News

(HOUSTON) — A suspect is in custody after police responded to reports of an active shooter at a Houston prep school, local authorities said.

Officers are searching the school for any other possible suspects, the Houston Police said and the scene is still active.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(CHANDLER, Ariz.) — A helicopter and a fixed-wing plane collided in mid-air in Chandler, Arizona, Friday, local authorities confirmed.

Chandler police tweeted that they are currently at the scene.

“We are at the scene of a mid-air collision between a plane and helicopter at a Chandler Airpark. We ask anyone who possibly witnessed or caught this incident on camera to contact Chandler PD at 480-782-4130,” the police posted.

The plane was able to land safely, but the helicopter crashed and caught on fire, the Chandler Fire department reported. Chandler Police have confirmed two deaths.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(MONTEZUMA, Iowa) — The remains of an adolescent were discovered by a farmer in rural Iowa Thursday, along with clothes that matched what a boy who lived in the region was last seen wearing before he vanished in May, authorities said.

Xavior Harrelson was last seen the morning of May 27, days before his 11th birthday, when he left his home in Montezuma to go on a bike ride, authorities said.

His disappearance sparked a widespread search by police and community volunteers through miles of cornfields, lakes, ravines and wilderness in Poweshiek County.

Around 2 p.m. local time Thursday, the local sheriff’s office received a call from a farmer working in a field a few miles outside of Montezuma who had discovered what they believed to be human remains, authorities said.

The remains were found in a grassy area of a combined field, and the state medical examiner determined them to be human and likely those of an adolescent, according to Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation.

“We are not saying it is Xavior Harrelson at this time,” Mortvedt told reporters at a press briefing near the scene Thursday. “There’s a lot of work yet to be done at the scene here, and as you can imagine, the state medical examiner’s office and state anthropologist have a lot of work left ahead of them in the days and weeks, even, to come.”

The remains had likely been in the field for a “significant” amount of time, Mortvedt said, and the documentation at the scene will be a “very slow and methodical process.”

The clothing found was “consistent with what we knew Xavior to last be wearing,” he said.

Xavior was last seen wearing a red T-shirt, blue pajama pants and black high-top shoes, according to the sheriff’s office.

His family has been contacted about the development, Poweshiek County Sheriff Thomas Kriegel told reporters. “Naturally she was upset,” he said of the boy’s mother.

The field where the remains were found had not been previously searched on foot as part of the investigation, Kriegel said.

The medical examiner will be working to identify the remains, a process that could take weeks, Mortvedt said. The cause and manner of death will be investigated, and “whether or not there was foul play,” he said.

A reward for information in the case has grown to $36,000.

Anyone with information or tips is urged to call the Poweshiek County Sheriff’s Office at 641-623-5679.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(CHICAGO) — Three years ago, a 26-year-old postal worker who was eagerly expecting her first child mysteriously disappeared in her own neighborhood.

There’s still no resolution, leaving her heartbroken mother desperate to know if her daughter is even alive or dead.

Kierra Coles was about three months pregnant when she vanished on Oct. 2, 2018, on Chicago’s South Side. Her car was found in front of her apartment with her phone and packed lunch still inside.

The Chicago Police Department considers the case “a high-risk missing person investigation with potential foul play suspected.”

For Coles’ mother, Karen Phillips, having no answers is torturous.

Phillips said police have not provided any information whenever she’s called over the last year.

“I could never reach nobody. They’re gone to lunch, they’ll call me back, they’re out of the office. It’s always something,” she told ABC News last week. “They don’t even reach out and say, ‘Well, Ms. Phillips, we’re still going through this’ … or, ‘We don’t have any new leads.’ Just say something.”

The Chicago police didn’t respond to Phillips’ claim that they ignored her calls, but in a statement to ABC News the police department said it urges “anybody with knowledge of her last whereabouts … to contact the Chicago Police Department.”

“We are seeking any and all information in an attempt to locate her and we won’t stop until we do,” police said.

For Phillips, the loss is “unbearable.”

“I went from seeing my child every day — if not seeing her, at least talking to her every day — to not seeing her in three years,” Phillips said. “I try to stay strong for the other kids, I try to not really break down in front of them. But we talk about her all the time, we got pictures everywhere. We just really want her home.”

Coles’ siblings range in age from 35 to 24. Coles, a devoted aunt to her nieces and nephews, was the last of Phillips’ children to have a baby.

Phillips said she misses the grandchild she never got a chance to meet.

“I miss him — he or she — even though they wasn’t born yet. I just miss him because she would’ve been a great mother,” she said. “For her to be a mother, we were so excited. … That was the last thing she was waiting for.”

Coles had a plan for her life and so far “everything was going according to plan,” her mother said.

Coles first wanted a good job, and after years with the post office she had saved for a car and a home. Then, she and her boyfriend decided they were ready for a baby, Phillips said.

For her to vanish “out of the blue,” she said, “I can’t understand it.”

The United States Postal Inspection Service and the FBI are both working with the Chicago police on the case.

“Since October 2018, Postal Inspectors have tracked down and vetted nearly 400 leads across the country. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service distributed thousands of reward flyers,” the Postal Inspection Service said.

“Kierra Coles is a member of our Postal family and we will continue looking for her and following up on all leads,” the agency continued. “If you know something, no matter how trivial it may seem, please come forward as it may be crucial to our investigation. Please contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service hotline at (877) 876-2455 and reference case number 2693502.”

Some days Phillips said she “really can’t function because my mind just, you know, keeps wondering — where’s my child? Is she being harmed? Is she dead or alive?”

“It’s hard waking up every day wondering,” she said. “I just want somebody to come forward and say what happened.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Women’s rights advocates are preparing to march again in Washington, D.C., and other cities across the U.S. this weekend, with a focus on reproductive rights.

The fifth annual Women’s March will take place on Saturday, a date specifically chosen for its proximity to the start of the U.S. Supreme Court’s new term — Oct. 4, the first Monday in October.

Women’s March organizers said the restrictive abortion law that went into effect in Texas in September motivated them to act now.

The law, which bans nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, went into effect after the Supreme Court rejected a request by Texas abortion providers to block the law as legal challenges continued.

“When the Supreme Court rejected an emergency request to block Texas’s abortion ban, they effectively took the next step towards overturning Roe v. Wade. Simply put: We are witnessing the most dire threat to abortion access in our lifetime,” reads a statement on the Women’s March website.

The Supreme Court also is scheduled to hear in December oral arguments in a case that could be the most consequential abortion rights case in decades. The state of Mississippi is asking the justices to overturn longstanding legal precedent that restrictions on abortion access before a fetus is viable outside the womb — around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy — are categorically unconstitutional. Mississippi wants to ban abortions after 15 weeks, or even earlier.

Reproductive rights advocates call the case, which centers around Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s last remaining abortion clinic, an existential threat to American abortion rights not seen in nearly 50 years.

This year’s protest will follow in the footsteps of Women’s March protests that have taken place every year since 2017, when the first march drew more than a million people to various locations across the U.S. the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

The protests have dwindled in size since the first march, but have continued across the country.

As women take to the streets this year to march, in addition to battles over reproductive rights, women have also experienced disproportionate job loss during the coronavirus pandemic and faced greater caregiving burdens than male counterparts, data shows.

Women’s March organizers said that in addition to the Washington, D.C., march, there will be smaller marches from Bangor, Maine, and the way to Seattle.

The Washington march will begin at Freedom Plaza and continue along Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Supreme Court building.

Busy Phillips, who has spoken publicly about having an abortion at age 15, is among the speakers confirmed for the Washington march.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.