The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee holds a hearing on child care program fraud on Thursday, February 12.

The hearing comes after massive fraud was exposed in Minnesota, particularly in the Somali immigrant community.

The Department of Health and Human Services cut off funding to five states, including Minnesota, in January as a result of fraud concerns.

TUCSON, Ariz.— As investigators continue to piece together the timeline surrounding Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, attention has increasingly focused on a handful of vehicles connected to the home — and a possible truck that detectives appear eager to identify.

Authorities have requested Ring doorbell footage from neighbors for two specific windows of time: Jan. 11 between 9 p.m. and midnight, and Jan. 31 between 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m., according to KVOA. The Jan. 11 time frame is more than three weeks before 84-year-old Guthrie was reported missing.

In recent days, detectives have canvassed nearby homes in Tuscon, Arizona’s foothills, asking residents for surveillance video and inquiring about the types of vehicles they own.

“Detectives have come twice and asked us for our names and who we are and so on and what kind of cars we drive, and if we have a truck,” neighbor David Romano told NBC News correspondent Liz Kreutz for TODAY on Feb. 12.

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Known vehicles tied to the residence

Several vehicles have been identified as being associated with the home:

Nancy Guthrie was believed to drive a Subaru, possibly a Forester. The vehicle was towed from her garage.

Tommaso and Annie Cioni have been seen driving a blue Honda CRV, according to neighbors.

Camron Guthrie was seen driving a white Toyota Camry last week. It has not been publicly confirmed whether the Camry is registered to him.

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Neighbors also mentioned a possible gray truck in the area, though no make, model or license plate information has been provided.

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The repeated questions about truck ownership have raised questions about whether investigators are attempting to identify a specific vehicle seen on surveillance footage.

At this point, no confirmed truck has been publicly linked to the individuals at the center of the investigation. It is unclear whether the gray truck mentioned by neighbors is connected to the case or simply a vehicle observed in the neighborhood.

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Authorities have not publicly commented on whether a truck is considered a vehicle of interest. Fox News Digital has reached out to the Pima County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI for additional information. 

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The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI say they have received nearly 18,000 tip calls since Guthrie disappeared. The sheriff’s department received 4,000 calls on Wednesday alone.

The FBI is urging anyone with information related to Guthrie’s disappearance to contact 1-800-CALL-FBI.

A teenage boy who murdered 12-year-old Leo Ross in a random knife attack in a Birmingham park has been named.

Kian Moulton, who was 14 at the time of the attack, was detained for a minimum of 13 years after stabbing the schoolboy in the stomach, at Birmingham Crown Court on Tuesday.

Leo, who died after being taken to hospital on 21 January last year, had been walking home from the Christ Church, Church of England Secondary Academy in Yardley Wood when he was stabbed.

Moulton had pleaded guilty to murder at a hearing in January. He also admitted to three separate attacks on elderly women.

The judge, Mr Justice Choudhury, lifted an order preventing Moulton from being named because of his age on Thursday, following applications from a number of media organisations.

Mr Choudhury called his attacks “horrific and shocking”, noting: “Knife crime, particularly among youths, is of particular concern.”

Leo’s mother, Rachel Fisher, said in a victim impact statement at the sentencing hearing that the 13-year jail term was a “joke”.

She said her family had been “shattered” by Leo’s death.

A trial in President Trump’s $10bn (£7.5bn) defamation lawsuit against the BBC has been scheduled for February next year in Miami, Florida.

He is suing over a 2024 Panorama episode that edited together clips of him addressing supporters on the day of the 2021 attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.

Mr Trump said it had given the impression he incited violence and encouraged people to storm the building.

The edited clip used soundbites from the president that were 50 minutes apart in reality – but were spliced together to say: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

The 6 January attack on the Capitol is a day of infamy in modern US history, which a Senate report said led to loss of at least seven lives, including five police officers.

The BBC apologised for the edit and admitted it had given a “mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”.

However, it denies the clip harmed Mr Trump as he ultimately ended up being re-elected.

It has tried to get the claim dismissed on several grounds, such as arguing that the episode wasn’t available in Florida or the US, and that the court lacks jurisdiction.

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But Florida judge Roy K. Altman said today that a two-week hearing would start on 15 February 2027 and that a BBC attempt to delay the “discovery” part of the case – where both sides can get evidence from each other – was premature.

A BBC spokesperson said: “As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”

Mr Trump’s claim seeks $5bn for defamation and $5bn for unfair trade practices.

When the UK’s offensive chemical and biological weapons programmes were terminated in the 1950s, work at the high-security military research centre in Porton Down, Wiltshire switched to defensive strategies. These included developing chemicals for use in riot control and countermeasures to the evolving threat of chemical and biological weapons.

Before being tested on military personnel, potential riot control compounds had to go through an informal preliminary screening. According to a 2006 history of Porton Down published by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), this would sometimes involve laboratory staff “cautiously sniffing” new compounds in order to “eliminate the less promising ones”.

Today’s scientists working inside the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), which is headquartered at Porton Down, won’t be doing any sniff tests. But according to an anonymous whistleblower, Porton’s CEO, Paul Hollinshead, has warned that the laboratory needs to improve its health and safety record, or risk losing its operating licence.

The Guardian reported that an internal survey had raised widespread concerns about staff lacking the “resources to work safely”. The facility is now undergoing a major reorganisation, but a Porton spokesperson stressed to me that “any changes will protect and enhance its critical functions” – including working with government departments beyond the MoD.

A history of staff self-testing

My research with colleagues inside Porton Down found that between 1941 and 1989, staff took part in more than 1,300 tests of 78 different chemical and biological substances.

These included highly toxic nerve agents such as Tabun, vomiting agents including diphenylchlorarsine, and the blister-forming agent sulphur mustard. In the later decades, staff self-testing focused on pre-emptive therapies for nerve agent attacks, using drugs such as Pralidoxime.

Other historical accounts suggest Porton scientists were given great latitude to develop experiments – and join in with them too. One long-term staff member, Mark Ainsworth, described testing a new piece of equipment in the wound ballistics laboratory. Working in it was “heroic”, he wrote in 1976, as the machine would “charge itself up to 300,000 volts, then discharge itself randomly, turning [the testers] into nervous wrecks”.

In an echo of the recent whistleblower complaints, Ainsworth also revealed that he “swore at the management for not being more generous with staff deployment”.

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Read more:
Inside Porton Down: what I learned during three years at the UK’s most secretive chemical weapons laboratory

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During the cold war era, Porton scientists developed troop protection including nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) suits, respirators, and the triple-therapy “combo pen” for treating exposure to potentially deadly nerve agents.

These scientists would have been shocked to find products stemming from their research being used decades later, in March 2018, on civilian shoppers just a few miles down the road. Porton Down was a key part of the emergency response to a chemical weapons attack on UK soil when Novichok was used to try to kill former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter at their home in Salisbury.

Despite the aggressive toxicity of this nerve agent, neither died – partly thanks to Porton Down expertise that was shared with the emergency and health services involved in their care.

Three months later, however, another Salisbury resident, Dawn Sturgess, died after spraying herself with Novichok hidden in a discarded perfume bottle. Her partner Charlie Rowley was also exposed to the nerve agent, but survived.

Biosecurity risks

Insights into the secretive work carried out at Porton Down also come when its scientists’ work is published in academic literature. DSTL senior fellow Tim Atkins, for example, is among researchers leading the global response to Q fever and melioidosis – two potentially deadly bacterial diseases.

Porton also conducts research into the continuing response to COVID and other highly infectious pathogens such as Yersinia pestis (the bacterium that causes plague) and Ebola virus. The highest levels of biosecurity are therefore required to prevent outbreaks of disease against which the public would not be protected.

My experience of working inside Porton’s secure area between 2002 and 2008 was that entry to, and passage around, the site was strictly controlled. Machine gun-armed MoD police were stationed at the facility’s outer entry points and also guarded the secure inner area.

We were investigating risk of cancer and mortality in the approximately 20,000 service personnel who took part in tests at Porton Down between 1945 and 1989. While we found a small increased risk of mortality, it could not be attributed directly to Porton attendance. The last documented case of staff self-testing, in June 29 1984, involved 7-methoxy cycloheptatriene, a non-corrosive “irritant compound”.

One former senior staff member I spoke to recalled working at Porton as “stimulating” and “fun”, partly because of the freedom scientists were afforded to innovate. Such freedom may be a thing of the past – but the work inside this top-secret British laboratory remains as important to national security as ever.

According to the Porton Down spokesperson: “Our people remain the bedrock of DSTL, and their dedication has ensured that our performance this year is better than last … Through the largest reforms to defence in more than 50 years, we are strengthening our ability to anticipate and respond to evolving threats, including increasing our safety standard.”

The service frees up bed spaces in hospital

Peterborough City Council’s ruling cabinet has agreed to renew a service which entitles local hospital patients to receive vital support following their discharge from hospital care.

At a meeting on Tuesday, February 10, the cabinet approved plans that will enable the Discharge Support Service – which has been in place since 2017 – to continue operating out of Peterborough City Hospital.

Councillor Neil Boyce (Peterborough First), Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, presented the proposal to Cabinet. “The paper seeks approval from Cabinet to award the contract for delivery of Peterborough City Council’s Discharge Support Service to The British Red Cross Society,” he said.

The proposal to recommission was taken following assessments which concluded the Discharge Support Service was “valuable and impactful.”

Cllr Boyce said: “This service enables those discharged from Peterborough City Hospital to re-settle appropriately in their own home via a variety of tasks for a period of up to six weeks.”

These tasks include:

• Transport home/or to a care setting from hospital;
• Post-discharge support for up to six weeks if needed;
• Telephone support/welfare check-ins;
• Collecting prescriptions;
• Shopping and food parcels;
• Delivering small equipment from hospital to home;
• Mobility aids;
• Triage service into the local voluntary sector and local information for the Peterborough area.

The councillor insisted these provisions helped “increase the independence and well-being of those who use the service”.

The Peterborough First councillor for Glinton and Castor went on to explain the expected length of the new contract, saying it will be “commencing on 1st May 2026 for an initial period of three years with the option to extend for a further two years”.

The current contract for this service, which was awarded in May 2023, ends on 30 April 2026.

The report stated the Discharge Support Service will cost a combined maximum value of £740,209 (£148,041 per year) over the course of five years.

Figures provided by the Department of Health and Social Care estimate likely savings of somewhere between £189,750 and £356,250 each year. Vital bed space needed for newly admitted patients would also be increased as a result.

The Discharge Support Service is available for all adults aged 18 discharged from Peterborough City Hospital.

A teenage thug who stabbed a 12-year-old to death at random as he walked home from school can today be named as Kian Moulton.

In a legal victory for the Daily Mail, a judge ruled the 15-year-old could be identified as the killer of Leo Ross, who was ambushed in a park in the Hall Green area of Birmingham last year.

Moulton was jailed on Tuesday at Birmingham Crown Court for life with a minimum term of 13 years for Leo’s murder.

The Mail spearheaded a legal challenge with two other news organisations to argue Moulton should be named as the perpetrator of a shocking three-day rampage which culminated in Leo’s death.

Moulton – who was 14 at the time – dealt a single stab wound to Leo’s stomach and then callously pretended to be a witness by helping to raise the alarm on January 21 last year.

He even spun a fabricated account of how he had come across Leo’s body to police as paramedics desperately worked to save him a few feet away.

In one piece of bodyworn camera footage captured by officers, he said: ‘He was lay there like that when I got here…I didn’t touch him because that could put me in the case.’

He also viciously attacked three other lone women in the park, including an 82-year-old woman whom he pushed into a river and beat with her own walking stick, telling her: ‘I tried to drown you, but now I’m going to kill you’. 

Mr Justice Choudhury agreed on Tuesday to lift anonymity restrictions, telling the court: ‘This is a matter of substantial public interest.

‘Knife crime, particularly amongst youths, is a matter of grave concern. This was an unusual and disturbing pattern of escalating violence against random strangers.

‘The importance of a name (in media coverage) cannot be overstated.’ 

He rejected arguments from the defence that naming Moulton would hinder his rehabilitation, saying ‘the evidence of any progress made thus far by the defendant is scant’. 

Indeed, he said Moulton himself had been involved in repeated episodes of violence since being locked up in youth detention. 

‘There was a period last year when the defendant was involved in violence and serious acts every few days,’ he told the court. 

The judge did, however, agree to delay Moulton’s name being released for 24 hours to allow for any appeals against his ruling to be lodged.

Birmingham Children’s Trust, which is responsible for Moulton’s care, sought an extension of 24 hours to a stay on reporting his identity, but said its application had been refused.

The trust said it intended to apply for a judicial review of the decision to name the teenager, but on Thursday afternoon it said it had not made that application.

Alistair Webster KC, representing Moulton, had tried to oppose the Mail’s application to name Leo’s killer.

He said: ‘These were shocking offences which have caused a great deal of sadness and ongoing sense of loss to the family of the victims involved.

‘We recognise that the public and the press will be very interested in how the court deals with the sentence and what the sentence is.

‘But it is sometimes easy to confuse the public interest with an interest on behalf of the public.’

The Mail previously revealed Moulton had a reputation for violent delinquency in the Hall Green area of Birmingham where he lived and was well known to police.

He is understood to have been booted out of mainstream education and even a specialist pupil referral unit after breaking a teacher’s nose and bringing a knife into class.

His expulsion meant he routinely spent his days marauding around his neighbourhood – usually on a bicycle or a scooter – causing trouble and vandalising property.

Moulton’s sentencing hearing heard this week that he endured a difficult childhood which saw him exposed to domestic abuse, while his mother walked out when he was aged just four. 

The court was also told he had shown behavioural problems since the age of two.

A family friend told the Mail that, in the months prior to his arrest, Moulton had been terrorising a woman who had fallen out with his father.

‘There were a load of hoax calls going on because his son was phoning the police and sending them to her door for hoax calls,’ the friend said. 

‘This had been going on for about eight months. The police had to come out, they were knocking on her door.

‘They were going boot a door in.’

The family friend added: ‘I don’t think he’s a bad lad, I think he’s been raised in a bad environment.

‘There was quite a lot of abuse in that household. Personally, I think this was all his way of getting out of the house.’

The police were said to be in regular attendance at his house due to his anti-social behaviour. 

Exclusive CCTV obtained by the Mail showed the moment Moulton threw a brick through the window of a corner shop near his house in 2024. 

In the weeks before Leo’s murder, police removed Moulton from railway lines where he ‘had gone with the apparent intention of ending his own life’, the court heard this week.  

Another family friend said: ‘His mother disappeared at Christmas. There was a big argument on Christmas Day and she was gone.

‘Kian had been fighting at school, behaving badly to his dad. He’s been fighting in the park with other kids. He used to knock around with a few kids from Billesley but I think around here they all took a step back because he wasn’t the nicest of lads. He was a loner.

‘I last saw him the day the kid was killed, around an hour before it happened. He was walking up the road, talking to himself, shouting to himself, saying to himself what he was going to do and stuff like that. He was on his way out. He was just mumbling to himself.’

Moulton was told on Tuesday his sentence meant he will be considered for parole when he is just 27 years old. 

Speaking after the sentence was handed down at Birmingham Crown Court, Leo’s heartbroken mother Rachel Fisher said: ‘I think the sentence is ridiculous and the country is an absolute joke.

‘Nothing will bring my lovely Leo back, but with just 13 years it will just keep on happening.

‘This is why kids are killing kids – because the sentences are a joke. He’ll be out in his twenties and he’ll have a big reputation.’

The murder on January 21 last year was the sickening culmination of three days of serious violence perpetrated at random by Moulton against strangers in Trittiford Mill Park.

It emerged on Tuesday that, two days before the murder, he had pushed an 82-year-old woman into a river and told her: ‘I tried to drown you, but now I’m going to kill you’.

He went on to attack two other lone women before he fatally stabbed Leo – including one whom he targeted just half an hour prior to the killing. 

Police believe Leo was singled out that day because Moulton was ‘much physically bigger’ than him and the schoolboy represented an ‘easy target’. 

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Choudhury told Moulton: ‘What you did in the park last January was horrific and shocking. You went around the park looking for people to hurt. You chose people who were weaker and smaller than you. 

‘I hope you realise how cowardly your actions were.’

Opening the case for the prosecution, Rachel Brand KC described attacks Moulton had carried out against an 82-year-old woman and a 72-year-old woman on January 19 and January 20.

She said of the first attack, against Valerie Mann, 82: ‘(The defendant) approached her from behind and pushed her forcefully down and forward, she fell into the River Cole and into a ditch by the river.

‘He said to her “I tried to drown you, but now I’m going to kill you instead” and he struck her several times with her own walking stick.’

The teenage attacker then told her: ‘I would like to get some help, but you will tell on me.’

He went on to tell someone nearby: ‘There’s an old lady in the water and she needs help.’

She was left seriously injured and told police she thought she was going to die.  

The following day, Moulton attacked Christine Canty, 72, as she walked through the park, causing her to bleed ‘profusely’ from a head wound.

Then, on January 21, the delinquent teenager also attacked Diana Copplestone, 79, just half an hour before Leo was stabbed.

Leo had been walking home from Christ Church of England Secondary Academy School at around 3pm, wearing his school uniform with his jacket hood turned up against the cold. He planned to meet a friend of his by a tree in the park.

After attacking Ms Copplestone, Moulton was circling around the park on his bicycle ‘hunting’ for another victim to assault and spotted Leo. 

It is unclear precisely what happened next, but police believe Moulton pulled a four-inch kitchen knife out and stabbed Leo without much of a wider struggle.

Once he had inflicted the fatal blow, Moulton immediately pretended he had just come across Leo’s body and ran over to alert a member of the public who called the police.

He was arrested later that night on suspicion of assaulting Ms Copplestone, which led police to test his clothes for DNA – finding Leo’s blood on his t-shirt. The murder weapon, which was recovered near the River Cole, also had Moulton’s DNA on it.

Mr Webster, in mitigation, said Moulton, now 15, had ‘formidable mental health problems’.

He told the court that the teenager ‘shows recurrent episodes of self-harm’ and other ‘bizarre’ behaviour – such as hitting himself in the face and then storing his own blood.

The defendant was said to have been diagnosed with childhood conduct disorder and ADHD.

Mr Webster said: ‘The fact that Kian has these severe disorders is of no comfort at all to the family of the deceased and his victims, but it is important when looking to understand why this happened that it lay to a degree, even a significant degree, in the neurodevelopmental disorders from which he suffers.’

The court also heard emotional statements from Leo’s family and the foster family with whom he was living when he was killed.

Through tears, Leo’s mother set out the devastating effect his death had taken, telling the court: ‘Everyone has lost the most beautiful young soul – for what? We will never know why such an innocent young boy minding his own business, walking home from school, was robbed of his life for no reason whatsoever. It should never have happened.

‘To any mother, losing a child is the worst thing you can ever experience and losing my boy the way I did will haunt me forever.’

His father, Chris Ross, told Moulton to ‘look at me’ before reading out his own statement, saying: ‘You killed my son Leo Ross, I will never be the same again. It breaks my heart knowing Leo was alone and I wasn’t there to protect him, because of you.’

Amy Weston, one of Leo’s foster family, told the court the schoolboy loved crystals, Pokemon and animals. Referring to how Moulton had lingered at the scene pretending to be a bystander, she said it was evidence of a ‘complete lack of humanity and shows what a dangerous individual you are’.

Moulton previously pleaded guilty to Leo’s murder, as well as two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and one count of possessing a knife. 

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Overcompensating

Mario Balotelli, the former Italy international, has revealed he was subjected to racial abuse during a football match in the United Arab Emirates, expressing his shock at the incident.

The 35-year-old, who previously played for prominent clubs including Manchester City and Liverpool, stated he was “racially abused multiple times” while representing Emirati second-tier side Al-Ittifaq against Dubai City on Wednesday.

Writing on Instagram after the 2-0 defeat, Balotelli recounted the slurs: “I was repeatedly told: ‘Uh uh uh, you go eat banana. There is absolutely no place for racism in football, or in the society.”

Balotelli, who joined Al-Ittifaq last month, stressed the importance of addressing such behaviour.

“This kind of behaviour cannot be normalised, excused, or ignored. I’m speaking out to bring awareness – not just for myself, but for every player who has been subjected to this. Enough is enough.”

He added: “I’ve always condemned all acts of racism, but I didn’t expect it here. I hope serious measures are taken to prevent this from happening again.”

Neither Al-Ittifaq nor Dubai City have yet responded to requests for comment regarding the allegations.

Premier League fans are likely to remember Balotelli for his six-year spell in England between 2010 and 2016.

The Italian striker joined Manchester City in 2010 and won the Premier League two years later, setting up Sergio Aguero for the dramatic winning goal against QPR that sealed the title on the final day of the 2011/12 season.

After three years at City, Balotelli spent a year on loan at AC Milan before joining Liverpool in 2014.

After a disappointing year at Anfield, Balotelli went back on loan to Milan in 2015 before leaving England for good to join French side Nice the following year.

Balotelli has since had spells in Italy, Turkey and Switzerland prior to his move to the UAE.