Blog

(LOS ANGELES) — With mass layoffs taking place at the Department of Education, the superintendent for the nation’s second largest public school system says the closure of the department would bring “catastrophic harm” if there is any reduction to the federal funding that students in his district receive.

In a video statement, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the county receives hundreds of millions of dollars for low-income students and others.

“We receive an excess of $750 million earmarked for poor students, English language learners, students with disabilities, and connectivity investments so that students can be connected with their learning, breakfast and lunch programs,” Carvalho said.

The Department of Education initiated mass layoffs on Tuesday night, reducing its workforce by nearly 50%, sources told ABC News.

The “reduction in force” notices began to go out Tuesday at about 6 p.m. ET

Some 1,315 employees were affected by the RIFs, leaving 2,183 employed by the department, according to senior officials at the DOE.

“Any reduction at the federal level, specific to these investments will bring about catastrophic harm in Los Angeles and across the country,” Carvalho said.

A statement released Tuesday from the Department of Education said that the DOE will “continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.”

“This is primarily a streamlining effort for internal facing roles and not external facing roles,” a senior DOE official said of the layoffs.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Tesla vehicles, dealerships and charging stations have been vandalized, suffered arson attacks and faced protests since the company’s CEO Elon Musk began his work with the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, leading to mass layoffs of federal workers, authorities said.

The latest suspicious incident occurred overnight in Dedham, Massachusetts, where three Teslas were vandalized, according to the Dedham Police Department. Officials said “words had been spray-painted” on two Tesla Cyber-trucks, with all four tires of the trucks and a Tesla Model S being “reportedly damaged.”

Teslas were also damaged in Seattle on Sunday night, where crews had to extinguish a fire involving four electric vehicles, according to the Seattle Fire Department. Officials said other vehicles were moved away to prevent the spreading of the fire.

There were no buildings involved in the fire nor any injuries, according to the fire department.

The Seattle Police Department said the cause of the fire and whether or not foul play was a factor has not been determined. Other incidents in the U.S. were deliberately aimed at the company and it’s chief executive.

Six Teslas were also vandalized at a Tesla dealership in Lynnwood, Washington, on Saturday, with one black Tesla Cyber-truck graffitied with swastikas, according to the Lynnwood Police Department.

A Tesla charging station in South Carolina was targeted on Friday, where an unknown individual spray-painted an expletive directed at President Donald Trump along with “LONG LIVE UKRAINE” on the ground in red paint and threw homemade Molotov cocktails at the station, according to the North Charleston Police Department.

The suspect fled on foot before authorities arrived on the scene, police said.

Police “cut the power to the three charging stations that were burned by the homemade Molotov Cocktails,” officials said in a statement.

There have been no arrests made for this attack, police said.

Similarly, seven Tesla charging stations sustained heavy fire-related damage in Massachusetts on March 3, according to the Littleton Police Department. Officials determined the fires to be “deliberately” set, and the investigation is still ongoing to find the arsonist.

Shots were also fired at at Tesla dealership in Tigard, Oregon, where seven bullets damaged three cars and shattered windows on March 6, according to the Tigard Police Department.

Police said they are unaware of the motive of this specific incident, but were aware that “other Tesla dealerships have been targeted across Oregon and the nation for political reasons.”

On March 2, another Tesla dealership was spray-painted in Owings Mills, Maryland, where “NO MUSK” was written in red spray paint on the windows, followed by a symbol police originally thought was antisemitic.

“The graffiti was instead used against Elon Musk, and the graffiti was an ‘X’ inside of a circle, which we assume is for Twitter, which Musk owns,” Detective Anthony Shelton said in a statement obtained by Baltimore, Maryland, ABC affiliate WMAR.

Another incendiary event occurred in Colorado, where a woman was arrested on Feb. 27 after police caught her with explosives at a Tesla dealership, according to the Loveland Police Department. Lucy Grace Nelson, 40, was arrested after police launched an investigation following a series of vandalizations at the Tesla dealership, police said.

Nelson was charged with explosives or incendiary devices use during felony, criminal mischief and criminal attempt to commit a Class 3 felony, authorities said.

Protests against Tesla have also occurred at dealerships nationwide. Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs told ABC News the demonstrations and the company’s plummeting stocks — which have tumbled nearly 48% this year — can all “be tied to [Musk’s] time at DOGE.”

“It has been a distraction for the company and it’s been a problem for the brand,” Frerichs said.

Amid the crime sprees and protests, some Tesla owners have even placed stickers on their vehicles that read, “I bought this before Elon went crazy,” ABC News reported.

Trump said on Truth Social on Monday night that he is in support of Musk and is going to “buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk.”

Musk, the owner of X, has reposted some reactions that criticized the attacks and called the incident in Seattle “crazy.”

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene labeled the vandalisms as “domestic terrorism” and urged U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to “prioritize a thorough investigation into these matters” in a letter posted to X on Wednesday.

“These attacks, which seem to involve coordinated acts of vandalism, arson and other acts of violence, seriously threaten public safety,” Greene said in a letter posted to X.

A spokesperson for Tesla did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEWTON COUNTY, Ind.) — A 41-year-old mother of three was found alive in her wrecked car in Indiana after being trapped for six days, authorities said.

A man was operating equipment for a drainage and excavation company on Tuesday when he spotted a car off a roadway, out of view from passing traffic, the Newton County Sheriff’s Office said.

He called his supervisor, Jeremy Vanderwall, who’s an assistant chief at a local volunteer fire department, and the two checked the car and found Brieonna Cassell inside, the sheriff’s office said.

“She was she was very conscious, very alert, very aware of how severe her injuries were,” Vanderwall told ABC News.

“She said, ‘I didn’t think anybody was gonna find me. I thought I was gonna die in this ditch,'” Vanderwall recalled.

Cassell was flown to a hospital in Chicago, which is about 75 miles north of Newton County.

Cassell had been trapped since Thursday night when she fell asleep at the wheel and veered off the road into a deep ditch under a bridge, according to her father, Delmar Caldwell.

She suffered serious injuries to her legs and wrist, and her phone was dead under the passenger seat, Caldwell told ABC News.

Cassell could hear cars going by and she screamed, but no one could see or hear her, Caldwell said.

“I’m sure that was demoralizing,” Vanderwall said.

“She was stuck in the car and could not get out. But she was able to reach the water from the car,” Caldwell said. “The only way she was able to survive was using her hoodie and dipping it into the water in a ditch and sucking the water, or bringing the the water into her mouth from the ditch.”

“To have the wherewithal to use her shirt to get water, knowing that she had to have water to survive … just survival skills, man,” Vanderwall added.

On Tuesday morning, “she had given up hope of being found,” Caldwell said. “And then, by the grace of God and the prayers and everything, she was found.”

“Everybody that helped to find her and the volunteers and everything … it was a wonderful miracle,” Caldwell said.

Cassell is now in “good spirits” and “eating a lot,” he said.

Newton County Sheriff Shannon Cothran called Cassell’s survival “an incredible testament to her will to live.”

The sheriff also commended Johnny Martinez, the passerby who found Cassell’s car.

Vanderwall said Martinez could spot the car because he was driving a tall tractor.

“I myself had traveled that road at least three to four times since she crashed and did not see her,” Vanderwall noted.

Caldwell said his daughter’s missing person report was well-known in the area, so Martinez knew who Cassell was when he found her.

“In my book, Mr. Martinez is a hero, and we can never thank him enough for his keen eye and quick action,” the sheriff said in a statement.

Vanderwall added, “If he hadn’t seen her and hadn’t pushed for me to go back and check on her, she could have laid there for who knows how much longer, and the outcome might not be the same.”
 

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.