In this screen grab from a video released by the San Dimas Sheriff’s Station, a tortoise was sucessfully rescued after the owner’s home was destroyed by fire. Via San Dimas Sheriff’s Station/Instagram
(LOS ANGELES) — A beloved pet tortoise has been found safe in the wake of California wildfires.
The rescue occurred after the family’s Altadena home was destroyed in the Eaton Fire, according to the San Dimas Sheriff’s Station.
In a video the station shared Saturday to Instagram, a deputy was seen bringing the 100-pound tortoise, Rocky, to safety.
Rocky was found in a hole in the family’s backyard, the sheriff’s office said.
The family can be heard cheering and celebrating as a deputy carried Rocky over to them.
“Yay! Rocky’s home!” a woman can be heard saying in the video.
ABC News has reached out to Rocky’s family for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to preserve the contents of the chat in which top national security officials used the Signal app to discuss military strikes in Yemen as they were taking place earlier this month.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the top cabinet officials named in a lawsuit by the government transparency group American Oversight to retain any messages sent and received over Signal between March 11 and March 15.
Benjamin Sparks, a lawyer representing American Oversight, raised concerns that “these messages are imminent danger of destruction” due to settings within Signal that can be set to delete messages automatically — prompting Judge Boasberg to order the Trump administration file a sworn declaration by this Monday to ensure the messages are preserved.
The lawsuit — which names Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the National Archives as defendants — asked a federal judge to declare the use of Signal unlawful and order the cabinet members to preserve the records immediately, as Signal’s deleting of messages violates governmental record-keeping requirements.
The use of the Signal group chat was revealed Monday by The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who said he was inadvertently added to the chat as top national security officials, including Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, were discussing the military operation.
According to screenshots of the Signal messages published by The Atlantic, the messages were set to disappear after a certain timeframe. Originally, the messages were set to disappear after one week. Then, according to screenshots of the messages published by the magazine, on March 15 — after Hegseth sent the first operational update — the messages were set to disappear after four weeks.
Judge Boasberg declined, for now, to order administration officials to disclose if Signal had been used by the Trump administration in a wider context.
“I don’t think at this point that that’s something that I would be prepared to order,” he said.
On the heels of Trump early Thursday accusing Boasberg on social media of “grabbing the ‘Trump Cases’ all to himself,” the judge began the hearing by providing a detailed description of the D.C. District Court’s automated system for assigning cases, including how each judge is allotted “electronic cards” to ensure cases are fairly distributed.
“That’s how it works, and that’s how all cases continue to be assigned in this course,” Judge Boasberg said.
Boasberg earlier this month temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador without due process, leading the White House to call for his impeachment and publicly attack him as a “Democrat activist” and a “radical left lunatic.”
Lawyers for the Department of Defense, prior to Thursday’s hearing, filed a declaration stating that they have requested that a copy of the Signal messages in question be forwarded to an official DOD account so they can be preserved.
A second declaration, from a lawyer for the Treasury Department, stated that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, along with Bessent’s chief of staff, has retained all messages beginning with Mike Waltz’s messages on March 15.
Trump and other top administration officials have downplayed the use of the Signal to discuss the attack, saying classified information was not shared in the chat, despite the exchange including information on the weapons systems being used and the timing of the strikes.
(WASHINGTON) — A group of nonprofits suing the Trump administration over its 90-day foreign aid freeze is accusing government officials of “accelerating their terminations of contracts and suspensions of grants of USAID and State Department partners,” according to court documents filed Wednesday.
The aid groups, who filed their suit Tuesday, said many of them “received new purported termination notices, including yesterday and this morning” and suggested that government officials “may be doing so specifically in response to this lawsuit.”
The groups asked a federal judge to either issue a temporary restraining order to prevent further terminations, or schedule an emergency hearing on Wednesday to address the matter.
Defendants in the suit include President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Acting USAID Administrator Peter Marocco, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, the State Department, USAID, and OMB.
The plaintiffs claim that Trump’s aid freeze amounts to an “unlawful and unconstitutional exercise of executive power that has created chaos” around the globe, according to the suit.
The lawsuit alleges that the foreign aid freeze is unlawful, exceeds Trump’s authority as president, and is causing havoc.
“One cannot overstate the impact of that unlawful course of conduct: on businesses large and small forced to shut down their programs and let employees go; on hungry children across the globe who will go without; on populations around the world facing deadly disease; and on our constitutional order,” the lawsuit says.
(NEW YORK) — More than 24 million Americans are under wildfire warnings due to strong winds on Thursday, posing a threat to existing fires in several states, and as a powerful storm moves toward the Northeast.
A wildfire was reported burning within the Sam Houston National Forested in San Jacinto County, Texas, on Wednesday evening. The fire, named the Pauline Road Fire, has grown to 2,000 acres with only 10% containment as of Thursday morning with the possibility of getting worse due to the strong winds, according to Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough.
“The weather today will not be on our side,” Keough said in a statement. “We expect significant wind gusts today with low humidity and warmer temperatures. This will make fighting difficult.”
Mandatory evacuations that were issued in Montgomery and San Jacinto counties are still in place Thursday. Thick smoke engulfed roads near the flames, leaving drivers with minimal visibility.
Thirty-eight fires have also been reported across Arkansas, with eight of those in the central region of the state.
“Our crews are deployed across the state and are partnering with local fire departments, the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service,” the forestry division said Wednesday.
Firefighters also responded to several fires in New Mexico on Wednesday, including the Gail Fire, which has burned 235 acres and is zero percent contained, officials said.
Overnight, eight tornadoes were also reported in Illinois, with strong winds knocking down trees and damaging roofs in the southern suburbs of Chicago. In Indiana, crews cut down part of a massive tree that uprooted and fell into a home due to the heavy gusts.
On Thursday, a critical risk for fire danger is in place for southeast Colorado, northeast New Mexico, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and southeast Kansas, where wind gusts of up to 50 mph are expected, accompanied with relative humidity between 8% and 15%.
In southwest Texas, southern and central Louisiana and the coast of Mississippi are expected to face 30 mph wind gusts and relative humidity as low as 30%.
Power remains out for 50,000 customers in Nebraska this morning, along with 10,000 in Arkansas, 7,000 in Indiana and 24,000 in Michigan, according to officials.
Meanwhile, snow is expected to fall over Chicago and areas of Michigan on Thursday, with rain arriving to the East Coast during the evening Thursday and overnight Friday.
