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Billionaire Leon Black to face questions about decades-long relationship with Epstein

June 26, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Private equity billionaire Leon Black is set to face questions Friday from the House Oversight Committee regarding his decades-long relationship and sprawling financial entanglements with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The latest in a series of rich and powerful people questioned about their relationship with Epstein as part of the House Oversight panel’s ongoing probe, Black maintained a social relationship with Epstein since the mid-1990s and eventually paid him more than $170 million for “tax and estate planning advice,” according to the Senate Finance Committee.

Black has denied wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, though his financial payments to Epstein served as a lifeline to the convicted sex offender in the years after Epstein’s 2008 prison sentence for soliciting a minor for prostitution. Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, has argued that Black has so far failed to provide a credible explanation for the payments and may have been “extorted” by Epstein.

“Leon Black was one of Jeffrey Epstein’s primary sources of income, flooding him with cash at a time when he was already a registered sex offender. Black has not yet offered a compelling explanation regarding the origination and execution of Epstein’s extraordinary compensation scheme for alleged tax advice,” Wyden wrote in a letter to the House Oversight Committee earlier this month. The Senate Finance Committee is leading its own investigation of Epstein’s finances.

Black has long been scrutinized over his relationship with the disgraced financier — describing it as a “horrible mistake” — and was forced out of his firm Apollo Global Management following an external investigation that revealed payments to Epstein totaling at least $158 million.

“Knowing all that I have learned in the past two years about Epstein’s reprehensible and despicable conduct, I deeply regret having had any involvement with him,” Black said during a 2020 Apollo earnings call. “With the benefit of hindsight, working with him was a horrible mistake on my part. I am not seeking to excuse that decision, but I do believe it may be helpful to convey some relevant facts.”

While the investigation concluded that Black and others were aware of Epstein’s 2008 conviction, a report summarizing its findings said that Black was not “involved in any way with Epstein’s criminal activities at any time” or aware of the “scope and details” of Epstein’s sex trafficking. Black has never been charged with a crime.

“When Black first retained Epstein, he believed that Epstein had served his time for the originally charged offenses and believed that it was not inappropriate to give Epstein a second chance, as many other prominent figures in business, science, politics and academia had done,” the report said.

The release of the Department of Justice’s Epstein files earlier this year cast more scrutiny on Black, whose name appears in the files more than 8,000 times. Epstein at one point appeared to serve as a middleman to pay $100,000 to a woman with whom Black allegedly had an affair, according to emails included in the files, and routinely served as a fixer for issues involving his finances.

“Leon, as you are well aware, there is little I won’t do for you or at least try to do as a friend, and a great deal that I have already done (both known and some things that will need to remain unknown),” Epstein wrote to Black in a 2014 email. In another email in 2017, Epstein described his relationship with Black as “saving you from yourself.”

In a statement to ABC News, Black’s attorney Susan Estrich pointed to the external investigation conducted for Apollo that found Black “had no awareness of the criminal activities that led to Epstein’s arrest in 2019” and noted that Black has called for an independent investigation of his relationship with Epstein.

Wyden of the Senate Finance Committee has called on the House Oversight members to scrutinize the $170 million that Black paid Epstein between 2012 and 2017 for purported tax and estate planning. According to Wyden, those payments are sixty times more than what Epstein paid his other tax and estate professionals during the same timeframe.

“Black is a well-advised businessman with access to sophisticated attorneys, yet it appears Epstein was able to shake him down for money that he wasn’t legally owed. This suggests that Epstein may have extorted Black or performed other unseemly tasks on his behalf,” Wyden wrote.

According to the 2021 external report, Epstein was paid proportionally to the amount of money he saved Black and that Epstein “provided advice that conferred more than $1 billion and as much as $2 billion or more in value to Black”; however, the report also acknowledged that Epstein’s advice was often not useful and that he was “generally a disruptive and caustic force.”

The external report said investigators found “no evidence suggesting that Black ever compensated Epstein for any service other than Epstein’s legitimate advice on trust and estate planning” and other issues.

Wyden urged the House Oversight Committee to question Black about the basis for those payments and argued he has seen “no proof” that Epstein’s compensation was tied to a percentage of the Black’s estate tax liability he saved.

“To date, I do not believe Black has provided a credible explanation as to why he paid Epstein amounts that vastly exceeded those paid to other professional advisors involved in his tax and estate planning,” he said.

Black also paid a $62.5 million settlement to the United States Virgin Islands in 2023 after acknowledging that Epstein used the money to “partially fund his operations in the Virgin Islands,” where Epstein owned a private island. Wyden urged the House Oversight panel to press Black about whether he was ever under criminal investigation and if that money was used to fund sex trafficking.

Attorneys for Black have pushed back against Wyden’s accusations, accusing him of harassment and saying that the billionaire has cooperated “voluntarily and without compulsion.”

“We are aware of no other private citizen subjected to more written requests from you over the same period,” Black’s attorneys wrote in an April 2026 letter to Wyden. “Your continued attempts to invade into matters pertaining to Mr. Black’s personal life — without the support of any legitimate legislative purpose — appear targeted to unfairly harass Mr. Black in a manner that completely disregards the proper scope of Congress’s investigative powers.”

Detroit Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold accused of orchestrating kidnapping and robbery

June 25, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(TAMPA, Fla.) — Detroit Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold faces multiple felony charges in Florida for allegedly orchestrating a kidnapping in which three men were robbed and beaten at gunpoint, authorities said.

The 23-year-old NFL player is one of seven people arrested in connection with the “targeted armed robbery” in Tampa, police said.

Arnold is accused of “coordinating and directing” the codefendants to “lure” the three men to an apartment, where they were allegedly beaten in retaliation for the alleged theft of more than $200,000 worth of his personal property from an Airbnb he had stayed at with friends days earlier in Largo, according to the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office.

The men, all in their late teens, were allegedly beaten and pistol-whipped by two of the co-defendants, while a third streamed the assault to Arnold and other suspects who were traveling to the apartment, police said. Investigators uncovered a group chat in which Arnold and another suspect allegedly gave directions during the assault, police said.

After arriving at the apartment, Arnold allegedly directed the other suspects to go inside, at which point the victims were robbed during the ongoing assault, police said.

Nearly two hours after arriving at the apartment, the victims were escorted out by armed suspects and left in their vehicle, police said. Arnold is not said to have entered the apartment or interacted with the victims, based on the police statement.

The incident occurred on Feb. 4, three days after multiple items belonging to Arnold and others were stolen from an Airbnb he had rented, according to police. On Feb. 3, Arnold and others reported a loss totaling more than $250,000 to the Largo Police Department, police said.

Arnold allegedly suspected that two of the three victims were responsible for the theft, though investigators ultimately determined that none of them were involved, Tampa police said.

“Investigators believe, based on evidence gathered, that Arnold was the primary conspirator,” the Tampa Police Department said in a statement Wednesday.

The victims reported the incident to Tampa police and “positively identified the suspects,” police said. The three victims had “visible injuries from being battered,” police said.

Cell phone evidence and “corroborating testimony” from the co-defendants also “helped establish Arnold’s role in planning and directing the crimes,” the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office said.

Arnold surrendered to authorities Wednesday night, prosecutors said. He was booked on four counts of armed robbery and four counts of kidnapping, online jail records show. He faces a potential sentence of up to life in prison if convicted on the charges, prosecutors said.

He remains held on no bond following his initial appearance in Hillsborough County court on Thursday. His pretrial detention hearing has been scheduled for Monday. The Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office said it plans to argue that Arnold should remain behind bars until his trial.

Among the six codefendants arrested in connection with the case, four men are being held without bond, while two women pleaded guilty on Wednesday to robbery and kidnapping charges, according to the state attorney’s office. As part of their plea agreements, they are required to testify truthfully in proceedings related to the case, the office said.

“No one has the right to take the law into their own hands. A dispute over missing property does not justify kidnapping, violence, or retaliation,” Hillsborough County State Attorney Suzy Lopez said in a statement. “This arrest is the result of months of investigative work and collaboration between the Tampa Police Department and our prosecutors. We will continue to pursue justice for the three victims by holding everyone accountable for their roles in this crime.”

Arnold’s sports management team said he “categorically denies any involvement in the matters underlying the allegations made against him and maintains his innocence.”

“There is no credible evidence linking Mr. Arnold to these allegations,” Denise White, CEO of EAG Sports and Entertainment Agency, said in a statement to ABC News. “Instead, the government appears to be relying on testimony from multiple convicted felons who have admitted their own involvement and may have substantial incentives to shift blame in an effort to lessen their sentences.”

The Lions said in a statement to ABC Detroit affiliate WXYZ that they are “aware of the legal situation” involving Arnold and “will not comment at this time out of respect for the ongoing legal process.”

Arnold, a native of Tallahassee, Florida, played at the University of Alabama and was a first-round pick in the 2024 draft.

Supreme Court lets Trump turn away asylum seekers at the border

June 25, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can turn away asylum seekers who approach ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border, reversing a lower court decision that the policy likely violates federal law and international treaties.

“We hold that an alien who is standing in Mexico does not ‘arrive in the United States’ by attempting, and failing, to set foot in the country,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court’s conservative majority. “An alien ‘arrives in the United States’ only when he crosses the border.”

The 6-3 decision effectively allows border agents to shut the door to migrants fleeing violence and persecution, and deny them even the chance to seek refuge in the U.S.

Federal law says the opportunity to apply for asylum must be afforded to those who “arrive in” the country.

While the policy was voluntarily rescinded in 2021 after a surge of migrants had overwhelmed border crossings, the government now has the ability to reinstate it if necessary. Trump has so far invoked alternate legal authorities to support his current border crackdown.

“A running back does not arrive in the end zone when he reaches the 1-yard line,” Alito wrote. “A guest does not arrive in a house when he knocks on the front door. An army does not arrive in a city by encamping outside its walls. And a letter does not arrive in a mailbox while it remains in the mail carrier’s hand just inches away.”

In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said her colleagues were distorting the procedures set out by Congress to protect vulnerable people.

“The Court today holds that the Executive Branch may circumvent all these mandatory procedures by having U.S. immigration officers stand at the border and physically block noncitizens from setting a foot onto U.S. soil. They may do so even if the asylum seeker is at the threshold of a port of entry designated to receive all noncitizens who seek entrance into the country,” she wrote. “Even if the asylum seeker is certain to be persecuted, or killed, if she is turned away.”

Sotomayor invoked the history of the MS St. Louis from World War II, when European Jews sailed across the Atlantic seeking safety in the U.S., only to be turned away and sent back, where most were killed in the Holocaust. Congress enacted the 1980 Refugee Act, in part, to address that “mistake” of the past.

“The consequences of today’s decision are predictable. More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not,” she wrote. “More people will turn back and be subjected to violence because of something they cannot or should not have to change about themselves, such as their race, religious, nationality, or political opinion.”

Grandmother suspected in deaths of 4 grandchildren, daughter in New York home: Police

June 25, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(MECHANICVILLE, N.Y.) — Police in an upstate New York town said Thursday that a grandmother is suspected in the deaths of four of her grandchildren, her daughter and herself inside their apartment building.

Officers in Mechanicville, New York, said they discovered the victims’ bodies inside an apartment on Tuesday after neighbors reported not seeing them for days.

The grandmother was identified as Amy Steadman, 64. Police identified the victims as her daughter Sarah Myers, 44, and Myers’ four children: Harper Harmon, 13, Hudson Harmon, 11, Gavin Harmon, 10, and Gracelynn Harmon, 10, according to police.

While the investigation into the deaths and motive is ongoing, Mechanicville Police Department Chief William Rabbitt told reporters Thursday that the evidence so far indicates that Steadman may have been involved.

Rabbitt said that investigators recovered evidence inside the apartment “to indicate intentional poisoning,” including “numerous prescription and over-the-counter medications.”

“Evidence recovered during the investigation, including a handwritten note and other circumstantial evidence, strongly suggests that Amy Steadman was involved in the deaths,” he added.

The chief said there was no evidence that an outside individual was involved.

Toxicology tests are still ongoing, according to Rabbitt.

While the chief declined to provide more details into the ongoing investigation, he noted that one of the children “suffered fatal sharp force injuries.”

Rabbitt said Steadman and Myers and her family all lived in the same apartment complex in Mechanicville, which is roughly 18 miles north of Albany.

The children’s father lives in Utah, the chief said.

‘The floor under me was shaking’: American tourist recounts escaping death in Venezuela quakes

June 25, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(CARACAS, Venezuela) — When the first of two massive earthquakes hit Venezuela, American tourist Jason Wang said he was on a mountaintop outside Caracas, about to get on a cable car to head down.

It was just after 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday when a 7.2 magnitude jolted the South American country’s coastal region, followed 39 seconds later by an even stronger 7.5 magnitude tremor, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

High up on El Ávila mountain, about 7 miles outside the capital city, the 39-year-old Wang of Las Vegas said he was caught in a scene of confusion and panic, unsure what had just occurred.

“I was about to board the cable car. I started recording myself going in, and the whole building just started shaking. The floor under me was shaking, and then all of a sudden everyone started panicking,” Wang told ABC News on Thursday morning.

He said he and other tourists charged toward the exit of the cable car building.

“We were just rushing for the door to exit the building, and none of us knew what was going on until a few minutes afterwards,” Wang said. “We realized we got hit with a massive earthquake.”

Videos that Wang posted on social media showed him and others walking down the mountain back toward Caracas on a road blocked by numerous toppled trees. Wang said that as the sun was setting, he managed to get a ride back to his hotel in Caracas.

“I saw some people like cutting down trees that fell on the road to create a tunnel for us to get past,” Wang said.

He said that when he finally reached his hotel and was able to get a WiFi signal, he learned that the twin tremors were the biggest earthquakes to hit Venezuela in a century, causing massive destruction and widespread death across Caracas, a city of more than 2 million people.

“Once I got back on WiFi, I was able to contact my family and friends and tell them I was OK,” said Wang, adding that he was traveling out of the city to the jungle on Thursday morning to escape the danger being caused by numerous aftershocks.

Jorge Rodriguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, said that at least 188 people were killed in the earthquakes, and nearly 1,520 more were injured.

But the death toll is expected to grow. The USGS said there is a risk of more than 10,000 deaths, though official casualty tolls have been slow to be reported.

President Donald Trump said there could be a “devastating number of deaths,” as Secretary of State Marco Rubio added that the U.S. is deploying rescue teams to Venezuela to help search for victims.

In Caracas, the scenes of devastation and desperation were evident in all directions. Online videos showed apartment and commercial buildings lying in heaps of rubble, houses knocked off foundations and thousands of people in the streets, shellshocked and watching as emergency crews searched for survivors.

At one point, more than 25,000 people were unaccounted for, officials said.

During the earthquakes, people ran from swaying buildings in Caracas, many visibly shocked when they turned back to see destroyed walls that left furniture visible from the street.

“It’s like a horror movie,” one frantic woman who escaped her damaged building said.

One Caracas resident, Armando Nori, posted a video on social media from inside an apartment building that began to shake violently during the earthquakes. The footage showed Nori and others in the building fleeing as walls and shelves collapsed, and items, including what appeared to be a water container, crashing to the floor.

Another Caracas resident, Gabriel Higuera, told ABC News that he lives on the top floor of an apartment building with his girlfriend, and described their harrowing race to escape. He said his girlfriend almost fell from one of the floors due to the violent tremors.

“The shaking made it impossible to move,” Higuera said.

Another video verified by ABC News showed people in an apartment building in Junquito, west of Caracas, falling to the floor and holding onto each other as the building started to collapse around them. The man filming the video was heard in the footage screaming for his mother as he started to run for cover.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said numerous buildings had been brought down in Caracas, and that the cities of Trujillo, Yaracuy, Carabobo, Aragua, and Miranda had also been affected.

There were reports of widespread power outages and cell phone disruptions throughout the country. Gas to many buildings was turned off to prevent fires, officials said.

Rodriguez declared a state of emergency, saying the earthquakes had turned the coastal state of La Guaira into a “disaster zone.”

“Dozens of buildings have collapsed there, about 30 kilometers north of Caracas, and we are currently carrying out intensive rescue operations to save lives,” Rodriguez said in a televised address to the nation, according to The Associated Press.

She said Metro and rail services are suspended in the city and that the heavily damaged Maiquetía “Simón Bolívar” International Airport is closed.

Video posted online and verified by ABC News showed people at the airport running for their lives as part of its roof collapsed, creating a cloud of dust. In the footage, people could be heard screaming as the sound of crashing glass and chunks of falling concrete echoed in the background.

Amid the devastation came reports of heroic efforts to rescue people trapped in the rubble. Eighteen people were rescued from one of the two buildings that collapsed in the Chacao municipality, about 7 miles east of Caracas, authorities said.

Dozens of aftershocks have been reported following the initial tremors, forcing many people to sleep on the street on Wednesday night out of fear of more buildings collapsing.

Following the quake, a tsunami advisory was issued, with the potential for hazardous tsunami waves possible for coasts within 300 kilometers, or about 186 miles, of the earthquake epicenter. However, the tsunami advisory later expired.

ABC News’ Will Gretsky, Shannon Kingston, Victoria Beaule and Aicha El Hammar Castano contributed to this report.

Judge blocks part of Trump’s proposed mail-in voting restrictions

June 25, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge Thursday morning blocked part of President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting, marking the third time in less than a week that a federal judge has stymied the Trump administration’s attempt to increase federal oversight of elections.

Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued an injunction barring the Trump administration from creating a national list of approved voters eligible to receive mail-in ballots from the Postal Service, as well as new regulations intended to increase the Postal Service’s oversight of mail-in voting.

“[T]he Constitution reserves the power to determine voter eligibility to the States alone. … Neither the Executive Branch nor Congress may interfere with this power,” Talwani wrote, in part.

Talwani said that the efforts included in Trump’s March 2025 executive order exceeded his authority as president and encroached on the right of states to oversee elections.

“The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Talwani further wrote. “The President ‘plays no direct role in the process’ of appointing electors, ‘nor does he have authority to control the state officials who do.’”

Neither the White House nor the postmaster general have yet commented publicly on the ruling.

A federal judge on Wednesday permanently blocked an executive order provision that required proof of citizenship to register to vote and demanded mail-in ballots be received by Election Day. On Monday, another federal judge blocked a Trump administration voter-screening database, ruling that the government’s “haphazard” system unlawfully consolidated “the private information of millions of Americans” in an effort to purge non-citizens from voter rolls.

Prior to Thursday’s ruling, a different judge declined to issue an order blocking the mail-in voting policy because it had not yet been implemented. However, earlier this month, the Postal Service posted a proposed rule to enact part of the executive order, while Postmaster General David Steiner on Wednesday said that his agency would refuse to deliver ballots unless states turn over lists of voters.

Thursday’s ruling effectively stops that policy in its tracks, though the Trump administration is expected to appeal.

“[N]o law enacted by Congress delegates authority to control mail-in voting to USPS. The voting-related guidance currently issued by USPS is not binding on the States, merely recommended,” Talwani’s ruling Thursday said.

Supreme Court allows cancellation of TPS for Haitians, Syrians, as attorneys warn of impact on thousands

June 25, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can cancel the temporary protected status (TPS) for thousands of Haitians and Syrians, concluding that the Department of Homeland Security has broad discretion with little-to-no judicial oversight to decide when they must return home.

The ruling is likely to have a sweeping impact on the approximately 1.3 million people who rely on TPS to live and work in the United States legally, and advocates said they fear it will have devastating and possibly deadly long term costs for those refugees.

Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that courts cannot override the federal government’s determination about TPS status in most cases.

TPS status, established by the Immigration and Nationality Act, provides work authorization and protection from deportation — as long as the Homeland Security Secretary certifies that a foreign country is unsafe because of armed conflict, natural disaster, or “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

Alito concluded that the law establishing the TPS program did not give courts the authority to second guess the DHS’s determinations about which countries merit the protected status, which was created to shield immigrants from countries ravaged by war or national disasters.

“The TPS statute plainly bars consideration of respondents’ non-constitutional claims. It allows ‘no judicial review of any determination … with respect to the … termination of a TPS designation,” Alito wrote.

Though the ruling centered on the TPS of Haitians and Syrians, the ruling effectively gives the Trump administration the green light to carry out similar terminations, which they have already done for 13 countries.

James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security’s General Counsel, praised Thursday’s ruling.

“The T in TPS stands for TEMPORARY, yet many of these designations became de facto amnesty. This is a win for the rule of law and common sense,” he said in a statement.

Attorneys for the Haitian plaintiffs said in a statement Thursday that the ruling “will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths.”

“This decision will endanger Haitian TPS holders who fled their homeland in pursuit of what generations of immigrants yearned for when they made the painful decision to leave all they have known. to live in safety,” Geoffrey Pipoly and Andrew Tauber told ABC News in a statement.

“It’s a very sad day, not only for Haitian TPS holders but for anyone who believes, as we do, that immigrants are one of America’s greatest strengths,” they added. “The responsibility to save these lives is now with Congress–and we urge the Senate to pass the extension of TPS now pending in that chamber. “

It is unclear if Congress will vote on an extension, however, Trump has repeatedly called for the end of TPS protections and would not likely sign off.

The court’s liberals also lambasted the decision, arguing that the statements made by President Donald Trump about some of the countries whose status was cancelled — including making baseless claims that Haitians eat dogs and cats during the 2024 presidential race — demonstrate that race played a role in the decisions.

“The evidence they have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print,” wrote Justice Kagan. “The references–of filth, disease, and primitiveness–are shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes.”

The court’s liberals also argued that the statute creating TPS does allow courts to review if DHS carried out legally-required procedures to cancel the status — something the plaintiffs allege did not happen.

“It does nothing to stop courts from reviewing things other than the Secretary’s ‘determination[s]’ concerning TPS designations,” Kagan wrote.

Immigrant advocacy groups have warned about the possible sweeping consequences of this ruling, saying it will open the door for an “astonishing human tragedy.”

Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake in 2010 and has since been hit by subsequent natural disasters, political unrest following a presidential assassination, and waves of rampant gang violence.

More than 113,000 Haitian TPS holders work in Florida alone, which is home to a high proportion of America’s seniors, according to the Florida Immigrant Coalition.

Syria devolved into civil war around 2011 and has been considered by the U.S. government a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades. A major earthquake in 2023 plunged the country into a deeper economic and humanitarian crisis.

“This is an awful harbinger for what we expect this administration to try to do for other TPS designations. Hundreds of thousands of people who have lived here for decades now see heartbreaking chaos ahead,” FWD.us President Todd Schulte said in a statement Thursday.

Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, in separate acts last year, moved to terminate TPS status for Haiti and Syria by certifying that, in her estimation, conditions on the ground in those countries were sufficiently safe for immigrants to return.

Those decisions were blocked by lower courts, which concluded that Noem did not follow proper procedures for cancelling TPS and may have also unlawfully discriminated against the immigrants on the basis of race.

Pastor Carl Ruby, a prominent community leader in Springfield, Ohio, who has sought to stand up for Haitians there after Trump’s false comments about them eating pets rattled the community and preceded numerous bomb threats.

“This is the worst possible outcome,” Ruby told ABC News through tears. “I had always held out hope that we would get a good decision and can’t believe that we’re here now.”

Ruby contended that there was racial motivation behind the administration’s actions.

“If you look at the history of the president’s comments about Haiti and Haitians, it’s clear that this wouldn’t be happening if these were refugees from Norway. I just feel like we have failed as a country and I don’t think I’ve ever been as disappointed in our country as I am right now,” he said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who has defended the Springfield community, said deporting Haitians “is a mistake.”

“As a result of today’s ruling, the over 10,000 Haitians who have been living in Ohio (mostly in the Springfield area) legally through TPS will now be here illegally and will be subject to immediate deportation,” the governor said in a statement.

“This also means that while these Haitians were working and contributing to our community and economy yesterday, today it is now illegal to employ them,” he added.

“The situation in Haiti could hardly be much worse. The violent gangs run most of the country. The government barely functions. And, the economy is in shambles,” DeWine said.

-ABC News’ Laura Romero, Armando Garcia and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.

US Park Police seek to ID person in Reflecting Pool vandalism investigation

June 25, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Park Police are seeking assistance in identifying a person wanted in connection to a “destruction of government property” investigation related to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Park Police posted on social media Wednesday a video of the alleged incident that shows a person reaching into the Reflecting Pool and appearing to pull something from the water. The video is somewhat blurry and shot from a distance. ABC News has reached out to National Park Service and Park Police about the source of the video.

The incident allegedly occurred at 3:36 p.m. ET on Friday, June 19. Park Police said anyone with information on the identity of the individual should contact their tip line.

The bulletin comes as President Donald Trump continues to blame vandals for alleged damage at the Reflecting Pool after his administration’s $16 million renovation.

The White House has yet to provide evidence that shows the alleged vandalism to the site.

“The Reflecting Pool that you’ve heard so much about, which is so incredible, it’s been gruesomely vandalized by thugs, bad people, but soon will be looking as beautiful as it looked just two weeks ago,” Trump said on Wednesday night as he kicked off Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair with remarks on the National Mall.

“In fact, I looked at it just a little while ago, it looks perfect already,” the president continued. “But we’re fixing it. The vandals got to it, they’ve largely been caught and are being prosecuted. We can’t let that happen to our country.”

The Interior Department and the U.S. Park Police, though a spokesperson earlier this week, confirmed there had been several arrests and federal citations for alleged vandalism. Trump said on Tuesday that six people had been arrested.

Trump also said earlier this week that the Reflecting Pool will be drained again for “permanent repair” around the Fourth of July.

12 charged with allegedly using drones to smuggle contraband into prisons

June 25, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Twelve individuals have been charged in what the Justice Department is calling a vast conspiracy to smuggle contraband into 10 federal prisons across the country through a coordinated drone operation.

The 17-count indictment, unsealed Wednesday, alleges that starting in September 2023, those charged allegedly used six drones to drop contraband at least 38 times into 10 federal prisons from Atlanta to Mississippi.

ABC News reported last year on the escalating security threat that drones pose to prisons.

The Bureau of Prisons has a drone alert system that notifies prison staff when a drone is nearby, according to court documents.

Some of the individuals charged in the indictment unsealed Wednesday were inmates at prisons around the country and used cellphones to schedule drops at various prisons.

The contraband was allegedly stored at what is referred to in court records as “The Lab.”

Judge again directs DOJ to address whether ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ is dead

June 25, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge is again directing the Justice Department to formally address whether the Trump administration’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is dead, as the agency has claimed.

The order, filed Wednesday by District Judge Leonie Brinkema, comes after the Justice Department refused to issue a signed declaration verifying the $1.8 billion fund was not moving forward.

In her order, Brinkema said she is not satisfied with the DOJ’s contention that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s recent testimony before Congress is proof enough that the fund is dead.

“That the defendants have refused to accord a genuine degree of trustworthiness to their representations about the Fund not going forward is particularly concerning because of the President’s consistent support for the Fund and Acting Attorney General Blanche’s acknowledgement that the Fund remains ‘important,'” Brinkema wrote.

She is demanding that the DOJ file papers issuing another response in the coming weeks and hinted in her order that Blanche may have to answer questions about his plans for the fund in a deposition.

The $1.776 billion fund was announced in May by the Justice Department to compensate those who allege they were wrongly targeted under the Biden administration.

It was proposed in exchange for President Donald Trump agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS as well as two civil claims for $230 million related to the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate — sparking accusations of self-dealing and a bipartisan uproar over the possible use of taxpayer money to pay rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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