(LONDON) — NATO fighter jets were scrambled and air defense units put on alert in the early hours of Sunday in response to a major Russian drone and missile strike on Ukraine, the Polish Operational Command said in posts to X.
“Due to the activity of the Russian Federation’s long-range aviation, which is carrying out strikes on the territory of Ukraine, Polish and allied aviation has begun operating in our airspace,” the command said in a statement.
“On-duty fighter pairs have been scrambled, and ground-based air defense systems as well as radar reconnaissance have reached a state of highest readiness,” the post added.
“These actions are of a preventive nature and are aimed at securing the airspace and protecting citizens, especially in areas adjacent to the threatened regions,” it said.
Dutch F-35 stealth fighters and a German Patriot surface-to-air missile system were among the forces put on alert, the command added. Airspace over Lublin and Rzeszow near the Ukrainian border was also briefly closed.
The alert ended after around three-and-a-half hours with no reported violations of Polish airspace, the command said.
There have been no reported violations of Polish airspace by long-range Russian drones since dozens crossed into the country during strikes on Ukraine on Sept. 10, prompting Polish and allied jets to shoot down several.
Kyiv was the focus of the overnight Russian strikes. Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi, Sumy and Odesa were also attacked, President Voloydmyr Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram. The barrage lasted for more than 12 hours, the president said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 593 drones and 50 missiles of various types, making the overnight barrage the largest combined strike on Ukraine since Sept. 7.
Defenders downed or suppressed 566 drones and 45 missiles, the air force said. Five missiles and 31 drones impacted across 16 locations, the force said.
At least four people — among them a 12-year-old girl — were killed in the capital, according to a post by head of the Kyiv City Military Administration Timur Tkachenko to Telegram.
At least 14 people were also injured in Kyiv, local officials said.
“As of now, there are over 15 locations with damage,” Tkachenko said. “Among them are drone strikes on multi-story residential buildings.” Tkachenko reported damage in at least five city districts.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a five-floor apartment building in the Solomyanskyi district was partially destroyed and caught fire. Strikes also hit a state medical facility, warehouses, private homes, cars and a children’s educational center, officials said.
At least 31 people — among them three children — were injured by Russian strikes on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to local Gov. Ivan Fedorov. A high-rise apartment building and several other structures were hit and set ablaze in the city, Fedorov said.
The city — home to more than 710,000 people before Russia’s full-scale invasion — is now only around 16 miles from the front line and subject to continuous Russian attacks.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a post to Telegram that at least 70 people were injured by strikes across the country.
Zelenskyy noted that the “cowardly” attack took place at the end of a week of high-level meetings and speeches at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“This is exactly how Russia declares its real position,” Zelenskyy said. “Moscow wants to continue fighting and killing and deserves only the harshest pressure from the world.”
Zelenskyy again called for more international measures to choke Russia’s energy export industry. “We count on a strong response from the U.S., Europe, the G7 and the G20,” he wrote.
Andriy Kovalenko — the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council — said in a post to Telegram that it was a “difficult night for many cities.”
“The Russians are also under attack,” Kovalenko wrote. “And the level of these attacks will only increase.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down at least 41 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Rosaviatsiya, Russia’s federal air transport agency, reported temporary flight restrictions at multiple airports, including at the Zhukovsky International Airport in Moscow.
Restrictions were also imposed at airports in Volgograd, Kaluga, Penza, Samara, Pskov and Yaroslavl.
(NEW YORK) — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday he is “hopeful” a government shutdown can be avoided as Congress lurches toward its Tuesday deadline to reach a spending agreement.
Jeffries’ comments come after President Donald Trump canceled a meeting last week with Jeffries and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to hammer out a deal before saying Saturday he’d meet with the Democrats and Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday.
“Our view going into the meeting is that we want to find bipartisan common ground, to find a spending agreement that avoids a government shutdown and actually meets the needs of the American people in terms of their health, their safety, and their economic well-being,” Jeffries told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
One of the main points of contention between Democrats and Republicans has been the impending expiration of the Affordable Care Act’s tax credits, which Democrats are fighting to extend.
“We know they don’t expire till the end of the year, so why not approve this and just get seven more weeks to negotiate?” Raddatz asked.
“Well, because notices are going to go out in a matter of days and it’s going to be a shock to the system of everyday Americans who are already struggling to get by,” Jeffries said.
Responding to Jeffries later on “This Week,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise advocated for passing a short-term funding bill and continuing negotiations into the coming months.
“Let’s let those talks continue till November with this short-term government funding bill that’s in the Senate,” Scalise said. “But it’s the same levels of funding that the Senate voted for, Democrats included, back in March.”
Scalise noted that he, like Jeffries, is hopeful that a shutdown can be avoided.
“I’m not only hopeful, I, Speaker Johnson, all my Republican colleagues voted to prevent a government shutdown, and we passed that bill to the Senate,” Scalise said.
“There’s still time for an agreement to be reached. I’m glad that President Trump is showing leadership and meeting with all leaders, Republican and Democrat, Monday in the White House,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. State Department said it was revoking the visa of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who had traveled to New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly.
“Earlier today, [Petro] stood on a NYC street and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence,” the State Department said Friday in a post on X. “We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions.”
Petro, who traveled to New York for the U.N. General Assembly, participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration earlier Friday. In video clips posted to social media, he can be heard appealing to American soldiers — urging them to disobey orders from President Donald Trump.
Based on the video clips, there did not appear to be any uniformed U.S. service members in the audience listening to Petro.
Petro, responding to the revoking of his visa on Saturday, posted a lengthy response to President Donald Trump on X, saying that “international laws grant me immunity to go to the UN and that there should be no reprisals for my free opinion, because I am a free person.”
He also criticized Trump’s advisers and urged the president to “see humanity clearly and what’s happening” in regards to the situation in Gaza and the crackdown on migrants in the U.S.
(NEW YORK) — Voting machine company Dominion has settled its $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani over false allegations surrounding the 2020 presidential election, according to the company.
The settlement came just days after the company said they reached another settlement with another one-time Trump attorney, Sidney Powell.
“The Parties have agreed to a confidential settlement to this matter,” a Dominion spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News about the Giuliani case.
A court filing in the ongoing civil case against Giuliani on Friday showed the parties seeking a voluntary dismissal of the matter. No details about the settlement were made available.
“Each party shall bear its own attorneys’ fees, expenses, and costs,” the filing stated.
The “confidential settlement” would bring an end to the case that spanned over four years, since Dominion first filed is $1.3 billion dollar lawsuit against Giuliani in January 2021.
The suit accused Giuliani of carrying out “defamatory falsehoods” about Dominion in the wake of the 2020 election in part to enrich himself through legal fees and his podcast.
An attorney for Giuliani listed in the case did not immediately respond to ABC’s request for comment.
Dominion also sued Powell in January of 2021 for $1.3 billion, accusing her of leading a pervasive campaign to spread false election theories that gained currency with President Donald Trump.
Last week, a filing in the defamation case against Powell also showed the parties seeking voluntary dismissal.
“The Parties have agreed to a confidential settlement to this matter,” a Dominion spokesperson said.
A former federal prosecutor, Powell rose to become a close adviser to Trump in the closing days of his first term, meeting with Trump repeatedly as he mounted increasing attempts to overturn the outcome of an election he lost by more than 7 million votes.
Attorneys for Powell did not respond to ABC’s request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump’s executive order strapping a six-figure fee to the H1-B visa has created confusion for tech firms and the tens of thousands of foreign employees that the companies have depended on for their growth, according to immigration and business experts.
Trump and his officials touted the recent order to add a $100,000 fee for every H1-B application as one that would help create more job opportunities for Americans. This visa program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations.
However, the president’s move will make it difficult for tech firms to expand U.S. operations or incentivize highly talented foreign workers to choose America as the place they launch their next big idea, Stuart Anderson, the executive director of non-partisan think tank National Foundation for American Policy, told ABC News.
“More than half of the billion-dollar start-ups have at least one immigrant co-founder,” Anderson said. “And those firms lead to thousands of jobs for Americans.”
Anderson, who served as the executive associate commissioner at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service under President George W. Bush, acknowledged that the H1-B program was in need of reform, particularly when it came to mega corporations dominating the visa’s lottery system. However, he said the current administration’s approach does more harm to the program than good.
He and other analysts noted that even if the $100,000 fee is reversed, some damage to the tech economy may have already been done as entrepreneurs and prospective employees rethink their options.
“If you cut off highly skilled people from coming into the country, you’re going to cut off chances of having a dominant economy,” Anderson said.
How H1-B works The H1-B visa program was created as part of the 1990 immigration bill and allowed foreign prospective employees with college and graduate degrees in select fields such as computer sciences, engineering and medical research to legally live and work in America.
The law allows for 65,000 H1-B visas a year, which lasts for three to six years, for applicants with bachelor’s degrees and an additional 20,000 a year for workers with higher-level degrees. Academic institutions are exempt from this cap.
Applicants can renew their visa when it expires with the approval of their employer.
A study released in March by Pew Research found that there were roughly 400,000 applications for the H1-B visa, the majority of which were for renewals.
In addition to paying for the visa’s fees, which are around $5,000 for filing costs, companies must follow strict rules in order for the visa to be approved, according to Greg Morrisett, the dean and vice provost of Cornell Tech.
“A company that files for an H1 has to provide an assertion that they hire for the same salaries as it does for an American citizen,” he said.
Morrisett said that many tech firms — such as Microsoft, Facebook and Google –have benefited from the program by hiring engineers and programmers from places like India, China and South Korea. He noted that these workers played essential roles in developing their products and successes.
Several major tech CEOs — including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Google’s Sundar Pichai — are foreign-born and were on H1-B visas after they finished their college and graduate studies in America.
“I think the U.S has led in technology and engineering because of the federal government’s investments and universities attracted the best minds and gave them the ability to thrive,” Morrisett said.
Despite its success, the program has come under criticism from conservative groups who argue that it takes jobs away from American-born workers.
Other critics argue that the visa lottery favors larger corporations, who have more money and resources to pay the filing fees and help process the applications, compared to smaller companies and startups.
Morrisett said the additional $100,000 fee will create a bigger push for the major corporations to get the H1-B talent.
“It’s devastating for the start-up world. The big tech companies can weather the storm but a lot of start-up companies simply don’t have the money,” he said.
The top companies with H1-B workers during the 2025 fiscal year were Amazon, with over 10,000 employees on the visa, followed by Tata Consulting Services, which has about 5,505, and Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google, which each have around 5,100, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Jeremy Robbins, the executive director of nonprofit advocacy group the American Immigration Council, told ABC News that smaller start-up firms are crucial for the tech industry’s growth. Every major tech company started off as a smaller mom and pop start-up that blossomed due to the right developer or engineer who cracked the code to bring an app or tech product across the finish line.
“Putting on a flat fee that privileges large companies over small ones, or incentivizes talent to go overseas or incentivizes companies to set up shop overseas, is not an answer,” he said.
Robbins acknowledged that some of the H1-B’s provisions needed tweaking. Some, such as the cap, are frozen in the economic landscape of the early ’90s, he noted. At the time, the country was in recession and falling behind in the tech boom.
“You want to think about how to do that and protect American workers. You would want to treat it differently from a boom time than during a recession,” he said.
Robbins said that Trump’s executive order on the H1-B “cut off the hand to treat a small pain in the finger.”
Trump’s EO creates confusion, fear On Sept. 19, Trump signed the order adding $100,000 to the fees associated with the H1-B visa. He and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the order was to promote American jobs.
“That’s the point of immigration: Hire Americans, and make sure the people coming in are the top, top people,” Lutnick told reporters at the time. “Stop the nonsense of letting people just come into this country.”
When asked if the executive order’s new fee covered first-time H1 applicants or all applicants once it kicked in on Sept. 21, Lutnick responded, “Renewals, first time.”
“The company needs to decide… is the person valuable enough to have a $100,000 a year payment to the government? Or they should head home and go hire an American,” he added.
The actual order, however, had different guidance and the discrepancy led to the frantic letters, according to the experts. The order said that the fee was a one-time charge that would only cover first-time applicants, which led to many companies sending frantic letters to their H1-B employees urging them not to leave the country, according to the American Immigration Council’s Robbins.
He told ABC News that his organization received reports of H1 visa holders who were overseas frantically booking flights to return to the U.S. during the weekend because they and their employers had no concrete information about their legal status.
“It’s thrown everyone into a disarray, and there are still questions as to how this will affect companies and their employees,” he said.
Representatives for Meta, Amazon, Apple and Google did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment. Representatives from Microsoft declined to comment.
Robbins said that there will likely be legal challenges to the executive order. Federal law allows USCIS to collect fees only for the purpose of processing, since the agency is totally funded by fees, and the president’s power to change immigration law is murky, according to Robbins.
In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the president’s travel ban was constitutional since he based it off national security concerns. However, two years later, a California federal court blocked a Trump executive order that limited the approval of H1-B visas during the pandemic.
“Stay tuned,” Robbins said when asked about more details about legal challenges.
Ripple effects Whether or not Trump reverses his order either voluntarily or through the courts, the experts said that the American economy — especially the tech industry — will feel the effects of the move for years to come.
Morrisett said that he’s already heard concerns from Cornell Tech’s international students about their future job prospects in America in the wake of the order.
“When a student comes to study here, they get exposed to the tech ecosystem, they have a great idea, they want to create a company, and the start-ups have the tools to make that happen,” he said. “Now there are fewer incentives for them to stay in the country and foster that idea if they don’t have that visa.”
Morrisett added that the H1-B order, combined with the administration’s other actions to limit immigration such as Trump’s travel ban, increased deportation efforts and anti-immigration rhetoric, has tarnished America’s luster in the eyes of current and prospective foreign engineers.
“It is all compounding to the message, ‘We don’t want you in the United States,'” he said. “These are some of the smartest people in the world and they’re saying, ‘OK. We’ll go somewhere else.'”
Anderson said the talent won’t be the only group looking to more welcoming pastures. He noted that companies will be inclined to expand their presence internationally, countering Trump’s goal to strengthen America’s tech footprint.
“Even the smallest firms have international offices and if they want to get that skilled talent, they will go wherever they need to retain them,” Anderson said.
Robbins reiterated that there is definitely a need for reforms for the county’s immigration policies, including the H1-B program, but said leaders must recognize that the visa has been one of the most successful initiatives to expand the country’s tech industry and should not be hampered.
“Putting on a flat fee that privileges large companies over small ones, or incentivizes talent to go overseas or incentivizes companies to set up shop overseas, is not an answer,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — A storm system closing in from the Atlantic Ocean is expected to become Tropical Storm Imelda by the end of this weekend, and could bring storm surges and high winds to the Southeast U.S. coastline early next week.
The National Hurricane Center said Saturday that the storm — currently officially known as Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine, or PTC Nine — was northwest of the eastern tip of Cuba as of 5 a.m. ET, moving northwest at around 7 mph and forecast to cross the central and northwestern Bahamas this weekend.
The storm is expected to approach the southeastern U.S. coast early next week. A tropical storm warning is in effect for the central and northwestern Bahamas.
PTC Nine is expected to develop into a tropical depression on Saturday and a tropical storm around Saturday night or early Sunday. When it becomes a tropical storm, it will take the name Imelda.
Rain associated with the storm is expected to impact eastern Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and the Bahamas, with flash and urban flooding forecast through the weekend, the NHC said. Mudslides are possible in higher terrain, it added.
Expected rainfall is around 4 to 8 inches for the Bahamas, 8 to 12 inches and localized totals up to 16 inches for eastern Cuba, and 2 to 4 inches of additional rain for other parts of Cuba, as well as Jamaica and Hispaniola.
Up to 3 feet of storm surge is also expected for the coastlines in the northwestern Bahamas.
As the system approaches the U.S., coastal Georgia, the Carolinas and mid-Atlantic states may all see flash, urban and river flooding, the NHC said.
The storm is expected to be at or near Category 1 hurricane intensity when it approaches the U.S. coast early next week, the NHC said, bringing storm surge and wind.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Humberto has rapidly intensified to become the third major hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season. The NHC said Saturday that Humberto is expected to “remain a powerful major hurricane through early next week.”
Humberto is still expected to track west of Bermuda on Tuesday through Wednesday and stay hundreds of miles west of the U.S., eventually turning northeast and back out to sea without a landfall.
Swells generated by the hurricane will begin affecting portions of the northern Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Bermuda this weekend, the NHC said in its latest update.
ICE officers clash with demonstrators outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility using smoke gas and plastic bullets to disperse crowds protesting against deportations in Broadview, Illinois, United States on September 19, 2025. Several hundred protesters had gathered near the Broadview ICE center, chanting against immigration enforcement policies. (Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Friday, according to the school district.
ICE said Ian Roberts was in the country illegally from Guyana and was working as a superintendent despite having “a final order of removal and no work authorization.”
When officers conducting a “targeted enforcement operation” tried to approach Roberts in his car on Friday, the superintendent sped away, and the officers later found his car abandoned, ICE said.
Police helped find Roberts, and when he was taken into custody, the superintendent was in possession of a loaded handgun, a fixed-blade hunting knife and $3,000 in cash, ICE said.
Roberts came to the U.S. on a student visa in 1999 and a judge gave him a “final order of removal” in May 2024, ICE said in a statement. Roberts has weapon possession charges from February 2020, the agency said.
School district officials said in a statement they didn’t have information on “next potential steps” for Roberts.
Roberts joined the Des Moines district in July 2023 and “held educational leadership positions in districts across the U.S. for 20 years,” school board chair Jackie Norris said at a news conference Friday.
“There is new information that has been made public that we did not know, and have not been able to verify as to whether that information is accurate,” she said.
“There is much we do not know,” she said. “However, what we do know is that Dr. Roberts has been an integral part of our school community since he joined over two years ago. During his time with our district, he has shown up in ways big and small, and has advocated for students and staff and begun introducing concepts that will help us reimagine education for future generations of Des Moines students.”
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is rushed offstage during a rally on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. Butler County district attorney Richard Goldinger said the shooter is dead after injuring former U.S. President Donald Trump, killing one audience member and injuring another in…Show more Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
(DALLAS, Texas) — As the motive in the fatal sniper-type shooting at a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office this week becomes clear, law enforcement experts said the incident is part of a frightening trend of rifle-wielding shooters targeting politicians, police and others from long distances.
The Dallas shooter, according to authorities wanted to “terrorize” ICE officers not just in Dallas, but around the country. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas made clear on Thursday that the shooter “hoped to minimize any collateral damage or injury to the detainees and any other innocent people. It seems that he did not intend to kill the detainees or harm them. It’s clear from these notes that he was targeting ICE agents and ice personnel.” Authorities say the suspect’s writings showed he had an anti-ICE bias.
Since an alleged would-be assassin attempted to kill President Donald Trump during a July 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, at least seven sniper-type incidents have unfolded across the country, including the Sept. 10 shooting that claimed the life of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, according to reporting by ABC News.
While such shootings have been part of America’s history, including the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, law enforcement experts told ABC News that they have never seen so many sniper-type incidents occurring in such a short amount of time.
“I believe this is the next chapter, if you will, in our history of violence, specifically active-shooter-type situations,” Jesse Hambrick, a retired Georgia deputy sheriff and counter-sniper expert, told ABC News.
The latest incident occurred on Wednesday morning when the 29-year-old suspect, identified by federal authorities as Joshua Jahn of Fairview, Texas, opened fire on a Dallas ICE facility, killing a detainee and leaving two others critically wounded, officials said. The victims were shot in an uncovered sallyport at the facility, officials said.
Jahn allegedly planned the attack for months and opened fire from the rooftop of a private office building overlooking the ICE facility, using an 8mm bolt-action rifle he legally purchased in August, Joe Rothrock, the FBI special agent in charge of the bureau’s Dallas office, said at Thursday afternoon’s news conference.
Rothrock described the shooting as a “targeted, ambush-style attack” and that the suspect engaged in a significant, high-degree of pre-attack planning, including researching the targeted building and using apps to track the location of ICE agents.
Federal officials said the suspect, a U.S. citizen who died by suicide, sprayed the length of the building with gunfire and left behind writings leading investigators to believe he wanted to shoot ICE agents, not detainees, and cause terror, federal officials said.
“Hopefully this will give ICE agents a real terror, to think, ‘is there a sniper with AP [armor-piercing] rounds on the roof?” the suspect allegedly wrote in one handwritten note, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.
Patel disclosed in a social media post on Thursday that the suspect also conducted multiple searches on ballistics and the ‘Charlie Kirk Shot Video’ before carrying out the attack.
Like the suspect in the Kirk shooting who engraved shell casings found at the scene with messages — including “Hey fascist! CATCH! — authorities said the suspect in the shooting at the Dallas ICE facility also wrote a message on at least one bullet casing found at the crime scene that read, “ANTI-ICE.”
Like some of the other sniper shooters who have carried out recent attacks, the suspect seemed prepared to die, Hambrick told ABC News.
“Here’s the reality, very honestly, if someone has no fear of losing their own life, it makes them dang near impossible to prevent from taking somebody else’s life,” Hambrick said.
The shooting at the ICE facility came just two weeks after a gunman perched atop a building at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, shot and killed Kirk as the 31-year-old co-founder of the conservative grass roots organization Turning Point USA was speaking to a large crowd at an outdoor event. The suspect, identified as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was arrested and charged with capital murder.
“The long-range threat is new, and I think that’s all stemming from Butler,” said Don Mihalek, a former senior U.S. Secret Service Agent, referring to the July 2024 attack on Trump, which killed one rallygoer and injured two others before the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crook, was fatally shot by a Secret Service counter sniper. “I think the Butler incident is being copycatted in many ways by other people.”
Less than a month after the assassination attempt on Trump, a sniper armed with an AR-15 rifle opened fire from an overpass along Kentucky’s Interstate 75 near London, hitting a dozen vehicles and injuring eight people, authorities said. The suspect, 32-year-old Joseph Couch, a former member of the Army Reserve, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound following an 11-day manhunt, officials said.
On Sept. 15, 2024, just two months after the first attempt on Trump’s life, a Secret Service agent foiled another assassination attempt on the president at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. The agent spotted the barrel of a rifle sticking out of the fence line and opened fire on the shooter, identified as 59-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, causing him to flee the area. Roth was convicted by a jury on Tuesday and faces a sentence of life in prison.
Several of the recent sniper attacks have targeted firefighters and law enforcement officers. On June 29, 2025, a 20-year-old suspect, identified as Wess Roley, allegedly ambushed and killed two firefighters in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, after he set a fire they responded to, officials said. Roley was later found dead from suicide, authorities said.
On Aug. 7, a gunman identified by authorities as 61-year-old Carmine Faino shot and wounded two Pennsylvania state troopers in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, with a rifle he allegedly fired “from a position of tactical superiority” after calling 911 to report shots fired near a home he shared with a girlfriend he allegedly killed, officials said. Faino was fatally shot by a special emergency response team, officials said.
Three days after the Pennsylvania attack, a sniper opened fire on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention campus in Atlanta, authorities said. The suspect, 30-year-old Patrick White, who officials said blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him sick and depressed, died by suicide.
Mihalek said such sniper shootings present a “tremendous challenge” for law enforcement to prevent, particularly at a time when ambush attacks on law enforcement are dramatically increasing.
In a report released on Sept. 2, the National Fraternal Order of Police stated that 229 officers have been shot in the line of duty thus far in 2025, 31 fatally. In 2024, 342 officers were shot in the line of duty, including 50 who were killed, up from 46 in 2023, according to the report.
There have been at least 50 ambush-style attacks on law enforcement this year, resulting in 66 officers being shot, 15 of them fatally, according to the report. In all of 2024, there were 61 ambush-style attacks on law enforcement officers nationwide, resulting in 79 officers shot, 18 fatally, according to the National Fraternal Order of Police.
Amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the country, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement this week that ICE officers are facing a 1,000% increase in assaults against them since January.
In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said security protocols are being ramped up at ICE facilities across the country.
“Obviously, the next step for us is making sure our officers are safe. That’s my biggest fear every night, especially with these increases [in assaults], that everyone gets home safe every night. We’ve got to make sure our buildings and facilities are protected,” said Lyons.
Hambrick told ABC News that in the current threat environment, law enforcement agencies nationwide should be reevaluating their security tactics, including working with property owners in their communities to prevent easy access to rooftops.
“Law enforcement has to think now, ‘When I walk into a setting where I’m going to be, I’ve got to look up, and that’s not natural,” Hambrick said. “I’ve got to look around 360 degrees, and I need to secure those roofs.”
Mihalek said he believes the use of drones to scan the tops of buildings could become routine and help law enforcement agencies protect officers.
“Drones may become standard procedure in a lot of these law enforcement operations, especially for ICE,” Mihalek said.
U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a meeting at the 80th session of the UN’s General Assembly (UNGA) at the United Nations headquarters on September 23, 2025 in New York City. World leaders convened for the 80th Session of UNGA, with this year’s theme for the annual global meeting being “Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights.” (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump, who took office in January with a pledge to seek retribution against his political foes, made clearer than ever his eagerness to use the weight of the Justice Department against his perceived enemies this week.
Asked by reporters Friday who was next on his list a day after the DOJ brought a two-count indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, Trump said, “It’s not a list — but I think there will be others.”
Comey, who Trump fired from his post in 2017, had been a target of Trump since he oversaw the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“JUSTICE IN AMERICA! One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to is James Comey,” Trump wrote on social media following Thursday’s indictment. “He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation.”
The former FBI chief has been charged with making a false statement to Congress and obstruction of an investigative proceeding before Congress, related to his 2020 congressional testimony regarding the FBI’s Russia probe.
Comey, who said in a statement that he was innocent of the charges, said in an Instagram video, “My family and I have known for years that there are costs for standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not live on our knees and you shouldn’t either.”
The charges were brought by the newly appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, former White House aide Lindsey Halligan, who took over the role after Trump ousted U.S. attorney Erik Siebert after sources say Siebert expressed doubts internally about bringing a case against Comey.
“What they did was so terrible and so corrupt,” Trump told Fox News Digital on Thursday, referring to those involved in the Russia probe. “Comey placed a cloud over the entire nation.”
Trump, in the same interview, hinted at potentially charging former CIA Director John Brennan in relation to the Russia probe.
“We’ll have to see what happens. It is up to the Justice Department, but I can tell you, it is a group of people that was very disappointing,” Trump said. “This makes Watergate look like peanuts.”
Comey’s indictment came just days after top federal prosecutors at U.S. attorney’s offices around the country received a directive to prepare to launch investigations into the Open Society Foundations, a group funded by the billionaire Democratic donor George Soros, on potential charges ranging from support of terrorism to racketeering, sources told ABC News.
“This DOJ, along with our hard-working and dedicated U.S. Attorneys, will always prioritize public safety and investigate organizations that conspire to commit acts of violence or other federal violations of law,” a DOJ spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for the Open Society Foundations called the accusations “politically motivated attacks.”
FBI Director Kash Patel disputed accusations that the DOJ’s probes were motivated by politics.
“Career FBI agents, intel analysts, and staff led the investigation into Comey and others,” he posted online Friday. “They called the balls and strikes and will continue to do so. The wildly false accusations attacking this FBI for the politicization of law enforcement comes from the same bankrupt media that sold the world on Russia Gate — it’s hypocrisy on steroids.”
Democrats like Sen. Peter Welch weren’t buying it.
“President Trump and his Justice Department’s indictment of James Comey is a new low for our democracy. The reason for the indictment is clear: Comey is Trump’s political adversary,” Welch wrote on X.
Asked by reporters about the indictment on Friday, Trump said, “They weaponized the Justice Department like nobody in history. What they’ve done is terrible. And so I hope — frankly, I hope there are others, because you can’t let this happen to a country.”
“It’s about justice, not revenge,” Trump said. “It’s about justice.”
ABC News’ Rachel Scott contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A retired investment banker was arrested Friday at his Connecticut home on federal charges he trafficked women for sex acts in luxury hotels and at a Manhattan apartment converted into a sex dungeon with BDSM equipment, according to a federal indictment.
Howie Rubin, 70, and his former personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, 45, are charged with sex trafficking and transportation for the purposes of prostitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Rubin is due in Brooklyn federal court later Friday. Powers, who was accused of facilitating the alleged sex trafficking operation, was arrested in Texas.
It was not immediately clear whether either had retained counsel.
Rubin, a former top manager at Soros Fund Management and Bear Stearns, has been under investigation for years after multiple women claimed in 2017 he subjected them to beatings and rape. Rubin has long denied the accusations but the women won a multimillion dollar civil judgment against him for violating the Trafficking Victim Protection Act.
“For many years, Howard Rubin and Jennifer Powers allegedly spent at least one million dollars to finance the commercial sexual torture of multiple women via a national trafficking network,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia said in a statement. “The defendants allegedly exploited Rubin’s status to ensnare their prospective victims and forced them to endure unthinkable physical trauma before silencing any outcries with threats of legal recourse.”
According to the criminal charges, from at least 2009 through 2019, Rubin recruited dozens of women to engage in commercial sex acts with him involving bondage, discipline, dominance, submission and sadomasochism.
“During many such encounters, Rubin engaged in conduct beyond the scope of the women’s consent,” the indictment said.
The indictment includes ten women, identified as Jane Does #1 through #10, who allege Rubin “brutalized” them, causing them to fear for their safety and resulting in significant pain or injuries, which at times required women to seek medical attention.
Some of the women were former Playboy models targeted through social media or modeling pages, according to the indictment.
At first, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said the commercial sex acts primarily occurred at luxury hotels in Manhattan. However, in 2011, Rubin leased a luxury penthouse apartment near Central Park.
According to the indictment, Rubin and Powers transformed one of the bedrooms in the penthouse into a sex “dungeon” that was painted red and soundproofed; had a lock on the door; was furnished with BDSM equipment to which women could be strapped and restrained; and contained devices to shock or electrocute them, among other items.
“Rubin and Powers, together with others, materially misrepresented to women the extent, manner and/or degree to which Rubin would engage in physical and sexual violence,” the indictment said. “Rubin provided a ‘safe word’ the women could say to convey that they wanted the violent sexual conduct to cease, but then disregarded the safe word when women used it and continued the violent conduct without the women’s consent.”
The indictment continued, “In other instances, regardless of whether Rubin had provided a safe word, the women were unable to object to Rubin’s conduct because they were bound and/or gagged during the sexual encounter. In still other instances, women became unconscious during the sexual encounters, such that they were unable to consent.”
Prosecutors said Rubin paid different women for commercial sex multiple times a week, sometimes on consecutive days and Powers would manage the fallout due to his alleged violence.
“If Rubin was satisfied with the way that the women had endured a sexual encounter, the women received $5,000 per encounter; if he was dissatisfied, he paid them several thousand dollars less,” the indictment said.
