we have three schools, david, just within these two blocks here. >> gio benitez leading us off tonight. gio, thank you. >>> and we do have exclusive reporting right here tonight on the suspect. that new image just emerging, and what appears to be a chillingly familiar plot. a vehicle used as a deadly weapon. we know isis has called upon followers to attack in this way, and abc's chief investigative correspondent brian ross on the suspect who rented this pickup truck from home depot. >> reporter: the suspect was identified soon after he fled the vehicle, with two paint ball or pellet guns, and was stopped by a police officer who confronted him and shot him in the abdomen. >> he did make a statement when he exited the vehicle. >> reporter: that statement, authorities tell us, "allahu akbar." police haidentified the suspects 29-year-old sayfullo saipov, said to be car rig an i.d. from tampa, florida. authorities say he rented a white pickup truck from home depot somewhere outside of new york city. the attack follows a familiar pattern. for the last two years, isis has urged its foul local

abc's gio benitez has more. >> reporter: chaos at prison in north carolina.e responding to attempted prison break. incident. i have multiple patients. some are critical. >> nrt caorth carolina public s saying, fires were at the sewing plant. >> officer struck multiple times with a hammer. unresponsive at this time. working on iv access. significant bruising and bleeding. >> reporter: at least nine people rushed to the hospital. more expected. >> i will have several walking wounded we need to clear some beds. >> we don't know the condition of those injured or how many were prison employees. >> i have ambulances inbound. police are setting up some sort of triage. and mass casualty within the facility. >> reporter: for a time at least three schools were put on lockdown. and students on a school bus were sent back to the schools. at one point tonight, local officials were searching nearby woods for any possible escaped inmate after three counts word that no prisoner escaped. and a massive prison with more than 700 prisoners. they also have an electronic prevent e

>> gio benitez leading us off. gio, thank you. >>> and now, to the devastating and deadly wildfires in california. california's fire chief tonight warning it is going to get worse before it gets better. fierce fires burning in the hills of napa county. strong diablo winds ramping up today. thousands forced from their homes. the entire city of calistoga, 5,000 people, ordered to evacuate. and you can see right there, the lines of traffic. and now comes word, two fires have combined as one. abc's linzie janis is in santa rosa. >> reporter: tonight, dc-10s, and this 747 supertanker, part of the all-out effort to contain what could become the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in california history. >> we are not out of this emergency. we're not even close to being out of this emergency. >> reporter: this team from san francisco in a hand-to-hand, house-to-house battle. on the font lines, firefighters dealing with thick smoke and rough terrain. so, this fire is about to jump this road here up this hillside. >> th

here's gio benitez. >> reporter: this is not a normal house fire.with ul which helps set safety standards for industries and they show the importance of closing your bedroom door before you go to sleep. >> when you can't get out, the most important thing you can do, close that door between you and the fire, could save your life. >> reporter: alexis king survived the corpus christi house fire that killed her 1067 10. the fire alarm wasn't working and she believes the closed bedroom door helped save her life. ul launching a safety campaign, "close before you doze." you're going to light the house on fire. >> for safety. >> reporter: it's wired with sense ear sensors and cameras. two bedrooms will have the doors closed, but the other -- >> we're going to leave that one open so we can see the difference. >> reporter: with the philadelphia fire department standing by, i start a fire with a candle on the living room sofa. >> let's get out. >> reporter: we return to the control center. >> wow. >> we have the fire burning in the living room. >> reporter: ta

♪ ♪ >>> taking a look at some of the top books there, and speaking of great storytellers, gio benitezh us this morning. >> ah, shucks. >> you've been busy covering some of our top stories. let's take a look at what you've been up to. >> this wind is going side to side. you just don't know where it's going. that's why it's so dangerous. i am roped down. we are in a secure building, surrounded by concrete. but this is an unbelievable thing. i've neff se i've never seen anything like this covering storms. we're seeing branches, pieces of trees come from the sky. obviously, trees aren't up there, which means that a lot of these trees are sort of whipping around and coming around like that. that's exactly why we evacuated. whoa! we feared -- she's winthese win really intense. you can see this whiteout thing, this whiteout condition that amy was talking about. just look at that. i don't think i ever would have described a hurricane and sort of compared it to a blizzard. that's what this looks like here. and it's really remarkable. i actually brought my mother to this building here, because

we have gio benitez behind us as the mad hatter. >> exactly. >> and kendis with his face painted. >>ve on to dick van dyke. >> he apologized for his accent in "mary poppins." he received a british award and blamed the all-british crew and julie andrews for never telling hem how terrible it was. >> you're a man of high position. esteemed -- >> when he accepted the award he revealed that he only spent one hour with a coach. to brief fprepare for the role. and the coach was irish, not english. >> van dyke promises he'll be better the second time around when mary poppins returns starring emily blunt. he'll be in it. >> oh, with a jolly holiday. it. >> oh, with a jolly holiday. start the interview with a firm handshake. ay,no! don't do that! try head & shoulders instant relief. it cools on contact, and also keeps you 100% flake free. try head & shoulders instant relief. for cooling relief in a snap. i had this chest cold, but my medicine kept wearing off. (coughah! i missed you! then i discovered mucinex. one pill lasts 12 hours,and i'm good. why take 4-hour medicine? one mucinex lasts 12

with your gma first look i'm gio benitez, abc news, new york. >>> an important report because we areking forward to that, we had a lot of drones flying in the north bay fires and that was told to stop, everyone had to stop flying their drones and that continues in the north bay. i will look forward to that. we will check in with mike. >>> the weather we want to see what's happening with now two areas where fires are concerned this morning, mike. >> the weather has been getting better and better and it will get probably its apex of best fire conditions, if you will, come with that rain thursday into friday. hi, everybody, let's go down south, san jose 280 at 17 you may see a little smoke later today from the bear fire in the santa cruz mountains. it's more parallel with you than it is north of you because the winds will be blowing from northwest to southeast. i think from morgan hill southward that's where the smoke will be an issue, places like watsonville, also down into the salinas valley. let's talk about highlights. more clouds, warmer than average today, tonight steady lows, mai

abc's gio benitez and diane macedo have the details in this morning's techbytes.ear and panic as lives. brand new video of the moments following the las vegas massacre. this morning - what we are learning about the killer. plus - help puerto rico. we are live with where you can donate the most needed items for those just trying to survive. good morning washington. toss to eileen - highs running 10-15 above average through the weekend - much need rain returns sunday through early next week - tropical depression 16 to become t.s. nate later today - another fall cool-down late next week today: sunny to partly cloudy. very warm. highs: 83-85 winds: sw 5-10 mph tonight: partly to mostly cloudy. patchy fog. lows: 56-64 winds: sw 5 mph friday: partly sunny. unseasonably warm. highs: 82-85 winds: s 5-10 mph happening today. the deadline for thousands of to renew their immigration status as part of the daca program. suzanne kennedy is live on the hill this morning. and suzanne if they don't renew..thousands could lose protection from being deported. developing now - a socc

. >> and i'm gio benitez in for kendis gibson. we begin with new details in the las vegas shooting rampage. police say the shooter planned to escape and believe he had help so they're trying to track down possible accomplices. >> sources say the gunman had recently checked into several hotels and may have considered targeting a different concert a week earlier featuring lorde and chance the rapper. the shooter's girlfriend is talking to the fbi but insists she had no idea he was planning this attack and lana zak has more from las vegas. lana, good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you, gio and diane. so in addition to the suite that authorities say the shooter had here at the mandalay bay hotel, he had also reserved rooms in several other hotels and all of them overlook the concert venue. >> right here, come in here. >> reporter: in this newly released video you can see the heroism of ordinary americans in the worst of circumstances. >> reporter: victims of the las vegas shooting being led into a vehicle before it sped off to

our gio benitez is in north carolina. >> here at hickory regional airport, we're seeing some unbelievable damage. take a look. a hangar just destroyed. planes tossed around like toys. >> reporter: a half foot of torrential rain causing flash flooding in boone. this vehicle floating away. wes berry caught in his minivan. >> wave of water washed over the hood and it stalled out. >> reporter: in the west, critical fire conditions in parts of southern california. the region now a tinderbox. more than 4,000 firefighters battling blazes across the state. and david, these storms have made a mess at airports. more than 750 flights canceled. nearly 300 of them here at newark airport. david? >> linzie janis, thank you. let's get right to ginger zee tonight. and ginger, you're tracking these storms and the record heat and the fires in the west tonight. >> reporter: absolutely, david. both, and let's start on the east, where we've seen the front just passing now here in new york city, but to our north and southeast, near boston, hearing of numerous trees down. back toward that low pressure system att

abc's gio benitez leading us off. >> reporter: chaos at a high security prison in north carolina. police responding to an attempted prison break. >> we do have a mass casualty incident. i have multiple patients, some of them are critical. >> reporter: north carolina public safety saying a fire was set at the pasquotank correctional institution's sewing plant around 3:30 this afternoon. >> officer struck multiple times with a hammer, unresponsive at this time, work on iv access, significant bruising and bleeding. >> reporter: at least nine people rushed to the hospital, and more expected. >> i'm going to have several walking wounded. we need to clear some beds. >> reporter: tonight, we do not know the condition of those injured or how many were employees. >> i've got ambulances inbound, please start setting up some sort of triage, and mass casualty within the facility. >> reporter: for a time, at least three schools were put on lockdown and students who were already on a school bus were sent back to those schools. tonight, local police tell abc affiliate wvec they are searching the

abc's gio benitez. >> reporter: videos are stunning. luggage on fire and tests conducted by the faa. tonight warning airlines about a possible danger in putting electronics bigger than a cell phone in checked luggage. because of a potential for a catastrophic fire. inside the bag a laptop with an aerosol can. the wire mimics a laptop battery. it explodes. the goal the faa says is to get all airlines onboard with a plan to keep large personal electronics out of the checked luggage and carry them on with you. the fear, lithium-ion batteries leading to fires that have played at least a part in three planes being destroyed and they're and worried about more because a person wouldn't be able to fight a fire in the cargo hold but still not a danger in the cabin too. >> bringing them up in the cabin is better because there you can isolate the fire and have tools to put out a lithium-ion fire. >> gio the faa plans to bring this up at a meeting next week? >> reporter: that's right. if this moves forward, it could take about a year to go into eff

gio benitez, abc news, new york. >>> twitter is blocking ads from two russian-sponsored outlets.omes ahead of next week's testimony by company officials on capitol hill for its part, rt claims twitter pursued them as clients to buy advertising during the campaign. >>> a blockbuster deal involving two major health-related companies could be in the works. cvs is reportedly in talks to buy aetna, the third-largest health insurance company. it could be worth $60 billion. so far neither company has commented on the proposal. >>> and a new study suggests that expectant mothers who have a dog in the house for at least one hour every day may be protecting their babies against eczema. researchers found that children of mothers with dogs had roughly half the rate of childrens eczema than those in dog-free homes. they believe early exposure to allergens decreases the likelihood of autoimmune diseases. >>> morrow bots will be roaming the aisles in walmart. they have been tested in arkansas and california. the company says they free up real-life workers to help customers and don't worry, the

abc's gio benitez is there on the scene at the airport in hickory, north carolina. good morning, gio. >> reporter: robin, good morning to you. we're talking about seven reported tornadoes across the carolinas and just take a look behind me. look at this unbelievable damage here at the airport. you see that plane. you see that hangar and this is just some of the destruction here. torrential rains and damaging wind taking aim at the carolinas. >> there it is. >> reporter: in north carolina at hickory's regional airport, cars flipped on top of one another after a reported tornado touched down. this airport hangar ripped apart. winds picking up and tossing private planes. >> it flipped that hangar over the hangar that's still standing. >> reporter: the roof ripped off the post office in lawndale. trees crashing down onto homes. >> all i heard was stuff hitting the back of the >> reporter: many roads impassable. umbrellas not holding up, cars barely able to navigate the streets of asheville. in spartanburg, sblg secretary of state -- >> this is my truck. >> reporter: anot

gio benitez has that. >> reporter: what you're about to see is something so many have never heard of. door and can make the difference between life and death and i'll admit i was amazed when we put ul to the test with this incredible experiment. take a look. this is not a normal house fire. we're with ul which helps set safety standards for a slew of industries and now the company is creating a controlled fire to show the importance of closing your bedroom door before you go to sleep. >> when you can't get out, the most important thing you can do, close that door between you and the fire, could save your life. >> reporter: alexis king survived the corpus christi house fire that dilled her parents and brother when she was 10 and the smoke alarm battery wasn't working and believes closing the door saved her life. >> the door helped me to still have clean air and to really figure out a way to get out. >> ul relaunching a safety campaign, close before you doze. how much of a difference can it make? we're about to find out. ul built this home to serve as a test facility. >> you will set th

. >> and i'm gio benitez in for kendis gibson.es on this thursday morning. police say the shooter in the las vegas massacre had planned to escape and they believe he may have had some help, but they still don't know what triggered the attack. and his girlfriend insists she had no clue. we have much more straight ahead right here. >>> two weeks after hurricane maria hit, 91% of puerto rico still has no electricity. but power should be restored to a quarter of the island within a month. >>> about 48,000 so-called d.r.e.a.m.ers are facing today's deadline to renew their status as part of the daca program. if they don't renew and congress doesn't take action to protect them, they could begin losing benefits next march. >>> and the wnba crown is back in minnesota. those are just some of our top stories on this thursday, october 5th. >>> from abc news, this is "world news now." >>> good morning to you all. we begin this half hour with breaking new details out of las vegas. authorities are revealing that the shooter did not plan to die.

abc's gio benitez is there. gio, good morning. >> reporter: hey, jon and paula, good morning to you. listen, everyone here talks about those water pumps to get water out during a rainstorm to prevent flooding because just a few months ago during a regular rainstorm, a lot of new orleans was just flooded because many of those pumps weren't working, so with that in mind they were looking at nate and got concerned. some people left town but the mayor actually shut down the city because the mayor put in a short curfew to get people off the streets. what we saw is a lot of people weren't on be road. you just had nobody out. you had very few people on the street. in fact, the only cars we saw were police cars out making sure that that curfew was being listened to. paula. >> a good sight to see from new orleans. thanks for your reporting, gio. >>> the mayor of san juan is keeping the dire situation in puerto rico from hurricane maria right in the spotlight through a series of tweets. overnight the mayor writing, power c

abc's gio benitez is there. gio, good morning. >> reporter: hey, jon and paula, good morning to you. listening, everyone here talks about those water pumps to get water out during a rainstorm because just a few months ago during a regular rainstorm, a lot of new orleans was just flooded because many of those pumps weren't working, so with that in mind you saw people just leaving town here. you saw streets that were completely empty. i mean, imagine saturday night the french quarter in new orleans usually bustling with cars and people. it was just totally empty. it looked more like a ghost town and that's because officials weren't taking any chances and put a short curfew in place to make sure people were inside, indoors and safe and away from any potential flooding, so thankfully we did not see any flooding here. but it's incredible to see how this threat of flooding actually shut down this city. in fact, the only police cars -- the only cars we saw were actually police cars. jon and paula, back to you. >> a good

here's gio benitez. >> reporter: this is not a normal house fire. standards for a slew of industries. now the company is creating a controlled fire to show the importance of closing your bedroom door before you go to sleep. >> when you can't get out, the most important thing you can do, close that door between you and the fire, could save your life. >> reporter: alexis king survived the corpus christi house fire that killed her parents and brother when she was just 10. the home's smoke alarm battery wasn't working. she believes closing her bedroom door saved her life. >> the door helped me to still have clean air and to really figure out a way to get out. >> reporter: now ul launching a safety campaign, "close before you doze." how much of a difference can it makes? we're about to find out. ul built this home to serve as a test facility. you're going to light the house on fire. >> for safety. >> reporter: it's wired with acceptsers and cameras to track gas levels. two bedrooms will have the doors closed, but the other -- >> we're going to leave that

navy are now opening up about their harrowing ordeal and gio benitez here with the story. supposed to be a fun trip to tahiti was a nightmare on the high seas for almost five months. now revealing one lost 70 pounds lost at sea. they weren't sure if they'd make it another 24 hours. after five months adrift at sea two sailors and their dogs miraculously rescued. >> when we saw the navy we were like, yes! we had tears going down our eye, okay, they see us. they see us. >> reporter: the drama began for the two women when they were attempting a pleasure sail from hawaii to tahiti. but shortly after they departed a massive storm hit crippling their engine, damaging their boat. their water purifier broke. sharks starting ramming their vessel. distress calls and signal flares went unanswered. fortunately they had packed every square inch of their boat with food. but the food was quickly dwindling. 90% of it gone. they were drifting aimlessly 900 miles off the coast of japan thinking the end was near. but then suddenly a taiwanese fishing boat spotted the duo and alerted the navy.

abc's gio benitez is here with that story and, gio, this could have, may have prevented disaster. >>orter: it really could. good morning to you. the man is not talking to police but they're already making comparisons to the las vegas shooter, a total unknown who wasn't on anyone's radar. now even the fbi is involved. >> tommy: this morning, a troubling surprise for police in florida who believe they may have thwarted an attack. detectives conducting a separate crimes against children investigation and instead finding a large arsenal of weapons, explosives, ammunition, side by side with maps of two schools and a water treatment plant. >> these are the people that are most concerning to us. what we call the lone wolf, you know, the sleepers out there, the people who are not on our radar. >> reporter: police say the man, 24-year-old randall drake had three explosive devices, ten rifle, eight handguns, more than 15 knives, a baseball bat with nails, even a crossbow. >> he named his guns. that's weird. i mean, i don't know how else to say it. >> reporter: detectives found notes on how to

abc's gio benitez is on the scene in elizabeth city, good morning, gio. >> reporter: good morning. more than 700 inmates are inside this massive prison behind me. the resociety seemingly coming out of nowhere. a violent prison uprising at a high security facility in north carolina. >> i've got ambulances inbound, please start setting up some sort of triage and mass casualty within the facility. >> reporter: inmates reportedly attacking correctional officers with hammers as they attempt an escape. >> an officer struck multiple times with a hammer unresponsive at this time working on iv bleeding. >> reporter: a corrections officer and a prison worker identified as the two dead this morning. at least ten others rushed to local hospitals. >> we do have a mass casualty incident. i have multiple patients, some of them critical. >> reporter: it began when inmates set fires inside the prison sewing plant where prisoners work sewing uniforms for the state employees. neighborhoods and schools surrounding the prison on lockdown, residents fearing for their lives. >> telling us we might need t

abc's gio benitez is here with more. good morning, gio. >> reporter: good morning, michael.etween a regular home surveillance camera to catch crooks and what they found in this house. a hidden camera in the bedroom smoke detector. the couple thinks other airbnb customers may have been recorded. police say this company had no idea they were being secretly recorded in their airbnb rental. a camera hidden inside a smoke detector looking down on their bed and now looking at their confused faces. >> we seized a lot of storage computer devices. >> reporter: the florida couple renting the home from this man. the listing provided to our affiliate wfts advertises the nice large townhouse in longboat key, police say they found two smoke detector cameras. they record audio and hd video. >> we're also wi-fi capable so they beamed a signal and he didn't have to hard wire them in. >> reporter: the couple only realizing it because the husband works in i.t. and noticed the pinhole camera and told wfts, my wife and i are distressed by this situation. i hope more victims will come forward. >>

abc's gio benitez, you've got those detail. >> that's right.rto rico's governor has formally called for a review of how that tiny company was awarded the contract. this as a twitter war breaks out between the company and the san juan mayor. overnight the tiny montana-based power company with the $300 million contract to restore power in puerto rico under fire once again. amid concerns that the company with just two full time employees was founded by a resident of whitefish, montana, hometown of interior secretary ryan zinke. san juan mayor is calling for it to be voided setting off and online brawl which called her comments demoralizing and the mayor firing back asking if whitefish energy feels that asking for transparency is misplaced. what are they afraid we will find. that's when whitefish threatened to call off their repair efforts on the island still 75% without power. we have 44 linemen rebuilding power lines in your city and 40 more men just arrived. do you want us to send them back or keep working? and whitefish now apologizing for the

a legal loophole is giving them the free pass with your precious cargo on board and gio benitez has detailstorney general believes it's happening across the country and wants to put an end to it. school bus after school bus running the red light through busy intersectioned. just listen to this in two new york counties an investigation found school bus drivers ran through red lights nearly 1500 times. all captured by red light cameras and the a.g. found that school bus companies are not required to report camera tickets to the dmv which means no legal punishment for driver, still, the organization representing new york school bus companies insists school buses are the safest mode of transportation for students and now the a.g. hopes new legislation will fill this gap in the law, michael. >> thank you. just cringe -- makes me cringe to see that. >> that is a big difference. i told you i was a school bus driver and, man, they were on us and if we had any type of violation, we heard about it. >> i'll bet. >> we paid the price for it and rightfully so. precious cargo on board. >>> a high school

commercial plane for what's believed to be the first time and faa is calling for emergency action and gio benitezter: good morning. listen we've heard the dangers of birds hitting planes. now imagine a piece of mechanical equipment like this hitting a plane. it's exactly the scenario that experts have been warning about and now we've seen it. this morning, investigators are looking into the first ever collision between a commercial plane and a drone. officials say the drone slammed into a plane carrying six passengers and two crew members as it was about to land in quebec city thursday. >> this should not have happened. that drone should not have been there. >> reporter: this incident just the latest in a series of close aircraft. >> we almost got hit by a drone. just to let you know up here, just about 20 feet. >> reporter: with more than 250 drone-related safety issues reported every month, that is up by more than 50% from last year. the faa is now speaking new emergency action to ensure more green flight plans are reviewed before takeoff. >> it was just off our left side maybe 100 feet away. >

gio benitez is here with this story. we hear this over and over. >> always so scary. good morning.ll tradition, the event, the corn maze, so many children and families were there when a sudden wind gust just changed everything. >> one of the bounce airborne. >> reporter: the terrifying moment an inflatable trampoline p by a gust of wind at the maze festival. >> multiple injuries at the corn mazr. >> reporter: it lifted 50 feet from a cornfield. several children playing on it at the time treated for minor injuries. >> somewhere in between 20 and 25 children were in there when it flipped over. >> reporter: a 76-year-old woman struck and dragged nearly 20 feet was reportedly knocked unconscious. >> it appears to be just the one injury. >> reporter: was rushed to the hospital with non nonlife-threatening injuries. authorities are investigating whether it was properly secured at the time. this the latest among a number of recent incidents involving inflatable atractions. in april five children were injureds a slide and bounce house were kept up in a strong gust of wind at a carnival in