Trump reverses decision to send troops to San Francisco after conversation with mayor
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’s pulling back on his decision to send troops to clean up crime in San Francisco this weekend.
Trump claimed on social media that he spoke with the city’s mayor, Daniel Lurie, Wednesday night, who asked the president to “give him a chance” to turn things around.
“The Federal Government was preparing to ‘surge’ San Francisco, California, on Saturday, but friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge in that the Mayor, Daniel Lurie, was making substantial progress. I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Trump said the move could be a mistake, that he could fix things “much faster,” but ultimately said, “Let’s see how you do.”
“Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday,” Trump concluded.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Lonnie G. Bunch III, 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, speaks onstage during the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation 2025 Good Trouble Gala, May 29, 2025, in Atlanta. Paras Griffin/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Smithsonian Institution is facing a deadline to submit additional materials to the White House related to a review demanded by the Trump administration of the institution’s exhibitions, programming and internal governance.
According to a Dec. 18, 2025, letter from the White House addressed to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III, the Smithsonian Institution’s previous submission last fall “fell far short of what was requested, and the overwhelming majority of requested items remain outstanding.”
It is unclear which materials were submitted in September and which materials “remain outstanding.”
ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment. The Smithsonian declined to comment about the deadline.
The request for materials comes after the White House said in a letter addressed to Bunch last August that it plans to conduct a wide-ranging review of the Smithsonian’s museum exhibitions, materials and operations to ensure they align with President Donald Trump’s view of American history.
In response to the White House’s demand, Bunch said the institution would be conducting the review internally, a Smithsonian official confirmed to ABC News.
Following the internal review, a Smithsonian official said Bunch will brief the White House on its findings, but a formal report will not be sent to the White House, the Smithsonian official added.
A White House official told ABC News in September that the Smithsonian “cannot credibly audit itself.”
“The Smithsonian is not an autonomous institution, as 70% of its funding comes from taxpayers. While we acknowledge the Smithsonian’s recognition of its own programmatic failures and is moving toward critical introspection, it cannot credibly audit itself,” White House official Lindsey Halligan said. “By definition, an ‘audit’ must be neutral and objective. The American taxpayers deserve nothing less, which is why the White House will ensure the audit is conducted impartially. This is non-negotiable.”
The president signed an executive order on March 27, placing Vice President JD Vance in charge of supervising efforts to “remove improper ideology” from all areas of the Smithsonian and targeted funding for programs that advance “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology.”
The order — called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” — directed Vance and Interior Department Secretary Doug Burgum to restore federal parks, monuments, memorials and statues “that have been improperly removed or changed in the last five years to perpetuate a false revision of history or improperly minimize or disparage certain historical figures or events.”
Bunch, who met with Trump at the White House on Aug. 28, referenced his conversations with Trump in a Sept. 3 letter to the institution’s employees, which was obtained by ABC News.
In the letter, Bunch told employees he underscored the independence of the Smithsonian, saying it was “paramount.” He also told employees that the institution remains committed to telling the “American story” and “will always be, a place that welcomes all Americans and the world.”
ABC News’ John Santucci, Hannah Demissie, Laura Romero and Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges he forced his way into a Queens, New York, home, killed the elderly couple who lived there, set fire to the house and then went on a shopping spree with the victims’ credit card, prosecutors said.
Jamel McGriff, 42, is charged in a 50-count indictment with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, kidnapping, arson, burglary and other offenses in connection with last month’s home invasion.
McGriff allegedly “made multiple attempts to transfer money from their bank account, murdered them and set the house ablaze before fleeing with their phones and credit cards,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.
On Sept. 8, McGriff allegedly knocked on the Oltons’ neighbor’s door asking to charge his phone, and the neighbor turned him away, police said. Surveillance video showed McGriff then going to the victims’ house and victim Frank Olton letting him in, according to police.
Surveillance video showed McGriff going into the Oltons’ home around 10 a.m. and he did not leave until roughly 3:08 p.m, and he was seen walking from the home carrying a duffel bag, authorities said. Later, the Oltons’ son was notified by an alarm company there was a fire at the house.
Frank Olton, 76, was found tied to a pole in his basement suffering from multiple stab wounds, and his wife Maureen Olton, 77, was found on the house’s first floor, severely burned, the NYPD said.
After McGriff allegedly left the Oltons’ home, around 6 p.m., he is accused of making two purchases totaling $796.10 on Frank Olton’s credit card at Macy’s in Herald Square in Manhattan, prosecutors said. McGriff allegedly provided the cashier with his personal loyalty number for the transactions, prosecutors said.
On Sept. 9, McGriff allegedly deposited the Oltons’ phones into a machine that disburses cash for mobile devices at a Bronx check cashing store, and he allegedly used his own personal identification for the transactions, officials said.
McGriff is due to return to court on Nov. 12. He faces a life sentence if convicted.
(WASHINGTON) Officials decided to gradually increase air travel reductions to 10% after the safety team determined it would be the safest approach, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters at Reagan National Airport.
Major airlines say they are planning to cancel hundreds of flights on Friday — out of thousands of daily flights — as the Federal Aviation Administration is set to begin limiting flight capacity at 40 major U.S. airports amid the government shutdown.
If the government shutdown continues, more air travel reductions could be on the way, Duffy said.
“I want it to be fixed, but also I have to continue to look at data and if this continues, and I have more [air traffic] controllers who decide they can’t come to work and control the airspace, but instead have to take a second job, with that you might see 10% would have been a good number, because we might go to 15% or 20%,” Duffy said.
This could likely cost airlines tens of millions of dollars, Duffy said.
The initial plan called for a 10% reduction starting Friday, but officials chose to gradually increase the reductions for safety, Duffy said.
Loss of separation — the minimum distance kept between aircrafts to keep them safe — in the airspace and complaints from pilots about stress from air traffic controllers are among the data points that led to the decision to reduce air travel, Duffy said.
“We’ve seen more breaches in regard to that loss of separation, we see more incursions on tarmac throughout the country, and we have more complaints from pilots about stress from air traffic controllers, and more complaints about the lack of responsiveness from controllers,” Duffy said.
“That data is going in the wrong direction, not in the right direction, which made us make the decision we have to actually take additional measures to reduce the pressure in our system,” Duffy said.
As of 2:30 a.m. ET on Friday morning, at least 814 flights within, into or out of the United States have been cancelled so far, per FlightAware
American Airlines said Thursday it will cancel about 220 of its roughly 6,000 departures starting Friday and lasting through this weekend.
United Airlines said in a statement it plans to cancel less than 200 of its more than 5,000 flights each day through the weekend. The airline has listed the flight cancellations on a special website along with other information for travelers.
A company spokesperson told ABC News that about half of customers who had their flights canceled were able to be rebooked within 4 hours of their original departure time.
Delta Airlines said it planned to cancel about 170 daily flights.
American, United and Delta — the three largest airlines in the U.S. — all have said they believe they will be able to accommodate most of the impacted passengers on other flights.
The cancellations are the latest — and perhaps biggest — disruption to air travel since the government shutdown began more than a month ago.
The FAA decided not to cut any international flights as it would be a violation of international agreements with the countries, according to Duffy.
“We have international agreements that we abide by, and because of those international agreements, I’m not going to impact those international flights. And because if I do, what will happen is we have other countries that are waiting to have a breach of those contracts from the US so they can cut down American flights, and then that would have a very long lasting impact on our ability to to to send travelers from the U.S. to those partners that have the agreements,” Duffy said.
Duffy said he has spoken to President Donald Trump about the flight reduction decision and that the White House is “fully read in” on it.
“The White House also looks to the safety team to help us make the right decisions to do the best we can to keep people safe. But there’s an easy answer. There’s an easy answer, open up the government, stop this,” Duffy said.
What travelers are saying Travelers began to be notified of the canceled flights on Thursday.
Caitlin Ladner, in Wisconsin, said she had planned to fly to Raleigh, North Carolina, on a Friday for a trip to surprise her parents with her sister but got a notice about her canceled flight on the United app.
“We’ve been planning it for a while …. It’s pretty upsetting,” she told ABC News.
Despite an offer to reschedule her flight, she said she decided to cancel it altogether.
“I don’t know when all this is going to end,” she said.
Meanwhile, other travelers across the country on Thursday were bracing for delays — and trying to make it home before the cancellations started.
At Reagan National Airport, just outside Washington, D.C., Frederick Ross, from Fort Myers, Florida, told ABC News the current travel headaches have him rethinking his upcoming holiday travel plans.
“It’s a big factor to have to possibly deal with delays and cancellations, and talking about traveling with the whole family, it’s easier to just take a road trip,” he said.
FAA order limits flights The FAA said earlier this week it was reducing flight capacity at 40 major airports across the country to alleviate staffing pressures. The reductions this weekend are starting out at 4% but will eventually climb to 10%, federal officials said.
Under an emergency order issued by the FAA on Thursday, airlines are required to reduce operations at the 40 “high-impact airports” by 6% by Nov. 11 and by 10% by Nov. 14. Any airline that does not comply will be fined $75,000 per flight over the limit, according to the FAA order.
That announcement came after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said earlier that the FAA would be forced to shut down the airspace in some areas if the shutdown continues into next week, warning of “mass chaos.”
Staffing shortages among air traffic controllers has been an ongoing concern and there have been scattered flight delays and cancellations over the past several weeks, as the shutdown has stretched on.
Last weekend, a surge in callouts among air traffic controllers led to strained staffing at multiple airports across the U.S. — including in the New York City area where 80% of controllers were absent at one point, the FAA reported.
Air traffic controllers, who are required to work without pay for the duration of the shutdown, are credited with helping end the most recent shutdown in 2019, when a series of absences delayed flights and heightened pressure on members of Congress.
The precise impact the flight cancellations will have on overall air travel is unclear.
“We’re not in the peak of summer, we’re not over a holiday period. So we feel confident that we have enough seats in these markets to accommodate all travelers,” United’s chief customer officer, David Kinzelman, told ABC News.
“There will not be chaos over the weekend,” he said, likening the impact of the reductions to a “medium-sized storm.”
He added, “We are going to cancel flights that we think have the least amount of disruption for customers. If you’re in a market with only two small regional flights and you cancel one or both of them, that’s a huge impact to that market. We want to avoid that. And so what we’re doing is really spreading it around the system.”
ABC News’ Ayesha Ali, Sam Sweeney and Rachel Scott contributed to this report.
