Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook participates in a board meeting at the Federal Reserve on March 19, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
In an extraordinary ramping-up of his ongoing efforts to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, President Donald Trump has ordered a committee to investigate mortgage fraud allegations against her, culminating in a closed-door, in-person hearing at the White House next month.
The move, laid out in a memo signed by the president and announced on Friday, creates a three-person “committee of inquiry” to hear the charges against Cook and allow her an opportunity to respond at the Nov. 5 hearing.
“Governor Cook shall appear at the hearing and be examined by the Committee, its representatives, and her legal counsel, if any,” Trump’s memo states.
No president prior to Trump had ever attempted to remove a Federal Reserve governor in the 112-year history of the central bank. The law allows for a governor’s removal “for cause,” but that term is not defined in the statute.
Trump’s memo directs the panel to provide him with “written findings of fact and conclusions of law,” along with a recommendation of “whether there is cause to remove Governor Cook.”
The committee will be composed of top Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas and Keith Sonderling, the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics.
Trump’s memo sets the terms of the panel’s review and allows Cook to “present argument, written evidence, and written witness statements regarding the evidence and allegations.”
The announcement of the hearing comes more than three months after the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s initial attempt to fire Cook, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for a divided court that a final decision on Cook’s dismissal could only be made after she “has had the opportunity to respond to the charges made against her.”
Cook sued Trump to block his ill-fated attempt to fire her last year over the mortgage fraud allegations, insisting she has committed no wrongdoing. Her attorneys claim Trump’s attempt to oust her was based on her refusal to lower rates.
Lawyers for Cook said in a statement that they have “grave doubts” that the hearing will prove to be legitimate and legal.
“But if it is anything close to objective, the conclusion will be that Governor Cook did not commit mortgage fraud, leaving no cause to remove her from the Federal Reserve Board,” Cook’s attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, said in their statement.
Cook’s lawyers says they’re evaluating whether the process laid out by Trump’s order “has a possibility of being a genuine one and not simply a box checking exercise.”
“Governor Cook welcomes the opportunity to present the facts so she can clear her name and demonstrate there is no legal basis to fire her,” the attorneys said.
Trump’s order says the hearing will be closed to the public but transcribed.
Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Sept. 9, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
The leader of the “764” network, which seeks to exploit minors online, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to sexually exploit minors.
For nearly four years, Prasan Nepal, 21, also known by the online moniker “Trippy,” led the network, which operated as “a nihilistic violent extremist network” and “engaged in a wide range of criminal conduct across the United States and abroad — including coordinated efforts to exploit minors, extort vulnerable victims, and inflict psychological harm as part of an organized ideology promoting chaos and societal destabilization,” the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia said in a news release.
Nepal used encrypted apps to exploit minors through “rules,” which were needed for the child to join the so-called network, and leaders would force minors “to engage in self-mutilation, online and in-person sexual acts, harm to animals, sexual exploitation of siblings and others, acts of violence, threats of violence, suicide, and murder,” according to the news release.
ABC News reported in May that the FBI was conducting 250 investigations across the country tied to 764 and similar networks. In the six months since, the FBI has opened at least 100 more investigations, it said.
Nepal and his co-conspirators used child sexual abuse material to trade with other members of the group, and Nepal took advantage of at least eight minors as young as 13, U.S. Attorney Jeannie Pirro said.
“This case exposes a world where cruelty is currency, violence is entertainment, and children are treated as targets in a game of domination and control,” Pirro said. “What Nepal and his co‑conspirators built was not just a criminal operation, it was a deliberate campaign to corrupt the vulnerable and dismantle the guardrails of civilized society. Today’s plea is a victory for every child they sought to harm, and a warning to anyone who believes they can hide behind an encrypted screen: we will find you, and we will stop you.”
Nepal faces between 15 and 30 years in prison and is expected to be sentenced in May 2027.
Arizona congressional candidate Bernadette Greene-Placentia speaks to ABC News Live on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026. (ABC News)
Bernadette Greene-Placentia, a Democratic candidate for Congress who said she was raped while fixing a campaign sign in August, told ABC News on Thursday that she was motivated to speak up because of the arguments she was making on the campaign trail.
“I was talking to some seniors about fighting for reinstating and funding the [Veterans Administration] and fixing Social Security, actually addressing the issues” amid federal government cuts or healthcare changes that impacted them, Greene-Placentia told ABC News Live anchor Kyra Phillips.
“It just crossed my mind at that point — like, wow, I’m kind of being a hypocrite because I’m saying I’m going to fight for Arizonans. I’m going to fight for these folks, but I’m not fighting for women who’ve been victims of sexual assault, and that’s just not how I was raised,” she said. “So afterwards, I told my husband and my team, I was like, this is really going to suck, but I have to speak up.”
Greene-Placentia, a former truck driver who is running in the state’s 8th District to try to unseat Republican Rep. Abe Hamadeh, told Phoenix New Times, a local news outlet, in a story published Wednesday that she was attacked around 2 a.m. as she was walking toward a campaign sign in a parking lot north of Phoenix. She said she had been subdued and then woke up to find that she was being raped by an unknown assailant.
Greene-Placentia told the news outlet she reported the assault to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which confirmed to ABC News that a report was filed on Aug. 31 and that there is an ongoing investigation, but said the office could not comment further on the investigation.
She told ABC News on Thursday that she thinks it was a “crime of opportunity” and that she was not necessarily targeted, but she mentioned that her face is on campaign signs and “I’m pretty sure they knew who I was. Whether it was for political reasons or whatever, I mean, it was an attack on a woman, and no woman should be targeted, regardless of whether it’s for political reasons or just because they’re predators.”
It hadn’t initially worried her to go out so late to fix campaign signs.
“I mean, I have about 4 million miles across the country, and, you know, I’ve learned how to take care of myself … it’s just easier to do it [fix signs] at night. And usually I would go out with my husband or a staffer or a volunteer. But if I saw one that was just hanging by the rebar or somethin. … I never heard [the attacker] coming,” she said.
“And it’s frustrating to me because I like to think I have pretty good situational awareness, but obviously when someone deliberately sneaking up on you, it’s hard to defend yourself.”
Greene-Placentia said she does not remember coming home and has little memory of the next day, although said there is video of her landlord in the driveway.
“She saw me standing out there, and I guess I was just literally, like, staring off into space or something. And she’s like, Bernadette, Bernadette, are you Ok? Are you Ok? And I just looked, you know, horrible.”
She said she did not say anything to her campaign staff at first, and took a few days before she told her husband.
Asked what she wants voters to know about her in addition to her taking her story to Capitol Hill, Green-Placentia told ABC News she wants voters, including survivors of sexual assault, to know she was going to “fight” for them.
“I want people to know that I’m going to stand up. I’m going to fight for you. I’m going to fight for everybody because — I got into politics, I gave up a career I loved, because I felt like there weren’t people like me, like the average American,” she said.
“Our voices were not being represented, and that’s from the working class. That’s from women that have been victims of sexual assault. That’s our seniors, our veterans, our teachers, and they need to know that they have somebody that lives the same life they do, that has shared experiences, and will take that to D.C. and represent them fairly, transparently.”
She also said she understands where women who don’t speak up about being assaulted are coming from, even though she used to be someone who was more judgmental of people who shared their stories.
She brought up the 2018 hearings where professor Christine Blasey Ford accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Kavanaugh emphatically denied the allegations and was eventually confirmed to the court.
“I am a little ashamed to admit that I was one of those people. You know, like during the Kavanaugh hearings, for example, I was like, ‘Why did she wait so long? If he was out doing this to her, he’s going to do it to somebody else.’ But let me tell you, that is so hard to acknowledge to yourself that somebody took your power away from you, that they stripped you of your bodily autonomy, and you know overpowered you with physical strength, and you don’t want to admit that.”
She added, “I was a truck driver. I was tough. I was in a male-dominated industry as an owner-operator and built up a small fleet. You know, how could I let this happen to me? I didn’t want anybody to know. I just wanted to move on, and I can certainly understand why women don’t want to tell that their story or what happened. But I also realized that as long as I don’t say anything, then they maintain what — they took that from me, and I wanted to take it back. And speaking out and speaking up for other women — that is me taking it back.”
President Donald Trump applauds as (L-R) CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella, CEO of Dell Technologies Michael Dell, President and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices Lisa Su, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Co-founder of Google and former President of Alphabet Sergey Brin pose for photos after being presented their National Medal of Technology and Innovation awards during the Golden Age of American Innovation Summit, October 8, 2026 in Washington. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Vice President JD Vance on Thursday announced the suspension of tech giants, Microsoft and Adobe, from a green card program — effectively blocking the companies from sponsoring H-1B visa workers for permanent residency green cards.
The suspension is from the PERM program — a certification that allows employers to hire a foreign employee to work permanently in the U.S.
Vance singled out Microsoft, accusing the company of fraud.
“So if the H-1B visa is how the people get into the country, the PERM program is how they stay in the United States to begin with,” Vance said.“Now there has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused the system more than Microsoft.”
In a statement to ABC News, Microsoft said it “succeeds as a global technology leader by developing the world’s best technology workforce. We do this by strengthening this country’s talent pipeline, hiring American workers, and attracting the best talent from around the world.”
Critics of the PERM program have said it allows companies to recruit foreign workers, taking away jobs from Americans. Vance alleged Microsoft employees were laid off — later replaced by “foreign indentured servants” who “are earning wages that are far below the average for American citizens.”
“So, in the last year, Microsoft — and I want to be clear about the data here, so let me check this — but Microsoft laid off last year 6,000 American workers,” Vance said. “At the same time, the company benefited from 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.”
“In other words, if you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants.”
Microsoft said in a statement that “the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans.”
It also pushed back on Vance’s comments, saying it “only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category.”
“We pay our employees some of the highest compensation in the tech sector, and our wages are among the highest of all H-1B filings. We pay our H-1B employees the same as any other employees doing comparable work,” the statement continued.
The criticism of Microsoft came hours before President Donald Trump awarded Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the Medal of Technology and Innovation during an event at the Institute of Peace on Thursday.
Trump lauded Nadella at the ceremony, saying he has been “a key figure in the transformation of Microsoft, revolutionizing the company and empowering businesses, students and consumers from all over the world with some of the most capable software ever built or ever even conceived.”
Vance acknowledged the contradiction of honoring Microsoft’s CEO the same day as his announcement.
“Microsoft is a great American company, and we have a great relationship with them. They do a lot of important things,” Vance said. “So we’re going to continue to support Microsoft and have a great relationship with Microsoft, but we’re also going to deny them the ability to apply for these permanent residencies until they show that they are going to get serious about putting American workers first.”
ABC News has reached out to Adobe for comment.
Asked how long the suspension will be in place, Vance said it will “last as long as it needs to” and added that the administration has “a number of tools to suspend it indefinitely” if needed.
Vance, who has been asked to lead the administration’s Anti-Fraud Task Force, also criticized the H-1B visa program as a whole, saying it has become “rife with fraud” in recent years.
“The H-1B visa program is meant to allow companies to bring in really the best of the best from outside the United States of America for positions that are completely impossible to fill with American workers. Unfortunately, the program has become rife with fraud over the last several years, probably the last several decades,” Vance said.
Attorney General Todd Blanche also chimed in about the issue of “foreign labor favoritism,” promising that companies will be investigated if they “discriminate against an American worker in favor of someone on the other side of the world,” with Blanche saying this “violate[s] the trust of the federal government and the American people.”
“The Department of Justice, my department, is actively investigating companies that do this that favor foreign workers over the American people,” Blanche said.
Inspector General of Labor Anthony D’Esposito also announced that the Department of Labor is conducting a “historic investigation into the J-1 visa fraud involving nine major American universities: Pitt, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Brown, UC Davis, CaltTech, Arizona State, and MIT,” with investigations already underway, he said.
“If an American university is breaking the law to save a dollar, while exposing American research to a foreign adversary, that is not academic excellence. It’s institutional betrayal,” D’Esposito said.
John Galligan, attorney for Major Nadal Hasan, as he arrives at the military courthouse at Fort Hood, TX for the preliminary Article 32 hearing for Major Nadal Hasan, accused of killing 13 at the sprawling military base last November. (Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images)
The execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army major who killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, will be live-streamed, a Pentagon official told ABC News on Thursday.
Hasan, who described the attack as an act of jihad, is scheduled to executed by firing squad on Dec. 3 at the same base where he committed the attack.
Public executions were once common in the U.S., but states began restricting and abolishing the practice in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries. The last widely recognized public execution was carried out in Kentucky in 1936.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a media interview that Fort Hood was chosen because that was where Hasan carried out the attack and that the 1 p.m. execution time was selected to roughly coincide with when the shooting began.
President Donald Trump ordered the Army to execute Hasan, which would be its first execution since 1961, and to do so by firing squad. The military has not used that method since 1945 and no longer has a modern procedure for administering it.
The choice of a firing squad forced the Army to abandon months of planning built around a very different kind of execution. Internal documents reviewed by ABC News show that officials had been preparing to use lethal injection if Trump authorized the execution of one of the four prisoners on the service’s death row.
Trump’s approval last Friday came only days after the botched lethal-injection execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, who survived. Pike had been sentenced to death for her role in a 1995 murder.
John Galligan, a retired Army colonel and former military judge at Fort Hood, has represented Hasan for years as a civilian attorney and said he spoke with him Wednesday.
Hasan represented himself during his court-martial but Galligan remained involved in his legal counsel. He told ABC News that Hasan was notified late at night that Trump had approved the execution and that no defense attorney was present when he received the notice.
Last year, the Supreme Court declined to review Hasan’s court-martial conviction. However, Hasan could still seek habeas corpus relief in federal court, potentially delaying the execution.
Following his conversation yesterday with Hasan, Galligan said filing for a habeas petition is “a distinct possibility,” but that they have not yet made a final decision on how they will proceed.
Galligan criticized the Army for scheduling the execution close to the earliest date allowed under its regulations saying officials are, “pushing to get this done at earliest time possible.”
He was especially critical of the decision to carry out the execution at Fort Hood, citing medical concerns for how Hasan, who is paralyzed and in a wheelchair as a result of military officers who subdued him during the shooting, will be transported to the facility. Hasan is currently imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Army rules require an execution to be scheduled between 60 and 150 days after presidential approval, placing Hasan’s execution almost as early as the rules permit.
Galligan said that Hasan’s demeanor was calm after receiving the news of Trump’s approval of his execution Monday, but that he was surprised when Galligan told him that the execution would take place at Fort Hood.
“I’m surprised and shocked that they want to bring him back to Fort Hood. I think it’s more of a public spectacle, closely akin to almost, I see it more as political theater,” Galligan said, adding that making the execution public is, “not great for the confidence in our system of justice.”
Hegseth’s push for Hasan’s execution
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, has pushed for Hasan’s execution for much of his tenure, according to two U.S. officials, but his focus on the case predates his time at the Pentagon.
In 2015, during an appearance on Fox News making the case that troops should be permitted to carry weapons on military bases, Hegseth invoked the Fort Hood shooting. “We are at war. Islamics are at war with us,” he said.
A decade later, in his role as Pentagon chief, Hegseth made his position on Hasan more explicit. “I am 100% committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan,” he told The Hill in September last year. “The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays.”
Internal documents reviewed by ABC News show that, since at least February, Army officials were developing a plan dubbed “Operation Resolute Justice.”
That plan envisioned lethal injection if the president authorized an execution in Terre Haute, Indiana, at the same prison complex where a series of federal executions happened during Trump’s first term.
From the mid-1980s until 2023, lethal injection was the default method of Army executions, until their rules were rewritten to give the Army secretary broad authority as to execution methods.
A military court can impose a death sentence, but carrying it out requires a separate chain of civilian approval. The service secretary, in this case acting Army Secretary Adam Telle, who has been in the job for about a month, must first sign off. The decision then goes to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth before ultimately reaching the president, who has the final authority to approve the execution.
How the Army has conducted firing squad executions
Among the unanswered questions are how the Army will select the soldiers who would serve as executioners and how it will train them for a task the military has not carried out in more than a half-century.
The Army’s most detailed procedures for carrying out an execution by firing squad date to 1959 and have not been updated since. The Army is quickly developing a new procedure on conducting firing squad executions, according to a service official.
But under those old execution rules, a condemned prisoner would be given consistent access to a chaplain, and, when practical, reasonable final requests, according to documentation reviewed by ABC News.
The execution itself called for eight riflemen led by a senior enlisted soldier armed with a pistol. The firing squad would take up position in a straight line, 15 paces from the prisoner, whose wrists and ankles would be restrained. A chaplain could remain with the prisoner up until the final moments before the shooting is ordered.
Between one and three of the eight rifles would be loaded with blanks, and the shooters would select their weapons at random. The prisoner would be dressed in a military uniform stripped of awards, insignia and other markings.
After being given an opportunity to make a final statement, the prisoner would be hooded and a medical officer would place a four-inch target over the heart. The chaplain and medical officer would then move away.
The firing squad would be ordered to aim and fire simultaneously. If the prisoner survived, the rules called for the senior enlisted leader of the firing squad to approach with their pistol, aim above the prisoner’s ear and fire 12 inches from the head.
It is unclear how closely the Army will adhere to those decades-old procedures in Hasan’s case, or how they might be adapted for a prisoner who is paralyzed and uses a wheelchair.
Eric Deters speaks with ABC News, Oct. 8, 2026. (ABC News)
A donor to President Donald Trump accused U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle of offering access to top Trump officials in exchange for cash.
Eric Deters — a former lawyer, conservative media personality and Trump donor, alleged that Guilfoyle asked him to pay her $100,000 credit card bill in July 2025 — days before her Senate confirmation hearing.
“It was all quid pro quo,” Deters claimed to ABC News about the request from Guilfoyle, who is the former wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and ex-fiance of Donald Trump Jr.
Wall Street Journal first reported on Deters’ accusations.
Deters provided messages to ABC News he says he exchanged with Guilfoyle on the subject. In one message from that period, Deters alleges Guilfoyle wrote, “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” which Deters alleged was in reference to the desired credit card payment.
Guilfoyle’s attorney disputed the messages’ authenticity to the Wall Street Journal, but did not provide specifics. Guilfoyle’s attorney also said the money could be a reimbursement for travel and speaking expenses. Deters denies he owed Guilfoyle any money.
Asked whether he thought Guilfoyle was asking for the payment in exchange for something, Deters told ABC News “absolutely.”
“She made it very clear, and the text messages make it very clear. She was so desperate for me to send that $100,000,” Deters said, adding that she said if he sent the money, she would help with his access to Trump administration officials.
Deters says he did not end up making the payment because he didn’t have the money.
Deters is considered a controversial character in Kentucky politics. He ran for Kentucky governor in 2023 and to represent Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District in the House in 2024; he lost both races in the primaries.
A former lawyer, Deters had his law license first suspended in 2012 for actions in multiple cases including comments he made about a judge and improper solicitation of a possible client. In 2021, in refusing to reinstate Deter’s law license, the Kentucky Supreme Court said he had a “notorious propensity” for filing “malicious or frivolous lawsuits,” according to court documents.
Deters told ABC News that in exchange for money, he believed Guilfoyle would wield her influence to help him on specific issues, such as pressing for the extradition of an Ohio doctor who fled to Pakistan — a detail he first told the Wall Street Journal.
Deters says he separately offered Guilfoyle money to press for that extradition. The individual in question is still living in Pakistan.
ABC News has reached out to Guilfoyle, her attorney and the U.S. Embassy in Greece for comment and have not heard back.
In a statement to WSJ, the U.S. embassy in Greece said Guilfoyle’s “career in and out of public service is guided by deep and abiding values” and “the Ambassador remains committed to representing the American people with dedication and integrity.”
During an event focused on eliminating fraud on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance was asked for his reaction to a government official, specifically a U.S. ambassador, asking someone to pay off their debt in exchange for access to other government officials — an apparent reference to the Guilfoyle allegations.
Vance said he disapproves of people “selling access” to government officials, but denied knowledge about the particular instance being referenced.
“Obviously, I don’t love that,” Vance said of the hypothetical scenario presented to him. He later added, “Of course, I don’t like anybody selling access to another government official. Certainly, a high-level government official.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio sidestepped a question about Guilfoyle’s alleged conduct overnight while departing Athens, Greece.
“I don’t even know if it’s true or not true,” Rubio said. “So it’s just not going to work that way, and it will certainly not going to work that way when I’m sitting in another country.”
US President Donald Trump hands a challenge coin and a pen to a child during an announcement on Trump Accounts in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (Annabelle Gordon/The Washington Post/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump on Wednesday hailed what he called the “historic” enrollment of 70 million American children into his Trump Accounts, calling them “a step to ensure every American child has a fair shot at the American Dream.”
The administration announced that beginning on Oct. 1, the Treasury Department automatically enrolled 60 million children under age 18 in the president’s signature investment accounts in addition to the 10 million whose parents opted into the accounts following their official release on July 4.
“With automatic enrollment now complete, every American child under the age of 18 has a Trump Account in their name, making it easier than ever for families to participate,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement.
According to the administration, $2.2 billion has been deposited into the accounts since their release on July 4. The Treasury Department pledged to pour a one-time $1,000 seed contribution for each child born between Jan. 1, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2028. Children born outside of that range will not receive the seed contribution from the Treasury — but their family members and acquaintances are able to deposit money into the accounts. Several corporations — including Uber and Nvidia — and philanthropists — such as Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, who seeded the program with a $6.25 billion contribution, also donated to the accounts.
Trump, encircled by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and the Dells, predicted, “So if all goes well, which I think it will, they’ll end up being quite rich by the time they’re 18 and then 21.”
Trump said in January when he announced the initiative that a number of major U.S. companies pledged to match the federal government’s initial contribution for eligible employees’ children, including Charles Schwab, Robinhood, SoFi, Uber, Charter Communication and BNY, and that several others had agreed to make contributions.
In a notice published in the Federal Register, the Treasury Department said that auto-enrollment was geared to maximize children’s participation in the accounts, estimating that an additional 2 million children would benefit from the accounts every year as a result.
“An eligible individual should not lose the opportunity to receive contributions or investment growth merely because no adult completed an election,” the Treasury wrote in the notice.
Starting Oct. 1, parents no longer have to opt-in to the accounts, but can claim their children’s accounts on the Trump Accounts app.
According to the administration, the accounts are designed to boost future financial security for the most recent generation of Americans, with each child gaining access to the account in their name once they reach the age of 18. They can then allocate the funds in the account solely for purposes designated by the Treasury Department — including paying for university tuition or purchasing a house.
Some Democrats have praise the program. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore called it a “smart policy,” and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called it “one of the best things [Trump] has done.”
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts introduced a similar proposal in 2023, which would have provided each American child with $1,000 at birth in an account that they could access at age 18, but it didn’t make it out of committee. Booker also supported Trump’s proposal.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks while aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, Oct. 7, 2026. (POOL via ABC News)
The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group will return to its homeport of San Diego on Thursday, concluding a 10-month deployment to the Middle East where it played a key role in the war with Iran and set a new record of 265 days in between ports of call.
In all, the ship will have spent 321 days on deployment, the second-longest since the end of the Cold War. The longest deployment was set earlier this year when the carrier USS Gerald R. Ford returned from a 326-day deployment to Europe, the Caribbean and the Middle East.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the Lincoln on Wednesday ahead of its return home and praised the ship’s crew for its resilience and dedication during the lengthy deployment.
Hegseth told sailors gathered on the carrier’s flight deck that he had extended their deployment twice — in recent years typical carrier strike deployments have lasted seven months.
“I plead guilty, A., because of the incredible effectiveness that you showcased on the battlefield and the necessity. But also B., the mission required it, and C., because President Trump had full faith that you would deliver on behalf of the American people, and you did” he, added.
“What the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group did, no other carrier strike group has ever done,” Hegseth said, listing its accomplishments: “10,000 sorties, 23,000 combat flight hours, almost 4,000 combat sorties, 1.5 million pounds of ordinance dropped on the enemy,” to cheers from sailors.
The aircraft assigned to the carrier had returned to their home bases in California and Washington state earlier in the week.
The Lincoln’s crew suffered from supply disruptions caused by the start of the war that impacted food stocks and the long deployment led to reports that the crew’s mental health was suffering.
The Navy has reported that there were eight suicide attempts aboard the carrier during the deployment, including one sailor who jumped overboard and was later rescued.
That figure that appears to be on the lower end of what is experienced during carrier deployments, according to a U.S. official.
“There were a few folks in the media who tried to turn the USS Abraham Lincoln into some sort of a symbol,” Hegesth said. “A symbol of dysfunction, or a symbol of low morale, or a symbol of a failed mission. And what I look out right here or when I talk to your leadership, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to a number of you, I know it’s the exact opposite.”
At the conclusion of his remarks, Hegseth announced that the Lincoln carrier strike group was being awarded the prestigious Presidential Unit Citation, an award for distinction given to military units.
When he read the citation to the crew, he disclosed more statistics about the carrier group’s air operations against Iran that have not previously been disclosed.
That included: 3,693 combat sorties, 1.37 million pounds of ordnance dropped on Iranian targets, the launching of 450 Tomahawk cruise missiles by warships accompanying the carrier, the shoot-down of 77 Iranian one-way attack drones and 21 anti-ship cruise missiles, the defense against four fast-attack craft and explosive-carrying dhows, and helping with the sinking of 64 Iranian warships.
Navy officials have said that the Lincoln’s deployment has helped them make quality of life improvements for future lengthy carrier deployments, including that of the USS Theodore Roosevelt which left San Diego a week ago bound for the Middle East.
“Roosevelt is maximizing its load-out of food, retail products and hygiene items before getting underway,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, the Chief of Naval Operations, said in a recently released video.
“The crew is converting available spaces into additional storage, building the ability to remain self-sufficient for longer periods, especially when resupply may be difficult,” said Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy John Perryman.
And quality of life is a focus with new entertainment equipment available to sailors. as well as more durable fitness equipmen. and spare cardio machines.
The carrier’s systems are also being upgraded with software updates and instructions, and being pre-staged aboard the ship,” allowing the crew to keep critical services running even when bandwidth is limited or the ship is operating in a degraded condition,” Caudle said.
Improvements have also been made to climate control systems and a specialized team will be on board to inspect and optimize those systems, Perryman said.
And improvements are being made to keep families informed about the deployment.
“As one carrier returns home, we listen to its sailors and families. We capture what worked and what didn’t, and we make it better the next time,” Prettyman said. “To the Lincoln team, thank you for what you accomplished and for what you taught us, and to the Roosevelt team, we’re doing everything we can to make sure you are ready for the mission. You and your families.”
The remarkable survival of Christa Pike after an attempted execution in Tennessee poses equally remarkable legal questions about whether a second state attempt to kill her would violate the Constitution.
Pike, 50, who is said to be “conscious” and “speaking” after receiving two doses of lethal injection, faces what her attorneys call a “long recovery” and the prospect she may return to the death chamber.
Her attorneys say a second attempt at ending her life now would be “cruel and unusual punishment” under the 8th Amendment and are urging Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life without parole. So far, the Tennessee governor has publicly kept execution on the table.
“My responsibility is to uphold the sentences that Tennessee juries have handed down, even when it’s difficult, and that is exactly what we intend to do in the days ahead,” Lee said at a press conference last week. “The people of Tennessee have determined that the death penalty is the appropriate penalty for the most heinous crimes in the state. The people of Tennessee make that decision, and my job is to make sure then that those sentences are carried out.”
Legal scholars say the case presents unprecedented circumstances, as Pike is the first person to have survived administration of pentobarbital, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
However, it is not the first time an American has survived attempted execution and challenged a subsequent attempt on constitutional grounds.
In 1947, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of 17-year-old Willie Francis, a Black teenager who was sent to the electric chair but survived a botched electrocution.
After a Louisiana executioner threw the switch, Francis reportedly screamed “I’m not dying!” and “Take it off! Let me breathe!,” according to court documents.
Witnesses, in sworn affidavits, reported seeing Francis’ lips puff out and swell, body tense and stretch, and the chair itself came off the ground. “This boy really got a shock when they turned that machine on,” one said.
The state insisted no electric current actually passed through Francis’ body due to some mechanical difficulty.
At the time, it was the only known U.S. case of a condemned person surviving an attempted execution.
Francis, who at age 16 had been convicted of murdering a former employer, challenged a second electrocution by arguing it would violate 14th Amendment due process rights, a 5th Amendment prohibition on multiple punishments, and amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment.
Attorneys for Christa Pike could likely raise similar claims, legal experts say.
The high court in 1947, however, narrowly rejected them.
In a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Stanley Reed, the Supreme Court concluded Francis’ constitutional rights would not be violated by electrocuting him a second time (which Louisiana ultimately did).
“Accidents happen for which no man is to blame,” Reed wrote in the decision.
“Even the fact that petitioner has already been subjected to a current of electricity does not make his subsequent execution any more cruel in the constitutional sense than any other execution,” he wrote.
Reed rejected claims of added “psychological strain” on Francis because of the botched first attempt and the notion that a do-over would amount to “more severe punishment” than was originally imposed.
Justice Felix Frankfurter, concurring in the decision, added that states also have the right to administer justice as they see fit. “This court must abstain from interference with state action no matter how strong one’s personal feeling of revulsion against a state’s insistence on its pound of flesh,” he wrote.
In dissent, Justice Harold Burton argued that repeated electrocutions amounted to unconstitutional cruelty.
“It is unthinkable that any state legislature in modern times would enact a statute expressly authorizing capital punishment by repeated applications of an electric current separated by intervals of days or hours until finally death shall result,” Burton wrote.
He noted that Louisiana state law — as with most others that authorize the death penalty — call for methods that impose instantaneous and substantially painless death.
“If the state officials deliberately and intentionally had placed [Francis] in the electric chair five times and, each time, had applied electric current to his body in a manner not sufficient, until the final time, to kill him,” Burton wrote, “such a form of torture would rival that of burning at the stake.”
Burton concluded: “It was the statutory duty of state officials to make sure that there was no failure,” he wrote dissenting.
Whether or not the faulty administration of lethal injection to Pike was an “accident” could be a key question in weighing a future legal challenge, if state officials decide to try to execute her again.
State officials have said publicly that they followed established protocol during the episode, even as it is now under independent review.
Pike’s attorneys say they repeatedly pointed out in court documents that her unusually small veins would pose unique difficulty for executioners, and that childhood trauma from rape and sexual abuse would exacerbate mental anguish in the death chamber.
Her attorneys did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during an event at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building, October 5, 2026 in Washington. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
Democrats are urging Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to stop the Trump administration’s proposed changes to Head Start, calling the reforms to the early childcare and education program illegal and “antithetical” to the mission of Head Start.
Head Start, the largest federal childcare program, aims to ensure that more than 700,000 kids receive a high-quality pre-school education for students ages 3-5 and improve welfare outcomes for children and their families. The reforms transfer federal oversight to state programs.
In a letter led by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, a bicameral coalition of lawmakers accuse the federal health department of proposing to “gut” the program by rolling back 90% of its performance standards and it asks Kennedy to withdraw the changes outlined in the agency’s recent announcement.
But the new administrative changes could diminish program quality, reduce disciplinary standards, eliminate jobs for educators and healthcare providers and weaken protections for students with disabilities and unhoused families, according to the letter that was first obtained by ABC News.
“This proposed rule is a brazen attempt to dismantle Head Start without regard for the hundreds of thousands of young children and working-class families who depend on these programs and services every year,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Kennedy’s office on Wednesday.
In addition to Sanders, who serves as the ranking member on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Education Committee ranking member Bobby Scott and more than 150 other Democrats signed onto the letter.
The lawmakers allege that the proposed changes violate the Head Start Act — the law that authorizes the eligibility and standards for the program — and illegally eliminate the program’s core components of giving vulnerable students and families a boost in life. For more than 60 years, the program has provided early childhood education, health, nutrition and family support services to low-income children and families.
Head Start has undergone major revisions under previous administrations, including the largest reduction in funded Head Start slots in program history.
Since FY16, Head Start enrollment has declined from over 1 million children to 771,121 in FY25, according to government data. The National Head Start Association supports the government’s intent to reduce unnecessary burden on Head Start programs and educators but the organization said the proposed rule exceeds its deregulatory approach.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services contended that any Head Start program that likes its current performance standards under the federal government’s previous guidance is welcome to maintain those standards.
“Head Start teachers and staff are exceptional professionals who have in many cases dedicated their lives to serving children and families,” the spokesperson wrote. “It is a shame that some elected leaders in Washington do not trust Head Start directors, teachers, and parents to make wise decisions for the children they serve but instead believe Washington must tell all 1,600 Head Start centers across the U.S. exactly how they have to run their programs.”
Early childhood advocates stress that new regulations requiring English-only instruction, caps on administrative spending, and shifts in health screenings could also harm future Head Start participants.
Wednesday’s letter comes as the 60-day open comment period for the changes ends. Kennedy’s uncle, Sargent Shriver, founded the program in 1965. The secretary has said that the reforms will remove unnecessary bureaucracy for hundreds of thousands of American families to renew the “promise of Head Start for the next generation” by allowing local Head Start centers more authority over their programs.
In their letter, the lawmakers scolded the proposal saying Kennedy “made a commitment to Congress to ‘preserve’ Head Start,” during his confirmation hearings — “yet this proposed rule is the latest attempt by the Administration to deteriorate and ultimately eliminate the program by gutting the core standards and services that have long-defined and ensured its success.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s goal to make the largest revision to federal childcare policy in decades aligns with current administration priorities. If implemented, the new regulations would empower parents, implement the new federal dietary guidelines and physical activity standards, shift early childhood governing authority to the states, and eliminate duplicative layers of compliance, according to the health department. The department also awarded over $200 million to Head Start for nutrition, facilities, and other services last month.
For now, as federal funding remains intact and programs are still operating, Head Start proponents told ABC News that fewer federal regulations should not mean fewer results for its families.
Bernadine Futrell, who served as the Biden administration’s Head Start director, told ABC News that the program is life saving and provides critical services.
“It’s more than early learning,” Futrell told ABC News, adding “It is an early childhood program. It’s focusing on brain development, health and nutrition, healthy habits, financial literacy, economic mobility for parents, and it’s a two-generational approach – where it’s not just a child being served; it’s the entire family that is moving to another level.”
