Category: National

(WASHINGTON) — Officials in the Trump Justice Department have ordered a temporary freeze on any ongoing cases being litigated by the Civil Rights Division, according to a new directive reviewed by ABC News.

The memo to the current acting head of the Civil Rights Division, Kathleen Wolfe, says that current career officials in the division must not file any new civil complaints or other civil rights-related filings in outside ongoing litigation. The memo was first reported by The Washington Post.

Wolfe was separately directed to notify Trump-appointed department leaders of any consent decrees — court-enforceable agreements to reform police agencies — the Biden administration reached with cities in the final 90 days leading up to the inauguration.

The Biden administration finalized consent decrees with officials in Louisville, Kentucky and Minneapolis during the former president’s final weeks in office.

The consent decrees involve two high-profile police-involved killings. In Louisville, Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in a botched police raid in 2020. In Minneapolis, George Floyd was killed while being taken into police custody on Memorial Day 2020.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump represents the Taylor and Floyd families in their civil lawsuits. He spoke with ABC News’ Linsey Davis on Tuesday to offer his thoughts on the move by the Trump administration regarding civil rights investigations and consent decrees.

ABC News’ Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.

ABC NEWS: Just days ago, Trump officials paused all Department of Justice civil rights investigations and froze court-ordered police reforms. For a look at what that means for ongoing and potential future cases, civil rights attorney Ben Crump joins us now.

Thank you so much, Mr. Crump, for joining us. Just want to start with your reaction to this pause on, on civil rights investigations.

BEN CRUMP: This is very disturbing. Talking with Breonna Taylor’s mother, who was still waiting the prosecution of the officers that were involved in the killing of her daughter, who was in her own apartment. They lied on the probable cause affidavit to get a no knock warrant to go into the apartment in the first place. She’s devastated, but we know that we’re not giving up.

We’re going to be strategic in talking with the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, who entered into the consent agreement, to say that “Hopefully you won’t condone what happened to Breonna,” just like we’re talking to the mayor of Minneapolis saying, “Do you condone what happened on that video when they kept a knee on George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds?”

Because the families see this freezing of the DOJ’s prosecutions as condoning these criminal actions. And we call them criminal because officers have been convicted for those crimes.

ABC NEWS: You mentioned both those families. Have you heard from them, how they’re reacting to this?

CRUMP: Well, you know, as I said, Breonna’s mother is very heartbroken, Linsey. Very heartbroken. She’s fought so hard to get whatever measure of justice and accountability she could. Her daughter had her body mutilated with eight bullet holes. And she doesn’t believe that the Department of Justice would stop the consent decree that was agreed to by the city in the aftermath of her daughter’s death.

She is just shocked that they would do this, just like George Floyd’s family is shocked. When you look at that video, how could you say that you want to halt the prosecution of all the agreements that were made by those cities and their police departments to try to prevent this from ever happening again?

ABC NEWS: As you know, the Justice Department recently reached an agreement with the city of Louisville to reform the city’s police department. It’s one of several such consent decrees reached in the final days of the Biden administration. What happens to those agreements now?

CRUMP: Well, the cities have a say so in it. Obviously, we have been told that the Department of Justice isn’t going to do anything to go forward with those consent decrees. And it’s very troubling because we think this and many of the things that this administration have done in just its first week is going to test the elasticity of the constitutional protections that many Americans enjoy.

And that is what’s so heartbreaking about all of these matters. We fight so hard for people, all America, to be able to get the constitutional protections that were promised to them as an American citizen. And so the question, Linsey [is]: What will happen to the Constitution during these perilous times when, as it relates to all of us, especially the least of us?

ABC NEWS: All right, Ben Crump. So appreciate you, civil rights attorney, for your time and insight. Thank you.

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(NEW YORK) — Last year, 2024, was the warmest year on record for the planet, easily breaking the previous record set just a year earlier.

Scientists say the unfolding El Niño event superimposed on long-term global warming is a primary driver of this huge spike in global surface temperatures since mid-2023. But the magnitude of the increase shocked many experts, leaving them somewhat puzzled about what else could be behind the remarkable temperature.

NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite, PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem), is expected to provide new data to help scientists understand how changing levels of different atmospheric aerosols impact Earth’s energy balance.

New research published in Environmental Research Letters investigated some of the factors contributing to the spike in global temperature. Researchers focused specifically on the things that impact the amount of energy entering and leaving the Earth, known as the planet’s energy balance.

Their findings show that atmospheric aerosol levels could be partly to blame for an energy imbalance that’s causing our accelerating warming rate.

This new data joins a growing list of research that points to atmospheric aerosols as a potentially significant contributor to our record-breaking surface temperatures. It also underscores the importance of better understanding how various atmospheric aerosols behave and interact with each other.

Atmospheric aerosols are tiny particles that can reflect sunlight back into space and reduce global temperatures. However, their concentrations have greatly diminished due to international efforts to reduce air pollution in recent decades. Now, more sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface, creating a heating effect.

For decades, we’ve been removing aerosols from our air without fully realizing the potential cascading effects of these actions.

To help solve this puzzle, climate scientists are eagerly awaiting the first batch of operational data from NASA’s PACE, launched nearly a year ago.

According to NASA, the PACE satellite can map atmospheric aerosols and differentiate how they absorb light and heat, characterizing them as “light” or “dark” in nature. Climate scientists say this will help them understand how changing levels of different atmospheric aerosols impact the planet’s energy balance and global temperature trends.

While satellite data has been publicly available since April, the satellite isn’t fully operational yet, according to NASA. That’s because the data is still undergoing verification and quality control, deeming it unusable in climate models and academic research. However, that will likely change later this year, as the data is currently undergoing its final validation stage.

ABC News’ Matthew Glasser contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice, now under new leadership following Donald Trump’s inauguration, has moved to drop its appeal of the classified documents case that once accused Trump of mishandling some of the country’s most sensitive secrets.

Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Hayden O’Bryne on Wednesday moved to dismiss the appeal against Trump’s former co-defendants in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to 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.

Along with longtime aide Walt Nauta and staffer Carlos De Oliveira, Trump pleaded not guilty in a superseding indictment to allegedly attempting to delete Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage.

In July, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — who Trump appointed to the bench — dismissed the indictments, deeming that special counsel Jack Smith had been unconstitutionally appointed.

While Smith appealed Cannon’s decision, he was forced to drop the appeal against Trump after Trump won the November election, due to a longstanding policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. However, Smith continued to pursue the appeal against Nauta and De Oliveira prior his resignation earlier this month.

The DOJ’s motion to drop the appeal signals an end to its prosecution of Nauta and De Oliveira.

Cannon on Tuesday cited the DOJ’s ongoing appeal against Nauta and De Oliveira in her decision to block the release of Smith’s final report on the case to select members of Congress.

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(NEW YORK) — Private prison company CoreCivic reported in a lobbying disclosure that it donated $500,000 to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee in December, underscoring the close relationship between President Donald Trump and the private prison industry.

As ABC News has previously reported, CoreCivic and private prison company GEO Group, both which have both long supported Trump, saw their stock prices immediately spike after Trump’s victory in the November election.

The industry is expected to grow under Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

On his first day back in the White House, Trump reversed former President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order that eliminated DOJ contracts with private prisons.

Both CoreCivic and the GEO Group donated to Trump’s first inaugural committee in 2016, with a subsidiarity of each company donating $250,000, according to past inaugural disclosures.

Several top executives at CoreCivic and GEO Group have also been longtime Republican and Trump donors, Federal Election Commission records show.

Representatives for CoreCivic did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

Among other Trump-Vance inaugural committee contributions disclosed in new filings, the Florida-based HVAC company Carrier Global Corporation donated $1 million in what records suggest is the company’s first major political contribution.

Chemical company Syngenta Corporation, now owned by China National Chemical Corporation — known as ChemChina — gave $250,000 to the committee in what was its first inaugural donation in recent years.

The Coca-Cola Company gave $250,000, after giving to both the Biden inaugural committee and Trump’s first inaugural committee, and identify verification company Socure gave $100,000.

Overall contributions to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee set an inauguration record by surpassing the committee’s $150 million goal, boosted by $1 million donations from several major tech firms including Meta and Amazon.

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(NEW YORK) — A storm is bearing down on the southern Plains and Texas, where residents are bracing for severe weather, including flash flooding.

On Wednesday evening, when the storm moves in, there’s a chance for damaging winds, hail and even an isolated tornado in Texas.

On Thursday, the storm will fully blossom in the South, bringing the threat of tornadoes and damaging winds from Houston to Jackson, Mississippi.

Flash flooding could be an issue from Dallas to Little Rock, Arkansas, to Memphis, Tennessee, to Paducah, Kentucky.

A flood watch has been issued for three states — Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri — where some areas could see up to 5 inches of rain from Wednesday night to Thursday night.

The same storm system will move into the Northeast on Friday, bringing rain to the Interstate 95 corridor and the potential for ice and snow to higher elevations in Pennsylvania, New York and New England.

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(PHILADELPHIA) — An 18-year-old man who was celebrating the Philadelphia Eagles victory over the Washington Commanders in the NFC championship game on Sunday has died after he fell from a light pole during the celebrations, officials said.

Temple University announced the death of first-year student Tyler Sabapathy, 18, who sustained critical injuries over the weekend and died on Tuesday.

The tragedy happened Sunday night at 15th and Market streets in Center City Philadelphia where video shows the teen above on the street pole before he fell onto the concrete sidewalk flat on his back, hitting his head, according to ABC News’ Philadelphia station WPVI.

He was taken to Jefferson Hospital with a brain injury and pronounced dead two days later.

Sabapathy was a Toronto native and accomplished gymnast with over 120 medals, was majoring in exercise and sport science at Temple’s College of Public Health, school administrators said. He was also a dedicated member of the university’s club gymnastics team.

“It is with deep sadness that we write to share news of the death of first-year student Tyler Sabapathy. Over the weekend, Tyler sustained critical injuries and ultimately passed away this afternoon,” said John Fry, Temple’s president, and Jodi Bailey, vice president for student affairs, in a statement obtained by ABC News.

“The loss of a promising 18-year-old man like Tyler is both tragic and traumatic. There are no words that can make sense of it, and the entire Temple community mourns his passing. Our hearts go out to Tyler’s family, friends, classmates and all who knew and loved him,” the statement continued.

“He no doubt had a bright future ahead of him, and it is so tragic that we will not be able to see how he would have made his mark on the world,” school administrators said. “As a member of the university’s club gymnastics team, Tyler displayed exceptional self-discipline and work ethic, spending countless hours a week training and honing his craft. He was loved by his teammates, friends and coaches here in Philadelphia.”

Philadelphia police had an internal briefing on Tuesday to review Sunday’s response and discuss what strategies they will use during the next possible celebration, which could be in just two weeks, according to WPVI.

City officials did not say if they greased the poles on Sunday, adding that they don’t want to release public safety tactics, WPVI said.

Meanwhile, Temple University said grief counselors will be available for students and staff.

“We extend our thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathies to those closest to Tyler, especially his parents and siblings,” school officials said. “He will be deeply missed.”

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(MIAMI) — A tree trimmer died after getting caught in a wood chipper while trimming trees at a town hall near Miami, officials said.

The incident occurred at approximately 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning when the Ocean Ridge Police Department responded to Ocean Ridge Town Hall — some 60 miles north of Miami — for “an accident involving one employee from a contracted tree trimming vendor,” according to a statement from the town of Ocean Ridge on social media.

“Upon arrival, Ocean Ridge officers found one person had died from injuries sustained in the accident,” officials said. No other individuals on scene sustained injuries.

Officials from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were immediately notified and were en route to the scene, according to the town of Ocean Ridge.

The identity of the victim has not yet been disclosed by authorities.

The investigation is currently ongoing at this time and Boynton Beach Fire Rescue is providing grief counseling to town employees and vendor staff, officials said.

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(FAIRBANKS, ALASKA) — An Air Force F-35 fighter jet crashed at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska on Tuesday as the pilot ejected safely, officials said.

The aircraft incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon at approximately 12:49 p.m. and resulted in “significant aircraft damage,” according to a statement released by 354th Fighter Wing Public Affairs.

The impact site is known to be on base within the fence line of Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, officials confirmed.

In video of the crash, the aircraft can be seen falling from the sky while the pilot ejects from the plane before the crash.

“The pilot is safe and has been transported to Bassett Army Hospital for further evaluation. Emergency crews are responding,” authorities said.

Military officials said that stopping on the Richardson Highway, the road adjacent to Eielson AFB, “poses a safety risk and impedes recovery efforts” and reminded people that federal law prohibits any photography along that stretch of highway.

“Our people are our most important resource, and we are committed in ensuring their safety and security,” said Colonel Paul Townsend, commander of the 354th Fighter Wing. “I can assure you the United States Air Force will conduct a thorough investigation in hopes to minimize the chances of such occurrences from happening again.”

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(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.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A person arrested outside of the Capitol with a knife and two potential incendiary devices told officers they wanted to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and also leveled threats against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson, according to newly unsealed charging documents.

Ryan English allegedly approached officers outside the Capitol on Monday and said, “I’d like to turn myself in,” and then told the officers they were in possession of knifes and two Molotov cocktails, according to charging documents. Officers searched English’s clothes and found a folding knife, a lighter and two 50 milliliter bottles of vodka with a cloth on top.

English told officers they were there to “Kill Scott Bessent,” who was confirmed by the Senate on Monday as the new treasury secretary. English also had a note stating, “This is terrible but I cant do nothing while nazis kill my sisters,” according to charging documents.

After English was taken into custody, English told officers they traveled to Washington, D.C., from Massachusetts on Sunday with the intention of killing Johnson and/or Hegseth, whom English called a “Nazi,” documents said. They also expressed a desire to burn down the conservative Heritage Foundation, documents said.

On the way to D.C., English stopped at a library in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and saw Reddit posts mentioning Bessent’s confirmation hearing, which “altered” their plans, according to the charging documents.

English then bought the bottles of vodka, which they said they intended to ignite and throw “at Bessent’s feet,” the documents said. English said if they were able to get close enough to Bessent, they would’ve stabbed him with a knife, the documents said.

English told officers that when they traveled to the Capitol to conduct surveillance, English surmised they “would have to kill, at least, three U.S. Capitol Police Officers to get to Bessent and kill him,” according to the charging documents. English “expressed acceptance and content with the possibility of suicide by cop,” the affidavit said.

English faces charges of carrying a firearm, dangerous weapon, explosive or incendiary device on Capitol grounds and unlawful receipt, possession and/or transfer of a firearm.

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