Authorities say a reported shooting at Westwood Hills Elementary School in Waynesboro, Virginia, has been contained, the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday.

Waynesboro Public Schools said in a Wednesday morning social media update that “all Westwood students, teachers, and staff are accounted for and are safe,” noting that families were being reunited with students at a designated site while a temporary lockdown remained in place.

Shortly after noon, about two hours after the reported incident, the district announced that the lockdown across all Waynesboro schools had been lifted.

“We appreciate your cooperation, understanding and patience through this process,” the school system said, adding that all Westwood Hills Elementary students had been released to their parents and guardians.

“Currently, law enforcement is at all locations out of an abundance of caution. Parents are encouraged to follow the directions of school staff and law enforcement. “Again, all students, staff, and teachers are safe.”

Authorities urged the public to avoid the immediate area while the investigation continued.

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No additional details about possible injuries or a suspect were immediately released, but local reports have indicated just one adult was injured.

“I am monitoring the emergency at Westwood Hills Elementary School this morning,” Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger wrote on X. “My heart is with these young students, their parents and families, and the teachers and staff at the school.

“Thank you to the first responders who are assisting at the scene. Augusta County and Waynesboro law enforcement and schools are continuing to provide updated guidance to community members.”

Democratic Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones posted support services for students and staff will be available.

“My office is in contact with local authorities in Waynesboro and Augusta and stands ready to offer support and resources as needed,” he wrote on X just before noon. “The safety of our children, teachers, and staff is paramount in this moment. Thank you to the first responders and law enforcement on the scene.”

MENIFEE, Calif. — More than a year after Lauren Dominguez’s mother died unexpectedly in her sleep at 55, her family says they believe a kratom product played a role in her death.

The family has since taken legal action, filing a lawsuit against both the product’s manufacturer and the retailer that sold it.

“I think my mom was like our last safe place since our dad passed away 11 years ago, unexpectedly, so when you lose your second parent, you just feel kind of alone,” Dominguez said.

Dominguez said her mother was discovered unresponsive inside her home in Southern California.

“She looked so peaceful, just in her jammies. She had the fan on and the heater on, and she just was laying there,” she said.

According to the coroner’s report, the cause of death was acute mitragynine intoxication, with chronic alcohol use listed as a contributing factor. Mitragynine is one of the main chemicals found in products containing kratom.

“It makes me angry because people think it’s safe and it’s not,” Dominguez said. “There’s people that have posted on Instagram, and I’ve literally wrote them like don’t take this. My mom died from it.”

Attorney Michael Jeandron, who represents Dominguez and her family, said the lawsuit targets the manufacturer and retailer of a kratom product.

“Kratom is marketed as herbal, as natural, as a supplement, it comes from a plant,” Jeandron said.

Jeandron alleged that consumers may be misled about the product’s safety.

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“The company’s marketing it as safe and tested, and they provide results that say all of these kratom products are safe. The problem is that even a small dose of kratom can cause respiratory depression,” he said.

According to the California Department of Public Health, taking kratom can lead to addiction, serious harm, overdose and death. The product is illegal to sell in California.

However, after an interview with Dominguez, the product was still being sold at Almond Smoke Shop in Menifee, where Dominguez said her mother purchased it.

“It is addictive, but they don’t realize it’s going to be addictive when it’s sold on the shelf next to an energy drink and beef jerky at a gas station,” Jeandron said. “They just think it’s a supplement, it’s natural, it must be safe.”

Requests for comment were sent to the owner of Almond Smoke Shop in Menifee and to the manufacturer of the kratom product, known as Exotic Blue Magic. No responses had been received at the time of publication.

Dominguez said the loss of her mother has continued to affect her family.

“It’s affected my kids because they think, will you go to sleep and not wake up? And before we knew what it was, we didn’t know what had happened,” she said.

She said she hopes the product will no longer be available for sale.

“I just hope that it’s not sold anymore,” Dominguez said. “It almost makes me angry.”

Kim Kardashian has sparked fresh backlash online after fans reacted negatively to what they believed was a strongly filtered video featuring her 13-year-old daughter, North West.

North, the eldest child of Kardashian and her third ex-husband Kanye West, uploaded the clip this week on the TikTok account she shares with her mother.

In the video, the young creative wore a long blue wig, dark gothic-inspired makeup and a black leather ensemble as she danced enthusiastically to Rihanna’s 2006 hit SOS. North, who has shown a growing interest in beauty and music, often experiments with makeup looks on herself as well as on relatives and friends.

But while the playful performance drew plenty of attention, some viewers said they were distracted by the appearance of North’s nose, prompting a wave of concerned comments from fans.

“Her contouring her beautiful nose is making me really upset. What is happening here??” one person wrote in a comment seen by The US Sun.

‘Poor kid that she got influenced by her relatives to believe her face is not pretty enough as it is /: Bad parenting,’ sniffed another. 

The Daily Mail has contacted a representative for Kardashian for comment.

North was firmly defended by her fans, one of whom wrote with a set of praying hands emoji: ‘be nice guys she has the comments on.’

‘I also had a Hot topic phase,’ one giggled as another wrote: ‘Man i wish i had that budget at 13 when i had an alt phase, yall dont get it.’

Still another mounted a spirited argument in favor of the look, writing: ‘y’all obviously didn’t have an alt phase when u were 13 and it shows. imagine having an alt phase as a 13 year old with UNLIMITED BUDGET AND CONNECTIONS. of course she wants to express herself let her be. nothing about this is inappropriate.’ 

North, who has embarked on her own music career, ignited a social media firestorm when she revealed in August 2025 that she had obtained a dermal piercing consisting of two small metal balls under a knuckle of her right hand middle finger.

Dermal piercings are distinct from other piercings in that a tiny anchor hooked under the skin is used to keep the jewelry in place.

As a result, they come with risks like keloid scarring, infection and – if improperly looked after – even rejection by the wearer’s body. 

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North’s mother, who has spoken often about being her primary guardian, was thus raked over the coals for allowing her to get a dermal piercing so young.

However North responded by posting a TikTok in December in which she mimed to the sound-byte: ‘Why are you crying? How old are you? Just pull it together,’ with a caption that read: ‘this is for everyone that’s mad over a finger piercing.’

Undeterred by the brickbats her mother was receiving, North then apparently unveiled two further dermal finger piercings on her Insta Stories in January. 

Then this May, in the music video for her first solo single #N0rth4evr, she was shown strolling through a graveyard with two stick-on piercings under one of her eyes and another one placed near the top of her nose.

Much of the video was grainy and choppy, in a nod to ‘found footage’ horror movies like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. 

Her follow-up single was a collaboration with a fellow ‘nepo baby‘ – Lil Novi, the 16-year-old son of rap legend Lil Wayne and R&B songstress Nivea.

Lil Wayne and Kanye worked on a number of songs together in the 2000s, including the 2007 release Barry Bonds and the 2008 single See You in My Nightmares. 

Their children’s new effort, entitled MULA THA ROOT OF ALL EVIL, is a cacophonous piece of music with a frenetically edited music video to match.

North materializes in the middle of the video with blue hair, seemingly wearing a set of grillz as well as a pair of spiky gauntlets.

North is one of the four children Kardashian and West welcomed into the world together – the others being Saint, 10, Chicago, eight, and Psalm, seven. 

More than three decades after it nearly became reality, the Swamp Dragons are finally getting their moment.

The Nets will host Swamp Dragons Night on Jan. 29, 2027, when they face the Clippers, paying tribute to the famously quirky team name that came close to replacing “Nets” in the 1990s.

The special theme night, which will include a bobblehead giveaway, is part of the franchise’s 60th season celebration.

“One of the most memorable ‘what ifs’ in basketball history will come to life as fans celebrate the unforgettable identity that ‘almost was,’” the team said in its announcement.

It is hard not to imagine how different the franchise’s story might have looked had the Nets actually become the Swamp Dragons, a name so unusual it sounds more like a minor-league baseball club than an NBA team.

While playing in New Jersey, team brass considered changing the name in an attempt to entice more fans.

Former Nets president Jon Spoelstra told ESPN in a 2016 article that he liked the idea of a “Dragons” nickname after it emerged as a finalist for the expansion Toronto franchise.

The swamp angle played homage to the team’s home in The Meadowlands.

 “The Dragon came up right away, but we needed something to identify it locally. I was sitting in my office with Jim Lampariello, our vice president, and I just said, ‘Every time I look out the window here, I see this swamp. And every time I think of swamps, I think of swamp rats. What about that?’” Spoelstra told ESPN.

“He just said, ‘I don’t think that’s very nice. What about Swamp Dragons?’ I loved it. Dragons are mythical, and fun.”

But one very important NBA person had some qualms: then-NBA commissioner David Stern.

“David told me, ‘This is the stupidest f—ing idea I’ve ever heard,’” Spoelstra told ESPN.

Stern ultimately allowed the Nets to proceed if all seven of the team’s owners would agree on the change and all seven OK’d the name, per the ESPN article.

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They reportedly agreed to proceed forward, and the NBA spent $500,000 “to protect the name and any markings they would produce,” according to ESPN.

The team’s logo would have featured a teal, purple and black dragon twirling a basketball on one claw while they breathed red fire, which would have aligned with other logos at the time.

The original Raptors logo is similar in its portrayal.

The Nets next had to get a supermajority from the league’s 27 owners to green-light the change, but some backlash reportedly emerged about using the word “swamp.”

Spoelstra told ESPN that an individual from then-Gov. Christine Whitman’s office called them and said they didn’t like the term being used.

The owners didn’t mind the backlash and reportedly OK’d the change in a 26-1 vote in what should have been a grand moment.

But that one vote somehow came from the Nets co-owner David Gerstein.

“We voted against our own name change,” Spoelstra told ESPN. “I thought (Stern) was kidding. If your own team votes no, you can’t go ahead with something like this.”

Gerstein indicated in 2016 that not proceeding was the right call.

“I don’t recall the vote, but we all thought it was inappropriate in the end. The name just wasn’t right,” he told ESPN. “I mean, would they be the Brooklyn Swamp Dragons today? The rest of the league would have done whatever we wanted, but we decided collectively to vote against it.”

The Nets ultimately changed their logo in 1997, and have since ditched The Meadowlands and moved to Brooklyn and undergone even more logo changes.

A widespread search for a missing 5-year-old autistic girl came to a heartbreaking end after authorities recovered her body in waters near Pawleys Island, South Carolina, and later arrested her parents in Tennessee.

According to the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office, 70-year-old John Herb Hayes III and 31-year-old Geordyn Nichole Hayes were taken into custody Tuesday evening in Tennessee and booked at the Carter County Jail on fugitive-from-justice charges.

Investigators say the couple is accused under South Carolina law of placing their daughter in danger or abandoning her.

Their daughter, Saylor Hayes, was found near Hagley Landing following an intensive search that drew hundreds of volunteers and multiple agencies. The sheriff’s office said deputies, investigators, first responders, partner agencies and local residents all joined the effort to find the missing child.

The couple will be transported back to South Carolina once extradition proceedings are completed. Carter County jail records show both were booked Tuesday evening.

Arrest warrants issued in Georgetown County describe Saylor as severely nonverbal and autistic, with a strong attraction to water and a history of wandering away from her caregivers.

The warrants allege that Saylor had been equipped with a monitoring device since 2024, but the device was removed before the family left Virginia. She was then allegedly left unsupervised within approximately 15 meters, or about 49 feet, of a body of water.

After Saylor was discovered missing, the warrants allege that the Hayeses directed search efforts toward tracking technology despite knowing she was not wearing the device. The couple also allegedly directed search efforts away from the nearby body of water.

Virginia court records show John Herb Hayes previously faced two felony cases involving allegations of child abuse or injury. The charges stemmed from a July 3, 2023, incident and were presented to a grand jury. Hayes entered Alford pleas in May 2024, a type of guilty plea in which a defendant does not admit guilt. The cases were dismissed Feb. 11, 2026.

Geordyn Hayes also faced two felony cases involving allegations of child abuse or injury filed in February 2026. Prosecutors dropped one case Aug. 14. In the other, a felony charge alleging child abuse and disregard for life was amended to a Class 1 misdemeanor alleging she contributed to the delinquency of a minor.

The records do not identify the child involved in either case or say whether either case was connected to Saylor.

In a warrant obtained by FITSNews, Washington County Sheriff’s Detective William W. Smarr wrote that he was notified on July 12, 2023, that social services had removed two children – a 2-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy – from John Hayes and Geordyn Taylor’s home in Bristol, Virginia. Hair-follicle tests showed the girl had methadone in her system, while the boy tested positive for methamphetamine and methadone.

The same affidavit says drug tests showed John Hayes had methadone in his system, while Geordyn Taylor tested positive for methamphetamine and methadone. The parents told Smarr they did not know how the children had been exposed to the drugs. The affidavit also referenced recent calls to the home in which the couple reported that one of them was using methamphetamine and needed police assistance. Smarr said he would seek two counts of child abuse and neglect.

Sheriff Carter Weaver said the arrests followed an extensive investigation and were based on evidence developed by investigators. He thanked the people who worked to find Saylor and determine what happened.

“Parents and caregivers have a fundamental responsibility to protect children who cannot protect themselves,” Weaver said in a statement.

Weaver said the arrests should not be viewed as a determination of guilt and that both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

“Saylor deserved to be safe. She deserved to be protected,” Weaver said.

Once they are returned to South Carolina, the couple will face the charges in court. Neither parent has been charged with homicide. Instead, the charges allege that they put Saylor in danger or abandoned her.

The warrants do not say how Saylor died. It was not immediately clear whether either parent had an attorney who could speak on their behalf.