Category: National

(WASHINGTON) — Fourteen states have filed a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, challenging Musk’s role as head of the new Department of Government Efficiency and accusing him of being a “designated agent of chaos” whose “sweeping authority” is in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“Musk’s seemingly limitless and unchecked power to strip the government of its workforce and eliminate entire departments with the stroke of a pen, or a click of a mouse, would have been shocking to those who won this country’s independence,” reads the complaint, which was filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Led by the state of New Mexico, the lawsuit argues — in often dramatic terms — that the Appointments Clause of the Constitution calls for someone with such significant and “expansive authority” as Musk to be formally nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

“There is no greater threat to democracy than the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single, unelected individual,” says the lawsuit, filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez and officials from Arizona, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota, California, Nevada, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. “Although our constitutional system was designed to prevent the abuses of an 18th century monarch, the instruments of unchecked power are no less dangerous in the hands of a 21st century tech baron.” Two of the 14 states are led by Republican governors.

Separately, 26 current and former USAID employees and contractors brought suit against Musk Thursday in a lawsuit that makes the same constitutional claim. That suit, filed in federal court in Maryland, asks a judge to block Musk and any DOGE subordinates from continuing their budget-slashing work unless Musk is nominated by Trump for an official position and confirmed by the Senate.

“The scope and reach of his executive authority appear unprecedented in U.S. history,” that lawsuit says. “His power includes, at least, the authority to cease the payment of congressionally approved funds, access sensitive and confidential data across government agencies, cut off systems access to federal employees and contractors at will, and take over and dismantle entire independent federal agencies.”

The suit filed by the 14 states says the Constitution blocks the president from overriding “existing laws concerning the structure of the Executive Branch and federal spending.” As a result, the suit says, the commander-in-chief from is forbidden from creating — or even “extinguishing” — federal agencies, and from “slashing federal programs or offering lengthy severance packages as a means of radically winnowing the federal workforce,” in a nod to the Trump administration’s “deferred retirement” offer to government employees.

DOGE, led by Musk as the centerpiece of Trump’s campaign promise to trim the federal government, has found itself in the crosshairs of multiple federal lawsuits, which allege that it has improperly accessed sensitive records and is unlawfully gutting government agencies. Federal judges have temporarily blocked DOGE from accessing sensitive data at the Treasury Department, while the Department of Education recently reached an agreement to limit DOGE’s access to student loan records.

A lawsuit challenging the dismantling of USAID also resulted in a temporary order that blocks the agency from placing more than 2,000 employees on leave.

“[T]he President does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally dismantle the government. Nor could he delegate such expansive authority to an unelected, unconfirmed individual,” Thursday’s lawsuit says.

The Appointments Clause of the Constitution has generally been interpreted to require that anyone deemed a “principal officer” of the U.S. government must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The White House has called Musk a “special government employee” as head of DOGE.

But in their lawsuit Thursday, the states insisted that Musk has such “significant authority” and such “unprecedented and seemingly limitless access across the federal government,” while reporting “solely to President Trump,” that he is actually serving as a “principal officer.”

“Musk is far more than an adviser to the White House,” the lawsuit says. “He executes the President’s agenda by exercising virtually unchecked power across the entire Executive branch, making decisions about expenditures, contracts, government property, regulations, and the very existence of federal agencies.”

The lawsuit claims that Musk’s DOGE “has inserted itself into at least 17 federal agencies,” and that Musk has “authority to direct and veto the staffing decisions of” multiple federal agencies.

“The specifics of Musk’s conduct within various agencies confirm that he is wielding the power of a principal officer, a principal officer that has never previously existed,” the lawsuit says.

“As a result, all of Musk’s actions are [beyond his authority] and contrary to law,” says the suit.

The 14 states are asking a federal judge to at least temporarily limit Musk’s ability to cut or otherwise overhaul federal agencies, and they want the judge to declare “that Musk’s officer-level governmental actions to date, including those of his subordinates and designees” are unlawful.

Both Musk and the Trump administration have insisted that Musk and DOGE are simply rooting out vast government waste and potentially even criminal corruption within federal agencies.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has repeatedly said Musk is “complying with all applicable federal laws.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order calling on his administration to determine “the equivalent of a reciprocal tariff with respect to each foreign trading partner.”

“In other words, we’re going to customize the reciprocal tariff based on individual trading nations, and that will depend on their profile,” a senior administration official said on a call with reporters previewing the action.

This means the administration plans to impose tariffs on other countries that match the duties they impose on American products. The senior official says this allows the U.S. to “customize” the tariff to each trading partner based on their actions.

Trump previously announced tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada. While the 10% tariffs on China have been imposed, Trump paused the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Trump has also announced 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum that are expected to take effect next month.

Many economists warn tariffs will likely raise the prices of goods for consumers, worsening inflation that already rose faster than expected in January.

As for reciprocal tariffs, the administration official outlined five types of actions it will take into account in determining the reciprocal tariffs for trading partners.

They include tariffs imposed on U.S. products; unfair, discriminatory or extraterritorial taxes imposed by trading partners, including a Value Added Tax; cost to United States businesses, workers and consumers, including subsidies and burdens and regulatory requirements; exchange rates; as well as any other practice that USTR determines is an unfair limitation.

Key players in this action will include the commerce secretary and United States Trade Representative, in consultation with the treasury secretary and Homeland Security secretary. Trump has nominated Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick to lead the Commerce Department and attorney Jamieson Greer to be the U.S. Trade Representative.

Officials stressed the benefit of addressing this on a case-by-case basis, saying it “it opens the door for each country to basically correct the unfair trade practices that they’re engaging in.” But they did not rule out also pursuing a flat, global tariff either given the “national emergence we have with respect to the trade deficit.”

Asked for a timeline for when these tariffs might be implemented, the administration official seemed to suggest it would happen on a rolling basis, starting first with countries that have the highest deficits with the US.

“I think this will be done in what I have called in the past, in Trump time, which is to say, very rapidly, should be a matter of weeks, in a few months, but not much longer than that. We move quickly here,” the official said.

The reciprocal tariffs could hit developing countries the hardest — including India, Brazil and Southeast Asian countries.

There are many outstanding questions about the implementation of such tariffs.

One question is how Trump may continue to use these tariffs as a starting point for negotiations with world leaders. Officials said they hoped that the move would spark discussions between nations, saying the president would be willing to bring down tariffs if other countries do as well.

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(NEW YORK) — A 25-year-old woman gave birth to a baby girl on a NYC subway train Wednesday morning, according to Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials.

At approximately 11:32 a.m., passengers on a southbound W train alerted the conductor that a woman was giving birth inside one of the cars, according to the MTA.

“As we’re entering 34th Street, you hear her asking, ‘Help, help, help,'” passenger Bryanna Brown, who captured the moment on video, told New York ABC station WABC. “You [then] hear a baby start crying.”

The train stopped at the 34th Street-Herald Square station, under the flagship Macy’s department store. Several commuters assisted the woman in the delivery, with one even cutting the umbilical cord with a pocket knife, according to Brown.

“From our knowledge, she wasn’t a doctor or anything, she was someone who had full knowledge of what to do in this situation,” Brown told ABC News. “Thank God for her.”

The video captured by Brown shows the woman lying on the floor after giving birth, with another passenger hoisting up the newborn and wrapping her in a red cloth.

The conductor “held the train in the station and responded to that car,” accompanied by a NYC Transit Train service supervisor and NYPD officers, the MTA said. Emergency medical services were quickly on the scene and transported the mother and baby to Bellevue Hospital, where the two are both in good condition, according to officials.

There are no details yet on the baby’s name, but Brown described the situation as a “miracle” on 34th Street, paying homage to the iconic 1947 film.

MTA New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said in a statement that this incident is an “example of New Yorkers coming together to assist each other” that reflects “the best of the subway community and this city.”

“We are thrilled that both mother and Baby W are doing well, and look forward to welcoming both of them back aboard for a lifetime of reliable — and hopefully less dramatic — rides,” Crichlow said.

Giving birth in the NYC subway system does happen from time to time. In 2017, an MTA worker helped a mother give birth on a subway platform, while in 2012, a baby boy was born on a J train in downtown Manhattan.

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(NEW YORK) — Blood samples showed evidence of past bird flu infections in veterinarians despite the doctors never reporting symptoms or knowing they had been exposed, a new federal report published Thursday afternoon shows.

The findings suggest there could be people and animals with bird flu infections in other states that have not yet been identified, the authors said.

Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collected blood samples in September 2024 from 150 veterinary practitioners who work with dairy cattle.

The practitioners were tested for bird flu antibodies that would indicate past infection and asked about their cattle exposure in the past three months. Additionally, their exposures since January 2024 were assessed.

At the time the samples were collected, bird flu infection in dairy cattle had been detected in 14 U.S. states, with four human cases in people with dairy cattle exposure in three states.

As of Thursday, 68 human cases have been detected in 11 states with exposures coming from dairy cattle, poultry farms, culling operations and other animals, according to CDC data. Most human cases have been mild and those patients recovered after receiving antiviral medication.

Three of the survey participants had antibodies in their blood indicating previous bird flu infection. None of them reported respiratory or influenza-like symptoms or received testing for influenza since January 2024.

All three practitioners worked with multiple animals, including dairy cattle. Two also worked with non-dairy cattle with one providing care to poultry and one working at livestock markets.

None worked with dairy cattle that had known or suspected cases of bird flu although one of the practitioners worked with poultry that had tested positive.

The practitioners all reported wearing gloves or a clothing cover while caring for cattle but did not report wearing respiratory or eye protection.

Additionally, one of the practitioners only practiced in two states — Georgia and South Carolina – -with no known bird flu infection in cattle and no reported human cases.

“These findings suggest that there might be [bird flu]–infected dairy cattle in states where infection in dairy cattle has not yet been identified, highlighting the importance of rapid identification of infected dairy cattle through herd and bulk milk testing as recently announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture,” the authors wrote.

“Detection of [bird flu] antibodies in persons without reported symptoms suggests that surveillance of symptomatic exposed workers might underestimate human infection,” they added.

The authors highlighted the importance of getting the word out about recent recommendations from the CDC to offer post-exposure prophylaxis medication or treatment and testing to asymptomatic workers.

The report comes amid a second type of bird flu found in dairy cows for the first time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last week.

This strain of bird flu, known as D1.1, has only ever previously been detected in wild birds and poultry, indicating that it has only recently spread to cows.

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(PHILADELPHIA) — Philadelphia Eagles fans will flock to downtown Philadelphia on Friday to celebrate the team’s massive 40-22 win over the Kansas City Chiefs in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

The city expects 1 million people to attend the parade and ceremony — including kids. Philadelphia city offices and Philadelphia public schools are closed for the citywide celebration.

“We look forward to joyfully celebrating the Eagles’ victory as a community, and we hope that you do so safely and responsibly with friends and family,” the school district said in a statement.

The Eagles players’ parade begins at 11 a.m. More than 15 Jumbotron screens will be along the parade route to broadcast the celebration live.

The parade will be followed by a ceremony at 2 p.m. on the “Rocky” Steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

But if you’re heading to Philadelphia on Friday, make sure to layer up with your Eagles gear.

When the parade begins, gusty winds could reach 20 to 25 mph. The wind chill — what temperature it feels like — will be only 22 degrees.

By 2 p.m., the wind chill is only expected to rise to 27 degrees — much colder than normal for mid-February.

This is the Eagles’ second Super Bowl championship; the team’s first win was in 2018.

ABC News’ Max Golembo contributed to this report.

 

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(NEW YORK) — A winter storm has left tornado damage along the Gulf Coast and piles of snow in the Plains and the Midwest — and residents are now preparing for a new storm moving in this weekend.

This latest storm has dropped over 11 inches of snow in Iowa, 10 inches in Illinois and 7.5 inches in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

On the southern end of the storm, at least two tornadoes were reported in Alabama and Mississippi on Wednesday as winds gusted near 60 mph.

Next, the atmospheric river that’s currently pounding California with rain will move across the country on Friday and this weekend.

The storm will bring heavy snow on Friday to the Rocky Mountains, where winter storm warnings and watches have been issued.

By Saturday, this storm will bring another round of severe weather to the Gulf Coast, with more damaging winds and tornadoes possible.

The storm will also bring more snow, ice and rain to the Midwest and the Northeast on Saturday and Sunday.

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(NEW YORK) — The human remains found in a suitcase floating in the East River last week have been identified as Edwin Echevarria, a 65-year-old Manhattan man, who was allegedly murdered by 23-year-old Christian Miller, who lived at the same address on Columbia Street, police said.

The grisly discovery was made on Feb. 5 at approximately 5:30 p.m. when the NYPD Harbor Unit discovered the remains near Governor’s Island, police said.

The suitcase contained a man’s torso, which was taken to the medical examiner’s office for investigation, police said.

The torso was zipped into a sleeping bag that was stuffed into the suitcase, according to police sources.

The suitcase also contained what appears to be a reusable grocery store-style bag, the sources said.

Police did not immediately say how long the remains were there or how they ended up in the suitcase but have now confirmed that Miller has been arrested and charged with murder.

The two were roommates, according to police, and no other body parts have been recovered, sources said.

No further details regarding the case have been provided and the investigation into the death is currently ongoing.

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(CINCINNATI) — Three men now face state charges in connection with last year’s burglary at the Ohio home of Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

The suspects were indicted on charges of first-degree felony engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and second-degree felony burglary, Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich said.

The prosecutor’s office released photos of the stolen items — including jewelry, cash and commemorative memorabilia — including some showing the suspects posing with the NFL star’s jewelry, Pillich said.

The defendants — Jordan Francisco Quiroga Sanchez, Bastian Alejandro Orellana Morales and Sergio Andres Ortega Cabello — already faced federal charges in connection with the burglary at Burrow’s home: interstate transportation of stolen property and falsification of records.

The three men are believed to be citizens of Chile who arrived in the United States legally under a visa-free program, according to Pillich.

“They appear to be involved in multiple thefts and burglaries in many jurisdictions, and they are far from the only individuals who do this sort of work,” she said during a press briefing Wednesday.

Pillich suggested that other members of the alleged crime ring may still be at large.

“I think it’s very possible they have connections,” she warned. “People should be concerned.”

A fourth man seen in a photo posing with the burglary suspects and the stolen items was not present at Burrow’s home at the time of the burglary and was not charged in the indictment, Pillich said.

Burrow was playing in a Monday Night Football game in Dallas when his Anderson Township home was burglarized on Dec. 9, 2024.

Burrow had security personnel at the home, but the men avoided them by entering through the woods, according to federal prosecutors.

Approximately $300,000 worth of designer luggage, glasses, wristwatches and jewelry were stolen from the residence, according to federal prosecutors.

Authorities had tracked a cellphone number and license plate believed to be tied to the burglary to a hotel in Fairborn, Ohio. They surveilled the rented vehicle linked to the license plate before pulling it over for a traffic violation on Jan. 10 in Clark County, Ohio, according to federal prosecutors.

An old LSU shirt and Bengals hat believed to have been stolen from Burrow’s home were also found in the vehicle, federal prosecutors said.

An analysis of one of the suspect’s phone “revealed multiple photographs that had been taken of items believed to be stolen” from Burrow’s residence, according to the federal complaint. Many of these photographs were deleted during the traffic stop, according to the federal complaint.

It is unclear if the suspects have attorneys at this time.

Pillich said there is a. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer on the suspects, “so even if they post bail they’re not going anywhere.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Boston said he denied the request to block the buyout offer because the federal unions who brought the case lacked standing to sue and because the District Court lacks jurisdiction to review the case.

Three federal employee unions — with the support of 20 Democratic attorneys general — have argued in a lawsuit that the Office of Personnel Management’s deferred resignation offer is an “unlawful ultimatum” to force the resignation of government workers under the “threat of mass termination.”

According to U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr., the federal unions who challenged the policy are not directly impacted by the buyout offer; rather they are subject to collateral impacts such as a reduction in union membership and needing to answer their members’ questions about the policy.

“The unions do not have the required direct stake in the Fork Directive but are challenging a policy that affects others, specifically executive branch employees. This is not sufficient,” the judge wrote.

The judge also determined that the district court lacks jurisdiction to review the dispute because the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute sets out an administrative review process before courts can take over.

“According to this complex scheme, disputes must first be administratively exhausted before the employing agency and the relevant administrative review board and any further challenges are properly heard in a court of appeals,” the order said.

O’Toole Jr. did not include any interpretation about how the buyout deadline is impacted in his order.

“This Boston Buyout Ruling is the first of many legal wins for the President. The Court dissolved the injunction due to a lack of standing. This goes to show that lawfare will not ultimately prevail over the will of 77 million Americans who supported President Trump and his priorities,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday.

During an hour-long hearing Monday, a lawyer for the Department of Justice framed the deferred resignation offer as a “humane off-ramp” for federal employees before President Donald Trump enacts sweeping changes to “rebalance and reorganize the federal workforce.”

“President Trump campaigned on a promise to reform the federal workforce,” DOJ attorney Eric Hamilton said, outlining Trump’s plan to reduce the size of the federal government and his return-to-office executive order. “We understand these announcements may have come as a disappointment for some in the federal workforce.”

Hamilton argued that any further delay of the buyout would cause irreparable harm because the Trump administration plans to enact the next steps of reshaping the federal government as soon as the buyout window closes.

Elena Goldstein, a lawyer representing the unions that brought the challenge, hammered the Trump administration for attempting to enforce an “unprecedented program” with a “slapdash exploding deadline”

“For the last two weeks, confusion has rained for millions of career civil servants,” Goldstein said. “This is a program of unprecedented magnitude that raises questions about the rationality of OPM’s decision-making.”

The buyout offer, part of Trump’s effort to trim the size of government through billionaire Elon Musk’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, was sent out two weeks ago in an email with the subject line “Fork in the Road” — the same language Musk used when he slashed jobs at Twitter after taking over that company in 2022.

The offer from the Office of Personnel Management offered full pay and benefits until September for any federal employee who accepted a deferred resignation by Feb. 6, with no obligation to work after they accepted the agreement.

While Goldstein acknowledged that Trump has the right to downsize the federal government, she emphasized that OPM has not gone through any of the steps necessary to carry out such a sweeping move — including analyzing the cost and benefits of their approach, evaluating its impact on the government’s function, and accessing potential conflicts of interest for Musk. She added that the exact terms of the buyout are “shifting” for thousands of employees who have gotten inconsistent guidance from their agency.

“OPM appears to be making this up as they are going along,” she said. “When the government wants to decide, there are ways to do this correctly … none of that happened here in the two weeks since they enacted this program.”

Arguing for the government, Hamilton criticized the plaintiffs’ argument as “legally incoherent and at odds with their theory of the case,” because a further delay of the buyout would “insert more uncertainty” into the lives of federal employees.

While the plaintiffs raised concerns that the buyout program violates federal law by using money that Congress never appropriated, Hamilton attempted to push back on the claim that the buyout changes the government’s financial obligations.

“Nothing about the voluntary resignation changes anything about the federal government’s financial obligations. It just changes what employees are expected to do and not do during their period of employment,” Hamilton said.

Goldstein argued that a preliminary injunction is necessary to prevent what she said was an unlawful offer to reshape the federal government while the Trump administration continues to “put additional pressure on employees.”

“This is an unprecedented action taken on an unprecedented timeline,” she said.

Just hours ahead of Thursday’s original deadline for employees to accept the offer, Judge O’Toole — who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton — temporarily blocked the offer until Monday so he could consider issuing a temporary restraining offer pausing the order.

“I enjoined the defendants from taking any action to implement the so-called ‘Fork Directive’ pending the completion of briefing and oral argument on the issues,” Judge O’Toole said in his ruling. “I believe that’s as far as I want to go today.”

The Trump administration, in response, “extended” the deadline for the offer, which more than 65,000 federal employees have already taken.

The unions who brought the lawsuit argued that Trump exceeded his authority as president with the offer, which they described as a “slapdash resignation program.”

According to the plaintiffs, Trump’s offer violates federal law, lacks congressionally appropriated funding, and does not offer employees reassurance that the president would follow through with the offer. Their claim in part relies on a federal law from the 1940s called the Administrative Procedure Act that governs how federal agencies create and enforce rules.

“In the tech universe, ‘move fast and break things’ is a fine motto in part because they’re not playing with the public’s money, and it’s expected that most initiatives are going to fail,” Loyola Marymount law professor Justin Leavitt told ABC News. “Congress knows that, so in 1946 they basically said, ‘When agencies do stuff … they have to be careful about it. They’ve got to consider all aspects of the problem.”

The plaintiffs also argued that the buyout is unlawful because it relies on funding that Congress has yet to appropriate, violating the Antideficiency Act.

“Defendants’ ultimatum divides federal workers into two groups: (1) those who submit their resignations to OPM for a promised period of pay without the requirement to work, and (2) those who have not and are therefore subject to threat of mass termination,” the lawsuit said.

Lawyers for the federal government have pushed back on those claims, arguing that Trump has the legal authority to provide the buyout for employees within the federal branch, and that any further delay would do more harm than good.

“Extending the deadline for the acceptance of deferred resignation on its very last day will markedly disrupt the expectations of the federal workforce, inject tremendous uncertainty into a program that scores of federal employees have already availed themselves of, and hinder the Administration’s efforts to reform the federal workforce,” DOJ attorney Joshua E. Gardner wrote in a filing last week.

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(NEW YORK) — A mother in Alabama has been arrested and charged with the alleged murder of her 4-month-old son after an autopsy found that he had been severely injured, police said.

On Jan. 25, the Chambers County emergency dispatch center received a 911 call at approximately 1:55 PM in reference to a 4-month-old infant having a seizure at a residence in the Old Jackson Heights Housing Project in Lanett, Alabama, according to a statement from the Lanett Police Department.

“The East Alabama Fire Department was contacted for mutual aid and transported the black male infant to East Alabama Medical Center (EAMC),” authorities said. “The child’s condition was assessed by the medical staff at EAMC and then flown to the Children’s of Alabama Hospital in Birmingham. Alabama.”

The 4-month-old boy, however, died in the hospital just four days later and was taken to the Alabama Department of Forensic Science Medical Lab in Montgomery, Alabama to undergo an autopsy about what caused his death after police suspected fould play and said “the circumstances of the child’s death are under investigation by the Lanett Police Department.”

On Wednesday, the Lanett Police Department announced that the boy’s mother — 26-year-old Jamesia Brichae Pruit of Valley, Alabama — was arrested and charged with the alleged murder of the infant.

Police did not disclose the extent of the injuries the boy suffered but did confirm that this case remains under investigation and has asked for anyone with information regarding this case to contact the Lanett Police Department.

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