(WASHINGTON) — The search for four U.S. Army soldiers who went missing during a scheduled training exercise near Pabradė, Lithuania, has shifted from rescue to recovery mission, according to Lithuania’s minister of defense.
The soldiers, who are all based in Fort Stewart, Georgia, went missing on Tuesday, the Army said, and the M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle the soldiers were operating at the time was found submerged in water in a training area on Wednesday.
“Most likely, the M88 drove into the swamp,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene told ABC News via phone on Thursday. “It has the capacity to swallow large objects … this vehicle, weighing up to 70 tons, may have just gone diagonally to the bottom.”
The vehicle may be 5 meters below the surface, Sakaliene said.
Crews are pushing through “a mix of muddy water and sludge” amid the “complicated” recovery, Sakaliene said.
“Hundreds of people are working around the clock — American armed forces, our rescue services and private companies,” Sakaliene said. “We have helicopters in the air, divers, firefighters, canal excavation machines — hundreds and hundreds of people.”
“Our Army divers are there, but even they are struggling,” Sakaliene said.
“We’ve narrowed the location down … but we still have to keep digging,” she said. “We brought a huge, long-range excavation machine and a canal cleaner to move the mud and water. Then we have to hook the vehicle, drag it out and see if there are bodies or materials inside.”
The search is also taking longer because the area is dangerous; a high-pressure gas pipeline runs under the ground where the Army vehicle sunk, Sakaliene said.
“We had to depressurize it before bringing in heavy equipment,” Sakaliene said. “We had to build a kind of alley, so the heavy machines could come through safely.”
Sakaliene said the Lithuanians will 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.”
(LONDON) — Multiple people are dead and nearly two dozen injured after a tourism submarine crashed in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, officials said.
The crash occurred Thursday morning, less than a mile off the coast of Hurghada, during an underwater excursion to see the coral reef, according to the Russian consulate in Hurghada.
Six people — all Russian nationals — were killed, according to the Red Sea Gov. Gen. Amr Hanafy.
Twenty-three people were transported to area hospitals with injuries including wounds, bruises, sprains and shortness of breath, according to the governor. Four of the patients were in intensive care, he said.
The submarine was carrying 50 people total at the time, according to Hanafy. There were 45 tourists of various nationalities — including Russian, as well as Indian, Norwegian and Swedish — and five Egyptian crew members, he said.
Local authorities are investigating the cause of the accident and are in communication with the crew, Hanafy said.
The submarine is owned by an Egyptian national and held a valid license and necessary certifications, according to Hanafy.
Hurghada is a popular tourist destination for beachgoers along the Red Sea and is well known for its scuba diving and snorkeling.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Morgan Winsor and Nasser Atta contributed to this report.
Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Stephanie Gonzalez says she and her family have endured “heartbreak” since the deportation of her parents, 55-year-old Gladys and 59-year-old Nelson Gonzalez.
“They really did not deserve to be treated as criminals,” Stephanie Gonzalez, 27, told ABC News on Wednesday, describing how she and her sisters, 23-year-old Gabriella and 33-year-old Jessica, have been “devastated” as their parents, who possess no criminal records and have lived in the United States for 35 years, have been transported like “animals” and placed in “inhumane” conditions.
Stephanie Gonzalez said her parents were arrested and detained on Feb. 21 after a routine supervision appointment. That day, Gladys Gonzalez was initially granted a one-year extension to stay in America, prompting her daughter to think that “everything’s gonna be fine, like it always is.”
A few hours later, however, Nelson Gonzalez called to inform the family he was being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and that Gladys’ extension was revoked and she was being detained as well.
“They separated them in separate rooms. They were in rooms alone for hours with no food,” Stephanie Gonzalez said. “They had handcuffed them from their hands or from their wrists and from their ankles.”
She added that it is jarring for her parents to be “treated like criminals,” especially since they had “never, ever been in trouble with the law.”
ICE confirmed to ABC News that Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez do not have criminal records and have been deported to Colombia.
It noted that its “routine operations” involve arresting people who commit crimes as well as “other individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws.”
Stephanie Gonzalez said her parents were transported to detention facilities in different states without knowing where they were going and that she and her sisters had no way of tracking them, calling it “a mess.”
“It baffles my mind how they’re treating people this way,” she said, adding that it’s “so cruel” that they were “literally moving them around like animals.”
Stephanie Gonzalez also said her parents had no way of finding each other while in custody — they just happened to be on the same plane back to Colombia.
“When they got on the plane, everyone started clapping because they knew that they had been reunited after so long,” she said, smiling at this “really sweet moment” among the deportees. She added that she feels relieved they are now together in Colombia.
Nelson and Gladys Gonzalez came to America in 1989, seeking asylum from violence in Colombia, their daughter said.
They then faced multiple instances of “fraudulent” lawyers, she said, including one who wasn’t even an attorney and others who ended up disbarred, consequently preventing the proper citizenship paperwork from being filed. Stephanie Gonzalez described this as “so discouraging when you’re trying so hard … to do the right thing.”
An ICE spokesperson said in a statement that Nelson and Gladys Gonzalez “illegally entered the United States” in 1989. After they appeared before an immigration judge who found “no legal basis” for them to remain in the U.S., ICE said the couple was granted a “voluntary departure” with a final removal in 2000.
Stephanie Gonzalez confirmed that her parents were faced with a voluntary deportation day in 2000, but she added that they subsequently spent over 20 years filing appeals. Though her parents’ cases were closed in 2021, Stephanie Gonzalez said they were instructed simply to continue showing up to their supervision appointments and check in with the appropriate authorities.
During these supervision visits, Nelson and Gladys Gonzalez consistently got approved to stay in the U.S., though the time frame almost always varied, she continued.
“Sometimes, they would get three months. One time, they got one month. One time, I think they got almost three years where they didn’t have to appear before immigration,” Stephanie Gonzalez recounted.
“I think it just shows how broken the immigration system is because there was no set rule,” she said, adding that her family always hoped for a “really nice officer.”
Prior to the supervision visit in February that resulted in her parents’ deportation, Stephanie Gonzalez said she and her sisters “weren’t necessarily nervous” because they had been accustomed to “getting good news that they could stay in the country.”
“When I realized that they had gotten arrested and I wasn’t going to even be able to say goodbye, it was awful,” she said. “The fact that I couldn’t even hug them and just … feel their bodies — like it was really hard on me and my sisters.”
Stephanie Gonzalez said her parents offered to self-deport and pay for their own flights to preserve their “dignity” but the government refused.
She said not only do Stephanie and her sisters now have to grieve their parents’ absence but they are also left to settle their parents’ affairs and belongings, causing the situation to feel “like somebody died.”
Stephanie Gonzalez said it has been difficult given how close-knit her family is, especially as she and her sister Gabriella lived with their parents in an apartment in Orange County, California. She also expressed sadness that her parents cannot spend time with Jessica’s 7-month-old son, their first grandchild.
Her mother was the baby’s primary caretaker, and Gabriella had to quit her job to watch after him once their mother was no longer able to, Stephanie Gonzalez added.
Nelson Gonzalez was a certified phlebotomist who drew blood and conducted life insurance exams, his daughter said. He was also a part-time Uber driver, even working overnight to make extra money, with Stephanie Gonzalez emphasizing what immigrants like her parents “contribute to society.”
She expressed a desire for the public to change the narrative around immigrants, emphasizing that her parents are “hardworking people. … They’ve paid taxes. They’ve raised us three to follow the law. … They love America.”
Stephanie Gonzalez and her sisters started a GoFundMe page, which has raised over $75,000.
She noted that she feels “devastated” to hear “so many parents being taken from their kids, families being separated and broken apart.”
“That is something that should break people’s hearts,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — Some U.S. states could be treated to a northern lights display thanks to a minor geomagnetic storm on the sun, according to space forecasts.
Another round of aurora borealis is expected on Thursday night, with a predicted Kp index of magnitude four out of nine, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center.
The northernmost states in the U.S. have the highest chances of seeing the northern lights, including Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, NOAA’s aurora viewline map shows.
In October, the sun’s magnetic field reached its solar maximum in its 11-year cycle, according to NASA. When sunspots produce a solar flare, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are bursts of magnetized plasma emitted from the sun’s corona, travel toward Earth as part of the solar wind, manifesting in a dazzling light show of luminous greens and pinks as the material interacts with Earth’s magnetic field.
The lead-up to the solar maximum resulted in the best northern lights display in 500 years in May, when a series of powerful solar storms made the lights visible as far south as Alabama.
Another strong geomagnetic storm in November made the auroras visible even in light-polluted cities like New York City.
Sunspots with intense magnetic activity are predicted to occur through the end of the solar maximum, which is expected to last until March 2026, according to NOAA.
The best times to view the northern lights are in the hours just before and after midnight, between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time, according to NOAA.
Smartphones and digital cameras are more sensitive to the array of colors and can capture the light shows even if they’re not visible to the naked eye, NASA says.
If you’re curious whether the northern lights will be visible where you live, the citizen science platform Aurorasaurus allows users to sign up for alerts. The app also sends alerts that northern lights are being seen in real time, based on user reports.
(TUSCALOOSA, Ala.) — Federal immigration agents have detained a University of Alabama doctoral student who is a citizen of Iran, according to the school and ICE records.
Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student from Iran studying mechanical engineering, is currently being held in a detention facility, but ICE records do not list where he is being held.
The reason for his detention was not immediately clear.
“The University of Alabama recently learned that a doctoral student has been detained off campus by federal immigration authorities,” the university said in a statement. “Federal privacy laws limit what can be shared about an individual student. International students studying at the University are valued members of the campus community, and International Student and Scholar Services is available to assist international students who have questions.”
“UA has and will continue to follow all immigration laws and cooperate with federal authorities,” it said.
It was not immediately clear whether he had secured legal representation.
Doroudi’s Linkedin page says he is a “trained metallurgy engineer with over ten years of academic experience in Materials Science, welding, and brazing.”
Doroudi is one of multiple college students to recently be detained by ICE.
Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was arrested by immigration authorities as she was headed to meet her friends and break her fast on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by ICE. Khalil had been one of the leaders of pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University last spring.
Khalil was taken from his student apartment building in lower Manhattan, and then to an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, before being transferred to Louisiana.
President Donald Trump claimed Khalil was a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” and said this is the “first arrest of many to come” in a post on his Truth Social platform this month.
“We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again,” he added.
Khalil and his lawyers have denied he supports Hamas or has any ties to the group.
A second student involved with the protests at Columbia University was also arrested by the Department of Homeland Security this month.
Leqaa Korda was arrested by agents from Homeland Security Investigations for allegedly overstaying her expired visa — which terminated on Jan. 26, 2022. Korda was also allegedly arrested in 2024 for her involvement in the protests, according to DHS.
(WASHINGTON) — Organizations that provide legal aid to migrant children have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after the agency cut funding to the program that provides legal representation to tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors.
According to the lawsuit filed on Thursday, some of the groups that received federal grants have had to stop taking on new clients and “face the real threat of not being able to continue their ongoing representations.”
Last week, groups that have collectively received over $200 million in federal grants were told that the contract was partially terminated, ending the funding for legal representation and for the recruitment of attorneys to represent migrant children.
Currently, 26,000 migrant children receive legal representation through the funding.
The groups, which filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, are asking a federal judge to issue an injunction and block HHS from ceasing funding for legal representation for unaccompanied children.
“As a consequence of Defendants ordering Plaintiffs to stop providing direct legal services, many unaccompanied children will never speak to a lawyer, will never apply for immigration relief for which they are eligible, will remain in tenuous status for longer, and will not understand what is happening as they are rushed through adversarial removal proceedings,” the groups said in the filing.
ABC News has reached out to HHS for comment.
The groups added that the cuts in the funding will cause immigration judges to spend more time on cases for unaccompanied children who appear in court without a lawyer “at a time when the immigration court backlog is already at an all-time high.”
“Defendants’ actions will also cause chaos throughout the immigration legal system and are particularly harmful because they come at a time when the government is reinstating expedited docketing for removal cases for unaccompanied children,” the groups said.
In a statement, Sam Hsieh, an attorney for the Amica Center, one of the groups that represent migrant children, called the decision to terminate the programs “the most brazen attack on immigrant children since family separation.”
“The Trump Administration’s decision to terminate these national legal service programs poses a significant threat to the rights of already vulnerable unaccompanied immigrant children,” Hsieh said. “Many of these children are eligible for immigration relief but are unable to meaningfully seek it without an attorney.”
Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — One day after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld federal restrictions on ghost guns, prosecutors in New York are warning 3D-printing companies their “insufficient security measures” are causing a “troubling rise in access to unregulated weaponry.”
The warning came in a letter Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sent Thursday to Creality 3D Technology Co. and other 3D-printing companies that asks them to make fixes to stop the proliferation of ghost guns on city streets. The letter makes specific reference to Luigi Mangione allegedly using a 3D-printed ghost gun and silencer to murder United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year.
Bragg said he sent the letter because of “a growing and concerning number” of ghost guns being manufactured by personal desktop 3D printers based on downloadable gun part designs and detailed assembly guides found on the “Creality Cloud.”
The district attorney said many of the guns are being assembled by felons and minors who have ready access to online instructions.
“It is paramount that you work to remove weaponry from your company’s cloud services and explicitly ban the creation of illicit weapons in your company’s user agreement,” the letter from Bragg said. “It is imperative that you take swift action to protect your customers and the communities they live in from violence and criminal activity by adopting commonsense security measures to deter the spread of illicit firearms both locally and across the United States.”
In New York City, the NYPD reported a significant increase in ghost guns seized on the streets from 2020 to 2025. In 2018, 17 ghost guns were seized. In 2024, the number was 438. Many of those were made with Creality printers, Bragg said.
“For instance, in 2023, our investigation found that an individual who was 3D-printing assault weapons and manufacturing illegal drugs utilized a Creality printer to print multiple firearms. In another instance, in 2023, an individual who threatened to kill his girlfriend was found to be manufacturing an arsenal of weapons in his apartment using a Creality printer. Additionally, recent research has found that the vast majority of illegal 3D printed guns were created using Creality printers, specifically the Ender 3 series model,” the letter said.
Creality did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
“I am concerned about the troubling rise in access to unregulated weaponry, especially among individuals convicted of felonies and minors, because of insufficient security measures connected with your products and business policy decisions,” Bragg said.
The letter did not threaten prosecution but requested a meeting with the company.
(LANSING, Mich.) — A Michigan resident has died of rabies after apparently undergoing an organ transplant, health officials said.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) told ABC News that the patient underwent an organ transplant at an Ohio hospital in December 2024.
The resident died in January 2025 and “a public health investigation determined they contracted rabies through the transplanted organ,” MDHHS said.
The organ donor was not a Michigan or Ohio resident, according to MDHHS. The department said it is not providing any additional information about the resident or the donor.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — U.S. stocks ticked higher on Thursday in the first trading since President Donald Trump announced 25% auto tariffs.
The tariffs have escalated a global trade war and prompted forecasts of higher car prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 20 points, or 0.05%, while the S&P 500 increased 0.25% on Thursday morning. The tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 0.25%.
Shares of major U.S. automakers dropped in early trading. General Motors dropped more than 6%, while Ford fell nearly 2%. Stellantis — the parent company of Jeep and Chrysler — declined 1%.
Tesla, the electric carmaker led by Trump-advisor Elon Musk, bucked the trend. Shares of Tesla climbed 5.5% in early trading on Thursday.
The 25% tariffs will be applied to imported passenger vehicles, including cars, SUVs, minivans, cargo vans and light trucks, according to a White House fact sheet released after Trump’s Oval Office remarks on Wednesday. The tariffs will take effect on April 3.
The tariffs will also be applied to key imported auto parts, including engines, powertrain parts and electrical components.
The auto tariffs are set to target a sector that employs more than a million U.S. workers and relies on a supply chain intricately intertwined with Mexico and Canada. Tariffs placed on the auto industry risk raising car prices for U.S. consumers, experts previously told ABC News.
Ferrari may raise U.S. prices as much as 10% in response to the tariffs, the company said in a statement on Thursday. Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at the investment firm Wedbush, predicted general tariff-related price increases of between $5,000 and $10,000 per vehicle.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Wednesday called the measure “a direct attack on our workers.” The Canadian government plans to review its trade options, Carney said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday expressed “regret” about the decision to impose auto tariffs. “We will now assess this announcement, together with other measures the US is envisaging in the next days,” von der Leyen said in a statement.
Early Thursday morning, Trump warned of retaliatory tariffs if officials in Canada and Europe move forward with countermeasures.
“If the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA, large scale Tariffs, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both in order to protect the best friend that each of those two countries has ever had!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Thursday that about 10,000 full-time employees will soon lose their jobs, on top of the nearly 10,000 who have already left the agency in the last few months through buyout offers or early retirements.
That puts the total employees at around 62,000 people — down from 82,000 at the start of the Trump administration. The agency oversees the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — among other divisions.
“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in a statement on Thursday.
“This overhaul will be a win-win for taxpayers and for those that HHS serves. That’s the entire American public, because our goal is to Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy said. Kennedy claimed the latest cuts will save taxpayers $1.8 billion per year. The cuts will reduce the number of regional offices — from 10 down to five. It will also combine the current 28 divisions at HHS into 15 divisions, including a new one focused on Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, to be named the Administration for a Healthy America.
Despite cutting nearly one-quarter of the agency, the department maintains that the restructuring won’t impact “critical services.”
The real-world impact of the newest round of cuts, however, remains to be seen. Already, cuts have hit top researchers at the National Institute of Health’s Alzheimer’s research center and disease detectives who identify new infectious diseases.
