Northeast
Brown University shooting videos show awareness and planning, experts say
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Federal investigators are continuing to piece together the December shootings that killed two Brown University students and an MIT professor, leaving nine others wounded, authorities said.
Authorities on Tuesday released transcripts of videos they say were recorded by Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the man responsible for the Brown University mass shooting and the killing of an MIT physicist.
Two Brown students, Ella Cook, 19, and Muhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, were killed in the Dec. 13 shooting on the Providence, Rhode Island, campus, and nine other people were wounded, authorities said. Just two days later, Nuno Loureiro, a professor at MIT, was killed in Brookline, Mass.
As of the latest update, eight of the students injured at Brown had been released from the hospital, while one person remained hospitalized.
Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts released this image showing the man identified in the deadly shootings of Brown University students in Rhode Island and a professor from MIT. (Justice Department)
BROWN UNIVERSITY SHOOTER CONFESSED IN VIDEOS TO PLANNING ATTACK FOR LONG TIME, SHOWED NO REMORSE: DOJ
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, investigators executed a federal search warrant on Dec. 18 at a storage facility used by Neves Valente, a Portuguese national. The FBI recovered an electronic device containing several short videos recorded after the shootings. Transcripts of those videos, translated from Portuguese to English, were released Tuesday.
In the recordings, prosecutors said Neves Valente admitted he had been planning the Brown shooting for a long time and said Brown was his intended target. Authorities said he did not provide a motive for targeting Brown students or the MIT professor.
Investigators said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traced the gun used in the shootings as part of the investigation.
Officials have not publicly released details about the weapon’s origin or purchase history. Fox News Digital has reached out to the FBI for comment.
Split image showing Brown University victims Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, alongside MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, who was killed. (Instagram/elinacoutlakis/GoFundMe/Jake Belcher for MIT)
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Josh Schirard, a former tactical emergency response director at the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting and director of Byrna Law Enforcement, said the transcripts confirm responsibility for the attack but offer little clarity about why it occurred.
“He understood what he did. He understood that he had a why behind it,” Schirard said. “He just didn’t opine on why that was.”
Schirard said the shooter rejected ideological explanations and denied being mentally ill.
Investigators tow away the Nissan Sentra used by Brown University shooter Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, Salem, N.H., Thursday, Dec. 19, 2025. (David McGlynn for Fox News Digital)
EVIDENCE SHOWS DEADLY BROWN, MIT SHOOTINGS MAY BE LINKED, SOURCES SAY: REPORT
“He even says, ‘I’m not mentally ill. I am very sane, and I did this knowing what I was doing,’” Schirard said.
“He talks about how killing those people was hard,” Schirard said, adding that the shooter said he envied people who could do so “without difficulty.”
A split image shows Claudio Neves-Valente, identified as the Brown University gunman, wearing the same jacket as a man identified earlier as a person of interest in the case. (Providence Police Department)
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An autopsy previously found Neves Valente died by suicide two days before his body was discovered in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire.
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Authorities said they do not believe there is any ongoing public safety threat associated with the shootings and that additional updates will be provided.
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Pennsylvania
Man accused of using excavator to destroy home with family inside
Court records show a man is facing numerous charges after local news outlets reported he was accused of partially demolishing his Pennsylvania home with members of his family still inside.
Erik Pierwsza, 48, is charged with three counts of recklessly endangering another person and one count each of causing a catastrophe and disorderly conduct, according to court documents reviewed by USA TODAY.
According to local media outlet WTAE, Pierwsza allegedly destroyed a portion of his home with an excavator, while his wife and two children were inside. Pierwsza is a resident of Buffalo Township, roughly 30 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
The Buffalo Township Police Department did not immediately return USA TODAY’s request for more information. Court records did not list representation for Pierwsza and noted that he is not currently represented by a public defender.
According to a criminal complaint reported on by WTAE and WPXI, Pierswza had allegedly got into an argument, at which point Pierswza threatened to tear down the house.
He then allegedly climbed into the excavator and began demolishing the home, per the outlets.
According to WPXI, no one was injured.
Pierwsza is being held at Butler County Prison on $10,000 bond, per court documents.
Drew Pittock covers national trending news for USA TODAY. He can be reached at DPittock@usatodayco.com.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island high school yearbook printed with the word ‘school’ misspelled on its cover: ‘Shocking to see’
It failed spelling.
A Rhode Island high school mistakenly misspelled the word “school” on its yearbook cover.
Over 100 copies of Johnston Senior High School’s 2026 yearbook are missing the letter “c” in the word “school” written on its spine.
Students, faculty and parents at what was dubbed “Johnston Senior High Shool” in the keepsake graduation book are shaking their heads at the cringeworthy mistake.
“It was really a shocking thing to see, a whole high school misspelling the word ‘school,’” Johnston senior Neari Vazquez told NBC 10. “It’s kind of a bad look.”
Johnston Senior High School Superintendent Scott Sutherland told 12 News that he wrote a letter to the school’s families to apologize for the error, made by the yearbook printing company Treering.
In the note, he explained that Johnston’s yearbook club looked over a digital proof of the book prior to publication, but it did not show the spine.
However, Treering, which is based in Silicon Valley, released a statement disputing his claims.
“The school reviewed and approved both before the book went to print,” the spokesperson wrote.
“The yearbook was printed exactly as the school’s editorial team approved it.”
The school’s yearbook club first noticed the glaring error when the boxes of books arrived at the school.
“One little thing, it’s like everything is perfect but this one thing is messed up,” yearbook club member Nate Dellamorte told NBC 10.
“When I talked to the advisor, he was already actively trying to fix it and a lot of the members said they’re gonna help him.”
Sutherland is outraged over the embarrassing oversight, and has already consulted with lawyers for advice on the matter.
“We are extremely disappointed that this error made it through the company’s quality control and production process,” he continued in his letter.
“We are currently working directly with the yearbook company and other local vendors to ensure the issue is corrected before any yearbooks are distributed to students.”
Others think the yearbooks shouldn’t be reprinted — and the school should just chalk it up to a funny mistake.
“I mean it does happen, and I’m sure it would be too costly to reprint everything,” parent Melanie DaSilva told NBC 10.
“So it might just be one for the books and probably get a laugh.”
Vermont
Fallen solar panels in Vermont prompt environmental concerns – Valley News
High winds in October and March blew down many solar panels in a field in Shaftsbury, Vt., and regulators are now looking into the potential environmental impact of the damaged panels.
This is one of the first times in Vermont that large swaths of damaged panels containing lead and silver have raised the specter of environmental contamination and prompted the state to examine the issue. In this case, concerns grew partly because the fallen panels weren’t immediately cleaned up, state officials said in a recent filing, causing regulators to investigate potential environmental impacts.
In a recent filing to the Public Utility Commission, an Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets staff attorney wrote that the agency is looking into options for testing the soil to determine if contamination is a concern.
“In general, it is important to protect agricultural soils,” an agency spokesman, Trevor Audet, wrote in a statement. “We are not aware of broken solar panels being a common issue in Vermont, but our knowledge is imperfect under the current reporting framework and we are working to learn more about any potential impacts.”
The damaged panels have caught the attention of environmentalists in the area. Among what they are seeking is pre-testing of soil near solar developments, so there will be a baseline to measure against for possible contamination.
Shaftsbury resident and farmer Jesse McDougall wrote to the Public Utility Commission expressing concern about whether Vermont’s acidic, low pH rain, winter snowmelt and spring showers could compound environmental contamination onsite. McDougall also alleged there were two fires after the October blowdown event.
“I want to see the right steps taken,” McDougall said in an interview. “There were hundreds of panels down, many of them smashed and broken, and on the ground for six months through a Vermont winter and two giant wind events and two fires.”
The solar array is near another controversial planned solar site in Shaftsbury approved by the commission last October, though neighbors to the project appealed the decision to the Vermont Supreme Court.
Approved by the Public Utility Commission in 2022, the broken solar array, called ER Waite Cemetery Solar LLC, is licensed for 2.2 megawatts, the largest energy development allowed under a state program that facilitates long-term contracts and sets rates for renewable energy developments in Vermont.
Encore Renewable Energy planned and received a permit for the solar project, which Fusion Renewable then purchased. Fusion Renewable is now responsible for remediation at the site, wrote Jeffrey Polubinski, attorney for ER Waite Cemetery Solar.
The owner said the delay in site cleanup was due to the lag time in insurance approval. Then Fusion Renewable needed to pause any project work until April due to a deer wintering area near the site, according to a May 8 filing by the Department of Public Service.
The regulatory filing raised questions about work on the site, and the Department of Public Service filing included requests for information about the damage and remediation to see if there is more work to be done, if the owner violated terms of the contract or if there were impacts to rate payers.
An Agency of Natural Resources filing to the commission stated that the owner must dispose of panels as hazardous materials, given the silver and lead inside them.
In addition, the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets said it is investigating options for agricultural soil testing in areas the state has designated as important farmland, according to a recent filing to the commission. In his statement, Audet wrote that the remediation method will depend on the scope and type of potential contamination found.
Meanwhile, some research on the environmental impact of damaged solar panels says that the impacts are likely to be minimal, but stronger standards and practices for solar developments may be necessary.
Annick Anctil, a Michigan State University civil and environmental engineering professor, said in an interview that pre-testing soil before construction can help determine whether broken solar panels have caused increased levels of heavy metals in the soil.
Annette Smith, executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, said that, in addition to pre-testing soil, she wants more state-level tracking of solar array failures to prevent this type of situation from happening in the future.
“We could have all of the solar projects in Vermont fail, and I don’t know that there would be any ramifications,” Smith said.
For the solar owner’s part, Polubinski wrote that the owner is working with the state to dispose of the solar panels, and they plan to detail the damage, the current and future remediation of impacts from the wind damage and subsequent fires.
Peter Sterling, executive director of the trade association Renewable Energy Vermont, maintains that the state has more than 100 solar arrays and that solar array failures are rare. Still, Sterling said the state’s examination of the issue shows “the process is working, which is good.”
This story was republished with permission from VtDigger, which offers its reporting at no cost to local news organizations through its Community News Sharing Project. To learn more, visit vtdigger.org/community-news-sharing-project.
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