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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Friday issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration from establishing its $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” after expressing concerns that senior officials have not put in their commitment to not move forward with the fund in writing.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema repeatedly cited acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s refusal to commit to not moving forward with the fund under penalty of perjury, as well as President Donald Trump’s own words suggesting he was disappointed that the government might not establish the fund so that those charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack could be compensated.

“If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve. People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed,” Trump said during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that aired over the weekend.

The fund, which was announced last month by the DOJ to compensate those who allege they were wrongly targeted under the Biden administration, was proposed in exchange for Trump agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS as well as two civil claims for $230 million related to the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate — sparking accusations of self-dealing and a bipartisan uproar over the possible use of taxpayer money to pay rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Lawyers with the Department of Justice have argued that the case is now moot, writing in a court filing last week that they would not move forward with the fund. During Friday’s hearing, Judge Brinkema repeatedly pressed DOJ attorney Andrew Block on whether he knew why Blanche hasn’t simply rescinded his previous order establishing the fund. 

“Your honor, I don’t,” Block responded, saying he doesn’t have the ability to speak for Blanche. 

Brinkema said she “couldn’t believe,” given the significance of the case, that Block wouldn’t have even attempted to get an answer, and said the government’s unwillingness on that score created a “huge gap in the record” of the case. 

Brinkema said she didn’t believe there was any injury to the government if there was an injunction in place, and gave them one week to respond with a formal declaration, under penalty of perjury, stating no “Anti-Weaponization Fund” would be established — which she said would potentially clear the way to dismissing the case. 

Judge Brinkema pointed repeatedly to President Trump’s own shifting statements in recent weeks about the fund, including his pointed attack on Brinkema herself after she had temporarily paused the fund earlier this month, in which he referred to her as a “radical left judge.”

“When the president of the United States says he’s disappointed that something is not going forward,” Brinkema said, that would only add to the evidence that the fund might “rear its head” in the future. 

Brinkema said at one point during the proceedings that just this week an unidentified individual had send an application for money from the fund directly to the court. 

“We had to send it back,” Brinkema said. 

Later in the hearing, Brinkema expressed doubt about the legality of Trump’s settlement that established the fund, noting a judge’s order in Florida that recently asked Trump’s lawyers to respond to claims they may have committed a fraud on her court. 

“You think this is lawful business?” Brinkema asked Block. 

At one point, Brinkema read into the record an amicus brief submitted in the lawsuit by Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Bill Cassidy that urged her to permanently block the fund over the potential it could compensate individuals who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

Brinkema said the brief showed that public interest in preventing the establishment of such a fund “is very strong,” and questioned the concept of nearly $1.8 billion being directed to such a small subset of individuals that a significant number of Americans would strongly object to. 

Friday’s injunction came two days after another federal judge denied a governmental watchdog group’s request for a temporary restraining order to block the establishment of the fund.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon denied the request from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, ruling that the watchdog group failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success. 

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(BOSTON) — Boston police are searching for two suspects wanted for committing an armed robbery at a lemonade stand.

Two kids were running a lemonade stand in South Boston when, at about 4:45 p.m. Wednesday, the “unknown suspects made several passes by the stand,” Boston police said.

The suspects — described as boys about 14 and 11 years old — then went up to the kids and asked if Apple Pay was accepted, police said.

Before the children could answer, the suspects grabbed a box of cash, and the older suspect showed a gun in his waistband, police said.

The suspects fled the scene, police said.

The cash box had about $50 inside, police said.

Police ask anyone with information to call the detectives 617-343-4742 or submit a tip anonymously at 1-800-494-TIPS.

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(NEW YORK) — A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the cryptocurrency fraud conviction of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

The opinion came the same week Bankman-Fried submitted his application for a presidential pardon.

Bankman-Fried was convicted of masterminding one of the largest financial frauds in history stemming from the collapse of the crypto-exchange FTX. He is serving a 25-year prison sentence.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
 

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(UVALDE, Texas) — Former Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo is set to return to a Texas courtroom on Friday, as the judge overseeing his criminal trial weighs moving the case out of Uvalde and whether the whole thing might have to wait because US Customs and Border Protection has refused to cooperate.

Arredondo in 2024 was charged with 10 counts of endangering students by failing to quickly respond to the 2022 mass shooting. The criminal case has stalled due to two ongoing civil lawsuits that seek to force agents with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Border Patrol Tactical Unit — involved in taking down the gunman — to testify in the case.

Nineteen students and two of their teachers were killed when Robb Elementary School was attacked by a former student on the last day of school, May 24, 2022.

Arredondo led the response to the 2022 shooting rampage, and prosecutors allege that he ignored his training by waiting some 77 minutes before agents stormed a classroom and killed the gunman. Earlier this year, a jury acquitted former school police officer Adrian Gonzales on similar charges after a three-week trial.

Families of the victims responded to that verdict with outrage and some are looking to Arredondo’s trial as another opportunity for justice.

“We had a little hope, but it wasn’t enough,” Jacinto Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter Jackie died in the shooting, said after Gonzales’ acquittal in January. “Again, we are failed. I don’t even know what to say.”

Arredondo has pleaded not guilty, arguing he followed his training and saying he did not consider himself as the incident commander that day, though investigators said he was just that. Arredondo’s attorney Paul Looney told ABC News that he believes the case against Arredondo is weaker than the failed prosecution of Gonzales.

“They tried the one they thought that they had the best shot at, but now they’re going to put everything they’ve got into doing this one, because they do want to win at least something,” Looney said.

Friday’s status conference comes as Judge Sid Harle weighs the future of the case. The judge has said he wants to determine how the trial against Arredondo can proceed amid the ongoing litigation with CBP and whether — as in the case of Gonzales — the trial ought to be moved out of Uvalde.

Both Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell and Arredondo filed federal lawsuits to compel the federal agents to cooperate with investigators and potentially testify at trial.

“The three border patrol agents whose cooperation is now being sought by District Attorney Mitchell — two of whom participated in the actual killing of the gunman and the third who was present in the hallway during most of the incident — are essential to the pending Texas criminal prosecution,” Mitchell wrote in her lawsuit.

CBP attorneys have argued that the request for testimony is unreasonable, unnecessary and “negatively impacts CBP operations and national security” by taking up resources and potentially disclosing sensitive information.

Attorneys have argued that CBP revealed enough information through the investigative summaries prepared by the Texas Rangers and a report released by CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

“It is unclear from your request how testimony from the identified CBP employees is genuinely necessary to the proceedings,” an attorney for CBP said in a court filing.

Earlier this year, a new judge was assigned to the lawsuit filed by Mitchell, and this week she filed a motion to schedule a status conference in that case. Looney, who filed a separate lawsuit largely mirroring the District Attorney’s, said he anticipates the litigation will take another eight months to a year.

Friday’s hearing will be held in Uvalde, though the trial of Gonzales was held in Corpus Christi to find an impartial jury, due to the widespread impact of the shooting on the Uvalde community.

Arredondo’s lawyer said he expects Harle to grant his motion for a venue change, though he claimed there is “no sense of urgency” to resolve the venue issue while the case remains stalled by the ongoing civil litigation.

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(NEW YORK) — The amount of solar power generated in the U.S. is continuing to grow despite efforts from the Trump administration to slow down the renewable energy sector, according to two reports released this week.

The U.S. has generated more power from solar compared to coal for the first time, according to a report by Ember, a think tank focused on the clean energy transition. In May 2026, solar supplied 12.8% of U.S. electricity, while coal supplied 12.2%, according to an analysis of official monthly and preliminary hourly generation data.

A record 45.5 terawatt-hours (TWh) of solar energy was generated in May 2026, exceeding the output from May 2025 by 17%, the think tank found. The record could be broken again in the upcoming summer months, as solar output typically peaks in June and July.

The amount of energy from coal generated in the U.S. has been nearly cut in half in the last five years, falling from 19.7% of total power generated in May 2021 to 12.2% last month. Production of coal power rose slightly in May 2026, to 43.4 Twh, but it remained 11% below May 2025 levels.

“Overtaking coal for the first month on record shows just how far solar has come, from a niche contributor to the third-largest and fastest-growing source of power in the U.S. electricity system,” Nicolas Fulghum, an Ember senior data analyst, said in a statement.

Another report, also released this week, further points to the growing solar sector in the U.S. In the first quarter of 2026, the U.S. has added 7.8 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity with more than 6 million solar installations nationwide, according to a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie.

Electricity demand continues to surge, especially from tech companies seeking to secure power sources to meet the growing demands of AI and the data centers that run them, according to the report.

Solar power is the fastest-growing source of electricity in the U.S., according to Climate Central, an environmental nonprofit.

There is currently enough solar installed in the U.S. to power about 50 million households, according to SEIA. By 2034, there will be enough solar capacity to power 100 million households.

The growth is continuing “despite headwinds in Washington,” according to a press release by SEIA.

In August 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency canceled Solar for All, a $7 billion Biden-era solar grant program intended to help pay for resident solar projects and lower energy bills for middle to low-income households.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin wrote on X at the time that the EPA no longer has the statutory authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to “keep the program alive,” touting the move as a savings to U.S. taxpayers.

States won by President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election accounted for 74% of all solar capacity installed in the first quarter, according to the SEIA report. Texas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Arizona and Mississippi ranked among the top 10 states for new solar additions.

“In a world of fluctuating fuel prices, energy buyers have made it clear that they want the security, low cost, and speed of solar and storage, which commanded a massive 91% of all new capacity built in Q1,” Darren Van’t Hof, interim president and CEO of the SEIA, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is attempting to bolster the coal industry in the U.S. with the allocation of more than $700 million in federal funds to upgrade coal power plants and U.S. exports.

The administration is using wartime authorities under the 1950 Defense Production Act to allot $425 million to 13 existing coal plants and $75 million for an export terminal in California, as well as another $185 million in grant funding from the Energy Department to build two new coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia and restart a plant in Maryland, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Coal construction has significantly declined since the 1970s and 1980s, according to the EPA. No utility-scale coal construction has occurred in the past decade.

Trump has touted coal as clean in the past, but experts say coal emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and several other pollutants. Scientists says it is a direct contributor to global warming and human-amplified climate change.

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(NEW YORK) — Only 3% of individuals detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first 14 months of the second Trump administration had a violent felony conviction, according to an ABC News analysis of government data.

The findings, based on data tracking the current Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, come after President Donald Trump had pledged to target the “worst of the worst” criminal offenders among the nation’s migrants.

Based on government data analyzed by ABC News as provided by ICE in response to a FOIA requests to the Deportation Data Project and the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, the findings show that immigration enforcement has affected more than 400,000 individuals with no violent criminal history, including parents and spouses of U.S. citizens.

While the 3% figure is consistent with rates seen under the Biden administration, the data shows the Trump administration is not detaining a higher proportion of violent offenders despite a significant overall increase in total detentions.

‘President Trump’s promise’

Under Trump, there has been record high detention population, currently at around 60,000 in federal immigration custody. The most detainees under the previous administration was 39,748 in November 2023, according to a nonprofit data gathering group.

According to the government data, of the 438,537 people detained between Jan. 20, 2025, and March 11, 2026, 13,018 had a violent felony conviction in the United States. The analysis defined “violent felony” as homicide, sexual assault, robbery, or assault.

The data also showed that in the first eight months of 2025, ICE apprehended the parents of approximately 14,450 U.S.-born children. This eight-month figure nearly surpassed the total for all of 2024 and surpassed the yearly totals for both 2022 and 2023.

Of those apprehended during the administration’s first seven months, more than 9,700 children saw at least one parent placed into immigration detention — more than in previous years. Of those detained, parents of more than 7,000 children were eventually deported. Of the more than 4,700 deported parents, 265 had a violent felony conviction. And of the more than 6,400 detained parents, 322 had a violent felony conviction.

In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said, “Since Day One, DHS law enforcement has been delivering on President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists. This data is being cherry picked by the Deportation Data Project to peddle a false narrative.”

The Deportation Data Project provides minimally processed and unprocessed data supplied to them directly by ICE via FOIA.

“Nearly 70% of ICE arrests are criminal illegal aliens,” the statement went on to say. “We are continuing to go after the worst of the worst — including gang members, pedophiles, and rapists. Many of the individuals that are counted as ‘non-criminals’ are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more; they just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.”

“Further, every single one of these individuals committed a crime when they came into this country illegally,” the statement said regarding charges of unlawful entry, which is generally a civil violation, not a criminal offense.

‘Economic consequences’

Andrea Flores, the founder of Securing America’s Promise and a former Department of Homeland Security official, said the policy of mass deportation could lead to a child welfare crisis.

“So many children are losing primary caretakers or going to guardians,” Flores said in a Zoom interview. “We are going to have a class of children who lose their parents under this administration that is bigger than we probably have seen in modern history.”

DHS said in a statement that ICE does not separate families and that “parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.”

In the first eight months of 2025, ICE also apprehended 4,843 spouses of U.S. citizens. During the first seven months of the term, more than 2,000 of these spouses were deported. Of the more than 2,000 spouses of U.S. citizens deported during the first seven months of the term, 165 had a violent felony conviction.

“We cannot underplay what it means to have even just a spouse go to detention, because what if they are the primary earner in that household?” Flores said. “We’re talking about economic consequences. We’re talking about the emotional costs of not having access to that family member.”

Trump administration officials have said that its crackdown on illegal immigration is primarily targeting dangerous and violent criminals living in the U.S. illegally, but they have also maintained that anyone residing in the country without legal status is subject to removal.

Methodology

ABC News analyzed enforcement trends by merging two primary sources: data provided by ICE via FOIA requests to the Deportation Data Project and ICE data provided to the University of Washington Center for Human Rights. The data provided to the Deportation Data Project includes data from the Department of Homeland Security’s PERSIST database, which shows the full lifecycle of immigration cases from January 2022 through early March 2026.

The data provided to the University of Washington Center for Human Rights includes I-213 records, which are the documents created when immigration officers arrest a noncitizen. These records span from January 2022 through late August 2025.

Publicly available data from ICE and DHS show detention populations and numbers on removals.

Statistics regarding the total number of parents and spouses apprehended were calculated using the University of Washington dataset alone. To determine how many of those individuals were specifically detained or deported, ABC News matched records across both databases using unique identifiers such as the date of arrest, gender, country of citizenship, and birth year.

The analysis focused on a subset of the data where a definitive match could be made between the two sources. The merged dataset allowed ABC News to track the progression of individual cases from the initial arrest through federal custody to identify parents and spouses who were ultimately held in facilities or removed from the country.

ABC News’ estimates for the number of U.S. citizens who had a parent or spouse arrested, detained and deported are likely an undercount. ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, first reported similar data in March.

ABC News’ analysis of U.S. citizens who had a parent or spouse detained is limited to only individuals for whom arresting agents wrote an I-213 report, which represents the vast majority of individuals arrested by ICE, but is not everyone who has been detained. To perform the analysis, any possible duplicates in the data were not counted.

Flores said these numbers will likely grow.

“We have seen some recent reporting as well that the numbers are going into the tens of thousands in terms of children who have been impacted by a detained parent,” Flores said. “There are 4 million U.S. citizen children in current estimates who have a parent that isn’t documented.”

ABC News’ Ryann Jones and Armando Garcia contributed to this report.

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(LAGUNA BEACH, Calif.) — A 5-year-old girl who went missing when she was swept away in the ocean in Laguna Beach, California, has been found dead, city officials said.

Her body was found Thursday morning about one-quarter mile north of where she went into the water, Laguna Beach officials said.

The girl went missing at about 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday near Treasure Island Beach, officials said. She was with her mother and a sibling near the shoreline when the three of them were swept into the ocean by powerful water conditions, the city officials said.

Bystanders ran into the ocean and were able to rescue the mother and one of her children, but the 5-year-old remained missing, officials said.

The search and recovery effort continued on Wednesday, with rescuers working “under challenging and hazardous ocean conditions, including large surf, powerful currents, and limited underwater visibility,” city officials said.

The search ended Wednesday evening after rescuers worked more than 30 hours and covered more than 90 square miles, the Coast Guard announced.

“Our deepest condolences go out to the child’s family and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time,” Capt. Stacey Crecy, commander of Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles-Long Beach, said in a statement. “Suspending a search is an extremely difficult decision.”

“This is one of the most heartbreaking incidents I have witnessed during my time serving this community,” Laguna Beach Mayor Mark Orgill said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to the young victim’s family, friends, and all those affected by this tragic loss.”

“I am incredibly proud of the dedication and professionalism demonstrated by our Marine Safety, Fire, and Police personnel, as well as every agency that assisted in this effort,” the mayor added. “These men and women put themselves in harm’s way, entering the same dangerous ocean conditions in an attempt to bring this young girl home to her family.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A partial lockdown at the Pentagon implemented in response to a potential air quality issue has been lifted after no hazards were found, according to the Pentagon’s chief spokesman.

Portions of the Pentagon had gone into a shelter-in-place earlier Thursday, after officials locked down multiple floors and hallways in response to a potential air hazard situation, according to three officials.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement earlier that building monitoring systems detected an air-quality issue, prompting precautionary measures while officials work to determine the source and extent of the problem.

In an update Thursday, Parnell said subsequent testing “confirmed no hazard exists, and normal operations have resumed.”

Sources told ABC News earlier that authorities were investigating what caused a sensor to alert for a potential hazardous air quality issue at the Pentagon. Additional testing occurred to verify whether there was any hazard or if the sensor was faulty, multiple sources said.

In a message sent to Pentagon employees earlier Thursday, employees in certain corridors on select floors were urged to remain in place while awaiting testing results, which it noted could take one to two hours.

The Arlington County Fire Department said its hazardous materials team had responded to the Pentagon in support of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency’s Hazmat Team “during a hazardous materials incident.”

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(MINNEAPOLIS) — Vance Boelter, the man charged in the attacks against Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, changed his plea to guilty in his federal case on Thursday, according to ABC Minneapolis affiliate KSTP.

John and Yvette Hoffman sat in the front row of the federal courtroom as Boelter admitted to firing multiple shots at them, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.

When Boelter admitted that he shot Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman several times and then put a gun to her head and killed her, sobs broke out in the courtroom, KSTP reported.

Boelter initially pleaded not guilty to six federal counts, including murder, attempted murder and stalking.

This week, a Justice Department spokesperson said federal prosecutors would not seek the death penalty because a federal judge ruled earlier this year in an unrelated murder case that interstate stalking charges do not rise to the level to support a capital crime.

The crimes unfolded on June 14, 2025, when Boelter allegedly disguised himself as a police officer and fatally shot Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their home.

That same day he allegedly drove to the home of Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and shot the lawmaker and his wife, Yvette, and attempted to shoot their daughter, according to prosecutors.

Following the attacks, police said they found a notebook in Boelter’s abandoned, fake police car containing a list of elected officials who investigators suspect were targeted in a plot that the Minnesota U.S. attorney described at the time as the “stuff of nightmares.”

Prosecutors said Boelter traveled to the homes of two other state lawmakers only to find no one at those locations.

Boelter has also pleaded not guilty to state charges of murder and attempted murder.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon went into a shelter-in-place Thursday as officials locked down multiple floors and hallways in response to a potential air hazard situation, according to three officials.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said building monitoring systems detected an air-quality issue, prompting precautionary measures while officials work to determine the source and extent of the problem.

“The Pentagon has sophisticated systems to ensure the safety of the building and its occupants. Those systems have detected an air quality issue necessitating precautionary measures until we determine its significance,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. “The Department is executing standard protection protocols, including a shelter-in-place order for the affected area. Response teams are in place and ready to support building occupants.”

The Arlington County Fire Department said its hazardous materials team responded to the Pentagon in support of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency’s Hazmat Team “during a hazardous materials incident.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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