(WASHINGTON) — A group of nonprofits suing the Trump administration over its 90-day foreign aid freeze is accusing government officials of “accelerating their terminations of contracts and suspensions of grants of USAID and State Department partners,” according to court documents filed Wednesday.
The aid groups, who filed their suit Tuesday, said many of them “received new purported termination notices, including yesterday and this morning” and suggested that government officials “may be doing so specifically in response to this lawsuit.”
The groups asked a federal judge to either issue a temporary restraining order to prevent further terminations, or schedule an emergency hearing on Wednesday to address the matter.
Defendants in the suit include President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Acting USAID Administrator Peter Marocco, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, the State Department, USAID, and OMB.
The plaintiffs claim that Trump’s aid freeze amounts to an “unlawful and unconstitutional exercise of executive power that has created chaos” around the globe, according to the suit.
The lawsuit alleges that the foreign aid freeze is unlawful, exceeds Trump’s authority as president, and is causing havoc.
“One cannot overstate the impact of that unlawful course of conduct: on businesses large and small forced to shut down their programs and let employees go; on hungry children across the globe who will go without; on populations around the world facing deadly disease; and on our constitutional order,” the lawsuit says.
(NEW YORK) — As the Mid-Atlantic digs out from a significant snowstorm, a new winter storm is underway in the Plains that will move through the Midwest before reaching the East Coast.
On Wednesday morning, the second storm is hitting Kansas City, Missouri, and Des Moines, Iowa.
The storm will reach Chicago later in the morning, dropping 4 to 6 inches of snow.
An ice storm warning has been issued for Toledo, Ohio, where ice accumulation could cause power outages.
The storm will move into the Northeast on Wednesday evening, bringing mostly rain to the Interstate 95 corridor and an icy mix to New England and upstate New York.
On the southern end of the storm, heavy rain could bring flash flooding from Louisiana to North Carolina.
Strong tornadoes are possible in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
This comes after another snowstorm walloped the Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday.
Virginia recorded more than 14 inches of snow and West Virginia recorded 13 inches. Trees are toppling in Virginia due to the coating of snow and ice and over 170,000 customers in the state are without power on Wednesday morning.
Public schools are closed on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., where there’s more than 6 inches of snow on the ground.
Philadelphia saw 2.6 inches of snow and New York City saw 1.4 inches.
(NEW YORK) — New York City is known for its towering skyscrapers and bustling streets, but lurking beneath the glitz and glamour of the city that never sleeps are 3 million resilient rats that have cemented their place as native New Yorkers.
According to Orkin, the pest control service, New York has been ranked as the third rattiest city in the country behind Los Angeles and Chicago. Now local officials are taking up the battle against the city’s furry rodents.
In 2023, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the city’s first Rat Czar, drawing national attention. Since then, many citywide initiatives have been explored.
Director of Rodent Mitigation Kathleen Corradi, aka the Rat Czar, is taking on the task of educating fellow New Yorkers with a new program called Rat Walks. It’s a program available in all boroughs where attendees learn everything about rats, their habits, and what human behaviors encourage the rodents to stick around.
In October, Corradi told participants attending a rat walk, “We’re doing a lot in this administration to make sure we’re containerizing, make sure we’re changing behaviors around waste management.”
Given a $3.5 million budget, Corradi is tasked with reducing the city’s rat population. Still, she says it’s up to New Yorkers, too, “The only way we are successful is getting an educated public change in behaviors and addressing those conditions that support rats. Extermination will always be a part of the conversation, but we know the long-term success relies on front-end equation, and that’s where we’re really focusing and empowering New Yorkers,” she told ABC News.
Several New Yorkers living in rat mitigation zones spoke to ABC News about seeing rats in their neighborhood. “The rats were all over the place, like just ‘Ratatouille,'” Shea Sullivan, a NYC resident, told ABC News. Samir, a superintendent, told us the situation in some of his apartment buildings was getting so out of hand that he had to drown rats himself, “I drowned them in water and killed them. This is ridiculous. It has to be changed completely.”
As New Yorkers are dealing with rats in their homes or neighborhoods, others are taking a different approach to tackling the issue. New York City Council Member Shaun Abreu launched Bill 736, or “Flaco’s law.” The bill passed on Sept. 26, 2024, and will implement rat contraceptives in areas where trash is containerized. He told ABC News that rat birth control can help curb rat populations, but only if trash is fully contained so the rodents don’t have anything else to eat.
Two years ago, his office also introduced Rat Mitigation Zones, securing $11.5 million to fund the initiative.
“Through my legislation two years ago, the city established five rat mitigation zones, and in these rat mitigation zones citywide rat sightings have gone down by 14%, at least, based off of 311 complaints,” Abreu told ABC News. In 2024, his office also introduced a residential pilot program to containerize trash in Harlem, an area largely infested with rats. “You have these giant bins out on the street and since we’ve implemented that last September, trash is now in containers. Now they’re not out for a rat buffet anymore. 311 complaints for rat sightings have gone down by 55%. No other intervention has been done this past year,” he told ABC News.
With the passing of Bill 736, rat contraceptives are expected to be rolled out on New York City streets by April 26, 2025. The company WISDOM Good Works is expected to partner with the city to manage and maintain the distribution of rat birth control. “We’ve been working with City Council offices as well as city agencies that will be enforcing the bill,” the director of operations at WISDOM Good Works, Alaina Gonzalez-White, told ABC News.
She says that the birth control pellets are safer for all wildlife, not just rats. “It’s formulated to target the reproductive system of an animal the size of a rat. Anything that eats that rat will no longer be eating a poisoned meal.” PETA supports the initiative.
Ashley Byrne, senior campaigner for PETA, told us the end of rat poison, known as rodenticide, would mean saving the lives of pets that may come in contact with rats. “Ultimately, slaughtering rats doesn’t work. The only long-term and humane solution is prevention. No animal deserves to experience the slow suffering and miserable death that results from ingesting rat poison.”
Abreu shared his mission to combat rat populations more humanely, saying, “My goal personally is not for rats to go extinct. Our goal is (to) coexist in a way where rats aren’t showing up. I think our message is very much in line with the PETA message. We believe in New York City, we should throw everything we can at the problem from shutting off the food supply, but also targeting rat reproduction at the source.”
(WASHINGTON) — Three weeks into Donald Trump’s breakneck effort to remake the federal government, the rapid pace of lawsuits pushing back against his orders — and a number of legal setbacks for the Trump administration — have challenged the Department of Justice, seemingly overwhelming the government lawyers tasked with defending the president in court.
In a court filing Monday night, Justice Department lawyers acknowledged making two significant errors last week during a court hearing about the dismantling of the foreign aid agency USAID. While DOJ attorneys last week claimed that 500 employees at USAID had been put on leave and that only future contracts had been put on pause, more than 2,100 employees had actually been placed on leave while both future and existing contracts were frozen, according to the filing.
“Defendants sincerely regret these inadvertent misstatements based on information provided to counsel immediately prior to the hearing and have made every effort to provide reliable information in the declaration supporting their opposition to a preliminary injunction,” DOJ lawyers wrote to the judge overseeing the case.
During the USAID hearing last week, Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, expressed frustration that the government had not provided him sufficient information.
“I need to know what the government’s official position is right now. What is happening?” Nichols said. “Is the government paying people or not?”
The Trump administration has faced a torrent of lawsuits over the last two weeks, with judges over the last two days blocking them from enforcing a federal buyout program, cutting funding for health research, and removing public health data from government websites.
After a New York judge blocked Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records on Saturday, both DOGE head Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance began to publicly float the idea of defying the court orders.
Justice Department representatives did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
During a hearing in the Treasury Department case, the DOJ claimed that Marko Elez — a SpaceX employee-turned-DOGE cost-cutter who briefly resigned last week after the Wall Street Journal reported on racist social media posts — was a “special government employee” within the Department of the Treasury.
In a filing Monday, the DOJ corrected themselves to note that Elez was actually a full-fledged Treasury Department employee — a “Special Advisor for Information Technology and Modernization” according to the filing — who is subject to additional ethics requirements.
During a hearing last week on whether the DOJ should be blocked from disseminating a list of federal agents and employees who worked on cases involving the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, a DOJ attorney was unable to say with confidence whether the government might eventually release the list, frustrating the judge overseeing the case.
“You represent the government,” U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb said sternly. “The White House wants this information. Does the government have present intent to publicly release names of FBI agents that worked on Jan. 6 cases?”
“People who have the list don’t have present intent,” replied the attorney, Jeremy Simon, who then had to ask for a series of short recesses as he was pressed to provide answers on the government’s stance.
At one point Simon needed to excuse himself into the hallway to speak by phone with his superiors.
The legal challenges began immediately after Trump ignited his barrage of Day-1 executive orders. During a hearing on the administration’s short-lived federal funding freeze, a DOJ attorney appeared unable to provide a clear answer about the extent of the White House’s new policy.
“It seems like the federal government currently doesn’t actually know the full scope of the programs that are going to be subject to the pause. Is that correct?” U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan asked the attorney.
“I can only speak for myself, which is just based on the limited time frame here, that I do not have a comprehensive list,” replied DOJ lawyer Daniel Schwei. “It just depends.”
And during the first court hearing about Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, the position of defending Trump’s order put Brett Shumate, the acting assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil division, in a federal judge’s firing line.
“In your opinion, is this executive order constitutional?” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour asked Shumate during the hearing.
“Yes, we think it is,” Shumate said, drawing the judge’s rebuke.
“I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar can state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It boggles my mind,” Coughenour said. “Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?”
A constitutional law expert told ABC News that DOJ attorneys have been rebuked by judges of all stripes.
“They are doing this regardless of geography and regardless of who appointed them,” said Loyola Marymount University law professor Justin Levitt. “So you’ve seen pushback from Reagan appointees, you’ve seen pushback from Bush appointees, you’ve seen pushback from Obama appointees and Trump appointees and Biden appointees, and that’s going to continue.”
Levitt said the results have generally not been in the Trump administration’s favor.
“As far as I can tell, they’re winless in the courts,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Refrigerators, beers and bicycles stand at risk of higher prices as a result of tariffs on steel and aluminum announced by President Donald Trump this week, experts told ABC News.
The tariffs, which take effect next month, slap a 25% tax on all foreign steel and aluminum, repeating a policy Trump initiated during his first term in office.
Trade experts told ABC News the tariffs will likely raise prices for some goods made out of the two metals, since importers typically pass along a share of the cost of those higher taxes to retailers and, in turn, down the line to consumers.
“This will feed through the economy,” Kyle Handley, a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, told ABC News. Higher prices could manifest in as little as three months or as long as a year, Handley added.
In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the White House said the policy would boost economic performance.
“In his first administration, President Trump instituted an America First economic agenda of tariffs, tax cuts, deregulation and an unleashing of American energy that resulted in historic job, wage and investment growth with no inflation. In his second administration, President Trump will again use tariffs to level the playing field and usher in a new era of growth and prosperity for American industry and workers,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.
Here are the prices that may increase as a result of tariffs on steel and aluminum:
Cars and trucks
Steel is the top material by weight in a car, accounting for about 60% of its weight, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.
Once steel imports face stiff taxes, experts forecast the price of steel paid by U.S. manufacturers will rise, meaning higher input costs for carmakers. Those companies, they added, are likely to hike prices for consumers as a means of offsetting some of those costs.
“There’s a lot of metal in a Ford truck,” Handley said. “If it’s more expensive, they’ll have to charge more for the car.”
Ford declined to respond to ABC News’ request for comment. Speaking on Tuesday at the Wolfe Research conference, an investor gathering, Ford CEO Jim Farley said potential tariffs on steel and aluminum are causing “cost and chaos,” according to a transcript of the event shared by Ford.
Bill Hanvey, president and CEO of Auto Care Association, a trade group representing thousands of firms across the vehicle supply chain, criticized the steel tariffs.
“Many specialty steel products used in our industry are not readily available from domestic sources, making access to global supply chains essential,” Hanvey said in a statement.
Soda and beer
Aluminum tariffs risk higher prices for beverages packaged in aluminum cans, such as beer and soft drinks, some experts said.
The previous set of tariffs on aluminum cost the U.S. beverage industry $1.7 billion between 2018 and 2022, according to the Beer Institute, an industry trade group.
“Paying a tariff-laden price on all aluminum drives up the cost of doing business and makes consumer goods more expensive,” the Beer Institute said in 2022.
In response to the tariffs imposed by Trump this week, the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild warned on X: “Our small brewery owners and customers will pay the price.”
Some soda companies may also feel the pinch. Speaking on an earnings call on Tuesday, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said the company may focus on a different packaging material if aluminum prices rise.
Home appliances
Major home appliances — such as refrigerators and washing machines — rely in part on steel, making them vulnerable to potential price increases, Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, told ABC News.
“You would certainly expect to see those goods get a little bit more expensive,” Miller said.
In the aftermath of steel and aluminum tariffs during Trump’s first term, major appliances showed price increases of between 5% and 10% between June 2018 and April 2019, Miller added, citing a monthly government data release. Those price hikes far outpaced an overall inflation rate of around 2%.
Though prices for major appliances started to decline in the latter part of 2019, Miller noted, forecasting at the very least a halt in the price drops.
Bicycles
Steel and aluminum make up a key component of bicycles, raising the likelihood of price increases, Handley said.
“Bicycles will definitely be more expensive,” Handley said, pointing to the aluminum used for bicycle frames and components. In some cases, he added, those raw materials depend on steel.
Last month, trade organization People For Bikes expressed concern about 25% tariffs issued for Canadian and Mexican goods, as well as a 10% tariff on Chinese goods. Within days, Trump paused the tariffs on Mexico and Canada for one month, though they remain on the table.
“As a result of the new administration’s policies, the international trade landscape has become, and will remain, increasingly turbulent,” Matt Moore, policy counsel at People For Bikes, wrote in a blog post.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration has removed a career Justice Department official from his role as the acting head of the DOJ’s National Security Division after the longtime prosecutor served in the position for less than a month, sources told ABC News.
Devin DeBacker, who in that role was an acting assistant attorney general, served for only a few weeks in the position, which helps oversee the Justice Department’s efforts to fight global terrorism, root out domestic extremism, stop foreign espionage operations, enforce U.S. sanctions, and investigate leaks of classified information.
In the first few days of the new Trump administration, as previously reported by ABC News, DeBacker tried to ease concerns within the department’s National Security Division after two of its most experienced prosecutors were removed.
But on Monday, Justice Department leadership told DeBacker that he would no longer be leading the division, according to sources familiar with the matter. It’s unclear why DeBacker was removed, and a Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment about the matter.
Under the first Trump administration, DeBacker served in the White House counsel’s office and then the Justice Department. He left at the start of the Biden administration, but rejoined the Justice Department a year later, becoming chief of the National Security Division’s foreign investment review section.
Sources said he is expected to continue in that role.
On his LinkedIn page, DeBacker describes himself as “a strategic counselor and senior government executive with deep experience in national security, complex litigation and investigations, and crisis and risk management.”
(NEW YORK) — At least 26 states are under alerts for snow, ice and flooding as three winter storms cross the country over the next few days.
The first storm is moving into the Ohio River Valley on Tuesday with snow coming down from Paducah, Kentucky, to Evansville, Indiana; as well as in Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky.
A winter storm warning has been issued from Louisville to Atlantic City, New Jersey, including Washington, D.C. An ice storm warning is in effect for parts of West Virginia.
This winter storm will move out of Ohio Valley and into the Mid-Atlantic states by early afternoon Tuesday, reaching D.C. between noon and 1 p.m.
Total snow accumulation will be around 3 to 5 inches in Louisville and the Ohio River Valley, about 3 to 6 inches in Washington, D.C., proper and 4 to 8 inches possible south and west of D.C.
Snow will be light further north, with only 2 to 3 inches possible in Philadelphia and possibly 1 to 2 inches in New York City. New England should miss this storm system completely.
Further south, a flood watch has been issued from Texas to Georgia as heavy rain could cause flash flooding.
Second storm
The second storm will develop over the Rockies and the Plains later Tuesday, with a heavy swath of snow spreading north into the Great Lakes.
Snow is forecast from Denver all the way to Chicago and Detroit, where winter storm watches and warnings have been issued.
The snow will spread into Kansas City, Missouri, early Wednesday morning. The steady snow will reach Chicago late Wednesday morning into the afternoon.
The storm system will reach the East Coast by Wednesday evening with a wintry mix that will turn to rain from D.C. to New York City and Boston.
Further inland, several inches of snow are possible from the Catskill Mountains in New York to the Green and White mountains in New England.
This storm will also bring heavy rain across the South, with flash flooding possible from Louisiana to western North Carolina.
Third storm
The third storm is still in the Pacific Ocean, but it will begin to bring rain to the West Coast on Wednesday morning, including in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The core of the storm will move into California on Wednesday night into Thursday morning with very heavy rain for the San Francisco Bay area.
The heaviest rain will begin to move into Los Angeles and Southern California starting Thursday morning and will last into Thursday evening.
A flood watch has been issued for California, including Los Angeles. Flash flooding, mudslides, landslides and rockslides are expected by Thursday and Friday.
The storm will cross the Rockies on Friday and will move into the Midwest with more heavy snow by Saturday morning.
By Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning, rain and snow will reach the East Coast. This storm looks more wet than white for the Interstate 95 corridor.
Bitter Cold
Ten states from Washington to Wisconsin are under cold weather alerts Tuesday morning, including an extreme cold warning from Montana to Minnesota — where wind chills could drop as low as 55 below zero through Thursday morning.
Record cold temperatures are forecast from Washington to Montana over the next few days.
The unseasonably cold weather will spill into the Northeast by early next week, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees below normal.
(NEW YORK) — As part of his plan to cut alleged federal government waste, President Donald Trump is literally pinching pennies, ordering his Treasury Secretary to stop the U.S. Mint from producing new 1-cent coins.
In an announcement Sunday on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the cost of minting the coin featuring the profile of the country’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, is more than twice the currency’s face value.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies, which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is wasteful!” Trump wrote. “I have instructed my Secretary of Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let’s rip the waste out of our great nation’s budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.”
According to the U.S. Mint, the cost of producing a single penny has more than doubled in recent years, from 1.76 cents in 2020 to 3.69 cents in 2024.
Printing a paper $1 bill is cheaper than producing a penny, which, according to the U.S. Mint, is comprised of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper and requires a smelting process to mold the metals. According to the Federal Reserve, it costs Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing 3.2 cents to print a $1 note – less than the cost of minting a penny.
The U.S. Mint reported losing $85.3 million on making pennies in fiscal year 2024, according to the Mint’s annual report to Congress.
Is it legal?
It remains unclear if Trump has the power to retire the coin, which has been part of the fabric of America for 233 years, 116 years with Lincoln’s portrait embossed on it.
The move would likely require the approval of Congress. Even though it’s part of the U.S. Treasury, “Congress authorizes every coin and most medals that the U.S. Mint manufactures and oversees the Mint’s operations under its Public Enterprise Fund,” according to the U.S. Mint’s website.
However, Laurence H. Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School, told the Associated Press that the U.S. Code, a list of general and permanent federal statues, gives Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, the authority to scrap the penny.
While the courts and others debate whether many of Trump’s executive orders pass legal muster, “this action seems to me entirely lawful and fully constitutional,” Tribe said.
If Trump gets his way, the penny will become the 12th U.S. currency denomination to be retired, joining the half-cent coin, the 2-cent coin, the 20-cent piece and the “trime” – a silver three-cent piece issued from 1851 to 1873, Caroline Turco, assistant curator of the Money Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado, told ABC News.
“We retired them for multiple different reasons, but normally because they were not being used or they just became too expensive to produce,” said Turco.
Is it a good idea
Mark Weller, executive director of Americans for Common Cents – a Washington, D.C., organization that provides research to Congress and the executive branch on the benefits of the penny – believes that eliminating the coin “is an absolutely horrible idea.”
“It would be bad for consumers and it would be bad for the economy,” Weller told ABC News. “It really would, in fact, not save money, but it would increase government losses and have some unintended economic consequences.”
Weller said doing away with the penny would prompt the U.S. Mint to increase production of the nickel. According to the U.S. Mint, the cost of minting a single nickel is nearly 14 cents, almost three times the coin’s face value and more than three-and-a-half times the cost of minting a penny.
“Without the penny, nickel production could nearly double, which would increase the Mint’s losses,” Weller said. “So, it’s just hard to understand how you could produce more nickels that are losing more money than the penny and say you’re going to save money.”
Weller further said that ditching the penny could lead to the cost of goods going up for American consumers.
“If there’s one thing most economists agree on is that private business has a profit motive. So, the assumption would be that they would price things in a way that they would round up, not round down,” Weller said.
Although digital payments are increasingly more common, Weller said cash remains a crucial tool, “especially for someone economically underserved and under-banked.”
“The majority of Americans want to keep the penny,” Weller said. “A very large number abhor the idea of rounding transactions.”
The U.S. Mint produced 3.2 billion pennies in fiscal year 2024, according to the Mint’s annual report to Congress, with an estimated 250 billion pennies currently in circulation.
History of the penny Turco, whose museum is the education branch of the American Numismatic Association, told ABC News that one big misconception about the penny is that, technically, it has never existed in the United States.
“The American system does not have a ‘penny.’ That is a misnomer,” Turco said. “We have a cent because when we rebelled against the British they had pennies and that is a British word.”
Turco said the 1-cent piece was first produced in the United States in 1793 and was originally the size of the present-day quarter.
Turco said Lincoln, whose likeness is also on the $5 bill, was added to the coin in 1909.
If Trump’s wishes are met, the United States wouldn’t be the first country to eliminate the coin, Turco said. Canada, for example, decided to phase out its penny in 2012. In the U.S., the Department of Defense stopped using pennies at its overseas bases in 1980 because it became too expensive to ship them.
Regardless of the penny’s fate, Turco said she believes it will always be a part of the United States, at least colloquially, adding that such phrases as “a lucky penny” and “a penny saved is a penny earned” will likely always be a part of the American lexicon. And, perhaps ironically, the penny’s value could increase if its discontinued.
“I think collectors will still enjoy having them,” Turco said. “But I don’t think that the value of a penny will just skyrocket overnight.”
(WASHINGTON) — Two weeks after the Department of Justice, now under new leadership following Donald Trump’s reelection, moved to dismiss their appeal of Trump’s classified documents case, a circuit court formally dismissed the appeal of a case that once accused the president of mishandling some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets.
The dismissal marks the end of a series of federal criminal cases that once dogged Trump’s political future.
“Appellant’s ‘Unopposed Motion to Dismiss Appeal’ is GRANTED. This appeal is DISMISSED,” said the one-page order issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
Recently appointed Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Hayden O’Bryne moved to dismiss the appeal against Trump’s former co-defendants on Jan. 29.
Trump previously faced 40 criminal counts — including violations of nine separate federal laws — for allegedly holding on to classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021 and thwarting investigators’ efforts to retrieve the documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate. He pleaded not guilty to all charges in 2023.
Trump, along with longtime aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago staffer Carlos De Oliveira, pleaded not guilty in a superseding indictment to allegedly attempting to delete surveillance footage at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Last summer, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — who Trump appointed to the bench during his first term — dismissed the indictments against Trump, bucking decades of legal precedent by finding that special counsel Jack Smith had been unconstitutionally appointed.
Smith appealed Cannon’s decision but was ultimately forced to drop the appeal against Trump after Trump was reelected in November, due to a longstanding Department of Justice policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.
After O’Bryne moved to dismiss the appeal against Nauta and De Oliveira last month, Tuesday’s dismissal closes the book on the case.
(PALM BEACH, Fla.) — An off-duty corrections officer in Florida was shot and killed in a “targeted attack,” according to police.
The incident occurred at 7:32 p.m. when deputies from the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office in Florida were dispatched to reports of gunfire in the 1400 block of NW Avenue D, in Belle Glade, according to a statement from the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday
“The victim is an off-duty PBSO Corrections Deputy, who was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital, but unfortunately was pronounced dead shortly after arriving,” authorities said. “Further investigation determined that this incident was targeted.”
Officials have not yet named the deputy but did confirm that the officer killed was 39-years-old and had been with the agency for three years, police said.
Authorities also did not release any information on their investigation or why they were able to conclude that the attack was targeted at the officer involved.
A ceremonial escort took place on Tuesday evening in honor of the slain offifer from St. Mary’s Hospital to the Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We are distraught to say the least,” said the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities said that additional information will be provided as it becomes available.
