(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered an immediate halt to the planned firings of nearly 1,500 employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and is ordering the Trump administration to hand over communications and make top officials available for testimony to determine whether they deliberately violated one of her court orders.
District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told attorneys for the government she was “deeply concerned” about the apparently rushed efforts to implement a Reduction In Force, or RIF, of approximately 1483 employees at the CFPB which was set to take effect at 6 pm tonight.
Jackson said the moves by CFPB leadership, including Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and general counsel of the OMB Mark Paoletta, in apparent coordination with a staffer from Elon Musk’s DOGE operation, Gavin Kliger, may be in direct violation of a preliminary injunction she had put in place — which the D.C. Circuit upheld in part. That injunction required terminations at the agency to be carried out only after “particularized assessments” of individual employees’ performance.
She told attorneys from the Justice Department the reductions in force were “not going to happen in the meantime” and ordered them to advise the agency leadership to make that clear to employees who had been informed they would be ousted. Many of those employees sat in her courtroom Friday, and several broke into tears following the hearing.
Jackson further ordered a hearing for April 28 where she said Paoletta should be prepared to testify under oath, and Kliger should also plan to be in attendance to potentially provide testimony. She also said the government should retain and be prepared to provide any communications between Paoletta, Vought and Kliger in advance of the hearing to help her determine whether her preliminary injunction was deliberately violated.
The Trump administration had begun the process this week of firing 1,474 employees at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, according to a sworn declaration from Paoletta, the agency’s chief legal officer.
The administration plans to run the agency with a 206-person staff, according to court filings Friday morning, a steep decrease from the 1,680 employees who previously worked for the consumer-protection agency. Some departments within the CFPB were cut entirely or reduced to a single employee, according to Paoletta.
“An approximately 200-person agency allows the Bureau to fulfill its statutory duties and better aligns with the new leadership’s priorities and management philosophy,” Paoletta wrote.
According to Paoletta, agency leadership conducted a “particularized assessment” of each department to determine how to run the CFPB with the “smaller, more efficient operation.”
“Leadership has discovered many instances in which the Bureau’s activities have pushed well beyond the limits of the law,” he wrote.
The CFPB, created by Congress to safeguard Americans against unfair business practices in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, has been targeted for elimination by President Donald Trump as part of his efforts to slash the federal government.
Trump has said the CFPB is “very important to get rid of” and that the organization was “set up to destroy some very good people.”
Its oversight applies to everything from mortgages to credit cards to bank fees to student loans to data collection. By law, the CFPB has the rare ability to issue new rules and to impose fines against companies who break them.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from deporting noncitizens to countries other than their place of origin without due process.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy issued an injunction that bars the Trump administration from deporting any noncitizen to a country not explicitly mentioned in their order or removal without first allowing them to raise concerns about their safety.
“Defendants argue that the United States may send a deportable alien to a country not of their origin, not where an immigration judge has ordered, where they may be immediately tortured and killed, without providing that person any opportunity to tell the deporting authorities that they face grave danger or death because of such a deportation,” Judge Murphy wrote.
“All nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Assistant Solicitor General of the United States, Congress, common sense, basic decency, and this Court all disagree.”
The ruling throws a roadblock in the Trump administration’s policy of removing noncitizens to countries like El Salvador, Honduras, or Panama, even if the noncitizens lack an order of removal to those countries.
The Trump administration last month invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador with little-to-no due process.
Judge Murphy noted that the Trump administration officials “have applied and will continue to apply the alleged policy of removing aliens to third countries without notice and an opportunity to be heard on fear-based claims — in other words, without due process.”
He said his order prevents the irreparable harm of noncitizens being sent to countries where they might face persecution, torture, or death without having the chance to challenge their removal in court.
“The irreparable harm factor likewise weighs in Plaintiffs’ favor. Here, the threatened harm is clear and simple: persecution, torture, and death. It is hard to imagine harm more irreparable,” he wrote.
Judge Murphy’s order requires that the Trump administration provide noncitizens written notice before they are removed to a third country, as well as a “meaningful opportunity” to raise concerns about their safety, including providing at least 15 days to reopen their immigration proceedings.
He also certified a class — meaning the order applies not only to the plaintiffs in the case, but also any noncitizen with a final order of removal.
Separately, Judge Murphy is considering whether the Trump administration violated his temporary order when it removed at least three men to El Salvador without allowing them to raise concerns about their safety. He is still considering that issue.
(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — When a gunman opened fire near the student union at Florida State University on Thursday, killing two and wounding six, for student Robbie Alhadeff, the tragedy on his Tallahassee campus brought him back to another school shooting.
Alhadeff told ABC News Live he was really close to Alyssa, who was a freshman on track to play college soccer when she was gunned down on Valentine’s Day.
On Thursday, Alhadeff said he was walking to his apartment when friends started to text him about the gunfire.
“I ran right back into my apartment because I was scared about the whole situation,” he said.
Alhadeff said he took off at least two weeks of school after his sister was killed. In the wake of Thursday’s shooting, he said his friends are “terrified” to return to class.
“A lot of the people I’m friends with are from Parkland and a lot them go to FSU,” he said. “This is the second time it’s happened — and no one I know wants to go back to school.”
“You could end up being killed just going to learn,” he added.
“I thought this would never happen again,” Alhadeff said, “but it continuously keeps happening — and something has to change.”
Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son, Joaquin, was killed in Parkland, told ABC News Live, “I don’t understand how anyone could be surprised” by another school shooting “if we haven’t done anything to stop it.”
“We will continue to fight — these kinds of events empower us to do more, different things, because whatever we’ve been trying is not enough,” said Oliver, who has become an advocate for gun control.
“You don’t want to be me … so you better get involved,” he said. “You better choose better leaders and ask and demand the safety of your kids.”
Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was killed in Parkland, said some of Jaime’s former classmates were at the FSU student union when the gunfire broke out.
“As a father, all I ever wanted after the Parkland shooting was to help our children be safe,” Guttenberg, who has become a gun reform supporter, wrote on social media. “Sadly, because of the many people who refuse to do the right things about reducing gun violence, I am not surprised by what happened today.”
Abigail Esparza Reyes was killed in a shootout while trying to arrest an escaped inmate from California on Wednesday, officials said. ABC News
(TIJUANA, Mexico) — An escaped U.S. inmate, who was wanted for killing a Mexican police commander — or a “Gringo Hunter” — during a shootout last week, has been caught in Tijuana, officials said.
Cesar Hernandez, who had been convicted and sentenced for murder in California, allegedly killed Abigail Esparza Reyes, who was part of a specialized Mexican state police unit responsible for locating foreign fugitives who cross the border, during a shootout on April 9, officials said.
Surveillance footage reviewed by ABC News showed an individual, who authorities identified as Hernandez, changing into bright yellow worker’s clothing, seeming to blend in after the shooting in Mexico.
In a statement released on Friday, the Baja California State Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed Hernandez was arrested on Thursday evening.
“These actions reflect the outstanding intelligence and investigative work carried out by personnel from the State Attorney General’s Office, whose coordinated efforts, tactical analysis strategies and data collection made it possible to accurately locate the person arrested today,” the Baja California prosecutor’s office said.
Officials in Mexico said Hernandez is currently facing criminal proceedings and “his legal situation will be determined in accordance with the law.”
Hernandez escaped from custody on Dec. 2, shortly after arriving for a court appearance in Delano, California, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Upon arrival, Hernandez “evaded staff custody, jumped out of the van and is currently at large,” officials said at the time.
He had been arrested in 2019 for murder in Los Angeles County and sentenced to 80 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole, officials said. He received 25 years for first-degree murder, a sentence “doubled because it was a second strike,” and discharging a firearm during the crime, officials said. Hernandez also received five years for a prior offense, officials said.
Reyes and the team of “Gringo Hunters” were featured in a “Nightline x Impact” episode in 2024 that highlighted their work to catch fugitives who evade law enforcement by fleeing to Mexico.
In the episode, Reyes is seen leading a mission to arrest a fugitive charged with murder who was found in Tijuana.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment regarding Hernandez’s arrest.
ABC News’ Sara Sandrick, Ellie Kaufman, Jen Watts and Alondra De La Cruz contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, spoke exclusively on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Friday morning in her first interview since Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with her husband in El Salvador Thursday.
Van Hollen late Thursday released a photo of himself with Abrego Garcia, which was the first time Vasquez Sura had seen him since spotting him in a photo among several other migrants being brought into El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison last month.
“It was very overwhelming,” Vasquez Sura said of seeing the image Thursday night.
“The most important thing for me, my children, his mom, his brother, his sibling, was to see him alive, and we saw him alive,” she told GMA’s Michael Strahan.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who has been living with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13.
The Trump administration, while acknowledging that Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in error, has said that his alleged MS-13 affiliation makes him ineligible to return to the United States.
After a federal judge ruled earlier this month that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that ruling, the polarizing case has become a test of the power of the executive branch versus the courts.
Vasquez Sura, speaking to GMA, denied that her husband is a member of MS-13 or any other gang.
“I won’t stop fighting until he returns home, until I know that he’s safe,” Vasquez Sura told Strahan.
“It’s been 37 days since March 12, since my husband was abducted,” said Vasquez Sura. “It’s been an emotional, emotional rollercoaster, honestly.”
“We’ve been together over seven years. It’s been amazing. He is very a loving husband, and amazing father. We were just young parents trying to live the American dream,” said Vasquez Sura, who is a U.S. citizen, along with the couple’s children.
“Our faith has grown, and I keep him in my prayers to bring him back home,” she said.
Strahan questioned Vasquez Sura about her filing for an order of protection from her husband in 2021, in which she cited being slapped, hit with an object, and being detained against her will. The case was closed about a month later when she failed to appear for a court hearing.
“You did take out a temporary order of protection against your husband in 2021. Were you in fear of your husband?” Strahan asked.
“My husband is alive,” Vasquez Sura responded. “That’s all I can say.”
Earlier this week, in a statement released to ABC News through her attorney, Vasquez Sura said, “After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar by seeking a protective order in case things escalated. We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling. Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him.”
Van Hollen, a Democratic senator from Vasquez Sura’s home state of Maryland, flew to El Salvador on Wednesday to try to meet with Abrego Garcia.
“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance,” Van Hollen said in the social media post in which he shared the photo of him with Abrego Garcia. “I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.”
Vasquez Sura was told that the meeting between Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia was set up by El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, a source close to the family told ABC News.
The source said Abrego Garcia and Vasquez Sura were not able to speak.
(CHESTER COUNTY, S.C.) — A middle school student is dead after his school bus blew a tire and overturned on a South Carolina highway, officials said.
The collision happened Thursday afternoon on Interstate 77 in Chester County. The bus was carrying students from Pine Ridge Middle School back from a field trip outside Charlotte, North Carolina, school officials said.
The boy who died was an eighth grader at Pine Ridge and 13 years old, according to Chester County Coroner Terry Tinker.
There were two adults and approximately 35 students on the bus, the school district, Lexington School District Two, said in an updated statement Thursday night.
A spokesperson for the Chester County Sheriff’s Office said there were “multiple injuries” in the crash, but that there is no confirmed number or information on the nature of the injuries at this time. The victims were transported to multiple hospitals. The crash was reported around 1:47 p.m., the sheriff’s office said.
The bus was traveling southbound on I-77 when it “traveled off of the road to the right, struck a guard rail and overturned,” South Carolina Highway Patrol Sgt. Tyler Tidwell said. The bus was the only vehicle involved in the incident, he said.
Footage from the scene showed the school bus overturned, with part of the bus on top of a guardrail.
Two additional buses that were traveling back from the field trip maneuvered to avoid the accident, the school district said.
Multiple agencies, emergency responders and school personnel were on the scene, with EMS assessing all the occupants on the buses, school officials said.
“We are grateful for the support of our EMS, first responder, and law enforcement partners, both those based here locally and those up the road at the affected Interstate 77 sites,” the school district said in a statement. “They worked tirelessly today to assist our Lexington Two students, families and employees.”
The South Carolina Highway Patrol is investigating the collision.
“Today’s school bus accident in Chester County is a tragedy no family should ever have to endure,” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said in a statement. “Please join us in praying for the victim, their family, a speedy recovery for those injured, and the entire Lexington Two community. All of South Carolina is with you.”
Between the three buses, an estimated 35 students and four adults were transported for further medical evaluation, the school district said.
“We are grateful for the support of our EMS, first responder, and law enforcement partners, both those based here locally and those up the road at the affected Interstate 77 sites,” the school district said in a statement. “They worked tirelessly today to assist our Lexington Two students, families and employees.”
The South Carolina Highway Patrol is investigating the collision.
“Today’s school bus accident in Chester County is a tragedy no family should ever have to endure,” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said in a statement. “Please join us in praying for the victim, their family, a speedy recovery for those injured, and the entire Lexington Two community. All of South Carolina is with you.”
ABC News’ Victoria Arancio contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — House Democrats are demanding the White House preserve the independence of the Smithsonian Institution after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in late March that directed federal agencies and the Smithsonian to eliminate what the order calls “anti-American” and “improper” content from the vast network of museums and national parks.
The top Democrat of the House Administration Committee, Rep. Joe Morelle, and other Democrats who have oversight of the Smithsonian Institution sent a letter, first obtained by ABC News, to Vice President JD Vance, who serves as a member of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents.
“We urge you to reject any effort to effectuate the goals of the Proclamation and to preserve the 175-year tradition of curatorial independence that has come to define the Smithsonian Institution,” the lawmakers wrote, raising concerns over Trump’s order.
The order, entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” directs Vance to eliminate what it claims are “improper ideology” from all areas of the institution, which consists of 21 museums, 14 education and research centers and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
“Unfortunately, we now stand at the brink of seeing the Smithsonian at its worst: shaped solely by the views and ideology of one individual as a means of expanding his political power,” the letter states.
The letter is the latest effort by Democrats to push back on one of several actions taken by the White House to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across the federal government.
The order also directs Vance and Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum to restore federal parks, monuments, memorials and statues “that have been improperly removed or changed in the last five years to perpetuate a false revision of history or improperly minimize or disparage certain historical figures or events.”
“If this Proclamation were to be implemented, the Smithsonian’s curatorial independence and excellence would be eliminated, and 175 years of this tradition would end,” the lawmakers warn.
Trump, in the order, singled out the National Museum of African American History and Culture which he said perpetuated “race-centered” and “divisive” ideas.
“This flagrant attempt to erase Black history is unacceptable and must be stopped. The attempt to paper over elements of American history is both cowardly and unpatriotic,” the letter states.
The Smithsonian Institution was first established by Congress with funding from British scientist James Smithson.
(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — Members of the Florida State University community will return to the areas in and around the student union building on Friday for the first time since Thursday’s shooting.
They are being allowed there to retrieve the personal belongings they left behind — items abandoned in the chaos when gunfire shattered the calm and sent students fleeing for their lives.
McKenzie Heeter, a 20-year-old junior, was just feet away from the gunman when the shooting began.
“I was leaving the union with food in my hand,” McKenzie recalled. “I noticed [an orange vehicle that looked like a Hummer]. Then I saw him [wearing a matching orange shirt], waving around a bigger rifle … and then he pulled out the handgun and shot that woman. That’s when I just completely ran.”
McKenzie describes sprinting across campus in sheer panic.
“I did a four-minute mile in sandals. I’ve never run that fast in my life,” she said. “I felt like I have got to leave or else it could be me next.”
While she says the entire afternoon feels surreal, one moment replays vividly in her mind — the horrific moment she saw the suspect shoot a woman in purple scrubs from behind.
“Her back was to him. She was just walking. I don’t even think she registered what happened. That’s what I just keep thinking about.”
In the chaos, McKenzie’s first call was to her mom.
“She’s my best friend. I just wanted her to know I was okay,” she said.
Investigators say the gunman killed two people, neither of them students, and injured six others who have yet to be identified.
One suffered critical injuries but, on Thursday evening, was upgraded with the rest of the injured survivors to fair condition.
The accused gunman, a stepson of a local sheriff’s deputy, was also taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries after law enforcement agents shot him.
Investigators say the suspect used a handgun that was once his stepmother’s service weapon. He was also carrying a shotgun, investigators say.
As the entire campus continues to process the trauma, McKenzie tells ABC News that her sense of safety has been shattered.
“The most heartbreaking part is that everybody feels unsafe now. Someone just came and took that from us,” she said.
Thousands of Palestinians displaced by Israel continue to return to their lands in the north from the south with their vehicles in Gaza on January 29, 2025. (Photo by Moiz Salhi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — In mid-January, when two U.S.-based contracting firms tapped to secure a critical vehicle checkpoint in Gaza scrambled to sign up more than a hundred ex-military operators, the packing list for prospective hires included two types of assault rifles, Glock pistols, and knives, according to a memo obtained by ABC News.
It said nothing of citrus fruits.
But from late January until mid-March, when the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal fell apart, the ex-military and intelligence officials found that humanitarian aid measures played a crucial role in ensuring their safety in one of the Middle East’s most dangerous corridors, said one of the former officials who asked not to be named.
“We observed firsthand the desperation of some of the folks coming through,” the official told ABC News. “So the oranges and water were a hit.”
The two U.S.-based private security companies, Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, were hired earlier this year by a multinational consortium of states involved in negotiating the ceasefire — including the United States, Qatar and Egypt — to ferry tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians back to a decimated northern Gaza, without allowing the movement of weapons.
The contractors, comprised of former Special Forces personnel, diplomats, and intelligence officers, did not face any notable confrontations or threats of violence over the course of two months on the ground in Gaza, the official said, and only confiscated a smattering of small weapons during vehicle searches.
But their mission was not without its challenges. From the time their contract was awarded, leaders of the two firms had just 96 hours to recruit, screen, and transport via chartered jet more than 100 individuals scattered across the U.S. to the Gaza Strip, where they then needed to sort out how to physically operate the checkpoint, mitigate security vulnerabilities, and minimize traffic congestion, the official said.
The model could inform future efforts to secure Gaza, some military contracting experts said.
Mick Mulroy, a former CIA paramilitary officer who is now an ABC News national security analyst, said private military contractors appear to be the only logical solution to peace in the short term.
“What is going to prevent the resurgence of Hamas? If it’s not a multinational military force, and it’s not the Israel Defense Forces — it’s the private security forces,” said Mulroy, who is also the founder of Fogbow, a humanitarian aid group. “Right now, there’s no alternative that I’ve seen.”
Confronting the past
Hamas launched a surprise attack across Israel’s southern border on Oct. 7, 2023, killing at least 1,200 Israelis while capturing about 250 Israeli hostages. Since then, Israel’s military response has killed at least 50,000 Gazans, most of them women and children.
A ceasefire agreement negotiated this past January ended last month when Israel resumed hostilities after saying Hamas had not released all remaining hostages. The conflict has led to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including the collapse of the health care system.
Before the contractors deployed in January, a memo drafted by UG Solutions and circulated among former U.S. military personnel offered a daily rate of $1,100 for “operators” and $1,250 for medics, with a $10,000 advance paid “within 5 days of arrival in the country,” according to a copy obtained by ABC News.
The memo solicited inquiries from former “U.S. [Special Operations Forces] Personnel Only,” and while details of the mission were not made explicit, it noted that members of the team “will be able to defend yourself and there will be written [rules of engagement] once you arrive.”
They had reason to tread carefully. The last time American contractors were hired to work in Gaza, in 2003, three employees of the security firm DynCorp were killed by a roadside bomb while escorting U.S. officials near Beit Lahiya, some 40 kilometers north of Rafah.
Despite the precarious threat environment in Gaza, the hired ex-soldiers spent a considerable portion of their time troubleshooting obstacles related to the destitution of Palestinians travelling through their checkpoint, the official said. Limited fuel supplies in the region meant officials “got really good at pushing cars,” for example.
Another challenge for the two U.S.-based firms, which worked in tandem with a third Egyptian company, was to overcome the troubled reputation of security contractors working in the Middle East. Concerns about the use of American military contractors abroad exploded in 2007 when members of Blackwater, a private military company, killed 17 Iraqi civilians during an incident in Baghdad. Four of those hired soldiers were eventually convicted for their roles in the massacre, before they were later pardoned by President Donald Trump.
National security commentators have in the past bristled at the premise of using American contractors to work on the ground in Gaza. Peter Singer, the author of a book about contract soldiers, called it a “terrible idea” and a “not-even-half-baked notion” that merited heightened scrutiny. David Ignatius, the Washington Post columnist, characterized its proposal as “a potentially controversial part of the plan” to secure Gaza.
The coalition official told ABC News that U.S. operators were cognizant of the “optics of the situation” and took proactive steps to not appear “intimidating” to Gazans passing through their checkpoint. The official described their personnel as mainly ex-Special Forces with experience in the region — “suburban dads” of an average age of 45-50.
“This was not going to be a security mission about running and gunning,” the official said. “This was going to be all about discipline and restraint.”
Several Gazans who used the checkpoint told ABC News that the contractors treated them with respect, often greeting motorists in halting Arabic. One Palestinian man who asked not to be named for security reasons observed that the contractors often tried to reduce the visibility of their weapons.
A ‘target on their backs’
Threats posed by Hamas and other hostile actors in the region were compounded in part by Trump’s rhetoric, regional experts told ABC News, which included a controversial proposal to redevelop the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” displacing its population in the process. Hamas leaders said the mere suggestion was “capable of igniting the region.”
Ambassador Luis Moreno, a former senior U.S. diplomat in Tel Aviv, warned that Trump’s inflammatory comments likely placed a “target on their backs,” referring to the American contractors.
“It’s already an incredibly risky, risky job,” Moreno told ABC News. “There’s no doubt that Trump’s declarations on moving two million Gazans out of Gaza made their lives much more complicated.”
The founder of UG Solutions is Jameson Govoni, a Massachusetts-bred retired Green Beret who once said he “helped set up” a surveillance program for the Special Forces that aimed to “teach special operations soldiers how to conduct surveillance and find hard-to-find terrorist cells around the world.”
Govoni later founded the Sentinel Foundation, a nonprofit focused on combating child trafficking, and a for-profit hangover cure company called Alcohol Armor, which last year hosted a David Guetta concert in Las Vegas, according to a video it shared on social media.
Safe Reach Solutions, the logistics firm in Gaza, was founded by Phil Reilly, a former CIA paramilitary officer who is no stranger to precarious missions in hostile territories. He was among the first Americans to set foot in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001 — less than two weeks after the attacks.
The contractors concluded their work in Gaza last month when the cease-fire deal fell apart and Israeli forces resumed their bombing campaign. The Israeli Defense Forces now claim to occupy some 30% of Gaza territory.
After the ceasefire collapsed, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff suggested using a “security force” in Gaza as a long-term solution. A spokesperson for Safe Reach Solutions said they had not discussed a return to the region with American officials.
(NEW YORK) — Power has been restored to nearly 99% of customers, LUMA Energy said in an update early Friday.
LUMA Energy gave an update at 5 a.m. on Friday morning, saying that almost 1.5 million people — or 98.8% of their customers — have now had their power restored.
“LUMA remains focused on completing the restoration and will continue work until all customers have service,” the statement from LUMA Energy read. “As of 5:00 a.m. on April 18, LUMA had restored power to 1,450,367 customers, representing 98.8% of the total, in less than 48 hours since the island-wide outage began.”
“With this progress, LUMA has met its initial projection of restoring service to at least 90% of customers by 12:40 p.m. on Friday,” the statement continued. “The LUMA Emergency Operations Center (LEOC) remains active, and teams continue to work quickly and safely to stabilize the system and restore service to the remaining customers.”
LUMA said that even though their work is nearing completion, some customers may continue to experience temporary interruptions due to limited generation.
Between 98% and 100% of hospitals in most regions have had their power restored along with most water and telecommunications systems and 100% of correctional institutions, said LUMA.
“The company continues to prioritize restoring critical infrastructure, including hospitals, water plants, airports, and emergency services,” LUMA said.
The private power company, which is responsible for power transmission on the island, said the massive outage appears to have been caused by a combination of factors, including a “failure in the protection system as initial trigger” and vegetation on a transmission line between the areas of Campaleche and Manatí, along the northern coast of the island.
This latest outage is the latest in a series of significant blackouts that have plagued the island in recent years, following the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017, which destroyed much of the power grid.
In December, Puerto Rico experienced an island-wide blackout on New Year’s Eve when an underground power line failure plunged the island into darkness for two days.
Power outages have become so common in Puerto Rico that many residents have installed solar panels and batteries in their homes and businesses. The ongoing instability of the power grid has also led to protests, with many criticizing LUMA, which took over power transmission and distribution in 2021.
ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway and Doc Louallen contributed to this report.
