(MONTEREY, Calif.) — A father is dead and the search for a 5-year-old girl is ongoing after a large wave pulled them into the ocean in Monterey County, California, authorities said.
A 15-to-20 foot wave swept the little girl and her dad into the Pacific Ocean just before 1 p.m. Friday near the Rocky Point Restaurant, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said.
When the mom tried to reach out to the girl and the dad, the mom was also swept into the water, authorities said.
While the dad held onto the 5-year-old, the mom made it back to shore, joining a 2-year-old who wasn’t hurt, authorities said.
The dad was rescued from the ocean and given CPR, authorities said. He was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead, according to the sheriff’s office.
The mom was hospitalized in stable condition with mild hypothermia, the sheriff’s office said.
A Coast Guard helicopter is a part of Saturday’s search for the missing 5-year-old.
(NEW YORK) — A storm is dropping rounds of heavy rain on more than 22 million people across Southern California on Saturday, and the rainfall could spark dangerous flash flooding, mudslides and debris flows.
Here’s the latest:
The first round of heavy rain is slamming the region early Saturday morning, and the second round will hit between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. local time.
Rainfall rates could top 1 inch per hour and scattered thunderstorms could bring strong winds, lightning and potentially hail.
Flood watches are in effect in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Riverside and San Diego through Saturday evening. A level 3 out of 4 risk for excessive rainfall and flash flooding is in place for the LA and Santa Barbara areas.
Wildfire burn scar areas are of serious concern on Saturday because they’re extremely prone to flash flooding, mudslides and debris flows. But flooding and mudslides pose a major threat to Southern California in general, beyond just burn scar areas.
Evacuation warnings are in place for certain areas with burn scars, while some evacuation orders have been issued for select areas that have a heightened risk of mudslides and debris flows.
The mountains of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties will likely see some of the biggest rain totals, with as much as 4 to 6 inches of rain. On average, LA records 0.8 inches of rain in the entire month of November.
The heavy rain will end Saturday night, but an unsettled weather pattern will stick around into early next week with more wet weather on the way. Flash flooding, debris flows, mudslides and landslides will remain concerns for several days as more rain falls over saturated soils and very sensitive areas.
(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who says he wants to hike taxes on the rich, set off alarm among some critics about a potential exodus of wealthy people bent on keeping their money out of government coffers.
As the warning goes, a tax increase at the top could drive away affluent New Yorkers and undercut revenue meant to fund proposals like universal child care, free city buses and publicly owned grocery stores.
John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of grocery chain Gristedes, told the Free Press in June he may “consider closing our supermarkets and selling the business” in the event of a Mamdani victory. Neil Blumenthal, the co-founder and co-C.E.O of eyewear company Warby Parker, said, “I will never move from New York, but there’s a lot of other people that will and are leaving New York.”
Even Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who ultimately endorsed Mamdani, warned in an interview in June about the possible departure of the wealthy set. “I don’t want to lose any more people to Palm Beach,” Hochul told local outlet PIX 11, underscoring her opposition to a tax increase.
Studies show a race for the exits of this type is highly unlikely, experts at Northwestern University, as well as research organizations the EU Tax Observatory and the Tax Foundation, told ABC News.
Similar tax increases in states like California have typically pushed out a small number of wealthy people, the experts said, but the vast majority stay put for reasons that hold true across income brackets: They like where they live, and want to remain close to friends, family and professional networks.
“There is tax-induced mobility. It’s not non-existent but it’s very small,” Quentin Parinello, policy director at the Northwestern University as well as research organizations the EU Tax Observatory and the Tax Foundation, told ABC News.
“In New York and other big metropolises, people want to be somewhere they can go to the theater, they can have business opportunities, they can hire talent,” Parinello added.
Mamdani says he will put forward a 2 percentage point tax increase for residents making more than $1 million, which would raise the tax rate for high earners in New York City from roughly 3.9% to 5.9%.
The mayor-elect has also proposed hiking the corporate tax rate from 7.5% to 11.5%, which would put New York in a tie with New Jersey for the highest state corporate tax rate nationwide.
“These things together raise about $9 billion, which more than pays for our economic agenda,” Mamdani told ABC’s “Good Morning America” this month.
When asked whether he is concerned the taxes could drive job creators out of New York, Mamdani said: “What I’ve heard from a number of business leaders is that the affordability crisis is also affecting their ability to attract and retain talent. The city’s inability to provide child care means that businesses often have to provide stipends for that child care.”
Both tax measures would require state legislation bearing Hochul’s signature.
Studies from researchers at Stanford University, the Treasury Department and the non-partisan Fiscal Policy Institute show minimal departures among the rich in response to tax increases.
Researchers at Stanford University and the Treasury Department in 2016 examined tax records belonging to all million-dollar earners in the U.S. over a 13-year period, finding “tax flight is occurring but only at the margins of statistical and socioeconomic significance.”
In 2023, the Fiscal Policy Institute examined movement among high earners in the aftermath of a New York state income tax hike two years earlier.
“There is no statistically significant evidence of tax migration in New York,” the study found.
“Movement of rich people on the basis of tax differentials is relatively small,” Jeffrey Winters, a professor of equality development and globalization studies at Northwestern University who studies high earners, told ABC News. “It’s very common for them to threaten to move. The risk is grossly overstated.”
Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the non-partisan Tax Foundation, voiced opposition to Mamdani’s proposed tax hike, saying the policy risks a gradual erosion in the high-earner tax base and revenue losses that would accumulate over time.
“The city won’t empty out if taxes rise, but on the margin you expect some people to move,” Walczak told ABC News.
“That hurts the city and the state because these individuals are already paying a lot of taxes and creating a lot of jobs,” Walczak added.
Winters, of Northwestern University, said the focus on wealthy residents risks overlooking the cost-of-living challenges that force low- and middle-income New Yorkers to move elsewhere.
“We are worried about the outflow of the very wealthiest people in major cities like New York when in fact the biggest outflow of people is among those who can’t afford even the basics of staying there,” Winters said.
(WASHINGTON) — As the federal government reopens after the House passed a short-term funding bill Wednesday, Democratic voters across the country reckon with their party’s handling of the standoff — and the fact that in the end, Democrats were not able to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies they shut the government down over in the first place.
Carl Davidson, a 64-year-old car salesman from Oakland, California, told ABC News in an interview that he will be “greatly affected” by the expiring subsidies.
“My California coverage is potentially going to go from $580 to $1,240,” Davidson said.
Meanwhile Teresa White, a 67-year-old administrative assistant who is also from California, told ABC News she is most concerned about her son, whose “premiums are going to double.”
“These are young men in their 30s. They are not high-risk … a lot of their friends are just going to forego insurance, and that’s wrong,” White said.
White and Davidson, as well as the rest of the voters named in this article, participated in an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll and were called back to be interviewed about their views.
Even those not directly affected by the expected jumps in health care premiums believe it is a worthy cause. Jeffrey Martin, a 54-year-old electrician from Berkeley, Massachusetts, told ABC News he was “100%” supportive of congressional Democrats’ fight for ACA subsidies.
“I think they could have held out, because I think that they were in the right. I think they were fighting for something important,” Martin said.
Like Martin, 58-year-old Kevin Wolfe of Parkville, Maryland, wished congressional Democrats had “held out” for longer over the subsidies. Wolfe told ABC News in an interview that he is “kind of upset that they voted to end” the shutdown, even going so far as to say that he thinks Democrats “need to shut it down again.”
“I don’t know if we’d have gotten anything, but I think they could’ve held out a little longer to see,” Wolfe said.
The government shutdown — which lasted 43 days in total, making it the longest shutdown in U.S. history — is funded only until Jan. 30, leaving open the possibility for the government to be shut down again if Congress can’t come to an agreement over health care spending by the end of January.
Like Wolfe, White also said that the Democrats should shut the government down again when the short-term funding bill ends, even if it disrupts things like air travel.
“People don’t have to travel, but you have to eat. And if you have a medical emergency, then you have to have care,” White said.
But while voters like White, Martin and Wolfe wished Democrats had fought for longer, many said they believe that Democrats were successful in bringing national attention to the fight over health care taking place in Washington.
“I don’t think it accomplished what its overall goal was, but I do believe it brought more attention to what is going to happen,” Wolfe said.
“I don’t think people realized at all what is going to happen with premiums,” he added.
Davidson added that shutting down the federal government “concentrated the minds of many people who aren’t following politics day-to-day.”
The one thing many Democratic voters were in agreement on: Republicans are to blame for the shutdown. And with the 2026 midterm elections fast approaching, many speculate that the government shutdown will prove to be a stain on Republicans running for reelection.
“People do have a memory when it hits their wallets, so it could have some ramifications for Republicans in the midterms,” Davidson said.
“I figure that the Republicans, who had the House, the Senate and the presidency, and also the Supreme Court — they are responsible for the shutdown,” said 71-year-old Curtis McLeod of Greensboro, North Carolina.
“I hope all the Republicans that held out lose their seat in the next election. That’s all I’m thinking about,” McLeod added.
But there were some Democratic voters who had more ambiguous feelings about the fight over ACA subsidies, especially those who were affected by federal cuts to SNAP that took place during the shutdown.
Dora C., a 59-year-old in southern Texas, told ABC News in an interview that the government “should have never been shut down from the beginning.”
“I’m a grandmother raising three of my grandkids, and I am — and still to this day — I am on SNAP benefits … When they took that away for a short period of time, it did affect me — of course it did — because I’m not feeding only myself, I’m feeding three kids,” Dora said.
“Yeah, I got these SNAP benefits put back in my card, but not all of them,” Dora added.
Others called the government shutdown a “lose-lose situation.”
“I think the Democrats always look kind of weak because the Republicans kind of do whatever they want and get away with it … I think [Democrats were] trying to fight back. And then the one time they fight back, it blows up like this,” said Brittany D., a 29-year-old small business owner from the suburbs of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Vicki, a 57-year-old Democrat from Pennsylvania who declined to provide her last name, told ABC News in an interview that ultimately, the decision congressional Democrats faced to end the shutdown was “a Solomon’s Choice.”
“Do you choose the people that need food, or do you choose people that need health care? I would’ve had a hard decision choosing what to do,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — While Democrats have been celebrating some recent wins in the ongoing mid-decade congressional map redistricting sweeping the country, they face some roadblocks in Democratic-aligned states over building on those wins – and the future of President Donald Trump’s agenda remains at stake regardless of how long the battles drag on for.
Why Republicans and Democrats are trying to redraw seats
Which party controls the House after the 2026 midterm elections could come down to just a couple of seats. As of Thursday, Republicans hold 219 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives while Democrats hold 214, with two seats vacant.
If all of the seats are filled by the midterms, Democrats need to only net three seats to flip the House in 2026, allowing them to thwart Trump’s legislative agenda during the second half of his presidency. Republicans, meanwhile, hope to bolster their razor-thin majority and continue moving Trump’s legislative priorities forward.
That’s why fighting over five seats in one state or fewer in another matters so much.
The ongoing mid-decade redistricting also further narrows what was already a relatively small field of truly competitive seats. The Cook Political Report only rates 16 seats as of Thursday as a “toss-up” out of all 435 U.S. House seats. The ratings factor in states that completed mid-decade redistricting already.
Some wins for Democrats, but roadblocks ahead
Initially, it appeared like the new scramble of congressional map redrawing would favor Republicans. Texas legislators pushed through a map that redraws five congressional seats to favor Republicans; GOP-controlled legislatures or commissions in Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio soon followed suit with maps that could allow the GOP to flip at least one seat in each state.
And Republican-controlled legislatures in Florida, Kansas, and Louisiana are mulling redrawing their maps and could box out even more Democrats.
Kansas may be an unusual case. Republican state legislators have discussed redrawing the state’s congressional map to box out the Sunflower State’s lone Democratic member of Congress, Rep. Sharice Davids.
But Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is staunchly opposed to mid-decade redistricting, and Republican legislators have indicated they will not be able to get enough signatures to bypass her to call a special session about the issue. Some have also indicated they want to resist White House pressure to redistrict.
A pending Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case might trigger more redrawing in favor of Republicans.
Democrats said they’d try to counteract that Republican push – and their first major win came when California voters chose on Election Day to vote yes on “Proposition 50,” which will redraw their state’s congressional map to make five seats potentially winnable by Democrats.
(The Department of Justice on Thursday joined a legal effort by Republicans in California suing over the new map; Newsom’s office responded that “these losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will also lose in court.”)
After California, one less expected success for Democrats came about in Utah, which was redrawing its congressional map due to a court order.
A judge ordered late Monday that the state must adopt a congressional map proposed by plaintiffs in a lawsuit, ruling in favor of a map that includes a redrawn Salt Lake City-based district that leans strongly in favor of Democrats.
Utah’s four-member U.S. House delegation is currently fully Republican. The new map creates a congressional district centered around Salt Lake City that analysts say strongly favors Democrats.
And notable names are taking note. On Thursday, former Democratic U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams, who once represented Utah’s 4th congressional district, announced a run for the new district.
But further success for Democrats in mid-decade redistricting ahead of the midterms is not assured.
For instance, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has formed an advisory commission on redistricting, but state Senate President Bill Ferguson, also a Democrat, has said he opposes moving forward with redistricting.
Ferguson wrote in a recent letter, obtained by ABC News, to Democratic state Senators that “mid-cycle redistricting for Maryland presents a reality where the legal risks are too high, the timeline for action is dangerous, the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic, and the certainty of our existing map would be undermined.”
But Maryland U.S. Reps. Jamie Raskin and Steny Hoyer, both Democrats, wrote in a separate letter obtained by ABC News that Maryland Democrats should redistrict “to make Maryland House seats more competitive in a way that counters the Trump national steamroller.” The Baltimore Sun first reported on the letter.
Democratic state legislators in Illinois have, similar to Maryland lawmakers, not been entirely on board with possible redistricting, even though national Democratic leaders such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are pushing for it.
A separate effort by Democratic legislators in Virginia to allow the legislature to redraw congressional districts is still moving forward, but will need to go through many steps before legislators can even propose a map. However, Democrats maintained control of the state House of Delegates and won the governorship in 2025’s elections.
How do Americans feel – and how long could this go on for?
Americans are caught in the middle of the redistricting struggle, facing confusion over who will represent them and what district they’ll be voting in. A Marquette University Law School poll taken in September found that 70% of American adults oppose states redrawing districts “to make them as advantageous as possible for the party with the majority in the state.”
And how long could the back-and-forth on mid-decade redistricting go on for?
It may depend on candidate filing deadlines, which are the dates by when a candidate needs to submit paperwork to get on the ballot for a state’s primary. In Maryland, for instance, the filing deadline for the congressional primary is on Feb. 24. In Kansas, it’s not until June 1.
If state legislatures aiming for new congressional maps haven’t passed them into law by then, candidates will likely still be filing to run in the current districts. Lawsuits or legislative action could change deadlines as well.
The real date to watch is Nov. 3, 2026. The midterms themselves will be the true test of whether Republicans or Democrats have won, lost, or fought the redistricting wars to a draw – and what lies ahead for Trump’s agenda.
(NEW YORK) — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s path to service began in the uncertain moments after 9/11 when fears of terrorism reshaped both the country and her own sense of duty. She’s a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and the first person in U.S. history to serve as DNI while in military uniform.
Two decades later, she told ABC News in an exclusive interview, the same early lessons still guide her approach to leadership, and that the resurgence of terrorism remains her greatest concern.
A principled independence or shifting with political winds Allies often describe Gabbard as disciplined and mission-driven, shaped by the rigors of military life. Yet some former colleagues say the former Democrat’s views increasingly aligned with the Republican Party she once criticized. Admirers see a principled independence; detractors see a political evolution that mirrors Washington’s shifting winds. Gabbard, however, says her compass has never changed, only the terrain around her.
From her congressional campaigns to the 2020 presidential race, Gabbard was one of the only candidates treating foreign policy as a defining issue. While some of her domestic exchanges on the trail went viral, her presidential campaign remained grounded in her foreign policy message. Her events drew a mix of supporters across party lines, many of whom responded to her foreign policy message of a once-rising Democrat whose view of the world at times clashed with her party’s establishment.
For Gabbard, the focus of her public life and private moments has always been service, and days like Veterans Day are personal.
“It’s a day where I think about the great Americans I’ve had the opportunity to serve with now for 22 and a half years,” she said. “What does it mean for me in the mission that I have as director of national intelligence? It’s personal, because it’s about people. It’s both the people that I’ve had the opportunity to serve with and had the opportunity to lead, and it’s the people who paid the ultimate price who never got to make that trip home.”
A life shaped by deployments, a worldview shaped by war In 2021, Gabbard deployed to the Horn of Africa. She told ABC News she spent time working with the Somali government along with other armed forces across the continent who had “a singular mission of defeating al-Shabaab, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, and one of the biggest financial funders of al-Qaeda in that region.”
“The reality is that Islamist terrorism continues to pose the greatest — both short- and long-term — threat to the American people on freedom and Western civilization,” Gabbard said. “The reason why I enlisted in the military has been at the forefront in going after these Islamist terrorists, and remained at the forefront.”
She said ODNI, working with federal and local partners, has “thwarted some of these lone wolf actors who, in some cases, are becoming harder to find,” noting that the threat has evolved from structured networks overseas to individuals radicalized online or inspired remotely.
Her focus on Islamist terrorism has also drawn criticism at times, with some accusing her of Islamophobia, a charge she rejects.
As a Democratic member of Congress and a Democratic National Committee vice chair, Gabbard publicly broke with much of her party over the Obama administration’s reluctance to describe ISIS as an Islamist extremist group, drawing praise from some Republicans and sharp pushback from Democratic leadership, cementing her reputation as someone willing to challenge her own side on national security.
“Unfortunately, a lot of politicians are too afraid to speak the truth about this because they are afraid of the political backlash they may get being called Islamophobes and so forth,” Gabbard said. “They watch what happened to me, but this has come at the cost of our own security and the threat to our freedom.”
That experience reinforced what first called her to serve, the belief that the threat never truly disappeared, only evolved. Gabbard warned that the danger today is as much ideological as operational, spreading through propaganda and recruitment networks that reach far beyond the battlefield.
“There were a lot of people who came into our country over the last four years who either are known or suspected terrorists or who have ties to them. I’m concerned about the folks that we don’t know about, that have not been identified or vetted, and the increasing spread of Islamist propaganda that we’re seeing coming from al-Qaeda.”
“This directly connects back to why I enlisted in the military. It was the Islamist terrorist attack on 9/11 that motivated me to do that in recognizing the seriousness of the threat and wanting to do my part to serve my country and defeat these terrorists who attacked us on that day,” she said.
A Washington outsider leading its most insider institution For much of her adult life, Gabbard has lived in dual worlds, public servant and soldier, balancing the discipline of command with the weight of national decision making. The lessons she learned in uniform, she said, continue to inform how she approaches her civilian post.
During Army training in Texas, every morning at 4:30 a.m. her squad leader played Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying.” She said that daily reminder shaped her perspective on service and mortality, foreshadowing the lessons she would carry into Iraq. She was stationed at Camp Anaconda at Joint Base Balad, located in the Sunni Triangle, 40 miles north of Baghdad, nicknamed “Mortaritaville” for its constant rocket and mortar attacks, often with little or no warning. Within hours of her arrival in Iraq, she would survive her first mortar attack.
The next morning, Gabbard noticed a sign that said “IS TODAY THE DAY?” that would be a daily occurrence on the main security gate. Over the years, that one question, once literal, has remained her daily reminder of how fleeting life can be and how purpose defines sacrifice.
That sense of purpose, Gabbard said, has always been grounded in faith — including the Bible and Bhagavad Gita texts.
“Spending time in prayer, not only every morning and every night, but at every opportunity, reminded me how fragile our time on this earth is,” she said.
The weight of service and the price of conflict The stress of that initial deployment in her mid-20s would turn her hair white. It eventually darkened again, but Gabbard has kept a streak of white hair as a physical reminder of the human cost of war and what she describes as her mission to seek and fight for peace.
“War must always be the last resort, only after all measures of diplomacy have been completely exhausted,” Gabbard said.
Last week, at the 21st International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, a Gulf security summit that brings together officials to debate regional strategy, Gabbard warned against what she called “the mistakes of the past,” including U.S.-led regime-change wars.
Gabbard reflected on her speech, telling ABC News the focus was “pointing out the destructive effects of our country’s history of regime-change wars, not only these wars being wars of choice, incredibly costly in ways that are really impossible to measure in human life that was lost, as well as ultimately undermining our security,” she said. “Regime-change war in Iraq, for example, is what led to the rise of al-Qaeda and ISIS and their strengthening of their positions and their proliferation, not only around the region, but around the world.”
Pushing back against criticism of isolationism Gabbard also pushed back on critics who describe the Trump administration’s America First policy as isolationist.
“People will say that America First equates to some policy about isolationism, and that’s simply not true,” she argued. “It’s very obvious how robustly President Trump engages with world leaders on a daily basis.”
“One of the biggest changes within the intelligence community, from a focus and resource standpoint under President Trump, has come about in focusing on what is actually happening here in our own backyard in the Western Hemisphere,” she said. “This has not been a focus for many previous administrations, and because of that we’ve seen and experienced the effects of these cartels and transnational criminal organizations really being emboldened, not only to wreak havoc and terror, trafficking of very dangerous and deadly drugs, trafficking in humans and babies.”
She said the intelligence community, under the president’s direction, has begun reallocating resources to map who is driving those operations and how to dismantle them.
‘This has never been about politics’ Supporters see those reforms as proof of Gabbard’s willingness to challenge bureaucracy and redirect the intelligence community’s focus toward real-world threats. But her critics, including Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, say the shakeup has come at a steep cost.
In a September speech, Warner accused Gabbard and Trump of “systematically undermining the independence of the nation’s intelligence community,” pointing to firings, revoked clearances, and reassignments he said had “silenced decades of expertise.”
“At stake,” Warner warned, “is whether America will continue to have an intelligence community free to speak truth to power.”
Gabbard’s allies have dismissed those claims as politics. They argue the criticism misses the point, that “ODNI 2.0,” as she calls her overhaul, is about cutting through layers of stagnation and rebuilding trust between intelligence officers and the commander in chief.
“I love our country, and it continues to be a very special thing to serve alongside the less than 1% of Americans who volunteer to put their lives on the line to defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people,” she said. “So long as I feel I can serve in a way that’s impactful and meaningful, I’m grateful.”
That sense of purpose still drives her.
“For me, this has never been about politics,” she said. “It’s about service. Service to country, service to others, and making sure the truth reaches the people who make the hardest decisions.”
“If I was interested in serving myself, I would be in Hawaii on a surfboard right now, living the easy life with my family in the place that we are grateful to call home,” she said. “My purpose in life is to do my very best to love and serve God.”
(NEW YORK) — The United States is maintaining a presence at COP30, despite the Trump administration declining to send an official delegation to the climate conference in Brazil.
This is the first time since the inaugural Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1995 that the U.S. will not be officially represented at the annual climate summit.
However, a large number of state and local representatives — as well as environmental nonprofits based in the U.S. — are in attendance.
A coalition of 100 local U.S. leaders — including governors, mayors and other top city and state officials — made the trip to Belem, Brazil, as part of the U.S. Climate Alliance.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, among the notable Americans at COP30, bashed President Donald Trump for disregarding the event, which kicked off Monday.
“While Donald Trump skips the world stage, California is showing up — leading, partnering, and proving what American climate leadership looks like,” Newsom said on Tuesday.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, said in a press conference on Friday that the “Trump administration simply does not represent the American public on climate issues.”
Whitehouse, a ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, accused the current administration of representing the fossil fuel industry, “most particularly the big fossil fuel donors who contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump’s political campaign.”
Why the U.S. did not send any delegates to COP30 The Trump administration declined to send an official delegation to COP30, according to the White House.
“The U.S. is not sending any high level representatives to COP30,” a White House official told ABC News ahead of the start of the conference. “The president is directly engaging with leaders around the world on energy issues, which you can see from the historic trade deals and peace deals that all have a significant focus on energy partnerships.”
Last week, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told The Associated Press that COP30 is “essentially a hoax.”
“It’s not an honest organization looking to better human lives,” Wright told the AP, follow a two-day business conference in Athens.
Wright added that he may attend next year’s climate conference “just to try to deliver some common sense.”
The record-breaking U.S. federal government shutdown, which ended late Wednesday, also prevented federal lawmakers from attending the conference.
Who is at COP30? Most of the nearly 200 countries that participate in the UNFCCC attend COP.
A total of 193 countries, plus the European Union, registered a delegation for the summit. Even North Korea sent a delegation to the climate summit, according to a Carbon Brief analysis.
The only other countries not in attendance are Afghanistan, Myanmar and San Marino, with each having displayed “sporadic” attendance at past conferences, according to Carbon Brief.
Other notable U.S. politicians who made the event include Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and former Vice President Al Gore.
Several mayors of American cities are also in attendance, including Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley and Savannah Mayor Van Johnson.
American cities have always been at the forefront of innovation and climate action, said Gallego, chair of Climate Mayors and C40 Cities vice chair, in a statement.
“Mayors across the country are doubling down to fill the current void of leadership at the federal level,” Gallego said.
Other notable attendees from the U.S. at COP30 this year include Taryn Finnessey, managing director of the U.S. Climate Alliance.
Why experts say it’s important that the US participates in COP30 It is integral that the U.S., as one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, to be present at every COP, environmental advocates told ABC News.
The U.S. shapes markets, capital flows and technology pathways, and therefore engagement by Americans signals to investors that the world’s largest economy understands the competitiveness, innovation, security and supply-chain stakes of the energy transition, Maria Mendiluce, CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition, told ABC News.
“The U.S. has a decisive role in global climate, energy and industrial policy, so sub-national leaders, non-state actors and businesses showing up at COP30 matters,” Mendiluce said.
Being on the ground at COP is “essential” so delegations can engage with “full strength,” Max Frankel, director of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition Institute, told ABC News.
In addition, the scope and urgency of the climate crisis demands an international response, Max Holmes, president and CEO of the Woodwell Climate Research Center, told ABC News.
It is important to let other countries know that many Americans are still working to combat climate change, Lynda Hopkins, supervisor of California’s 5th district, County of Sonoma, told ABC News.
Although the White House isn’t in Belem to represent U.S. interest, Americans at COP30 are still working for solutions that are in the best interest of the country, Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, told ABC News.
“While the Trump administration retreats, the people and companies here are seizing the opportunity to innovate, create jobs, and build safer, healthier futures,” Krupp said.
Although Hopkins said she and other American subnational delegates were “warmly received” by other countries, some prominent figures at COP30 indicated that the U.S. was not needed at the conference to accomplish goals.
Christiana Figueres, a diplomat from Costa Rica who played a key role in the inception of the 2015 Paris Agreement, said the U.S. would not be able to “do their direct bullying” due to the Trump administration’s boycott of the summit.
“I actually think it is a good thing,” Figueres said during a press conference on Tuesday.
Figueres then said, “Ciao, bambino,” which translates to “Bye, little boy,” in Italian, in response to Trump withdrawing from the Paris Agreement for the second time.
Patrick Drupp, director of climate policy for the Sierra Club, described the Trump administration’s absence as “shortsighted decision” and a “slap in the face” to Americans who want clean air and water and lower energy costs.
“The reality is that this work will continue with or without America,” Frankel said.
(NEW YORK) — On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance promised their supporters that they would release the Justice Department files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein if elected.
Since then, however, the administration has been reluctant to divulge more details about the investigation or release all of the files, angering some Republicans and Democrats and raising questions about Trump’s past connections to Epstein.
Here is a timeline of the major events surrounding the Epstein files saga since Trump returned to office.
Feb. 21, 2025 In an interview with Fox News, Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked about the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients and if the Justice Department was planning to release them.
Bondi responded, “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review.”
The attorney general clarified in July that she was referring to the Epstein case files, and not an alleged client list.
Feb. 27, 2025 The Justice Department invites conservative bloggers and influencers and shares with them binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” Most of the evidence had already been released to the public.
Bondi and her team did not inform White House officials in advance that she planned to distribute the binders, sources with information about the event told ABC News.
May 8, 2025 The House’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets demanded the release of the Epstein files in a letter to Bondi.
Bondi did not respond to the request before the May 16 deadline.
July 7, 2025 The DOJ and FBI released a joint statement that stated a review of its holdings uncovered no evidence of any client list kept by Epstein or other evidence that would predicate a criminal investigation of any uncharged parties.
The department also released hours of purported footage as part of its review, which officials say further confirmed Epstein died by suicide while in custody in his jail cell in Manhattan in 2019.
The video from the Bureau of Prisons showing the moments before Epstein’s death was later determined to have been missing footage. Several conservative influencers slam Bondi and the Justice Department over the memo.
July 12, 2025 Trump defended Bondi in a social media post amid the pushback from some in his MAGA base over the handling of the Epstein probe.
Trump praised Bondi for doing a “fantastic job” and urged his “boys” and “gals” to stop criticizing her.
July 15, 2025 Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna seek a House vote for a discharge petition to release the Epstein files.
The same day, House Speaker Mike Johnson called on Bondi to “come forward and explain” her handling of the probe.
Signatures for the petition continue to grow, however, do not reach the 218 needed to move forward.
Asked what Bondi told him about the review of the Epstein files and if his name appeared at all, Trump responded, “No, no, she’s given us just a very quick briefing,” before making baseless claims that the files were created by some of his political foes.
“Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release,” Trump said.
July 24-25, 2025 Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, interviewed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for her 2021 conviction on sex trafficking and other charges related to Epstein’s illicit activities.
Maxwell initiated the meeting, multiple sources told ABC News.
A month later, the Justice Department released a transcript of the interview, which was not under oath, where she claimed there was no client list.
Aug. 1, 2025 Maxwell was transferred from a federal prison in Florida, which is labeled “low security” to a federal prison camp in Texas, which is labeled “minimum security,” the Justice Department announced.
Sept. 8, 2025 Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a 238-page PDF document of the 50th birthday book to Epstein that includes a prologue by Maxwell and a page allegedly written by Trump.
Trump’s page features a typed letter written inside a doodle of a woman’s body, with his signature located in a provocative spot on the body.
The president denied that he wrote and signed the letter.
Nov. 12, 2025 Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released emails that were part of more than 20,000 from the Epstein estate.
Some of the messages show Epstein talking about Trump, including one where he claimed Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of the sex-trafficked victims.
The White House accused Democrats on the House Oversight Committee of releasing “selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative” about Trump.
Later that evening, Arizona Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn into office, a month after she won a special election, and became the final signature on the discharge petition to get it over the 218 threshold.
Johnson announced that he would bring a bill to release the Jeffrey Epstein files to a vote on the floor next week.
(MARYVILLE, Tenn.) — Two law enforcement officers were injured in a crash during an “executive protection mission” in Maryville, Tennessee, officials said.
The incident occurred Friday evening south of Knoxville on East Lamar Alexander Parkway at Merritt Road in Maryville, according to a statement from the Maryville City Government.
An officer in the Maryville Police Department’s motor unit was involved in a crash with a state trooper “during an executive protection mission involving multiple law enforcement agencies,” Maryville officials said.
Both were transported to an area hospital for treatment. One officer is in critical condition, according to Maryville officials, who did not provide further information on the injuries the officer suffered in the crash.
“We ask everyone to keep the officer, family and the medical staff in your prayers,” Maryville Police Chief Tony Crisp said in a statement. “All of us at the Maryville Police Department appreciate the concern and outpouring of support from this incredible community.”
City officials said additional information will be released as it becomes available.
Authorities respond to a shooting at Laney College in Oakland, California, Nov. 13, 2025. KGO
(OAKLAND, Calif.) — Legendary former football coach John Beam died on Friday morning after he was shot on the Laney College campus in Oakland, California, on Thursday, the Oakland Police Department said, as authorities announced a suspect’s arrest.
Beam, featured in Netflix’s “Last Chance U,” is a football legend in the Bay Area and had coached the sport for over 40 years before becoming solely the school’s athletic director last year.
Beam was at the Laney Fieldhouse when he was shot shortly before noon on Thursday, authorities said. The alleged shooter fled the scene.
Police combed through surveillance footage, and at 3:15 a.m. Friday, a person matching the suspect’s description was spotted at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station and was taken into custody, Oakland police said.
Police did not discuss a possible motive.
The suspect — 27-year-old Cedric Irving — did know the coach, but “they did not have a relationship,” police said. Irving played high school football in the Bay Area, but never played for Beam.
Irving didn’t attend Laney College or work at the college, but he went to campus “for a specific reason” and “has been known to loiter on or around the campus,” police said.
Oakland police said Irving was not known to the department.
A gun recovered from the suspect is the same caliber as the casings and rounds recovered at the crime scene, police added.
Beam, who was hospitalized in critical condition, died at about 10 a.m. Friday, Gloria Beltran of the Oakland police said.
Piedmont Police Chief Frederick Shavies called the coach an “absolutely incredible human being.”
“Our hearts are aching,” Shavies said.
“Coach John Beam was a giant in Oakland and mentored thousands,” Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said at a news conference on Friday.
“He gave Oakland’s youth their best chance,” Lee said.
“Coach Beam’s legacy isn’t measured in championships or statistics … it’s measured in the thousands of young people he believed in, mentored and refused to abandon, including my nephew,” Lee said.
