(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court a second time to urgently lift U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s temporary restraining order blocking the deportations of alleged Tren de Aragua gang members under the Alien Enemies Act.
“Only this Court can stop rule-by-TRO from further upending the separation of powers — the sooner, the better,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in an emergency application to the court.
The appeal follows Wednesday’s 2-1 ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding Boasberg’s order and defending his jurisdiction in the matter.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The search for four U.S. Army soldiers who went missing in their vehicle during a scheduled training exercise near Pabradė, Lithuania, is ongoing Friday, with officials bringing in more assets to help with the recovery mission, the Army said.
The soldiers, who are all based in Fort Stewart, Georgia, went missing on Tuesday while operating a M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle, the Army said. On Wednesday, the 70-ton vehicle was found submerged in about 15 feet of water and mud in a training area, the Army said.
“Most likely, the M88 drove into the swamp,” and the vehicle “may have just gone diagonally to the bottom,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene told ABC News via phone.
Sakaliene said Thursday that the search has shifted from rescue to a “complicated” recovery mission. The Army said crews are “working around the clock to drain water, dig, and dredge the mud that surrounds the vehicle.”
“The area around the site is incredibly wet and marshy and doesn’t support the weight of the equipment needed for the recovery of the 70-ton vehicle without significant engineering improvements,” the Army said in a statement Friday. “Draining the area has been slow and difficult due to ground water seepage.”
“A large capacity slurry pump, cranes, more than 30 tons of gravel, and subject matter experts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are just some of the assets that arrived on site,” the Army said. “The Polish Armed Forces have also volunteered a unit of military engineers, which is bringing in an additional water pump, tracked recovery vehicles, other additional equipment and supplies needed along with 150 personnel.”
A specialized U.S. Navy dive crew is also expected to arrive on site by Saturday, the Army said.
“This will be a long and difficult recovery operation, but we are absolutely committed to bringing our soldiers home,” Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor said in a statement.
Sakaliene said Thursday the Lithuanians will also remain dedicated to the recovery.
“Working with American soldiers has always been close to our hearts,” she said. “They are not just allies — they are family to us.”
(WASHINGTON) — The law firm Jenner and Block filed suit against the Trump Administration Friday seeking to block an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week that targeted its attorneys’ security clearances and essentially shuttered any interactions with the federal government.
“The Order threatens not only Jenner, but also its clients and the legal system itself,” the firm said Friday in its lawsuit. “Our Constitution, top to bottom, forbids attempts by the government to punish citizens and lawyers based on the clients they represent, the positions they advocate, the opinions they voice, and the people with whom they associate.”
Jenner and Block is now the second of five firms targeted by Trump to bring a legal challenge against what it describes as a blatantly “unconstitutional” executive order, following a successful effort by the law firm Perkins Coie to have a federal judge temporarily block a similar order that targeted it over its representation of then-candidate Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in D.C. Friday, accuses the Trump Administration of engaging in a sweeping campaign to intimidate major law firms that either represented or once counted among its ranks individuals who he has labeled his political enemies.
“These orders send a clear message to the legal profession: Cease certain representations adverse to the government and renounce the Administration’s critics — or suffer the consequences,” the suit said. “The orders also attempt to pressure businesses and individuals to question or even abandon their associations with their chosen counsel, and to chill bringing legal challenges at all.”
The filing comes amid a crisis that has gripped other “Big Law” firms in Washington, as top attorneys debate whether to fight back, cut a deal or stay quiet wondering whether they will be singled out next.
On Thursday, Trump signed another executive order targeting WilmerHale — citing its hiring of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller and two of his top deputies, after they had investigated the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
In a statement reacting to the order, a spokesperson for WilmerHale said they planned to pursue “all appropriate remedies to this unlawful order.”
(NEW YORK) — Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann and his estranged wife, Asa Ellerup, have reached a divorce settlement, according to court records.
Ellerup filed for divorce shortly after Heuermann was arrested in July 2023.
The terms of the divorce settlement, filed in Suffolk County Supreme Court Thursday night, are not public. A judge will review the settlement and must sign off on the divorce to make it final.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the murders of seven women whose remains were found discarded on Long Island between 1993 and 2011.
Prosecutors with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office have said Ellerup and the couple’s children were out of town when the victims were killed.
Heuermann is expected back in court Friday as his lawyers ask a judge to disqualify some of the DNA evidence pertaining to nuclear DNA results obtained from hairs recovered from six victims: Maureen Brainard Barnes, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack.
The new DNA technique is whole genome sequencing of the DNA within a hair; scientists take all the fragments of DNA and assemble them on the human genome.
Traditional DNA sequencing looks at 15 to 24 points of comparison, while whole genome sequencing looks at 100,000 or more points and the methodology yields only one possible donor.
Heuermann’s defense argued the new DNA methodology has never been tested in New York courts, but prosecutors have said the technique is already used in the medical community and is consistent with what the court system has allowed.
(NEW YORK) — Inflation held steady in February compared to a year ago, according to a release from the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of price increases.
The reading matched economists’ expectations.
Consumer prices climbed 2.5% in February compared to a year ago, registering at a level slightly higher than the Fed’s target rate of 2%, Commerce Department data on Friday showed.
Core inflation — a closely watched measure that strips out volatile food and energy prices — increased 2.8% over the year ending in February, ticking lower from the previous month, data showed.
The fresh data arrives little more than a week after the Fed opted to leave interest rates unchanged.
Speaking at a press conference after the rate decision, Fed Chair Jerome Powell faulted President Donald Trump’s tariffs for a “good part” of recent inflation. The central bank predicted weaker year-end economic growth and higher inflation than it had in a December forecast.
Consumer surveys show rising fears about inflation as Trump imposes tariffs on top trading partners and key industries.
Economists widely expect tariffs to raise prices because importers typically pass along a share of the tax burden to consumers in the form of higher costs.
Trump announced this week plans to slap 25% tariffs on all imported cars, escalating a global trade war and eliciting criticism from leaders in Canada and Europe. The duties came on the heels of tariffs on steel and aluminum, as well as levies on goods from China, Canada and Mexico.
The Commerce Department data for February covers a period that largely precedes Trump’s tariffs, though the reading arrives amid a bout of accelerating inflation that stretches back to the final months of the Biden administration.
Prince increases fell dramatically from a peak of more than 9% in 2022, but sped up slightly at the end of last year.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LONDON) — An earthquake with a 7.7 magnitude has rocked Southeast Asia on Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey.
USGS is reporting the epicenter of the quake was in Mandalay, Myanmar, but at least three people were killed and 68 others were injured when a building that was under construction collapsed in Bangkok as the earthquake struck the region on Friday, according to Thailand’s National Institute of Emergency Medicine (NIEM), which said there was an unknown number of people still trapped in the rubble.
The extent of the damage in Mandalay — the second largest city in Myanmar — is largely unknown this morning due to it being under very tight state control. However, it is thought that the damage could be extensive since this earthquake is stronger than many other historic quakes — including the Northridge earthquake that affected the Los Angeles area of California on Jan. 17, 1994, which is remembered as one of the most destructive and deadly in California history. Bangkok is approximately 600 miles away from Mandalay and suffered notable damage as well as collapsed buildings.
NIEM said there were approximately 320 construction workers on site when the building in Bangkok collapsed at 70 people are currently missing, according to a statement published on social media. Approximately 20 workers are still trapped in the elevator shaft with the number of deaths expected to climb, NIEM continued.
Alarms reportedly went off in buildings across the Thai capital city when the earthquake hit around 1:30 p.m., according to the Associated Press.
“We were under the main Sukhumvit railway station and we thought a train had crashed on the initial tremor,” a British citizen who is in the Thai capital on a business trip and wished to remain anonymous told ABC News. “But then as it continued, people started to run outside and the hotels were evacuated to the streets.”
The Royal Thai Police said they are helping to evacuate people from buildings across the city into safe areas, according to a statement published on social media.
A video obtained by ABC News from a WeWork office in Bangkok shows water pouring from a rooftop swimming pool as people ran across the office towards the exits.
Two of Bangkok’s main public transportation systems, the BTS — an elevated train line — and the MRT, which is mostly underground, have stopped service as authorities respond to the earthquake aftermath, Thai police said.
Meanwhile, Myanmar’s ruling junta has declared a state of emergency in six regions — Sagaing, Mandalay, Magway, northeastern Shan State, Nay Pyi Taw and Bago – after the earthquake struck the country, followed by a series of aftershocks.
Myanmar is mired in years long civil war, and Mandalay is one of the major cities than the junta still controls.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Morgan Winsor, Joe Simonetti, Karson Yiu and Helena Skinner contributed to this report.
(LUBBOCK, Texas) — When the first measles cases were confirmed in western Texas, health officials said the infections primarily affected the Mennonite community.
Mennonites, who are part of the Anabaptist Christian church, have a small presence in the United States — and Texas in general — but they have a large presence in the South Plains region the state, and in Gaines County, which is the epicenter of the outbreak.
Many Mennonite communities are close-knit and under-vaccinated, which may have contributed to the spread of measles among members of the community.
But health officials are starting to see cases spread beyond the Mennonite population.
It is spreading beyond this community, “unfortunately,” Katherine Wells, director of public health for the city of Lubbock — which is located in western Texas — told ABC News. “West Texas is where the spread of these cases are right now, and we need to make sure that everybody in West Texas is getting vaccinated and is aware of measles and understands the precautions that we need to take.”
The outbreak in western Texas is continuing to grow with a total of 327 cases in at least 15 counties, according to new data published Tuesday.
Nearly all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. At least 40 people have been hospitalized so far.
Just two cases have occurred in people fully vaccinated with the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, according to the data.
Wells acknowledged that it may be easy for people to assume measles is only affecting a small and insular group like Mennonites and that nobody else is at risk.
“West Texas, you might say we’re small and insular compared to Dallas and some other areas,” she said. “But no, this has, unfortunately, moved into many, many different populations.”
“So unfortunately, it is growing and continues to grow,” she continued.
Marlen Ramirez, a community health worker and program coordinator at Vaccinate Your Family, which is an advocacy group based in Eagle Pass, Texas, shared a statement with ABC News, saying, “As a Community Health Worker living and working in a rural border town, I see firsthand how quickly diseases like measles can spread when vaccination rates are low and access to care is limited.”
“While the initial measles outbreak in western Texas affected members of the Mennonite community, the virus easily spreads wherever communities are under-vaccinated—and right now, we’re seeing cases reach into rural parts of Texas, New Mexico, and Kansas,” Ramirez added.
“In many of these areas, vaccination rates are below 90%, well below the 92-94% needed for community or “herd” immunity. That’s what has allowed this outbreak to grow to over 300 cases so quickly. We fear the number of actual cases may be much higher than reported due to confusion and delays in the outbreak response,” she said.
A spokesperson for DSHS confirmed to ABC News that the first cases in the outbreak were among Mennonite community members, but this is no longer the case.
“Since 90% of unvaccinated people exposed to the measles virus will become ill, there are many cases in people who are not part of the Mennonite community,” the spokesperson said. “We do not ask a person’s religious affiliation as part of our case investigation process, so we have no way of counting how many cases are part of the Mennonite community and how many are not.”
Why the Mennonite population was hit hard by measles cases Steven Nolt, professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, told ABC News that culturally conservative and Old Order Mennonites have traditionally been under-immunized or partially immunized.
He said there are no religious teachings or bodies of religious writings that prevent Mennonites from being vaccinated. The DSHS spokesperson also added that that Mennonite religion is not “widely against vaccination.”
“Reasons are not religious but reflect everything from less frequent engagement with health care systems (for those who are more rural) to a traditional outlook that replicates practices of parents and grandparents more than the most current practices,” Nolt said via email.
For example, culturally traditional Mennonites may have participated in mid-20th century vaccination campaigns against diseases like smallpox, leading to their children and grandchildren trusting those vaccines compared to more recent additions to the immunization schedule, Nott said.
He added that Mennonites may also be influenced by the opinions of their neighbors, which may play a role in lack of vaccination.
Nolt also explained that the Mennonites who live in Seminole, Texas, a city at the center of Gaines County — a community known as Low German Mennonites, due to the language they speak — “lived in relative isolation in Mexico from the 1920s to the 1980s.”
“They missed out on the mid-century public health immunization campaigns in the U.S., be they polio or smallpox or whatever (the Mexican government had a reputation for not engaging with the Low German Mennonites at all),” he wrote. “Thus, they are starting from a different place than other culturally conservative Mennonites whose ancestors have been here since the 1700s.”
Nott went on, “My point is, the so-called Low German Mennonites from Mexico, now in west Texas, don’t have that minimum baseline of mid-20th century vaccine acceptance that we see among Old Order Mennonites and Amish in the U.S. because the folks in Seminole missed the whole mid-century immunization push, as they weren’t in the U.S. at that time.”
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance are making their way to Greenland on Friday morning for a scaled back visit to the Pituffik Space Base.
The couple boarded Air Force Two shortly after 6 a.m. ET and were joined on the trip by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Energy Sec. Chris Wright and Sen. Mike Lee. They are expected to arrive at approximately 11:45 a.m. ET.
The trip was originally planned as a visit by the second lady to attend a dogsled race but that plan was scrapped after heavy criticism.
Vice President Vance is expected to deliver remarks and receive briefings at the Pituffik Space Base, according to a spokeswoman.
The visit comes as President Trump has repeatedly suggested that the U.S. should take over Greenland “one way or the another” for national security purposes and as he continues to emphasize Greenland’s importance as China and Russia ramp up activity in the Arctic.
Ahead of the Vance’s trip, Trump discussed how he views Greenland as vital to U.S. national security.
“We need Greenland for national security and international security. So we’ll, I think, we’ll go as far as we have to go,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “We need Greenland. And the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark. Denmark has to have us have Greenland. And, you know, we’ll see what happens. But if we don’t have Greenland, we can’t have great international security,” Trump said.
The president made overtures about buying Greenland in his first term in office.
In a press release announcing the visit, Vance said, “In the decades since neglect and inaction from Danish leaders and past US administrations have presented our adversaries with the opportunity to advance their own priorities in Greenland and the Arctic. President Trump is rightly changing course.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who is also making the trip, told Fox News on Thursday that Greenland has tried for years to interest U.S. mining companies to develop resources there because there’s not enough infrastructure to make mining economical.
“So, heck, maybe that is going to happen,” he said. “I think that is in the best interest of Greenland and Greenlanders and they have expressed that for years. If the United States can have the right cooperation, I think capital can flow there which would bring jobs and economic opportunity to Greenland and critical minerals and resources to the United States — a win for both sides.”
The idea of Greenland becoming part of the U.S. is opposed by many in Greenland and Denmark, of which Greenland is an autonomous territory.
Usha Vance was originally scheduled to make the trip to learn about Greenland’s cultural heritage and attend a national dogsled race before it was announced that the vice president, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright would join her. The trip was later scaled back to just a visit to the space base. The White House confirmed Thursday that Waltz will make the trip.
JD Vance and Waltz are at the center of the scandal over the purported conversation discussing the attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen over the commercially available Signal app that inadvertently included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who reported details of the conversation on Monday.
Officials in Greenland and Denmark have pushed back against the visit.
Reuters reported that Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen called Trump’s statements an “escalation” in Trump’s rhetoric.
“These very powerful statements about a close ally do not suit the U.S. president,” Poulsen told reporters in Copenhagen on Thursday. “I need to clearly speak out against what I see as an escalation from the American side,” he said.
On Wednesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a post on social media the U.S. is putting “unacceptable pressure” on Greenland and Denmark ahead of the unsolicited visit, adding that the two regions will “resist.”
The timing of the visit was criticized in both Greenland and Denmark as Greenland tries to put together a coalition government after parliamentary elections two weeks ago.
-ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(AMSTERDAM) — Five people were injured, including two Americans, in a “serious” stabbing attack that occurred in broad daylight in Amsterdam’s city center on Thursday, police said.
The suspected assailant is in custody and a motive remains under investigation into what authorities are considering might have been a random attack, police said.
The incident was reported shortly before 3:30 p.m. Thursday, with emergency services receiving multiple reports of a stabbing, police said.
The victims were located at various locations near Amsterdam’s central Dam Square, according to police.
“Police are considering the possibility that the suspect may have randomly targeted victims, but the exact motive remains unknown,” Amsterdam police said in a statement.
The victims include two Americans — a 67-year-old woman and a 69-year-old man — police said.
A 19-year-old woman from Amsterdam, a 26-year-old man from Poland and a 73-year-old woman from Belgium were also injured in the stabbing, police said.
Police did not release any details on their conditions.
Officers apprehended the suspect near Dam Square with the help of bystanders shortly after the incident, police said.
The suspect was transported to a hospital with a leg injury and officers are investigating his identity, police said.
“The police investigation is in full swing and is currently the highest priority,” Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said in a statement. “We hope to gain clarity soon about the background of this horrific stabbing incident. Our hearts go out to the victims, their families, and loved ones.”
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to preserve the contents of the chat in which top national security officials used the Signal app to discuss military strikes in Yemen as they were taking place earlier this month.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the top cabinet officials named in a lawsuit by the government transparency group American Oversight to retain any messages sent and received over Signal between March 11 and March 15.
Benjamin Sparks, a lawyer representing American Oversight, raised concerns that “these messages are imminent danger of destruction” due to settings within Signal that can be set to delete messages automatically — prompting Judge Boasberg to order the Trump administration file a sworn declaration by this Monday to ensure the messages are preserved.
The lawsuit — which names Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the National Archives as defendants — asked a federal judge to declare the use of Signal unlawful and order the cabinet members to preserve the records immediately, as Signal’s deleting of messages violates governmental record-keeping requirements.
The use of the Signal group chat was revealed Monday by The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who said he was inadvertently added to the chat as top national security officials, including Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, were discussing the military operation.
According to screenshots of the Signal messages published by The Atlantic, the messages were set to disappear after a certain timeframe. Originally, the messages were set to disappear after one week. Then, according to screenshots of the messages published by the magazine, on March 15 — after Hegseth sent the first operational update — the messages were set to disappear after four weeks.
Judge Boasberg declined, for now, to order administration officials to disclose if Signal had been used by the Trump administration in a wider context.
“I don’t think at this point that that’s something that I would be prepared to order,” he said.
On the heels of Trump early Thursday accusing Boasberg on social media of “grabbing the ‘Trump Cases’ all to himself,” the judge began the hearing by providing a detailed description of the D.C. District Court’s automated system for assigning cases, including how each judge is allotted “electronic cards” to ensure cases are fairly distributed.
“That’s how it works, and that’s how all cases continue to be assigned in this course,” Judge Boasberg said.
Boasberg earlier this month temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador without due process, leading the White House to call for his impeachment and publicly attack him as a “Democrat activist” and a “radical left lunatic.”
Lawyers for the Department of Defense, prior to Thursday’s hearing, filed a declaration stating that they have requested that a copy of the Signal messages in question be forwarded to an official DOD account so they can be preserved.
A second declaration, from a lawyer for the Treasury Department, stated that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, along with Bessent’s chief of staff, has retained all messages beginning with Mike Waltz’s messages on March 15.
Trump and other top administration officials have downplayed the use of the Signal to discuss the attack, saying classified information was not shared in the chat, despite the exchange including information on the weapons systems being used and the timing of the strikes.
