(NEW YORK) — Mexico is developing a cellphone app that will allow migrants to inform family members and local consulates if they think they are about to be detained in the United States, the country’s secretary of foreign affairs announced on Friday.
The app is expected to become available in January as President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to launch mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission on Day 1 of his second term, takes office.
The app — dubbed Alert Button — will allow nationals who think they are about to be detained to notify the “consulate closest to their location about situations of imminent detention, notify family members who have previously been selected, as well as report to the Foreign Affairs Secretary,” Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release.
The app was developed with the Mexican Digital Transformation Agency for “emergency cases,” Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs, said.
De la Fuente outlined other protective measures ahead of Mexican nationals’ possible detention under the incoming Trump administration.
“The foreign affairs secretary was emphatic in pointing out that to deport someone from the United States you need a court order, a final sentence of deportation or removal, and that is where the consular team will be very aware that due process is complied with,” the release said.
Trump has repeatedly pledged to get started on mass deportations as soon as he enters office.
He’s tapped several immigration hard-liners to serve in key Cabinet positions, including former Acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan as “border czar.”
Homan previously discussed his vision for mass deportations, saying they would first concentrate on expelling criminals and national security threats. He didn’t rule out deporting families together.
An estimated 11.7 million unauthorized migrants are living in the U.S. without legal immigration status, including about 4.6 million from Mexico, as of July 2023, according to the Center for Migration Studies.
(NEW YORK) — Two weeks before the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments over TikTok’s future, President-elect Donald Trump has asked the justices to delay a Jan. 19 deadline for the app to be sold to a new owner or face a ban in the U.S.
An amicus brief filed by Trump’s nominee to be solicitor general, John Sauer, is asking the court to grant a stay delaying the deadline so that the incoming president can work out a “negotiated resolution” that would save the app.
The filing casts Trump as someone who “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government.”
Trump’s brief says he “opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture,” but does not express the view that the law requiring the sale violates the First Amendment, saying he takes no position on the merits of the case.
Instead, the filing from Sauer asks the court to put the deadline on pause to allow Trump’s incoming administration “to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans, while also addressing the government’s national security concerns.”
TikTok, which has over 170 million U.S. users, has sued over the law requiring it to be sold by its current Chinese-based owner ByteDance by Jan. 19 or be banned in the U.S.
A federal appeals court earlier this month rejected the company’s request for an emergency pause in the deadline.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the case on Jan. 10.
President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which was part of a massive, $95 billion foreign aid package passed by Congress, on April 24.
Biden and some congressional leaders argued that the ultimatum against TikTok was necessary because of security concerns about ByteDance and its connections to the Chinese government.
Trump originally tried to ban TikTok in his first term, but has since reversed course, vowing during the 2024 presidential campaign to “save” the app.
In Trump’s amicus brief, Sauer raised the idea of social media censorship, invoking Brazil’s recent month-long ban of social media platform X, the treatment of the Hunter Biden laptop story and government efforts to stamp out COVID-19 misinformation as incidents that should give the justices pause.
“This Court should be deeply concerned about setting a precedent that could create a slippery slope toward global government censorship of social media speech,” Sauer wrote in the filing. “The power of a Western government to ban an entire social-media platform with more than 100 million users, at the very least, should be considered and exercised with the most extreme care—not reviewed on a ‘highly expedited basis.’”
While Sauer acknowledged that TikTok may pose national security risks while it remains under ByteDance’s control, he also urges the justices to be skeptical of national security officials, whom, he said, “have repeatedly procured social-media censorship of disfavored content and viewpoints through a combination of pressure, coercion, and deception.”
“There is a jarring parallel between the D.C. Circuit’s near-plenary deference to national security officials calling for social-media censorship, and the recent, well-documented history of federal officials’ extensive involvement in social-media censorship efforts directed at the speech of tens of millions Americans,” Sauer wrote.
(NEW YORK) — A 9-year-old boy visiting New York City for the holidays will remain hospitalized “for quite some time,” the boy’s mother said after they both were pinned by a taxi cab on Christmas Day.
“[It] hit us from behind. Didn’t even know what had happened,” the 41-year-old mother, who was visiting with her family from Australia, told New York ABC station WABC. “I just remember being on the ground and something on top of me. I could hear the wheels screeching and my son screaming next to me.”
The taxi cab jumped the curb and struck six pedestrians in Herald Square shortly after 4 p.m. on Christmas Day after the 58-year-old driver suffered a medical emergency, police said. All impacted pedestrians suffered non-life-threatening injuries, with three — including the mother and son — transported to area hospitals, officials said.
Witness Ryan Tucker told WABC that he and several other good Samaritans helped lift the cab off the mother and son after the crash.
“I ran over and noticed there was a little boy, his leg was underneath the front passenger tire as it was spinning,” Tucker told the station.
One man shut the car off, according to Tucker.
“There was a whole group of us that ripped the fender off, lifted the car back, and then that’s when I kind of grabbed the little boy,” Tucker told WABC.
Tucker, who was visiting from Oregon, told WABC that his wife was also struck by the taxi on her back shoulder. He said he ensured his wife was OK before joining others to help the mother and son.
The boy broke his right femur in the crash and has “severe” burns on his leg, his mother told WABC.
“He’s going to be in the hospital for quite some time,” she told the station.
“We were just here for Christmas holidays,” she added. “Christmas and New Year’s. Day three in the city and that happened.”
The taxi driver was transported to Bellevue for further evaluation. There is no criminality suspected, police said.
ABC News’ Victoria Arancio and Leah Sarnoff contributed to this report.
(GEORGIA) — A woman sleeping in a truck was killed when a fire caused an explosion at a Tyson Foods poultry plant in Georgia overnight, officials said.
The victim, 61-year-old Bajarma Batozhapov of Las Vegas, didn’t work at the plant, nor did her husband, the Mitchell County Coroner’s Office said. Batozhapov’s husband is a truck driver and she was accompanying him at the time of the blast, which burned part of the truck she was in, the coroner’s office said.
Batozhapov’s husband was in the building at the time of the explosion but wasn’t hurt, according to the coroner’s office.
Several others were injured in the incident in Camilla, about 60 miles north of Tallahassee, officials said.
The cause of the fire hasn’t been determined, according to a Tyson Foods spokesperson.
“We extend our deepest condolences to their family and friends during this difficult time,” the spokesperson said. “Right now we are still gathering the facts, but ensuring the safety of our team members is our top priority, and we are conducting a full investigation into the cause.”
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, which represents the Tyson workers, described the blast as a boiler explosion and said several employees were burned.
“We are working with the company, and local emergency authorities to ensure that all the workers impacted are taken care of,” he said in a statement.
“It is too early to tell what happened last night but there must be a thorough investigation into this incident, and workers must be able to work safely in the facility,” he added.
(WASHINGTON) — Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the leaders of Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency,” have found themselves at odds with some of Trump’s far-right supporters over their support for H-1B visas, which allow foreign skilled professionals to work in America.
The debate was sparked over the Christmas holiday when Laura Loomer, a conservative social media figure who faced criticism when she traveled with President-Elect Donald Trump on some campaign stops, criticized Trump’s appointment of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sriram Krishnan as his senior policy adviser for artificial intelligence.
Criticizing a post from Krishnan where he advocated the removal of country caps for green cards, Loomer called the appointment “deeply disturbing,” prompting an online battle between the business leaders who say the work visas are essential to employing high-qualified foreign workers and Trump supporters who argued it was a way for business leaders to have cheap labor rather than provide job opportunities for Americans.
Both Ramaswamy and Musk made numerous posts on X claiming H-1B visas are essential because American culture doesn’t prioritize success in science and engineering careers compared to other countries.
“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG,” Ramaswamy posted on X.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he added.
Musk, who has said he once worked in the United States on an H-1B visa, said he has depended on these work visas for the operation of his tech companies and that they are essential due to the number of skilled workers needed to handle the rise of new technologies.
“OF COURSE my companies and I would prefer to hire Americans and we DO, as that is MUCH easier than going through the incredibly painful and slow work visa process,” he posted. “HOWEVER, there is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America.” Loomer and other far-right conservatives have also argued that the expansions of such programs would go against Trump’s immigration crackdown.
While she and others have accused Musk and Ramaswamy of hindering Trump’s aggressive immigration proposals, the business leaders have argued that any such reforms would not hinder the program’s extensive vetting process.
“Maybe this is a helpful clarification: I am referring to bringing in via legal immigration the top ~0.1% of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning,” Musk wrote on X.
“This is like bringing in the Jokic’s or Wemby’s of the world to help your whole team (which is mostly Americans!) win the NBA,” he said, referencing two foreign-born basketball stars.
Now, the business leaders are being accused of using Trump for their own personal gain.
“We are substituting a third world migrant invasion for a third world tech invasion. Same shit,” Loomer posted on X. “Except this invasion won’t be done by rapist foreigners who look and smell like garbage. It will be done by career leftist tech billionaires who hate Trump deep down inside.”
Further showing a divide among conservatives over the issue, former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley also weighed in, pushing back on a post from Ramaswamy and arguing American workers should be prioritized over foreigners.
“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” she said. “All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”
In June, David Sacks, who will be the president-elect’s AI and crypto czar, interviewed Trump for his “All In” podcast and asked Trump if he would expand H-1B work visas for tech workers after fixing the border — to which Trump said “yes.”
In that same episode, Trump also promised to award all international graduates with green cards, saying, “I want to do, and what I will do, is you graduate from a college, I think you should get, automatically as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country. That includes junior colleges, too.”
His campaign later walked back that promise, saying there would be a vetting process.
“He believes, only after such vetting has taken place, we ought to keep the most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America,” Karoline Leavitt, incoming White House press secretary, said in a statement to ABC News at the time. “This would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.”
ABC News’ Zohreen Shah contributed to this report.
(KAZAKHSTAN) — Survivors of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan reported hearing thuds and explosions from outside the aircraft during the flight, as the cause of the deadly catastrophe remains under investigation.
The Azerbaijan Airlines passenger aircraft crashed near Kazakhstan’s Aktau Airport on Wednesday morning, killing 38 of the 67 people on board, Kazakh officials said.
An Azeri crew member who survived the crash told ABC News in a phone call from his hospital room on Friday that he heard three thuds as they were flying over Grozny, Russia. He said he believes the noises came from outside the plane.
The crew member, who did not provide his name as crew members have not been authorized to speak with the media, said he sustained injuries to his left arm in the crash. He was hospitalized in Aktau but has since been transferred to a hospital in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The aircraft was flying from Baku to Grozny but couldn’t land due to heavy fog, according to the crew member. The flight was rerouted to Aktau in Kazakhstan when it crashed while trying to land.
A passenger told Reuters from his hospital bed that he heard a bang, saw oxygen masks falling down and that the fuselage was damaged. He said he initially thought the plane was going to fall apart and started praying.
“It was obvious that the plane had been damaged in some way,” the passenger, Subhonkul Rakhimov, told Reuters. “It was as if it was drunk — not the same plane anymore.”
Rakhimov said he was “thrown back and forth” while strapped in and then it was quiet, at which point he realized that they had landed.
Another passenger told Reuters she felt “two explosions” about 20 or 30 minutes after takeoff. A flight attendant told Reuters there were injuries on the flight “from the impact of the external blows,” and that he hurt his arm.
Azerbaijan’s transport minister said Friday that passengers and flight attendants on the plane heard explosions “from outside, and then something touched the plane” over Grozny, per local media.
Both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan authorities are investigating the crash. The cause is still being determined, but multiple sources point to potential Russian involvement.
White House national security communications adviser John Kirby told reporters Friday that there are “early indications” that the plane could have been brought down by Russian air defense systems, but he added that the investigation is ongoing.
A high-level Azeri government source told ABC News on Thursday that there is new evidence emerging that the plane may have been shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile.
The plane was flying over an area where Moscow’s air defense has battled Ukrainian drones recently.
Videos and photos of the plane after the crash show bullet holes in parts of the plane.
“Preliminary expert opinions indicate the presence of outside interference,” Rashad Nabiyev, Azerbaijan’s minister of digital development and transport, said Friday. “This is evidenced by the appearance of the plane’s wreckage on the ground and eyewitness testimonies.”
Azerbaijan Airlines also said Friday the preliminary results of the investigation show the crash was due to “physical and technical external interference.”
The Kremlin declined to comment on the matter until the investigation into the crash is completed.
“The investigation into the air accident is ongoing. And we do not think we have a right to give any assessments and will not do so until conclusions are drawn based on the results of the investigation,” Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday. “We have our own aviation authorities that can do it, and this information may come only from them.”
The head of Russia’s federal air transport agency, Dmitry Yadrov, shifted possible blame onto Ukraine for the crash.
“The situation in the Grozny Airport area was rather complicated on that day and at those hours. Ukrainian drones were conducting terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in Grozny and Vladikavkaz,” Yadrov said Friday, according to state media.
Azerbaijan Airlines has temporarily suspended flights from Baku to 10 Russian cities “due to physical and technical external interference and considers potential risks to flight safety,” the airline said on Friday.
“The suspension will remain in effect until the completion of the final investigation,” it added.
Several other airlines, including El Al, Flydubai and Qazaq Air, have also suspended flights to various Russian cities in the wake of the crash.
ABC News’ Tomek Rolski, Michelle Stoddart and Lauren Peller contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — One lot of eye drops is being voluntarily recalled due to potential fungal contamination, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced earlier this week.
The eye drops, Systane Lubricant Eye Drops Ultra PF, are single vial drops available in a 25-count box and manufactured by Alcon Laboratories, based in Fort Worth, Texas.
“Alcon evaluated a consumer complaint of foreign material observed inside a sealed single-use vial and determined the material to be fungal in nature,” the FDA wrote in its release.
It is unclear what type of fungus the eye drops are contaminated with.
Fungal contaminations of eye products can lead to eye infections, which can result in partial blindness or total blindness. In rare cases, such eye infections can be life-threatening in immunocompromised patients, according to the FDA.
As of Dec. 23, Alcon Laboratories has not received any reports of adverse events related to the eye drop recall.
Systane Lubricant Eye Drops Ultra PF is meant to temporarily relieve burning and irritation in people experiencing dry eye symptoms, according to the FDA.
The FDA recommends any consumers who have the recalled eye drops stop using them immediately and return them to the place of purchase to receive either a replacement or a refund. Distributors or retailers are also advised to discard any boxes in stock with the lot number 10101.
The recall is limited to packages that have the lot number 10101 and are set to expire in September 2025. The FDA said packages were sold nationwide, both in stores and online.
Any consumers who used the recalled product and are experiencing any problems should contact their health care provider immediately, the FDA said.
“Alcon is conducting a voluntary recall of one (1) lot of Systane Lubricant Eye Drops Ultra PF, Single Vials On-the-Go, 25 count (Lot 10101) distributed only in the United States following the discovery of foreign material inside a single, unused, plastic unit dose vial returned with a customer-reported complaint,” a company spokesperson told ABC News in a statement.
“Investigation of this event is still ongoing; however, the presence of foreign material appears to be isolated to the single unit returned by a customer,” the statement continued. “To date, there are no adverse events related to this recall. However, out of an abundance of caution, Alcon has initiated a voluntary recall and notified the FDA. Our priority is ensuring the safety of our products while maintaining compliance with all regulatory bodies.”
Last year, contaminated eye drops were linked to at least four deaths and 14 cases of vision loss. At the time, patients reported using at least 10 different brands of artificial tears.
At least one set of eye drops was contaminated with an antibiotic-resistant form of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an aggressive bacterium, according to the CDC.
In November, the FDA announced 27 eye drops products were being recalled due to potential safety concerns “after FDA investigators found insanitary conditions.”
(MOSCOW) — An American citizen, Evgeny “Eugene” Spector, was sentenced to 15 years in a high-security prison by the Moscow City Court on espionage charges on Dec. 24, reported Interfax, a Russian news agency.
The Russian Security Service, or FSB, said Spector collected information from Russia “in the interests of the Pentagon to create a system for genetic screening of the Russian population,” Interfax reported on Friday.
“We are aware of reports of the sentencing of a U.S. citizen in Russia. We are monitoring the situation but have no further comment at this time,” a State Department official told ABC News. “The Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of our U.S. citizens overseas. We will continue to press for fair and transparent treatment for all U.S. citizen detainees in Russia and around the world.”
The Pentagon declined to comment, instead directing all inquiries to the State Department.
“The American, acting in the interests of the Pentagon and a commercial organization affiliated with it, collected and transferred to a foreign party various information on biotechnological and biomedical topics, including information constituting a state secret, for the subsequent creation by the United States of a high-speed genetic screening system for the Russian population,” the FSB said Friday, according to Interfax.
The sentence has not entered into force and can be appealed, Interfax reported. The court did not report how Spector pleaded to the charges. It was a closed-door trial “due to the secrecy of the case materials,” Russian state media said.
Before espionage charges were brought against Spector in August 2023, he was arrested in a case involving bribes to the former assistant to Arkady Dvorkovich, the former deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation, according to Interfax.
Spector was sentenced 3 1/2 years in a maximum-security penal colony for acting as an intermediary in giving a bribe to Dvorkovich’s aide.
The sentence of espionage charges was handed down in conjunction with the previous sentence Spector had already received for the bribery charges, Russian state media said. Spector was handed a 13-year sentence for espionage charges, which added to his existing bribery sentence, converting the overall sentence into a new 15-year sentence, Russian state media reported.
The presiding judge had decided Spector should now serve an overall 15-year sentence in a maximum-security penal colony as punishment for both cases on Tuesday, reported TASS, a Russian state news agency.
Prior to his arrest, Spector was the chairman of the board of directors of the Medpolymerprom Group, a company specializing in cancer-curing drugs. Spector was born in Russia and then moved to the US.
On Friday, the U.S. State Department confirmed to ABC News another American serving a prison sentence in Russia was determined to be “wrongfully detained” by Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this year.
Marc Fogel, an American teacher who was arrested in Russia on drug charges in 2021, is currently serving a 14-year sentence.
A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. has been trying to secure Fogel’s release and tried to include him in the large Aug. 1 prisoner exchange that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, among others.
Blinken determined Fogel as being wrongfully detained in October, the spokesperson said, adding that there was a variety of reasons why the department may not have made the designation public.
United States Geological Survey/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(HAWAII ISLAND, Hawaii) — The National Park Service is cautioning people to heed warnings and safety precautions while watching volcanic activity since the latest eruption of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, one of the most active in the world.
Kilauea began erupting on Monday, marking its third eruption of 2024 and its eighth since 2020, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Since then, there was another distinctive eruptive episode on Wednesday, and the eruption resumed Thursday evening, the agency said.
The volcanic activity has drawn visitors to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island to watch the lava glow, with one “shocking scene” prompting the National Park Service to issue a safety advisory.
A toddler wandered off from his family Wednesday night into a closed area at Kilauea Overlook and “in a split second, ran straight toward the 400-foot cliff edge,” the National Park Service said in a news release on Thursday.
“His mother, screaming, managed to grab him in the nick of time just a foot or so away from a fatal fall,” the agency said. “Disaster was averted, and the shaken family departed.”
Park officials are now reminding visitors to remain on trails, stay out of closed areas and keep their children close, especially those watching Kilauea along the Crater Rim Trail.
“The hazards that coincide with an eruption are dangerous, and we have safety measures in place including closed areas, barriers, closure signs, and traffic management,” Park Superintendent Rhonda Loh said in a statement. “Your safety is our utmost concern, but we rely on everyone to recreate responsibility. National parks showcase nature’s splendor but they are not playgrounds.”
Kilauea’s eruptive activity could continue to pause and resume in the coming days or weeks, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
“The eruption could restart at any time, and toxic gas emissions are still high,” the National Park Service said.
Visitors to the park are advised to check the air quality before and during their trip.
(WHARTON, N.J.) — A sinkhole on a northern New Jersey interstate that’s closed eastbound traffic for over 24 hours was caused by a collapse of abandoned mineshaft, officials said.
Interstate 80 eastbound in Wharton is closed and will stay closed until further notice as sinkhole repairs continue, the New Jersey Department of Transportation said on Friday.
Crews responded to the 40-foot by 40-foot sinkhole on Thursday morning.
The area has been stabilized and excavation work started Thursday night, according to the Department of Transportation.
Officials aren’t saying when the interstate will reopen because of the weather and the “extensive nature of the repairs,” the department said.
