The US Treasury building in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Wednesday is Tax Day, the last day of this year’s tax season, and the average refund for filers is up 11% compared to last year’s filing season, according to new Treasury Department data.
The average refund this filing season is “over $3,400,” the Treasury Department data said.
The data, which is as of Tuesday, also showed that “over 53 million filers claimed at least one of President Trump’s signature new tax cuts,” which includes provisions from Trump’s sweeping legislation that was passed last year.
Treasury has also announced that more than 5 million filers have opened so-called Trump Accounts for children who were eligible under the law.
“Treasury and the IRS have worked tirelessly to ensure our tax system works for the people it is meant to serve,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a press release on Wednesday. “From the shop floor to the kitchen table, taxpayers are feeling the difference of the largest tax cuts in our nation’s history, and millions of Americans are keeping more of what they earn and seeing their paychecks go further than ever before.”
Over 25 million filers have claimed No Tax on Overtime, with an average deduction of over $3,100, the department’s data noted, while more than 30 million seniors have claimed the Enhanced Deduction for Seniors, with an average deduction of over $7,500.
The data also showed that more than 105 million filers have claimed the permanently doubled standard deduction — the specific dollar amount that reduces the amount of income on which people are taxed.
The Hookers’ boat, “Soulmate,” is seen in Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, April 8, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Cadaver dogs are heading to help with the search for Lynette Hooker, an American woman who’s missing in the Bahamas, according to police.
The K-9 team from the U.S. Coast Guard will be on the ground in Hope Town on Wednesday morning, Advardo Dames, assistant commissioner of the Royal Bahamas Police, told ABC News.
Lynette Hooker has been missing since she went overboard on a dinghy on the evening of April 4.
When the 55-year-old Michigan woman and her husband, Brian Hooker, departed Hope Town on the Abaco Islands for their yacht, Soulmate, in Elbow Cay, bad weather caused her to fall off the dinghy, her husband told authorities.
Brian Hooker, 58, was arrested on April 8 and questioned by police. He was released on Monday without charges.
Brian Hooker told ABC News on Tuesday that he’s staying in the Bahamas with a “sole focus” of finding his wife, “no matter how likely or unlikely that is.”
He said he was planning “to go back to the boat, and then hire or beg people to help me go find some areas to search.”
Brian Hooker’s attorney did not allow him to answer questions about what happened the night his wife went overboard due to the pending investigation.
When asked if there was anything he wishes he’d done differently, Brian Hooker was emotional, saying, “I will always think there was something I could have done differently. My one job, my one job was to look out for her, and that has not happened. And I’m gonna keep looking out for her now, the best I can.”
ABC News’ Brian Andrews contributed to this report.
Near-Earth asteroid Apophis is a potentially hazardous asteroid that will safely pass close to Earth on April 13, 2029. It will come about 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) from our planet’s surface — closer than the distance of many satellites in geosynchronous orbit (about 22,236 miles, or 36,000 kilometers, in altitude). (NASA)
(NEW YORK) — A rare asteroid will soon be visible to the naked eye in a rare celestial event, according to astronomers.
Asteroid 99942 Apophis – named after the Egyptian deity of chaos, darkness and fire – is expected to safely pass close to Earth on April 13, 2029, according to NASA.
The asteroid will pass within roughly 20,000 miles of Earth – nearly 12 times closer than the moon’s average distance from Earth, and closer than many satellites in geosynchronous orbit – making it one one of the closest approaches ever recorded for an object if its size and a “very rare event,” according to NASA.
The approach will be visible to observers on the ground in the Eastern Hemisphere, weather permitting, according to NASA. It will be close enough that sky-watchers won’t need a telescope or binoculars to see it, astronomers say.
When Apophis was first discovered in 2004, it was labeled a potentially hazardous asteroid because of the possibility that it could impact Earth in 2029, 2036 or 2068, according to NASA.
After closely tracking the asteroid and its orbit using optical telescopes and ground-based radar, astronomers are now confident that there is no risk of Apophis impacting Earth for at least 100 years.
The Earth’s gravitational pull could change the asteroid’s orbit around the sun as it passes in 2029, making the orbit slightly larger or the orbital period slightly longer, but the risk of impact with Earth will remain the same, NASA says. Its close passage will also afford astronomers around the world the opportunity to learn more about the asteroid.
Apophis is the Greek name for the Egyptian god known as Apep. The name was proposed by the astronomers who discovered the asteroid: Roy Tucker, David Tholen and Fabrizio Bernardi of the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona.
The asteroid is a relic of the early solar system from about 4.6 billion years ago, made of leftover raw material that was never part of a planet or moon, according to NASA. Though its exact size and shape is unknown, it has a mean diameter of about 1,115 feet and a long axis of at least 1,480 feet.
Apophis’ surface is weathered due to eons of exposure to space weather, including solar wind and cosmic rays, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Observatories around the world and in space will observe the asteroid’s historic approach to Earth in order to better understand its physical properties.
NASA has redirected a spacecraft to rendezvous with Apophis shortly after its close approach in 2029, while the European Space Agency is sending a spacecraft to study it.
When the April 2029 flyby occurs, Apophis will become a member of the “Apollo” group, the family of asteroids that cross Earth’s orbit but that themselves have orbits around the sun that are wider than the Earth’s, according to the ESA.
he Terrorism Containment Center (CECOT) maximum security prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023. (Camilo Freedman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday halted a criminal contempt inquiry into former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials for last year’s deportation of more than 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, marking the second time in less than a year that the probe has been frozen.
A divided panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered an end to the inquiry, concluding that the probe into whether the officials knowingly defied a court order with the deportations “encroaches on the autonomy” of the executive branch.
The Trump administration, in March 2025, invoked the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to deport two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order and ordered that the planes be turned around, but Justice Department attorneys said his oral instructions directing the flight to be returned were defective, and the deportations proceeded as planned.
Boasberg subsequently sought contempt proceedings against the government for deliberately defying his order, and had concluded that “probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt” — but his inquiry was frozen by the same appeals court last year.
When Boasberg attempted to continue with his probe within the confines of the court’s order, the Trump administration filed an interlocutory appeal to stop the investigation outright.
“The district court proposes to probe high-level Executive Branch deliberations about matters of national security and diplomacy,” Judge Neomi Rao, one of two Trump appointees on the panel who ruled in favor of the government, wrote in Tuesday’s order. “These proceedings are a clear abuse of discretion, as the district court’s order said nothing about transferring custody of the plaintiffs and therefore lacks the clarity to support criminal contempt based on the transfer of custody.”
Judge J. Michelle Childs dissented from the majority and argued that Boasberg should have the latitude to proceed with basic fact-finding into the deportations.
“There is no question that there could be much to fear in a factual inquiry about the actions of potential contemnors who may have defied a court order. However, that does not mean that this court must intervene to end a criminal case before it begins, even for the Executive Branch,” she wrote.
In a sharply worded dissent, she argued that “the fate of our democratic republic” depends on whether courts can properly investigate and punish contempt.
“Without the contempt power, the rule of law is an illusion, a theory that stands upon shifting sands,” she said.
Olivia Troye, former national security official under the Trump administration, speaks during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, US, on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence who was among the highest-profile Trump administration officials to become a vocal critic of the president during his first term, is launching a bid for Congress as a Democrat in Virginia.
Troye served as Pence’s homeland security adviser but spoke out against President Donald Trump over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and has since become a fierce critic of Trump. She also spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention as one of the Republicans supporting then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid.
“They sent MAGA after me. Tried to bankrupt me. Threatened to kill me. They thought they could silence me. They obviously don’t know me very well,” Troye said in a video released by her campaign.
“In 2024, nothing could keep me from telling the truth on the stage of the Democratic National Convention. Because I believe in fighting for what’s right — for those who can’t fight for themselves. That’s why I’m a Democrat and that’s why I’m running for Congress.”
A press release from her campaign says that Troye is set to run in the “new proposed seventh district” in Virginia. That refers to the district lines in a new congressional map proposed by Democrats; voters are deciding in an April 21 statewide ballot measure vote in Virginia if the Democratic-controlled legislature should be allowed to implement it.
The current 7th district is represented by Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman, although under the proposed map Vindman would be in the new 1st district. Troye’s campaign says she is working on helping the measure pass, but would not mount a primary challenge to Vindman if it does not.
Multiple other notable candidates such as former Virginia First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe, former federal prosecutor JP Cooney, and state Delegate Dan Helmer are also running for the proposed 7th district.
Severe weather outlook for Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — More than 50 million people across the Midwest are bracing for severe weather on Tuesday, a day after baseball-sized hail and multiple tornadoes were reported in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Kansas.
The threat of damaging storms has shifted slightly south from where strong winds blew the roofs off several buildings on Monday, including the collapse of a nursing home roof in Lodi, Wisconsin.
A level 3 out of 5 “enhanced risk” for severe storms is in place on Tuesday for parts of Iowa, southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois, far northern Indiana, far northwestern Ohio and southern Michigan. Strong tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail are possible for parts of the Midwest on Tuesday, including the cities of Chicago, Milwaukee, Des Moines, Iowa and Detroit.
A level 3 out of 5 “enhanced risk” for severe storms is also in place on Tuesday for parts of central Oklahoma. Some tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail are possible for parts of the south-central Plains on Tuesday, including Oklahoma City.
A widespread area from the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas to the U.S.-Canadian border in Michigan is under the threat of slightly less severe storms on Tuesday.
Tornadoes, especially in Oklahoma, are possible, along with large hail and damaging winds.
In the Northeast, there is also a chance for severe storms in parts of the region on Tuesday, with damaging wind gusts expected from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire, including the cities of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Binghamton and Albany, New York, and Burlington, Vermont.
The storms are expected to pop up in the Northeast sometime after 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday and continue into the evening.
The severe weather comes after destructive storms hit on Monday in parts of rural Minnesota, Wisconsin and Kansas.
At least 14 tornadoes were reported on Monday across Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.
The sheriff’s office in Franklin County, Kansas, reported that three people suffered minor injuries when a suspected tornado touched down in Ottawa, Kansas.
Video taken by ABC Kansas City affiliate station, KMBC, showed the roofs ripped off several buildings in the Ottawa area, including a motel in the city.
In nearby Hillsdale, Kansas, in Miami County, more than 50 homes were damaged by a suspected tornado, according to the Red Cross, which was providing support for displaced families.
On Wednesday, severe storms are expected to be in place from Oklahoma, including Oklahoma City and Tulsa, to southern Wisconsin. Parts of Kansas, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Ohio, including the cities of Pittsburgh and Cleveland, could also be in the path of severe weather on Wednesday.
In Michigan, heavy rains over the past few days, combined with snow melt, caused flooding on Monday when several rivers, including the Manistee River in northwest Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, overflowed, officials said. Several roads and bridges were washed away in the flood and some homes were damaged by the floodwaters, authorities said.
The Manistee River, near Sherman, Michigan, reached a new record level on Monday and was still rising early Tuesday morning as heavy rain continued to fall. The river has surpassed 18 feet, topping its previous record of 16.9 feet set in April 2014, authorities said.
Residents living downstream from two Michigan dams were advised to evacuate after seepage was found at the base of the Bellaire Dam in Antrim County. The Cheboygan Dam in Cheboygan County, near Lake Huron, was at risk of failing, authorities said Monday night.
Rain in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is expected to taper off on Tuesday afternoon, but another round of thunderstorms is expected to bring more rain to the area on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, increasing the flooding threat and adding pressure to the Bellaire and Cheboygan dams.
The Hookers’ boat, “Soulmate,” is seen in Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, April 8, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Brian Hooker, whose wife was reported missing in the Bahamas after going overboard on a dinghy, told ABC News he is staying on the island with his “sole focus” on finding her.
Lynette Hooker, 55, of Michigan, has been missing for over a week. She and Brian Hooker, 58, had departed Hope Town on the Abaco Islands for their yacht, Soulmate, in Elbow Cay around 7:30 p.m. on April 4, when bad weather caused Lynette Hooker to fall overboard, her husband told authorities.
Brian Hooker was arrested on Wednesday and questioned by police. He was released on Monday without charges.
Hooker described being in police custody as “hell.”
“It was a little different chapter of hell in a giant hell that I’m in,” he said, overcome with emotion.
He told ABC News on Tuesday morning that he will stay in the Bahamas until his visa runs out.
He said his “only focus is to go back to the boat, and then hire or beg people to help me go find some areas to search.”
“I want you to know Lynette and I loved each other the most — we’ve been together almost half our lives,” Brian Hooker said. “My sole focus is finding Lynette, no matter how likely or unlikely that is. This search for Lynette has been interrupted by the investigation. I understand that investigations have to take place, but I’m going as soon as I can to start finding Lynette.”
Brian Hooker’s attorney did not allow him to answer questions about what happened the night his wife went overboard due to the pending investigation.
When asked if there was anything he wishes he’d done differently, Brian Hooker was emotional, saying, “I will always think there was something I could have done differently. My one job, my one job was to look out for her, and that has not happened. And I’m gonna keep looking out for her now, the best I can.”
“I’m going to keep going. I’m not leaving until I’m told to leave or convinced that it’s fruitless,” he said.
U.S. President Donald Trump walks to Air Force One on April 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. President Trump is traveling to Florida. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Monday that a U.S. naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz has begun, a new development in the now seven-week war after peace talks failed over the weekend.
Taking questions from reporters outside the Oval Office, Trump was asked what he hoped to achieve from the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports: Is it to force Iran back to the negotiating table or to reopen the critical waterway and bring down oil prices?
“Maybe everything,” Trump responded. “Both of those things, certainly, and more.”
“We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world, because that’s what they’re doing,” he continued. “They’re really blackmailing the world. We’re not going to let that happen.”
Earlier Monday, Trump threatened any Iranian ships that come close to the new U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, writing they will be “ELIMINATED.”
Trump said while Iran’s navy has been “obliterated” by U.S. attacks, any smaller ships that near the U.S. barricade will be wiped out “using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea.”
“It is quick and brutal,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform.
Iran has warned of consequences if the security of Iranian ports is threatened, with a spokesman for the country’s joint military command saying “no port in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman will be safe.”
There are many outstanding questions about how the U.S. blockade will work and what impact it will have on the conflict.
Trump first said the U.S. would block “any and all Ships” trying to enter or leave the strait, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and gas supplies typically passes.
U.S. Central Command, however, said the blockade will be enforced against any ships entering Iranian ports or coastal areas but clarified its forces “will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.”
Abroad, some U.S. allies have said they won’t back Trump’s Hormuz blockade.
“We’re not supporting the blockade,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told BBC radio in an interview Monday morning.
French President Emmanuel Macron said France and the U.K. will instead organize a “peaceful multinational mission” aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the strait.
Trump on Monday was asked if he expected other countries to assist in the U.S. naval blockade.
“We don’t need other countries, frankly. But they’ve offered their services,” Trump said, though when asked Trump did not list any specific countries. “We’ll let it be known, probably tomorrow.”
At home, Trump faces potential political backlash over rising gas prices. Americans are now paying on average more than $4 for a gallon of gas, according to data from AAA.
Trump, in an interview with Fox News on Sunday, conceded that energy prices may not fall by the November midterm elections, and that they could even be “maybe a little bit higher.”
The U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz comes after peace talks between the U.S. and Tehran in Islamabad on Saturday ended with no resolution. Vice President JD Vance, who led the U.S. delegation, said the U.S. needed a firm commitment from Iran that it would not seek a nuclear weapon.
Trump on Monday echoed that the sticking point was the enrichment question.
“Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “And we agreed to a lot of things, but they didn’t agree to that. And I think they will agree to it. I’m almost sure of it. In fact, I am sure of it. If they don’t agree, there’s no deal. There’ll never be a deal. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump on Monday said the “right people” in Iran still want to reach an agreement.
“We’ve been called this morning by the right people, the appropriate people, and they want to work a deal,” Trump said.
ABC News’ Zoe Magee and Nicholas Kerr contributed to this report.
In this June 2, 2019, file photo, a sign marking the spot of the Stonewall National monument is shown in Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York. (Epics via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration on Monday agreed to fly the rainbow pride flag on federal grounds at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City after the National Park Service’s removal of the flag was challenged in a federal lawsuit filed by a coalition of LGBTQ+ advocacy groups.
The Department of the Interior, which oversees NPS, agreed to fly the flag at the site as part of a resolution to the lawsuit filed on Feb. 17 by the Gilbert Baker Foundation, Village Preservation and Equality New York.
The site became the first federal monument dedicated to LGBTQ+ rights in 2016. The pride flag was permanently installed at the site during the Biden administration in 2021, but was removed by NPS in early February.
The move drew sharp criticism from a group of local lawmakers, officials and LGBTQ+ advocates, who rallied at the site on Feb. 12 and installed their own pride flag there to replace the one removed by the government. As the lawsuit moved forward, NPS did not remove the flag that was installed by advocates.
According to court documents, NPS agreed that the pride flag will fly at the site alongside the American flag and the NPS flag.
The Gilbert Baker Foundation, which is named after the artist who created the pride flag in 1978, celebrated the lawsuit’s resolution and the government’s agreement to fly the flag at the monument.
“The Rainbow Flag is more than a symbol — it is a global emblem of hope, visibility, and the ongoing struggle for equality,” Charles Beal, president of the Gilbert Baker Foundation, said in a statement announcing the agreement. “Its presence at Stonewall, the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, is both historically and culturally indispensable. Restoring the flag affirms the truth of our history and the legitimacy of our continued fight for dignity and inclusion.”
ABC News reached out to the Interior Department and NPS for comment.
The NPS communications office confirmed the removal of the rainbow flag in a statement to ABC News in February. It said that, under federal guidance, “only the U.S. flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions.”
“Any changes to flag displays are made to ensure consistency with that guidance. Stonewall National Monument continues to preserve and interpret the site’s historic significance through exhibits and programs,” the statement continued.
The monument is located near the Stonewall Inn, a historic gay bar in the neighborhood that was a safe haven for many in the LGBTQ+ community in the 1960s. The bar was raided by the NYPD in 1969, leading to riots that became known as the Stonewall Uprising, which is credited with kickstarting the modern LGBTQ+ movement. The NYPD publicly apologized for the raid in 2019.
(SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.) — A Texas man has been charged with traveling to California to allegedly throw a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman‘s house, according to court records unsealed on Monday.
The suspect, Daniel Moreno-Gama, was allegedly caught on video surveillance outside the CEO’s home in San Francisco, according to court records.
Around 4 a.m. Friday, the suspect allegedly “threw an incendiary destructive device” at Altman’s house, which sparked a fire on an exterior gate, San Francisco police said. No one was injured, police said.
The suspect was arrested about an hour later outside OpenAI’s headquarters, where he was allegedly threatening to burn down the building, according to police.
Moreno-Gama, who allegedly had kerosene in his backpack, was seen trying to hit the building’s glass with a chair, according to court documents.
Federal prosecutors said they also found a document in which Moreno-Gama allegedly expressed anti-AI-executive sentiments.
He allegedly had a list of names and addresses of apparent board members and chief executive officers of AI companies and investors.
“MORENO-GAMA stated he “killed /attempted to kill” Victim-1,” court documents said. “MORENO-GAMA also wrote, ‘Also if I am going to advocate for others to kill and commit crimes, then I must lead by example and show that I am fully sincere in my message.'”
In a separate incident, two people have been arrested for allegedly firing shots at Altman’s house on Sunday morning, police said.
