A bomb detection robot inspects a vehicle that rammed a security barricade at the White House complex on October 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Secret Service reported that one individual was arrested and that the vehicle is now deemed safe. Andrew Leyden/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A person has been arrested after driving his car into a security gate near the White House on Tuesday night, the U.S. Secret Service said.
It happened at about 10:37 p.m. at a security gate at 17th and E streets southwest of the White House, the Secret Service said in a statement.
“The individual was immediately arrested by U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division officers, and the vehicle was assessed by Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Department and deemed safe,” the Secret Service said in a statement. “Additional information will be provided upon conclusion of the investigation.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Federal agents clash with anti-I.C.E. protesters at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building on October 12, 2025 in Portland, Oregon. An Instagram post from the WorldNakedBikeRidePortland account stated – “The emergency WNBR Portland is in response to the militarization of our peaceful city. Right now peaceful protesters are being brutalized as they do their best for our neighbors and cousins who are being kidnapped.” (Photo by Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration has filed a motion seeking to dissolve the remaining order preventing them from deploying National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon.
The filing on Monday came after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned, earlier that day, another temporary restraining order that prevented the Trump administration from deploying the Oregon National Guard to Portland. A panel of judges found that the Trump administration was likely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the TRO.
A broader order that prohibits any state’s National Guard from deploying into Portland remains in effect.
The government referenced the appeals court’s decision in its filing on Monday, stating, “Given the Ninth Circuit’s clear statements on the second TRO’s validity, the Court should address this motion in part today and without awaiting plaintiffs’ response due tomorrow evening.”
The Ninth Circuit’s decision “plainly warrants dissolution of this Court’s second TRO,” the government’s motion stated.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield decried Monday’s ruling, saying the panel of Ninth Circuit judges “has chosen to not hold the president accountable” and urged the “full Ninth Circuit to vacate today’s decision before the illegal deployments can occur.”
“Portland is peaceful. The military has no place in our streets,” he said in a statement. “We will continue to hold the line and fight for Oregon’s sovereignty.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi, meanwhile, celebrated the ruling, saying the appeals court found that the president “has the right to deploy the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, where local leaders have failed to keep their citizens safe.”
In late September, President Donald Trump issued an order federalizing 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to protect federal propertyamid ongoing protests at a Portland ICE facility, despite objections from local officials.
After the city of Portland and state of Oregon sued, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut earlier this month prohibited the deployment of the Oregon National Guard into the Portland area, finding that conditions in Portland were “not significantly violent or disruptive” to justify a federal takeover of the National Guard, and that the president’s claims about the city were “simply untethered to the facts.”
The Ninth Circuit’s ruling on Monday, which lifted Immergut’s TRO, found that the Trump administration was likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal of Immergut’s ruling.
“After considering the record at this preliminary stage, we conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority” to federalize the National Guard, the court stated in the majority opinion.
Immergut issued a second TRO following the Trump administration’s attempt to deploy members of the California National Guard to Portland.
The government is seeking to dissolve that TRO or “at a minimum” to stay, or suspend, the order until it expires on Nov. 2, according to the motion filed Monday.
The city of Portland and state of Oregon have not yet filed a response to the government’s motion, according to the online docket.
A trial in the matter is scheduled to start on Oct. 29.
In this Aug. 1, 2023, file photo, Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on an unsealed indictment, including four felony counts against former President Donald Trump, in Washington, D.C. Drew Angerer/Getty Images, FILE
(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys representing former special counsel Jack Smith sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley Tuesday seeking to correct what they call “inaccurate” claims that Smith wiretapped or spied on Republican lawmakers as part of his investigation into President Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
“Although you have not reached out to us to discuss this matter, we are compelled to correct inaccurate assertions made by you and others concerning the issuance of a grand jury subpoena for the toll records of eight Senators and one Member of the House of Representatives,” attorneys Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski wrote. “Mr. Smith’s actions as Special Counsel were consistent with the decisions of a prosecutor who has devoted his career to following the facts and the law, without fear or favor and without regard for the political consequences.”
The outreach from Smith’s team is the latest in a series of efforts by the former special counsel to correct the record on his parallel investigations into Trump that resulted in two indictments for Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified records after leaving the White House in his first term and his attempt to subvert the 2020 election result.
Trump pleaded not guilty in both cases before both were dropped following Trump’s reelection, due to a long-standing Justice Department policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.
Both cases have since been cast by senior leadership of Trump’s Justice Department — many of whom previously served as Trump’s personal attorneys — as prime examples of political weaponization of law enforcement.
In the letter from his attorneys, as well as two public appearances on university panels, Smith has disputed that he or his team were ever motivated by politics in their prosecutions of the president.
In their letter Tuesday, Smith’s attorneys sought to refute a narrative stemming from a document released by the FBI on the eve of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month.
The record showed that during Smith’s investigation, his office sought limited phone toll data from eight senators and a member of the House in the days surrounding the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
While such records would not involve the content of any phone calls or messages, multiple Republicans on the committee incorrectly claimed at the hearing the next day that Smith had “tapped” their phones or “spied” on them.
“What was going on here? Who ordered this? Who ordered the tapping of the phones of United States Senators?” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley asked Bondi during the hearing.
“We will be looking at all aspects of this, and I have talked to Director Patel at length about this,” Bondi responded, referring to FBI Director Kash Patel.
Smith’s attorneys, in their letter, stood firmly behind the move to seek the toll records as “entirely proper, lawful, and consistent with established Department of Justice policy,” and further confirmed that Smith received approval to do so from career officials in the Department’s Public Integrity Section.
“The subpoena’s limited temporal range is consistent with a focused effort to confirm or refute reports by multiple news outlets that during and after the January 6 riots at the Capitol, President Trump and his surrogates attempted to call Senators to urge them to delay certification of the 2020 election results,” Breuer and Koski wrote. “In fact, by the time Mr. Smith’s team conducted the toll records analysis, it had been reported that President Trump and Rudy Giuliani tried calling Senators for such a purpose, with one Senator releasing a voicemail from Mr. Giuliani.”
Smith’s attorneys also noted that, during Trump’s first term, the Justice Department “purportedly obtained communications records from two Democratic Members of Congress” as part of an investigation into media leaks.
The letter also criticizes Patel for suggesting in a statement that Smith sought to cover up his office’s use of the toll records, claiming he put them “in a “lockbox in a vault, and then put that vault in a cyber place where no one can see or search these files.”
“It is not clear what cyber place in a vault in a lockbox Director Patel is describing, but Mr. Smith’s use of these records is inconsistent with someone who was trying to conceal them,” the letter said.
Smith’s attorneys point to Smith’s final report on his probe, released in January of this year, which specifically describes some of the calls made to Republican senators during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and contains as a footnote that refers to the use of toll records in Smith’s investigation.
“Moreover, the precise records at issue were produced in discovery to President Trump’s personal lawyers, some of whom now serve in senior positions within the Department of Justice,” Smith’s attorneys added in their letter.
(NEW YORK) — An upstate New York man who was pardoned by President Donald Trump for his actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 allegedly threatened to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York State Police said.
Christopher Moynihan, 34, of Clinton, was arrested Saturday and charged with making a terroristic threat, police said. He is the first pardoned Capitol rioter to be arrested over alleged political violence.
He appeared in the Town of Clinton Court where he was remanded to the Dutchess County Justice and Transition Center in lieu of $10,000 cash bail, police said.
He is scheduled to make his first appearance in Dutchess County State Supreme Court on Thursday. It was not immediately clear whether he had hired a lawyer.
Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement Tuesday that he is “grateful to state and federal law enforcement for their swift and decisive action to apprehend a dangerous individual who made a credible death threat against me with every intention to carry it out.”
Moynihan was convicted of obstructing an official proceeding in 2022 after he broke through a security perimeter and entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Prosecutors said he entered the Senate Gallery and paged through a notebook on top of a senator’s desk and took photos with his cellphone. During the riot he said, “There’s got to be something in here we can f—ing use against these —-bags,” according to prosecutors. Court filings from when he was charged included screenshots from a video showing Moynihan in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Moynihan was sentenced to nearly two years in prison in February 2023 before he and more than 1,500 others who had been convicted or otherwise charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot received a pardon hours after Trump took office.
Stock image of police lights. Douglas Sacha/Getty Images
(BLADENSBURG, Md.) — A 66-year-old man has been identified by police as the alleged driver who plowed into a child’s front-yard birthday party over the weekend in Bladensburg, Maryland, killing a woman and leaving 13 others injured, including eight children.
The suspect, Joseph Sunday of Washington, D.C., was arrested on Monday, according to the Bladensburg Police Department.
Sunday was charged with two counts of negligent manslaughter with a vehicle and failure to remain at the scene of an accident where a death occurred, according to the police department.
The crash unfolded around 10 p.m. on Saturday when a car traveling in reverse in a Bladensburg residential neighborhood plowed into a crowd gathered on the front lawn of a home for a child’s birthday party, according to police.
The vehicle crashed into a party tent set up on the lawn, police said. The driver jumped out of the car and ran from the scene, but later surrendered to police, authorities said.
It remains under investigation what caused the driver to crash unto the party, including whether the suspect was impaired at the time of the crash, according to Bladensburg police officials.
The woman killed in the crash was identified by police as 31-year-old Ashley Hernandez Gutierrez of Washington, D.C.
Five adults and eight children, ranging in age from 1 to 17, were hospitalized with injuries, according to police. One young girl and a toddler were initially treated for critical injuries, according to Prince George’s County Fire and EMS Department.
Tropical Development – Into the Weekend Map (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Melissa has formed in the Atlantic and may further strengthen into a hurricane.
Melissa will stay away from the mainland United States, and instead pose the biggest threat to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Cuba. The storm might also impact Puerto Rico.
Here’s the latest forecast:
As Melissa churns over the Caribbean in the coming days, it will unleash heavy rain, strong winds and rough surf on the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba. A dangerous 5 to 10 inches of rainfall is possible by Friday, with more rain possibly coming over the weekend.
Puerto Rico may face heavy rain and gusty winds from Melissa’s outer bands on Thursday, Friday and this weekend. But so far, the forecast shows that the worst of the storm will avoid Puerto Rico.
Water temperatures in the Caribbean are 3 to 4 degrees above average for this time of year, which will help fuel this system.
The Atlantic hurricane season lasts until Nov. 30.
(WASHINGTON) — Lawyers for President Donald Trump are asking a federal judge in Florida to deny a request by the Wall Street Journal and its parent companies, Dow Jones and News Corp, to dismiss a $10 billion defamation lawsuit over the paper’s reporting on the bawdy letter allegedly penned by Trump that appeared in a birthday book for disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a court filing late Monday, Trump’s lawyers argued that the July article and surrounding coverage were a “deliberate smear campaign designed to damage President Trump’s reputation” and subject the president to “public hatred and ridicule.” They also requested oral arguments over the Journal’s recent motion to dismiss.
“Defendants did not publish the Article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal based on a mere harmless joke between friends,” Monday’s filing said. “Indeed, such an assertion strains credulity beyond repair. The Article, and the surrounding media around it, were all a deliberate smear campaign designed to damage President Trump’s reputation.”
Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding and participating in Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls, told Justice Department officials in August that Epstein had asked her to coordinate contributions to his 2003 50th birthday book from friends and associates, but said she could not recall if Trump, then a private citizen, was among those who responded.
Last month the House Oversight Committee released records from Epstein’s estate that included a copy of a birthday book with the alleged letter from Trump that the newspaper had described.
Trump, who filed suit against the Journal in July, has continued to argue the letter is fake and that the signature on the letter is not his.
Acknowledging the release of the letter by the House Oversight panel, Trump’s lawyers alleged that the Wall Street Journal was still “deliberate and malicious” because the reporting suggested that the letter was not only authored by Trump but also on-brand for the president.
“Defendants cannot hide behind a few words buried within the text — words that refer to the letter ‘bearing Trump’s name’ — while simultaneously ignoring their deliberate portrayal of the letter as being authored and sent by President Trump to Epstein in 2003,” the filing said.
The Wall Street Journal has stood by its reporting.
“Because Plaintiff has publicly admitted that he was Epstein’s friend in the early 2000s, his reputation cannot be harmed by the suggestion that he was friends with Epstein in 2003. Indeed, he was listed in the Birthday Book as a ‘friend’ of Epstein. The fact that his relationship with Epstein may now be a political liability — over 20 years after the Birthday Book was presented to Epstein — does not change this conclusion,” the Journal contended in its request for dismissal.
While the Journal’s reporting included a denial from President Trump, his lawyers argued in Mondays filing that the publication still acted with a “reckless disregard for the truth” because the request for comment was rushed and the reporting allegedly cast doubt on the president’s claim.
“Although Defendants included Plaintiff’s denial, they did so in a way that made it seem as if Plaintiff’s denial was false. This kind of reckless disregard for the truth by Defendants provides a sufficient basis for an inference of actual malice,” the filing said.
Tropical Development – Into the Weekend Map (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Melissa has formed in the Atlantic and may further strengthen into a hurricane.
While Melissa will stay away from the mainland United States, it could bring rough surf, rain and wind to Puerto Rico.
The exact path and timing are not yet clear, but Melissa will likely stay in the Caribbean for days.
A cold front will work to keep this system away from mainland America this weekend and next week.
However, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico should all prepare for heavy rain, flooding, strong winds and rough surf for the second half of this week through the weekend, and possibly into early next week.
Water temperatures in the Caribbean are 3 to 4 degrees above average for this time of year, which will help fuel this system.
A baby was found on a subway platform in Manhattan, New York, on Oct. 20, 2025. WABC
(NEW YORK) — New York City police have released footage of the person who they say left a newborn girl at a Midtown Manhattan subway station during the Monday morning rush hour.
The unknown person left the baby girl wrapped in a blanket at the southbound 1 train platform at 34th Street-Penn Station at about 9:04 a.m. Monday, the New York Police Department said. The person then fled on foot, police said.
The infant was reported via an anonymous tip, and NYPD and fire personnel responded, New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow told reporters.
The baby was conscious and alert on the way to the hospital and she was admitted in stable condition, police said.
“I’m calling it the miracle on 34th Street, maybe just a little earlier,” Crichlow said.
“Just grateful for the work of the NYPD for responding and caring for the baby,” he added.
The NYPD is looking for help identifying the unknown person who left the baby. The police ask anyone with information to call NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS or submit a tip online at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/.
ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A United Airlines flight diverted to Salt Lake City last week after an object struck the plane’s windshield at 36,000 feet, causing it to crack and injuring the pilot, according to the airline and officials.
Amid the mystery of what could have hit the plane’s windshield, on Monday night, WindBorne Systems, a long-duration smart weather balloon company, released a statement saying the object that hit and cracked United flight’s windshield may have been a weather balloon from the company.
The company said it is working with FAA and the NTSB on the investigation.
“We are working closely with the FAA on this matter. We immediately rolled out changes to minimize time spent between 30,000 and 40,000 feet. These changes are already live with immediate effect. Additionally, we are further accelerating our plans to use live flight data to autonomously avoid planes, even if the planes are at a non-standard altitude. We are also actively working on new hardware designs to further reduce impact force magnitude and concentration,” WindBorne said in a statement.
The windshield is being transported to the National Transportation Safety Board’s laboratory as the investigation continues.
Data from flight tracking website Flight Radar24 shows the plane was 36,000 feet in the air when an object hit the windshield. The flight then descended to a lower altitude, following standard protocol, before making an emergency landing at Utah’s Salt Lake City International Airport.
“This is an extraordinary situation in terms of the glass being able to create any damage at all to the people in the cockpit, and what it might have hit at 36,000 feet. That’s really the great puzzle,” said ABC News aviation analyst John Nance.
Aircraft windshields are designed with multiple layers to be able to sustain damage caused by things like a bird strike, weather or even debris, but experts say it’s rare for it to be a bird strike that high in the sky.
“You’re talking about a bird at that altitude. It’s very, very rare to say the least, you’re talking about maybe a drone, a weather balloon, anything of that nature that has enough mass to be able to cause this kind of shattering,” said Nance.
United Airlines said the Boeing 737-MAX 8 with 134 passengers landed safely in Utah “to address damage to its multilayered windshield.” Officials said the pilot was treated for minor injuries.
Heather Ramsey, a college student and a passenger onboard, said she first noticed something was weird about 50 minutes into the flight, even before any announcements, when she overheard one of the flight attendants sharply raising her voice and telling the other to stop the service and get to the back of the cabin.
Shortly after, Ramsey said the pilot made an announcement of the flight diverting.
“The aircraft has collided with an object and a window in the cockpit has shattered, so we need to make an emergency landing in Salt Lake City,” Ramsey told ABC News, recalling the pilot’s message.
The images of the cracked windshield were first shared on social media by aviation account JonNYC.
The airline said passengers were accommodated on another aircraft to Los Angeles later that day and United is working with its team to return the plane to service.
