Biden raises federal funding for initial Los Angeles fire disaster response to 100%
ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday announced the federal government would cover 100% of costs for the initial disaster response to the Los Angeles wildfires.
Meeting with federal officials at the White House, Biden said the funds would go toward debris removal, temporary shelters, salaries for first responders and more for 180 days.
“We are with you,” Biden said. “We are not going anywhere. To the firefighters and first responders, you are heroes.”
As Biden spoke, five fires were spreading around the Los Angeles area. Roughly 28,000 acres had been scorched and hundreds of thousands of people evacuated. At least five people died in the fires, and many more injured.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who is from California and whose neighborhood was forced to evacuate earlier this week, was also at the meeting.
“What we have seen in California and in particular in Southern California is apocalyptic in terms of the nature of it,” Harris said.
A major disaster declaration was approved by Biden, allowing victims of the fire to “immediately access funds and resources to jumpstart their recovery,” according to the White House. Biden also directed the Pentagon to provide any firefighting resources the area needs, including helicopters to help suppress the flames.
Biden cancelled his trip to Italy, where he was planning to meet with Pope Francis and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in his final foreign trip of his presidency, to focus on the federal response to the tragedy.
The president was in California on Wednesday and received a briefing from officials alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom, a target of attacks from President-elect Donald Trump over his handling of the fires.
Trump also claimed on Thursday morning that FEMA has “no money” under the Biden administration, which is false. Congress passed a bill in December that provided an additional $100 billion for disaster aid, including $29 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund. The infusion was less than the $40 billion Biden had requested for the agency.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was in Los Angeles on Thursday to meet with local officials and survey the damage.
FEMA also released a guide to assistance for those impacted by the fires to “jumpstart” the recovery process. The agency said individuals in designated areas may be able to receive money for essential items, including food, water, medication and other supplies.
(NEW YORK) — America’s fourth and eighth grade students’ sliding reading scores worsened in 2024, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which has been dubbed the nation’s report card.
“The nation’s report card is out and the news is not good,” National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy G. Carr said on a call with reporters on Tuesday.
“Students are not where they need to be or where we want them to be,” she said. “Our students, for the most part, continue to perform below the pre-pandemic levels, and our children’s reading continues to slide in both grades and subjects.”
“And, most notably, our nation’s struggling readers continue to decline the most,” Carr added.
The report card, released every two years by the Department of Education, is the largest assessment of students’ performance in public and private schools across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. It paints a grim picture of scores in critical subjects, underscoring urgent challenges for schools, policymakers and families seeking to improve performance.
Compared to 2022, this year’s average reading scores dropped by 2 points for both fourth and eighth grade assessments, according to the NCES data conducted between January and March 2024. That adds to the 3-point decrease for both grades in 2022. Forty percent of fourth graders read below NAEP basic levels, and about a third of eighth graders read below the basic level.
“The continued declines in reading scores are particularly troubling,” National Assessment Governing Board member Patrick Kelly said, adding: “Reading is foundational to all subjects, and failure to read well keeps students from accessing information and building knowledge across content areas.”
Despite the decline in reading, there was some recovery in math in 2024, but the increase has not returned students to pre-pandemic levels.
Mathematics scores climbed by 2 points for fourth graders and did not change for eighth graders from the 2022 findings. As ABC News reported two years ago, the 2022 declines in math were the largest drops in NAEP’s history.
But Peggy Carr stressed this is not solely a pandemic story. Reading scores have been declining since 2017. Among the lowest-level achievers, scores are now at the worst point since 1992.
The report card does not provide causes for the declines in scores. On the call with reporters, officials said data shows there has been a decline in students who say they’re reading “for enjoyment,” and teachers are not focusing as much on “essay responses” to questions.
The pandemic exacerbated the problems facing education in reading, math and history, according to NAEP’s 2022 assessments. Fourth grade and eighth grade students saw their largest declines ever in math, and eighth grade students received the lowest history scores since 1994, when the history assessment was first administered.
NCES data also found that while chronic absenteeism has decreased since the last assessment, student attendance is contributing to the dismal numbers. NCES defines chronic absenteeism as missing at least 10% of the school year.
“The data are clear: Students who don’t come to school are not improving,” Carr emphasized on the call.
The call also outlined a bleak outlook for the country’s lowest-performing students.
“There’s a widening achievement gap in this country and it has worsened since the pandemic, especially for grade eight,” Carr said.
It’s important to note NAEP is a challenging assessment, according to Carr. Students’ results are scored as basic, proficient or advanced. Below basic scores do not mean a child can’t read; however, Carr noted it is still worrying that scores continue to fall.
This comes as the K-12 education debate turned political during the pandemic when schools shuttered for in-person learning and parents were exposed to their child’s curriculum. Conservatives have made it a culture wars issue and denounced public schools for indoctrinating kids with inappropriate gender and critical race theory.
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, the Chairman of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told ABC News that these results hurt vulnerable children the most, as the previous administration kept schools shuttered longer than the public health guidance.
The chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan, said the report exposes the nation’s failing education system.
“This is clearly a reflection of the education bureaucracy continuing to focus on woke policies rather than helping students learn and grow,” the Republican congressman wrote in a statement to ABC News.
NCES officials on the call also warned that if President Donald Trump delivers on his pledge to shutter the Department of Education, they’re unsure if it will impact future assessments.
“We don’t know what will happen to NCES or NAEP,” Carr said when asked by ABC News. “We are hopeful that people will see the value in these data and what we are doing for the country.”
(PUERTO RICO) — An island-wide blackout in Puerto Rico Tuesday left millions of residents without power ahead of New Year’s Eve celebrations.
As of Tuesday afternoon, less than 10% of customers on the island had their power restored, according to power company LUMA.
LUMA said the exact cause of the power outage, which began at 5:30 a.m. local time, remains under investigation.
“As part of our coordinated response, our LUMA team is in close communication and collaboration with island officials, including the Governor, Governor-elect, and our Mayors to keep them updated on the status of restoration,” the power company said.
Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Pierluisi earlier said work was underway to restore the service at energy plants in San Juan and Palo Seco.
The U.S. territory has continued to face a slow rebuild of its infrastructure since Hurricane Maria caused widespread damage to the island in 2017.
In 2020, 1 million customers were without power following back-to-back earthquakes. An explosion and subsequent fire at a substation left 900,000 customers on the island without power in June 2021.
Another massive fire at a major power plant caused a massive outage for about 1.3 million customers in April 2022, followed by Hurricane Fiona in September of that year.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Staff with the U.S. Agency for International Development were told overnight that the agency’s Washington headquarters will be closed Monday, according to an email obtained by ABC News from multiple sources.
“Agency personnel normally assigned to work at USAID headquarters will work remote tomorrow, with the exception of personnel with essential on-site and building maintenance functions individually contacted by senior leadership,” the email said. “Further guidance will be forthcoming.”
The email arrived as Elon Musk, the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, said he was “in the process” of “shutting down” the agency. Musk claimed he had briefed President Donald Trump on his efforts, which he said Trump supports.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was made acting administrator of USAID, multiple sources told ABC News Monday, in what appears to be the latest step in the Trump administration’s effort to move USAID under the State Department. Rubio was in El Salvador on Monday on a trip to Latin America, his first international trip since being sworn in.
The developments are expected to add to the ongoing turmoil inside USAID, where sources told ABC News that DOGE staffers have moved to take over offices, escalating tensions as more senior staff members are locked out of internal systems, additional employees are placed on administrative leave and the agency’s newly appointed chief of staff resigned.
The Musk-led agency is working to assert control over the USAID, which oversees foreign aid, disaster relief and international development programs.
On Friday night, a dramatic scene played out when a group of individuals who identified themselves as State Department employees and DOGE representatives arrived at the USAID offices in the Ronald Reagan Building and demanded immediate access to every office, according to sources familiar with the incident. It is unclear what legal authority, if any, DOGE representatives have to make such demands.
“It looked like people who dressed up for their first job interview,” a source said.
After initially being denied entry, the group told security guards that if they were not granted entry, they would call the U.S. Marshals Service, sources said. The guards ultimately complied, the source said.
Two top security officials at USAID were placed on administrative leave after they refused to comply on Saturday amid the ongoing turmoil at the agency, sources told ABC News.
Sources told ABC News that more USAID employees were also placed on administration leave, and many were locked out of internal systems amid clashes with DOGE representatives working to take over the agency.
Amid the upheaval, USAID Chief of Staff Matt Hopson resigned just days after Trump appointed him to the position, sources said. It was not immediately clear if Hopson’s resignation was due to changes inside the agency.
However, Musk has been joining USAID staff calls during the week amid the shakeup at the agency, according to a source familiar with the matter. And as reports emerged over clashes inside USAID, Musk unloaded a barrage of attacks against the agency across his social media platform, X.
“USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die,” Musk wrote in one post.
When shown Musk’s posts on X targeting USAID, a senior official for the agency told ABC News, “The warp-speed of this mafia-like takeover has shaken USAID staff to the core.”
“We are not criminals. Where are Republican Senators like Senator Graham and Risch who have supported the good work of this agency in the past? Will they speak out?” the official asked. “Yes, USAID needs reform, like all agencies, but we’d expect this to come with a degree of thought and involvement from Congress.”
Inside the Ronald Reagan Building, posters and flags featuring USAID were taken down and stacked in hallways, sources who were in the building told ABC News. Some USAID employees who were placed on administrative leave had their ID badges and work computers seized, the sources said.
In response to reports on DOGE’s activity at USAID, DOGE spokesperson Katie Miller wrote on X, “No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances.” The USAID press office did not respond when asked for comment.
The group gained access to USAID’s internal systems on Friday, including the agency’s website and several critical databases, according to sources familiar with the matter. Among the systems was the Development Evaluation Clearinghouse, which houses reports on past and ongoing USAID programs, as well as the Development Information Solution (DIS) — a system used to track congressionally mandated and performance-related data for all USAID programs worldwide.
Sources also said that the group also seized control of a software system called Phoenix, a program for USAID’s financial management system used to track and manage the agency’s budgeting, accounting and financial transactions. The system was down over the weekend, sources said, which has sent shockwaves across contractors for USAID who are fearful they won’t be paid for their work. Major firms that manage global supply chains, including those for initiatives like antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and other essential medicines to combat HIV/AIDS, rely on Phoenix.
Sources told ABC News the Trump administration’s foreign aid cuts are being overseen by Peter Marocco, a campaign ally in the Office of Foreign Assistance who was reportedly caught on camera inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Sources also told ABC News that Trump ally Mark Kevin Lloyd has been placed as acting assistant administrator for the Bureau of Conflict Prevention and Stabilization (CPS) at USAID, which oversees a considerable budget. Lloyd, a Tea Party activist, was Trump’s Virginia field director in 2016 and later appointed USAID religious freedom adviser in 2020.
The chaos inside the agency has led those familiar with USAID to question whether the overhaul of the agency marks the end of U.S. international development efforts or a strategic consolidation of resources under the State Department. Some see the potential for the administration to leverage USAID’s existing infrastructure — its contracting officers, global footprint and established contract mechanisms — to rapidly redirect aid programs in a way that far exceeds the capacity of the State Department.
After the USAID website went dark on Saturday, the agency’s chief information officer sent an internal email stating that the website is “currently unavailable” and that they have no information on when it will be restored, according to an email obtained by ABC News.
“M/CIO is informing users that USAID.gov is currently unavailable. We will send a follow-up notice once there is more information. At this time there is no update on when the site will be available,” the email, which was sent Saturday evening, reads.
A source told ABC News that these notices would typically detail that the team is working to restore access, but that was missing from this notice.
Some staff are taking the “no update” on when the site will be brought back as “a decision made to turn out the (internet) lights.”
