US Coast Guard says it seized ships with thousands of gallons of oil destined for Cuba
Crews from the United States Coast Guard seize the Jaria Provider in the Caribbean Sea on June 28, 2026. (Obtained by ABC News)
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Coast Guard announced on Friday the seizure of two ships bound for Cuba that were illegally carrying thousands of gallons of diesel fuel amid the ongoing fuel blockade to the country imposed by President Donald Trump.
The Grace, a 300-foot tanker, was seized on Sept. 5 by the Coast Guard and Mexican authorities in the Caribbean Sea between Cuba and Mexico, after it was alleged to use covert operations to traverse the high seas, according to Coast Guard officials. Another ship, carrying 200,000 gallons of fuel, was seized by the Coast Guard in June.
The ships’ seizures came amid the Trump administration’s fuel blockade on Cuba. That move, aimed at trying to force changes to Cuba’s political system, has led to a power crisis in Cuba, marked by prolonged power outages impacting water supply, lighting, refrigeration and communications, according to U.S. officials.
The Grace was brought to Progreso, Mexico, “where a Mexican Navy (MARINA) inspection team confirmed the presence of large quantities of fuel in the vessel’s ballast tanks,” according to a news release from the Coast Guard.
Video first obtained by ABC News shows Coast Guard agents equipped in tactical gear boarding the ship, guns drawn, while a separate Coast Guard boat goes alongside of it.
The Coast Guard also announced the seizure of another Cuba-bound ship, the “Jaira Provider,” which they say was carrying more than 200,000 gallons of fuel when it was seized on June 28.
The Coast Guard said that the fuel in the Jaria Provider was also stored in ballast tanks, which are typically used to hold water or air to control the ship’s buoyancy.
“The high seas are not a sanctuary for lawlessness,” said Adm. Kevin Lunday, commandant of the Coast Guard. “Dark fleet actors who employ deceptive tactics to engage in illicit activities will not evade justice. The Coast Guard is bringing every capability to bear to interdict these vessels and uphold international law.”
Executive assistant to U.S. President Donald Trump Natalie Harp looks on as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an agriculture event in the Oval Office of the White House on Sept. 4, 2026, in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump doled out gifts totaling $155,000 for the holidays to four staff members in 2025, according to personal financial disclosures from the aides published by the White House.
The president gave $45,000 each to Natalie Harp, Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris as “cash gift[s] for the holidays,” gifts that appear to be personal, according to documents the White House made public this month.
Walt Nauta, a longtime ally of Trump’s, received a $20,000 holiday gift, according to the documents.
The aides received the gifts in addition to their six-figure salaries. Harp, the president’s executive assistant, makes $150,000 annually, according to the White House. Martin and Harris, the president’s communication adviser and deputy director of Oval Office operations, respectively, make the same. Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, makes $175,000 a year.
“The President has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector,” a White House official said in a statement to ABC News. “The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.”
Harp, who is often seen with the president, has come under scrutiny from Democrats on the midterm campaign trail. Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff invoked her name during a rally in August, telling a crowd Trump “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
Trump is expected to fly aboard the new Air Force One gifted to the U.S. by Qatar when he travels to Ireland this week, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News, marking his first foreign trip on the jet since he secretly switched planes in July while leaving a NATO summit in Turkey amid threats against him from Iran. The president previously said the plane would be updated in October.
Asked to respond to Ossoff’s remark in the Oval Office the next day, Trump said that he “would much rather do other things,” before veering into various renovation projects at the White House.
Martin and Nauta are also close to the president. Nauta, Trump’s valet during the first term, was charged alongside Trump in the special counsel investigation into Trump’s alleged taking of classified information. Martin has been a longtime staffer for Trump, dating back to his first administration, and later joined his 2024 campaign. She has been a key social media conduit for Trump, often capturing and posting up-close and behind-the-scenes content of him engaged in his duties.
Harris also served under the first Trump administration and continued working for the president in Florida after he left office. She returned to Washington to work under the second administration and was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts earlier this year.
The documents don’t include dates detailing when the gifts were given, aside from describing them as “for the holidays.” They appear to be personal gifts and in three cases list the president’s Palm Beach address.
Trump released his own financial disclosure back in June showing that he made a record amount of income for an American president, drawing in over $2.2 billion, including over $1.4 billion from various crypto ventures.
Back in July, another White House staffer’s finances came under public scrutiny after ABC News reported that Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, made more than $100,000 on Kalshi’s so-called “mention markets,” according to regulators. Perez was placed on unpaid administrative leave and later fired.
According to sources, Kalshi alerted its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to the suspicious activity on its “Mentions” market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics are uttered during a public speech.
Perez made $175,000 per year in his role, according to the White House.
Federal agents patrol the halls of immigration court at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on March 04, 2026 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from arresting migrants at immigration courts, saying that officials violated the Administrative Procedures Act in enacting the policy.
U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California wrote in a blistering 71-page decision Tuesday that policies by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Executive Office of Immigration Review were “arbitrary and capricious” and violated the APA, and he issued nationwide injunction blocking the practice across the United States.
“Because the record before the Court demonstrates ICE and EOIR failed to provide reasoned explanations for their actions, the Court concludes that each of the challenged policies is arbitrary and capricious in contravention of the APA,” he wrote in his decision.
The Justice Department attempted to curtail the request to only the Northern District of California instead of a nationwide block.
Scenes of migrants being arrested at immigration courts across the country, including notably in New York City, drew scrutiny from local lawmakers and advocacy organizations, who said migrants were often arrested after their deportation cases were dismissed.
Deportation hearings in immigration court are legal proceedings initiated by the Department of Homeland Security in which an immigration judge determines whether a migrant should be removed from the United States. Often, an immigration judge will dismiss a case to allow the individual to pursue legal relief by seeking asylum, according to attorneys. Other times, DHS attorneys will request dismissals if the individuals are not a priority for removal.
In most cases, when a deportation case is dismissed, it is a positive outcome for a migrant. Immigration attorneys ABC News spoke with said the Trump administration has been using dismissals to detain people at immigration courts and place them into expedited removal without allowing them to fight their cases.
In previous years, ICE has prioritized conducting courthouse arrests of people who were considered risks to the public or were convicted or accused of certain crimes.
The Trump administration had argued that an executive order issued by President Donald Trump allowed for the agencies to enact the policy, but Judge Pitts disagreed.
“It is now clear that the lack of connection between ICE’s stated rationales for the 2025 courthouse-arrest policies and the expansion of arrests at immigration courthouses results not from merely unreasoned decision making but a complete lack of decision making. As the government recently revealed, contrary to its prior representations, ICE’s 2025 courthouse arrest policies do not cover immigration courthouses at all,” he wrote.
That is a reference to a case in New York, in which the DOJ notified a judge that it had been erroneously relying on an ICE memo to justify arrests at immigration courts, according to a court filing. In fact, the ICE memo does not apply to civil immigration enforcement actions in or near immigration courts, the DOJ told the judge in that case.
James Percival, the DHS general counsel, said Tuesday’s ruling is “anti-American.”
“When a judge sentences a defendant, the defendant is taken into custody. If an alien is ordered removed by an immigration judge, the same should happen,” he said in a post on X. “A district judge ordering otherwise is naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda.”
