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(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — Two Tesla Cybertrucks caught on fire at a dealership in Kansas City, Missouri, on Monday evening, the latest in a wave of similar incidents seemingly directed toward the electric vehicle company, according to the Kansas City Police Department.

Tesla vehicles, dealerships and charging stations have been vandalized, suffered arson and faced protests in recent weeks since the company’s CEO Elon Musk began his work at the White House spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

In this latest incident, a Kansas City Police officer in the area spotted smoke coming from one Cybertruck at a Tesla dealership on State Line Road shortly before midnight. The officer attempted to put out the flames using a fire extinguisher, but the fire spread to a second Cybertruck parked next to the original one, police said.

The Kansas City Fire Department ordered the bomb and arson unit to assist on the scene, the fire department said. Officials were able to put out the flames and the vehicles were “covered with a fire blanket to prevent reignition,” the fire department said.

“The circumstances are under investigation but preliminarily the fire is being investigated for the potential of being an arson,” police said in a statement on Monday.

There have been no arrests made for this incident, police said.

This follows a spree of similar incidents that have occurred across the country in the last few weeks.

Another fire was started at a Tesla Collision Center in Las Vegas on Tuesday, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Officials received notice that an individual had “set several vehicles on fire in the parking lot and caused damage to the property.”

Last week, “more than a dozen” shots were fired at a Tesla dealership in Tigard, Oregon, according to Kelsey Anderson, the public information officer at the Tigard Police Department.

Additionally, three Teslas were vandalized in Dedham, Massachusetts on March 11, according to the Dedham Police Department. Officials said “words had been spray-painted” on two Tesla Cybertrucks, with all four tires of the trucks and a Tesla Model S being “reportedly damaged.”

Protests against the company have also occurred at dealerships nationwide. Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs told ABC News the demonstrations and the company’s plummeting stocks — which have tumbled nearly 48% this year — can all “be tied to [Musk’s] time at DOGE.”

“It has been a distraction for the company and it’s been a problem for the brand,” Frerichs said.

In recent weeks, four top officers at the company have sold off $100 million in stock, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Musk, the owner of X, said on Monday that his companies “make great products that people love and I’ve never physically hurt anyone, so why the hate and violence against me?”

“Because I am a deadly threat to the woke mind parasite and the humans it controls,” Musk said on X.

Musk has also reposted reactions that criticized previous Tesla attacks, calling an incident earlier this month in Seattle “crazy.”

A spokesperson for Tesla did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

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(NEW YORK) — More than 20 million Americans in eight states were under red flag warnings Tuesday morning as severe winds and dry conditions have elevated the threat of fire danger.

The alarming forecast comes in the wake of a deadly tornado outbreak over the weekend in the Midwest and South, and wind-whipped wildfires that destroyed hundreds of homes in Oklahoma.

The National Weather Service on Tuesday issued red flag warnings for a large portion of Oklahoma — including Oklahoma City, Stillwater and Wichita Falls. The NWS office in Norman, Oklahoma, said possible wind gusts of up to 45 mph combined with low relative humidity and dry conditions are producing “critical to extreme” fire danger in Oklahoma and North Texas.

Extremely critical fire danger is also forecast Tuesday for the entire state of Kansas, parts of Arizona, a major portion of Missouri, eastern Colorado and West Texas, including the Texas Panhandle.

Other major cities under red flag warnings on Tuesday are Denver; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Kansas City and Springfield, Missouri; and the Texas cities of Austin, San Antonio and El Paso.

The areas under red flag warnings are being warned that the conditions are rife for fires to spread rapidly, which makes them extremely hard to contain.

Relative humidity across the alert areas is 15% to as low as 6%, and wind gusts are forecast to be between 40 and 75 mph.

The critical fire danger comes just as people are beginning to recover from devastating wildfires in Oklahoma and a series of tornadoes.

At least 42 people were killed amid more than 970 severe storm reports — including tornadoes, severe storms, dust storms and fires — across more than two dozen states over the weekend. A three-day tornado outbreak tore through at least nine states.

Raging wildfires in Oklahoma over the weekend left four people dead and more than 140 others injured, according to the state’s medical examiner.

The Oklahoma wildfires destroyed more than 400 homes and structures and burned at least 170,000 acres, prompting evacuations amid extreme fire weather conditions.

Wildfires also raged in Texas over the weekend. The biggest blaze was the Windmill Fire that ignited in Roberts County and quickly spread to 21,000 acres, the Texas A&M Forest Service said. The fire was 95% contained on Monday.

Parts of Gray County were temporarily under a mandatory evacuation due to the Rest Area Fire, the Texas A&M Forest Service said. The fire has burned an estimated 3,000 acres and was 30% contained as of Friday evening, according to the forest service.

ABC News’ Kenton Gewecke contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Many of the noncitizens who were deported pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act on Saturday did not have criminal records, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said in a sworn filing overnight.

In a sworn declaration, ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert Cerna argued that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”

“While it is true that many of the [Tren de Aragua gang] members removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time. The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat,” Cerna said.

The admission that many of the men lacked criminal records – and were deported on the assumption that they might be terrorists – comes as top Trump administration officials insist that the men were violent criminals, with President Donald Trump labeling them “monsters.”

Cerna wrote that some of the men have been convicted or arrested for crimes including murder, assault, harassment, and drug offenses, writing that ICE personnel “carefully vetted each individual alien to ensure they were in fact members of TdA.”

To determine whether a noncitizen was a “member of TdA,” he said law enforcement allegedly used victim testimony, financial transactions, computer checks, and other “investigative techniques.”

“ICE did not simply rely on social media posts, photographs of the alien displaying gang-related hand gestures, or tattoos alone,” Cerna said.

The declaration was included in the Trump administration’s recent motion to vacate Judge James Boasberg’s temporary restraining orders blocking deportations pursuant to the AEA.

“These orders are an affront to the President’s broad constitutional and statutory authority to protect the United States from dangerous aliens who pose grave threats to the American people,” Department of Justice lawyers argued.

Boasberg ordered the Department of Justice to submit, by noon Tuesday, a sworn declaration about how many noncitizens were deported under the AEA  and when they were removed from the country.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Treasury Department has promoted two IRS whistleblowers who accused the Justice Department under President Joe Biden of granting his son, Hunter Biden, special treatment during a yearslong probe into his tax affairs.

Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, two veteran IRS investigators, will serve as senior advisors to incoming Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said in a statement on Tuesday that he was “pleased to welcome Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler to the Treasury Department, where they will help us drive much-needed cultural reform within the IRS.”

Shapley and Ziegler came forward in 2023 with allegations that the Biden administration improperly interfered in an investigation into Hunter Biden’s unpaid taxes led by then-U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss — claims that Justice Department and FBI officials fiercely disputed at the time.

“It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the U.S. Attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung, limited and marginalized by DOJ officials,” Ziegler said during congressional testimony in July 2023.

Days after Shapley and Ziegler testified on Capitol Hill, a plea deal negotiated by Hunter Biden and the Justice Department fell apart under questioning from a federal judge. The deal would have allowed Hunter Biden to plead guilty to a pair of tax-related misdemeanors and enter into a pretrial diversion agreement on a felony gun charge.

Weiss, the Trump-appointed prosecutor who led the probe into Hunter Biden, repeatedly refuted the claims leveled by Shapley and Ziegler and asserted that he faced no political pressure from Biden administration officials to grant Hunter Biden any special treatment.

Hunter Biden later pleaded guilty to nine tax-related charges, including multiple felonies. His father granted him a sweeping pardon in the waning weeks of his presidency.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, touted his role in securing promotions for Shapley and Ziegler in a statement Tuesday. Grassley said he wrote Bessent multiple letters encouraging him to promote the two whistleblowers.

“Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler put their entire careers on the line to stand up for the truth, and instead of being thanked, the Biden administration treated them like skunks at a picnic,” Grassley wrote in a press release. “I hope today is the first of many redemption stories for whistleblowers who’ve been mistreated.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department’s National Security Division has been in a scramble trying to meet President Donald Trump’s promise on Monday to release declassified information from the JFK assassination investigation today.

Trump, during a visit Monday to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, announced the government would be releasing all the files on Kennedy’s assassination on Tuesday afternoon.

Less than half an hour after that announcement, the Justice Department’s office that handles foreign surveillance requests and other intelligence-related operations began to shift resources to focus on the task, sources said.

In an email just before 5 p.m. ET Monday, a senior official within DOJ’s Office of Intelligence said that even though the FBI had already conducted “an initial declassification review” of the documents, “all” of the attorneys in the operations section now had to provide “a second set of eyes” to help with this “urgent NSD-wide project.”

Eventually, however, it was other National Security Division attorneys who ended up having to help, sources said.

Attorneys from across the division were up throughout the night, into the early morning hours, each reading through as many as hundreds of pages of documents, sources said. Only prosecutors with an impending arrest or other imminent work did not have to help, sources said.

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

In promising the release of JFK files today, Trump said Monday that there is “a tremendous amount of paper.”

“You’ve got a lot of reading,” he said. “I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said, ‘Just don’t redact. You can’t redact.'”

Trump in January signed an executive order directing the “full and complete release of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy” in order to end the decades-long wait for the release of the government’s secret files on Kennedy’s 1963 assassination.

ABC News’ Hannah Demissie and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Last month, Jose Franco Caraballo Tiapa, a 26-year old Venezuelan migrant who was seeking asylum in the U.S., showed up to his routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dallas, Texas, when authorities detained him, his wife told ABC News.

Ivannoa Sanchez, 22, told ABC News she believes her husband is one of the hundreds of Venezuelan men who this past weekend were sent by plane to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.

According to Sanchez, the couple crossed the U.S. border in November 2023 and surrendered to authorities. After claiming asylum and being detained for a few days, ICE released them and ordered them to check in routinely with the federal agency.

Sanchez said the couple had gone to several of their scheduled check-ins without experiencing any issues. But on Feb. 3, Tiapa was not allowed to return home with his wife despite being scheduled to have his first court appearance in his asylum case in March.

Sanchez provided ABC News with documents that confirmed Tiapa’s scheduled appointment with an immigration judge on March 19.

“He went to his routine ICE appointment and he didn’t come out,” Sanchez told ABC News.

She said she was able to complete her check-in with ICE that day and has not yet received an appointment for another check-in.

Similarly, ABC News spoke with Sebastian Garcia Casique, who claims his brother was detained by ICE after his routine-check-in.

According to Casique, his brother Francisco Garcia Casique. who entered the United States in December 2023 and surrendered to authorities, was detained after going to an ICE office last month for his appointment.

“There, some police officers detained him because they saw his tattoos and said they were going to investigate him because of them,” Casique told ABC News.

Casique said that on Friday, his brother called his family from the detention center in Texas where he was being held to let them know that he believed he was being deported to Venezuela. But on Sunday, Casique said that he and his family recognized his brother in a photo posted on social media by the White House.

“It’s a nightmare,” Casique told ABC News.

Sanchez said that after being detained in Dallas, her husband was transferred to a detention center in Laredo, Texas, where she was able to speak with him regularly.

But on Saturday, she said her husband told her that he believed he was going to be transferred and possibly deported.

On Sunday morning, after Sanchez saw the video posted on X by the president of El Salvador showing Venezuelan migrants being sent there, she checked the ICE locator website that shares updated information about where migrants are being detained.

“I check the system, and he doesn’t show up,” Sanchez told ABC News. “I constantly think and know he’s there because he has tattoos, because he’s a barber, but he has no involvement with the group they’re associating him with.”

Sanchez said that her husband is being unfairly targeted by the Trump administration for being Venezuelan and having tattoos, after Trump on Saturday said he was invoking the 18th century Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

She provided ABC News with documents that show Tiapa does not have any criminal records in Venezuela.

Casique also told ABC News his brother has not committed any crimes beyond crossing the U.S. border.

Casique claims that after his brother surrendered to authorities, he was detained and investigated for a few days, then appeared before an immigration judge who ordered him to be released with an ankle monitor to be tracked.

Casique said his brother turned 24 while being detained

“Never in his life had he spent a birthday in that situation,” he said. “The depression must be getting to him.”

Casique said his brother had the American Dream of working as a barber in the U.S.

“[He] was hoping for a better future to help us, help all the family members, and look at the situation now,” Casique said.

A review of federal court records found no criminal court cases associated with Garcia Casique or Tiapa.

ABC News previously reported that advocacy groups and relatives of some of the Venezuelan migrants who were recently sent to the prison in Guantanamo Bay claim the administration provided no evidence the migrants were “high-threat” criminals or that they belonged to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

The Trump administration, over the weekend, announced that would begin deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century law that allows for the arrest and removal of non-U.S. citizens when their nation or government is at war with the United States. The Trump administration designated the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, calling it a “hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States.”

After the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was challenged in court on Saturday, a federal judge verbally ordered two planes carrying alleged gang members to El Salvador to turn around and return to the U.S., but sources said administration officials made the determination that since the flights were already over international waters, the judge’s order did not apply, and the planes were not turned around.

On Monday, the judge held a “fact-finding” hearing over the whether the administration knowingly violated his court order, but did not issue ruling on the matter.

Sanchez and Casique told ABC News they reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland security several times. but that the agencies have not provided any information about their relatives.

ICE and DHS officials did not responded to ABC News’ request for information on Tiapa or Garcia Casique.

“He has never done anything, not even a fine, absolutely nothing,” Sanchez said of her husband. “We chose this country because it offers more security, more freedom, more peace of mind. But we didn’t know it would turn into chaos.”

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(NEW YORK) — Blizzard warnings are in place for parts of Kansas and Nebraska, with winter storm watches — which could turn to blizzard warnings — stretching northeast into Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and into the upper peninsula of Michigan.

Snow accumulations from 2 to 6 inches are generally expected, with higher amounts locally being possible. Wind gusts of up to 60 mph are also possible and could reduce visibility to a quarter mile or less for large parts of the day making travel difficult or even impossible in some areas.

The blizzard is expected to hit Wednesday morning and head east through the afternoon, stretching from Kansas City to Green Bay before it loses some strength.

Ahead of the snow, there is a likelihood a line of storms form along a cold front and some of these storm could turn severe due to damaging wind gusts and large hail, though tornadoes are unlikely.

A slight risk for severe weather also extends from Chicago to Evansville later this afternoon and into the evening with storms moving past Chicago around 6 p.m. CT.

The storm system is expected to give a dusting of snow to Chicago on Thursday morning and may make the commute a little difficult with reduced visibility.

On Thursday afternoon, showers will move into Washington, D.C. by 4pm and then move on to New York Coty later in the evening, ending around 7 a.m. Friday morning, but continuing for Boston and parts of the New England region until early afternoon.

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(CAPE CANAVERAL, FL) — The two NASA astronauts whose return to Earth was delayed for months are on their way home.

Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore left the International Space Station on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft early on Tuesday and began an about 17-hour journey toward a splashdown off the Florida coast.

NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were also onboard the craft as it undocked at about 1:05 a.m. ET.

Williams and Wilmore had in June 2024 performed the first astronaut-crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. What was expected to be a weeklong trip to the ISS instead turned into a nine-month stay. The Boeing Starliner that was expected to carry them home after about 10 days experienced issues, leaving the pair at the station for months.

Their return spacecraft early on Tuesday maneuvered in space, moving above and behind the station, before firing a series of departure burns that sent it back toward Earth.

NASA said it expected the return trip to end at about 5:57 p.m., when the Dragon is scheduled to splash down off the Florida coast.

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

ABC News’ Matthew Glasser and Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.

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(LOS ANGELES) — A sheriff’s deputy died in a police chase after his patrol car crashed into a bystander’s car and then slammed into a light pole, splitting the vehicle in half, police said.

The chase began on Monday morning shortly before 11 a.m. in San Bernardino, California, when law enforcement received a call about a possible stolen vehicle that was spotted by a deputy on duty from the Victorville City Station, according to ABC News’ Los Angeles station KABC.

“Deputies attempted a traffic stop but the suspect, Ryan Turner, failed to yield and a pursuit ensued,” according to a statement from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department. “During the pursuit, Deputy Hector Cuevas, Jr. was involved in a traffic collision with another vehicle.”

During the police pursuit, Cuevas crashed near the intersection of El Evado and Seneca roads, where his patrol car struck a bystander’s vehicle before slamming into a light pole, causing his car to be severed in half.

“Cuevas succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced deceased at the scene,” police said. “The female driver of the other vehicle was transported to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.”

The suspect, named as Ryan Dwayne Turner, Jr. — a 22-year-old resident of San Bernardino – continued to flee before stopping his car at El Evado Road and Zuni Lane and attempting to escape on foot, law enforcement said.

The pursuit didn’t last long, and Turner was subsequently caught and taken into custody, police said.

Cuevas was a six-year veteran of law enforcement who worked at the Victorville station for the last three years, according to KABC.

Turner was booked on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and evading a peace officer and causing death or serious injury, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said during a news conference on Monday.

“I really have no words to describe this tragedy. Hector is the type of law enforcement officer that we all want to be,” Dicus said. “He was a grand and great protector and a great father, and we will be suffering his loss and supporting his family for quite some time.”

Vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies escorted the deputy’s body in a solemn procession across local freeways to the San Bernardino County Coroner’s Office following the incident, KABC said.

“We currently do not know the exact circumstances surrounding the collision as of yet,” Dicus said, confirming that an investigation on the crash is underway.

“We are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of a San Bernardino County deputy,” the San Bernardino Police Officers Association said in a statement on social media. “Our thoughts and prayers are with their family, friends, and the entire agency during this difficult time. They made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their community, and their bravery will never be forgotten.”

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(OKLAHOMA CITY)– An Oklahoma father is being remembered as a hero after officials say he died while trying to save his son in wildfires that ravaged the state last week.

Allen Ferguson, a “beloved” youth wrestling coach from Chandler, died from injuries sustained in the wildfires, Oklahoma House Rep. Jim Shaw said.

Ferguson “tragically lost his life while trying to save his son, Will, who remains in critical condition,” Shaw said in a statement on Monday.

“Allen was a hero, and his dedication to his family and our community will never be forgotten,” the statement continued.

Family friend Shane Earp also remembered Ferguson as a “good man and a hero” to ABC News.

Ferguson carried his 15-year-old son, Will Conley, through the fire in Chandler to a road where they were found by rescuers, according to Earp. He spoke to his son throughout their ambulance ride to keep him calm, Earp said. Ferguson, who suffered severe burns, died at a hospital on Saturday, the family friend said.

The father of four boys was a “great man all around,” Earp said.

“Whether it be fishing, metal detecting, sports, making art out of anything, Civil War reenactment and many other things, if his family was interested in it, he would find a way to learn it and make it happen,” Earp said. “Always had jokes and funny comments so you must be ready to laugh when around him.”

Ferguson was one of four people killed in Oklahoma due to fires or high winds after scores of wildfires broke out throughout the state last week amid extreme fire weather conditions, officials said. Over 140 people were injured, officials said.

More than 400 homes and structures have been damaged in the high wind-fueled fires, the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management said.

Following the devastating blazes, Oklahoma continues to be on alert for fire danger.

Parts of Oklahoma, as well as Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Texas, face a critical threat of fire danger on Monday.

The fire threat continues in Oklahoma on Tuesday and increases for parts of the Texas Panhandle and southeastern New Mexico.

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