Judge to consider temporary order blocking Trump’s dismantling of USAID
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Friday will consider issuing a temporary restraining order to block the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development, the embattled agency that handles foreign aid, disaster relief and international development programs.
Two foreign service unions are suing the federal government as the Trump administration attempts to reduce USAID’s workforce from 14,000 to only 300 employees.
The American Foreign Service Organization and the American Federation of Government Employees filed the lawsuit in D.C. federal court Thursday, alleging that President Donald Trump engaged in a series of “unconstitutional and illegal actions” to systematically destroy USAID.
“These actions have generated a global humanitarian crisis by abruptly halting the crucial work of USAID employees, grantees, and contractors. They have cost thousands of American jobs. And they have imperiled U.S. national security interests,” the lawsuit said.
The plaintiffs said Trump has unilaterally attempted to reduce the agency without congressional authorization, arguing that Congress is the only entity with the authority to dismantle USAID.
The lawsuit reads like a timeline of the last two weeks, laying out each step that formed the groundwork to break USAID, beginning with Trump’s first day in office. Shortly after Trump froze foreign aid via an executive order on his first day, he began to target USAID by ordering his State Department to begin issuing stop work orders, the lawsuit said.
“USAID grantees and contractors reeled as they were — without any notice or process — constrained from carrying out their work alleviating poverty, disease, and humanitarian crises,” the lawsuit said.
Next came the layoffs, the lawsuit alleges, with thousands of contractors and employees of USAID losing their jobs, leading medical clinics, soup kitchens, and refugee assistance programs across the world to be brought “to an immediate halt.”
“The humanitarian consequences of defendants’ actions have already been catastrophic,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit alleges the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk — who boasted about “feeding USAID into the woodchipper” — made the final move to gut the agency, locking thousands of employees out of their computers and accessing classified material improperly.
While each step to dismantle the organization differed, the lawsuit alleged that they were unified by one thing: “Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization.”
The plaintiffs have asked the court to declare Trump’s actions unlawful and issue an order requiring the Trump administration to “cease actions to shut down USAID’s operations in a manner not authorized by Congress.”
(LOS ANGELES) — Southern California has been severely hit by wildfires, prompting mass evacuations and state of emergency declaration from Gov. Gavin Newsom. The dangerous winds and extreme fire conditions are expected to last through Thursday.
With residents facing evacuation orders, family pets face an uncertain situation.
Many people in the region have exotic pets and care for animals like llamas, horses and goats that need a safe place to go during this dangerous event.
Some hotels have been accommodating pets like dogs and cats, but the sheer number of animal evacuees has strained their capacity. Fortunately for pet owners, veterinarian Annie Harvilicz stepped up to care for animals.
Harvilicz owns a vacant veterinary hospital, which she opened up to house animals affected by the wildfires. The idea came to her after her brother asked for a favor as his family evacuated. They could only take their dog into the hotel they went to, but not their cat or rabbit, so he reached out to Harvilicz for alternate accommodation for those two.
“And when I moved them in, I looked around at the different examine rooms that were empty and thought, you know, we can help here,” Harvilicz told ABC News. “There is a lot of people who are probably in the same situation my brother is in. So that’s when I started getting the word out that we could take in some animals.”
Harvilicz has mainly been helping people who have multiple pets, as hotels may have a limit on how many they will accept per family. She praises the hotels for even taking in pets and is enthusiastic about how many people are calling, ready to help her.
“Most people that are reaching out to me are people ready to help,” Harvilicz said. “There’s probably a 50 to 60:1 ratio between the people who are contacting me to help versus the people who actually need help.”
Moses Stewart and Diane Hawkins grieve over the slaying of their son Yusuf Hawkins; Nicole Bengiveno/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
(BROOKLYN, N.Y.) — When Yusuf Hawkins, a Black 16-year-old, was shot and killed in Brooklyn in 1989 as he went to purchase a car, the crime set off months of angry protests.
Now, the man convicted in Hawkins’ murder, who has been behind bars for nearly 35 years, will get a chance Thursday to prove his innocence with what his defense attorney says is new evidence.
Joseph Fama, who was 18 at the time of the murder, was part of a white mob that chased down Hawkins and three other unarmed Black youths in August 1989 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, according to court documents.
Fama, who is white, was convicted in May 1990 of second-degree murder, first-degree riot, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, first-degree unlawful imprisonment, menacing and discrimination. All counts were ordered to run concurrently, giving Fama 25 years to life in prison, according to court documents.
“Unfortunately, terribly, Yusuf Hawkins, innocent, innocent man, was killed — let’s just start with that — because he’s Black,” Justin Bonus, Fama’s attorney, told ABC News in a phone interview last week. “My client was not involved with this whole group of kids sitting there waiting for Black guys to come.”
The murder sparked protests against racial violence around New York City at a time when tensions were high. Months earlier, the Central Park Five, a group of Black and Hispanic teenagers, were wrongfully convicted of rape and assault of a white female jogger.
Five witnesses testified that they saw Fama shoot Hawkins, and four more witnesses placed Fama at the scene the night that the teenager was shot three times, according to court documents. Two jailhouse informants testified that Fama admitted to them that he shot Hawkins because he was Black, according to court documents.
“First of all, jailhouse informants, are we going to go by that?” Bonus said to ABC News.
The judge in Fama’s original trial did not allow the father of one of the informants to testify that he believed his son was lying about his claim that Fama confessed that he killed Hawkins. The courts made that decision because the defense failed to lay a foundation for the admission of the evidence during cross-examination of the informant, according to court documents.
According to a motion by Fama’s defense, two of the witnesses, who previously said that they saw Fama kill Hawkins, recanted their testimonies and claimed that they were coerced by investigators to pin the shooting on the defendant.
During the original trial, the court denied the defense’s request to call Frankie Tighe, one of the witnesses who recanted his testimony, to the stand because defense attorneys had already rested their case four days before their request, according to court documents.
Keith Mondello, one of the alleged leaders of the mob that chased Hawkins and who was convicted, provided new evidence that also claimed Fama was not the killer, according to court documents.
Five additional witnesses originally claimed that, after the shooting, Tighe ran around the corner to their location and they heard him say, “Joe Fama just shot a Black kid,” according to court documents.
The defense says they have new evidence that one of those witnesses later recanted their testimony and stated that detectives spoke to him many times and pressured him to accuse Fama, according to the defense’s motion.
On Aug. 23, 1989, at about 9:00 p.m. Hawkins and three of his peers took a subway train from their Brooklyn neighborhood in East New York to Bensonhurst to look at a used car for sale, according to court documents.
The four peers became lost in Bensonhurst and, as they searched for the address of where the used car would be, they came across a group of 20 to 40 white individuals who, coincidentally, were expecting Black and Hispanic men to attend a birthday party in the neighborhood that night, according to court documents.
The party was hosted by an 18-year-old white woman who the men in the neighborhood believed invited Black and Hispanic men to the birthday celebration, according to Bonus. The men gathered in the vicinity of her home, allegedly voiced racist threats and armed themselves with bats, golf clubs and handguns as they allegedly waited for the men of color to come to the party, according to court documents.
The group of men chased Hawkins and his peers when they saw them, according to court documents. The confrontation ended with Hawkins shot. He died a short time later. Fama was sentenced for 25 years to life in prison on June 11, 1990.
The defense claims to have twelve new affidavits from witnesses that allege that Fama did not shoot Hawkins. Some of those witnesses say police pressured them to accuse Fama.
The defense motion focuses on one investigator, former Detective Louis Scarcella, claiming he was “significantly involved with the investigation and procuring witnesses.”
A complaint against Scarcella alleges that nearly 20 homicide convictions associated with the former detective have been vacated and in at least nine of those convictions, Scarcella coerced false confessions or fabricated written confessions from innocent individuals, according to court records.
Joel Cohen, Scarcella’s attorney, told ABC News over the phone that some judges found that Scarcella was involved in improper tactics which led to the convictions of several individuals, but the court only found innocence in one of the overturned cases.
Scarcella didn’t file a response to any of the complaints, according to his attorney.
“Joseph Fama’s motion to vacate his conviction for the racially motivated murder of Yusef Hawkings 32 years ago is flatly contradicted by the overwhelming evidence of his guilt,” Cohen told ABC News in part through a statement. “His lawyer’s claims that the that the “…”murder investigation was led by Detective Louis Scarcella ,” and that Scarcella was “all over the investigation” are reckless and provably false and based in part by the lawyer’s “surmise.”
The DA’s office told ABC News that Scarcella only played a minor role in the investigation and was one of more than 65 investigators working on the case. The defense believes Scarcella was “significantly involved in” the investigation, according to court documents.
The NYPD did not reply to ABC News’ request for a statement.
The DA’s office claims witnesses testified that they saw Fama receive a gun from the individual who Bonus alleges was the actual shooter just before Hawkins’ death.
In Tighe’s recanted statement, he claimed that Fama used a silver handgun in the shooting, but Claude Stanford, one of Hawkins’ peers who was with him the night he was shot, said that the shooter used a black gun and was about 6 feet tall, according to the defense’s motion. Fama was about 5 feet, 8 inches tall at the time, according to court documents.
Fama has already tried twice to appeal his conviction and was denied by the court both times, according to legal documents. This is his third attempt to vacate his conviction.
Fama’s court conference hearing is set for Nov. 21, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
(NEW JERSEY) — On Donald Trump’s first day in office, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy asked the president and his administration to “reexamine” New York City’s highly debated congestion pricing plan, the first of its kind in the nation, and its impact on the Garden State.
Murphy said Tuesday he has not yet heard from Trump on his letter, which requested that “New York’s congestion pricing scheme receive the close look it deserved but did not receive from the federal government last year.”
In the letter, Murphy noted the state plans to amend its pending lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration over congestion pricing. Murphy told reporters Tuesday that the Biden administration did an “incomplete” study on the impacts of the plan.
“The Biden administration, which is why we sued in the first place, did not do what is called an environmental impact study, which takes longer, but is more comprehensive,” Murphy said during a Q&A at an unrelated press event. “It would have included environmental impact on New Jersey. That’s why we took legal action. I’ve said publicly from moment one, we will live with the results of that study.”
“We’re asking the Trump administration to do what the Biden administration did not do,” he continued.
The congestion pricing plan, which launched on Jan. 5, newly charges passenger vehicles $9 to access Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours as part of an effort to ease congestion and raise funds for the city’s public transit system. The extra per-ride surcharge is 75 cents for taxis and black car services, and $1.50 for Ubers and Lyfts. During peak hours, small trucks and charter buses will be charged $14.40, while large trucks and tour buses must pay $21.60.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which manages the city’s subways as well as bridges and commuter rails, has said the toll enables it to issue $15 billion in bonds to help fund capital projects.
In response to Murphy’s letter to Trump, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters on Tuesday that if the congestion pricing plan is ultimately killed, “that comes with $15 billion more” the federal government will need to give to New York.
“That’s $15 billion of lost investment that we will need to have — not from the state, but from the federal government,” Hochul said during a presentation on the state’s 2026 executive budget.
In his letter to Trump, Murphy noted congestion pricing is one area where the Democratic governor believes their “priorities align.” He cited remarks Trump made during his campaign for president, in which he called the plan a “massive business killer and tax on New Yorkers, and anyone going into Manhattan,” as well as after the election, in which he called it the “worst plan in the history of womankind.”
“For my part, I am open to congestion pricing in concept,” Murphy wrote in the letter, though said the resulting plan is a “disaster for working- and middle-class New Jersey commuters and residents” who now need to pay a fee on top of bridge or tunnel tolls.
“And adding insult to injury, New Jersey communities are not being fully compensated for the additional traffic and attendant pollution that will be re-routed to them because of congestion pricing,” he wrote.
New York City’s congestion pricing plan got underway following a yearslong environmental review process. After postponing the launch of the program days before it was set to start last year, Hochul revived it with a new, phased-in toll plan that initially lowers the fee.
A week after the launch, preliminary data showed the plan is working, with an average of 7.5% fewer vehicles than would have been expected in the district without congestion pricing, officials said.
