigi Mangione attends a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 18, 2025 in New York City. (Shannon Stapleton-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Attorneys for Luigi Mangione are arguing the death penalty should be suspended from his federal murder case due to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s alleged “conflict of interest,” according to a new court filing.
In an overnight court filing, defense attorneys accused Bondi of failing to disclose her work at the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, which “lists United Health Group as a regular client,” and “that she personally financially profited from Ballard’s lucrative relationship with UHG.”
Mangione is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in New York City in December 2024. He has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that accused him of stalking and murdering Thompson and has been fighting the government’s notice of intent to seek the death penalty if he’s convicted.
The defense called it a conflict of interest that should have stopped Bondi from directing prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
“When Ms. Bondi left Ballard Partners to become the Attorney General in 2025, the very first defendant she personally selected to be executed was the man accused of killing the CEO of her former client,” the defense filing argued.
“The Attorney General’s financial connection to UHG represents a conflict of interest that should have caused her to recuse herself from making any decisions on this case,” attorneys for Mangione wrote.
The defense argued the pursuit of the death penalty violates Mangione’s due process rights.
“The Attorney General’s past and present financial interest in Ballard Partners, which continues to lobby the government on behalf of UHG and UHC, implicates Mr. Mangione’s due process rights because the very person empowered to seek his death has a financial stake in the case she is prosecuting,” the filing said.
The United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York customarily declines to comment on ongoing cases and is expected to file a written response to the defense argument.
Attorneys for Mangione have been fighting to exclude evidence from his forthcoming murder trial in state court. The new defense filing in the federal case used some of the testimony from that suppression hearing to argue the evidence should also be excluded from Mangione’s federal case.
The defense argued the search of Mangione’s backpack was illegal because, at the time, he was handcuffed, separated from his backpack by several feet and was surrounded by Altoona police officers.
“There was no reasonable possibility that Mr. Mangione could have evaded the numerous officers surrounding him and opened his zippered backpack while rear cuffed. Accordingly, law enforcement’s search of Mr. Mangione’s backpack at the McDonald’s cannot be justified as a search incident to a lawful arrest,” the defense wrote.
The pretrial hearing for the state case concluded on Thursday. New York Judge Gregory Carro gave the defense until Jan. 29 to make its final argument about what evidence should be excluded in writing. Prosecutors have until March 5 to respond. The defense then has two weeks to submit a response.
Carro said he expected to issue his decision about what, if any, evidence to exclude on May 18, at which point he would also set a date for trial.
Esa engineer Michaela Benthaus, photographed in the anteroom of the Munich office of the German Press Agency dpa. (Felix Hörhager/picture alliance via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Blue Origin made history Saturday, sending for the first time a person who uses a wheelchair past the Kármán line, an internationally recognized boundary of space that’s 62 miles above Earth.
Michaela “Michi” Benthaus, who suffered a spinal cord injury after a mountain biking accident in 2018, and her five teammates, who nicknamed themselves the “Out of the Blue” crew, spent several minutes in microgravity before safely returning to Earth with the assistance of parachutes and a retro thrust system. The entire mission lasted about 10 minutes.
During the webcast, Blue Origin said that the launch tower, equipped with an elevator, and the crew capsule did not require any modifications for Benthaus, as they were originally designed to accommodate individuals with disabilities and reduced mobility.
Blue Origin also partners with AstroAccess, “a project dedicated to promoting disability inclusion in human space exploration by paving the way for disabled astronauts,” that is sponsored by the nonprofit SciAccess, Inc.
Benthaus, an aerospace and mechatronics engineer at the European Space Agency, told ABC News this week she was eager to participate, especially because she feels as if she has waited “very long for it.”
“I am excited to show the world that also wheelchair users can go on a suborbital flight, and I’m really happy that Blue Origin is supporting this,” Benthaus told ABC News on Wednesday.
In a Blue Origin profile video of Benthaus shown prior to the launch, she said, “I think there’s was not like this one moment when I realized my dream of going to space was not over.”
“I really, really figured out how inaccessible our world still is and how sometimes socially excluding a wheelchair can be even though now one is actively excluding you,” she added.
In a statement, Blue Origin said the “crew exemplifies the breadth and diversity of people who can now experience spaceflight, from engineers and scientists to entrepreneurs, teachers, and investors from all over the world. Each brings their unique perspective and passion for exploration. Michi’s flight is particularly meaningful, demonstrating that space is for everyone, and we are proud to help her achieve this dream.”
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Coast Guard is currently interdicting a sanctioned vessel off the coast of Venezuela in international waters of the Caribbean Sea, according to three U.S. officials.
No further details were available as to the name of the ship or where exactly the operation is taking place.
This is the second sanctioned vessel seized by the United States. On Dec. 10, an elite U.S. Coast Guard tactical operations team, with the support of U.S. Navy helicopters, boarded and seized The Skipper, an oil tanker sanctioned for being part of an illicit oil operation involving Venezuela.
Reuters was first to report that a second sanctioned vessel is currently being seized by the Coast Guard.
(ROCHESTER, N.Y.) — Three police officers in Rochester, New York, were shot Friday night “without warning at close range” while responding to a domestic call at a home, police said.
Emergency services received a call from a man who said his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend was attempting to break into her home and possibly had a gun, according to the Rochester Police Department. The caller also told dispatchers he had a legal permit for a firearm and was carrying a pistol.
Officers arrived a short time later and located the suspect, identified by the caller as the ex-boyfriend, along the side of the house, authorities said.
“He immediately pulled out a handgun and fired multiple shots from close range toward the officers and the victim, striking two officers,” Rochester Police Chief David Smith said during a Saturday morning news conference.
Additional shots were fired, including an exchange of gunfire between the suspect and the man who called police, which resulted in the caller being shot multiple times, Smith said.
The suspect fled the scene but was located within minutes by another officer, who was also shot after being fired upon by the suspect.
That officer and others on scene returned fire, striking the suspect multiple times and killing him, police said.
One officer was shot multiple times in the upper body and is listed in stable condition. Another officer was shot in the upper body, rushed to surgery and is listed in critical but stable condition.
A third officer suffered serious injuries but is in stable condition, authorities said. The man who initially called police was shot multiple times and remains in serious but non-life-threatening condition.
Police have not released the identities of those involved and the investigation is currently ongoing.
Police patrol Brown University following a mass shooting yesterday that left at least two people dead and nine others injured on December 14, 2025 in Providence, Rhode Island. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) — The mayor of Providence is asking FBI Director Kash Patel to give the $50,000 reward offered for information in the Brown University mass shooting to a local tipster who provided a detailed account of the suspect.
The man, only identified by authorities in a criminal complaint as “John,” provided the Providence Police Department with the most detailed account of the suspect, later identified as 48-year-old Carlos Neves Valente, and the gray Nissan Sentra he was driving — first on a Reddit post and later to authorities.
“One individual amongst those who provided tips stands out above the rest: John,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said in the letter obtained by ABC News. “As discussed with the media last night, John is no less than a hero. His bravery, selflessness and stewardship on behalf of his community went far beyond what anyone could ever hope from a tip. I believe that our community is breathing easier today because of the extraordinary assistance John provided to our law enforcement agencies. I am writing to you today to request that the entirety of the $50,000 reward be issued to this incredible Providence neighbor.”
The FBI previously said there was a $50,000 reward for any information leading to the suspect.
In the letter, Smiley said law enforcement worked for 130 hours straight to find and identify the gunman — but that John was pivotal to the investigation.
“He blew this case right open,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told reporters at a news conference on Thursday night. “He blew it open.”
It all began unfolding three days after the shooting when an anonymous source tipped off authorities to a post John had made on the website Reddit, according to the Rhode Island criminal complaint detailing the evidence against the suspected shooter.
“I’m being dead serious. The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental,” John wrote in the post, describing “odd” behavior by the suspect.
After noticing the man they believed to be John interacting with the suspect in surveillance footage, police released images of him and asked for help in identifying him on Wednesday. Later that day, John approached a Providence police officer and said he was the person they were looking for.
John told detectives that he first encountered the suspect in the bathroom of Brown University’s Barus & Holley building in the hours before the Dec. 13 shooting and was suspicious, according to the affidavit.
John followed Neves Valente outside, where he said he observed the suspect approaching his car, the affidavit noted. The suspect and John would lock eyes as Neves Valente repeatedly walked around the block, in what John would describe “as a game of cat and mouse,” according to the affidavit.
The tip and surveillance video, along with the use of license-plate reader technology, led investigators to a car rental agency in Massachusetts where Neves Valente had rented the Nissan under his own name, authorities said.
Investigators tracked Neves Valente to a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, on the border with Massachusetts, where they found his body inside.
Authorities said Neves Valente burst into a lecture hall on the Brown campus on Dec. 13 and opened fire, killing two students and wounding nine others, before fleeing the scene. Two days later, he fatally shot MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro in the foyer of his apartment building in Brookline, Massachusetts, according to authorities.
Officials haven’t released a motive, but Neves Velente briefly attended Brown University in the early 2000s and studied in the same prestigious physics engineering program in the 1990s with Loureiro in their native Portugal.
A memorial set up by Brown University outside of the Barus and Holley building on December 18, 2025. (Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — New details about how police caught up to Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the 48-year-old former Brown University graduate student who allegedly perpetrated a mass shooting at Brown and killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, have emerged after a dayslong manhunt where officials said he made a series of moves designed to evade authorities.
Authorities credited the work of a tipster who they say “blew this case out in the open.”
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said local police helped track down Neves Valente, who was found dead in a New Hampshire storage unit on Thursday, in part thanks to surveillance video and a tip from an anonymous source that pointed authorities to a post on social media platform Reddit.
The tip referenced a post in which the Reddit user — later identified as John — called for police to “look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates,” according to the affidavit.
“I’m being dead serious,” the Reddit post read. “That was the car he was driving.”
After noticing the man they believed to be John interacting with the suspect on surveillance footage, police released images of him and asked for help in identifying him on Wednesday. Later that day, John approached a Providence police officer and said he was the person they were looking for.
John told detectives that he encountered the suspect in the bathroom of Brown University’s Barus & Holley building in the hours before Dec. 13 shooting and was suspicious, according to the affidavit.
John followed Neves Valente outside, where he said he observed the suspect approaching his car, the affidavit noted. The suspect and John would lock eyes as Neves Valente repeatedly walked around the block, in what John would describe “as a game of cat and mouse,” according to the affidavit.
“At some point they [John and Neves Valente] encountered each other on George Street, at which time, the Suspect ran in the opposite direction. John then ran up behind the person of interest, slowed to a good speed-walk and walked past the Suspect,” the affidavit said.
Ultimately, John questioned Neves Valente why he was circling the block prompting a response from the suspect, before John walked away, according to the affidavit.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told reporters John’s information was crucial in tracking the suspect.
“I remember last night watching his interview, and he blew this case right open,” he said.
The tip and surveillance video, along with the use of license-plate reader technology, led investigators to a car rental agency in Massachusetts.
There, police obtained a copy of the rental agreement with the suspect’s name, as well as video of the suspect that matched the videos of the person of interest seen on the Brown University campus on the day of the shooting, the complaint said.
That discovery ultimately led investigators to a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, where the suspect was found dead, officials said.
Financial records and video evidence confirmed that the storage unit belonged to the alleged suspect and that the rental vehicle was connected to both the Rhode Island and Massachusetts cases.
Authorities identified the suspect as Neves Valente, a Portuguese national and former Brown University student whose last known address was in Miami, Florida. Officials said Neves Valente died by suicide Thursday evening.
Officials confirmed that Neves Valente was found with a satchel containing two firearms, and evidence recovered from the vehicle matched what was found at the Providence crime scene.
Federal authorities confirmed that shortly before 9 p.m. on Thursday, FBI SWAT teams executed court-authorized search warrants at a storage facility in Salem, which is where they found Neves Valente’s body.
The autopsy performed by the New Hampshire Department of Justice Office of the Chief Medical Examiner estimated that Neves Valente died on Tuesday, one day after the professor was killed at MIT, according to investigators.
Portugal’s Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) confirmed to ABC News that Cláudio Manuel Neves Neves Valente studied between 1995 and 2000 in the school’s physics engineering program, the same one attended at the time by slain MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro.
A 1998 announcement in Portugal’s official Diario da República referred to Neves Valente’s appointment as a teaching assistant at IST and a 2000 notice in the same publication mentions his termination from the role.
A spokesperson for IST declined to comment further on Neves Valente’s history at the institution, due to the ongoing investigation and out of respect for the friends and family of Loureiro.
Brown officials confirmed that Neves Valente was enrolled at the university from the fall of 2000 through the spring of 2001 as a graduate student in physics, entering Brown’s graduate program in September 2000 before taking a leave of absence in April 2001 and formally withdrawing in 2003.
“He was not a current student, was not an employee and did not receive a degree from the University, attending for only three semesters as a graduate student until taking a leave in 2001 and formally withdrawing effective July 31, 2003,” Brown University President Christina Paxson wrote in a letter to students and faculty Thursday.
During his time at Brown, he was enrolled only in physics courses, which were typically held in the Barus & Holley building. University records indicate he has had no active affiliation with Brown for more than two decades.
Police said the suspect acted alone and that there is no indication, at this time, of additional planned attacks. Investigators have not identified any writings, known criminal history or clear motive.
Officials said forensic teams are still processing evidence recovered in New Hampshire, including firearms, and will compare it with ballistic and DNA evidence from the Providence crime scene.
Paxson said the university is still reviewing how the suspect gained access to the building. She said the building was unlocked that day because exams were being held, and the university will examine security procedures moving forward.
Investigators said Neves Valente obtained lawful permanency in April 2017 and was issued a green card.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in an X post that Neves Valente received his visa through the diversity visa lottery program, and announced that, at President Donald Trump’s direction, she was pausing the program.
Each year, the State Department awards up to 50,000 immigrant visas to “winners” of the diversity visa lottery. The program was created by Congress in 1990 to allow applicants from countries with low rates of immigration into the U.S. to come here.
The winners are selected at random, but they must still go through a lengthy application process, which includes submitting criminal records, being interviewed at an embassy or consulate, and meeting other requirements, such as having a High School Diploma or two years of work experience. Applicants are then allowed to apply for lawful permanent resident status.
Investigators said they identified Neves Valente by name late Wednesday night and weighed whether releasing his identity could cause him to flee or take further action.
Officials said they believed he might return the rental car in Boston or attempt to leave the area, and they wanted the opportunity to arrest him without alerting him that police were closing in.
Officials said it remains unclear exactly when the suspect took his own life, but noted that he signed into the storage facility but was never seen leaving.
The site was secured by federal agents, and investigators said an autopsy will help determine the timing of his death.
ABC News’ Armando Garcia and Christopher Looft contributed to this report.
he Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building on December 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. The U.S. Department of Justice is required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein today. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — After years of legal battles and online speculation, the Justice Department on Friday is set to release what a top DOJ official says are “several hundred thousand” documents from the investigations into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose connection to the rich and powerful and 2019 death by suicide has generated scores of conspiracy theories.
The DOJ faces a Friday deadline for the release of all remaining Epstein files after Congress last month passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act following the blowback the administration received seeking the release of the materials.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in an interview Friday morning on Fox and Friends, said, “I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today … and then over the next couple of weeks I expect several hundred thousand more.”
Several Democratic lawmakers, responding in the afternoon to Blanche’s comments, objected to only a partial release of the files Friday.
Blanche, in his Fox appearance, said, “The most important thing that the attorney general has talked about, that [FBI] Director [Kash] Patel has talked about, is that we protect victims, and so what we’re doing is we are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story, to the extent it needs to be protected, is completely protected.”
The Epstein Files Act says the Justice Department “may withhold or redact” the identities of Epstein’s victims, and contains exemptions that would allow the DOJ to withhold records that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”
Blanche said “there’s a lot of eyes” looking over the documents to ensure victim identities have been redacted. The Justice Department in recent weeks has enlisted scores of attorneys from the National Security Division to conduct the review, according to sources familiar with the matter.
“Those documents will come in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with all of the investigations into Mr. Epstein,” Blanche said.
He further suggested in the interview that the administration’s review has been partially hamstrung by a ruling from a judge in the Southern District of New York that demanded the administration verify that its review is fully protecting the identities of victims.
When asked whether the American public should expect any additional criminal cases to come in the wake of the release of the files, Blanche said, “Look, as the president directed, it’s still being investigated, and I expect that will continue to happen. So we, as of today, there’s no new charges coming but, but we are investigating.”
President Donald Trump recently directed the Justice Department to investigate high-profile Democrats associated with Epstein, a task that Attorney General Pam Bondi then referred to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The Justice Department and FBI announced in July that they would be releasing no additional Epstein files, after several top officials — including Patel and outgoing FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino — had, prior to joining the administration, accused the government of shielding information regarding the Epstein case.
The Senate subsequently voted to approved the Epstein transparency bill passed by the House, after which President Donald Trump signed it into law.
Critics of Trump have speculated about the degree to which the president, who had a friendship with Epstein until they had a falling out around 2004, appears in the Epstein files, while Trump has accused several well-known Democrats of having ties to the disgraced financier.
“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump wrote on social media after signing the bill.
Epstein owned two private islands in the Virgin Islands and large properties in New York City, New Mexico and Palm Beach, Florida, where he came under investigation for allegedly luring minor girls to his seaside home for massages that turned sexual. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for sex crimes charges after reaching a controversial non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami.
In 2019, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York indicted Epstein on charges that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations,” using cash payments to recruit a “vast network of underage victims,” some of whom were as young as 14 years old.
Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial.
Police officers remain on the scene of a shooting that killed two and wounded at least eight at Brown University on December 13, 2025 in Providence, Rhode Island. (Libby O’Neill/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Two elite Northeast institutions of higher education have been rocked by horrific acts of gun violence, just days apart.
In the first incident, two people were killed and nine were injured in a mass shooting at Brown University, when a gunman opened fire on the Rhode Island campus, officials said.
Two days later, some 50 miles away in neighboring Massachusetts, an esteemed professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was killed in a shooting at his home, officials said.
Following a dayslong manhunt, authorities identified the suspect in both shootings as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old former Brown graduate student, who attended the school some 25 years ago. Valente, a Portuguese national, and the slain MIT professor both attended the same physics engineering program at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, the school confirmed to ABC News.
Officials have not yet provided a motive for the back-to-back shootings that left residents of parts of New England on edge for days.
Here’s how the tragic shootings unfolded.
Nov. 26-Nov. 30
Valente, who is believed to have lived in Florida, rents a hotel room in Boston, according to federal officials.
Dec. 1
Valente rents a gray Nissan Sentra with Florida plates from a car rental agency in Boston and then drives to the vicinity of Brown University in Providence, where the vehicle is seen “intermittently” through Dec. 12, according to federal officials.
Dec. 13
A person of interest in the Brown shooting — subsequently believed to be the suspect, Valente — is seen in surveillance footage walking through a residential neighborhood near the campus, beginning around 2 p.m., in images and footage released by the FBI. But police have said they believe he had been around the Brown campus as early as 10 a.m. that day “casing out the area.” The individual is seen dressed from head to toe in dark clothing, including wearing a surgical mask over his face.
Around 2:16 p.m., an unknown person — later identified as a man who introduced himself as John — is seen interacting with the person of interest, according to the arrest warrant affidavit for Valente.
The shooting at Brown occurs at 4:03 p.m. in a lecture hall in the school’s Barus & Holley Engineering building during a final exam review, according to authorities and school officials.
Just after the shooting, a security video captures the person of interest emerging onto Hope Street from what investigators described as “lot 42” on the Brown campus.
The last video in the FBI’s timeline shows the individual walking north on Hope Street at 4:07 p.m.
Valente returns to Massachusetts over the next day, where at some point he switches the plates on his rental car to an unregistered plate out of Maine, according to federal officials.
Dec. 14
A man initially thought to be a person of interest in the Brown shooting is detained at about 3:45 a.m. at a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Providence, according to law enforcement sources and police, though that individual is released hours later without being charged.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha says during a late-night press conference that there had been evidence pointing to this individual, but that evidence “now points in a different direction.”
Dec. 15
Authorities release new images and video of the person of interest in the mass shooting at Brown and the FBI announces it is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the individual responsible.
That night, authorities respond to a residence in Brookline, Massachusetts, after receiving a report of a man shot at his home, according to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office.
The victim is identified by the office as 47-year-old Nuno Loureiro, a Portugal native who is a faculty member in MIT’s departments of Nuclear Science & Engineering and Physics and the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
Video surveillance captured Valente in the area of the professor’s apartment that evening, according to federal officials.
Following the shooting, Valente drives to a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, which he had rented in November, according to federal officials.
Dec. 16
Loureiro is pronounced dead at an area hospital in the morning, according to the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office.
Authorities release a new image and enhanced video of the person of interest sought in the Brown shooting.
Police received an anonymous tip in the investigation into the Brown shooting referencing a Reddit post in which the poster — later identified as John — called for police to “look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates,” according to the affidavit.
Dec. 17
A Brown University faculty member reports to state police seeing a suspicious vehicle in the area of the campus the morning of Dec. 11, describing it as a gray sedan with Florida plates, according to the affidavit.
Providence police announce they are seeking the public’s help in identifying and speaking to the unknown individual — later identified as John — “who was in proximity of the person of interest” in the Brown shooting.
John approaches Providence police officers at Brown University to report his interaction with the person of interest, according to the affidavit. He tells detectives that he saw the man approach a gray or silver sedan with a Florida license plate the afternoon of Dec. 13 at a location near Brown’s campus, according to the affidavit.
“John informed detectives that he recognized one of the images released to the press as the person he encountered that day, which prompted him to post on Reddit,” the affidavit states.
Detectives trace the vehicle to the one rented by Valente in Boston, according to the affidavit.
Dec. 18
A Rhode Island state court issues a state arrest warrant for Valente, charging him with two counts of murder and 23 felony counts of assault and felony firearms offenses in the Brown shooting.
While executing search warrants on the Salem storage unit facility shortly before 9 p.m., Valente is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a storage unit, authorities said.
During a late-night news conference, authorities identify the suspect in the Brown mass shooting as Valente and confirm he is believed to be the same man who gunned down Loureiro, saying the professor was the intended target.
Officials say investigators linked the Brown and MIT shootings through the vehicle, financial records and video footage.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin, Aaron Katersky, Jon Haworth and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
