WASHINGTON —

Donald Trump on Tuesday notched a significant victory in South Carolina, where his preferred candidate easily ousted five-term Rep. Tom Rice, the first Republican to be booted from office after voting to impeach the former president last year. But another high-profile GOP target of Trump in the state, Rep. Nancy Mace, managed to hold back a challenger.

Meanwhile, in Nevada, Trump's pick, Adam Laxalt, won his U.S. Senate primary, defeating a populist candidate who is arguably more representative of the Trump base.

Takeaways from the latest round of primary elections:

SPLIT DECISION IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Rice and Mace have been objects of Trump's anger ever since a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of President Joe Biden's win.

Their transgressions? Mace stated on national TV that Trump's "entire legacy was wiped out" by the attack, while Rice became an apostate for joining a small group of Republicans who voted with Democrats in favor of Trump's second impeachment.

"He threw a temper tantrum that culminated with the sacking of the United States Capitol," Rice told NBC News on Monday. "It's a direct attack on the Constitution, and he should be held accountable."

Voters ultimately rendered different judgments on the duo, reflecting a split within the GOP about how to move forward from the Trump era. Rice's largely rural district is representative of Trump's America, where crossing the former president carries a steep cost. Even as Trump railed against both lawmakers, he chose to hold a rally in Rice's district earlier this year.

That's because Mace's district, which centers on Charleston, is full of the type of moderate suburban voters who fled the GOP under Trump. It is one of the few districts in an overall red state where Democrats have been even moderately competitive in congressional races.

The results demonstrate that the Trump factor can't be underestimated in solidly Republican territory, a potential warning sign for other Republicans, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who also voted to impeach Trump and has helped lead the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack. She's facing a competitive primary in August from a Trump-backed challenger.

Another notable factor in the Mace contest: It amounted to a proxy battle between Trump, who is contemplating a 2024 White House campaign, and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is also considering a run.

Trump backed former state Rep. Katie Arrington in the race, while Haley, a former South Carolina governor, effectively challenged Trump by campaigning with Mace.

Video below: Katie Arrington concedes in South Carolina congressional race

TRUMP, MCCONNELL ALIGN ON LAXALT IN NEVADA

Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell don't agree on much. One rare exception is Laxalt, who won Nevada's Republican Senate primary.

The two Republican leaders haven't been on speaking terms since December 2020, when McConnell acknowledged that Biden defeated Trump. But they both endorsed Laxalt, who defeated retired Army Capt. Sam Brown, a West Point graduate and Purple Heart recipient who ran an unexpectedly strong campaign as a conservative outsider.

The mutual support, which brought together the Trump and establishment wings of the party, demonstrates the intense focus Republican have placed on flipping the seat held by first-term Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who is considered among the most vulnerable senators.

TEXAS HOUSE SEAT FLIPS

A once solidly Democratic district in South Texas will now be represented by a Republican after Mayra Flores won a special primary election to finish the term of former Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela, who resigned this year to become a lobbyist.

Flores, a GOP organizer who is the daughter of migrant workers, will only hold the seat for several months before the district is redrawn to be more favorable to Democrats. But her victory in the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley is an ominous sign for Democrats.

They are not only losing ground in a region they long dominated, but Flores' success as a candidate also demonstrates that Republicans are making inroads with Hispanic voters.

Her win also has implications for Democrats' ambitions in Congress, denying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi an opportunity to add to her slim two-vote margin to pass legislation.

FROM SOUTH CAROLINA TO THE WHITE HOUSE?

Also in South Carolina, Republican Tim Scott coasted to an easy and unopposed primary win Tuesday for what he says will be his last term in the Senate. But another state is also on his mind — the presidential proving ground of Iowa.

It's become an article of faith that there are no "accidental" trips to Iowa by ambitious politicians. And Scott, the Senate's sole Black Republican, has made several visits, including one last week.

He certainly has the money to contend. As he campaigned for reelection to the Senate, Scott amassed a jaw-dropping $42 million. That's more than double the $15.7 million average cost of a winning Senate campaign in the 2018 midterms. It's also more than enough to launch a Republican presidential campaign in 2024.

Even before his recent appearance at an Iowa Republican Party event, Scott has been raising his profile. He spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention and delivered the Republican response to President Joe Biden's first joint congressional address. He's also visited New Hampshire, another early-voting presidential state, and delivered a speech at the Reagan Presidential Library, another frequent stop for Republicans eyeing the White House.

A LEPAGE COMEBACK?

Governor's races are often overlooked. But the general election contest in Maine is among a handful of governor's races that are likely to be competitive this year, along with Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.

Tuesday's gubernatorial primaries were a mere formality, since the races were uncontested. But they locked in what promises to be a doozy of a general election between two longtime foes.

Democratic incumbent Janet Mills is seeking a second term. She's a former district attorney, state lawmaker and Maine attorney general who frequently clashed with Republican Paul LePage when he was governor. Now LePage, who has described himself as "Trump before there was Trump," is challenging her.

The contest will test the appeal of Trumpian candidates in New England. The Democratic Governors Association has already booked $5 million in TV ad time.

That Mills and LePage are even competing against each other is somewhat of a surprise.

LePage moved to Florida and swore off politics when he left office in 2019 following two raucous terms that often drew national attention for his indecorous remarks.

But the draw of elected office was apparently too great. By 2020, he was back in Maine pledging to challenge his old nemesis.

BOULDER CITY, Nev. — Flames and thick black smoke rose from the Hoover Dam Tuesday

The Bureau of Reclamation said that a transformer caught fire around 10 a.m., and the flames were extinguished 30 minutes later.

Officials say no one was injured.

"There is no risk to the power grid and power is still being generated from the powerhouse," the agency said.

Reports of a possible explosion began circulating on social media after a video showed smoke coming from the dam's base, Scripps' sister station KTNV reported.

Boulder City officials said on their Twitter account that the fire was extinguished before fire crews arrived.

#Hooverdam - the fire was extinguished before Boulder City Fire Department arrived on scene. Bureau of Reclamation/ Hoover Dam will be handling any additional questions.

— CityofBoulderCityNV (@BoulderCityNev) July 19, 2022

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — Flash flooding at Death Valley National Park triggered by heavy rainfall on Friday buried cars, forced officials to close all roads in and out the park and stranded about 1,000 people, officials said

The park near the California-Nevada state line received at least 1.7 inches (4.3 centimeters) of rain at the Furnace Creek area, which park officials in a statement said represented "nearly an entire year's worth of rain in one morning." The park's average annual rainfall is 1.9 inches (4.8 centimeters).

About 60 vehicles were buried in debris and about 500 visitors and 500 park workers were stranded, park officials said. There were no immediate reports of injuries and the California Department of Transportation estimated it would take four to six hours to open a road that would allow park visitors to leave.

It was the second major flooding event at the park this week. Some roads were closed Monday after they were inundated with mud and debris from flash floods that also hit western Nevada and northern Arizona hard.

The rain started around 2 a.m., said John Sirlin, a photographer for an Arizona-based adventure company who witnessed the flooding as he perched on a hillside boulder where he was trying to take pictures of lightning as the storm approached.

"It was more extreme than anything I've seen there," said Sirlin, who lives in Chandler, Arizona, and has been visiting the park since 2016. He is the lead guide for Incredible Weather Adventures and said he started chasing storms in Minnesota and the high plains in the 1990s.

"I've never seen it to the point where entire trees and boulders were washing down. The noise from some of the rocks coming down the mountain was just incredible," he said in a phone interview Friday afternoon.

"A lot of washes were flowing several feet deep. There are rocks probably 3 or 4 feet covering the road," he said.

Sirlin said it took him about 6 hours to drive about 35 miles (56 kilometers) out of the park from near the Inn at Death Valley.

"There were at least two dozen cars that got smashed and stuck in there," he said, adding that he didn't see anyone injured "or any high water rescues."

During Friday's rainstorms, the "flood waters pushed dumpster containers into parked cars, which caused cars to collide into one another. Additionally, many facilities are flooded including hotel rooms and business offices," the park statement said.

A water system that provides it for park residents and offices also failed after a line broke that was being repaired, the statement said.

A flash flood warning for the park and surrounding area expired at 12:45 p.m., Friday but a flood advisory remained in effect into the evening, the National Weather Service said.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas investigative reporter was stabbed to death outside his home and police are looking for a suspect, authorities said.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers found journalist Jeff German, 69, dead with stab wounds around 10:30 a.m. Saturday after authorities received a 911 call, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

German died of “multiple sharp force injuries” in a homicide, the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner said Sunday.

It appears German was in an altercation with another person that led to the stabbing, which is believed to be an isolated incident, police said.

“We believe the altercation took place outside of the home,” Capt. Dori Koren, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesman, said at a news conference. “We do have some leads. We are pursuing a suspect but the suspect is outstanding.”

Glenn Cook, the Review-Journal’s executive editor, said German had not communicated any concerns about his personal safety or any threats made against him to anyone in the newspaper’s leadership.

“The Review-Journal family is devastated to lose Jeff,” Cook said in a statement. “He was the gold standard of the news business. It’s hard to imagine what Las Vegas would be like today without his many years of shining a bright light on dark places.”

German joined the Review-Journal in 2010 after more than two decades at the Las Vegas Sun, where he was a columnist and reporter who covered courts, politics, labor, government and organized crime.

He was known for his stories about government malfeasance and political scandals and coverage of the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival that killed 60 people and wounded more than 400 others.

According to the Review-Journal, German held a master’s degree from Marquette University and was the author of the 2001 true-crime book “Murder in Sin City: The Death of a Las Vegas Casino Boss,” the story of the death of Ted Binion, heir to the Horseshoe Club fortune.

LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas police report 14 people were shot inside a hookah lounge overnight and that one person has died and two others are in critical condition.

Officers responded to the shooting around 3:15 a.m. The shooter or shooters left before officers arrived, police say.

The identity of the deceased will be released by the coroner's office.

Authorities call this an isolated incident and say there is no threat to the public at this time, though they are looking for the suspects.

Anyone with information can contact Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's homicide investigators at 702-828-3521 or by emailing Homicide@lvmpd.com.

To remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers at (702) 385-5555 or submit a tip online at crimestoppersofnv.com.
Watch the full police update below:

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This story was first reported by KTNV in Las Vegas.

A megadrought ailing the American West got even drier last year and is becoming the deepest dry spell in more than 1,200 years. A study out Monday said the megadrought is now the worst-case scenario officials and scientists worried about in the 1900s. The drought deepened so much in 2021 that it is 5% worse than the old record in the late 1500s.

Scientists compare this megadrought to what would happen in a hypothetical world without human-caused climate change. And they calculate that 42% of this drought is due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels.

A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change found that the window of time between 2020-2021 was the driest for southwestern North America in 1,200 years.

In the study, researchers said, "Since the year 2000, southwestern North America has been unusually dry due to low precipitation totals and heat, punctuated most recently by exceptional drought in 2021."

As CNN reported, the burning of fossil fuels has been found to be directly related to water availability in the West. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that in December Los Angles experienced its second-wettest month on record, but then last month Los Angeles experienced its eight-driest January on record for the city.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas highlights some of the year's innovations in technology, showcasing robots that have been developed to handle everyday tasks.

One robot that's already emerged in the South Korean market follows you around, hauling your luggage and even taking it to your room, and it doesn't even expect a tip.

All it needs is the guidance of a human being.

Bellhops may not be too impressed, and restaurant bussers may want to throw water at another new robot that wants to do their job for them.

That robot can navigate around restaurants, collecting plates, glasses, and other dirty dishes.

The model goes for around $18,000 and is already being put to use in restaurants in China. 

Another robotics company hopes you'll be so fed up with shoveling snow that you'd shell out $3,000 to $4,000 for the Snowbot — the world's first smart snow-clearing robot.

You use beacons to set a perimeter and let the snowblower do its thing. Eighty of them are being beta tested this winter.

A South Korean company has also created a prototype of a robot designed to autonomously move through a parking garage and charge electric vehicles.

However, this is the first prototype, so the company doesn't have a timeframe for when you might see one of them at a garage near you.

All of these are examples of how the next generation of robots — empowered by artificial intelligence — are offering potential solutions for tasks more consequential than fixing us a cup of coffee.

Jason Bellini at Newsy first reported this story.

RENO, Nev. (Video: KOLO via CNN) —

If you're traveling over the holidays, you know it's a stressful experience. From crowds to screenings, traffic and worries about boarding on time, an airport in Reno, Nevada, is hoping to soothe passengers.

A volunteer organization called Paws 4 Passengers brings certified therapy dogs into terminals to encourage smiles and change the overall mood.

"It's always stressful traveling. so seeing dogs here makes everybody feel good," Sheri Heimerdinger told KOLO as she waited to pick up her mother at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

Sheri Harwell of Paws 4 Passengers said the dogs help calm those who might be nervous about flying.

"They just bring warmth, love and joy to all the people here," she said.

Harwell said she's also seen the dogs seek out a belly rub from people they sense may need them the most.

"If we see a child that's really crying and upset and having a fit. We'll try to go over. That's what Brooke does. She'll go over there and just sit there with that little kid and calm them down," Harwell said. "The parents are always saying thank you, thank you, thank you."

Paws 4 Passengers was founded in 2013 and currently has a team of 30 therapy dogs.

And it's not just weary passengers who enjoy their visits with the dogs.

"When those vests go on, that's their job and they know it and they love coming here and just greeting people," Harwell said. "That's their job, that's what they love to do."

Watch the video above to see the Paws 4 Passengers team in action.

Kimi Cole announced she is running for lieutenant governor in Nevada.

If elected, she would become the first transgender person to win statewide office in the United States.

While Cole understands that would be a historic achievement, she said she doesn't want her identity to be a focal point of her campaign.

“I don’t want to make a big issue about my background as such,” Cole said in an interview with The Associated Press, noting the barrier-breaking potential of her candidacy. “We have really pressing issues in this country. To be able to assess them, address them and take care of them is going to take a lot of conscientious effort.”

Nevada does not currently have a lieutenant governor. Democrat Kate Marshall resigned after accepting a position in the Biden administration.

Gov. Steve Sisolak has not appointed a successor.

Three Republicans, Dan Schwartz, Mack Miller and Stavros Anthony are also running for lieutenant governor.

Henderson Mayor Debra March is the other Democrat in the race.

CNN —

Related video above: COVID safety in the classroom

More than 80 students were potentially exposed to COVID-19 on the first day of class in Reno, Nevada, on Monday after a parent sent their child to Marce Herz Middle School, despite both the parent and child receiving a positive COVID-19 test just two days earlier, Washoe County Health District officials said.

The exposed students had to quarantine at home and started distance learning on Tuesday, the Washoe County School District said.

In a Tuesday letter sent to the parents of impacted students, Principal Brandon Bringhurst said that if their child is fully vaccinated, parents can bring the vaccination card to school and the student can resume in-person classes immediately. Impacted students can also take a COVID-19 test on or after Aug. 14. And if they test negative and don't have symptoms they can return to school on Aug. 17.

The school district did not share information about the student who came to school after a positive test or their parent. The parent refused to communicate with the Washoe County Health District staff or school officials, the health district said.

"We are not seeking to invest our limited resources in bringing charges against the parent at this time," the health district said in a statement. "We are seeking cooperation from our community members."

The announcement comes as schools across the country are beginning to kick off the new academic year and navigating the safest way forward during a time when COVID-19 cases are surging, hospitalizations -- including among younger Americans -- are climbing and students younger than 12 are still ineligible for a vaccine. In some states, including in Texas and Florida, local leaders have found themselves at odds with their governors over school mask mandates.

Kindergarten through 12th grade students, staff, parents and visitors in Washoe County are required to wear face coverings inside school buildings, regardless of vaccination status, per state directive.

The current COVID-19 positivity rate in Washoe County is 17%, and the number of cases for children up to 17 years old jumped by roughly 2.6 times between June and July, according to the health district.

More than 58% of residents 12 and older have been fully vaccinated, according to county data.

RENO, Nev. (Video: KTVN via CNN) —

A 13-year-old girl from Nevada is one of the latest COVID-19 vaccine lottery winners.

Kaylee, an 8th-grade student, told KTVN she was trying to do the right thing by getting her shot before a summer camp.

"We were going to be traveling and a couple weeks after the vaccine came out and we were going to be flying and seeing tons of family and we didn't want to have to worry about COVID at the same time," she said.

Kaylee didn't know was that she'd been automatically entered in the "Vax Nevada Days," a program offering cash, scholarships and other prizes for people who got the vaccine.

Then, she found out she was a winner.

At first, Kaylee's mom thought she received a spam call but was able to verify the good news on the state's website.

"It feels good, it makes me feel comfortable about getting ready to go to college and my future," Kaylee said.

Nevada's vaccine lottery program is still running through Aug. 26, when the $1 million grand prize will be announced.

Aside from the potential to win like she did, Kaylee said she hopes others get vaccinated.

"Definitely get the vaccine because, like I said, it's free and it just takes so little time for such a big event," she said.

As drought- and wind-driven wildfires have become more dangerous across the American West in recent years, firefighters have tried to become smarter in how they prepare.

They’re using new technology and better positioning of resources in a bid to keep small blazes from erupting into mega-fires like the ones that torched a record 4% of California last year, or the nation’s biggest wildfire this year that has charred a section of Oregon half the size of Rhode Island.

There have been 730 more wildfires in California so far this year than last, an increase of about 16%. But nearly triple the area has burned — 470 square miles (1,200 square kilometers).

Catching fires more quickly gives firefighters a better chance of keeping them small.

That includes using new fire behavior computer modeling that can help assess risks before fires start, then project their path and growth.

When “critical weather” is predicted — hot, dry winds or lightning storms — the technology, on top of hard-earned experience, allows California planners to pre-position fire engines, bulldozers, aircraft and hand crews armed with shovels and chain saws in areas where they can respond more quickly.

With the computer modeling, “they can do a daily risk forecast across the state, so they use that for planning,” said Lynne Tolmachoff, spokeswoman for Cal Fire, California’s firefighting agency.

That’s helped Cal Fire hold an average 95% of blazes to 10 acres (4 hectares) or less even in poor conditions driven by drought or climate change, she said. So far this year it's held 96.5% of fires below 10 acres (4 hectares).

Federal firefighters similarly track how dry vegetation has become in certain areas, then station crews and equipment ahead of lightning storms or in areas where people gather during holidays, said Stanton Florea, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

In another effort to catch fires quickly, what once were fire lookout towers staffed by humans have largely been replaced with cameras in remote areas, many of them in high-definition and armed with artificial intelligence to discern a smoke plume from morning fog. There are 800 such cameras scattered across California, Nevada and Oregon, and even casual viewers can remotely watch wildfires in real time.

Fire managers can then "start making tactical decisions based on what they can see,” even before firefighters reach the scene, Tolmachoff said.

Fire managers also routinely summon military drones from the National Guard or Air Force to fly over fires at night, using heat imaging to map their boundaries and hot spots. They can use satellite imagery to plot the course of smoke and ash.

“Your job is to manage the fire, and these are tools that will help you do so” with a degree of accuracy unheard of even five years ago, said Char Miller, a professor at Pomona College in California and a widely recognized wildfire policy expert.

In California, fire managers can overlay all that information on high-quality Light Detection and Ranging topography maps that can aid decisions on forest management, infrastructure planning and preparation for wildfires, floods, tsunamis and landslides. Then they add the fire behavior computer simulation based on weather and other variables.

Other mapping software can show active fires, fuel breaks designed to slow their spread, prescribed burns, defensible space cleared around homes, destroyed homes and other wildfire damage.

“It’s all still new, but we can see where it’s going to take us in the future when it comes to planning for people building homes on the wildland area, but also wildland firefighting,” Tolmachoff said.

Cal Fire and other fire agencies have been early adopters of remote imaging and other technologies that can be key in early wildfire detection, said John Bailey, a former firefighter and now professor at Oregon State University.

Some experts argue it’s a losing battle against wildfires worsened by global warming, a century of reflexive wildfire suppression and overgrown forests, and communities creeping into what once were sparsely populated areas. Climate change has made the West hotter and drier in the past 30 years, and scientists have long warned the weather will get more extreme as the world warms.

Yet, firefighters' goal is to replicate the outcome of a fire that started Monday in the canyon community of Topanga, between Los Angeles and Malibu.

It had the potential to swiftly spread through dry brush but was held to about 7 acres (3 hectares) after water-dropping aircraft were scrambled within minutes from LA and neighboring Ventura County.

What firefighters don’t want is another wildfire like the one that ravaged the Malibu area in 2018. It destroyed more than 1,600 structures, killed three people and forced thousands to flee.

In another bid to gain an early advantage, California is buying a dozen new Sikorsky Firehawk helicopters — at $24 million each — that can operate at night, fly faster, drop more water and carry more firefighters than the Vietnam War-era Bell UH-1H “Hueys” they will eventually replace.

It will also soon receive seven military surplus C-130 transport aircraft retrofitted to carry 4,000 gallons (15,140 liters) of fire retardant, more than three times as much as Cal Fire’s workhorse S-2 air tankers.

For all that, firefighters’ efforts to outsmart and suppress wildfires is counterproductive if all it does is postpone fires in areas that will eventually burn, argued Richard Minnich, a professor in Riverside who studies fire ecology.

“No matter how sophisticated the technology may be, the areas they can manage or physically impact things is small,” he said. “We’re in over our heads. You can have all the technology in the world — fire control is impossible.”

Working with wildfires is more realistic, he said, by taking advantage of patches that previously burned to channel the spread of new blazes.

Timothy Ingalsbee, a former federal firefighter who now heads Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, also said firefighters need to adopt a new approach when confronting the most dangerous wind-driven wildfires that leapfrog containment lines by showering flaming embers a mile or more ahead of the main inferno.

It's better to build more fire-resistant homes and devote scarce resources to protecting threatened communities while letting the fires burn around them, he said.

“We have these amazing tools that allow us to map fire spread in real time and model it better than weather predictions," Ingalsbee said. “Using that technology, we can start being more strategic and working with fire to keep people safe, keep homes safe, but let fire do the work it needs to do — which is recycle all the dead stuff into soil.”

Associated Press writers Keith Ridler in Boise, Idaho, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

LAS VEGAS —

A 7-year-old boy from San Jose, California, was the child whose body was found near a highway outside Las Vegas 10 days ago, and his mother is suspected of killing him, police said Monday.

The child was Liam Husted and his mother, Samantha Moreno Rodriguez, 35, was last seen May 31 alone at a Denver-area hotel, Las Vegas police Lt. Ray Spencer said.

Rodriguez is now sought on a murder warrant in Las Vegas, Spencer said.

The police official had said it was clear the boy was killed, but did not say Monday how Liam died.

Spencer described what he called a "heartbreaking conversation" with the boy's father, and said he is not a suspect in his killing.

"There's a lot of moving parts to this investigation," the homicide lieutenant told reporters. "It is extremely active and ongoing."

The mother and boy left San Jose on May 24 driving a dark blue 2007 Dodge Caliber sedan with the back seat packed full of belongings, Spencer said.

A family friend told San Jose police last Friday that she had not seen Rodriguez or Liam in more than a week, and she recognized the boy from a rendering that was prepared by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and distributed by the media.

Liam and Rodriguez were seen May 26 in Laguna Beach, California, and Victorville, California, an Interstate 15 city about 190 miles southwest of Las Vegas, Spencer said.

Liam's body was found shortly after dawn May 28 behind a bush at a trailhead off the main highway between Las Vegas and rural Pahrump.

He became the focus of an intense public campaign that on Thursday included an offer from the FBI of up to $10,000 for information to identify him and his assailant.

Spencer did not say if anyone became eligible for the reward, and no FBI official spoke Monday with reporters.

Police are still trying to determine where the mother and boy stayed May 26, Spencer said. Police believe the body was left near State Route 160 after dark May 27.