The Iron Fire burning in Northern Utah is threatening structures in the town of Eureka, where a mandatory evacuation order was in effect, June 21, 2026. (Utah Fire Info)
(EUREKA, Utah) — Mandatory evacuations are underway for hundreds of people on Sunday in a central Utah town being threatened by a wind-driven, out-of-control wildfire, officials said.
The Iron Fire is burning in Juab County, about 28 miles southwest of Provo, and officials said on Sunday that flames are bearing down on Eureka, Utah, a small town in the East Tintic Mountains.
The wildfire, which started on Friday night, had burned more than 13,300 acres by Sunday morning and remains 0% contained, according to Utah Fire Info.
The wildfire, according to Utah Fire Info, was human-caused, but details of what sparked the blaze have not been released.
Shifting winds and dry vegetation fueled the wildfire on Saturday and sent it in the direction of Eureka, where authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders on Saturday. Fire officials said flames were threatening “numerous structures” in the area.
The fire rapidly grew from about 5,000 acres on Saturday to more than 13,000 overnight.
“That’s way closer than anybody wants it to be,” Daylan Hermanson, a Eureka resident, told ABC Salt Lake City affiliate station KTVX, as he watched flames creep over a mountainside headed for Eureka.
Kelly Wicken, a spokesperson for the Utah Division of Forestry, said the blaze started on private land and has now spread across Juab and two other counties, crossing onto federal land and shutting down a highway.
Before the fire, the National Weather Service had issued red flag fire danger warnings for a large part of the state.
Utah is also in the middle of a severe drought that has dried out vegetation, providing fuel for any fires.
“With June temperatures rising, Utah is facing a deepening drought that has accelerated the drying of soils and vegetation across the state,” the Utah Department of Natural Resources said in a June 11 statement. “Wildfire season has already been active with over 230 fires so far this year, a majority of which were human-caused.”
The Iron Fire is the biggest of 11 wildfires that have ignited across the state since Friday.
The Hastings Fire, which started on Saturday west of Salt Lake City, had burned 2,500 acres by Sunday morning and was 0% contained, according to Utah Fire Info.
The Middle Fork Fire near Ogden and the Boonville Fire, just east of the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, had both burned more than 300 acres since starting on Saturday and were both 0% contained on Sunday.
“Utah is facing multiple wildfires across the state today, and we are using every available resource to support response efforts,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said in a social media post on Saturday evening. “Conditions remain dry and dangerous. Please use extreme caution, follow evacuation notices, and do your part to prevent new fires.”
An 18-year-old man was transported to NewYork-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center in critical condition after he fell from a horse carriage in Central Park on June 17, 2026, the NYPD said. (WABC)
(NEW YORK) — Horse-drawn carriage rides will be suspended in Central Park until next week following the death of an 18-year-old Indian tourist who was in a runaway carriage with his family.
The move comes after growing calls from advocates and elected officials to fully ban the rides following a string of incidents over the last year where people and the horses were put in danger.
The Transport Workers Union announced Thursday, a day after Romanch Mahajan was killed, that rides would be suspended while they assess safety protocols. The union announced on Friday that the suspension would continue until at least Tuesday.
The 18-year-old victim was with his parents and younger brother in a carriage Wednesday afternoon when the driver got out to take a picture of the family and suddenly the horse took off “for unknown reasons,” according to the TWU and police.
The carriage clipped the wheel of another carriage and toppled, according to TWU Local 100 Administrative Vice President Alexander Kemp.
Mahajan fell out of the carriage, and died at the hospital later in the afternoon, police said.
Deepak Mahajan, the victim’s father, told the New York Times Thursday that his son jumped out of the carriage to help his wife, Priya, who fell out of the carriage first.
This was the first time the family had visited New York City, Deepak Mahajan told the Times.
The other family members suffered minor injuries, police said. This is the first time a person has been killed during a carriage ride in the park, according to the union.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche listens to a reporter’s question during a press conference at the Department of Justice June 11, 2026 in Washingon, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Friday refused to issue a signed declaration from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche verifying that it no longer intends to pursue President Donald Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
The DOJ’s refusal comes after a federal judge last week gave the administration seven days to verify in a declaration that it wouldn’t create the controversial fund.
“Such declarations are unnecessary and the compelled testimony of senior officials from the Executive Branch implicates serious separation of powers concerns,” the DOJ said in a court filing Friday to U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who last week issued an injunction indefinitely blocking the administration from creating the fund.
Brinkema had given the Trump administration seven days to verify in a declaration from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that it wouldn’t create the fund, which she said would likely lead to the dismissal of the lawsuit she was overseeing against the fund.
But in their filing Friday, the department argued that Brinkema’s offer was a potentially unconstitutional infringement of the executive branch by effectively requiring “testimony” of top officials on a matter that the administration has repeatedly said would not be moving forward.
The fund, which was announced last month by the DOJ to compensate those who allege they were wrongly targeted under the Biden administration, was proposed in exchange for Trump agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS as well as two civil claims for $230 million related to the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate — sparking accusations of self-dealing and a bipartisan uproar over the possible use of taxpayer money to pay rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In her ruling last week, Judge Brinkema pointed repeatedly to President Trump’s own shifting statements in recent weeks about the fund, including his pointed attack on Brinkema herself after she had temporarily paused the fund earlier this month, in which he referred to her as a “radical left judge.”
“When the president of the United States says he’s disappointed that something is not going forward,” Brinkema said, that would only add to the evidence that the fund might “rear its head” in the future.
Sen. Ted Cruz questions Secretary of State Marco Rubio as he testifies during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on June 02, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — From calling it “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades” to calling President Donald Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran “out of step” with his stated objectives, several Republican senators have broken with the president over the agreement.
Core concerns from some of Trump’s closest Hill allies have revolved around the significant economic opportunity for Iran to rebuild with few concessions in return outlined in the short-term agreement Trump signed on Wednesday.
“I do have concerns that certain aspects of this deal are stepping in the wrong direction,” Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Fox News on Thursday.
“[Trump] deserves enormous credit for making Iran weaker than it’s been in decades, and we need to make sure that we don’t squander the leverage that we built across six years,” the Arkansas senator said.
Cotton’s comments are notable as he has been one of the Senate’s most hawkish voices on the war in Iran and has pushed the president to continue to attack the Iranian regime.
Others Republican senators had similar views of the deal, arguing that it gives Iran immediate relief on oil revenues and pledges to work to unfreeze $24 billion in Iranian assets and help create a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran.
‘An exceptionally bad idea’
“History demonstrates that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is an exceptionally bad idea, and I think unfortunately the president is receiving some really bad advice on this deal,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said of the reconstruction fund. “I don’t want to see us send a penny to the ayatollah, and I hope that we don’t.”
“I support President Trump, and I think his leadership on Iran has been extraordinary. I believe he is getting poor advice, and I think sending billions of dollars to Iran is a mistake,” he added.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker, of Mississippi, issued a bruising statement about the MOU, saying the proposal to create a $300 billion account to fund the rebuilding of Iran “would make Iran’s payoff under President Obama’s 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison.”
The memorandum says the U.S. and Middle East partners would develop a $300 billion account for reconstruction and economic development, but Trump said the U.S. wouldn’t be contributing to it.
“We’re not putting up 10 cents,” Trump said Wednesday. “People can decide to do that, but that’s up to them.”
Wicker also said he opposes lifting sanctions on Iran, unfreezing Iranian assets or forcing Israel to stand down against Hezbollah.
“The Iranian regime has not renounced its ultimate goal — death to America, death to Israel. The regime wiill invest every penny it receives to further that aim,” Wicker said.
Additionally, while the agreement calls for the toll-free reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, senators said the future of the strait is unclear and could potentially open the door for Iran to impose fees for safe passage.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said whil. “some important things” have been accomplished by the campaign against Iran, “I’m afraid we will look back at this and see a missed opportunity to basically eliminate the threat going forward because there is nothing to stop the regime from beginning to block the Strait of Hormuz again basically at will.”
No demands of Iran on nuclear weapons
Senators also had concerns over the MOU not demanding that Iran destroy its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and that it doesn’t doesn’t provide a mechanism to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons in the future, which was one of Trump’s main objectives.
Instead the MOU says Iran reaffirms a longstanding commitment not to pursue a nuclear weapon and to negotiate what to do with the country’s nuclear stockpile.
“Since Day 1, I have supported President Trump’s efforts to end Iran’s 47-year threat to the United States and our partners. I am concerned that the memorandum of understanding negotiates away the victories of Operation Epic Fury in ways that are completely out of step with the President’s goals,” Wicker said in his Thursday statement.
“The terms of the MOU that have been released start off at the outset with 10s of billions of dollars immediately being released to Iran before they make a single nuclear concession. I think that’s a mistake,” he said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., also expressed doubts about the agreement, saying, “Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed.”
Graham: Upside outweighs the downside
Other Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham, voiced initial skepticism over the agreement but said he was cautiously optimistic that a possible future deal would ease his initial concerns.
While Graham said some of the criticism of the MOU is valid, without it “there’s no pathway to diplomacy to end the nuclear ambitions of Iran. What does that leave you with? War continuation of the status quo, so the upside of signing the MOU was greater, I think, than the downside.”
“Time will tell, but I’m glad we’re on the course on the path to diplomacy, and we’ll know in the coming weeks what kind of deal we will get.
Graham said he told Trump’s Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff “Pursue a good deal, but be ready to walk away.”
The administration has pushed back on some of those criticisms saying the sanction relief and asset access it has made to Iran is tied to “very concrete nuclear commitments” Iran has made, as well as saying that there will be further negotiations toward a final agreement, calling the memorandum a framework, not a final agreement.
Vice President JD Vance addressed skeptics during a White House press briefing on Thursday.
“People say the Iranians will never change their behavior. Well, maybe that’s true,” he said. “And if so, they don’t get any of the benefits of the bargain. But isn’t it worth trying? Isn’t it worth seeing whether this incredibly weakened position that the president of the United States has put the Iranians under, whether that motivates them to change their behavior, not just vis-a-vis the West, but vis-a-vis the Middle East.”
In this photo illustration, collectible Pokémon cards are viewed in a store on January 23, 2026 in Pasadena, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
(STOCKTON, Calif.) — Two Northern California stores were burglarized and had thousands of dollars worth of Pokémon trading cards stolen within hours of each other this week, according to police and the stores’ owners.
Investigators in Stockton are looking for clues and suspects in the Wednesday burglaries, which have become the latest incidents in a string of Pokémon card thefts across the country.
Police do not immediately know if the two burglaries are connected.
The first incident took place at Dragon’s Den Games around 1:55 a.m. local time when a hooded suspect broke a glass display case and made off with the cards in under a minute, according to police and surveillance footage.
Tom Douglas, the store’s owner, told ABC affiliate KXTV that the thief was only looking for one thing in his store.
“They’re looking for Pokémon [cards],” Douglas said. “They’re not interested in board games.”
Around 3:30 a.m. a suspect, who was also wearing a similar black hood, broke into JNA Collectibles on Fremont Street, roughly three-and-a-half miles away from Dragon’s Den Games, according to police and surveillance footage.
JNA Collectible’s owner, Joshua Lawson, told KXTV that the suspect used a crowbar to break through the front door, smash a glass display case with the Pokémon cards and flee the scene with the cards in just a minute.
“In one minute, I lost thousands of dollars,” he said.
Lawson noted Pokémon cards can range in value from about a dollar to tens of thousands of dollars for some graded cards. There have been similar thefts in California, New Jersey and other states.
“This is a problem for every single store in this area,” Lawson said.
Douglas told the affiliate that the ongoing thefts are one of the reasons he’s decided to close Dragon’s Den Games at the end of the month after nearly a decade of business.
He said the store has been burglarized four times since January.
“This is brand new this year,” Douglas said. “It kind of feels like it came out of nowhere.”
Seen through algae-laden green water, a tear in the recently applied sealant can be seen on the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on June 18, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The cost to repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has ballooned to more than $14.65 million — exceeding the original estimated cost of the no-bid contract by more than $4 million, according to federal contract data.
In addition to the repainting by Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the National Park Service paid $1.74 million to Green Water Solutions, an Ohio-based company, earlier this year to install a “nano bubble” system to kill algae, using a similar no-bid contract to speed up the work in time for Fourth of July celebrations.
Between the two companies that received separate contracts for the resurfacing and filtration systems, the project is set to cost more than $16 million. The status of the payments to the contractors was not immediately available in the federal government’s contract database.
The Interior Department said in a statement via X, “The advanced nanobubbler technology very effectively killed the algae that has plagued every Lincoln Reflecting Pool reopening—most infamously Obama’s reopening—since 1922. The Reflecting Pool water is crystal clear, and our National Park Service team is now vacuuming up the dead algae resting on the bottom of some parts of the Reflecting Pool—just like the destroyed Iranian Navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf.”
Trump has repeatedly defended the project, though the new paint job — described in the contract documents as a “seamless, monolithic, waterproof, antimicrobial, and anti-algae system suitable for continuous submersion” — and appears to be peeling, and an algae bloom has overtaken the reflecting pool.
“As a developer, I’ve probably built more than 100 swimming pools in different buildings I built, and I have some really good pool builders,” Trump said in April about the project. “They’re great people. I have such great respect for contractors that are good and such disdain for contractors that are bad. They charge you more money and they give you a bad job, but we — we don’t accept it.”
In the two weeks since the repainting of the reflecting pool was completed, Atlantic Industrial Coatings was also awarded two payments totaling $1.54 million, a total of $14.65 million since it began the project. Contracting documents offered few details about the extra payments, other than saying the work was within the scope of their original agreement and describing it as ” PAINT LINCOLN REFLECTING POOL.”
The millions of dollars being paid to the contractor are taxpayer funds. ABC News has sent repeated requests to Atlantic Industrial Coatings for comment.
The FBI said it is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest of Oscar Sanchez-Munoz. (FBI)
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — The FBI said it’s offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspect in a string of shootings in Kansas City, Missouri.
Oscar Sanchez-Munoz, 22, is not only the suspect in Tuesday’s five shootings, but he is also wanted for allegedly shooting at a car days earlier in Wyandotte County, Kansas, the FBI said.
On June 11, an adult and a child were driving in Wyandotte County when their car was struck by gunfire, police said.
Then on Tuesday evening, five shooting incidents — including one that was deadly — unfolded in close succession from west to east along the Interstate 70 area, according to Kansas City, Missouri, Police Chief Stacey Graves.
The four surviving victims — three adults and one teenager — told officers they were driving when one or more shots were fired into their cars, Graves said.
The teen was hospitalized in stable condition, one adult suffered life-threatening injuries, and the other two surviving victims had non-life-threatening injuries, Graves said.
An Uber driver taking passengers to the Kansas City World Cup game was among the victims, Graves said, and responding officers drove the fans to the match.
A motive is not known, Graves said.
On Tuesday night, Sanchez-Munoz allegedly barricaded himself inside a house in Independence, Missouri, east of Kansas City, and engaged in a standoff with police, authorities said.
At about 12:45 a.m., police reported the house was on fire, and firefighters responded and extinguished the blaze, Graves said. When responders entered the house, Sanchez-Munoz was not there, Graves said.
Sanchez-Munoz is considered armed and dangerous, authorities said, and they urge anyone who sees him to call 911.
Stock image of handcuffs. (Westend61/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — The man arrested and charged after a 3-year-old boy wound up in a crocodile enclosure at a British zoo was released on bail Friday as the investigation continues, police said.
The unidentified 30-year-old suspect from Norfolk was released after investigators said he “was assessed as unfit for police interview,” according to the Cambridgeshire Constabulary.
The incident occurred on Thursday afternoon at Johnsons of Old Hurst, a family-run farm and zoo located in Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, when the unidentified boy “ended up in the crocodile enclosure,” police said.
The boy sustained “serious injuries” while in the enclosure and was pulled out by staff from the zoo. He received medical treatment at the scene before being taken to the hospital, according to the police.
He was listed in critical but stable condition as of Friday. The suspect, who will remain on bail until September, is not known to the victim, according to police.
The suspect was arrested under suspicion of attempted murder.
Johnsons of Old Hurst said its tropical house, which is home to multiple species of crocodiles and other reptiles, will remain closed until further notice “out of respect to the family.”
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the boy and his family following the incident that occurred today,” Johnsons of Old Hurst said in a statement on social media Thursday.
-ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Several flash flood emergencies continued to hit Gulf states Thursday night into Friday morning as the remnants of Tropical Storm Arthur, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, wreaked havoc, resulting in at least one death and serious damage in several cities.
And the forecast shows more heavy rain and extreme weather heading toward the region this weekend.
In Louisiana, Gov. Jeff Landry declared a statewide emergency in response to the storm, citing widespread rainfall, severe storms and flooding concerns across the state.
The emergency order follows reports of tornadoes and more than a foot of rain in some areas over a 24-hour period. State officials said the storm has caused dangerous conditions, including flooding, downed trees and damage to homes and businesses.
A flash flood warning in Dallas escalated Friday to “considerable” with 2 inches per hour rainfall rates and at least 4 inches of rain fallen so far, according to the National Weather Service.
The city’s emergency management department reported that multiple roads in downtown Dallas were impassable due to high water, especially under overpasses.
Several flash floods took place overnight Thursday in Seminary and Sanford, Louisiana, where homes and businesses were taking in water due to more than 10 inches of rainfall, according to the NWS.
Water rescues took place overnight as vehicles were stranded and left in flood waters.
Parts of Louisiana reported more than 20 inches of rainfall, according to the NWS. Plaucheville and Moreauville were hit especially hard, with more than 100 homes flooded, NWS noted.
Some cars in these neighborhoods were seen floating down roads.
Meanwhile, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said crews were at the scene of the Anchor Lake Dam, located near the city of Carriere, in southern Mississippi, to monitor the conditions there but reported the dam “has not been breached” and was functioning as designed.
However, about 30 homes had been evacuated as a precautionary measure.
In a social media post Thursday, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said the dam was being monitored.
“At this time, according to MDEQ, the system is functioning as designed – water is flowing through the primary and auxiliary spillways. However, there is very little storage capacity remaining and there is additional precipitation predicted. If that happens, it could quickly overwhelm the spillways and compromise the structure,” he said.
Reeves also said a county road crew worker was killed during cleanup operations in Franklin County, in southwestern Mississippi.
The Pearl River County Office of Emergency Services said in an update late Thursday that the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality had identified areas of erosion around the dam caused by the recent heavy rainfall but “expressed a high level of confidence in the dam’s structural integrity.”
The agency lifted an evacuation order for homes near the dam later Thursday night, but officials urged residents to pay attention to alerts.
Earlier, the NWS said a flash flood emergency was issued for Anchor Lake Dam and areas downstream on the East Hobolochitto Creek.
The NWS had earlier reported that the Anchor Lake Dam had failed, citing local emergency management, though it later issued an update that the dam “is being monitored for possible failure.”
A rare High Risk, level 4 of 4, for life-threatening flood potential was in place over southern Mississippi, southern Alabama and western Florida panhandle along the central Gulf Coast Thursday, the NWS said.
Historically, a third of all flood-related fatalities and 80% of all flood-related damages occur in such high-risk areas, according to NWS data.
On Friday, the NWS issued a level 3 of 4 flash flood risk in place for parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle, as rainfall rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour are possible.
A flood watch extends from eastern Louisiana through central Georgia through Friday.
Forecasters are also watching the soil conditions in these areas.
Since some locations saw over a foot of rain in the last 24 hours, any additional heavy rain on the ground will quickly lead to heightened flash flood risks, according to the NWS.
One of the reasons for the continuing flood threats across the South is how incredibly moist the atmosphere is overhead, which is translating into dangerous heat indices.
Feels-like temperatures are soaring above 110 degrees from Texas to Florida.
New Orleans is under a heat advisory today for heat indices up to 110, Houston up to 112 and Corpus Christi up to 114.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the Anchor Lake Dam has not failed, as previously reported by the National Weather Service, and to correct the spelling of the Anchor Lake Dam.
ABC News’ Jason Volack and Jack Moore contributed to this report.
In this mugshot released by Franklin County Jail, 19-year-old Tycen Proper is shown. He was charged by federal prosecutors in Ohio in the alleged UFC plot foiled. (Franklin County Jail)
(KNOX COUNTY, Ohio) — A series of phone calls from a concerned mother helped set in motion what turned out to be a nationwide investigation that uncovered an alleged plot to attack the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House last weekend and led to the arrest of one of the suspects, according to authorities.
ABC News obtained phone calls made to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio, including one by the mother of 19-year-old Tycen Proper, whom federal prosecutors have charged with conspiring against the United States, attempted murder of an officer of the U.S., and firearms crimes in connection with the alleged plot.
Authorities said Proper’s mother first called her cousin, who happens to be the chief deputy of the sheriff’s office, on June 10 — just four days before the White House event was set to take place. The deputy chief later called the dispatch center to describe his conversation with Proper’s mother and asked if a Danville, Ohio, police officer was available to go to her house and talk with her, according to the recordings obtained by ABC News.
“They are having some issues with their son, and I think, I don’t think anybody’s in immediate danger, as in this second, but I know she has concerns with weapons and ammo, and particularly a mindset that her oldest boy is in right now,” the cousin said.
“She’s probably going to call you,” the cousin added, “But in case she doesn’t, maybe dispatch him [a Danville police officer] up there right away so that he can get a handle on what’s going on. She called me on my phone all panicky, and I’m like, ‘Well, I’m at home, there’s nothing I can do, but I’ll call and get somebody on the way.'”
The dispatcher immediately issued a radio call to send an officer to Proper’s home, saying that the mother had “concerns about her son and having problems with him. She did mention something about guns and ammo and wanting somebody to check out,” according to the call recording.
A short time later, the mother called dispatch and said she wanted to file a report about her son to have it on record. The dispatcher asked if her son was there.
“Yes, we just got all of his guns and ammo out of his room and put it, got it out off our property. He just came inside and he’s probably going to discover it’s not in his room,” Proper’s mother replied.
“What’s going on, though? Is he like, is he suicidal? What’s going on?” the dispatcher asked.
“Oh no, he’s just … I don’t … we don’t even know what he’s wanting to do. He’s wanting to leave this weekend and go with a group of people to help, like, fight the corrupt government,” Proper’s mother replied, according to the call recording.
By the end of the evening, Proper had been taken to Knox Community Hospital for an emergency medical admission, according to police records. Those records indicate he had a history of suicidal ideations.
According to body camera footage from the Knox County Sheriff’s Office, also obtained by ABC News, after Proper left with deputies, his mother continued sharing her concerns with authorities.
“He’s texting somebody. If you go ahead and get a hold of his phone or his text messages, it’s all in there,” she tells authorities, according to the body camera footage. “It’s all on his phone. I saw him on Google Maps, he had a little pin dropped in it. I saw on Google maps, Washington, D.C.”
Describing a conversation to police she said she had with her son, she said he told her, “It’s a hit-and-a-run type of thing. I’m, like, Oh, that doesn’t sound good.”
The following day, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office contacted the FBI, which searched Proper’s iPhone, according to charging documents.
“During a preliminary search of the device, investigators observed chats on Signal groups that laid out detailed plans to conduct an attack in Washington D.C. with several unidentified confederates,” charging documents stated. “In the chat, detailed imagery of the National Capitol Region and maps of the area were shared to a group of which PROPER was a member, highlighting sniper locations, potential drone launch locations, and other detailed tactical planning.”
Later that day, investigators interviewed Proper at the medical facility where he had been taken where he “admitted to planning with others a coordinated attack against the United States government during the UFC event scheduled to take place on the White House lawn in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, June 14, 2026,” according to the charging documents.
The phone calls from Proper’s mother provide insight into what began as a local police investigation and quickly turned into a nationwide investigation involving the FBI, Secret Service and ATF that resulted in the arrests of five people in four states, including Proper.
“My client takes the allegations against him very seriously and we are going to take the case one step, and one day, at a time as we move the case forward,” Joseph Patituce, attorney for Proper, said in a statement to ABC News.
According to police records obtained by ABC News, the guns, ammunition and other tactical gear that was taken from Tycen Proper’s room by his family was located at the home of his grandfather and turned over voluntarily to the to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office for safekeeping. Those items would eventually be the subject of a federal search and seizure warrant.
Authorities are still working to identify and locate other people whom they say may have been involved in the alleged plot.
