Southwest
Judge rules in favor of Texas woman after SWAT destroyed her house while pursuing a fugitive
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Five years after police destroyed cancer survivor Vicki Baker’s house while pursuing a fugitive, a federal judge has ruled that the Texas city she used to call home must pay her for the damage.
“I’ve continued fighting this long, because if this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone,” Baker told Fox News Digital in an emailed statement. “This case has always been about more than the money for me. I want to see real change.”
Baker’s ordeal started in July 2020, when she moved to Montana and was in the process of selling her home in McKinney, Texas.
A SWAT team caused an estimated $50,000 in damage to Vicki Baker’s McKinney, Texas, home in July 2020. (Courtesy Institute for Justice)
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Wesley Little kidnapped a 15-year-old girl, fled from police and took refuge in Baker’s home. Police surrounded the house and Little eventually released the teen but refused to surrender, according to court documents.
A SWAT team tried to draw him out by launching a barrage of tear gas canisters at the house, shattering windows and punching holes in walls.
When police finally entered the house, they discovered that Little had killed himself.
Baker’s daughter’s Chihuahua was inside during the onslaught and was left blind, deaf and sick from the tear gas and explosions. The dog eventually had to be put down, Baker said. A hazmat crew disposed of almost everything inside the house because it was saturated with a toxic film from the teargas, according to court documents.
Damage to the home totaled at least $50,000, according to Baker and her attorneys at the nonprofit civil liberties law firm Institute for Justice.
But her insurance company refused to cover the bulk of the damage because her policy — like most — excludes damage caused by the government.
A SWAT team bulldozed Baker’s fence, broke windows, blasted holes in the walls and filled her home with tear gas in an effort to drive out a kidnapping suspect who was hiding inside. (Courtesy Institute for Justice)
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Baker tried to file a property damage claim with the city of McKinney, but officials refused to pay, citing qualified immunity, a doctrine often used to shield police and other government agencies from being sued for violating people’s rights or destroying property during the course of their work.
The Institute for Justice sued under the Fifth Amendment and the Texas Constitution, arguing that police may have been authorized to seize Baker’s home in the interest of pursuing a dangerous fugitive, but that they should have to pay her just like they would if the government seized a home to build a road or other infrastructure.
A prolonged legal saga followed, with one federal judge ruling in 2022 that Baker should be compensated and a jury awarding her nearly $60,000 in damages. The following year, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed her Fifth Amendment win.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case last year, but Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch acknowledged the high court has yet to address whether the government can require individuals to bear the cost of police actions.
Last week, a U.S. district court judge ruled again that Baker is entitled to $59,656.59 plus interest under the Texas Constitution.
“This ruling makes it clear that the Texas Constitution’s promise of just compensation applies when police destroy innocent people’s property, and that this entire lawsuit could have been avoided if the city simply did the right thing in the first place,” IJ attorney Jeffrey Redfern, who represented Baker, said in an emailed statement to Fox News Digital.
The City of McKinney is “evaluating its options for appealing this ruling,” a spokesperson confirmed to Fox News Digital.
Vicki Baker told Fox News Digital she’s continued fighting her former city for the past five years because she hopes it will set a precedent and help people across the country. (Courtesy Institute for Justice)
The city previously offered to pay the full amount of the damage to settle the case, but Baker’s team says they refused to settle unless the city also changed its policies to protect all homeowners from similar actions in the future.
Redfern said he still hopes the Supreme Court will hear a case similar to Baker’s in the future so “we can ensure that the United States Constitution also protects innocent property owners in cases like this.”
“I want to make sure that cities around the country are doing the right thing and paying just compensation to people in similar situations,” Baker said.
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Southwest
Savannah Guthrie spotted in NYC as search for missing mother enters sixth week with few answers
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TUCSON, Ariz. — “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie is back in New York City as the search for her missing mother enters its sixth week with little publicly known progress in her hometown of Tucson, Arizona.
Guthrie was photographed in public for the first time since her mother’s suspected abduction, alongside husband Mike Feldman and their young son in the Big Apple Sunday, days after an emotional reunion with her NBC colleagues and more than a month after her 84-year-old mother Nancy was last seen.
Nancy’s disappearance shocked the country — especially when the FBI released disturbing surveillance video of a masked man on her doorstep.
Savannah Guthrie spent weeks in Tucson with her siblings as the investigation played out — before she and her older sister, Annie, added bouquets of yellow flowers to a growing display at the foot of their mother’s driveway. She quietly flew home to New York last week.
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Savannah Guthrie is seen out in New York with her husband Michael Feldman as the “Today” show anchor makes her first public appearance more than five weeks after the suspected abduction of her mother, Nancy Guthrie. (ASPN / BACKGRID)
Sunday marked five weeks since the suspected kidnapping.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is leading the investigation, which is now being overseen by a task force consisting of local detectives and FBI agents.
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Savannah Guthrie visits the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
No suspects have been publicly identified.
A masked man who appeared on Nancy Guthrie’s Nest doorbell camera around the time authorities said she was taken is described as being of average height and build and carrying a black Ozark Trail backpack.
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Savannah Guthrie and her mother, Nancy Guthrie, are pictured Thursday, June 15, 2023. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
He appeared to be armed with a handgun as well. Law enforcement sources said he visited Nancy Guthrie’s home at least once in advance of her disappearance, wearing a similar disguise.
Other identifying details are scarce.
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The use of cadaver dogs is also on hold, according to authorities, who re-canvassed Nancy Guthrie’s neighborhood as recently as last week.
When asked if that meant they believed she is still alive, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos declined to discuss evidence in the case.
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“Anything is possible,” he told Fox News Digital.
Authorities have said they won’t consider the case cold until they run out of viable leads to follow up on — and tens of thousands have come in so far.
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There’s a reward of more than $1.2 million in play for information that leads to Nancy’s recovery.
Savannah Guthrie has asked anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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Southwest
FBI subpoenas 2020 Arizona voting docs as federal push into election administration widens
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An Arizona state lawmaker revealed Monday that federal authorities subpoenaed him for records related to the 2020 election, marking the second publicly confirmed jurisdiction the Department of Justice is investigating over the matter.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, said in a social media post he received the subpoena for material related to the state Senate’s 2020 audit last week and complied with it.
“Late last week I received and complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records relating to the Arizona State Senate’s 2020 audit of Maricopa County,” Petersen wrote. “The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news.”
The request represents an expansion of a federal probe tied to 2020 after the DOJ initially targeted Fulton County, Georgia. The development also comes as President Donald Trump has grown increasingly outspoken about election security in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms, renewing his attention on disputes stemming from the last presidential race.
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An election worker removes a ballot from an envelope to count and inspect the pages inside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Petersen made the revelation after President Donald Trump shared a Just the News report about the subpoena on Truth Social, writing, “Great!!! FBI secretly seizes election records from Arizona’s largest county as voting probe expands.”
Multiple U.S. officials confirmed the election probe to Fox News, saying the DOJ is looking at a large tranche of Arizona data from 2020 and 2024.
President Donald Trump listens during an event about the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, Wednesday, March 4, 2026, in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
The White House directed Fox News Digital to the FBI on Monday when asked for comment. The FBI declined to comment.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, an elected Democrat, said the new investigation was based on claims that courts and state investigators have proven wrong.
“What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry,” Mayes said in a statement. “It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies.”
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Attendees listen as Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) speaks at an “Only Citizens Vote” bus tour rally advocating passage of the SAVE Act at Upper Senate Park outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on Sept. 10, 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
The subpoena comes as the president increasingly focuses on election security ahead of the 2026 midterms, telling Congress in a social media post on Sunday that he will not sign any legislation into law until it passes the SAVE America Act.
The bill’s primary purpose is to require voters nationwide to show physical identification to prove citizenship to vote in federal elections. The version of the bill Trump is pushing would also ban mail-in ballots except for the military and in other extenuating circumstances.
Maricopa, Arizona’s most populous county, was a hotbed for accusations of voter fraud in 2020. Fulton County, Georgia, faced similar accusations, with the DOJ launching a separate investigation into the 2020 election earlier this year.
Trump lost Arizona in 2020 by about 0.3 percentage points. The president refused to concede, and his legal team brought a series of lawsuits alleging vote-counting irregularities, but none were successful.
Fox News’ David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
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Southwest
Wisconsin man who fled Border Patrol checkpoint in stolen car killed after shootout in Texas, police say
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FIRST ON FOX: A Wisconsin man driving a stolen vehicle was killed Wednesday after he fled through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint and led authorities on a vehicle chase and shootout in Texas.
The incident happened at around 10:30 a.m. at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint in the Big Bend Sector between El Paso and Van Horn, a remote area.
James Douglas McMillan, 33, of Greenfield, Wis., took off from the checkpoint after a Border Patrol drug K-9 alerted to the vehicle and agents directed McMillan to pull over for a secondary search, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.
A migrant walks through the Rio Grande as he crosses the U.S.-Mexico border, March 13, 2024, in El Paso, Texas. On Wednesday, a man was shot and killed by authorities near El Paso after fleeing through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. (John Moore/Getty Images)
During the car chase, McMillan opened fire out of his vehicle window at DPS troopers and other authorities from several law enforcement agencies and civilian vehicles, DPS said.
“As law enforcement returned fire, DPS Troopers performed a precision immobilization technique (PIT) maneuver and successfully stopped the suspect vehicle,” a DPS statement said.
McMillan barricaded himself in his vehicle and eventually pointed his weapon towards officers, prompting officers to open fire, authorities said.
He was shot and killed. No law enforcement officers or civilians were hurt.
Investigators determined McMillan was driving a vehicle reported stolen in Arizona. The shooting is being investigated by the Texas Rangers, with assistance from the FBI and USBP.
The shooting involved Border Patrol agents and DPS troopers. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)
In January, a man suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants was shot by federal officers during a gunfire exchange in Arizona.
Patrick Gary Schlegel, 34, fled from authorities on foot and allegedly shot at a CBP helicopter and at agents, Heith Janke, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix Division, said at the time.
A U.S. Border Patrol officer watches a USBP helicopter. (Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images)
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Schlegal, a U.S. citizen from Arizona, underwent surgery and survived. No one else was harmed, authorities said.
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