(FRANKLIN COUNTY, Pa.) — Two state troopers were wounded in a shooting and the suspect was killed after a car chase ended in an exchange of gunfire in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday.
Both of the troopers were rushed to the hospital. One is in critical condition and the other is in serious condition, according to authorities.
The troopers were responding to a reported retail theft at Dicks Sporting Goods in Chambersburg shortly after 6 p.m., Pennsylvania State Police said in a news release.
The suspects in the theft fled the store, traveling toward nearby Interstate 81 and were pursued by the troopers, who eventually used spike strips to stop the vehicle, according to state police.
When the vehicle came to a stop off the road, two female suspects followed orders and got out of the vehicle to be taken into custody, state police said.
The male suspect, however, began shooting at troopers, authorities said, striking two of them. The troopers fired back, fatally wounding the suspect.
Authorities haven’t released the identities of the troopers who were wounded or the suspected shooter.
State police and the Franklin County District Attorney’s Office are investigating the shooting.
Franklin County, which is located in south-central Pennsylvania, is home to 155,000 residents and its county seat is Chambersburg.
In a statement on social media, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he was praying for the officers.
“Pennsylvania’s law enforcement officers are the very best of us — running towards danger every day to keep our communities safe,” Shapiro said.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., conducts a news conference in the U.S. Capitol on the inclusion of solar tax credit legislation in reconciliation on Tuesday, September 28, 2021. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)/Jack Ciattarelli and Matt Servitto attend 2025 Paisan Con at The Williams Center on May 10, 2025 in Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Bobby Bank/Getty Images)
(NEW JERSEY) — New Jersey’s gubernatorial candidates face off in their second debate, hosted by New York City’s WABC-TV and Philadelphia’s WPVI-TV less than a month out from Election Day.
Polling shows Democratic nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, has an edge over Republican former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli. A recent survey from Quinnipiac shows Sherrill leading in a head-to-head matchup, 51%-42%.
This is not Ciattarelli’s first go around — he narrowly lost a bid to unseat Murphy in 2021. But this time, he faces wider margins and is expected to try to dodge Sherrill’s attempts to link Ciattarelli with President Donald Trump on every issue. Trump has endorsed Ciattarelli’s bid.
Outside groups have infused large sums of cash into this race. Democrats, looking to defend control as term-limited Phil Murphy leaves office, are writing fat checks: Greater Garden State, a super PAC supported by the Democratic Governors Association, reserved over $20 million in ads to support Sherrill. And the Democratic National Committee has invested $3 million into the governor’s race, a sum it says is its largest in an off-cycle race in New Jersey.
Republicans have thrown in far less: Restore New Jersey, a Republican Governors Association-backed group, invested $1 million in ads supporting Ciattarelli in September.
New Jersey has not elected the same party three straight terms since 1961, with affordability and taxes central to the race. Trump’s inroads with Jersey voters could be tested in November, as Republicans point to last year’s presidential results as a sign the state has gotten more favorable for the GOP.
Late last month, Sherrill ‘s unredacted military records were released by the National Archives that revealed she did not walk at graduation. In 1994, more than 130 Midshipmen were implicated in a cheating scandal. No documents released or obtained by news outlets have shown that Sherrill was involved in the cheating, but because she did not report her classmates, she was not permitted to walk at graduation.
CBS News, which was the first to report about the release of Sherrill’s unredacted military records, reported that the request came from Ciattarelli ally Nicholas De Gregorio, who was tasked with doing so by political operative Chris Russell.
Sherrill said this was a 30-year-old widely reported incident that does not reflect on her military service and accused the Trump administration of leaking the records in concert with the Ciattarelli campaign and asked for them to stop distributing them as they contained protected personal information.
Sherrill’s campaign communications director Sean Higgins said in a statement: “This disrespects the service of all military veterans, jeopardizes the safety of their records, and shows that Jack Ciattarelli will say or do anything to get elected, no matter the dishonor he brings upon himself — and that should frighten everyone.”
Ciattarelli disagreed.
“For eight years, Mikie Sherrill has built her entire political brand around her time at the Naval Academy and in the Navy, all the while concealing her involvement in the scandal and her punishment. The people of New Jersey deserve complete and total transparency,” the Ciattarelli campaign said in a statement.
Another likely animating issue in the debate will be the impacts of the government shutdown and White House funding freezes in the Garden State. The Hudson Tunnel Project, which White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought froze funding for on Oct. 1, is meant to expand rail links between New York City and New Jersey.
After the announcement, Sherrill slammed the Trump administration for “attacking” the project and wrote in a post on X that Ciatterelli “said there’s not a single issue where he disagrees with Trump, and he promised to never take them to court.”
Ciatterelli, meanwhile, told NJ Advance Media/NJ.com that the hold “doesn’t stop what’s going on today with regard to the construction. And I think it’s a large negotiation that’s taking place.”
-ABC’s Oren Oppenheim and Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. appears before the Senate Finance Committee at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on September 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. The committee met to hear testimony on President Trump’s 2026 health care agenda. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hit back at an op-ed written by the most recent six surgeons general, who said they wanted to warn the U.S. about the dangers of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The op-ed, published in The Washington Post on Tuesday, called the health secretary’s policies and positions an “immediate and unprecedented” threat to the nation’s health.
In a statement to ABC News, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the doctors are the same officials “who presided over the decline in America’s public health.”
They “are now criticizing the first Secretary to confront it head-on,” the statement continued. “We remain committed to restoring trust, reforming broken health systems, and ensuring that every American has access to real choice in their health care.”
In the op-ed, the surgeons general referenced views held by Kennedy, including repeating the false claim that childhood vaccines cause autism and misrepresenting risks of COVID-19 vaccines, despite studies that found the shots prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths.
The “nation’s doctors” as surgeon generals are commonly described because they give public health guidance and warnings to the country, also pointed to decisions made by Kennedy — including touting unproven treatments as measles spread in the U.S.
Among the authors was Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as surgeon general for most of President Donald Trump’s first term, including the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a post on X sharing a link to the op-ed, Adams referred to disinformation, the loss of trust in doctors and the destruction of public health as deadlier than cigarettes.
“Neither I nor the other five living Surgeons General wanted to call for this unprecedented warning- but all felt compelled by duty to do so,” he wrote.
Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general under President George W. Bush from 2002 to 2006 and another author of the op-ed, told ABC News he is urging Americans to “disregard” Kennedy’s vaccine rhetoric.
“On behalf of the people, vaccines are safe, you should consult with your health provider, get the best information, get your child vaccinated, and unfortunately, disregard what you’re hearing from Secretary Kennedy and many of his political appointees who continue to provide mis and disinformation to confuse the public,” he said.
The op-ed comes about a month after seven former directors and two former acting directors of the CDC wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, accusing Kennedy of endangering the health of Americans.
ABC News’ Meghan Mistry and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A majority of the Supreme Court signaled on Wednesday that it would allow candidates for federal office to more freely challenge state elections laws without having to prove that the rules would significantly harm their chance of winning.
The case has the potential to clear the way for a wave of legal challenges ahead of the midterm elections at a time when many Republicans and allies of President Donald Trump hope to roll back laws that allow the counting of late-arriving mail-in ballots and other voter accommodations.
During oral arguments on Wednesday in a lawsuit brought by Illinois Congressman Michael Bost, the justices appeared open to letting him contest a state law that allows the counting of mail-in ballots up to 14 days after voting ends, provided they were postmarked on or before election day.
Bost’s lawsuit was originally thrown out after a federal district and appeals court concluded he lacked a large-enough stake in the election to establish a right to bring a lawsuit. The eight-term Republican won 75% of the vote in 2022 and 74% in 2024.
To bring a lawsuit in federal court, a plaintiff generally needs to establish that a particular action injures them, that the action stemmed from the person he or she is suing, and that the court’s solution would resolve the harm.
Bost’s attorney Paul Clement argued before the justices that candidates – regardless of the outcome – are not “mere bystanders” in an election and spend “untold time and energy” on their campaigns, giving them a concrete interest in accurate vote tallies.
“If the campaign is going to be two weeks longer, you’ve got to keep the campaign staff together for two weeks longer, and that’s going to be more expensive,” Clement argued.
Preventing Bost’s lawsuit from moving forward, Clement argued, would turn the “federal courts into federal prognosticators.”
All of the Court’s conservative members appeared receptive to Clement’s argument, and even some of the Court’s liberal justices signaled a willingness to embrace a middle ground advocated by the Trump administration.
“Let me ask about the pocketbook injury,” Justice Samuel Alito said of Bost’s right to sue. “Why isn’t that straightforward?”
Alito also suggested that a difference in a vote count from the contested ballots would also be sufficient basis to bring a case. “Isn’t a smaller margin of victory an injury in fact?” he asked Illinois Solicitor General Jane Notz, who was defending the law.
“Unless it’s coupled with something else, a smaller margin of victory has no real-world consequence,” Notz said.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh voiced concern about steering more election law challenges until after an election which could in turn disenfranchise voters and create “chaos.”
“So let’s say the losing candidate sues, challenging this rule…and the Court, post-election, finds it illegal. We faced this in 2020 in some of our many cases pre-election,” Kavanaugh asked. “What’s the remedy?”
Chief Justice John Roberts echoed similar concerns that curtailing lawsuits based on a more stringent view of candidate standing would result in lawsuits being filed closer to elections during the “most fraught time to be involved in politics.”
“What you’re sketching out for us is a potential disaster,” he said.
Justice Elena Kagan seemed open to a middle ground that could allow Bost to pursue his case without automatically setting a precedent that would give standing to any candidate who wants to challenge any election rule for any reason.
She suggested that the Court could require a candidate to claim “substantial risk” that a new election law would put him or her at an “electoral disadvantage” compared to the old rule.
“What you have is a voting rule that harms somebody relative to what’s come before,” Kagan said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was more circumspect about her views.
“Our case law and our standing law requires some form of substantial harm that can be articulated and shown. And what you’re talking about is a desire to implement the law with a generalized grievance because it doesn’t really particularly harm you,” Sotomayor said.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the most skeptical of Bost’s position, openly questioning whether a simple difference in vote margin constitutes harm to a candidate and casting doubt on the view that spending money to monitor the counting of ballots was a mandatory expense.
“I’m a little concerned about in your argument is the idea that a candidate who wins and who wins by some margin is harmed by a regulation of this nature because of the potential decrease in his margin of victory. I don’t understand the harm that necessarily comes from that,” Jackson said. “You might be disappointed, but that’s usually not what we look at when we’re determining whether or not someone is actually harmed.”
A decision in favor of Bost would not only revive his challenge to mail-in ballot counting but also widen the ability of any candidate for federal office to sue over voting policies ahead of Election Day.
“The stakes of this case are not just about the standing rules, it’s about how candidates, political parties, and even voters, think about challenging the rules governing elections going forward,” said Matthew Shapanka, an election law expert at Covington & Burling LLC.
“It’s also about how courts intervene in elections, and whether it’s appropriate for courts to have to make judgments about how strong a candidate is or how likely they are to win or lose, when deciding whether to hear a case about the constitutionality or legality of an election rule,” Shapanka said.
The case, Bost v. Illinois Board of Elections, is expected to be decided by the end of June 2026.
(RIDGEFIELD, Conn.) — A Connecticut mother is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday after she was charged with allegedly attempting to poison a man with whom she shares a child by putting antifreeze in his wine at his home in Ridgefield, according to the Connecticut State Police.
Kristen Hogan, 33, was arrested on Friday and charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count of interference with an officer after she admitted to pouring ethylene glycol — a “poisonous ingredient within antifreeze and other household products” — in a bottle of wine from which the man drank, according to an affidavit obtained by ABC News.
On Sept. 12, police interviewed the 34-year-old male victim, who had been hospitalized “sometime in early August” and underwent a blood test that revealed he had ethylene glycol in his system, the affidavit said.
The victim, who has not been identified, said during the interview that he had “family over for dinner and that his stepmother had brought an unopened bottle of wine,” officials said. The victim and his family drank some of the wine, with the remainder being “corked and placed in the fridge at the end of the night,” officials said.
Then on Aug. 10, five days after the family dinner, the victim said he “consumed a small amount of the same wine,” went to bed and then “woke up in the middle of the night multiple times and became increasingly ill,” officials said.
At 6 a.m. the next day, the victim “woke up vomiting and called his father for advice,” who directed him to call his mother, who lived in the area, officials said.
Once at his home, the victim’s mother found her son “slurring his words, staggering, and vomiting,” and then decided to take him to the hospital, officials said.
The hospital “initially believed he was experiencing a stroke” but then determined that the victim was “exhibiting signs of an ethylene glycol poisoning,” the affidavit said. The victim was then placed on dialysis and admitted to the ICU, officials said.
Once authorities arrived at the hospital, the victim told them that he believed Hogan, with whom he shares a child, had poisoned the wine “based off the fact her phone uploaded data” to his Wi-Fi router a few days earlier and that she was the “last person other than himself to be in the residence prior to him drinking the already opened wine,” officials said.
The victim told officials he “believed that a motive for him being poisoned is the fact that Hogan would become the full owner of the residence and would gain full-time custody of their child,” officials said.
On Sept. 30, a final lab report indicated that “ethylene glycol was detected in the wine,” officials said.
Police also went through Hogan’s phone, which revealed searches for “various lethal amounts of poisons” and “how much mono ethylene glycol would kill you” after the victim was hospitalized, the affidavit said.
In an interview with police, Hogan said she and the victim had been separated since May but that she had “more recently started living back at the same residence” where the victim lived, officials said.
Hogan also said she “never intended to kill him, but just wanted to make him sick as payback for being mentally abusive,” the affidavit said.
Officials said Hogan had also claimed she was in Rhode Island when she was supposed to be in court with the victim on Aug. 7 regarding a complaint she had filed but that she was actually at the victim’s residence, to which she had full access, the affidavit said.
Hogan also told officials that she has poured “a very small amount” of the same substance into the man’s iced tea bottle on a separate date, the affidavit said.
“If undetected or untreated, ethylene glycol ingestion can cause serious or fatal toxicity,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a statement to ABC News, Hogan’s lawyer, Mark Sherman, said it is “premature to comment on any specifics.”
“What we know is that Kristen is a loving mother who misses her children dearly right now. These are just accusations and we will be diligently investigating and defending her against these claims,” Sherman said in a statement.
Hogan’s bail was set to $1,000,000. She is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday at 10 a.m. local time, according to court records.
(LAS VEGAS) — A 12-year-old girl has died after she was hit by a school bus while riding her bicycle in Las Vegas, authorities said, marking the second middle schooler in the city to die in a crash within one week.
The girl — identified by the coroner’s office as Haylee Ryan — was struck at about 3:23 p.m. Monday and was flung onto a parked SUV before falling to the ground, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said.
She was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries and died on Tuesday, police said.
Dozens of students were on the bus at the time of the crash, police said, adding that none of them were hurt.
The bus driver and the SUV driver both stayed at the scene and showed no signs of impairment, police said.
Haylee was heading home from school at the time of the accident, according to a GoFundMe page.
Haylee “was a sweet, pure, and fiercely creative child, who dreamed of becoming an artist one day,” the GoFundMe page said. “Haylee’s kindness and spirit touched everyone who knew her.”
Just days earlier, on Friday morning, a 12-year-old boy was crossing a street in an implied crosswalk when he was struck by a car, Las Vegas police said. The boy, who was on the way to school at the time, later died from his injuries, Clark County School District Superintendent Jhone Ebert said.
The driver fled the scene and was later arrested on hit-and-run and driving under the influence charges, police said.
“Both of these students had unlimited potential — potential they will never have a chance to realize,” the superintendent said at a news conference.
Dozens of Las Vegas students have been struck by cars on the way to or from school so far this school year, Ebert said, citing the school district police.
“It’s enough. … Right now we need immediate action, with the community’s help, to protect our children,” she said.
Volunteers with Samaritan’s Purse search for meaningful personal items for members of the Alvarado family in the rubble of their home which burned in the Eaton Fire on February 05, 2025 in Altadena, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
(LOS ANGELES) — An arrest has been made in connection with the Palisades Fire, which caused widespread destruction in Los Angeles County and killed a dozen people earlier this year, the Department of Justice announced on Wednesday.
Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, is accused of “maliciously” igniting a fire on Jan. 1 in the Pacific Palisades that ultimately erupted into the Palisades Fire, the Department of Justice said.
The New Year’s Day brush fire was suppressed by fire crews but continued to smolder underground before high winds caused it to surface and spread nearly a week later, “causing what became known as the Palisades Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles City history,” acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Rinderknecht has been charged by criminal complaint with destruction of property by means of fire. He was arrested on Tuesday near his residence in Florida and is scheduled to make his first court appearance in Orlando federal court on Wednesday, officials said.
The Palisades Fire erupted on Jan. 7, burning more than 23,000 acres over more than three weeks and destroying nearly 7,000 structures, according to California fire officials.
It ignited the same day as the Eaton Fire, which burned more than 14,00 acres in Los Angeles County, destroying more than 9,400 structures and killing 19 people, according to officials.
The fires started burning during strong Santa Ana winds, which, combined with dry conditions, helped their ability to spread quickly. This spread prompted mass evacuations.
The Palisades Fire decimated the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles.
What became known as the Lachman Fire was detected at 12:12 a.m. on Jan. 1 on a hilltop in the Pacific Palisades, according to the DOJ.
Rinderknecht, who the DOJ said was working as an Uber driver at the time and once lived in the Pacific Palisades — had dropped a customer off in the area of the fire, according to the complaint. Two of his passengers that night allegedly told law enforcement later that he appeared “agitated and angry,” the complaint stated.
The complaint alleges Rinderknecht caused the fire by lighting a combustible material, such as vegetation or paper, with an open flame, likely a lighter.
He attempted to contact 911 several times to report the fire, before ultimately getting through once he had cell service, according to the complaint. He allegedly made a three-minute screen-recording of his iPhone while attempting to call 911 and asking ChatGPT, “Are you at fault if a fire is lift [sic] because of your cigarettes?” according to the complaint.
“Based on my training and experience and this investigation, this indicates that RINDERKNECHT wanted to preserve evidence of himself trying to assist in the suppression of the fire and he wanted to create evidence regarding a more innocent explanation for the cause of the fire,” a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wrote in an affidavit in the complaint.
Essayli said the suspect left in his car but then returned and filmed firefighters responding to the blaze.
There is no indication that anyone else was in the area at the time the fire started, Essayli said.
Investigators interviewed Rinderknecht on Jan. 24, during which he allegedly lied about where he was when he saw the Lachman Fire, according to the DOJ.
“He claimed he was near the bottom of a hiking trail when he first saw the fire and called 911, but geolocation data from his iPhone carrier showed that he was standing in a clearing 30 feet from the fire as it rapidly grew,” the DOJ said in a press release.
Essayli said he didn’t want to discuss motive, though he pointed to digital evidence included in the complaint of an image Rinderknecht allegedly generated in July 2024 using ChatGPT, showing in part “a burning forest and a crowd fleeing from it.”
“You could see some of his thought process in the months leading up, where he was generating some really concerning images up on ChatGPT, which appears to show a dystopian city being burned down,” Essayli said.
The charge is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted, the DOJ said.
Essayli said the DOJ will make determinations on additional charges against Rinderknecht in the coming days.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell called the investigation into the Palisades Fire “extremely intensive and thorough.”
“I’m proud of the professionalism and dedication shown by our detectives and the team who work collaboratively with our federal, state and local partners,” he said during the press briefing. “That teamwork ultimately led to the arrest of the suspect responsible for this devastating crime.”
Over the past eight months, investigators pursued more than 200 leads, conducted hundreds of interviews and collected more than 13,000 pieces of evidence, including fire debris, digital data and DNA samples, as part of the probe, according to Kenny Cooper, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Los Angeles Field Division.
“We have a lot of different data that all concluded where this fire started, and the fire behavior from that origin, from that Lachman Fire, was clearly established in the Palisades Fire,” Cooper said at the press briefing.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the city will release the Los Angeles Fire Department’s report on the Palisades Fire “shortly,” now that an arrest has been made.
“More than 9 months ago, our city faced one of the most devastating periods our region had ever seen. Lives were tragically lost. Thousands of homes were destroyed. Our heroic firefighters fought the blaze valiantly with no rest,” she said in a statement. “Each day that families are displaced is a day too long and as we are working tirelessly to bring Angelenos home, we are also working towards closure and towards justice — and today is a step forward in that process.”
(LONDON) — A supply of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine could help “push Russia back,” Margus Tsahkna — the foreign minister of NATO ally Estonia — told ABC News, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had “sort of made a decision” on whether to green-light the long-range weapon for Ukrainian use.
Tsahkna said in an interview Tuesday that Trump approving the supply of the cruise missile to Kyiv would send “a very strong message” to Moscow.
“Whatever we can give — without any restrictions — to Ukraine, it is helping to win the war and push Russia back,” Tsahkna said. “So, if President Trump and the U.S. is deciding to take down restrictions from military support, as well Tomahawks, it’s just helping Ukraine to win and push Russia back.”
“It’s up to the U.S. to decide that,” Tsahkna said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that Kyiv is seeking access to the American-made long-range missile, different variants of which have ranges of up to 1,550 miles, according to the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Russia’s most populous and politically important cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and a host of important air, naval, oil refining and drone production facilities would be within range if the longest-range version of the Tomahawk is supplied to Ukraine.
There remain major obstacles to any Ukrainian use of Tomahawks. For one, the main launch platforms for the cruise missile are naval vessels — most commonly submarines — and bomber aircraft, neither of which Ukraine possesses.
Only in recent years has the U.S. developed a small and very limited capability of firing Tomahawks from large launch vehicles, known as the Typhon missile system. Germany and the Philippines have reportedly expressed an interest in obtaining the Typhon, but to date, only the U.S. operates the platform. The small numbers of such launch vehicles in the U.S. military’s inventory makes it likely that they would not be on the battlefield anytime soon if approved by President Trump.
NATO allies have said little on the potential for Ukrainian Tomahawk use, or allied support for their supply.
“I think I want to find out what they’re doing with them,” Trump said of Ukraine’s Tomahawk request on Monday. “I would ask some questions. I’m not looking to escalate that war.”
The Kremlin has warned that a Tomahawk supply to Ukraine would do just that.
“This will lead to the destruction of our relations, or at least the positive trends that have emerged in these relations,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a video clip released on Sunday by Russian state television.
On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow is “carefully analyzing” related developments.
“The question, as before, is as follows: Who can launch these missiles, even if they are on the territory of the Kyiv regime — can only Ukrainians launch them, or should the U.S. military do so?” he asked.
“Who sets the targets for these missiles — the American side or the Ukrainians themselves?” Peskov added. “Therefore, a very thorough analysis is needed here. We have certainly heard the statements, they are very serious, and we are studying them.”
“Even if this happens, there is no panacea that can now change the situation on the front lines for the Kyiv regime, there is no magic weapon, be it Tomahawks or missiles — they will not be able to change the dynamics,” Peskov said.
Officials in Kyiv said they disagree.
The Tomahawk “is extremely important as a deterrent weapon, because the presence of this weapon for Russia will be a clear signal that we have something to respond with if they continue this terror,” Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser to the head of Zelenskyy’s office, said in a television appearance.
Andriy Kovalenko — the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council — said in posts to Telegram that the Tomahawk would represent “not tactical deterrence, but a strategic turning point.”
“As soon as Moscow and St. Petersburg fully and consistently feel the war, it will mean either a search for a replacement for Putin by the elites and an exit from the war, at least temporarily, or Putin himself will do everything to stop the war,” Kovalenko suggested.
But significant practical challenges remain.
Ivan Stupak, a former officer in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), suggested in an interview with ABC News that the Tomahawk is the latest headline-grabbing “wonder weapon” that would have a limited battlefield effect, even if the White House decided to approve its transfer to Ukrainian arsenals.
It is not clear how many Tomahawks the U.S. military could spare for Ukrainian use. The rate of Tomahawk production has ranged from 55 to 90 annually in recent years, according to Reuters. The Pentagon has already said it plans to purchase just 57 missiles in 2026.
The intensity of the war in Ukraine dwarfs those numbers. Recent months have seen Russia launch between 100 and 200 missiles of all types into Ukraine each month, per Ukrainian air force data analyzed by ABC News. On a nightly basis, Ukraine launches dozens of long-range drones into Russia, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.
Stupak, who has advised Ukrainian parliamentarians on security matters during Russia’s full-scale invasion, said he was skeptical that the U.S. would deliver enough Tomahawks to turn the tide of the war.
U.S. control over target selection may limit their effectiveness further, Stupak said, as may American concerns about sensitive technical data falling into Russian hands if any Tomahawks were captured.
Along with the issue of launch platforms, there would be a need for training. Unless American military personnel are on the ground to assist in their usage — and Trump has already publicly ruled out deployed U.S. troops to Ukraine — Ukrainian operators will also need significant training to be able to use the weapon.
Ukraine is already using shorter-range Western-supplied cruise missiles — the Storm Shadow/SCALP British-French cruise missile, which have a maximum range far shorter than the Tomahawk at around 155 miles.
The extent of allied involvement in their use is unclear, but Germany’s then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz was widely criticized for hinting in 2024 that British and French personnel were involved in “target control.”
Yuriy Boyechko, the CEO of the Hope For Ukraine humanitarian organization, told ABC News he was skeptical of any Tomahawk proposal.
“Ukraine currently does not possess the specialized launch equipment or the trained personnel needed to field the Tomahawk missile system,” he said. “Right now, Ukraine is under daily mass attacks and needs quick, practical solutions to protect civilians and to conduct offensive operations deep into Russian territory.”
The “only solution” for Kyiv, Stupak suggested, is for Ukraine to continue its own cruise missile and ballistic missile production drive.
Authorities are searching for two suspects from the Atlanta area: Jahaun Suber, 20, and Devell Ortiz, 19. Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto
(NEW ORLEANS) — Two suspects have been arrested and two more are at large in connection with a burglary at the home of New Orleans Saints defensive end Cam Jordan.
The four suspects allegedly broke in through a back door while the house was empty on Sept. 14 — the day of a Saints home game, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto said.
Jordan spoke out about the break-in on social media on Tuesday, saying, “Yah that Sunday sucked… the most important things, my family, was and is safe.”
It appears no one else was targeted; the suspects, who are from the Atlanta area, drove back to Georgia right after the burglary, Lopinto said at a news conference.
Two men — Donald Robinson, 28, and Jadon Brown, 19 — were arrested after being identified within 24 hours of the break-in, according to the sheriff’s office.
Authorities are still searching for the two other suspects, identified as Jahaun Suber, 20, and Devell Ortiz, 19, the sheriff’s office said.
Charges have not been finalized but will likely include simple burglary and possession of stolen property, the sheriff said. The FBI is working with local officials on the case and federal charges are possible, the sheriff added.
Some of the property has been recovered, but Lopinto didn’t disclose what was stolen.
It is not clear if the suspects are linked to other burglaries, the sheriff added.
The Saints lost the Sept. 14 home game to the San Francisco 49ers 26-21.
Jordan, who has played his entire 15-year career for the Saints, is an eight-time Pro Bowler and has 124 career sacks, second-most among active players.
This is the latest in a string of burglaries targeting professional athletes. Other victims of break-ins include Kansas City Chiefs stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Dončić.
