Residents told to ‘leave now’ as wildfires threaten Oklahoma towns
ABC News
(NORMAN, Okla.) — Winds of up to 75 mph were fanning multiple fast-moving Oklahoma wildfires on Wednesday morning, prompting evacuation orders for towns in the path of the flames, officials said.
Firefighters are battling blazes in Logan, Pawnee, Beckham and Roger Mills counties, including one about seven miles northwest of Sweetwater, near the Oklahoma-Texas border, officials said.
Residents of Meridian were ordered to evacuate early Wednesday as a fire came within two miles of the Logan County town. Officials rescinded the order after several hours as a cold front developed and raised humidity in the area, officials said.
In Roger Mills County, residents of Durham and Dead Warrior Lake were also told to evacuate around 4 a.m. local time Wednesday, as a fire nearby was spreading rapidly, officials said.
The fires erupted amid red flag warnings for extreme fire danger that were issued by the National Weather Service.
“Firefighters and incident responders should anticipate extreme fire behavior, including wind-driven and torching fire,” the NWS office in Norman, Oklahoma, said in a social media post around 6 a.m.
There were no reports of injuries or structures damaged from the blazes.
The fires came on the heels of a 30,000 acre wildfire that erupted on Friday in Logan County and destroyed more than 100 homes. The Logan County fire was just 25% contained on Tuesday and officials suspect embers from the blaze caused the new fire near Meridian on Wednesday.
At one point over the weekend, there were 130 fires reported in 44 counties across Oklahoma that killed four people, destroyed more than 400 homes and burned a total of 170,000 acres, officials said.
The Oklahoma fires erupted amid severe weather across the South and Midwest, which included several deadly tornadoes and dust storms. At least 42 people were killed, including two young brothers in North Carolina when an uprooted tree fell on their mobile home.
Up to 26 million people were under red flag warnings on Wednesday morning from west Texas to Illinois. Dangerous fire conditions — including high winds, dry vegetation and low humidity — are also expected Wednesday in parts of West Virginia, eastern Ohio and eastern Kentucky.
Up to 75 million people were under high wind alerts on Wednesday in 20 states from Nebraska to Georgia.
Meanwhile, more than 3 million people were under a blizzard warning on Wednesday from Colorado to Minnesota, where blowing snow is expected to be so strong that visibility will be reduced to a quarter-mile or less, making travel on roadways hazardous. Snow accumulations could reach 2 to 10 inches across the area, with winds gusting over 70 mph.
A line of thunderstorms is expected to move through the upper Midwest on Wednesday, creating the risk of strong tornadoes. Cities with the greatest risk of seeing severe weather include Peoria and Springfield, Illinois. Severe weather is also expected to move into Chicago; Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, Indiana; and Louisville, Kentucky.
ABC News’ Kenton Gewecke and Ginger Zee contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general pick, Pam Bondi, made at least $3 million from the merger that formed the parent company of Trump’s Truth Social platform, her new personal financial disclosure filing showed.
According to the filing, Bondi, like “all other shareholders,” received $3 million worth of shares and warrants of the special purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition Corporation through a Puerto Rico-based LLC “on the morning of the merger.”
The shares and warrants were then converted to stock in Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) “upon closing of the merger,” the filing said.
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general who represented Trump during his first impeachment, is listed as a “consultant” for the merger.
Additionally, Bondi disclosed owning another $2 million to $10 million in shares and warrants in the Trump Media & Technology Group.
She has pledged to divest her assets from the Trump Media & Technology Group upon her confirmation as attorney general “as soon as practicable but not later than 90 days after” her confirmation, and to “not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter” related to the company.
The disclosure filing also sheds more light on her lobbying and consulting work for Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm with close ties to Trump, including that last year she made nearly $1.1 million as the firm’s government and public affairs consultant.
Several of her lobbying clients included sheriffs associations, including the Florida Sheriff’s Association, the Florida Sheriff’s Risk Management Fund and Major County Sheriffs of America, as well as Aiden Torch Financial, Safety Net DC, and iGas USA.
She also earned $520,000 last year from consulting for the pro-Trump think tank America First Policy Institute, and another $203,738 from providing legal serves to Pfizer through the law firm Panza, Maurer, & Maynard, P.A., according to the filing.
Her other notable income from the past year included $27,600 in contributor fees from Newsmax and a $20,000 speaking fee from a conference last year hosted by bitnile.com, an online gaming company.
She also earned between $110,003 and $1 million from renting out commercial real estate properties in Florida.
In all, Bondi, together with her spouse, reported a net worth of up to $20 million, with much of her assets other than her Trump social media company holdings consisting of millions of dollars worth of commercial properties in Florida and South Carolina.
In her ethics agreement, Bondi stated that, if confirmed as U.S. attorney general, she will resign from Ballard Partners, AFPI, and Panza, Maurer, & Maynard.
Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Department of Transportation said the Federal Highway Administration has “terminated approval” of New York City’s congestion pricing plan, the first of its kind in the nation, which went into effect earlier this year.
The DOT shared a letter from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, in which he said a review found that the “scope of this pilot project as approved exceeds the authority authorized by Congress” under the Federal Highway Administration’s Value Pricing Pilot Program.
“New York State’s congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners,” Duffy said in a statement on Wednesday. “Commuters using the highway system to enter New York City have already financed the construction and improvement of these highways through the payment of gas taxes and other taxes. But now the toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways. It’s backwards and unfair.”
In response to the letter, a New York state official said that whatever the Trump administration intends, the state will fight in court to preserve congestion pricing.
The congestion pricing plan, which launched on Jan. 5, newly charged passenger vehicles $9 to access Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours as part of an effort to ease congestion and raise funds for the city’s public transit system. During peak hours, small trucks and charter buses were charged $14.40 and large trucks and tour buses $21.60.
On Donald Trump’s first day in office, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy asked the president and his administration to “reexamine” the highly debated congestion pricing plan and its impact on the Garden State.
In a letter to Trump, Murphy requested that “New York’s congestion pricing scheme receive the close look it deserved but did not receive from the federal government last year.”
In his letter to Hochul, Duffy noted that Trump asked him to review the Federal Highway Administration’s approval of the congestion pricing program upon assuming his position as secretary last month.
“In particular, the President expressed his concerns about the extent of the tolling that was approved by the Department of Transportation on highways that have been constructed with funds under the Federal-aid Highway Program and the significant burdens on the New York City residents, businesses, and area commuters (including those from New Jersey and Connecticut) who regularly use the highway network in the CBD tolling area,” Duffy said.
Duffy also mentioned Murphy’s letter to Trump, in which the governor “expressed significant concerns about the impacts that the imposition of tolls” on New Jersey commuters and residents.
The secretary also said there are pending legal challenges over the plan “which question whether the scope of the project exceeds the authority of VPPP.”
Duffy said the Federal Highway Administration will contact the New York State Department of Transportation “to discuss the orderly cessation of toll operations under this terminated pilot project.”
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which manages the city’s subways as well as bridges and commuter rails, has said the toll would enable it to issue $15 billion in bonds to help fund capital projects.
In response to Murphy’s letter to Trump, Hochul told reporters that if the congestion pricing plan is ultimately killed, “that comes with $15 billion more” the federal government will need to give to New York.
(WASHINGTON) — While President Donald Trump’s comments about wanting to “clean out” Gaza and forcibly displace its nearly 2 million Palestinians have stirred outrage and accusations of ethnic cleansing among U.S. allies and international law experts, some members of the Arab American community still believe he was a better choice than Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I don’t regret having supported the president. He promised us an end to the war, and he was able to get a ceasefire for us in Gaza, and for that we are grateful. Imagine how many hundreds of Palestinians we’ve been able to save because of the ceasefire,” Bishara Bahbah, the chairman for Arab Americans for Peace told ABC News.
The Biden-Harris administration faced criticism from the Arab American community due to its perceived unconditional support for Israel in its war on Gaza. More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killed 1,200 people and hundreds more were taken captive.
“President Biden was asleep at the wheel, ignoring our our pleas with him. So we decided to tell President Biden that because you have ignored us, we are going to punish you at the polls, and that’s one of the major reasons why we decided to establish Arab Americans for Trump,” Bahbah said.
Many prominent Arab-American advocacy groups and community leaders threw their support behind Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein due to the Biden administration’s stance on Gaza.
“For many people, this was very painful. This was not an easy choice, because they were looking at what was going on in Gaza, it was very hard for them to support President Biden,” and later Vice President Harris, James Zoghby, the cofounder of the Arab American Institute, a political and policy organization that did not support Trump, told ABC News.
Now, with Trump proposing the forcible displacement of Palestinians, and attempting to pressure Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from Gaza — by threatening to cut billions in aid — some groups have maintained their support of Trump and are waiting to see what actions he takes and are maintaining their opposition to Harris and Biden.
“These were grotesque comments. They’re unacceptable comments, they’re absolutely horrific comments. But you know, at the end of the day, when you put them on a scale, they’re comments. It’s rhetoric, and I don’t feel it is appropriate, nor is it honest to sit here and conflate it with the actions of the Biden-Harris administration, or to try and use that rhetoric to use it as a ‘gotcha’ moment to people who voted against the Biden-Harris administration,” Hudhayfah Ahmad, the head of media for the Abandon Harris campaign, told ABC News.
The Abandon Harris campaign, which started as the Abandon Biden campaign, gave both Democratic Party candidates an ultimatum, asking for them to call for an unconditional ceasefire or lose the group’s support. Biden and Harris did not meet the deadline set by the group to call for a ceasefire, according to Ahmad.
The Trump campaign was able to garner support from the Muslim American community largely in the last four weeks before the election by making public calls for a ceasefire and vowing to make it happen, Ahmad said.
“There was never really any support before that,” Ahmad said.
“A considerable chunk of people who had previously committed to voting third party, said that I’m going to vote the Trump-Vance ticket at the top of the ticket, and I’ll vote Green Party down ballot. I heard this from multiple people in multiple swing states,” Ahmad said.
But some community leaders felt that despite the actions of the Biden Administration in Gaza, Trump would be worse.
“I was very much opposed to the hucksters who were trying to sell Jill Stein and to the folks who supported Donald Trump. It was a really not just a bad call, it was a dangerous call. And I felt that despite the insult, despite the hurt, we had a responsibility to think big. [Biden and Harris] were at fault for making our job more difficult,” Zoghby said.
“The pain that we knew would occur if Donald Trump got back into the White House was too great to too many people,” Zoghby said. “Even though [Biden and Harris] didn’t give us what we needed, we still had to recognize that letting Donald Trump back into the White House was was going to be a disaster.”
Arab Americans for Peace — an advocacy group formerly called Arab Americans for Trump — changed its name this month after hearing some of Trump’s rhetoric surrounding the displacement of Palestinians, but a leader told ABC News they have not yet withdrawn their support for Trump.
“Our objective from the very beginning for supporting Trump was peace. We were telling the Biden administration continuously to stop its aid to the Israelis because the Israelis are committing genocide with the arms that are provided by the United States and Western Europe,” Bahbah said.
“The change of the name does not mean that we are withdrawing our support for President Trump. It just means that we are going back to the root cause of our very existence, which is the promotion of peace in the Middle East,” Bahbah said.
Even community leaders who did not support Trump as a candidate argued that he secured a ceasefire.
“Trump did this ceasefire solely for his own self interest and self image and self benefit. Nothing humanitarian about it at all,” Ahmad said.
“It’s hard to say that anyone feels regret [for supporting Trump] when you take into consideration that we are no longer seeing a daily influx of videos and pictures of children, men, women, elderly, being butchered with U.S. weaponry. That has stopped completely,” Ahmad said.
Despite some holding onto support for Trump, his comments on forcibly displacing Palestinians drew sharp criticism from Arab Americans.
“We are totally opposed to the idea of displacing Palestinians out of Gaza. Gaza belongs to the Palestinians, and it is not for anyone in the world to tell the Palestinians to leave that territory,” Bahbah said.
“Like my father, Palestinians are prepared to die on their homeland. And will not immigrate or be forced out of their homeland,” Bahbah said.
“There’s time to wait and see how things will evolve before I can say ‘I am really angry with the president, and I no longer supporting him.’ That is not the case right now, because it’s just the beginning of that process. But I also believe that the coming four years are going to be critical for the Israel-Arab conflict,” Bahbah said.
He said Arab Americans for Peace decided to support Trump because he promised to end the war in Gaza and ensure lasting peace in the Middle East.
He believes Trump’s pressure on Netanyahu stopped the war in Gaza.
But Bahbah said he believes Trump’s recent comments on Gaza are providing Israel cover to “destroy” the West Bank, drawing attention away from what is happening there.
Other leaders in the Arab community strongly disagreed with Trump’s comments on Gaza, and are skeptical of the motivations behind Trump’s comments on wanting to forcibly displace Palestinians.
“I think the purpose is to provide Netanyahu the cover to end this ceasefire after phase one and secure the hostages and go no further. Because I don’t think Trump is interested at all in seeing this through on the terms that were negotiated — which ultimately requires a full Israeli withdrawal and the reconstruction,” Zoghby said.
Netanyahu has faced criticism for not laying out a plan for what happens in Gaza after the war is over. The ceasefire agreement requires a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, but remains unclear if the ceasefire will reach its final stages.
“I could get as indignant as everybody else about [Trump’s comments] and it being illegal, but there’s so much in that involves Israel’s behavior toward Palestinians — and the U.S.’s enablement of Israel doing it — that is illegal, immoral,” Zoghby said.
Now they are awaiting on Trump to deliver lasting peace, Bahbah said.
“We continue to insist and be a voice of reason, telling the president what we want as an Arab American community, and that is lasting peace in the Middle East based on a two state solution, keeping in mind that what brought us to this point is the Biden-Harris administration by allowing Israel to literally destroy the Gaza Strip,” Bahbah said.
But support for Trump is conditional on what actions he takes, some activists say.
“We are not beholden to anybody or to any party. We will support whomever we think will end the wars and provide a permanent resolution to the Arab Israeli conflict and peace in the Middle East,” Bahbah said.
The group Abandon Harris plans to throw its support behind third-party candidates in the future, Ahmad said.
“Our movement is solely structured behind morals, values, principles — not parties, not individuals, not candidates,” Ahmad said.
