Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil expected in court after ICE arrest
Timothy A. Clary /AFP via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Mahmoud Khalil — the pro-Palestinian activist who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the campus of Columbia University, despite possessing a green card — is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.
Khalil is currently being held in Louisiana after being arrested in New York earlier this week. His legal team is asking for Khalil to order the government to return him to New York while his legal fight plays out.
The court will hear the habeas corpus petition filed by Khalil’s legal team on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m.
President Donald Trump’s administration has alleged that Khalil — who was a leader of the pro-Palestinian encampment protests on Columbia’s campus — was a supporter of Hamas. Authorities have not charged Khalil with a crime and the administration has not provided any evidence showing Khalil’s alleged support for the militant group.
Baher Azmy, one of the lawyers representing Khalil, called his client’s alleged alignment with Hamas “false and preposterous.”
Attorney Amy E. Greer said Khalil’s detention in Louisiana is a “blatantly improper but familiar tactic designed to frustrate the New York federal court’s jurisdiction.”
Khalil’s arrest has prompted protests calling for his release. Fourteen members of Congress have also signed a letter demanding his release.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
ABC News’ Armando Garcia, James Hill, Laura Romero and Ely Brown contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Billionaire Elon Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, has placed its first-ever nationwide TV ad, a $1 million ad buy that touts President Donald Trump’s first few weeks in office following Tuesday’s joint address to Congress, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The 60-second ad will run this week in the Washington, D.C., media market and across the country, the source told ABC News.
The ad begins by attacking former President Joe Biden, showing clips of him stumbling on the stairs while boarding Air Force One. A voiceover says, “After four long years of humiliation, of failure at home and embarrassment abroad, our long national nightmare is finally over.”
The ad then echoes some of what Trump highlighted in his joint address, saying the president has “delivered the lowest level of illegal immigration in history.”
Musk, who spent roughly $250 million supporting Trump during the 2024 election, has been leading the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency’s massive effort to slash federal spending by cutting government programs, laying off federal workers, selling off government buildings and attempting to close down numerous federal agencies.
Critics say Musk is carrying out his cuts without congressional authority, that his efforts are politically motivated, that DOGE is not being transparent about its work, and that it has unnecessarily accessed sensitive government data.
The America PAC ad does not mention DOGE or Musk by name, but it appears to allude to their work, saying of Trump, “He’s draining the swamp, slashing billions in waste at home, while closing the spigot of American tax dollars to foreign regimes.”
(COCOA BEACH, FL) — An elementary school principal has been arrested after allegedly throwing a massive boozy house party for over 100 juveniles, authorities said.
The incident occurred on Jan. 19 when authorities from the Cocoa Beach Police Department responded to a home after reports of a large house party and “observed over 100 juveniles at the residence in matching t-shirts, many of whom were consuming alcohol that was later learned to be available in coolers at the residence,” according to a statement from the Cocoa Beach Police Department.
The homeowner was quickly identified to be Elizabeth Hill-Brodigan, the principal of nearby Roosevelt Elementary School, police said.
“While officers were investigating the party, a juvenile was located on the front lawn experiencing an alcohol related medical event,” authorities said in their statement regarding the party. “The juvenile was so heavily intoxicated that Brevard County Fire Rescue (BCFR) had to respond to treat them.”
“During this time, the homeowner, Hill-Brodigan, was seen by officers in the driveway of her residence turning off the outside lights and entering her residence, causing BCFR to auxiliary lighting on their vehicle to treat the juvenile,” police continued. “Additionally, a traffic stop was conducted near the residence resulting in the arrest of the juvenile driver for DUI.”
Another intoxicated adult female — later identified as Karly Anderson, a teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School — was also identified as being at the party, according to the Cocoa Beach Police Department.
Numerous juveniles and their parents were interviewed by police in the days after the incident and an arrest was obtained for Hill-Brodigan on charges of child neglect, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and holding an open house party, police said.
Anderson was also arrested and charged with child neglect and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The school has yet to issue a statement regarding the party and the investigation remains open.
(LOS ANGELES) — Hydroclimate whiplash — the rapid shift between wet and dry conditions — likely contributed to the severity of the wildfires burning in Southern California, according to experts.
In recent years, parts of the state shifted from a major drought to an extended period of above-average precipitation that allowed for abundant vegetation growth. After that, a stretch of intense, record-breaking heat dried out much of that vegetation and provided ample fuel for large and fast-growing wildfires.
The Los Angeles region experienced two “extraordinarily wet” winters — in 2023 and 2024 — followed by dry conditions that began in February, Edith de Guzman, a water equity and adaptation policy cooperative extension specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told ABC News. Since May 6, Los Angeles has only seen 0.16 inches of rain, so the region’s rainy season is off to an unusually dry start.
“Right now, we essentially have had no measurable precipitation since last spring, which has dried out all of that vegetation that grew happily over the last two wet winters,” De Guzman said.
The shrub cover that popped up as a result of the extra precipitation later dried out — providing large volumes of fuel for a fire, De Guzman said.
Combined with the highly flammable materials many of the houses were constructed with, such as wood frames, it was a recipe for disaster, De Guzman said.
In Southern California, dry conditions are also now more likely to last later into the fall, leaving the region more vulnerable during high wind events, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with both UCLA and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.
“Climate change is increasing the overlap between extremely dry vegetation conditions later in the season and the occurrence of these wind events,” Swain said.
Hydroclimate variability has always been a staple of California’s natural climate, leaving it particularly vulnerable to wildfires.
Among all of the states in the continental U.S., California has the most year-to-year variability between wet and dry conditions.
“As you move down into Southern California, that variability increases even more,” Julie Kalansky, climate scientist and deputy director of operations at the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told ABC News.
However, some climate experts point to growing evidence that shows climate change has increased the volatility between very dry and very wet conditions around the world, like moving from a devastating drought to record-breaking precipitation and then back to a drought. These rapid swings between extreme weather events will amplify many of the associated hazards and contribute to devastating wildfire events.
Climate change could also be making wild weather swings more common and more extreme, according to new research published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment and the Fifth National Climate Assessment, a breakdown of the latest in climate science coming from 14 federal agencies, published in November 2023.
“These hotter, dry conditions that are driven by climate change have created a tinderbox,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We have this dried out vegetation, very dry landscapes.”
But hydrovariability alone didn’t lead to the devastating fires over the past week. A “confluence” of events allowed the fires to explode instantly, Cleetus said.
It was the wind that spread the fires so rapidly once they were ignited. An exceptionally strong mountain wave wind event, with northerly 80 mph to 100 mph gusts, spread the fires faster than anyone could stop them.
“We experienced the most intense Santa Ana winds in nearly 15 years,” De Guzman said.
Conditions higher up in the atmosphere helped to further enhance winds at the surface.
Cold, dense air associated with a low pressure system in the upper atmosphere was moving over Baja California. That air was positioned at a favorable north-northeast to northeast trajectory over the region allowing for the colder air located higher up in the atmosphere to come rushing down towards the surface and enhance the winds already blowing.
This brought surges of powerful winds across the Los Angeles and Ventura County Mountains — including in some places that don’t typically see winds that strong, like Burbank and in the foothills of the Pacific Palisades.
The wind direction and topography played a major role as well. The San Gabriel Mountains and the wind orientation interacted to produce a damaging wind event that doesn’t occur often. The mountains can also make the winds more erratic because additional whirls of wind, known as wind eddies, can form as the air moves across the peaks and through the canyons.
“They were extremely strong and fast, but they were also erratic,” De Guzman said. “They typically are narrower and a little bit more predictable in direction.”
ABC News’ Matthew Glasser, Dan Manzo and Ginger Zee contributed to this report.
