(LONDON) — Ukraine and the United States have agreed to terms on a deal relating to critical minerals and other resources, according to a senior Ukrainian official.
As recently as Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump was repeating that some access to the country’s rare minerals would be necessary to secure a deal involving the nation’s continued support for Ukraine. Trump referred to them as a “security” against the investments that the U.S. has already made and might make in the future, although his claims of how much aid the U.S. has provided to date have been widely disputed.
Trump said the U.S. has spent $350 billion toward Ukraine, though he has not cited where he’s gotten that figure.
Government resources place the amount of aid appropriated by Congress for Ukraine since the war began in 2022 at $174 billion.
“That is why we must have an agreement with Ukraine on critical minerals and rare earths and various other things as security. And I think that that’s happening. I think we’ve made a lot of progress,” Trump said on Monday during a joint press conference with France’s President Emmanuel Macron. The two leaders met to discuss a path forward to resolving the Russia-Ukraine war, which entered its third year this month.
The senior official also told ABC News that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to visit Washington, D.C., on Friday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(ALBUQUERQUE) — A 13-year-old boy has been arrested for murder after police said he and two other juveniles intentionally ran down a bicyclist in New Mexico last year in a fatal hit-and-run that was filmed from inside the vehicle.
Police said they are still searching for the two other children — a 15-year-old boy who also faces a murder charge and a 12-year-old boy — in connection with the incident.
The victim, 63-year-old Scott Habermehl, was riding in a bike lane the morning of May 29, 2024, while commuting to work when he was struck in a hit-and-run, police said.
Police said there were no witnesses who saw the vehicle flee, and investigators were unable to find any surveillance footage of the incident.
Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said the case likely would have gone unsolved — until video taken from inside the vehicle of the incident was posted on social media.
The video, which police released on Tuesday, is “extremely disturbing,” Medina said.
“You hear the discussion of, they see the guy on the bike, and they make the decision that they’re going to strike him, they’re just going to bump him, and they murdered this individual,” Medina said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
“We’ve all looked at it, and it is just horrific that this could be done to another human being,” he said.
Police got a new lead on the case in February, after two juveniles reported the video, one to a parent and the other to a middle school official in Albuquerque, according to Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock with the Albuquerque Police Department’s criminal investigation division.
“The video had been posted to Instagram showing three individuals in a car purposely running over a cyclist,” Hartsock said during the press briefing.
Officers determined the video was from the May 29, 2024, hit-and-run, and were able to identify the three individuals in the car, which is believed to have been stolen, police said. They were “literally laughing about what they had just done as they fled,” Hartsock said.
In the video, someone can be heard asking, “Are you guys recording it?”
The back passenger, who police said is believed to be the 15-year-old, says to “just bump him, brah” after the car accelerates.
“Like bump him?” the driver responds.
“Yeah, just bump him. Go like 15, 20,” the back passenger says.
The video released by police ends just before the collision.
The three juveniles are believed to be friends, Medina said. Authorities believe the 13-year-old was driving the car at the time.
Police obtained murder arrest warrants for the two teenagers late last week, Hartsock said.
The 13-year-old was taken into custody on Monday and booked into a juvenile detention center, police said. He had been on juvenile probation following an arrest by Albuquerque police last year, police said. He was arrested on an open count of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leaving the scene of an accident involving great bodily harm or death and unlawful possession of a handgun by a person, police said.
Police are asking for the public’s help in locating the two other juveniles. Hartsock urged the 15-year-old, who faces the same charges as the other teen, to turn himself in.
The 12-year-old is a missing person out of Torrance County and is listed as a runaway, police said. He is too young to be charged and booked into a correctional facility, police said.
“We hope that the rest of the system is able to deal with this individual and make sure there’s consequences for what they have done, and make sure that they’re rehabilitated if it’s possible,” Medina said.
The 12-year-old was seen holding a firearm in the video, according to police. Medina said it is unclear what happened to the weapon.
The boy was 11 at the time of the incident, Medina said, calling the young age “surprising.”
“All of us that have kids in here, think of your 11-year-old out doing this. It is just mind-boggling,” Medina said.
The chief said they believe they have tracked down the vehicle involved in the incident.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller called the incident “unimaginable.”
“It’s something that, on the one hand, is incredibly heartbreaking because of their age and how they’re caught up in the cycle of violence,” he said at the briefing. “On the other hand, this is absolutely terrifying.”
The juveniles are not believed to have known the victim, Medina said, noting, “It seems random.”
Habermehl worked at Sandia National Labs and is survived by his wife and two sons, according to his obituary.
“Scott took great joy in sharing his hobbies with his sons, whether it was playing baseball in the yard, biking through the Bosque, hiking in his beloved Rocky Mountains, or skiing with them in the backcountry,” the obituary stated.
Medina asked for privacy for the family at this time.
“They, in a way, suffered the first time, feeling that this individual was the victim of a motor vehicle death,” he said. “Now, with the new information that’s come out, I’m sure it ripped open new wounds.”
Keller remembered Habermehl as a “stand-up member of the Sandia Labs community” who was “well-accomplished and loved by folks in his community out in Corrales.”
The mayor commended the police department on its investigation.
“Now we know what happened, we can at least tell the truth about what happened to Scott,” Keller said. “That truth involves a truth we all have to hold ourselves accountable to, which is we each have a role to play. And in this case, there are dozens and dozens of ways, dozens of cracks that this child, these children, fell through. But that is never an excuse.”
“We have to commit to do more and all of us have an answer of what we think would improve this criminal justice system, and for us, we know that our first step is actually to catch these remaining two individuals,” he continued.
The only man ever charged in the notorious Las Vegas murder of rapper Tupac Shakur insists he is “innocent,” being railroaded by authorities and that he only confessed to his purported role in the crime because he was getting paid to lie.
In his first interview since being arrested in September 2023, Duane “Keffe D” Davis told ABC News in a jailhouse interview that he should be at home, watching his grandchildren grow up and tending to his garden. Instead, he said, he’s being forced to stand trial in a nearly three-decade-old case that’s devoid of concrete evidence.
“I’m innocent,” Davis said during a sometimes-tearful hour-long meeting at the Clark County Detention Center. He described himself as a “good man” long retired from the drug game he once excelled at.
“I did everything they asked me to do. Get new friends. Stop selling drugs. I stopped all that,” he said, referring to police and prosecutors. “I’m supposed to be out there enjoying my twilight at one of my f—— grandson’s football games, and basketball games. Enjoying life with my kids.”
Prosecutors say Davis, 61, was a longtime member and leader of a set of the infamous Crips street gang based in his hometown of Compton, California. Authorities say that, as the alleged “shot caller” on the night of Shakur’s killing in September 1996, it was Davis who orchestrated the drive-by shooting of the rap star off the Vegas strip. On their way from Mike Tyson’s fight against Bruce Seldon, Shakur was gunned down at a red light in the passenger seat of the BMW being driven by rap impresario Marion “Suge” Knight. Shakur was rushed to the hospital and died six days later from his wounds.
Though the killing occurred on the bustling streets of Sin City – it remained unsolved for nearly 30 years, mired in police scandals and turf wars, and a street code that frowns upon snitches.
Eventually, Vegas detectives built their case off Davis’ own account of the killing, retold in multiple police interviews, public media appearances before his arrest, and a 2019 self-published memoir with his own name on it.
Davis’ previous words copping to his role in the rapper’s killing are crucial in the case against him. Investigators say they spent years working to beef up Davis’ narrative of the events by using evidence and additional accounts to firm up their case – expected to be presented to a jury in 11 months.
Davis, sitting on a wooden bench under the harsh fluorescent lights of a jailhouse conference room and accompanied by corrections officers, now insists he didn’t write his own memoir – and hasn’t even read it. And so, he says, those confessions aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
“I’ve never read the book,” Davis said of his memoir “Compton Street Legend,” on which he shares the credit as a co-author. The back of the book bears the tagline, “The last living eyewitness to Tupac’s murder is telling his story.”
Davis says his co-author took artistic liberties he had nothing to do with.
“I just gave him details of my life,” Davis said. “And he went and did his little investigation and wrote the book on his own.”
Not only does he say he had nothing to do with Shakur’s killing, Davis said he was hundreds of miles away from where it happened – asserting for the first time where he says he was that night: “in Los Angeles,” and at home.
Davis said he has “about 20 or 30 people going to come” to his murder trial corroborating that alibi – to say nothing of the “13,000 people who say they killed Tupac.” He did not name the people who he said woukld verify where he was the night that Shakur was killed.
“I did not do it,” Davis said of what had stood as one of the best-known cold cases in modern American history. Of prosecutors leading the case against him, he said “They don’t have nothing. And they know they don’t have nothing. They can’t even place me out here. They don’t have no gun, no car, no Keffe D, no nothing.”
Las Vegas prosecutors declined to respond directly to Davis’ comments but continue to insist they are confident in the case and expect to see the man convicted at trial.
In 2008, Davis confessed to his purported role in the Shakur homicide in an interview with detectives connected to a joint federal-Los Angeles task force that had set up a drug operation sting on Davis to extract information on fellow rap icon Biggie Smalls’ murder, which happened six months after Shakur’s. Davis at the time said he didn’t have information about Biggie’s murder — but did have other information that would be valuable. That time, according to police, Davis made his admissions as part of what’s known as a “proffer agreement,” so he could not be prosecuted for what he said.
The following year, Davis again confirmed his purported role in the Shakur drive-by this time in an interview with detectives from Las Vegas. Vegas authorities were not connected to the earlier sessions, and were not required to honor any agreement that might have been made with Davis, according to interview recordings and transcripts reviewed by ABC. The only thing Vegas cops agreed to was that the interview with Davis would be voluntary and he would not be arrested on the spot.
At the time, some Las Vegas detectives wanted to bust Davis and charge him with the Tupac murder, but prosecutors feared that both sets of alleged confessions could be thrown out of court because of the purported non-prosecution agreement in LA. If a judge were to side with Davis, the case would likely have been doomed.
Davis’ lawyers did make that argument earlier this year and the judge rejected it. But the issue was largely beside the point because, officials have said, Davis went on to publicly recount his purported role in the homicide repeatedly in the years since 2009, especially in a 2018 docuseries and on the pages of “Compton Street Legends.”
Davis’ own public words “reinvigorates the investigation,” the now-retired head of the Las Vegas homicide bureau, Jason Johansson, told ABC last year.
Sitting in jail, Davis said that version of events was totally fabricated for profit when he told his story in the media. As for making his purported confession to the authorities, he said, that was a play to keep others caught up in a drug case out of prison. He said he told police what they wanted to hear “if they let me go.”
“That’s the only way you’re walking free,” Davis said, recounting the choice he felt he had to make. “It would’ve been selfish to let everybody go down because of me.”
As for the similar versions of events recounted by him on camera, before his arrest, and in the book with his name on it, Davis says that was just a financial investment.
“They paid me to say that,” he said.
Davis insists the 2008 non-prosecution agreement should still hold and that any statements to law enforcement connected with it should not be presented to the jury next year.
“I’m not even supposed to be in jail,” he said. “A deal is a deal.”
Davis also pointed the finger at an altogether different suspect: the former cop responsible for running some of the security operations for Knight and Shakur on the night of the shooting. That man, Reggie Wright Jr., a former Compton police officer, who testified before the grand jury that indicted Davis for the Shakur killing, ran security for Knight’s Death Row Records back in the mid-1990s. Wright has said he spent most of that night of the killing working out logistics at the club that Shakur and Knight were planning to visit after the Tyson fight.
Echoing a recent accusation lodged in court papers by his attorney, Davis now accuses Wright and his security team of having orchestrated the shooting that killed Shakur.
“Prove that I orchestrated this,” Davis said. “Their top witness is the lead suspect, Reggie Wright Jr.,” alleging both Wright and his onetime security company were “mercenaries.”
Wright has denied any involvement in Shakur’s killing – and points out he was there for exactly the opposite purpose that night.
“I was in charge of possibly protecting this young man,” Wright told ABC’s Nightline last year.
“It’s heartbreaking they keep dragging in my name,” Wright said reacting to Davis’ attorney’s recent allegations. “I didn’t have anything to do with that. One of the worst days of my life when I heard that that happened.”
Davis has repeatedly tried to make bail since he was arrested outside his home in Sept. 2023 but the judge refused to accept the financing packages he has put together. He now faces an additional charge and trial connected with a jailhouse fight with another inmate, set for April.
According to jailhouse surveillance footage obtained by ABC News, the man who fought with Davis appeared to have been waiting alone and unattended in a common area when Davis came walking through with an escort. The second inmate can be seen lunging at Davis, who fought back.
Both Davis and the other inmate have pleaded not guilty to charges of battery and challenging each other to fight. Davis said he was only defending himself. He has also pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.
He insists that he will eventually beat the rap on both the murder and battery charge and that he knows how to fight his way through.
“God got my back, and God will see me through this,” Davis said. “He had my back with cancer, I survived the streets, and the FBI. That’s a big accomplishment for a man from Compton.”
ABC News’ Kaitlyn Morris contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge will hear arguments Monday on efforts by a group of California public university students to block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing highly sensitive federal student loan records maintained by the Department of Education.
An organization representing more than 200,000 students enrolled in California’s public universities has brought suit seeking a temporary restraining order to block DOGE from accessing the student loan records as part of its effort to slash government spending.
The lawsuit, one of several that DOGE is facing, alleges that individuals associated with DOGE are illegally attempting to access the personal and financial information of the more than 42 million borrowers — accounting for more than 12% of the U.S. population — who have federal student loans.
A handful of people working with DOGE were spotted at the Department of Education last week and some now have access to the agency’s records and files, according to sources familiar with the matter.
“The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is enormous and unprecedented,” the lawsuit said, alleging that Musk’s team could access the bank account numbers, income information, dates of birth, and social security numbers of millions through the Education Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid.
DOGE workers are now listed in the Department of Education’s email directory, meaning they were hired as employees, sources also told ABC News.
The Department of Education is the smallest cabinet-level agency, with 4,400 employees. Some 1,400 employees work in the department’s FSA office, which distributes money — including loans and grants — for students to pursue higher education.
The University of California Student Association lawsuit, filed against Acting Secretary of Education Denise Carter, alleged that DOGE has engaged in a “systematic, continuous, and ongoing violation of federal laws” meant to protect the security of data held by the federal government.
“People who take out federal student loans to afford higher education should not be forced to share their sensitive information with ‘DOGE.’ And federal law says they do not have to,” the lawsuit said. The lawsuit also raised concerns with the lack of transparency surrounding DOGE, which they alleged might share the sensitive information with third parties.
“Because Defendants’ actions and decisions are shrouded in secrecy, individuals do not have even basic information about what personal or financial information Defendants are sharing with outside parties or how their information is being used,” the lawsuit said.
Last week, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote a letter to Carter requesting information about whether Musk and his team have been provided access to National Student Loan data, among other sensitive borrower information.
“There are over 40 million federal student loan borrowers in the United States,” the senators, along with 14 others, wrote. “It is not at all clear that DOGE officials meet the strict criteria that would allow them to access this sensitive information protected by federal law–or whether DOGE officials have gained access to other sensitive ED databases as part of their efforts to “reform” the agency,”
The senators also asked Carter to describe what safeguards are in place to ensure that student loan data is not misused. The letter urged Carter to ensure that Musk and his team have not been provided access to any other databases managed by the department.
