A boy holds one of the leaflets dropped by the Israeli military in Gaza City, on September 9, 2025, urging evacuation south to al-Mawasi. (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(GAZA, JERUSALEM and LONDON) — Israel on Tuesday issued an order calling for residents of Gaza City to evacuate, saying the Israeli military will operate “with great force” within the city.
“Staying in the city is extremely dangerous,” Avichay Adraee, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, said on social media.
The order and warnings followed an approval by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of a plan to seize Gaza City, the largest city in the under-siege enclave. Israel began ground operations within the city about a week ago.
Israeli officials said the planned seizure is part of its military objective to eliminate Hamas, the terrorist organization that it’s been fighting in Gaza since October 2023.
Despite the severe situation and evacuation warnings, there are still a significant number of residents who remain in the city who have cited different reasons for staying, including not being able to afford the costs of evacuation and transportation.
Others told ABC News they’ve stayed because they’ve heard there’s a severe shortage of space for tents in the humanitarian zone — or that they don’t know if they would be safe after an evacuation.
Adraee said residents of Gaza City and “all its neighorhoods” should evacuate immediately. They should travel south toward Al-Mawasi, a coastal area that’s been designated as a humanitarian zone, he said.
The evacuation order followed a warning issued on Monday by Netanyahu. In a video message posted on Telegram, he spoke directly to the residents of the city.
“Listen carefully: You have been warned,” Netanyahu said. “Leave now.”
Members of the DEA attend a press conference at the U.S. Attorney’s Office on August 25, 2025 in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Drug Enforcement Administration said that it arrested over 600 people during a weeklong operation targeting the Sinaloa drug cartel.
The arrests were “aimed at dismantling the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world’s most violent and powerful drug cartels, responsible for flooding the United States with fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin,” according to the DEA.
In February, the Trump administration designated the Mexico-based Sinaloa cartel, along with seven other groups, as a foreign terrorist organization. The cartel remains one of the most significant threats to public safety, public health and national security in the U.S., according to the DEA’s statement on the arrests.
From Aug. 25 through Aug. 29, DEA agents across 23 domestic field divisions and seven foreign regions carried out coordinated enforcement actions that resulted in the arrests of 617 people, along with the seizure of 480 kilograms of fentanyl powder, 714,707 counterfeit pills, 2,209 kilograms of methamphetamine, 7,469 kilograms of cocaine, 420 firearms and currency and assets worth close to $13 million, the DEA said.
“These results demonstrate the full weight of DEA’s commitment to protecting the American people,” said DEA Administrator Terrance Cole. “Every kilogram of poison seized, every dollar stripped from the cartels, and every arrest we make represents lives saved and communities defended. DEA will not relent until the Sinaloa Cartel is dismantled from top to bottom.”
“There are tens of thousands of Sinaloa members, associates, and facilitators operating worldwide, in at least 40 countries who are responsible for the production, manufacturing, distribution, and operations related to trafficking dangerous and deadly synthetic drugs,” the DEA continued.
Brian M. Clark, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles Field Division, said that while the numbers reflect a one-week snapshot, the efforts to combat the cartel persist year-round.
“The Sinaloa Cartel’s reach is vast and unremitting. This ruthless cartel is intent on cashing in, permeating our communities with their poison, with no regard to human suffering. For that reason, DEA’s work remains critical and laser-focused. The success achieved during this operation is a direct result of the unwavering and exceptional work by the men and women of DEA,” said Clark.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is suing migrants with removal orders and issuing fines of up to $1.8 million to pressure them into self-deporting, immigration attorneys tell ABC News.
In recent months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has revived a rarely enforced 1996 law, using it to issue fines to migrants with deportation orders as part of the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown.
The notices order them to voluntarily leave the U.S. to avoid the monetary penalty.
Merle Kahn, an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said the fines were never used until 2017, during the first Trump administration. She told ABC News that during Trump’s first term the fines were rarely used, and when Joe Biden took office as president, he rescinded all of them.
“Now, they have started issuing the fines again, and they’ve increased them,” Kahn said. “They could be fined over $1.8 million if they have an outstanding deportation order and didn’t leave.”
In June, the Trump administration announced new regulations to streamline the process of issuing fines to immigrants who are in the country without authorization, including new fines, reduced time for appeal, and the elimination of a 30-day notice period.
That same month, ICE said it had issued more than 10,000 fines.
The fines include between $100 and $500 for each unlawful entry or attempted entry, and up to $998 per day, assessed for up to five years, for failing to comply with a removal order.
Immigration attorneys call the fines a “scare tactic” to force people to self-deport.
“There’s zero consideration of the circumstances surrounding why the person didn’t leave,” Kahn said. “It doesn’t matter if they never got notice, and the process for challenging these fines is really truncated.”
ICE and DHS officials did not respond to request for comment from ABC News. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement in June that the fines apply to individuals who enter the U.S. illegally, ignore or delay removal orders, or “do not honor agreements to comply with judges’ voluntary departure orders.”
“Financial penalties like these are just one more reason why illegal aliens should use CBP Home to self-deport now before it’s too late,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement.
John Gihon, a Florida immigration attorney, told ABC News the notices have changed in recent months.
Before July, Gihon said people would receive a notice of intent that they could respond to and appeal. Now, he said, individuals “are just getting invoices.”
“You can appeal this if you think it’s incorrect, but it’s going to be decided by basically the same exact office and agency who issued the fine in the first place, and there’s no appeal after that,” Gihon said. “It’s gotten amazingly draconian.”
Gihon told ABC News that one of his clients recently received a $1.8 million fine due within 30 days. He said his client can’t voluntarily leave the country because he doesn’t have a passport or other travel documents.
“He’s been physically unable to leave the United States unless he illegally entered another country,” Gihon said. He said his client also has a business and family in the U.S.
“He’s unable to comply, and does not want to have to pay all these fines and lose his only livelihood for him and his family,” Gihon said.
Edward Cuccia, a New York immigration attorney, said he has clients who work minimum wage jobs who have received million-dollar fines. He said the government is spending “more on postage to send the notices” than it will ever collect.
In an escalation, the Trump administration is now suing some of the immigrants who received these fines.
“If you fail to pay the full amount on or before the deadline listed below, the Department of Justice may initiate legal proceedings against you at any time,” said a notice included in a recent lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice. “However, you can avoid payment if you voluntarily depart the United States immediately.”
According to several lawsuits reviewed by ABC News, the DOJ is asking courts to issue judgments against individuals for the fines, and to award “other relief as may be appropriate.”
“It’s a scare tactic to encourage people to self-deport,” Kahn said. “I think anyone with an outstanding deportation order can expect to receive a fine if the order was issued within the past five years.”
(LONDON) — Ukrainian drones attacked the Russian Black Sea coast overnight into Tuesday morning, according to the Russian Defense Ministry and local officials, just hours after President Vladimir Putin took virtual meetings from his residence there in the coastal resort city of Sochi.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down at least 31 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 15 over the Black Sea, two over Crimea and two over Krasnodar Krai, the Black Sea region in which Sochi is located.
Putin took part in a video meeting of BRICS nations from his Sochi residence on Monday afternoon, the Kremlin said in an official readout. It is not clear whether the president was still at his residence during the nighttime Ukrainian drone attack.
At least one person was killed in Sochi during the attack, local Gov. Veniamin Kondratiev said in a post to Telegram. The man was killed when fragments of a falling drone hit the car he was driving, Kondratiev said. Six houses were also damaged in the attack, Kondratiev said.
Sochi Mayor Andrey Proshunin posted photos of the damage to Telegram, saying a military monument was also struck by debris. Proshunin posted photos of damage in the Adlersky district of the city, just south of Sochi International Airport.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, also introduced temporary flight restrictions at the airport in the early hours of Tuesday.
Bocharov Ruchey, the Russian president’s summer residence, is located in the Tsentralny district in the northwest of Sochi, around 17 miles from the international airport.
The residence was in regular use by Putin before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Putin hosted former U.S. President George Bush there in 2008, and reportedly used the residence during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Russian media reports suggested that Putin stopped using the residence from 2024 amid intensifying Ukrainian drone attacks. Reports also suggested that parts of the residence may have been demolished in recent years.
Russia continued its own long-range strike campaign on Ukraine, with the air force in Kyiv reporting 84 drones launched into the country overnight into Tuesday. Sixty craft were shot down or suppressed, the air force said, with the impacts of 23 drones recorded across 10 locations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that at least 21 people were killed in a “savage” Russian airstrike on the village of Yarova in eastern Donetsk Oblast on Tuesday. The strike hit as people there gathered to collect their pensions, Zelenskyy said.
One person was also killed and one person injured by Russian fire in the southern frontline Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Ivan Federov said.
(LONDON) — Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned on Tuesday after a social media ban sparked violent protests in which at least 19 people died on Monday.
Even after the government’s social media restrictions were rolled back, the protests continued on Tuesday in Nepal’s Kathmandu, were protestors were reportedly setting homes of political leaders on fire.
Oli had earlier blamed “external infiltrators” for violence.
The homes of several politicians — including Sher Bahadur Deuba, leader of the largest party Nepali Congress; President Ram Chandra Poudel; Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak and leader of the Communist Party of Nepal Maoist Pushpa Kamal Dahal — were set on fire, The Associated Press reported.
The Monday clashes left 19 dead and 421 injured, according to the government. An indefinite curfew was put in place in the capital and Tribhuvan Airport has been shut down, with all flights cancelled.
“I’m protesting. I didn’t like it. I hate it. I’m opposing it!” Rajendra Bajgain, a member of parliament, told ABC News after Monday’s protests.
The protests began after the government decision to ban social media platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube. That ban was seen by many as an attack on freedom of speech — and an extension of what some described as the government’s corrupt nature.
“Ministers are corrupt. They are doomed with the PM,” Bajgain said prior to the prime minister’s resignation. “Listen to me very clearly, very loudly: if [the prime minister] continues the ban, he’s going to finish in a couple of days.”
In a statement released on Sept. 4, Committee to Protect Journalists Regional Director Beh Lih Yi said that the ban would essentially be “blocking online news platforms vital to journalists [and] will undermine reporting and the public’s right to information.”
(WASHINGTON) — The GOP-led House Oversight Committee says it has obtained documents and communications from the Jeffrey Epstein estate on Monday — including the Epstein “birthday book,” which is said to contain the letter that President Donald Trump allegedly signed for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
Ranking Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia posted a photo on X that Democrats say is the page attributed to Trump.
Trump has denied writing the letter — calling it “fake.”
The White House is denying that the image shared by Democrats is the president’s signature. In a post on X, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich said “Time for @newscorp to open that checkbook, it’s not his signature. DEFAMATION!”
The committee issued a subpoena in late August for information from the estate, which included a copy of the alleged birthday book compiled for the disgraced financier’s 50th birthday. The committee had requested a delivery of the documents — which includes banking and financial records, flights logs and calendars — on or before Sept. 8, 2025.
The “birthday book” was compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003, and the Wall Street Journal reported it contains a “bawdy” letter from Trump.
Trump denied the existence of the letter and filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal.
Dow Jones, the parent company of the newspaper, in response to the lawsuit said in a statement that it has “full confidence in the rigor and accuracy” of its reporting and “will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
Epstein’s former associate Ghislaine Maxwell told a top official for the Justice Department that Epstein asked her to coordinate contributions to his 50th birthday book, but said she could not recall if Trump, then a private citizen, was among those who responded, according to a transcript of Maxwell’s interview last month with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 by a federal jury on sex trafficking and other charges. She is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding and participating in Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls, which involved a scheme to recruit young women and girls for massages of Epstein that turned sexual. Federal prosecutors in New York said Maxwell helped Epstein recruit, groom and ultimately abuse girls as young as 14. In the interview with the Justice Department official, Maxwell continued to profess her innocence.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged in a federal indictment with conspiracy and child sex trafficking. He died in custody a month later, while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.
Although the documents are expected to be turned over to the committee on Monday, it may not mean the committee will release all of the documents to the public on the same day.
New York City police officers at a scene in Brooklyn, September 7, 2025, where several officers fatally shot a man suspected of entering a nearby police precinct and attacking an officer with a butcher knife. (WABC
(NEW YORK) — New York City police officers opened fire early Sunday and killed a man alleged to have barged though the back door of a police precinct station house and attacked an officer with a butcher knife when she tried to fight him off, authorities said.
The deadly shooting occurred on a street in the Brownsville section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn near the 73rd Precinct station house, where the suspect slashed an officer with a knife that authorities said had a 14-inch blade, according to police.
On Monday, the New York Police Department (NYPD) identified the deceased suspect as 35-year-old Justin Coleman of Brooklyn.
“Every day our officers put on their uniforms, they encounter dangerous situations out in the street, but it’s another kind of danger when someone comes directly into a precinct armed with a knife and attacks our officers,” Chief of Patrol Phillip Rivera of the New York York Police Department (NYPD) said at a news conference on Sunday.
A motive for the station house attack remains under investigation.
The attack occurred at around 5:24 a.m. when the suspect was captured on surveillance video attempting to enter the locked front door of the station house, Rivera said on Sunday. The suspect then allegedly walked to the rear of the station house and entered through a door that Rivera said is clearly marked for use by authorized NYPD personnel only.
“He entered the rear of the precinct and was immediately confronted by a police officer who was assigned to station-house security,” Rivera said.
When the officer directed the suspect to the front of the station house for assistance, he allegedly pulled out the butcher knife and attacked her but the officer was able to fight him off, Rivera said. The suspect slashed the officer in the forehead before fleeing, the NYPD said in a statement on Monday.
Rivera said the suspect ran out of the back door allegedly still wielding the knife. Several officers followed the suspect down the street, ordering him repeatedly to drop the weapon, according to Rivera.
Officers initially deployed a stun gun on the suspect but it had no effect, Rivera said during Sunday’s news conference.
At one point, the suspect “lunged at an officer with the knife extended toward that officer,” prompting officers to open fire, hitting the suspect multiple times, Rivera said Sunday.
On Monday, the NYPD said that two officers shot the man.
The suspect was taken to Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in Brooklyn where he was pronounced dead, according to Rivera on Sunday.
The officer who was attacked at the station house was taken to a hospital, treated for what Rivera described as superficial injuries, and released.
“Thank god our sister is on the road to recovery, but this was a clear targeted attack on New York City police officers,” Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association union, said in a statement. “This individual had no fear when he walked into a police precinct and attacked a uniformed cop – there is no telling what he might have done to innocent New Yorkers out on the street. Despite being injured, our sister pursued this individual along with her fellow police officers, and they stopped the threat before anyone else was hurt.”
“This is another example of the extraordinary work our police officers are doing in an incredibly dangerous environment,” Hendry’s statement said.
(AUBURN, Ala.) — A man is in custody for allegedly killing a retired Auburn University professor, whose body was discovered in an Alabama dog park, authorities said.
Dr. Julie Gard Schnuelle, a veterinarian and longtime employee of Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, was found dead in a wooded area of Kiesel Park on Saturday, Auburn police said.
The 59-year-old died from an assault, police said.
Harold Rashad Dabney III, of Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested on Sunday and charged with two counts of capital murder, police said.
Dabney, 28, also allegedly stole the former professor’s car, which has been recovered, police said.
Dabney is being held without bond, police said. The Lee County District Attorney declined to discuss details of the case with ABC News.
Auburn University called Schnuelle a “beloved” faculty member at the Department of Clinical Sciences in the Large Animal/Food Animal section, where she worked from 2003 to 2021.
“She was a cherished educator, mentor and colleague whose dedication to students and passion for theriogenology and veterinary medicine left a lasting impact on Auburn,” an Auburn spokesperson told ABC News. “Dr. Gard Schnuelle’s legacy of compassion, scholarship and service will continue to inspire generations of veterinarians.”
Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama senator and former Auburn football coach, wrote on social media, “Suzanne and I are devastated by the news of this tragic loss in our community. We are praying for the victim’s family and loved ones and for justice to be served.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks alongside President Donald Trump during a press availability in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 5, 2025. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Employers in nearly every industry have cut back on hiring, according to the latest data, leaving job seekers with fewer places to turn.
A recent jobs report extended a lackluster run of labor data that stretches back to the beginning of the summer. While the unemployment rate stands at a historically low level, millions of out-of-work Americans face stiff conditions.
Nearly two million job seekers have been out of the workforce for more than 27 weeks, which amounts to about a quarter of all unemployed people, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday.
At the same time, worker confidence in their ability to find a new job has hit a record low, according to a survey released by the New York Federal Reserve on Monday.
Analysts who spoke to ABC News attributed the tepid job market in part to economic uncertainty hanging over employers as a result of President Donald Trump’s tariff and immigration policies. The recent adoption of artificial intelligence tools has also diminished prospects for jobs in some entry-level roles, some analysts added.
“New hiring has really slowed to a crawl,” Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, told ABC News.
In a note to clients Friday, Joseph Brusuelas, global economist at RSM, described the U.S. as a “slow hire, slow fire economy,” saying that a sharp increase in tariffs has burdened some importers with higher taxes and cast doubt over the nation’s economic outlook.
“The impact of tariffs on hiring is undeniable,” Brusuelas said in the note, adding that the levies had “pushed economic uncertainty to the highest level in years.”
Restrictive immigration policies, meanwhile, have reduced the supply of available workers and threatened employers with higher labor costs, deepening a sense of uncertainty, some analysts said.
The Trump administration has pursued an immigration policy that features the detention of undocumented immigrants at work sites and the revocation of Temporary Protected Status – a form of temporary legal status – for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
“We’re deporting lots and lots of working immigrants. That just stirs the pot even further in terms of employers feeling, ‘We don’t know what’s going on here,’” Michelle Holder, a labor economist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told ABC News.
For its part, the Trump administration downplayed the weaker-than-expected jobs report late last week, voicing expectations of an upward revision of the data and predicting better job performance.
A tax-cut measure enacted by Trump earlier this year will boost business investment and drive up hiring, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters on Friday.
“President Trump knows that we’re super optimistic about the future of the jobs numbers, because we’re seeing a massive blowout in capital spending,” Hassett said.
The hiring cooldown has hit nearly every industry, including leisure and hospitality and the federal government, BLS data shows.
The manufacturing sector has suffered a net loss of 78,000 jobs this year in the midst of a tariff policy that the Trump administration has said is aimed at reviving domestic production. Construction, another key sector dependent on long-term investment, has incurred a net loss of 10,000 jobs over the past three months.
“This has to do with producers’ uncertainties about the future,” Holder said.
In response to the flagging labor market, the Fed is expected to cut interest rates when policymakers meet later this month. Investors peg the chances of a quarter-point rate cut this month at about 88% and the odds of a half-point cut at nearly 12%, according to CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.
In theory, a reduction of interest rates could boost hiring as borrowing expenses fall and businesses encounter more favorable conditions for new investment. However, the Fed’s incremental approach is unlikely to yield major improvement for job seekers anytime soon, Hamrick said.
“It will have a marginal impact for people,” Hamrick added. “I don’t see that producing a sea change in the environment anytime soon.”
(HAPPY VALLEY, Ore.) — A man in Oregon was arrested for living in a crawl space of a condominium complex for an “extended period of time,” according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.
Beniamin Bucur, 40, was arrested on Wednesday after officials investigated a “suspicious circumstance at a condominium complex” in Clackamas County near Happy Valley, the sheriff’s office said in a press release last week.
On Wednesday at around 11 p.m., a witness reported seeing a man “who was not known to live in the complex parking his car and walking to the back of one of the buildings,” officials said.
Upon further investigation, the witness also noticed the “door to the crawl space was open and light was coming from inside,” according to authorities.
Once officials arrived at the scene, they said they noticed the door to the space was “damaged and now locked,” along with an extension cord running through a vent.
Deputies reached out to the owner of the complex, who said “nobody was supposed to be down there” and that they had heard “strange noises coming from the crawl space before,” officials said.
When the keys the owner gave deputies did not unlock the door to the space, officials “breached the door and located the man,” identified as Bucur, according to authorities.
Bucur had taken “significant steps to improve the conditions of the crawl space,” with a bed, lights, chargers, televisions and other electronics all found “plugged into the house,” the sheriff’s office said.
A pipe with white residue that “tested positive for methamphetamine” was also found at the scene, according to officials.
Bucur was transported to the Clackamas County Jail where he was booked on charges of first-degree burglary and the unlawful possession of methamphetamine, authorities said.
The suspect’s preliminary hearing was on Thursday, with his bail set to $75,000, officials said.
It remains unclear whether Bucur has an attorney who can speak on his behalf.
