Appeals court won’t rehear Trump’s challenge to E. Jean Carroll verdict
E. Jean Carroll arrives for her civil defamation trial against President Donald Trump at Manhattan Federal Court on January 25, 2024 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal appeals court in New York on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump’s request to rehear his challenges to the writer E. Jean Carroll’s successful defamation and sex assault claims.
Carroll successfully argued during a nine-day trial in 2023 that Trump sexually abused her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s and defamed her in 2022 with comments he made after he left office.
The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.
Trump, who has denied all wrongdoing, tried unsuccessfully to substitute the United States as a defendant and to raise a claim of presidential immunity. In its decision Wednesday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said both arguments were raised too late.
“The fact of the matter is that no other defendant would be permitted to move to substitute the United States in his place, fifteen months after trial and the entry of judgment against him,” Judge Denny Chin wrote. “The Court appropriately declined to convene en banc to revisit this issue.”
A separate jury in a subsequent trial awarded Carroll $83 million in damages.
A sign at the El Paso International Airport (ELP) on December 25, 2025 in El Paso, Texas. (Kirby Lee/Getty Images)
(EL PASO, Texas) — The Federal Aviation Administration issued temporary flight restrictions over El Paso, Texas, and Santa Teresa, New Mexico, prohibiting all flight operations there for the next 10 days for “special security reasons,” according to a notice.
The notice said no flights could operate beginning early Wednesday within a 10 nautical mile radius of El Paso Airport, including from the ground up to 17,999 feet. The restrictions will remain in effect until Feb. 21, the notice said. This excludes the Mexican airspace.
El Paso Airport authorities told ABC News in a statement, “The FAA, on short notice, issued a temporary flight restriction halting all flights to and from El Paso and our neighboring community, Santa Teresa, NM. The restriction prohibits all aircraft operations (including commercial, cargo and general aviation) and is effective from February 10 at 11:30 PM (MST) to February 20 at 11:30PM (MST). Airport staff has reached out to the FAA, and we are pending additional guidance.”
The airport says airlines have been advised of the restrictions, and travelers are encouraged to check with their airlines on the latest flight information.
The airspace has been defined as “national defense airspace,” according to the FAA. Pilots who violate these restrictions could be intercepted or detained for questioning by law enforcement.
Failure to comply with these restrictions could result in the FAA imposing a civil penalty or revoking the pilot’s license. The federal government can also pursue criminal charges or even use “deadly force” against an aircraft if it poses an imminent security threat, according to the notice.
ABC News has reached out to the FAA for additional information behind these restrictions as well as to airlines about disruptions to their operations.
El Paso is home to one of the largest cargo facilities near the border, so these restrictions could have a significant impact on shipments as well. ABC News has also contacted air cargo carriers for any information.
The U.S. military says it hit three more vessels suspected of carrying drugs in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, killing 11 men. (U.S. Southern Command/X)
(NEW YORK) — The United States military says it hit three more vessels suspected of carrying drugs in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, killing 11 men.
U.S. Southern Command says in an online post that the vessels were traveling along drug-trafficking routes and “engaged in narco-trafficking.” A video accompanying the strike shows the three separate strikes.
Officials said four men were killed in the strike on the first vessel in the Eastern Pacific, four on the second vessel in the Eastern Pacific and three on the third vessel in the Caribbean.
No U.S. military forces were harmed, according to SOUTHCOM.
According to the government’s count, the U.S. has killed a total of 144 people in the strikes, which are now being led by U.S. Southern Command Gen. Francis Donovan.
A portrait stands at a memorial for Alex Pretti on January 25, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA medical center, died on January 24 after being shot multiple times during an altercation with U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Eat Street district of Minneapolis. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
(MINNEAPOLIS) — A doctor who mentored and worked with Alex Pretti described him as “a good citizen” whose “life was just starting.”
Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse for the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, was shot and killed by Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis on Saturday. Multiple videos of the confrontation showed federal agents spraying Pretti with a substance and pinning him to the ground before the shooting.
Dr. Aasma Shaukat, who first hired Pretti as a research assistant at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System over 10 years ago, called the loss “devastating.”
Shaukat told ABC News she hired Pretti, despite his lack of experience, because he was “eager to learn.”
“He didn’t have any experience, but he was very, very eager to get the position and learn on the job and then eventually launch a career in health care,” Shaukat said. “He worked hard, he was willing to learn on the job. Really had a good work ethic.”
While working as a research assistant, Pretti delivered pizza to make ends meet and often joked that his car was too old to qualify for Uber, Shaukat said.
Shaukat said she wrote Pretti’s recommendation for nursing school.
He later returned to the VA to work as a nurse in the ICU where he was “really good” at speaking with patients, Shaukat said.
“He was just somebody you could talk to because he would get it,” she said.
Tensions are continuing to escalate in Minneapolis in the wake of Pretti’s shooting.
The Department of Homeland Security alleged that Pretti approached Border Patrol agents with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun and “violently resisted” when agents tried to disarm him. However, a witness said in a federal court filing that after an agent shoved a woman to the ground, Pretti appeared to try to help the woman up, and then agents threw Pretti to the ground and shot him. Local officials are accusing federal officials of rushing to “spin” the story.
Shaukat called the shooting “senseless,” adding, “I do not see him as being a troublemaker, an instigator looking for trouble, or seeking to incite violence … I truly think he was doing it out of his duty of citizenship and his civic sense.”
Shaukat said she last spoke to Pretti during the summer.
“He said things were looking good,” she said. “He finally had enough money to do repairs on his house. And I feel like his life was just starting.”
