Month: January 2026

News Release

The following is a news release from the City of Idaho Falls:

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — Beginning at 7 a.m. Friday, Jan. 9, Union Pacific crews will conduct railroad crossing work at the crossing between N. Holmes Avenue and N. Boulevard. Work is anticipated to be completed by Sunday, Jan. 11.

Work will take place daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will occur in phases. During the first phase, the center median will be closed for vacuum truck cleaning near the crossing. In a later phase, outside lanes will be closed to remove old railroad crossing signal equipment.

Drivers should expect lane closures and delays in the area. Please watch for posted directional signs, slow down and use caution near construction crews.

While this is not a City of Idaho Falls project, a notice is being sent to help Union Pacific alert the public. For questions, please contact Union Pacific at (316) 452-0949.

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News Team

MADISON COUNTY, Idaho (KIFI) — A 29-year-old Sugar City man is in custody following a multi-month investigation into the possession of child pornography.

Jacob Morris was arrested on January 7, 2026, after investigators from the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, in coordination with the Idaho Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, executed a search warrant at his residence.

The case began on October 31, 2025, when Madison County detectives received a “Cyber Tip” from the Idaho ICAC Task Force. Following a two-month investigation, authorities obtained a warrant for Morris’s Sugar City home.

During the search on Tuesday, detectives took Morris into custody without incident. He has been charged with ten felony counts of possession of sexually exploitative material.

Morris made his initial appearance in Madison County Court on January 8, 2026. During the arraignment, a judge set his bond at $300,000.

This is a developing story. Local News 8 will provide additional details as we learn more information. All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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Ariel Jensen

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) — The Idaho Falls Police Department has released body camera footage and identified the suspect in a fatal officer-involved shooting that occurred just before Christmas last year.

To view the body camera video, click HERE. Viewer discretion advised.

Eduardo Trejo De Arcos, 26, died on Dec. 22 after he was shot by Officer Eric Rose, after De Arcos allegedly lunged for and grabbed a large knife as officers responded to a domestic disturbance call.

RELATED – IFPD: Man fatally shot after lunging for knife during domestic call

Shooting Background

The shooting took place at an apartment on the 700 block of Cleveland Street. Officers arrived at 5:17 a.m. following a 911 call from the father of De Arcos’ pregnant girlfriend. The father reported that De Arcos was threatening his daughter, who’d asked him to call the police.

Upon arrival, the body camera footage shows as the officers met De Arcos at the door, informing him they were responding to a noise complaint. While one officer remained De Arcos in the front room, Officer Rose spoke privately with the victim. During this conversation, she alleged that she and De Arcos had been arguing all night, and he’d threatened to kill her, even going so far as to choke her with one hand while holding a large knife in the other. Afterward, she had texted her father to call the police.

When questioned, De Arcos admitted to pushing the woman and threatening to kill her father, but denied choking her or using a weapon. During the interview, IFPD notes that Officer Rose spotted a knife in plain view inside a dresser drawer located on a couch near De Arcos.

The situation turned violent when Officer Rose informed De Arcos that he was under arrest. Police say De Arcos lunged for the knife and began struggling with the officers. The released footage shows the officers struggling with De Arco,s eventually pushing him toward the kitchen to disengage from the fight. However, De Arcos turned back toward them with the knife raised in his right hand.

Officer Rose fired a single shot, striking De Arcos in the chest. Despite immediate life-saving efforts by officers and arriving EMS, De Arcos was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ongoing Investigation

Per department policy, Officer Rose has been placed on administrative leave, as confirmed in IFPD’s original release. The East Idaho Critical Incident Task Force, led by the Rexburg Police Department, is conducting an independent investigation.

Once the investigation is complete, the Bonneville County Prosecutor’s Office will determine if the use of deadly force was legally justified.

“Domestic disturbance calls can be some of the most serious and most volatile calls that officers respond to,” said Idaho Falls Police Chief Bryce Johnson. He noted that while the department responded to over 900 such calls last year, most are resolved peacefully.

“We encourage anyone who may be a victim of domestic violence to seek help from resources like the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Center, and report crimes to police,” concluded Chief Johnson.

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Doug Long

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) — Since the 1950s, the Idaho National Lab, known locally as “the site,” has been the testing grounds for nuclear reactors for both the Department of Energy and the U.S. Military. But producing any type of energy is not without risk of accidents, and the site has seen three.

The first was a deliberate destructive test at the Borax-1 reactor in 1954. The second was in 1955 at the now famous EBR-1 known for generating the first usable electricity from atomic energy. Neither of those accidents injured anyone, and there was no threat of radioactive contamination.

But the third accident, in January of 1961, was much worse. That accident was deadly.

65 years ago, on a cold January night in the west desert, three men were tasked with starting up the “stationary low power reactor number one” or SL-1 after it had been shut down for the Christmas and New Year holidays. What happened that night led to a gruesome chapter in nuclear energy history. 

The U.S. Army had dozens of manned radar stations at the Arctic Circle and this new form of electricity generation seemed like the ideal way to power those outposts.

“That particular reactor was designed – put on your Cold War hat again – for what is called the distant early warning line, (or) the dew line,” explains Shelly Norman. “They (the federal government) were going to have reactors and these little outposts along northern Canada and they would use these reactors to power those outposts.”

The SL-1 was the testing ground for a reactor that would power a warning system in case the soviets attacked.

On that night in January, army specialists Richard McKinley and John Byrnes, and navy electrician first class Richard Legg were the only men on duty responsible for restarting the reactor. This entailed pulling a single control rod upward between 3 and 4 inches from the bottom of the reactor, but no farther.

“They had just come back, first night from the break,” explains Norman as she paints the scene leading to the accident. “It’s 17 below zero. The night crew was attaching that control rod to a mechanical arm…instead of pulling it four inches, they pulled it out 20.”

At the point where John Byrnes pulled the central control rod beyond 4 inches, a power surge ten million percent above normal operation vaporized the core of SL-1 sending the 26-thousand-pound reactor core over nine feet into the air and firing the control rods, like missiles, into the ceiling.  Sl-1 had just gone prompt critical.

Experiments would show that the explosion was equal to more than 70 pounds of TNT, and all of that energy was sent directly into the bodies of McKinley, Legg, and Byrnes. There were no survivors.

What followed was a lengthy and tedious process of recovering the dead soldiers whose bodies were now highly radioactive and then deconstructing and cleaning up the site. It took a year to complete.

In May of 1961, a burial ground was constructed 16 hundred feet from the original site, where 99 thousand cubic feet of material would be sealed underground. 

The only monument to the reactor, a fence with hazard warning signs encircling the area. Another monument memorializing the three men killed that night sits at the EBR-1 reactor museum overlooking the area where SL-1 once stood.

Lessons were learned from the SL-1 meltdown. No future reactor would ever be built using a single control rod to start operation, but one thing was never determined: Why? Why did John Byrnes pull the central control rod out so far?

The best explanation based on mock-ups and experiments to reproduce that moment is that the control rod was stuck, as it had been many times before, and Brynes simply pulled too hard to get it loose.

But you’d be hard-pressed to find a telling of this story that didn’t suggest it was a suicide or even murder. Earlier that evening, John Byrne’s wife had called to tell him she wanted a divorce, and there were rumors that Richard Legg may have been having an affair with her.  

No evidence of foul play was ever found, and the final report that took over 2 years to complete concluded the cause was accidental.

While the failure of SL-1 will always be the focus of that project, SL-1’s successes and failures continue to help shape the path of nuclear energy production today.

There have been conflicting reports on where the three men are buried.

However, credible reports indicate that the three men were placed in lead-lined coffins specially made at the site and sent to their families. John Byrnes was buried in New York, and Richard Legg was laid to rest in Michigan. Meanwhile, the body of Richard McKinley is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, in a specially constructed, deep, concrete-lined vault. His headstone has an inscription on the back of it that says “Do not exhume: Contact the Department of Energy.”

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Seth Ratliff

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (KIFI) — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Thursday that President Dieter F. Uchtdorf has been called to serve as the Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the faith’s second-highest governing body.

President Uchtdorf was set apart for his new role on January 8, 2026, by Church President Dallin H. Oaks. This transition in leadership follows the passing of President Jeffrey R. Holland, who died on December 27, 2025.

The First Presidency. From left to right: President Henry B. Eyring (First Counselor), President Dallin H. Oaks (President), and President D. Todd Christofferson (Second Counselor). Courtesy LDS Church Newsroom.

In accordance with established Church practice, the presidency of the Quorum of the Twelve is determined by seniority of ordination. While President Henry B. Eyring is the most senior member and the official President of the Quorum, he currently serves as the First Counselor in the First Presidency, the highest governing body of the faith.

For this reason, the faith says President Uchtdorf will serve as “Acting President,” as President Holland did from November 15, 2023, through September 27, 2025.    

President Uchtdorf brings decades of leadership experience to this role. He was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on October 2, 2004, where he later served as Second Counselor in the First Presidency under the late President Thomas S. Monson from 2008 to 2018.

Before his call to full-time Church service, President Uchtodrf served as a fighter pilot earning his wings from both the German and US air forces before becoming an executive and senior captain for Lufthansa German Airlines.

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