Judge blocks Trump order on transgender youth care: ACLU
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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting gender-affirming care for transgender people under the age of 19, according to the civil liberties groups behind the legal challenge to the order.
Trump’s order aimed to withhold federal funding to medical institutions that provide such care — including puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and surgeries — calling on the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to “take all appropriate actions to end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.” The executive order does not appear to restrict these procedures for non-transgender people under 19.
Transgender young adults and families with transgender youth filed a legal challenge in early February against the order.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump announced some energy and environmental policy priorities that represent a stark departure from U.S. climate policy under former President Joe Biden.
His professed policies include a declaration of a “national energy emergency,” a rollback of the previous administration’s vehicle emissions standards — which were released last March — and the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which is a major international agreement intended to reduce the impacts of global warming.
On energy Trump said during his second inaugural address Monday afternoon that he will declare a “national energy emergency” during his first day in office and “drill, baby, drill.”
“We have the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it,” Trump said. “We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again right to the top and export American energy all over the world. We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”
The U.S. became a net energy exporter in 2019, during Trump’s first term — a status maintained under the Biden administration. In 2024, the U.S. reached an annual record of 13.2 million barrels per day of crude oil production, according to the Energy Information Administration. Last week, the EIA forecast additional growth for U.S. crude oil production this year in its most recent short-term energy outlook.
America is also already the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas, according to the EIA. The Biden administration paused the approval of additional LNG export facilities last January, with several project proposals awaiting approvals at that time. Ahead of the inauguration, the Trump administration said that it intended to undo this pause and expand LNG exports further.
On EV standards Trump also said Monday that he would “end the Green New Deal” and “revoke the electric vehicle mandate,” in a statement that references Biden-era rules from the Environmental Protection Agency regulating tailpipe emissions from both standard and heavy-duty vehicles.
“With my actions today, we will end the Green New Deal, and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers,” Trump said. “In other words, you’ll be able to buy the car of your choice.”
Trump’s comments misrepresent the Biden-era rules, which were not a mandate for automakers to manufacture electric vehicles and did not require Americans to buy any specific type of car. The standards, released in March 2024, established an average of allowed emissions across a vehicle manufacturer’s entire fleet of offered vehicles. They affected only newly manufactured cars from model years 2027 to 2032.
At the time, Biden administration officials emphasized that there were multiple pathways to compliance with the new tailpipe standards, including the use of improved internal combustion engines, hybrids and fully electric cars.
On the Paris climate accords In a press release, Trump also said he would withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Day 1 — a move that would make good on one of his campaign’s promises.
The Paris Agreement was originally ratified at the annual United Nations Climate Conference (also known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP) in 2015. It intended to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels — a metric scientists believed would significantly reduce the impacts of climate change.
The world exceeded this metric for the first time in 2024, which was the warmest year on record according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
During his first term in office, Trump withdrew from the agreement; however, Biden re-entered it on his first day in office. The Biden administration implemented a slate of policies meant to address the country’s contribution to climate change and help mitigate emissions.
Both priorities are widely expected to change under the new Trump administration.
With another withdrawal, it seems Trump renders moot the Nationally Determined Contribution released by the Biden administration last month. That NDC, required by the Paris Agreement to be updated every five years, claimed the U.S. was setting a goal to cut its greenhouse gas emissions more than 60% by the year 2035.
(WASHINGTON) — When more than a dozen MAGA-aligned activists and social media influencers gathered at the White House last week, they had no idea they were about to be handed binders titled “Epstein Files: Phase 1”– and neither did senior White House officials who organized the event, according to multiple sources familiar with the event.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and her team did not inform White House officials in advance that she planned to distribute the binders, which contained almost no new information regarding convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein — and now the move has ruffled feathers among those closest to President Donald Trump, including his senior White House staff, sources tell ABC News.
The move faced widespread criticism, not only from Democrats but also from some of the president’s most loyal supporters.
White House staff moved quickly to try and contain the fallout, privately reaching out to influencers who were critical of Bondi and the move online, according to sources.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, responding to a request for comment from ABC News, said, “Everyone is working together as one unified team at the direction of President Trump. Any notion to the contrary is completely false.”
Officials with the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while facing federal child sex trafficking charges. The well-connected financier, who owned a private island estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands, has long been rumored to have kept a “client list” of celebrities and politicians, which right-wing influencers have accused authorities of hiding. Multiple sources familiar with both civil and criminal cases against Epstein say no such list has been discovered.
The night before last week’s event, Bondi told Fox News that the Justice Department planned to publish “a lot of flight logs” and “a lot of names” related to Epstein. However, the binders largely consisted of information previously made public through criminal or civil litigation surrounding Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, leading senior White House staffers to question why Bondi was even teasing the release of new information in the first place.
Ahead of the Justice Department’s public release, Bondi directed her staff to compile binders of the materials to distribute to the influencers at the event, sources said. She also instructed her team not to inform White House officials of the plan, according to multiple sources, apparently thinking the surprise would be well received inside the West Wing.
The White House had organized the event a week earlier to engage influential pro-Trump voices who the president credits with aiding his 2024 campaign. According to multiple sources, the agenda never included distributing Epstein-related materials.
During the gathering in the Roosevelt Room, influencers including Liz Wheeler, Rogan O’Handley and Chaya Raichik, the creator of Libs of TikTok, met with Leavitt and Vice President JD Vance. Then, Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel entered the room and handed out binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” with the words “By Order of Attorney General Pam Bondi & FBI Director Kash Patel” printed on the cover and the word “Declassified” stamped across the top — though the documents did not contain any official government declassification markings.
The information had not yet been posted on the Justice Department website when press cameras, set up to cover British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit, captured influencers leaving the West Wing. Some were seen smiling while holding MAGA hats and the binders — giving the impression they contained new revelations about one of the most infamous sex trafficking criminals in modern history.
The images quickly went viral, generating a mix of speculation, confusion and outrage across the political spectrum.
“If you look at the traffic online over the Epstein release, I have never seen the Left and the Right come together in a moment on a debacle,” Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz said on CNN.
Behind the scenes, Trump White House officials pointed the finger at Bondi, who they say quietly arranged the release without notifying senior staff, multiple sources told ABC News.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, who leads a congressional task force overseeing the release of Epstein-related documents, condemned the move on X, calling it a “complete disappointment” and saying she had not been informed of the plan.
Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and one of Trump’s most vocal supporters, also blasted the handling of the release, writing on X: “The Epstein files were released in an unprofessional manner with paid, partisan social media influencers to curate their binders for us. I can’t trust anything in the binder. Neither should you.”
Bondi proceeded to react to the fallout by accusing the FBI’s New York office of withholding information about the Epstein investigation, but did not specify what material she believed the office to be withholding. She demanded that the office “hand over all records in its possession relating to Epstein” by 8 a.m. last Friday.
The Epstein material released last week contained previously published pilots’ logs and included redactions performed by prosecutors on the case to protect the identities of potential victims, as well as Epstein’s so-called “black book” that has previously been made public.
One document never before seen is what the Justice Department is calling “Evidence List,” a three-page catalog of material apparently obtained through searches of Epstein’s properties in New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Bondi claimed in an interview Monday night with Fox’s Sean Hannity that she has since received “thousands of pages of documents” that she has the FBI sifting through, but did not detail what exactly had been turned over.
On Monday, James Dennehy, the head of the FBI in New York and a well-regarded leader in the New York law enforcement community, told the office he was forced to submit his resignation on Friday as assistant director-in-charge of one of the FBI’s most visible posts. Dennehy said he was not given a reason for the decision.
Airplanes sit parked at gates at Terminal A at Newark Liberty International Airport/Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
(MIAMI) — A New Jersey man was charged with threatening flight passengers, attendants and crew members on a flight from Miami, Florida, to Newark, New Jersey.
According to the complaint, Luis Vaquero made “threats of physical violence against a disabled minor and mocking a group of Jewish passengers.”
It said that he also threatened a flight attendant when they refused to serve him more alcohol. When the plane arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday, the captain made an announcement that law enforcement would be removing a passenger, according to the complaint.
It said that Vaquero then left his seat and began banging on the flight deck door and cursing at the captain while the plane was taxiing.
When the plane arrived at the gate, the complaint said the captain emerged from the flight deck and Vaquero approached him, screaming in his face and threatening him until law enforcement officers boarded the plane and escorted Vaquero off.
“The defendant is charged with threatening flight crew members and passengers while traveling to Newark,” Acting United States Attorney Vikas Khanna said in a press release. “We are committed to keeping the skies safe for flying and will prosecute those who criminally interfere with the professionals responsible for ensuring passenger safety.”
“It all culminated in a terrifying attack and attempted breach of the flight deck when witnesses say he banged on the cockpit door and confronted the pilot,” Acting Special Agent in Charge Terence G. Reilly said in the release.
“The harrowing flight and other similar incidents onboard airplanes recently are creating tension and fear for fliers and crew members,” Reilly added. “FBI Newark has a warning for those who think it may not be a big deal—they’re breaking federal law, and they will be brought to justice.”
