Los Angeles removes fire chief in wake of massive wildfires
Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES) — Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley has been removed by Mayor Karen Bass in the wake of the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires that killed dozens and destroyed hundreds of homes.
Bass said on Friday that she removed Crowley because firefighters were sent home instead of being used when the fires broke out last month.
“We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch,” Bass said in a statement. “Furthermore, a necessary step to an investigation was the President of the Fire Commission telling Chief Crowley to do an after action report on the fires. The Chief refused. These require her removal.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LOUISIANA) — NFL hopeful Kyren Lacy, one of the top wide receiver prospects in this year’s draft, is wanted for negligent homicide in connection with a deadly crash in Louisiana last month, state police announced Friday.
Louisiana State Police said they have issued an arrest warrant for Lacy, 24, of Thibodaux, for allegedly leaving the scene of a fatal crash on Dec. 17.
Lacy, who played for Louisiana State University in the fall before declaring for the draft, is alleged to have been behind the wheel of a 2023 Dodge Charger when he “recklessly passed multiple vehicles at a high rate of speed by crossing the centerline and entering the northbound lane while in a designated No-Passing Zone” on Louisiana Highway 20, state police said in a press release.
The driver of a 2017 Kia Cadenza traveling north swerved to avoid hitting the Dodge, only to cross the centerline and collide head-on with a 2017 Kia Sorento. A passenger in the Kia Sorento, identified by police as 78-year-old Herman Hall of Thibodaux, died from his injuries after being transported to a hospital, authorities said.
Lacy allegedly drove around the crash scene and fled south, “without stopping to render aid, call emergency services, or report his involvement in the crash,” state police said.
In addition to negligent homicide, he is being sought for felony hit and run and reckless operation of a vehicle, police said.
“Troopers are in communication with Lacy and his legal representation to turn himself in,” Louisiana State Police said in the release.
Lacy’s agent said the athlete is “fully cooperating with the authorities.”
“We strongly believe that the facts will ultimately demonstrate the truth, but we respect the need for a full and thorough investigation,” the agent, Rocky Arceneaux of Alliance Sports, said in a statement.
Arceneaux added that the case is “being taken very seriously, and we are committed to resolving it responsibly.”
Lacy was a wide receiver for the LSU Tigers. Two days after the crash, on Dec. 19, he announced that he will be declaring for the 2025 NFL draft.
The star prospect had 58 catches for 866 yards and nine touchdowns this season. Lacy had 26 touchdown catches in his five seasons at LSU. He opted out of the Texas Bowl against Baylor to focus on preparation for the draft.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is expected to issue a slew of executive actions on Monday that would impact transgender Americans, including an executive order declaring that the U.S. government will only recognize a person’s gender assigned at birth, Trump officials told reporters during a press call.
The executive orders, which Trump is expected to sign on Monday, his first day in office, include prohibiting federal funds from being used in programs that acknowledge people who identify as transgender, according to Trump officials.
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These are sexes that are not changeable, and they are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” an incoming White House official said during the call, which took place ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
Trump’s executive actions are expected to rescind 2023 Biden administration policies related to the treatment of transgender individuals in the federal workplace.
Policies include Biden administration guidance on gender and inclusion for public servants, which was issued on March 31, 2023, marking Trans Visibility Day, in which the Office of Personnel Management updated guidance on gender inclusion in the federal workplace, including ensuring that “all federal employees have their respective gender identities accurately reflected and identified in the workplace.”
The Biden administration guidance also directed federal agencies to “take steps to implement or increase the availability of training programs on gender identity and inclusion in the federal workplace for employees, managers, and leadership.”
According to Trump officials, Trump’s executive actions also would rescind many policies set by the Biden administration, including withholding federal money from schools and colleges unless they followed certain rules to protect trans students from harassment.
In addition, entities like prisons and shelters that receive federal funds would also be required to designate “single sex” spaces, White House officials said, assigning people to certain areas based on their gender assigned at birth.
Trump also plans to rescind a 2022 Biden administration rule in which the U.S. Department of State made it possible for people applying for U.S. passports to be able to select “X” to mark their gender, officials said.
The move, which was designed to accommodate nonbinary, intersex and gender nonconforming individuals, was announced by then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 31, 2022, marking Transgender Day of Visibility.
“The Department of State has reached another milestone in our work to better serve all U.S. citizens, regardless of their gender identity,” Blinken said in a statement at the time.
The Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBTQ+ advocacy group, told ABC News in a statement that while the group has not seen the text of the executive orders, HRC is committed to working to help combat these actions in the courts and in Congress to “ensure that LGBTQ+ people are protected.”
“Every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect in all areas of their lives,” HRC President Kelley Robinson told ABC News in a statement on Monday. “No one should be subjected to ongoing discrimination, harassment and humiliation where they work, go to school, or access health care. But today’s expected executive actions targeting the LGBTQ+ community serve no other purpose than to hurt our families and our communities.”
“Any attack on our rights threatens the rights of any person who doesn’t fit into the narrow view of how they should look and act,” Robinson added. “The incoming administration is trying to divide our communities in the hope that we forget what makes us strong. But we refuse to back down or be intimidated.”
(WASHINGTON) — Senior Justice Department officials serving under Donald Trump’s first administration may have violated federal law in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election by pushing for pandemic-related investigations that targeted states with Democratic governors, and then leaking private information about those investigations to friendly media outlets in a potential attempt to influence the election, according to a previously-undisclosed report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog.
The inspector general’s report, obtained by ABC News, concluded that for one of the officials — a senior member of the department’s public affairs team who the report said first hatched the alleged plan to leak investigative information — “the upcoming election was the motivating factor.”
The report specifically pointed to a text message he sent in mid-October 2020, describing a proposed leak to a major New York-area tabloid about reviews of COVID-related deaths at nursing homes in New York and New Jersey as “our last play on them before [the] election” — “but it’s a big one,” he added, according to the report.
The inspector general’s report comes just weeks before Trump takes office again, after winning reelection two months ago in part by promoting questionable claims that the Biden administration had used the Justice Department to further its own political agenda.
Last week, the inspector general’s office released a brief and vague summary of its report, saying only that three former officials had violated Justice Department policies by leaking “non-public DOJ investigative information” to “select reporters, days before an election.”
The summary said the officials may have even violated the Hatch Act, a non-criminal law that prohibits federal employees from using their positions to engage in political activities.
The summary did not say when the alleged violations occurred or which election may have been implicated, but some of Trump’s supporters and at least one major conservative media outlet claimed that it involved the Biden administration trying to harm Trump’s most recent reelection bid.
The partially-redacted report, obtained by ABC News through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows otherwise.
According to the report, in the summer of 2020, leaders of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division at the time pushed for reviews of government-run nursing homes in several states, looking to find any connections between deaths there and orders from governors directing nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients.
In late August 2020, when the Justice Department then sent letters to the governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York seeking relevant data — “despite having been provided data indicating that the nursing homes with the most significant quality of care issues were in other states” — the Justice Department’s public affairs office issued a press release about the move, the report said.
Though the inspector general’s office said it did not find evidence that any officials, even career officials, raised concerns at the time, the report said current and former officials more recently described the press release as “unusual and inappropriate.”
The report further details how over the next few months, leadership in the Civil Rights Division pressured officials in the department’s Civil Division to send a letter to New York officials seeking data regarding COVID-19-related deaths in private nursing homes throughout the state, the report said. The Civil Division officials were reluctant to do so, but they ultimately complied because they were “led to believe” that the directive to make the investigative activity public was “coming from Attorney General [Bill] Barr,” the report said.
Then in October 2020, in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign, the senior official with the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs proposed his plan to leak information about the letter and other information about an investigation of state-run facilities in New Jersey, according to the report.
On Oct. 17, 2020, the senior public affairs official texted colleagues: “I’m trying to get [them] to do letters to [New Jersey and New York] respectively on nursing homes. Would like to package them together and let [a certain tabloid] break it. Will be our last play on them before election but it’s a big one,” according to the report.
A week before the election, on Oct. 27, 2020, the investigative information was provided to the New York-area tabloid, which published a story that night, accusing New York authorities of undercounting deaths in nursing homes, the report said. The inspector general’s report noted that official statistics released at the time did in fact undercount the actual number of deaths.
Nevertheless, “the conduct of these senior officials raised serious questions about partisan political motivation for their actions in proximity to the 2020 election,” inspector general Michael Horowitz said in his report.
“[T]he then upcoming 2020 election may have been a factor in the timing and manner of those actions and announcing them to the public,” Horowitz added, concluding that the three officials violated the Justice Department’s media contacts policy.
Horowitz said his office has referred its findings to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which is tasked with investigating potential violations of the Hatch Act.
A spokesperson for the Office of Special Counsel confirmed to ABC News that his office received the referral and is now reviewing it.
The inspector general’s report noted that Barr declined to be interviewed in connection with Horowitz’s investigation.
A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
