(NEW YORK) — Attorneys for columnist E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Donald Trump for defamation, objected Thursday to the former president’s attempt to pause enforcement of the $83.3 million judgment the jury ordered him to pay.
Trump had asked the court to stay enforcement of the monetary award while he appeals without requiring him to put cash in escrow or post bond.
If granted, that would leave Carroll with no assurance she would ever collect the money Trump now owes her, her attorneys said.
“The reasoning Trump offers in seeking this extraordinary relief boils down to nothing more than ‘trust me,'” Carroll’s attorneys wrote in a filing Thursday.
E. Jean Carroll says she plans to use $83 million on ‘something Donald Trump hates’ “He doesn’t offer any information about his finances or the nature and location of his assets,” they said. “He doesn’t specify what percentage of his assets are liquid or explain how Carroll might go about collecting.”
Carroll’s attorneys also noted that Trump failed to acknowledge the risks to his finances from the $454 million civil fraud judgment obtained by the New York attorney general.
A lawyer for the former president had requested that Judge Lewis Kaplan temporarily delay the judgment in the defamation case or permit Trump to post a bond for “an appropriate fraction” of the total damages. A New York appellate court on Wednesday rejected Trump’s attempt to do the same kind of thing in the civil fraud case, denying Trump’s attempt to freeze the judgment.
The ruling in the civil fraud case means, for now, that the former president is required to post a bond for hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming weeks. Defense attorneys had said Trump was prepared to post a $100 million bond, arguing he had no way to secure a higher amount without selling off some of his real estate.
Judge declines to grant stay of Trump’s $83.3 million judgment in Carroll defamation trial Earlier this month, Kaplan declined to grant a stay of Trump’s $83.3 million judgment in his defamation case and requested a written response from Carroll’s lawyers.
“The Court declines to grant any stay, much less an unsecured stay, without first having afforded plaintiff a meaningful opportunity to be heard,” Kaplan wrote in an order, setting a Thursday deadline for Carroll’s response and a March 2 deadline for Trump’s reply.
Carroll has vowed to use the judgment money on “something Donald Trump hates.”
“If it’ll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent,” Carroll told George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America” in January, suggesting she would create a “fund for the women who have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump.”
A jury had awarded Carroll over $83 million in damages to compensate her for two defamatory statements made by the former president in 2019 after she alleged Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996. A separate jury last year found that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll and defamed her, awarding her $5 million.
Trump has repeatedly denied the allegation since 2019.
(NEW YORK) — New York City officials have vacated a Bronx furniture store that was converted to house dozens of migrants in “unsafe living conditions,” according to the New York City Department of Buildings.
The vacate order was issued over “hazardous life-threatening conditions, lack of natural light and ventilation, and severe overcrowding,” according to the DOB.
At least 10 people were transported from the store on Wednesday just days after dozens of migrants were found in a Queens furniture store run by the same person, according to the DOB.
There were 74 migrants located at the store in Queens, most from west Africa, when that location was inspected Monday night.
Others may have relocated on their own or scattered when authorities arrived on the scene, according to the city. The city left up signs on how to get services on the shuttered storefront gate in case more migrants arrived later at night.
Inspectors were called to a two-story commercial building in the Bronx to investigate an “illegal conversion” when they found the store had been illegally converted into sleeping quarters with 45 beds packed tightly across the first floor and cellar, the DOB said.
E-bikes, extension cords, space heaters and hot plates were found throughout the building, the DOB said.
The mayor’s chief of staff, Camille Joseph Varlack, said the city became aware of the store when complaints were filed.
“We went in and found individuals that were living in unsafe conditions. As we would with any New Yorker that we find living in an unsafe condition, we immediately vacated those locations and referred those individuals to additional resources,” Varlack said.
New York City has been faced with a crisis over housing and feeding migrants that have been bused to the city from the southern border by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as part of his Operation Lone Star plan. There have been 37,900 migrants sent to New York City since August 2022, as of Feb. 16, according to the Texas governor’s office.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction Thursday to temporarily prevent one of the strictest immigration bills in the country from going into effect in Texas on March 5.
The law, known as SB 4, would authorize local and state law enforcement to arrest migrants they suspect crossed into the state illegally. It would also also give judges the power to order migrants to be transported to a port of entry and returned to Mexico regardless of their country of origin.
Texas immediately appealed the decision, attacking the Biden administration.
“We have appealed this incorrect decision,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “Texas has a clear right to defend itself from the drug smugglers, human traffickers, cartels, and legions of illegal aliens crossing into our State as a consequence of the Biden Administration’s deliberate policy choices.”
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott also dinged the Biden administration. President Joe Biden has argued that Congress needs to pass the bipartisan immigration deal, which includes changes to asylum protocols, funding to bolster immigration review and hire additional Border Patrol agents as well as new emergency powers for officials.
“We will not back down in our fight to protect our state — and our nation — from President Biden’s border crisis,” Abbott said in a statement. “The President of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including laws already on the books that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants.”
He continued: “Texas has the right to defend itself because of President Biden’s ongoing failure to fulfill his duty to protect our state from the invasion at our southern border. Even from the bench, this District Judge acknowledged that this case will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Both Biden and former President Donald Trump were scheduled to visit the southern border on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra wrote in the opinion: “In the final analysis, it is clear that the Plaintiffs, particularly the United States, will suffer grave irreparable harm were SB 4 to take effect, especially where Texas has other aspects of Operation Lone Star in full force. The balance of equities unequivocally weighs in favor of denying the stay pending appeal.”
The lawsuit was filed in December 2023 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project on behalf of El Paso County, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and American Gateways. The lawsuit was consolidated with one filed by the Department of Justice.
Ezra, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, called into question SB 4’s constitutionality, stating in the 114-page ruling that the Supremacy Clause and previous Supreme Court rulings “affirm that states may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government.”
He also said that the law would conflict with certain aspects of federal immigration law and that it would be detrimental to the United States’ foreign relations and treaty obligations.
“If allowed to proceed, SB 4 could open the door to each state passing its own version of immigration laws,” Ezra wrote. “The effect would moot the uniform regulation of immigration throughout the country and force the federal government to navigate a patchwork of inconsistent regulations. SB 4 threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice.”
The ACLU of Texas wrote on social media, “This is a win for Texas values, human rights, and the Constitution. The State could try to appeal today’s decision — but we’re not backing down.”
“#SB4 would let police arrest people over suspicions about immigration status — putting communities of color at greater risk of racial profiling,” the group continued. “We aim to strike down this law for good.”
Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, told ABC News that Thursday’s ruling is significant, but that the court battle to stop the law from ever going into effect is still ongoing.
“So this is a huge victory for Texans and in particularly Texans of color. We are so glad to see this positive momentum. We know that the battle may be won for now, but the war continues and so we are ready for that,” she said. “We know the fight continues and we’re ready to continue to do our work to ensure the safety of all Texans.”
(LOS ANGELES) — The effects of the El Niño event currently bringing extreme moisture to the southwestern U.S. are expected to linger for months, with record heat recorded all over the world, scientists say.
Several regions around the planet are expected to experience record-breaking average surface air temperatures through the summer as a result of heating influence from the current El Niño pattern, according to a study published in Scientific Reports on Thursday.
The study’s modeling says there’s a 90% chance of record-breaking global mean surface temperatures occurring under a moderate or strong El Niño scenario, the researchers found.
The Bay of Bengal and the Philippines are predicted to experience record-breaking average surface air temperatures under a moderate El Niño scenario, according to the study.
Under a strong El Niño, the Caribbean Sea, South China Sea and areas of the Amazon and Alaska are also predicted to experience record-breaking average surface air temperatures, the researchers said.
In addition, there is a 90% chance that global mean surface temperatures will break the historical record this summer. The researchers estimate global mean surface temperatures to reach 1.10 degrees Celsius above the benchmark of the 1951 to 1980 mean under a moderate scenario or up to 1.2 degrees Celsius above the benchmark of the 1951 to 1980 mean under a strong scenario.
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation, a warmer-than-normal surface ocean temperature in the eastern equatorial Pacific, is a key driver of climate variability around the world, according to scientists. Historically, an El Niño event causes a large margin of heating months after the peak, which also occurred in 2016 and 1998, records show.
The current El Niño pattern has already peaked and will be over by the spring. But record-high global mean surface temperatures influenced by the system could prevail as late as June of this year, according to the paper.
A slight increase in global mean surface temperatures has been strongly linked to significant increases in surface air temperatures during extreme regional heating events, the researchers said.
Record-breaking average temperatures will likely challenge regions’ current capability to cope with the consequences of excess heat, as high surface air temperatures can lead to a significant increase in the likelihood of extreme climate events including wildfires, tropical cyclones and heat waves, the authors warn.
The effects will be especially felt in oceanic and coastal areas where the higher heat capacity of the ocean leads to climate conditions persisting for extended periods of time, according to researchers.
The current El Niño system has been inundating the southwest U.S. with excessive precipitation. It has also contributed to warming patterns in the U.S., such as in the Great Lakes region, which barely formed any ice over this past winter season.
(LOS ANGELES) — A blizzard warning is in effect in California as a new storm system moves into the mountains with potential to deliver more than 10 feet of snow.
The heavy snow will begin blasting California’s Sierra Nevada mountains Thursday afternoon and evening, and will continue into the weekend.
Up to 12 feet of snow is possible.
Gusty winds could reach 80 mph, causing dangerous whiteout conditions on the road.
A backcountry avalanche watch has been issued for the central Sierra Nevada mountains, including the Lake Tahoe area. “High to extreme avalanche danger” is possible from Friday morning to Saturday night, the National Weather Service warned.
Along the California coast, rain is in the forecast for the San Francisco Bay area Thursday afternoon and evening. Some parts of Northern California could see 2 to 5 inches of rain.
The rain will move into Southern California, including Los Angeles, this weekend, with 1 to 2 inches of rain possible in the foothills.
The region could see some flooding, and with the ground already heavily saturated, landslides and mudslides are also possible.
(SPARTA TOWNSHIP, PA.) — The predominantly Amish community in Spartansburg, Pennsylvania, is shocked and scared after a 23-year-old pregnant Amish woman was killed this week, a community member told ABC News.
“Everyone is stunned — this doesn’t happen here,” said Charleen Hajec, a pharmacist who was born and raised in Spartansburg. “Everyone is talking. It’s scary and frustrating.”
On Monday afternoon, police responded to a home in Sparta Township, where they found Rebekah Byler dead, Pennsylvania State Police said.
Byler’s death is considered a homicide and “police are aggressively investigating,” authorities said. Her cause of death has not been released.
No suspects are in custody, Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson Cindy Schick told ABC News on Thursday.
Police are “looking into all leads,” Schick said, noting that “nothing is standing out” as a possible motive.
Police are interviewing community members and Schick said the Amish community is cooperating with the investigation.
Sparta Township is a small township in Crawford County, just outside of the borough of Spartansburg and about 35 miles southeast of Erie, Pennsylvania.
When Hajec heard what happened to the young Amish woman she said she couldn’t believe a murder would happen in Sparta Township, which she called a “tight-knit community.”
“The outside world doesn’t get in,” Hajec said. “To have something this tragic … it doesn’t happen here.”
An Amish man who knows Byler’s family, and asked to remain anonymous, told ABC News her death is devastating.
“We are people who believe in God and turn to him during a time like this,” he said.
Police have asked the public to report any suspicious people, cars or activity in the area of Fish Flats Road to the authorities at 814-663-2043.
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — One person is dead and six others have suffered gunshot injuries stemming from a disagreement over when a vehicle was to be returned, which resulted in an exchange of gunfire between two groups in Orlando, Florida, police said.
The six injured victims were transferred to the hospital and are now in stable condition and are expected to survive, according to Orlando Police.
Police have identified the deceased as 21-year-old James Jerry Dawn William III.
The incident began with a confrontation between two groups at around 3 p.m. the day of the shooting, in the same location, when officers received a call over an alleged assault with weapons, according to Orlando Police.
When officers arrived on the scene, it was reported that a disagreement occurred stemming from a vehicle not being returned by a mutually agreed-upon date. One of the individuals involved in the incident wanted to seek a prosecution over the alleged assault, but the suspect was not located, police said.
A trespass warning was issued for one of the individuals involved in the disagreement, according to police. Police suspect that one of the parties was involved in the shooting that occurred at 11 p.m. that night.
Officers from the Orlando Police Department responded to the area of Iron Wedge Drive and South Lake Orlando Wednesday night in reference to several shots fired and, upon arrival, located multiple victims, including one dead.
The investigation remains ongoing. Police said they are still in the process of sorting out the role of those injured in the shooting and identifying the suspects.
(AMARILLO, Texas) — Several large wildfires continue to tear through northern Texas, including one that has grown into the largest blaze in state history.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire that ignited in Hutchinson County remained active as of Thursday morning, having burned an estimated 1,075,000 acres and was just 3% contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The flames, which cover an area larger than the size of Rhode Island, have spread across state lines, with 1,050,000 acres burned in Texas and 25,000 acres burned in Oklahoma.
The East Amarillo Complex Fire, which burned also in Hutchinson County in 2006, had been the largest in the state’s history at just under 1 million acres, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.
Hutchinson County Public Engagement Coordinator Deidra Thomas confirmed there was at least one wildfire-related fatality in the small town of Stinnett, Texas, according to Amarillo ABC affiliate KVII.
The Windy Deuce Fire that ignited in Moore County was also still active as of Thursday afternoon, having burned an estimated 142,000 acres and was 50% contained. The Grape Vine Fire that ignited in nearby Gray County had burned an estimated 30,000 acres and was 60% contained as of early Wednesday, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.
The raging wildfires have consumed swathes of the Turkey Track Ranch, a 120-year-old, 80,000-acre private property located along the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. The sprawling, historic ranch has been up for sale and is listed at $180 million.
“The loss of livestock, crops, and wildlife, as well as ranch fencing and other infrastructure throughout our property as well as other ranches and homes across the region is, we believe, unparalleled in our history,” managers of the Turkey Track Ranch Family Group said in a statement Wednesday. “Our early assessment estimates that The Turkey Track Ranch has suffered and lost approximately 80% of our pastures, plains, and creek bottom vegetation. We continue to assess the total damage to other infrastructure and the loss of livestock.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday declared a disaster declaration for 60 counties due to “widespread wildfire activity throughout the state.”
The weather forecast for Thursday shows relative humidity will be high, with cooler temperatures and a chance of rain and snow for the Texas Panhandle, which would help with firefighting efforts. Wind gusts could get up to 30 miles per hour, but aren’t expected to be as extreme as they were earlier in the week.
However, unseasonably warm and windy weather is expected to return to wildfire-ravaged region this weekend, creating ideal conditions for critical fire danger. Temperatures in the Texas Panhandle are forecast to surpass 70 and even 80 degrees Fahrenheit from Friday through Sunday, while wind gusts could be 30 to 45 mph.
ABC News’ Max Golembo and Marilyn Heck contributed to this report.
In the four years since schools were shuttered in an effort to protect students from the onset of COVID-19, public education has been placed under a microscope and turned into a major political talking point.
Conservatives, led by political figures like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and groups like Moms for Liberty, have embraced a mantle of parental rights and claimed — in part because of the window that remote schooling opened into the classroom — that public school instruction has been hijacked by inappropriate curricula on LGBTQ topics, race and discrimination and more.
Opponents like the progressive group Red, Wine and Blue and leaders like California Gov. Gavin Newsom have pushed back on what they call efforts to de-emphasize focus on minority groups and social issues through controversial changes like Florida teaching middle-schoolers that slaves sometimes learned beneficial skills, as well as bans on books and more.
The classroom culture wars still rage in various states, but educational and parental advocates across the ideological spectrum who spoke with ABC News for this story worry that a pivot is needed away from those battles, some of which these groups first sparked, and back to education.
“Parents want to see our children read. It’s not a matter of banning a book if they can’t read it,” parent Jay Artis-Wright, a critic of what she called Republican-led culture wars and a former leader of Parent Revolution, a nonprofit organization empowering parents based in Los Angeles, told ABC News.
The slogans and school board shouting have exaggerated and overshadowed more pressing issues, according to Artis-Wright and other activists on both sides of the issue.
“Teaching kids to read in school should not be a political issue,” said Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, which has become widely recognized and polarizing. “It is not a partisan issue and I actually think it’s the greatest national security risk that we have as Americans: a nation of people that are illiterate.”
Moms for Liberty, founded in 2021, broadly says its mission is about “educating and empowering parents” and it includes numerous chapters that describe themselves as school board “watchdogs.” But the group has also come under fire, with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) saying they spread “hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community,” which Moms for Liberty leaders previously maintained to ABC News was “nonsense.”
Beyond politics, fears for students’ education are well-founded, according to national data and recent expert analysis.
More than a third of the nation’s fourth-grade students were below proficient readers in 2022, according to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), otherwise known as the “nation’s report card.”
NAEP’s math, history and civics scores all sunk in 2022, too. Fourth- and eighth-grade students saw their largest declines ever in math and eighth-grade students received the lowest history scores since 1994, when the history assessment was first administered.
In February, Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research Faculty Director Tom Kane issued a stark warning for parents.
Despite Kane’s Education Recovery Scorecard outlining one-year gains last school year, the study, based on state-level and NAEP results, found that the average district is still “one more year away from catching up in math” and “two more years from catching up in reading.”
“If we allow these achievement losses to become permanent, students will be paying for the pandemic for the rest of their lives, like in the form of lower college-going [and] lower earnings once they get out of college,” Kane, who co-authored the scorecard in collaboration with the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, told ABC News.
Liberal leaders say they are tired of the culture war critics who sometimes focus less on interrupted instruction and zero-in on discussions of race and gender ideology. A new Pew Research Center study found most of the American public believes parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about LGBTQ issues if the way these topics are taught conflicts with the parents’ personal views or beliefs, but only about a third believe parents should be able to opt their children out of similar discussions on race.
Pew also found nearly 70% of teachers said the topics of sexual orientation and gender ideology rarely or never came up in the classroom last school year.
National Parents Union (NPU) President Keri Rodrigues said the conversation should instead emphasize America’s illiteracy problem.
“Every child in America deserves the right to read proficiently by third grade,” Rodrigues told ABC News, adding, “if we can solve that, there are a whole host of things that will fall in line.”
Justice, with Moms for Liberty, said there’s no doubt that learning loss has affected “every student” and it’s a topic that is a “concern for the future of the kids.”
Artis-Wright also said schools must focus on issues beyond culture war topics, such as book banning and other flashpoint issues that a vocal group of advocates and parents have been pushing since the start of the pandemic.
“There needs to be this overall look of how we reimagine what school looks like coming out of the pandemic — from every perspective,” she said.
Republican Rep. Lisa McClain, who chaired a congressional hearing on K-12 education oversight at the start of the year, said this should not be a partisan topic. Parents like Rep. McClain and Artis-Wright hope to shift the focus to kids catching up in school, particularly in math and reading.
“Unfortunately, K-12 education headlines this year likely will fixate on laughable book ban claims or semi-hysterical mass layoff assertions due to the long scheduled end of federal … funding,” the director of parental rights group Education Freedom Center at the Independent Women’s Forum, Ginny Gentles, said during McClain’s Healthcare and Financial Services Subcommittee hearing in January.
“Choose instead to focus on students’ academic recovery needs,” Gentles added.
NPU’s Rodrigues was more blunt.
“We’ve been yelling and screaming about it [learning loss] now for years,” she told ABC News. “If we do not start to address these things with urgency by having radical transparency around where our kids are, where we’re trying to get them so that we can all be all-hands-on-deck to get them there, then we’re just going to continue to see more of the same.”
Struggling students should utilize summer programming, tutoring and after school contracts, according to Kane. He said it’s imperative for school districts to use the remaining Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) dollars in the American Rescue Plan before it’s too late. (The deadline for districts to tap this funding is September)
“We’ve got to make sure parents are well informed about just whether or not their child is below grade level,” Kane said, adding, “They can’t wait for the state tests to come back to tell them. Schools need to tell them this spring so they can sign up for the summer.”
Rep. McClain, a conservative mother of four, said America’s public schools could do “a lot better” as the issues persist nationwide.
“As parents we must advocate for our children,” she said, adding, “We must take these issues seriously: Our nation’s children — or the so-called ‘pandemic cohort’ — do not deserve to be left behind.”
Both sides, despite cultural differences, say they agree on this.
“Parents really are looking for, you know, quality educational options,” Progressive Policy Institute’s Reinventing America’s Schools Project Co-Director Curtis Valentine told ABC News.
“All parents want good schools, good teachers and good options.”
Several large wildfires continue to tear through northern Texas, including one that has grown into the second-largest blaze in state history.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire that ignited in Hutchinson County remained active as of Wednesday night, having burned an estimated 850,000 acres and was just 3% contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The flames, which cover an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, have spread across state lines into parts of Oklahoma.
Hutchinson County Public Engagement Coordinator Deidra Thomas confirmed there was at least one wildfire-related fatality in the small town of Stinnett, Texas, according to Amarillo ABC affiliate KVII.
The Windy Deuce Fire that ignited in Moore County was also still active as of Wednesday night, having burned an estimated 142,000 acres and was 30% contained. The Grape Vine Fire that ignited in nearby Gray County had burned an estimated 30,000 acres and was 60% contained as of early Wednesday, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.
The raging wildfires have consumed swathes of the Turkey Track Ranch, a 120-year-old, 80,000-acre private property located along the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. The sprawling, historic ranch has been up for sale and is listed at $180 million.
“The loss of livestock, crops, and wildlife, as well as ranch fencing and other infrastructure throughout our property as well as other ranches and homes across the region is, we believe, unparalleled in our history,” managers of the Turkey Track Ranch Family Group said in a statement Wednesday. “Our early assessment estimates that The Turkey Track Ranch has suffered and lost approximately 80% of our pastures, plains, and creek bottom vegetation. We continue to assess the total damage to other infrastructure and the loss of livestock.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday declared a disaster declaration for 60 counties due to “widespread wildfire activity throughout the state.”
The weather forecast for Thursday shows relative humidity will be high, with cooler temperatures and a chance of rain and snow for the Texas Panhandle, which would help with firefighting efforts. Wind gusts could get up to 30 miles per hour, but aren’t expected to be as extreme as they were earlier in the week.
However, unseasonably warm and windy weather is expected to return to wildfire-ravaged region this weekend, creating ideal conditions for critical fire danger. Temperatures in the Texas Panhandle are forecast to surpass 70 and even 80 degrees Fahrenheit from Friday through Sunday, while wind gusts could be 30 to 45 mph.
ABC News’ Max Golembo and Marilyn Heck contributed to this report.
