Displaced Palestinians crowd with outstretched hands and containers to receive hot meals distributed by aid organizations at the Jabalia Refugee Camp in northern Gaza City, Gaza on April 24, 2025. The ongoing blockade and military assaults by Israel have deepened the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, leaving thousands in urgent need of food assistance. (Photo by Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(GAZA) — Israeli authorities have blocked supplies — including food, medicine and fuel — from entering the Gaza Strip for more than 50 days.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main UN agency operating in Gaza, said they have run out of flour supplies in the region as of April 24 in a situational update. UNRWA has described the current state on the ground as the worst humanitarian crisis since the war began on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after a Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel left more than 1,200 Israelis dead.
With the blockade of supplies in place, Gaza’s population of approximately 2.1 million people faces a crisis of starvation, disease and despair.
“Food, safe water, shelter, and medical care have become increasingly scarce,” UNRWA said in the update, stating prices for basic goods are soaring while bakeries shut down, and hospitals run out of critical medicine and generator fuel.
Children are bearing the brunt of this man-made disaster, aid agencies said.
“My son suffers from malnutrition,” Mona Al-Raqab, mother to 5-year-old Osama Al-Raqab, told ABC News. “There’s nothing available. No eggs, no milk, no food supplies. Meat, poultry — the things that give us strength and energy to keep going.”
Roseline Bolline, a spokesperson for UNICEF, said Osama’s story is becoming common in Gaza given the current state on the ground.
“He is not the only case. There are thousands of children in his situation suffering very badly,” Bolline told ABC News. “This is a horrible, horrific and unbearable — to watch a child suffer like that.”
Hospital admissions for acute malnutrition have surged in recent months, Bolline said.
“In February, there were 2,027 children admitted for acute malnutrition. In March, that number jumped to 3,669. This is an incredible increase,” she said. “Families are going hungry, suffering to provide food for their children. The prices of products have doubled, and many key types of food have disappeared from markets. We are extremely concerned,” Bolline added.
“Food prices have increased by between 29% to as much as 1,400% above pre-ceasefire levels, with many essential items like dairy, eggs, fruits and meat no longer available on the market,” the UN secretary general spokesperson said at a press briefing Thursday in New York.
The situation inside Gaza’s hospitals is also dire, according to humanitarian agencies.
The blockade has prevented critical medical supplies and fuel to power hospital generators from entering Gaza while the Israel Defense Forces have continued bombing areas across the strip since the collapse of the ceasefire in mid-March.
Fifty people were killed, and 152 people were injured over a 24-hour period from April 23 to April 24 in Gaza, the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said in a release Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “pressure on Hamas will continue” in remarks at a Holocaust Remembrance Day rally in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening.
Dr. Ahmed Al Farra, head of the pediatric and obstetrics department at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, said the blockade is hurting civilians the most.
“We are talking about pregnant women and children,” he said. “We are facing a lot of suffering from malnutrition in both categories. According to the World Health Organization, Gaza is currently at the fifth degree of starvation — the worst on the global scale.”
Al Farra described a cascade of medical crises stemming from the lack of access to nutrition and healthcare.
“We are talking about the shortage of milk — normal formula and special formula. Pregnant women are delivering premature, underweight babies. This is catastrophic,” Al Farra said. “People are surviving on expired canned goods that often cause food poisoning. You can’t live on that for a year and a half.”
Despite the conditions, UNRWA staff — numbering around 12,000 local Palestinian workers in Gaza — continue to provide essential services.
They deliver 2,600 cubic meters of water and collect 220 tons of waste daily, according to an UNRWA situational update on April 24.
Six out of 22 UNRWA health centers are operational in Gaza as of April 20, the update from the organization said.
Medical teams are also working in 39 medical points across the strip, the organization added.
UNRWA insists that “nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people” and calls for a renewed ceasefire, the dignified release of the remaining hostages, and unimpeded access for humanitarian and commercial supplies.
Netanyahu and his government say the blockade is part of a strategy to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages being held in Gaza.
Fifty-eight hostages remain in Gaza, with 24 of them believed to still be alive. The other 34 are confirmed dead, but their bodies remain in Gaza.
The UN has called for the end of the blockade.
“Turning to the situation in Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warns that the total blockage of aid and any other supplies — now nearing two months — has led to the depletion of essentials such as fresh food and tents and to the near-exhaustion of other critical supplies for Palestinian civilians,” the UN secretary general spokesperson said at a press briefing on Thursday.
“Children are going hungry. Patients remain untreated. People are dying. It is time to lift those restrictions immediately,” the spokesperson added.
Black smoke streamed from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney to signal that cardinals failed to select a new Pope in their first round of voting in Rome, Italy on April 18, 2005. (Eric VANDEVILLE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
(ROME) — There have been 266 popes in the Catholic Church’s roughly 2,000-year history, which spans three millennia. With the death of Pope Francis, a series of formal events was immediately set into motion to elect the Church’s next Supreme Pontiff.
That storied process is a mix of tradition, pageantry and practical necessity, one that has undergone many changes over the centuries but that has remained largely the same in modern history.
It begins, and ends, with what’s known as the conclave.
With all eyes now on the Vatican, here’s a look at the conclave and its role in electing the next head of the Catholic Church.
What is the conclave?
Simply put, a conclave is the assembly of cardinals that elects a pope. The word itself comes from the Latin “com” and “clavis,” meaning “together” and “key,” respectively – highlighting the absolute, behind-closed-doors secrecy with which the cardinals conduct their discussions and balloting.
The conclave assembles during the interregnum, which is the time period that begins upon the pontiff’s passing and ends with the election of his successor, and generally convenes between 15 and 20 days after the pope’s death. The same period of time, during which the papacy is vacant, is also known as the sede vacante, Latin for “vacant seat.”
A pope’s body usually lies in state for three to five days to allow sufficient time for mourners to pay their respects. The funeral mass and burial must take place between the fourth and sixth day after the pope’s death. Out of respect for the late pope, formal decisions and conversations about the conclave do not begin until after the funeral, but it is safe to say that behind the scenes the cardinal electors and those who quietly would like to be pope have already started to discuss what type of pope the cardinals think best for the role.
What’s a cardinal?
Cardinals are the highest-ranking clergy of the Catholic Church, after the pope. Originally, cardinals were the princes of the papal court. They often came from the powerful families of the Papal States. They wear red as a sign of their willingness to shed their blood for the pope and the Church.
Only the pope can make a clergy member a cardinal and, once appointed, they typically hold that title and position for life. As cardinals, they serve as advisors to the pope regardless of where they reside and often hold elevated positions within the Vatican.
Any member of Catholic clergy can be a cardinal but the appointment is traditionally reserved for high-ranking clergy such as bishops and archbishops. The pope reserves the right to make any member of the church a cardinal, including laity. Francis expanded the College of Cardinals beyond the large dioceses and archdioceses to create geographic and cultural diversity and to better represent the makeup of the laity and where the church is growing.
Selecting a pope as part of the conclave is considered a cardinal’s highest duty. Those who do so are known as cardinal electors.
How many cardinals are in the conclave?
It varies. While all cardinals are summoned to the Vatican upon the pope’s death, only those under the age of 80 are eligible to participate in the conclave. Those aged 80 and older can decline the summons if they wish, since they aren’t allowed to be conclave members.
There are currently 252 cardinals worldwide. The preparatory meetings they have daily during the interregnum are collectively known as the General Congregation. Of the total number of cardinals, 135 are eligible to enter the conclave as cardinal electors. This will be the largest number of cardinals to participate in a conclave.
Who’s in charge of the Vatican during the sede vacante?
The camerlengo, or chamberlain, of the Church runs things during the conclave, including overseeing the conclave itself.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, 77, the senior Vatican official who announced Pope Francis’ death on Monday, April 21, will serve as the interim manager of the Vatican until a new pope is elected, according to Church officials. Pope Francis appointed Farrell as camerlengo in 2019.
Who’s eligible to be elected pope?
Canon law says any unmarried, baptized male Catholic, clergy or not, is eligible to be pope. That said, only cardinals have been elected for the last 600-plus years, so being considered for the position in this case is very much the result of whom you know.
All likely or potential papal candidates are collectively known as “papabile.” Politics and personalities aside, one of the paramount considerations when determining papabile is a candidate’s age.
The ideal papal candidate is between 60 and 70 years old, with the ideal time in office considered to be from 10 to 12 years. If too young a pope is elected, he could end up overseeing and influencing church doctrine for decades, since only death or resignation would end their time in the office. Conversely, if too old a candidate is elected they may have little time to make an impact.
John Paul II, at 58, was young when elected and Francis, at 76, was considered old.
How secret are the conclave’s discussions?
In a word? Very. Balloting takes place in the Sistine Chapel amid a level of security that wouldn’t be out of place in a government situation room. Recording technology of any kind is forbidden, with technicians checking to ensure there are no secretly installed bugs or other like devices inside the Sistine Chapel or adjacent areas. Any handwritten notes cardinals may take during the proceedings are burned after each morning and afternoon session, along with that session’s ballots.
During the conclave, the cardinals reside in private rooms in the Domus Marthae Sanctae, aka Saint Martha’s House – essentially a hotel in the Vatican with dining facilities that typically houses visiting clergy and laity. Conclave members are sworn to absolute secrecy and have minimal contact with the outside world: Televisions, radios, phones, cameras, computers, newspapers and magazines are banned, and no written or verbal correspondence with anyone outside the conclave is allowed. Likewise, the Sistine Chapel, Domus Marthae Sanctae and other areas are off limits during the conclave to everyone other than cardinals and those people who have specific business there, such as service staff, support personnel and physicians.
Also, don’t expect a cardinal to share any inside scoop after balloting is complete and the new pope is elected. That expectation of secrecy continues indefinitely, with only the pope himself possessing the authority to make exceptions.
What is the actual voting process like?
Though wreathed in centuries of elaborate ceremony and tradition, the balloting process itself is straightforward. Each conclave member writes his choice on a paper ballot slip, folds it once in half and carries it held aloft between two fingers as he walks to the altar and deposits it in an special urn placed there that is used only for that purpose. In order to make the balloting secret, conclave members are instructed to write their votes “as far as possible in handwriting that cannot be identified as his.”
Any conclave member who cannot make it in person to the Sistine Chapel due to illness or infirmity will cast their ballot from their room in the Domus Marthae Sanctae, where they’re collected, placed in a lockbox and carried to the Sistine Chapel.
The votes are then counted by three scrutineers who affirm what is written on each ballot and then announce it to the conclave, so the cardinals can record the votes themselves. If the number of ballots cast is different than the number of cardinal electors, those ballots are discarded and burned and a new vote taken.
The candidate who first secures two-thirds of the votes is elected pope.
How long does it take to elect a pope?
A pope could be elected as soon as the first ballot, or the process could continue indefinitely. That said, since 1831 no conclave has lasted more than four days.
Up to four rounds of voting can typically take place in a day. If no clear choice has emerged after three days, balloting is suspended for 24 hours to allow cardinal electors time to reflect. Another seven rounds of balloting then takes place, followed by another break, and so on.
If no pope is elected after 33 or 34 votes – generally about 13 days – then a new rule introduced by Pope Benedict XVI decrees that the two leading candidates as determined by previous ballots engage in a runoff vote. The candidates themselves, if members of the conclave, cannot vote in the runoff but are present for it. Whichever candidate receives the necessary two-thirds majority of the votes is the new pope.
How does the conclave signal that they’ve elected a new pope?
Of all the ceremonies associated with electing a new pope, the one most familiar to the general public is the smoke that emanates from a stovepipe chimney atop the Sistine Chapel after every round of balloting.
Black smoke – fumata nera in Italian – indicates an inconclusive vote, while white smoke – fumata bianca – will signify that a new pope has been elected. Along with the white smoke, the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica will ring to proclaim the event to the world.
However, that ceremonial smoke isn’t created by the burning of the ballots, as commonly believed – that’s done in a stove that dates back to the 1922 conclave and is set up for the occasion in the Sistine Chapel. The smoke that wafts from the chimney is created using chemical pellets that are burned in another stove that’s connected to the stovepipe chimney, which is temporarily erected atop the Sistine Chapel just for that purpose.
When is the pope’s identity publicly revealed?
Assuming the elected cardinal accepts the office, the new pope’s identity is revealed within an hour of the final ballot.
Before he’s presented to the public, the new pope is also asked by what name he will be known. While popes have the option of keeping their baptismal name, every pope for the last 470 years has chosen to change his name, usually to honor a predecessor and to signal their intention to emulate his example. Pope Francis was a notable exception, instead choosing his name to honor St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th century cleric now celebrated in the church as the patron saint of animals and the environment.
The new pope is then attired in temporary vestments prepared in various sizes for the occasion and awaits his formal introduction by the senior cardinal deacon, who stands on the balcony on the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica, overlooking St. Peter’s Square, and declares in Latin: “Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum: habemus papam” – “I announce to you a great joy: We have a pope.”
The new pope then emerges onto the balcony to present himself to the world and deliver his first blessing to the crowd gathered below in St. Peter’s Square.
Although the elected pope immediately has full authority and jurisdiction, a ceremonial mass to install the new pope is held about a week after his election, either in St. Peter’s Square or St. Peter’s Basilica, with cardinals, bishops and other international dignitaries present. Up until the middle of the last century the installation was a coronation with a three-tiered crown.
When does the conclave end?
As soon as the new pontiff has assented to his election, the conclave is over, though the assembled cardinals will remain at the Vatican until the attendant ceremonies are over. In 2013, Francis asked the cardinals to stay in the conclave for an extra day to pray with him.
ABC News’ Phoebe Natanson contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — An alleged leader of violence during the Rwandan genocide in 1994 has been living in an exclusive enclave on Long Island as a beekeeper. He was arrested Thursday and accused of concealing his role in horrific violence and human rights violations by making false statements in his applications for a visa, green card and for U.S. citizenship, according to the Justice Department.
Faustin Nsabumukunzi is charged with visa fraud and attempted naturalization fraud for allegedly lying on his application for a green card and for U.S. citizenship.
Nsabumukunzi was arrested at his home in Bridgehampton and pleaded not guilty Thursday in Islip federal court. He was released on $250,000 bond with home detention and GPS monitoring and will be allowed to keep working as a gardener for a private equity entrepreneur on Long Island who signed his bond.
“As alleged, Nsabumukunzi repeatedly lied to conceal his involvement in the horrific Rwandan genocide while seeking to become a lawful permanent resident and citizen of the United States,” said United States Attorney John Durham. “For over two decades, he got away with those lies and lived in the United States with an undeserved clean slate, a luxury that his victims will never have, but thanks to the tenacious efforts of our investigators and prosecutors, the defendant finally will be held accountable for his brutal actions.”
According to officials, Nsabumukunzi served as a local leader with the title of “Sector Councilor” in Rwanda in 1994 when the genocide began. Between April 1994 and July 1994, members of the majority Hutu population persecuted the minority Tutsis, committing acts of violence, including murder, rape and sexual violence. During the three-month genocide, an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.
According to the indictment, Nsabumukunzi used his leadership position as Sector Councilor to oversee the violence and killings of Tutsis in his local sector of Kibirizi and directed groups of armed Hutus to kill Tutsis. He set up roadblocks during the genocide to detain and kill Tutsis and participated in killings and violence, according to court documents.
Nsabumukunzi allegedly ordered a group of armed Hutus to locations where Tutsis were sheltering, and the Hutus killed them. Nsabumukunzi also allegedly facilitated the rape of Tutsi women by verbally encouraging Hutu men to do so. According to court filings, Nsabumukunzi has been convicted of genocide in absentia by a Rwandan court.
The suspect applied for refugee resettlement in the United States in August 2003 and then applied for and received a green card in November 2007. He later applied for naturalization in 2009 and 2015. Nsabumukunzi allegedly lied to United States immigration officials to gain admission to the United States as a refugee, by falsely denying in the applications under penalty of perjury that he ever engaged in genocide, federal prosecutors said.
He allegedly repeated those lies in his subsequent applications for a green card and for naturalization. Nsabumukunzi has lived and worked in the United States since 2003.
If convicted, Nsabumukunzi faces a maximum of 30 years in prison.
(WASHINGTON) — ABC News has confirmed that in at least two separate meetings Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused top-ranking military officers of leaking to the media and threatened to polygraph them.
According to one person familiar with the exchanges, Hegseth was upset by media reports that he had planned a briefing for Elon Musk on China.
In a meeting with Adm. Christopher Grady, who was serving as then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth yelled “I’ll hook you up to a [expletive] polygraph!”
Hegseth then made a similar threat in a separate meeting with Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, the Joint Staff director, according to the person.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the exchanges.
A spokesperson for the Joint Staff declined to comment.
(BOISE, Idaho) — The trial for the man accused of killing four Idaho college students in their beds will continue as a death penalty case, despite the fact that suspect Bryan Kohberger was recently diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, an Idaho judge ruled late Thursday.
Additionally, Fourth District Judge Steven Hippler came down on the side of prosecutors — ruling that the “bulk” of what was said on a 911 call the morning after Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death in November 2022 can be shared with the jury, as can text messages between the two surviving roommates. There will be a few exceptions, he said.
Kohberger has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary in the murders of the four University of Idaho students. His trial is set to start on Aug. 11 and is expected to last several months.
Autism and the death penalty
Yhe defense attempted to get the death penalty taken off the table on grounds of Kohberger’s autism spectrum disorder, saying that it could make proving his innocence harder. However, in his decision denying the request, Hippler said those concerns could be addressed during jury selection.
“Intellectual impairment — a hallmark of an intellectual disability — is not present in the diagnostic criteria of ASD and no court has ever found the two to be equivalent,” the judge wrote. Kohberger, the judge noted, “has not presented any evidence of a national consensus as to whether the death penalty is a disproportionate punishment for individuals with ASD.”
The judge argued that Kohberger’s lawyers tried to argue with an “apples-to-oranges comparison” of intellectual impairments that ultimately fell flat. And defense lawyers cited no capital case precedent in trying to argue there’s “growing societal sensitivity to mental disorders” and antipathy to executing those who live with them, the judge said.
“No court has ever found ASD to be categorically death-disqualifying diagnosis,” Hippler wrote.
Kohberger may have poor social skills, the judge acknowledged. In fact, Kohberger’s social difficulties, including with personal space, actually “played a role” in his Ph.D. funding being yanked, the judge said, citing a defense expert who interviewed his family, former teachers and peers.
He was never “overtly inappropriate,” but didn’t have a lot of friends — nor insight as to why that might be. He could be rather awkward and “monotone,” using formal and scripted phrases like “Objectively speaking…” and “Mind you…”
But even defense experts did not find him irretrievably impaired, the judge said. Kohberger has an IQ in the 90th percentile for his age, graduated from his master’s degree program with a 4.0 GPA, showed “some typical social behaviors” and could be polite, the judge cited from defense experts.
King Road 911 call
The “bulk” of what was said on the 911 call placed by the surviving roommates of the victims on the morning after they were stabbed to death on Nov. 13, 2022, can be used at trial, Hippler ruled.
He has also ruled in favor of admitting the surviving roommates’ texts to each other, as well as their attempts to reach the victims in those crucial hours the night the killings occurred.
A full breakdown charting out what is and what is not admissible from the call was appended to the end of the judge’s filing.
Explaining why those text messages can be admitted, the judge said that much of it describes what they were seeing, feeling and doing in the moment — and the results of those actions.
“The events are sufficiently startling to both D.M. and B.F for purposes of the excited utterance exception. D.M. and B.F. are young female college students and the self-described ‘scaredy cats of the house,'” the judge wrote. “They were awoken from sleep after a night of drinking with D.M. reporting that she heard noises and saw a masked intruder in their home. None of the other roommates were responding to their calls and texts, further indicating something was amiss.”
“It would be potentially terrifying for anyone, including these young women,” the judge continued. “To argue that they would have run out of the house or called someone else for help had they really been startled unempathetically ignores these circumstances and the trauma and confusion they were evidently experiencing, which likely offset logical thought.”
Among the few items needing redaction is an instance when the person on the phone to the 911 dispatcher describes how one of the roommates had relayed that Xana was “passed out and she was drunk last night and she’s not waking up” and that they “saw some man in their house last night.”
The judge said that person on the call did not have firsthand knowledge and was only telling the dispatcher what they had been told; therefore, that could not be played for the jury.
He also ruled that one of the surviving roommate’s attempts to start a timeline of those early morning hours should be redacted, since it’s not an in-the-moment remark, having come after “several hours to reflect on what she had seen and experienced at 4:00 a.m.”
The latest court filings also provide new information about the moments the surviving roommates came upon the victims, such as when one of them called a friend “to come over and check the house because she was scared.”
The friend and her boyfriend came over and met the two survivors “at the bottom floor of the house,” and together they “started to walk up the stairs to the second floor.”
“When they reached the second floor, H.J. went to the kitchen to grab a kitchen knife. When he came backout, D.M. ‘saw Xana again for a split second. And I just started bawling because I thought she had just like – I don’t even know. I thought maybe she was still just drunk and all asleep on the floor,'” the judge quoted from grand jury transcripts.
“H.J. told D.M. and B.F. to ‘get out,'” the judge quoted. “E.A., who had started up the stairs, also turned around after H.J. instructed her not to come any further. They both went outside.”
“Shortly afterwards, H.J. exited the house and told them to call 911. He was pale white and mentioned something about someone being unconscious,” the judge continued.
Expert witnesses
Siding with prosecutors, the judge ruled Thursday that expert witnesses on a range of fronts will be able to testify.
Those include an FBI special agent who helped analyze Kohberger’s cellphone records — something his lawyers have repeatedly pushed back on.
Defense lawyers said Kohberger was driving around alone on the night the killings occurred, and they wanted to call to the stand a cellphone data expert to back that up. The special agent is expected to counter that data expert’s argument.
Experts also include a forensic accountant for the FBI who can talk about how Kohberger spent his money — including how he only made ATM withdrawals around and after the killings and totally stopped using his debit card just a couple days before the killings — whereas prior, debit card use had been a regular habit.
They also include a supervisor at Amazon.com, expected to speak specifically to Kohberger’s click history and other online shopping data. Prosecutors have alleged that eight months before the killings, Kohberger bought a knife and sheath that could have been the murder weapon.
DNA matching Kohberger’s was found on a KA-BAR knife sheath by one of the victim’s bodies, prosecutors have said — a linchpin in an otherwise largely circumstantial case. No murder weapon has been found.
Prosecutors can also call a detective who can testify that stabbing to death all four students could have been achieved in mere minutes — and that just one person would have needed no help.
“Depending on the suspect’s pace and route, he could have carried out the crimes in approximately two to four minutes,” the judge said in his ruling.
The judge acknowledged that the detective could potentially be called as a rebuttal witness if the defense tries to argue, as they have suggested, that Kohberger’s ASD deficits make it “not possible” for him to have “acted with the speed and coordination required to commit the crimes in the time frame alleged.”
(NEW YORK) — Hours before Luigi Mangione’s arraignment in federal court, federal prosecutors submitted formal notice that they intend to seek the death penalty if he’s convicted, citing, in part his alleged desire “to provoke broad-based resistance to the victim’s industry” by killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione is expected to plead not guilty when he appears Friday for his arraignment on a four-count indictment that charged him, among other things, with murder through the use of a firearm — a death-eligible offense.
Attorney General Pam Bondi already signaled that President Donald’s Trump administration’s intended to execute Mangione as part of the president’s push to reinstate capital punishment.
The “notice of intent to seek the death penalty” is the government’s formal step to inform the court and lay out the reasons.
Federal prosecutors said Mangione deserves the death penalty because of “the impact of the victim’s death upon his family, friends and co-workers.”
They also said “he expressed intent to target an entire industry and rally political and social opposition to that industry, by engaging in an act of lethal violence.”
Prosecutors stated that Mangione’s choice of site and victim made clear he sought “to amplify an ideological message, maximize the visibility and impact of the victim’s murder, and to provoke broad-based resistance to the victim’s industry.”
Defense attorneys have already called the decision to seek the death penalty “barbaric” and a “political stunt.”
(WASHINGTON) — In federal courthouses across the country Thursday, President Donald Trump’s administration faced a series of legal setbacks to implementing the president’s agenda.
On issues ranging from education policy and voting rights to congestion pricing, the series of rulings and developments marked the latest legal setbacks for an administration battling nearly 200 lawsuits in court.
Three separate judges — including two appointed by Trump — blocked the government from withholding federal funds to schools with DEI programs.
In California, a federal judge barred the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions where local police refuse to help with enforcement of federal immigration policy.
After Trump attempted to reshape elections with an executive order last month, a federal judge blocked the government from requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote, saying only Congress has the power to institute such a change.
On immigration issues, the Trump administration is in hot water with multiple judges. A Boston judge is probing whether the Trump administration violated a court order when it removed four alleged members of Tren de Aragua to El Salvador, and a judge in Maryland appointed by the president ordered Wednesday the return of a man deported to El Salvador whose deportation violated a court settlement.
In New York, DOJ lawyers accidentally revealed an internal document acknowledging the shortcomings in their plan to kill congestion pricing.
Friday is set to bring a new legal issue to the forefront, with a federal judge in Boston taking up whether the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education are lawful. The hearing will mark the first time a federal judge has considered the issue since Trump issued an executive order last month directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to shrink the department.
(NEW YORK) — Government lawyers say officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) did not have a warrant for Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest when they took him into custody last month, according to a filing submitted in the case.
Khalil’s lawyers say the admission contradicts what officers told Khalil and his lawyers at the time of his arrest and in a subsequent arrest report.
In the filing, lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security said Khalil, a green card holder and permanent legal resident, was served with a warrant once he was brought into an ICE office in New York after his arrest.
The officers “had exigent circumstances to conduct the warrantless arrest, it is the pattern and practice of DHS to fully process a respondent once in custody with an I-200 (warrant) as part of that intake processing,” government lawyers wrote.
DHS claimed its officers were not required to obtain a warrant for Khalil’s arrest, in part, because they had reasons to believe it was likely “he would escape before they could obtain a warrant.”
In the filing, DHS attorneys said agents approached Khalil inside the foyer of his Columbia-owned apartment building and claimed that, while his wife went to retrieve his identification, Khalil told them he was going to leave the scene.
“The HSI supervisory agent believed there was a flight risk and arrest was necessary,” the filing stated.
Khalil’s lawyers have pushed back on the claim that he was uncooperative with authorities.
In a sworn declaration submitted in court last month, attorney Amy Greer, who was on the phone with Khalil’s wife at the time of his arrest, said an agent at the scene told her they had an administrative warrant.
“I asked the basis of the warrant, and he said the U.S. Department of State revoked Mahmoud’s student visa,” Greer said. “When I told Agent Hernandez that Mahmoud does not have a student visa because he is a green card holder and permanent resident in the U.S., he said DHS revoked the green card, too,” she wrote in the declaration.
Khalil’s lawyers say the warrantless arrest is one of the reasons he should be released.
“That night, I was on the phone with Mahmoud, Noor, and even the arresting agent,” Greer said in a statement. “In the face of multiple agents in plain clothes who clearly intended to abduct him, and despite the fact that those agents repeatedly failed to show us a warrant, Mahmoud remained calm and complied with their orders. Today we now know why they never showed Mahmoud that warrant – they didn’t have one.
The statement went on to say: “This is clearly yet another desperate attempt by the Trump administration to justify its unlawful arrest and detention of human rights defender Mahmoud Khalil, who is now, by the government’s own tacit admission, a political prisoner of the United States.”
An immigration judge earlier this month ruled that Khalil, a leader of Columbia’s encampment protests in the spring of 2024, could be deported on grounds that he threatens foreign policy, as alleged by the Trump administration.
(NEW YORK) — Whooping cough cases are on the rise in the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the week ending April 12, at least 8,064 whooping cough cases have been recorded nationwide. This is more than double the 3,835 cases recorded at the same time last year.
Whooping cough, or pertussis, is especially dangerous for babies and young children, and several deaths have been recorded this year.
In Washington, health officials confirmed a death in a child under age 5, which is the first in the state since 2011. In Louisiana, two young infants have died from whooping within the past seven months. In Idaho, officials reported an adult resident died from whooping cough in February 2025.
“Last year, the United States had about 35,000 cases of pertussis and about 10 deaths, give or take,” Chad Neilsen, head of infection control and prevention for Nemours Children’s Health in Florida, told ABC News. “If we continue this pace, we’ll have close to 70,000 cases of pertussis, making it one of the worst years we’ve seen in the U.S. in quite some time.”
If that occurs, it would be the highest number of whooping cough cases recorded since 1950, CDC data shows.
Whooping cough cases have been recorded in all 50 states, according to Nielsen, who believes the increase in cases is due to a decline in vaccination rates.
A vaccine for whooping cough was introduced in the late 1940s and the number of cases each year has since dropped dramatically, decreasing more than 90% compared to the pre-vaccine era.
Before the vaccine, there were an estimated 200,000 cases annually among children and up to 9,000 children died, according to the CDC.
There are two types of vaccines used today to protect against whooping cough: diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTaP) vaccine for babies and children younger age 7 and tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) vaccines for children aged 7 and older, adults and pregnant women.
However, vaccination rates have been declining. According to a 2024 provisional CDC report, more than 7% of children between 6 months old and 6 years old who developed whooping cough were unvaccinated. This is much higher than any figure recorded since at least 2021.
Additionally, only 92.3% of kindergarteners were vaccinated against whooping cough in the 2023-24 school year, compared to about 95% before the COVID-19 pandemic began, CDC data shows.
“We think [the lack of vaccinations] is probably the primary driver of these cases right now in the U.S.,” Neilsen said.
He said he believes the reasons for the drop in vaccination rates include misinformation about the safety and efficacy of vaccines as well as vaccine fatigue leftover from the pandemic.
These bacteria attach to the cilia in the upper respiratory system and release toxins. The toxins damage the cilia, tiny, hair-like structures found on the surface of cells, and cause the upper airways to swell, according to the CDC.
Whooping cough is spread from person-to-person through coughing and sneezing. Infected people can be contagious for weeks without knowing they have whooping cough.
Early symptoms often resemble a common cold — runny nose, cough and low-grade fever — and typically last for one to two weeks. Symptoms, however, can progress to rapid, violent cough coughing fits that can last up to 12 weeks.
Infants under age one, pregnant women and immunocompromised people are at highest risk, but anybody can develop the condition.
Babies who contract whooping cough may have a cold-like illness, struggle to breathe or have apnea, the CDC said.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics and receiving treatment early can reduce the severity of the infection. Most whooping cough symptoms can be managed at home, according to the CDC.
To drive vaccination rates up, Neilsen said it’s important to explain the seriousness of whooping cough to the public.
“Pertussis, like measles, are not just run-of-the-mill diseases,” he said. “These can cause harm … to some of our youngest people. These are diseases that children get [and] they become extremely ill.”
He said the other important thing is to address the concerns of vaccine-hesitant parents, educating them on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.
Nielsen added that people may have forgotten how contagious or life-threatening whooping cough is because of how effective the vaccine has been at reducing cases.
“We’ve got new doctors who have never seen measles, they’ve never seen pertussis,” Neilsen said. “It was only something they saw on textbooks. The vaccines were so successful.
ABC News Youri Benadjaoud contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — For years, President Donald Trump has blasted politically damaging reporting by The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg as fake, made-up.
His most recent criticism has been over Goldberg’s bombshell story about a Signal chat he was accidentally invited to, one that included top members of Trump’s national security team, conversing about an impending military attack on Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
Now, in a surprise twist, Trump said he would speak face-to-face with Goldberg on Thursday after claiming on Truth Social that Goldberg, along with The Atlantic writers Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, would sit down with him for an interview.
“The story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, “The Most Consequential President of this Century,” he said.
Goldberg and The Atlantic have not commented about Trump’s post or the alleged meeting as of Thursday afternoon.
Although the president claimed Goldberg was “responsible for many fictional stories about me,” he said he is looking forward to the meeting.
“I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be ‘truthful,'” Trump posted. “Are they capable of writing a fair story on ‘TRUMP’? The way I look at it, what can be so bad.”
Goldberg and Trump have had a contentious back-and-forth going since the president’s 2016 campaign, when the journalist criticized Trump’s rhetoric.
“At the very least, he traffics in racial invective knowingly. To me, that’s a threshold question. If you do that and if you know what you’re doing then, yes, you’re a racist. I think he’s a racist,” he said in a 2016 NPR interview.
Trump criticized The Atlantic’s coverage of his campaign and first term, but things heated up in 2020 after Goldberg wrote an article that described a 2018 incident in which president reportedly refused to visit an American cemetery in France where World War I service members were buried.
“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers,” Trump told his advisers, according to the article. It also said Trump called fallen Marines “suckers.”
The president heatedly denied he had used those terms on what was then Twitter and went after Goldberg’s sources. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, later confirmed Goldberg’s account in an interview with CNN.
In Trump’s Thursday post, he brought up that story and claimed it was a “made-up HOAX.”
Goldberg became the target of the president’s ire again last month after he revealed he was inadvertently invited to the Signal chat that consisted of several top U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, in which they discussed plans for the March 15 military attack against Houthis in Yemen ahead of the airstrike occurring.
Trump and White House officials slammed Goldberg, claiming his reporting was biased.
“He is, as you know, is a sleaze bag, but at the highest level. His magazine is failing,” Trump said of Goldberg on March 26 during an appearance on the “VINCE Show” podcast.
Goldberg has repeatedly defended his reporting on the scandal.
“They’ve decided to blame the guy who they invited into the conversation. It’s a little bit strange behavior,” he told ABC News in March. “Honestly, I don’t know why they’re acting like this except to think that they’re — they know how serious a national security breach it is. And so they have to deflect it and push it onto the guy, again, they invited into the chat — namely me.”
