Silver Fire in California spreads to 1,200 acres, prompts evacuations
A vegetation fire in California rapidly spread to 1,000 acres on Sunday, prompting evacuations of parts of Inyo and Mono counties. (Cal Fire)
(BISHOP, CA) — A vegetation fire in California rapidly spread to 1,250 acres on Sunday, prompting evacuations of parts of Inyo and Mono counties.
The fire was first reported just after 2 p.m. PT near Highway 6 and Silver Canyon Road north of Bishop, California, a city east of Fresno, according to Cal Fire.
Officials named the fast-moving blaze the Silver Fire.
It remained at 0% containment as of 9 a.m. Monday.
Cal Fire said Sunday evening that the blaze crossed Highway 6, threatening multiple structures and power lines.
There are no known injuries associated with the fire, officials said.
Fighting the blaze was impacted by strong winds, with gusts reaching up to 35 mph at Bishop Airport, according to Cal Fire, which noted extreme turbulence grounded some firefighting aircraft.
The National Weather Service forecasts continued windy conditions for the region, with a High Wind Warning in effect through Monday evening.
ABC News’ Timmy Truong and Tristan Maglunog contributed to this report
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration could be sanctioned by a federal judge later this week after lawyers with the Department of Justice advised a federal judge Tuesday evening that they will not make a top administration official available for sworn testimony.
U.S. District Judge Charles Alsup had sought to have the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Charles Ezell, testify on Thursday about the mass firing of probationary employees.
But the DOJ said Tuesday that they would not make Ezell available for testimony.
By making Ezell unavailable, DOJ attorneys also withdrew his sworn affidavit, a move that Judge Charles Alsup suggested would heavily increase the odds that the Trump administration loses the case, which involves the legality of firing thousands of probationary employees.
“Live testimony of Mr. Ezell is also not necessary, as a factual matter, because existing documentary evidence and briefing demonstrates that OPM is not directing agencies to terminate probationary employees,” DOJ lawyers argued.
A group of federal unions has alleged that Ezell lied in a sworn declaration that his office did not order the firing of probationary employees based on “performance or misconduct,” prompting Judge Alsup to order Ezell to testify in person and under oath in San Francisco on Thursday.
The Trump administration attempted to push back on the order — arguing in a filing Monday that the testimony raises “fundamental constitutional concerns.”
Judge Alsup late Monday denied their request to cancel the hearing.
“The problem here is that Acting Director Ezell submitted a sworn declaration in support of the defendant’s position but now refuses to appear to be cross examined or to be deposed,” Judge Alsup wrote in an order Monday night.
The plaintiffs allege that on Feb. 13, Ezell convened a phone call with the heads of federal agencies to direct them to terminate thousands of federal employees and “falsely state that the terminations are for performance reasons.”
In a sworn declaration last month, Ezell denied directing the terminations based on performance reasons, instead arguing that OPM only issued guidance to individual agencies about the need for probationary workers to “demonstrate why it is in the public interest” for the government to continue to employ them.
“OPM did not direct agencies to terminate any particular probationary employees based on performance or misconduct, and did not create a ‘mass termination program,’ as the plaintiffs in this matter described it,” Ezell wrote.
The groups challenging the firings in court say that was a lie, and Judge Alsup appeared inclined to agree during a court hearing last month.
“How could so much of the work force be amputated suddenly overnight? It’s so irregular and so widespread and so aberrant from the history of our country,” Judge Alsup said. “How could that all happen with each agency deciding on its own to do something so aberrational?”
“I don’t believe it,” said the judge. “I believe they were directed or ordered to do so by OPM in that telephone call. That’s the way the evidence points.”
The allegations about the mass firings comes as the Trump administration faces increased scrutiny about the role of the Department of Government Efficiency in reducing the size of the federal government. During a cabinet meeting last week, Trump told the heads of the federal agencies that they are in charge of making cuts to their own departments, rather than Elon Musk and DOGE.
Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Giles/ U.S. Coast Guard via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Investigators will offer updates Tuesday in the probe into the devastating crash between an American Airlines plane and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter that killed all 67 people on board both aircraft.
The crash happened on the night of Jan. 29 when the PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet, which had departed from Wichita, Kansas, with 64 people on board, was about to land at Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The three soldiers on the helicopter were conducting an annual training flight and night vision goggle check ride for one of the pilots at the time when the two aircraft collided.
Both aircraft plunged into the Potomac River.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jennifer Homendy said last month that there was no indication the helicopter crew could tell there was an impending collision.
The soldiers may have had “bad data” on the altitude from their altimeter, as the pilots had differing altitudes in the seconds before the crash, Homendy said. One helicopter pilot thought they were at 400 feet and the other thought they were at 300 feet.
The transmission from the tower that instructed the helicopter to go behind the plane may not have been heard by the crew because the pilot may have keyed her radio at the same second and stepped on the transmission from ATC, the NTSB added.
The Black Hawk crew was likely wearing night vision goggles throughout the flight, Homendy said.
The NTSB will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. ET Tuesday.
(SEATTLE) — An 82-year-old man in Seattle woke up feeling very much alive until he and his wife opened a letter from his bank stating he was deceased.
Ned Johnson was mistakenly declared dead, which led to the cancellation of his Social Security benefits. It took him two months to prove the mistake, including numerous phone calls, letters to government officials and enduring a four-hour wait at his local Social Security office, he said.
And he told ABC News the problem is continuing to follow him.
“I’ve since learned that I’m on the Death Master File that apparently is going to chase me for the rest of my life,” Johnson told ABC News. “It means that when Social Security declared me as deceased, there’s a file that’s kept … that I’m listed on and, apparently, it doesn’t go away. So we’re struggling with a few issues now that are starting to crop up since we started this whole thing.”
The trouble began when Johnson’s wife, Pam Johnson, received a letter from Bank of America in February expressing condolences for her husband’s alleged death in November.
“First, I thought it was a scam because it was just a little letter, and they also attached a couple of documents for me to fill out to send back to Bank of America’s estate division,” she told ABC News. “So I verified that it was the estate division and the phone number was correct. And then the second letter we got right after that was showing that debit to our checking account.”
The situation finally began to be sorted out after Johnson visited his local Social Security Administration office. Ned Johnson said he thought his troubles were over, but he added, “This thing follows you follows you like a bad smell.”
He started receiving his Social Security checks once again, but he’s now facing another problem — the checks are coming but they’ve started to deduct some.
Pam Johnson said she and her husband are very lucky to be financially stable to make do with several missed checks. But others won’t be so lucky.
“I think the more important story is the people who do rely on it … the majority of people, a lot of them on Social Security, particularly at our age that really don’t have the wherewithal to navigate the system,” she said. “So for some people, it just would be impossible.”
The Johnsons’ ordeal comes as the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have targeted purported fraud in the Social Security system, including checks allegedly sent to deceased people.
Among changes Social Security recently announced intended to combat waste and fraud, recipients will soon have to verify their bank details in person or online, instead of over the phone.
“My advice would be, watch your bank account and be prepared to — if you get tagged with one of these issues — it’s going to take some time,” Ned Johnson said. “And you just have to be patient and persistent if you expect to get anywhere.”
ABC News reached out to the Social Security Administration for comment on the Johnsons’ situation, but the agency said privacy laws precluded it from discussing specific cases.
The agency pointed to a March 16 press release stating that 3 million deaths are reported to the agency every year and that less than one-third of 1% are erroneously reported.
