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Nancy Pelosi, first woman to be House speaker, announces retirement

November 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that she will retire at the end of her current term in Congress, starting the long goodbye as the California Democrat wraps up one of the most consequential legislative careers in U.S. history.

“I want you, my fellow San Franciscans, to be the first to know,” Pelosi said in a video message. “I will not be seeking reelection to Congress. With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative.”

Pelosi’s term in Congress ends on Jan. 3, 2027.

Pelosi, 85, was the first woman elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and the first woman to lead a major political party in either chamber of Congress.

She has represented part of the San Francisco area in the House since 1987. This is her 19th term.

“As we go forward, my message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” Pelosi said in the video announcement.

For weeks, Pelosi had deflected questions about her political future, insisting her central focus was on ensuring that Prop 50 redistricting ballot measure passed in California. With that achievement in the rear-view mirror, Pelosi quickly made her plans clear that she will not seek another term in the House.

“I say to my colleagues in the House all the time, no matter what title they have bestowed upon me, Speaker, Leader, Whip, there has been no greater honor for me than to stand on the House floor and say, I speak for the people of San Francisco. I have truly loved serving as your voice,” Pelosi said in the video.

Pelosi’s rise
Pelosi was elected as the first woman speaker in 2007 and elected again in 2019 — the only speaker in 70 years to have won the office twice after having lost the office when Republicans regained the House majority in 2010.

She led the House Democrats for 19 years, previously having served as House Democratic whip. She rose to prominence in 2002 after whipping the majority of the party against an Iraq War resolution that her mentor, then-Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri, crafted with President George W. Bush’s administration. She became minority leader when Gephardt stepped down to run for president.

“This is an historic moment,” she said in a speech after accepting the speaker’s gavel for the first time. “It’s an historic moment for the Congress. It’s an historic moment for the women of America.”

Her measured rise to power was characterized by her steady command of inside politics and her ability unite conflicting factions of Democrats in order to achieve legislative success.

Journalist Susan Page, the author of a biography about the House speaker, called Pelosi a “master of the inside game of politics and of being a legislative leader” in an April 2021 interview with ABC News’ “Powerhouse Politics” podcast.

Page revealed in her book that Pelosi originally planned to step down after the 2016 election but changed her mind after President Donald Trump was elected in 2016.

In 2019, Pelosi led the investigation that resulted in the third presidential impeachment in history following what the impeachment charges said were Trump’s alleged moves to solicit foreign intervention in the 2020 presidential election and withhold congressionally appropriated assistance to Ukraine.

Pelosi headed Trump’s second impeachment in 2021 after his supporters mounted a violent insurrection against the U.S. Capitol following the 2020 presidential election that Trump sought to overturn. She then led the House in creating a bipartisan select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack.

“I have enjoyed working with three presidents achieving historic investments in clean energy with President George Bush, transformed health care reform with President Barack Obama and forging the future from infrastructure to health care to climate action with President Joe Biden,” Pelosi said in a speech bidding farewell to the speakership in December 2022, notably leaving Trump off the list.

Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 26, 1940 to an Italian-American family. Her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was a Democratic politician who represented Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District in the House and later served as mayor of Baltimore. Her mother, Annunciata M. “Nancy” D’Alesandro, was also involved in Democratic politics as an organizer.

She met Paul Pelosi at Georgetown University in 1961. The couple married in 1963 and had five children. Pelosi raised their children in San Francisco and started a Democratic Party club at her home, until she began working for the presidential campaign of California Gov. Jerry Brown in 1976, when she was 36.

By 1981, she was the Democratic Party chair for the state of California.

In 1987, Pelosi won a special election for California’s then-5th Congressional District which encompassed most of the city of San Francisco. Pelosi advanced through the ranks of the House Democratic Caucus to be elected House minority whip in 2002. She was elevated to House minority leader the following year, becoming the first woman to hold each of those positions in either chamber of Congress.

In October 2022, Paul Pelosi was the victim of an attack at the couple’s San Francisco home. The assailant, later told authorities the attack was intended for Nancy Pelosi, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court.

Following the loss of a Democratic majority in the House in November 2022, Pelosi said she would be giving up the gavel for the last time.

“History will note she is the most consequential Speaker of the House of Representatives in our history,” Biden said in a statement at the time.

Ukraine faces potential fall of Pokrovsk to Russia after 18-month battle of attrition

November 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — Ukraine appears at increasing risk of losing the city of Pokrovsk, an important stronghold in eastern Ukraine where its embattled defenders have held off Russia’s grinding assaults for more than a year and a half.

The devastated city — which was home to some 60,000 people before Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion — has become a key focus of the Kremlin’s yearslong push to capture all of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Oblast, which along with neighboring Luhansk Oblast makes up the Donbas region.

Although Ukraine for now is still maintaining a defense, the fall of Pokrovsk would be one of the most serious defeats Ukraine has suffered since March, when its troops were forced to retreat from Russia’s Kursk region.

Russia has for many months been attempting to encircle Pokrovsk and neighboring Myrnohrad from the north and south. Moscow’s forces are now close to cutting off the main roads into Pokrovsk, with its two key supply routes already under fire from Russian drones making it dangerous and difficult to bring in supplies and also threatening Ukrainian forces ability to withdraw.

In recent weeks, a growing number of Russian troops have advanced into Pokrovsk, with small groups using infiltration tactics to penetrate into the heart of the city, according to both Ukrainian and Russian military analysts.

Intense street fighting is now taking place inside Pokrovsk, with Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi describing the situation as “difficult.”

“The enemy in Pokrovsk is paying the highest price for attempting to fulfill the Kremlin dictator’s task of occupying Ukrainian Donbas,” Syrskyi wrote in a post to Telegram on Saturday.

Ukrainians outnumbered, under fire
Ukraine in recent days has launched counterattacks to push Russian forces back from the northern edge of Pokrovsk and keep a road there open to Myrnohrad.

Last weekend, for example, special forces troops under the command of Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) chief Kyrylo Budanov launched an audacious heliborne operation into territory that Russian forces claimed they already controlled. The GUR later uploaded video of the assault.

But the momentum in Pokrovsk appears to be with the attacking Russian forces. The city’s fall would be a blow to Ukrainian morale and would complicate its broader defense of the Donbas region.

There are also concerns in Ukraine that its loss could open a route for a Russian offensive towards the cities of Kostyantynivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk — the largest Donbas cities still controlled by Kyiv.

But military analysts who spoke to ABC News suggested that the fall of Pokrovsk alone would not necessarily imperil Ukraine’s forces holding the area.

“The Ukrainians could quite likely just as easily continue to defend outside Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad,” Pasi Paroinen of the Finland-based Black Bird Group open-source intelligence analysis organization told ABC News.

Though urban centers “usually make decent tactical defensive positions,” Paroinen added, “when you are already surrounded from three sides and your lines of communications have been cut off or are being disrupted as badly as they are right now over there, then those positions become liabilities, and they are just basically draining Ukrainian resources.”

A Ukrainian withdrawal may even improve Kyiv’s prospects, Paroinen said, assuming that new defenses have been prepared to the city’s west. If those new fortifications are not ready, “then they have a bigger problem than failing to hold Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad,” he said.

The Institute for the Study of War think tank suggested that Russia is unlikely to have the reserves to exploit Pokrovsk’s potential fall to advance rapidly to seize more of the Donbas region. Rather, Moscow’s mauled forces would likely have to continue their slow and costly forward grind, the ISW said.

Regardless, the situation is fraught for Ukrainian units still present in the city. The omnipresent threat of drones could complicate any Ukrainian retreat effort, which would likely see Kyiv’s troops attempt to break out to the west of the city using its under-fire supply routes.

If unable to retreat, large numbers of Ukrainian troops could find themselves cut off and potentially captured. To date and with the exception of the Russian siege of Mariupol in the early stages of the invasion, Kyiv’s forces have avoided being forced into mass surrender, even as they’ve gradually ceded territory in the east of the country.

The fall of Pokrovsk would also likely buoy Russian morale and send a signal that the war is going in its favor — a signal likely to be amplified by Russian state-aligned media and the Kremlin.

Moscow has amassed around 170,000 troops in the Donetsk region with a focus on Pokrovsk, according to remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday — a signal, he said, of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intent to capture the area.

Russia has not said how many troops it has deployed to the area. Ukrainian troops defending it are outnumbered eight-to-one, Zelenskyy said.

Visiting a command post in the Dobropillia sector — just north of Pokrovsk — this week, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces there are “defending Ukraine and our territorial integrity. This is our country, this is our East, and we will certainly do our utmost to keep it Ukrainian.”

Russian soldiers have already paid a high price. Ukraine’s General Staff said that, since the start of 2025, Moscow has lost some 200,000 soldiers who have been killed or wounded in Donetsk, most of them in the Pokrovsk and Kupyansk directions.

Russia does not release details about its casualties, making it difficult to independently confirm that figure. Ukrainian estimates of Russian casualties have broadly chimed with estimates from U.S. and European intelligence agencies since 2022.

A Russian victory in Pokrovsk will be welcome good news for the Kremlin as Putin maneuvers for advantage over his Ukrainian and American counterparts in anticipation of possible talks over a proposed ceasefire and eventual peace deal.

Russian Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov last week sought to play up the significance of Moscow’s advance on the city, telling Putin that up to 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers were “encircled” in areas including Pokrovsk — a claim later denied by Ukrainian officials and even disputed by some Russian military analysts, and that most military observers say is currently false.

Fight or flight?
The current situation in Pokrovsk is following a similar pattern as other embattled Donbas cities like Bakhmut in 2023 and Avdiivka in 2024. In all three, Russian forces edged forward over several months at staggering human cost despite a resolute Ukrainian defense, according to figures released by Kyiv. In Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Ukrainian forces were eventually forced to abandon the cities.

Zelenskyy and his generals have been criticized by some military bloggers and analysts in Ukraine and abroad for their perceived sluggishness in ordering retreats from doomed Donbas cities.

“The Ukrainians are committing to defending these towns, I would say, for too long,” Paroinen said. “The Russians are already too deep, and I think in too many numbers inside Pokrovsk for Ukrainians to be able to throw them out.”

Ukrainian political and military officials have repeatedly said that military — not political — considerations are front of mind, framing their defense of certain cities as a means to further bleed Russia’s attacking units. Others have argued for a nimbler “defense-in-depth” approach to preserve Ukrainian lives and conserve stretched resources.

“Defense-in-depth is not something the political leadership appreciates too much,” Oleksandr V. Danylyuk — an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K. and the chairman of the Center for Defense Reforms think tank in Kyiv — told ABC News. “That’s why I would rather expect the government to fight for as long as they can.”

“I think that potentially, Ukraine can actually keep the ground in Pokrovsk, in the same way as the ground has been kept in Chasiv Yar, for instance,” Danylyuk — who has previously served as an adviser to top Ukrainian military and intelligence officials — added, referring to the pivotal fortress city to the northwest where Ukrainian troops have been pushed back but retain a foothold after a yearlong Russian offensive.

“I’m not quite sure if Pokrovsk is of the same importance militarily as Chasiv Yar,” Danlyluk said.

“Personally, I don’t see any real military reason to actually fight for Pokrovsk,” he said. “I understand political reasons. I understand symbolic reasons. And I believe that it is doable. It’s just a matter of price. And I’m not quite sure if we need to pay the price.”

Oleksandr Merezhko — a member of the Ukrainian parliament representing Zelenskyy’s party and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee — downplayed the criticism of the decision to fight for Pokrovsk.

“I guess our military philosophy is to defend a particular point till the last opportunity, but at the same time to save people,” he told ABC News. “To make the Russians lose more of their soldiers and to save our soldiers.”

But influential military figures, such as Vitalii Deineha — the well-known Ukrainian volunteer and founder of the Come Back Alive Foundation — are already calling for Kyiv to abandon the city.

“The General Staff reports to the top contain more and more lies every day,” Deineha wrote in a post to Facebook. “In fact, we have practically already lost Pokrovsk, which means that holding Myrnohrad also makes no sense.”

“We should not be afraid of rating drops, because there will be no elections: next year there will be war again. And someone will have to fight it,” he added.

2028 presidential hopefuls flock to key battleground states: Where have they traveled?

November 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — One year out from the 2026 midterms, major Democratic Party names have been taking the show on the road, saying that they’re helping the party lay the groundwork to battle for the U.S. House.

They also might be preparing to run for president.

ABC News has tracked at least 24 visits by Democratic presidential hopefuls to the campaign trail in the key 2025 elections that Democrats swept — New Jersey and Virginia’s gubernatorial races, New York City’s mayoral election, and California’s redistricting ballot proposition election.

Separately, ABC News has tracked at least 43 visits or planned visits so far in 2025 and 2026 by Democratic presidential hopefuls to key early or battleground presidential election states. Some of those states are also expected to be key House battlegrounds in 2026.

The early and battleground state count excludes if the state is their home state and does not count multiple visits by the same candidate.

“Anybody who’s looking at the 2028 cycle is starting to head out on the road … Putting an emphasis on states that could determine control of the House is your best bet, and probably should be your only focus between now and the midterms,” Sawyer Hackett, a veteran Democratic strategist who worked on presidential campaigns for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro, told ABC News.

2025 election states: New Jersey, Virginia, California, New York City

In New Jersey, Democratic candidate and U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill received support on the trail from a crowd of presidential hopefuls, including former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, California Rep. Ro Khanna, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

And in Virginia, Democratic candidate and former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger had the support of Beshear, Buttigieg, Emanuel, Gallego, Kelly, Khanna, Moore, Shapiro, and Whitmer.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Klobuchar separately stumped for “Proposition 50” in California, while Khanna and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stumped for Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in New York City.

Key early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina

Some of the presidential hopefuls have flocked to states with early nominating contests. The Democratic Party is currently reevaluating its calendar for when those early contests will occur, but Hackett said Democrats hoping to run are still covering their bases.

Iowa, which usually boasts first-in-the-nation caucuses, will host a closely watched Senate race next year. The state also has some competitive House seats.

Iowa hosted former Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in March and Buttigieg for a town hall in May, while Gallego visited in August and Emanuel came by in September. Kelly is set to visit in November, while Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen spoke to Iowa Democrats in September.

New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first presidential primaries and will hold a contested U.S. Senate race in 2026 for the seat being vacated by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, has hosted several lawmakers. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear visited earlier this month; Gallego and Khanna stopped by in August; Klobuchar was there in July and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker will visit in November.

When Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker visited in April, he painted a dire picture for his party.

“Fellow Democrats, for far too long, we’ve been guilty of listening to a bunch of do-nothing political types who would tell you that America’s house is not on fire, even as the flames were licking their faces,” Pritzker said.

South Carolina, meanwhile, also has an early presidential primary. This year, it saw visits from Beshear, Khanna and Newsom in July — who told rural residents “what we’re experiencing is America in reverse.”

Kelly visited in September, while Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Walz visited in late May for South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn’s “Fish Fry” event, which has often been fertile waters for would-be Pennsylvania Avenue hopefuls.

Both Walz and Moore have told ABC News previously they are not “running” for president or have no plans to run.

Battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin

Several 2028 presidential hopefuls have also made their way around the seven battleground states, which have been considered winnable by either party and have an outsized influence on where campaigns place their resources.

A few potential candidates have or plan to pay visits to Arizona, including Ocasio-Cortez, who visited in March as part of the Fighting Oligarchy tour run by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. Whitmer visited in March, while Booker visited in April and Buttigieg visited in October. Harris, who recently said she’ll “possibly” run for president again, will be speaking there in April 2026.

Arizona has two congressional seats currently held by Republicans viewed as competitive, according to the Cook Political Report.

Georgia is often the site of both a close presidential race and critical down-ballot races. Khanna visited in August, while Harris made a stop there on her book tour in October.

Further north, Moore and Khanna have paid visits this year to the battleground state of Michigan, where both President Donald Trump and Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin won in 2024.

Wisconsin, which had the closest margin between Trump and Harris in 2024 of the battleground states, saw visits from Klobuchar in March, Khanna in May, Walz in March and September and Whitmer in October.

Nevada, which also often figures early in the presidential primary calendar, saw visits this year from Ocasio-Cortez in March, Pritzker and Khanna in August, and Gallego and Kelly in September.

North Carolina saw visits from Pritzker in July and Buttigieg in September. Harris visited for her book tour there in October, while fellow Californian Khanna will drop by in November.

Pennsylvania is also a key battleground state. Moore delivered a commencement address at Lincoln University in Gettysburg in May, the same month Gallego and Khanna paid their own visits. Notably, two Republicans in Pennsylvania, Reps. Scott Perry and Ryan Mackenzie, are expecting to face fierce fights to hold onto their seats.

Khanna recently said the party’s focus is to win back control of the House, which has a Republican majority.

“We have already a number of great candidates for 2028 that’ll emerge, but right now the focus has to be to take back the House in terms of political priority,” Khanna told public media organization WHYY.

Some SNAP recipients say they have to choose between rent and food amid halt in benefits

November 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Over the last week, Martina Santos said she feels like she’s been living a nightmare.

The 67-year-old from the Bronx, New York, is one of the nearly 42 million Americans who saw their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits lapse on Nov. 1.

Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would partially fund the program using emergency funds, officials said it could take “a few weeks to up to several months.” Additionally, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that no benefits will be distributed until the government reopens.

The uncertainty of if or when SNAP benefits will be funded is leaving many Americans, like Santos, wondering whether she is going to pay rent, pay her bills or buy food.

“This is crazy. I’m nervous … thinking about how I can get the money to buy what I need right now, because I don’t have food stamps,” she told ABC News. “I need to make a decision if I pay my rent, when I pay my electricity or I buy food. It’s not easy.”

Santos, who volunteers at the nonprofit West Side Campaign Against Hunger, said she is asking her landlord if it’s possible to make a partial payment for the month of November.

She added that she’s going to a pantry this week because she doesn’t have much food in her house besides packets of beans and cereal, along with a gallon of milk her son bought for her.

In addition to food, Santos said the loss of benefits is particularly devastating because she uses them to purchase distilled water for her CPAP machine, which helps treat sleep apnea and, in turn, her high blood pressure.

“When I don’t use the machine, by the next day, I [wake] up tired, I don’t want to do anything, because I don’t sleep [well],” she said. “I want to wake up. How can I get out of this nightmare right now?”

Domestic violence survivors impacted by loss of SNAP benefits

Nicole, 42, from Long Island, New York — who asked that her last name not be used — started receiving SNAP benefits in 2024 after leaving a domestic violence situation.

She receives about $994 in SNAP benefits per month to help buy groceries for her and her three children — ages 12, 13 and 17 — which she said is a struggle.

“Food is so expensive right now. So, when you go into stores and you’re buying and trying to budget and save, it’s just not enough,” she told ABC News. “That’s the feeling that I get when I go food shopping. I’m a budget shopper. I try to look out for deals that they’re having and just stock up and be a bulk shopper.”

Nicole said she receives cash assistance and help from family, which has helped cover the cost of some groceries in the wake of SNAP benefits being halted, but added she has been occasionally checking her mobile app to see if the EBT card balance is still $0.

“I’ve been checking periodically just to see if it’s going to say that food stamps are going to be available. I just still have this little hope in praying that it will be there,” she said. “And I was thinking to myself today, like, ‘How long do you think it’s gonna go and thank God we’re getting the cash assistance and some people they just don’t have it. They just don’t have family.'”

She said she thinks this situation is going to last for a couple of months and said she is using this as motivation to hopefully get off of SNAP benefits for good.

Nicole Branca, CEO of New Destiny Housing, a nonprofit that provides housing to domestic violence survivors and their children, said 70% survivors that the organization serves receive SNAP benefits.

She said the loss of benefits can compound the physical and mental health struggles that many survivors already experience.

“Domestic violence survivors are particularly harmed by this loss of SNAP benefits because of the economic abuse that they’ve experienced,” she said. “Nearly 100% of DV survivors experience financial abuse as part of the abuse, so that means their abuser restricted their access to bank accounts, ruined their credit and didn’t allow them access to their own paycheck. And so we work with them to start from scratch.”

Branca continued, “It’s so hard to find the words to describe how devastating this is for our families, who are just starting to recover financially, emotionally, physically and the thought of not being able to pay for food on the table for their kids or having to decide between food and rent. It’s really taking a toll on our families.”

‘Anxious and concerned’

Elayne Masters, 68, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, started receiving SNAP benefits in 2017 after suffering a traumatic brain injury following a fall down a flight of stairs.

In addition to her injury, Masters also suffers from hypothyroidism, which occurs when the thyroid gland doesn’t make and release enough thyroid hormone in the bloodstream, as well as Lyme disease, an inflammatory illness usually caused by an infected tick bite.

Masters typically receives about $250 in SNAP benefits, saying it allows her to buy healthy foods that help improve symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, confusion and joint pain.

She said her various conditions are improved by a healthy diet, and she’s worried that she won’t be able to buy nutrient-dense food without SNAP benefits.

“Foods that are basically high amounts of produce, vegetables and fruits, help to decrease the problematic health symptoms that I have and when I’m eating a really healthy diet, I’m doing better, I’m seeing the doctor less frequently, I’m taking fewer medications. I’m more functioning,” she told ABC News.

“And when I’m not able to pay for those healthy foods, my health declines, my cognitive functioning declines,” Masters went on. “If I weren’t able to maintain those healthy levels of eating, because it affects me so dramatically, so it’s a huge, huge difference in my quality of life and my ability to be a productive part of society as well.”

Masters said she went to a pantry last Wednesday and received a pre-packaged bag of food after attending a meeting at the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

She said she is “anxious and concerned” about being able to pay her electric bill, car insurance and house insurance within the next month.

“Winter is coming, and heating bills will be higher. If anything breaks down, I’m in trouble,” she said. “The holidays are coming, and I may not be able to finish gift shopping.”

In the past, to make ends meet, Masters said she has done things to stretch the shelf life of her food, such as cutting mold off a block of cheese, peeling the rotting layers of an onion to reach the layers that are still good or saving vegetable scraps to make her own broth.

“I’m starting to consider, okay, what kinds of things can I do that are going to help me stretch my dollars and some of the strategies that I’ve used in the past?” Masters said. “I may be able to skate through a month, but much beyond that, and it’s going to be difficult.”

Judge rules against online platform Roblox, keeping alleged abuse case in the public eye

November 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK)- — A father’s lawsuit against the online gaming platform Roblox will remain in the public eye after a California judge denied the company’s attempt to force the dispute into a private resolution process.

While the ruling issued last week by California Superior Court Judge Nina Shapirshteyn applies only to one case in San Mateo County, attorneys representing dozens of families view the ruling as a legal precedent that opens the door for other victims to pursue their lawsuits against the company through the judicial system.

Roblox, launched in 2006, has been at the center of recent controversy, with some parents alleging that the platform has been used to help facilitate child sexual exploitation and grooming. The company is facing over 35 lawsuits, with one law firm telling ABC News that it is investigating thousands of child sexual exploitation and abuse claims.

Roblox had nearly 83 million average daily active users in 2024, according to its financial reports. It reported $3.6 billion in revenue last year.

The attorneys general of Louisiana and Kentucky have filed lawsuits against the company, and recently Florida’s attorney general subpoenaed Roblox for information about its age verification and chat moderation policies.

The company has consistently responded to the lawsuits and allegations by stating that protecting children is a priority and announcing investments in safety measures, including artificial intelligence age verification.

“We are deeply troubled by any allegations about harms to children online and are committed to setting the industry standard for safety,” a spokesperson for Roblox told ABC News. “To protect our users, we have rigorous, industry-leading policies, including limiting chat for younger users and employing advanced filters designed to block the sharing of personal information. Roblox also does not allow users to share images or videos. We also collaborate closely with law enforcement.”

The Roblox spokesperson told ABC News the company disagrees with the ruling from the California judge and plans to appeal.

‘The gateway to all of this happening’
Steve, the father whose lawsuit prompted last week’s ruling in California, told ABC News that in 2023, he created a Roblox account for his son who was 13 years old at the time.

A year later, Steve — who asked ABC News not to publish his last name out of concern for his son’s safety — made a devastating discovery. He says he found messages on his son’s phone from an individual who, according to civil court documents, found his son on a children’s game in the online platform and initiated contact, despite him and his son not being “friends” on the platform.

According to Steve and court records, the perpetrator, who had initially posed as a 16-year-old, moved communication off of Roblox and onto Discord, a separate communication platform. Once there, he allegedly began exploiting Steve’s son by offering Robux gift cards — Roblox’s in-game currency — in exchange for explicit images and videos.

The messages Steve found allegedly included direct threats after his son failed to show up to an arranged in-person meeting, with the accused predator reminding the teenager that he knew his New Jersey address, according to the complaint.

“He had our home address, what school he went to, his phone number, everything,” Steve said.

Steve told ABC News he immediately contacted local police who later told him that the man who messaged his son was a known predator who was facing charges in another case for sexually exploiting another child. According to the complaint, authorities believe the same individual similarly exploited at least 26 other children using online platforms.

In February, Steve filed a lawsuit against Roblox and Discord, alleging the companies misled him and other parents about the platforms’ safety and features, leading directly to his son’s “sexual exploitation and abuse.”

In a statement to ABC News, a Discord spokesperson said the company is “committed to safety” and said it requires all users to be 13 to use their platform.

“We maintain strong systems to prevent the spread of sexual exploitation and grooming on our platform and also work with other technology companies and safety organizations to improve online safety across the internet,” the spokesperson said.

“I’ve traditionally kept myself as a ‘helicopter parent,’ so I did all my research,” Steve said. “I did my best to enable every parental control I could find, and a lot of them are pretty confusing, but I tried my best to keep him safe online and teach him as best I could, and it still happened.”

Steve told ABC News that Roblox “was the gateway to all of this happening” because that’s where “all the conversations started.”

‘Everyone deserves a day in court’
Alexandra Walsh, the attorney representing Steve and about a dozen other clients suing the company, said Roblox’s response to the lawsuit was to file a motion to compel arbitration — a private, out-of-court process where claims are settled confidentially by a third party.

“[It was] a motion to silence this family, to prevent this family from presenting what happened to them to a judge and jury, and instead put it into a secret rigged system,” Walsh told ABC News. “Roblox has followed suit in multiple other cases … they’ve either filed similar motions to compel arbitration, or made very clear that they intend to do so.”

In court filings, Roblox has said the dispute must be settled confidentially, because Steve, when he signed up for Roblox, was provided notice of the Terms of Service and the Arbitration Agreement mandating that any dispute “will be subject only to binding arbitration.”

The company said in filings that their arbitration agreement is “consumer friendly and cost friendly.”

Last week, Judge Shapirshteyn rejected Roblox’s motion to compel arbitration.

Walsh told ABC News the company has a right to defend itself, but it should do so “in the light of day so the public can see, and so that a jury made up of citizens of this country can decide if they’re liable or not.”

Steve told ABC News the ruling was “reassuring.”

“Everyone deserves a day in court, but Roblox and these companies don’t want that to happen,” Steve said. “They want to keep things quiet.”

Steve told ABC News that his family moved across the country because they did not feel safe in their home.

“It was an eye-opening experience,” he said. “Predators aren’t down at your local park anymore. They’re not hanging out in the dark city places … it has become just so easy for them to come online and pretend to be somebody that they’re not.”

Vietnam braces for Typhoon Kalmaegi after storm’s deadly path through the Philippines

November 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Typhoon Kalmaegi was barreling on Thursday morning toward Vietnam after leaving a trail of destruction in the Philippines.

The storm was expected to make landfall later on Thursday or early on Friday, the U.S. Consulate in Vietnam said in a weather advisory.

Vietnam’s Prime Minister urged the country’s emergency response agencies and ministries to ready themselves as the country braces for the impact of the typhoon.

The Vietnamese National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting said coastal areas may see waves up to 26 feet and a storm surge up to 2 feet. Winds were expected to be as strong as about 84 mph, the center said.

The country is already battling flash floods and landslides after record rainfall in late October. Those floods killed at least 35 people, officials told AFP.

Some 100,000 homes flooded and the country experienced more than 150 landslides, Vietnam’s environment ministry said, according to AFP.

The typhoon is expected to bring a heightened risk of flooding, flash floods and landslides, weather and state officials said.

“Additionally, infrastructure already weakened by previous flooding may be increasingly unreliable,” the U.S. Mission’s advisory added.

A trail of destruction in the Philippines

In the Philippines, where the typhoon made landfall on Tuesday amid heavy rains and flooding, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. approved a state of emergency declaration on Thursday.

That declaration was intended to “expedite government response efforts in areas” affected by the storm, according to a press release from the official Philippine Information Agency.

The storm killed at least 66 people, according to state-run media. The official Philippine News Agency reported that “most” of those deaths “were due to fallen debris, landslides and flooding.”

Another six Philippine Air Force personnel were killed in a helicopter crash on Tuesday while performing humanitarian assistance, officials said.

The country was already recovering from an offshore earthquake and typhoons in the last few months. The Philippine Area of Responsibility is hit an average of 20 per year, most in the world, according to the Philippines Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.

Another potential super typhoon is approaching the country now, local officials said in a news release. That storm is expected to make landfall either Friday night or Saturday morning, officials said.

CBP sees lowest October border encounters on record

November 5, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection had the lowest number of border encounters in any October, according to statistics obtained by ABC News.

The numbers also represent the lowest start to a fiscal year ever recorded. CPB says.

In October, there were 30,561 total encounters nationwide — the lowest start to a fiscal year ever recorded by CBP. The previous record low was 43,010 in October of FY2012, officials said.

The numbers are also almost 80% lower than in October 2024, according to CBP statistics.

“History made: the lowest border crossings in October history and the sixth straight month of ZERO releases. This is most secure border ever,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a statement to ABC News, who also thanked the men and women of CBP.

Since Jan. 21 through the end of October, there have been 106,134 total enforcement encounters along the southwest border. The daily average encounters along the border is 258 per day — 95% lower than the previous administration’s encounter numbers, CPB said.

Customs and Border Protection has focused now on interior enforcement due, it says, to the lack of migrants encountered at the border. They are currently deployed to cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles.

“Our mission is simple: secure the border and safeguard this nation,” said CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott. “And that’s exactly what we are doing. No excuses. No politics. Just results delivered by the most dedicated law-enforcement professionals in the country. We’re not easing up — we’re pushing even harder.”

Thune says ending filibuster ‘not happening’ despite Trump’s demands

November 5, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Returning from the White House Wednesday after President Donald Trump made yet another call for Senate Republicans to overturn the filibuster, Majority Leader John Thune reiterated his view that there are not the necessary votes among Senate Republicans to change the Senate rules.

Thune was asked Wednesday if he believed that Trump could sway some of his reluctant members to support the filibuster.

“I don’t doubt that he could have some sway with members,” Thune said. “But I know where the math is on this issue in the Senate, and … it’s just not happening.”

Thune has been an outspoken defender of the Senate’s rule requiring 60 votes to pass most legislative matters. But he’s not the only Republican who has publicly expressed skepticism about overturning the rule.

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds was among the group of Republicans who met with Trump for breakfast at the White House after a bruising election night, which saw Democratic victories in several races. After the meeting, Rounds said that the president made “a really good point” about Republicans changing the rule. But he wasn’t sold.

“I think there’s a lot of us that really think the Senate was designed in the first place to find a long term, stable solution to problems, so we’ll listen to what the president has to say,” Rounds said.

GOP Sen. John Kennedy called the filibuster “important.”

“My position hasn’t changed,” Kennedy said Wednesday. “As I’ve said before, the role of a senator is not just to advance good ideas. The role of a senator it to kill bad ideas. And when you’re in the minority, we’re not now, but we could be someday, it’s important to have a filibuster.”

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said his views on the filibuster aren’t changing.

“There’s nothing that could move me on the filibuster,” Tillis said. “I’ve been that way for 11 years. Too old to change now.”

Other lawmakers said they they could be persuaded to end the filibuster.

GOP Sen. John Cornyn has been an outspoken defendant of the filibuster for years. On Wednesday, he told reporters, “I’m open to changing the filibuster.”

Cornyn said his mind is being changed on this issue by the “fact that we haven’t been able to do regular order appropriations for a while” and “having a willful minority being able to shut down the government at any time they want to.”

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley also said the shutdown was beginning to change his tune on the rule.

“My message is to my Democrat friends; we better find a way to get to the table real fast. Because if you’re putting me to a choice between, are people going to eat, or am I going to defend the arcane filibuster rules, I’m going to choose people eating. So, we’re getting there real fast,” Hawley said.

Thune said Trump “honestly believes” in ending the filibuster, but then pivoted, saying the focus should be on reopening the government — which has been shut down for 36 days as of Wednesday, making it the longest government shutdown in history.

He was asked whether he agreed with Trump’s assessment that the government shutdown negatively affected Republicans during Tuesday’s election. He said it was “hard to draw conclusions.”

“Well, I mean, here in Northern Virginia, possibly. I don’t know for sure,” Thune said of the Virginia election, which saw Democratic victories for the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general races. “This is a community here, obviously, in Northern Virginia, that has a lot of federal workers. So it certainly could have been a factor in the elections.”

The election losses, Thune said, were “pretty much expected.”

“So I think that, you know, the challenge for us going forward is to make sure we are speaking to the issues the American people care about — the economic issues.”

Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer took a victory lap on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, saying the election results prove that it’s time for Republicans to negotiate with Democrats on ending the shutdown.

“Last night was a great night for America and a five-alarm fire for Donald Trump and Republicans. The Republicans’ high-cost house is on fire, and they’ve only got themselves to blame,” Schumer said on the floor. “As loudly and clearly as they could have, the American people said last night, ‘Enough is enough.'”

Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in a new letter addressed to Trump, are demanding a bipartisan meeting with Republicans to end the shutdown and address the “Republican health care crisis.”

Schumer and Jeffries have repeatedly requested bipartisan negotiations throughout the shutdown.

“It is time to sit down and negotiate with Democrats to bring this Republican shutdown to an end,” Schumer said on the floor Wednesday. “We told the president we’ve been asking for a meeting for weeks and even months, but now the election results ought to send a much needed bolt of lightning to Donald Trump that he should meet with us to end this crisis.”

ABC News’ Lauren Peller contributed to this report.

2 New Jersey teens arrested in connection with alleged Halloween terror attack plot

November 5, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Two New Jersey teenagers have been arrested in connection with an alleged ISIS-inspired Halloween attack in Michigan that the FBI announced it had thwarted last week, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

The NYPD and FBI-Newark arrested Tomas Kaan Guzel, 19, before he could board a flight to Istanbul, the sources said.

A second 19-year-old, Milo Sedanet, was also arrested, according to sources.

Two other men, Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud, were arrested on Friday for their alleged roles in the plot, according to court records unsealed on Monday.

They allegedly “used online encrypted communications and social media applications to share extremist and ISIS-related materials,” and allegedly used the term “pumpkin day” for their plans, according to the complaint.

According to sources, an NYPD undercover had been monitoring Guzel, who was allegedly in communication with those arrested in Michigan and others overseas. The group allegedly talked about an attack on the LGBTQ community in Detroit and about traveling to Syria to train with ISIS, sources said.

Guzel allegedly had planned to travel in two weeks to Turkey and onward to Syria from there, but it’s believed he got spooked after last week’s arrests and moved his flight up, sources said.

There were searches at his home in Montclair and also in Seattle as part of the investigation, the sources said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

DC sandwich thrower’s misdemeanor assault case nears closing arguments

November 5, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The man accused of throwing a sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent in Washington, D.C., waived his right to testify in court Wednesday, ahead of closing arguments in his ongoing misdemeanor assault case.

Sean Charles Dunn, a former Department of Justice staffer, was charged with a misdemeanor after a grand jury failed to indict him on a more serious felony assault charge.

Both sides are expected to deliver closing arguments later today in the case that first went viral during the federal surge of law enforcement in D.C.

Dunn was caught on camera throwing a Subway sandwich at a Border Patrol agent in August.

According to the earlier felony criminal complaint, Dunn allegedly approached the officer while shouting “f— you! You f—— fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!”

After several minutes of confrontation, Dunn allegedly threw the sandwich, striking the officer in the chest, the complaint says.

His sudden launch into the public spotlight inspired a groundswell of attention to his case in the early days of the surge.

The court will resume this afternoon for closing arguments.

-ABC News’ Alex Mallin contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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