Judge again directs DOJ to address whether ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ is dead
U.S. President Donald Trump during the G7 Summit on June 17, 2026 in Evian-les-Bains, France. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge is again directing the Justice Department to formally address whether the Trump administration’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is dead, as the agency has claimed.
The order, filed Wednesday by District Judge Leonie Brinkema, comes after the Justice Department refused to issue a signed declaration verifying the $1.8 billion fund was not moving forward.
In her order, Brinkema said she is not satisfied with the DOJ’s contention that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s recent testimony before Congress is proof enough that the fund is dead.
“That the defendants have refused to accord a genuine degree of trustworthiness to their representations about the Fund not going forward is particularly concerning because of the President’s consistent support for the Fund and Acting Attorney General Blanche’s acknowledgement that the Fund remains ‘important,'” Brinkema wrote.
She is demanding that the DOJ file papers issuing another response in the coming weeks and hinted in her order that Blanche may have to answer questions about his plans for the fund in a deposition.
The $1.776 billion fund was announced in May by the Justice Department to compensate those who allege they were wrongly targeted under the Biden administration.
It was proposed in exchange for President Donald Trump agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS as well as two civil claims for $230 million related to the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate — sparking accusations of self-dealing and a bipartisan uproar over the possible use of taxpayer money to pay rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Monday blocked a Trump administration voter-screening database, ruling that the government’s “haphazard” system unlawfully consolidated “the private information of millions of Americans” in an effort to purge non-citizens from voter rolls.
In her order, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan said the federal government “has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Snow potential on Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — May is expected to feel like December in parts of Colorado as a significant snowstorm is forecast to hit the state on Tuesday, potentially providing a late-spring gift to its sagging snow totals.
Winter storm alerts are in place on Tuesday for parts of Colorado and neighboring Wyoming through Wednesday.
The Denver metropolitan area is expected to get 2 to 6 inches of snow on Tuesday night and into Wednesday.
The Mile High City is about 20 inches below average for snowfall this season.
Parts of the Central Rocky Mountains, which up to now have seen a record-low snowpack this season, could get 1 to 2 feet of snow on Tuesday and into Wednesday.
The snowstorm comes a day after the temperature in Denver hit 75. On Tuesday, Denver is only expected to get into the lower 40s — about 30 degrees colder than on Monday.
Warm weather from Washington, D.C., to New York City
Meanwhile, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Raleigh, North Carolina, are expected to top 80 degrees on Tuesday — which is 5 to 15 degrees above average for this time of the year.
On Wednesday, a rush of cold air is expected to bring widespread below-average temperatures across the Midwest and Great Lakes.
Chicago reached 80 on Monday, but will likely only reach 60 on Tuesday.
Severe weather expected in Texas and Arkansas
On Tuesday, severe storms are possible from Dallas to Jonesboro, Arkansas, with the main threats expected to be large hail, damaging wind and possible isolated tornadoes.
Across the South this week, a widespread storm is forecast to produce 1.5 inches to 4 inches of rain. Much of the rain is expected to be beneficial across the drought-stricken region.
NTSB investigators walk the scene of the March 22 collision between an Air Canada Express plane and a firefighting vehicle on Runway 4 at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, March 23, 2026. (NTSB)
(NEW YORK) — Two people were in the LaGuardia Airport air traffic control tower cab when an Air Canada jet collided with a Port Authority airport vehicle on a runway at the New York City airport on Sunday night, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The on-the-ground crash killed both pilots, left dozens injured and prompted LaGuardia to shut down for more than 12 hours. Antoine Forest has been identified by his family as one of the two pilots killed.
The collision happened shortly after Air Canada Flight 8646, which was carrying four crew members and 72 passengers, touched down from Montreal around 11:45 p.m., according to Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia. The plane, which was operated by Jazz Aviation, struck a rescue-and-firefighting vehicle responding to another aircraft, officials said.
Preliminary data shows the plane was traveling between 93 and 105 mph when it impacted the fire truck, FlightRadar24 told ABC News.
At least 43 people — from the plane and the fire truck — were taken to hospitals, officials said.
As the NTSB investigates the crash, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said there were two people in the air traffic control tower cab at the time of collision: the local controller and the controller in charge.
Two controllers is “the standard operating procedure for LaGuardia for the midnight shift,” Homendy at a news conference on Tuesday.
She said the NTSB has been concerned about fatigue from the midnight shift in past investigations, but stressed that there is no evidence of fatigue so far in this case.
LaGuardia has a runway safety system allowing air traffic controllers to track surface movement of planes and vehicles, but that system “did not alert,” Homendy said.
The analysis found that the system “did not generate an alert due to the close proximity of vehicles merging and unmerging near the runway, resulting in the inability to create a track of high confidence,” Homendy said.
There is no indication yet if the pilots saw the fire truck on the runway, Homendy said, noting that the NTSB is still analyzing the cockpit voice recorder.
Homendy said the NTSB is still working to determine what happened at the air traffic controllers’ shift change around 10:30 p.m.
“We know that that controller was still on duty for several minutes afterwards” the crash, she said, when usually they’d be relieved, so she said the NTSB is investigating if anyone was available to relieve them.
Homendy also stressed that the NTSB “rarely, if ever, investigate[s] a major accident where it was one failure” — usually “many, many things” went wrong, she said.
“Our aviation system is incredibly safe because there are multiple, multiple layers of defense built in to prevent an accident,” she explained.
One passenger on the flight, Joe, said that as the plane was landing, he noticed some emergency vehicles on the tarmac.
“Right before the impacts, we felt something, maybe like an emergency brake that was pulled, or some kind of hard stop, before we hit the truck,” Joe, who did not want to use his last name, told ABC News Live. “But prior to that, there was nothing out of the ordinary that I had noticed.”
“Because I was seated in the emergency aisle, somebody in the plane had shouted, ‘Emergency exits open,'” Joe said. “So at that time, I pulled the lever down, attached the door, put it to the side of the plane, and a few of us had exited through the emergency exit onto the wing of the plane. And FDNY and Port Authority Police directed us to slide down the wing. … It was very low to the ground and easy to get off.”
Joe, who was on the flight with his fiancé, said Monday evening that they were “pretty shaken up, still kind of in shock.”
“And just heartbroken for, obviously, the pilots, and all those that are injured,” Joe said.
He said he believes the pilots “saved many lives on that flight — and my heart’s just broken for them.”
LaGuardia shut down after the crash and slowly resumed flights at 2 p.m. Monday. The runway where the collision occurred will remain closed until 7 a.m. Friday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
