Rain shrouds the skyline of midtown Manhattan and the Empire State Building as a nor’easter storm moves into New York City on October 12, 2025, as seen from Jersey City, New Jersey. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Two people died in flooded basements on Thursday after heavy rain overwhelmed streets and subway stations in New York City.
The New York Police Department confirmed the two deaths to ABC News.
A 39-year-old man was found unconscious and unresponsive in a flooded basement in Brooklyn, according to New York ABC station WABC. The FDNY Scuba Team recovered his body from the basement before he was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.
In a separate incident in Washington Heights in northern Manhattan, police said a 43-year-old man was found dead in a flooded boiler room, WABC reported.
Police are investigating both incidents.
More than 2 inches of rain fell in Brooklyn and Queens on Thursday, sparking flash flood warnings in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.
Video captured submerged cars, flooded streets and water gushing into some subway stations.
The rain also struck Philadelphia, where a third death was reported. A woman was killed on Thursday when a tree fell on her car, according to Philadelphia ABC station WPVI,.
More than 1,200 flights were canceled in the U.S. amid Thursday’s rainy weather, with New York City’s three airports hit the hardest.
Thursday’s rain and wind were not from Hurricane Melissa, which battered the Caribbean this week, but from an inland storm system moving throughout the Northeast. The storm was one of the factors keeping Melissa away from the U.S.
ABC News’ Victoria Arancio contributed to this report.
A sign marks the location of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) headquarters building on April 30, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by J. David Ake/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has filed terrorism charges against an Arizona man for his alleged role in the growing network of online predators known as “764,” whose worldwide followers use social media platforms to target, groom and push young teens into harming themselves and others.
An indictment unsealed Thursday in Arizona charged 21-year-old Baron Martin of Tucson with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, marking the first time that the Justice Department has leveled such charges against an alleged member of 764.
The move does not mean that the U.S. government has formally designated 764 as a terrorist organization like ISIS or Al-Qaeda, but it does signify that the government believes members of 764 engage in “terrorist activity” under U.S. law.
Martin was first arrested in December and indicted on three counts of cyberstalking and producing sexually explicit material of children. He pleaded not guilty to those charges.
The indictment unsealed Thursday adds 26 more charges, alleging that he was deeply involved in a “sadistic and masochistic” conspiracy to “systematically and methodically target” vulnerable teenagers who can be pushed into cutting themselves with sharp objects, creating sexually explicit and gore-filled videos and photos, torturing animals, or even killing themselves — all while on camera.
According to the indictment, while using 15 different monikers, Martin hosted and ran “group chats” associated with 764 on social media platforms, controlling access to them and making demands of victims, some of whom were extorted into participating.
The indictment cites nine specific victims who were allegedly targeted by Martin, ranging in age from 11 to 18.
In 2022, he allegedly forced a 13-year-old girl overseas to carve one of his online monikers — “Convict” — and other symbols on her body, causing “permanent disfigurement.” And, live on a video call with 15 others, he allegedly forced the girl to let her family dog attack her family’s hamster, and then he and the others made the victim stomp on the hamster’s head and feed it to the dog, while also recording it to share with even more people, the indictment says.
Also in 2022, after Martin got into an online dispute with another 13-year-old girl, he allegedly threatened to kill her grandmother — vowing that it would “send a message” — and he offered to pay someone $3,000 to commit the murder, according to the indictment and other court documents. He also allegedly “conducted a live extortion” of an 18-year-old overseas, who, after being repeatedly told to kill herself, was forced to cut a symbol into her forehead — after which Martin then allegedly shared a photo online of the girl’s bloody face.
In other court proceedings, federal prosecutors said that Martin also “participated in bomb threats, swatting and doxing campaigns, and alleged kidnappings.”
“This man’s alleged crimes are unthinkably depraved and reflect the horrific danger of 764,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “I urge parents to remain vigilant about the threats their children face online.”
In addition to one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, the indictment unsealed Thursday charges Martin with conspiring to maim someone in a foreign country, seeking murder for hire, promoting and distributing animal torture material, and numerous child exploitation-related charges, including taking part in a child exploitation enterprise.
Authorities say that one of the main goals of 764 and similar networks is to sow chaos and bring down society.
They try to accomplish this by first befriending vulnerable teens online and then convincing them to share sexually explicit images or videos of themselves, experts say. That sexually explicit material is then used to blackmail victims into increasingly violent actions, and it escalates from there — with victims’ family members or pets threatened if victims stop complying.
Victims routinely end up being coerced into carving their tormentor’s online monikers into their own skin, mutilating themselves in other ways, attacking or threatening others, or torturing animals — all while capturing it on camera, so the videos or photos can be shared with others to boost one’s status within 764.
Predators also routinely promote neo-Nazi ideology, ISIS propaganda, and school shootings, desensitizing vulnerable teens to violence, authorities say.
Since the launch of the initial 764 group nearly five years ago — when the 15-year-old Texas boy who started it named it after the first three digits of his ZIP code — authorities say 764 has become a global movement, with an ever-expanding network of offshoots and subgroups that often rebrand and change their names to help keep social media companies and law enforcement from tracking them.
The FBI’s Counterterrorism Division and the Justice Department’s National Security Division are now looking at 764 and its offshoots as a potential form of domestic terrorism, even coining a new term to characterize the most heinous actors: “nihilistic violent extremists.”
Last month, FBI Director Kash Patel told a Senate panel that fighting 764 is now “a priority” within the FBI.
“We’re going after the new form of what I refer to as modern day terrorism in America, 764 crimes that involve harming our children by going after them online, causing self-mutilation, suicide, sexual abuse and steering them in the wrong direction,” Patel said before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
According to the FBI, federal authorities have now opened investigations into more than 300 people suspected of ties to 764 or its offshoots across the country, with each subject under investigation potentially having victimized multiple young teens.
The FBI and Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office are looking for missing 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard. (FBI)
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) — Weeks into the “perplexing” search for missing 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, California authorities said they’ve served follow-up search warrants at her mom’s home, a storage locker and the rental car Melodee was last seen in.
Local detectives and FBI agents served the warrants on Thursday. Because they expected to need access to the home of Melodee’s mom, Ashlee Buzzard, for “an extended time, detectives escorted Ashlee to an alternate location that would not interfere with their ability to conduct a thorough search,” the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office said.
Ashlee Buzzard has not cooperated with the investigation, according to authorities.
Melodee is still considered an at-risk missing person and no arrests have been made, the sheriff’s office said Thursday.
Last week, the sheriff’s office said it had narrowed down the window of Melodee’s disappearance to between Oct. 7 and Oct. 10.
Surveillance images of Melodee — in which she appears to be wearing a wig — were captured at a Santa Barbara-area rental car business on Oct. 7, authorities said.
The mother and daughter then went on a three-day road trip from Lompoc, California, to the Nebraska area, the sheriff’s office said.
The return trip went through Kansas, and then Ashlee Buzzard came home to Lompoc on Oct. 10 with the car she and Melodee had rented on Oct. 7 — but Melodee was not with her, the sheriff’s office said.
Officials in Pennsylvania are searching for Jairo Eliazar Ramirez-Lima, a man with “multiple active arrest warrants, including federal ICE detainers” who escaped police custody while handcuffed, according to the East Pikeland Township Police Department. (East Pikeland Township Police Department)
(NEW YORK) — A man in Pennsylvania with multiple warrants, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers, is back in police custody after he escaped from officials while still wearing handcuffs, according to the East Pikeland Township Police Department.
Jairo Eliazar Ramirez-Lima, 41, escaped from police custody early Saturday morning while being transported from a local hospital following an arrest for driving under the influence, police said in a statement.
Despite being handcuffed, Ramirez-Lima “fled on foot from the hospital grounds,” police confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday.
On Friday, officials announced Ramirez-Lima was “captured,” with the East Pikeland Township Police Chief Michelle Major telling ABC Philadelphia station WPVI he was spotted at a Wawa in Phoenixville by an officer.
Police had warned that Ramirez-Lima was “considered dangerous.”
While police said there was “no known active threat to the public” when Ramirez-Lima was on the run, they said he has “multiple active arrest warrants, including federal ICE detainers and has a history of violence and weapons offenses.”
In addition to the DUI and escape charges, Ramirez-Lima was also charged with false identification to a law enforcement officer, tampering with public records, driving without a license, disregard to a traffic lane and careless driving, according to court documents obtained by ABC News.
He also has a protection-from-abuse order against him in Maryland, WPVI.
The suspect’s escape remains under investigation and police said additional information will be released as it becomes available.
FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a press conference on October 23, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(DETROIT) — The FBI has thwarted “a potential terrorist attack” and arrested “multiple subjects” in Michigan, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.
“This morning the FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack and arrested multiple subjects in Michigan who were allegedly plotting a violent attack over Halloween weekend,” Patel posted on X.
“Thanks to the men and women of FBI and law enforcement everywhere standing guard 24/7 and crushing our mission to defend the homeland,” Patel continued.
A spokesperson for the FBI Detroit field office confirmed there was law enforcement activity in Dearborn and Inkster on Friday. “There is no current threat to public safety,” the spokesperson added.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
he front entrance off Oak Street into the newly restored Oakland Museum of California on Thursday Apr. 29, 2010, in Oakland, Calif. (Photo By Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
(OAKLAND, Calif.) — More than 1,000 items and historical artifacts have been stolen in an early morning heist from a California museum’s off-site collection, according to police.
The Oakland Police Department, along with the FBI, are investigating a burglary that occurred just before 3:30 a.m. on Oct. 15, at the Oakland Museum of California’s storage facility, police said.
Authorities said that the suspect or suspects broke into the facility and stole more than 1,000 items from the museum’s collection, including “Native American baskets, jewelry [and] laptops,” according to a statement from the Oakland Police Department.
“The theft that occurred represents a brazen act that robs the public of our state’s cultural heritage,” said Oakland Museum of California Executive Director and CEO Lori Fogarty. “Most of these objects have been given to the Museum by generous donors. We are working in close partnership with the City of Oakland, the Oakland Police Department, and the FBI to see that these objects are returned.”
Authorities are still trying to determine how the heist was pulled off and where the artifacts might be, though the museum said law enforcement asked them not to say anything initially so that the investigation wouldn’t be jeopardized, according to ABC News’ San Francisco station KGO.
“I think it is very possible that the people who stole these items don’t really know themselves what they have and why it might be important and where to actually, if they’re trying to pass it off or sell it, where to take it,” Fogarty told KGO.
The FBI Art Crime Team — a specialized unit of approximately 20 agents across the United States who are tasked with investigating all matters related to art — has been assigned to this case and is currently investigating the heist alongside local authorities.
The Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at the Yale School of Public Health observed numerous clusters with discoloration around them, consistent with the appearance of human bodies in the Darfur region of Sudan. (Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health)
(NEW YORK) — Satellite images and verified videos paint a harrowing picture of door-to-door mass killings in the Darfur region of war-torn Sudan as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary rebels captured a key city in the region.
The Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at the Yale School of Public Health says they observed numerous clusters with discoloration around them, consistent with the appearance of human bodies across the city as RSF advanced.
The apparent masses were seen in a hospital, all over residential neighborhoods, on the outskirts of the city and by military bases of the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
The alleged killings took place “in under 72 hours since RSF took control of the city,” Nathaniel Raymond, an American human rights and war crimes investigator at HRL who has been documenting the massacres in Sudan with satellite imagery, told ABC News.
With his team at the research lab, Raymond said he observed “an explosion of objects that measure between 1.3 to 2 meters proliferate all over the ground,” which HRL Yale concluded is human bodies due to the length, shape and videos from the ground showing alleged systematic civilian killings.
“In Daraja Oula — a neighborhood where civilians have been hiding — we’re seeing a tactical posture on the vehicles that is highly consistent with house-to-house killing,” Raymond told ABC News. “This is also consistent with video and testimony from those who reached Tawila. Particularly women, who said that the men are being separated by RSF and then they hear gunshots.”
The research lab also observed discoloration around these objects, which they concluded is blood, further confirmed by the presence of Rapid Support Forces (RSF) military vehicles always spotted in close proximity, Raymond said. An update on the report shows that the piles have grown and none of the original objects have moved, Raymond told ABC News.
Researchers said they also corroborated reports of alleged executions at Saudi Hospital, where at least four clusters of bodies appeared. “We see a line of people standing on day one at an RSF detention facility that was formerly a children’s hospital. On day two, we see a pile now in the corner consistent with the color and length of those individuals who are standing there in a line on the previous day,” Raymond said.
On the outskirts of El Fasher, HRL Yale also said they observed multiple clusters appearing between Oct. 26 and Oct. 27, consistent with reports of civilians being killed as they tried to flee. West of the city, along its encircling berm, at least six clusters were observed as well as adjacent technical vehicles, which were not seen in images from Oct. 28, suggesting RSF had moved, leaving the large clusters of bodies behind, according to the research lab.
RSF has also taken control of the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) military bases in the city, the HRL analysis appears to show.
Satellite images from Oct. 26 show at least 15 new munition scars and thermal burns on the ground of the 6th Division HQ of the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces in a comparison with images from Oct. 15.
“We’ve seen that all of the Sudan Armed Forces vehicles left en masse at about the same time. Which is consistent with reports that they escaped in the night in what now appears to be a negotiated deal with the Rapid Support Forces, leaving the civilians in Al-Fasher to die,” Raymond said.
During the offensive, El Fasher has been cut off from the outside world. Besieged for 18 months — the UN called it the “epicentre of suffering” — and now with RSF forces inside the city, there is no observable mass movement of people fleeing, likely prevented from escaping the alleged killings in what experts fear is just the beginning of devastating violence.
In January, the U.S. State Department announced it had concluded members of the RSF had committed genocide in Sudan, specifically pointing to human rights violations in Darfur. Raymond says what we are seeing “is the final battle of the Darfur genocide that began 20 years ago.”
Compared to previous RSF offensives — such as one in April on the largest displacement camp in Darfur, ZamZam — humanitarian observers are suggesting the new satellite imagery shows a more systematic way of killing that is making them warn of a possible genocide unfolding.
“Here, in the case of El Fasher, what’s different? They’re not burning the city to the ground. They have the city encircled. They are controlling the entrance and exit. And they are moving pretty systematically, unlike ZamZam. Pretty systematically, block by block. And as they move, we see objects consistent with bodies, often with discoloration, appear,” Raymond told ABC News.
From testimony on the ground, those who have fled said that men have been separated from women and children, who are now likely in hiding, but are next in the firing line, Raymond said.
“It’s now going to accelerate,” he said. “We haven’t even hit top velocity. The people that they will kill now are those who are hiding. And they’re mostly women and children… Now it’ll be those who were too weak to run or those men who were hiding and trying to protect them from the RSF.”
A photo of Taylor Taranto from a detention memo released by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. (U.S. District Court)
(WASHINGTON) — A day after the Justice Department withdrew a sentencing memo that described the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as being carried out by “thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters,” the convicted Jan. 6 participant accused in the case is scheduled to appear at a sentencing hearing Thursday.
Federal prosecutors Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White were informed Wednesday that they would be put on leave after filing the memo in the case of Taylor Taranto, who was convicted on firearms and threat charges related to a June 2023 arrest near the home of former President Barack Obama, after Taranto was pardoned by President Donald Trump over his involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
“On January 6, 2021, thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol while a joint session of Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election,” the prosecutors’ sentencing memorandum said. “Taranto was accused of participating in the riot in Washington, D.C., by entering the U.S. Capitol Building.”
The memo also detailed how Taranto traveled to former President Obama’s home only after a Truth Social post from then-former President Trump that included Obama’s address.
It’s unclear if Valdivia or White were given a reason for their suspensions, though the moves come following months of turmoil in the Washington, D.C., U.S. attorney’s office where multiple career prosecutors faced removals or demotions related to their involvement in prosecuting the more than 1,500 defendants charged in connection with the Capitol attack.
Late Wednesday, the Justice Department, in a highly unusual move, withdraw the original sentencing memo and replaced it with one in which the references to Jan. 6 and Trump’s Truth social account were eliminated.
Taranto was scheduled to appear at Thursday’s sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump-appointed judge who has described the Jan. 6 attack in serious terms.
Following Trump’s reelection victory in November, Judge Nichols said it would be “beyond frustrating and disappointing” if Trump were to pardon Jan. 6 defendants.
Trump subsequently granted sweeping pardons and commutations to all Jan. 6 defendants on his first day in office.
