(NEW YORK) — Significant severe weather and life-threatening flash flooding continue to impact much of the mid-South up through the Ohio River Valley.
Saturday will be the final day of this multi-day high impact flood event that has wreaked havoc across portions of the Lower and Mid-Mississippi River Valley, which remains under a high risk for flooding.
With the potential of seeing another 3 to 6 inches of rain Saturday into Sunday (and locally more in some places), catastrophic flooding is likely to occur, if not already ongoing, for the places under the high risk.
Even though the threat for severe storms will gradually lessen over the weekend as this stationary front slowly pushes east, more unsettled weather will continue to erupt over the areas already hit hard by tornados and life-threatening flooding.
On Saturday, the threat for severe weather extends from eastern Texas up through Kentucky, with parts of the lower and Mid-Mississippi River Valley under the greatest threat.
Millions are under an enhanced risk (level 3 of 5), where damaging winds, large hail and several tornadoes are possible, some which could be strong. Places like Memphis, Tennessee; Shreveport, Louisiana; Lafayette, Louisiana and Jackson, Mississippi, all face the greatest risk of seeing the most intense storms that could generate strong tornadoes, very large hail and powerful winds.
Both the threat for severe weather and excessive rainfall will ease a bit on Sunday as this system begins to slide eastward. However, parts of the Tennessee and Ohio River Valley could see another 3 to 6 inches before this frontal boundary completely moves out of the region by Monday.
Parts of the Southeast are under a slight risk (level 2 of 5) for severe weather, where storms could generate damaging winds, hail and isolated tornadoes.
With that, thunderstorms generating heavy rainfall (with rates potentially reaching 2 to 3 inches per hour) could cause flash flooding in prone areas. A good portion of Georgia and Alabama, as well as parts of the Florida Panhandle, southern Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana are under a slight risk for flooding.
Following a third night of destructive storms, portions of the mid-Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys are not out of the woods yet. A stagnant frontal boundary stretching over the region will bring additional rounds of torrential rain and strong storms again on Saturday.
More than a dozen tornadoes were reported yesterday across Texas, Arkansas and Missouri.
Flood alerts stretching from Texas up through Pennsylvania remain in effect. Overnight, flash flood emergencies were issued for Cape Girardeau County and Van Buran in Missouri. Emergency management reported water rescues.
American teacher Stephen Hubbard was taken prisoner by Russian forces in Ukraine. Image via ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — The last time Stephen J. Hubbard was seen in public, he was being led handcuffed into a Moscow courtroom.
The 73-year-old American has spent roughly three years in Russian captivity. In early 2022, he was swept up by the Kremlin’s troops as they occupied parts of Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion. He is believed to be the only American Russia has taken from Ukraine and put on trial.
Russia has convicted Hubbard as a mercenary fighting for Ukraine. But his family, the U.S. government and Ukrainian officials say the reality is that the elderly American was an innocent teacher.
“We didn’t even know if he was dead or alive until July,” Hubbard’s sister, Patricia Hubbard Fox, told ABC News. “It’s dire. His health is dire. It’s been reported he’s passing blood. They need to bring him home.”
Hubbard is one of a string of Americans seized by Russia on dubious charges in recent years, as the Kremlin has seized hostages to use as political bargaining chips, among them WNBA star Brittney Griner and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. The State Department has designated Hubbard as “wrongfully detained” meaning the U.S. government can negotiate for his release.
In September, Russian state media reported Hubbard pleaded guilty to the mercenary charges. His sister said the allegations were absurd and that he had been forced into the guilty plea after years of torture and mistreatment.
“It’s just a lie,” Patricia said. “Steve was 70 years old, there’s no way he was a mercenary. Steve was an English teacher. It’s an excuse to kidnap Americans. Steve is nothing but a pawn for Russia.”
The State Department called on Russia to release Hubbard.
“He never should have been taken captive,” the State Department said in a statement. “The United States will continue to work for the release of Mr. Hubbard and all other Americans unjustly detained in Russia.”
Born in Big Rapids, Michigan, Hubbard briefly joined the Air Force after high school but left after three years. In the 1980s, he moved to Japan with his second wife, where he spent the next 25 years working as an English teacher, according to his sister. After the couple divorced, he and his son from that marriage moved to Cyprus, where he met a Ukrainian woman.
In 2014, he and the woman moved to Ukraine, settling in Izyum, a small, sleepy city in the country’s east. Hubbard, who doesn’t speak Russian or Ukrainian, continued to teach English online to support himself, his sister said.
Hubbard was in Izyum when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russian troops quickly overran the city and conducted one of the most brutal occupations of the war over the seven months that followed.
After Ukrainian forces liberated Izyum in September 2022, they discovered evidence of Russian atrocities — including hundreds of mass graves in a nearby forest. Soldiers had dumped bodies, with many showing signs of torture.
Hubbard was among the hundreds of civilians detained in Izyum and the surrounding villages during the Russian occupation. Ukrainian police investigating war crimes said they have been able to establish that a group of Russian soldiers seized Hubbard from his home in April 2022.
He was brought to a torture chamber in the nearby village of Balaklia, where many of those detained passed through, prosecutors in the Kharkiv region told ABC News.
A month later, Russian television aired a report featuring Hubbard from a prison in occupied Ukraine. Another video published by Mash, a channel with links to Russia’s security services, shows a zip-tied Hubbard being beaten in the back of a Russian APC.
Ukrainian prisoners of war have said they crossed paths with Hubbard at different times during his imprisonment. Ihor Shyshko told ABC News he shared a cell with Hubbard for about a month in 2023 at a prison in Pakino, around 150 miles from Moscow.
“The day began and ended with tortures,” Shyshko said.
In addition to subjecting them to electric shocks for interrogations, guards would force prisoners to stand in uncomfortable positions and then hit them in the genitals or knock them to the ground, according to Shyshko.
The prisons were freezing, Shyshko said, and prisoners were kept on a starvation diet, fed mostly water with a few spoons of buckwheat in it. Many Ukrainian prisoners of war return from captivity looking skeletal and suffering serious health problems.
Shyshko was released in a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine last year. Photos show him gaunt and wasted after his release, with bruises and rashes from scabies on his legs. He still wears hearing aids on both ears because of damage from beatings, he said.
The conditions were even harder for an elderly man like Hubbard, whom inmates believed was subjected to harsher treatment because he was American, Shyshko said. He recalled other inmates having to carry Hubbard to a medical center because he was unable to walk properly.
“He had very damaged knees, there was practically no skin, everything was rotten,” he said. “He is an old man. And he could not understand why this was happening to him.”
Patricia said she learned which prison her brother had been in after the wife of a Ukrainian soldier tracked her down. After Shyshko’s release, he also made contact with U.S. government representatives in an effort to help Hubbard.
Ukrainian police and prosecutors have opened a war crimes case over Hubbard’s abduction. After months interviewing witnesses and checking with government organizations, they said they had no evidence he had any involvement with Ukraine’s military or any fighting. Ukrainian officials and soldiers also noted Hubbard’s health and age likely meant he would not have been chosen to fight.
“He had nothing to do with the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He did not participate in the territorial defense. He is simply a civilian teacher,” Oleksandr Kobyliev, who heads the war crimes department of the Kharkiv regional police, told ABC News.
Patricia hopes her brother can be released in a prisoner exchange similar to those that have freed other U.S. citizens.
Last July, Russia released Americans, including Gershkovich, in the largest exchange since the end of the Cold War after reaching an agreement with the Biden administration. In February, American teacher Marc Fogel was freed in exchange for a Russian cyber criminal, in a swap agreed with the Trump administration.
Patricia said she is selling her house in order to buy another place with room for Hubbard to stay and recover when he is eventually freed. She pleaded for President Donald Trump to help save her brother.
“You went and got another schoolteacher, go get my brother,” she said. “Before it’s too late.”
(WASHINGTON) — After months of negotiations, a deal to turn over TikTok’s United States operations to a new company with a majority American ownership was finalized on Wednesday, according to senior administration officials.
The investors — which included Oracle, Blackstone, Andreeson Horowitz and several others — ByteDance and the Trump administration negotiated and agreed to the terms.
The plan was for President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to approve the deal this week, triggering a 120-day closing period to finalize the paperwork and financing.
ByteDance would have maintained a minority ownership in the new company, under the 20% threshold required by Congress.
All that remained was for the Chinese government to approve the deal — something all sides of the negotiations expected would happen.
However, on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced his tariffs.
Thursday morning, representatives for ByteDance called the White House to say the Chinese government would not approve the deal until negotiations could be held on Trump’s tariffs.
The deal remains in limbo, hostage to the emerging trade war between the U.S. and China.
On Friday, Trump said he is extending the deadline for TikTok to be banned or sold off by its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance.
The previous April 5 deadline will be pushed 75 days, Trump said in a post to his social media platform. It’s the second time he has pushed the deadline since taking office.
The TikTok negotiations were led by Vice President JD Vance, sources told ABC News. The deal is currently not being renegotiated with investors and the White House both standing by.
The revival appears to depend on what happens with U.S. and China negotiations on trade.
City utility workers clean up after a Russian drone attack on April 4, 2025 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The Russian army carried out around six strikes in the Novobavarskyi district. Nearly 30 residential high-rise buildings and dozens of cars were damaged. More than 30 people were injured, and 5 were killed. (Photo by Hnat Holyk/Gwara Media/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
(LONSON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for “sufficient pressure on Russia” after a day of missile and drone strikes that killed at least 23 people and as Kirill Dmitriev — the CEO of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund and an envoy of President Vladimir Putin — met with officials in the U.S.
Eighteen people were killed — among them nine children — in a Russian ballistic missile attack on the central city of Kryvyi Rih on Friday, Oleksandr Vilkul — the head of the local defense council — said in a post on Telegram. Another 56 people were injured in the strike, Vilkul said.
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink wrote in a post to X, “Horrified that tonight a ballistic missile struck near a playground and restaurant in Kryvyi Rih. More than 50 people injured and 16 killed, including 6 children. This is why the war must end.”
Zelenskyy said in a Saturday morning post to Telegram that the American reaction was inadequate.
“Unfortunately, the reaction of the American Embassy is unpleasantly surprising: such a strong country, such strong people — and such a weak reaction,” he said. “They are even afraid to say the word ‘Russian’ when talking about the missile that killed children.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strike targeted a meeting of Ukrainian commanders and “Western instructors” at a restaurant in the city. Ukrainian officials disputed the Russian justification.
Zelenskyy said in a statement on Friday evening that the strike in Kryvyi Rih — his home town — hit “an area near residential buildings: hitting a playground and regular streets,” describing those responsible for the attack as “inhuman.”
The president also reported a strike drone attack in the northeastern city of Kharkiv which killed five people and wounded 34 others. Another attack in the southern city of Kherson “hit an energy facility — the Kherson thermal power plant,” Zelenskyy wrote.
“Yes, the war must end,” Zelenskyy wrote in his Saturday morning statement. “But in order to end it, we must not be afraid to call a spade a spade. We must not be afraid to put pressure on the only one who continues this war and ignores all the world’s proposals to end it.”
“We must put pressure on Russia, which chooses to kill children instead of a ceasefire. We must introduce additional sanctions against those who cannot exist without ballistic strikes on neighboring people. We must do everything possible to save lives.”
Russia and Ukraine both launched more strikes overnight into Sunday morning. Ukraine’s air force reported 92 drones entering the country overnight, of which 51 were shot down and 31 lost in flight without causing damage. The air force reported damage in the Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 49 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Artyom Zdunov — the head of the Mordovia region, to the southeast of Moscow — said in a Telegram post that a drone targeted an industrial site there. “Operational and emergency services are working on the territory,” he wrote. “According to preliminary information, there are no casualties.”
Andriy Kovalenko — the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council — wrote on Telegram that a strike by “unknown drones” targeted a military industrial complex in Saransk, the capital of Mordovia. Kovalenko said goods produced there are used “in control, communication and data transmission systems, in particular — in the deployment of secure communication channels for the Russian army and in the control of drones.”
Both Ukraine and Russia have accused the other of continuing strikes on energy facilities despite the U.S.-brokered partial ceasefire that all parties said they agreed to last month. The agreement was intended to freeze all attacks on energy infrastructure and in the Black Sea, Kyiv, Moscow and Washington said.
Zelenskyy on Friday again accused Russia of violating the terms of the deal.
“These strikes cannot be accidental,” the president said. “The Russians know exactly that these are energy facilities and that such facilities should be protected from any attacks under what Russia itself promised to the American side.”
“Every Russian promise ends with missiles or drones, bombs or artillery,” he continued.
“Diplomacy means nothing to them. And that’s why pressure is needed — sufficient pressure on Russia so they feel the consequences of every lie of theirs, every strike, every single day they take lives and prolong the war.”
Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also accused Ukraine of violating the partial ceasefire. Moscow passed information about the alleged violations to the U.S., the foreign minister said. On Saturday, Russia’s Defense Ministry alleged 14 Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure over the previous 24 hours.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration is waiting to see whether Moscow is serious about reaching an agreement to end its 3-year-old full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Noting Dmitriev’s meetings in Washington this week, Rubio said, “He’ll take some messages back” to Moscow. “And the message is, the United States needs to know whether you’re serious or not about peace. Ultimately, Putin will have to make that decision.”
“If there’s a delay tactic, the President’s not interested in that,” Rubio said. “If this is dragging things out, President Trump’s not going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations about negotiations,” he added.
Washington’s messages to the Kremlin via Dmitriev were not “threatening,” Rubio said, but were instead “more of an explanation of…our timeline,” which Rubio said was a matter of “weeks.”
“It’s pretty short. At the same time as we now have seen, members of Congress have begun to file bills to increase sanctions. So there is going to be growing pressure from Capitol Hill to impose sanctions,” Rubio continued. “All these factors have been explained in the nicest way possible. Hopefully he’ll take that message back to Moscow.”
As to potential violations of the partial ceasefire, Rubio suggested some incidents were to be expected. “I think there’s things they’re not striking that they were before,” he said.
But “if all of a sudden we wake up tomorrow and the Russians are launching a massive offensive, then I think that’s a pretty clear sign they’re not interested in peace,” Rubio added. “That hasn’t happened yet.”
ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman, Christopher Boccia, Tanya Stukalova and Oleksiy Pshemyskiy contributed to this report.
Alfredo Pacheco, a Venezuelan migrant who earlier this year was diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure, displays a photo of himself and his brother Jose Gregorio Gonzalez, March 26, 2025, in Cicero, Illinois. Gonzalez, also a migrant from Venezuela, was set to donate a kidney for his brother but was arrested and now detained by ICE. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(BROADVIEW, Ill.) — A man who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this month was temporarily released from an Illinois facility on Friday, after community advocates and officials appealed for his freedom so he can resume the kidney donation process in hopes of saving his brother’s life.
José Gregorio González, who was detained by ICE on March 3, was reunited with his brother José Alfredo Pacheco, who is in end-state kidney failure.
The brothers spoke out during a press conference in Chicago on Friday morning, where they were joined by their legal team, local officials and community advocates from the The Resurrection Project — the group that advocated for González’s release.
“I want to inform you that I’m extremely happy for the liberation of my brother. We fought for one month and one day to reach this goal,” Pacheco said in Spanish, addressing a group of supporters. “Thank you to the team of my lawyer Peter, thank you to the press that has helped get to this goal. I’m extremely thankful. Thank you very much.”
Visibly emotional and wearing a mask, Pacheco told reporters that he had a dialysis appointment earlier in the morning and he wouldn’t wish this illness on anybody.
Asked about the first thing he and his brother will do together, Pacheco said that they are going to call their mother so she can see them together.
According to The Resurrection Project, González was released from ICE custody three hours ahead of schedule on Friday morning. He was being held in the Clay County Jail in Brazil, Indiana, ICE records showed, and transferred to Broadview, Illinois, for release.
González answered one question during the press conference, speaking in Spanish.
“He said that he’s very happy for all the help the community has given him, for all the support that he thought was unbelievable, and to see his brother, he thinks it was something just very unbelievable,” a translator said. “He never would have imagined that that was possible.”
According to his attorney Peter Meinecke, González has been granted supervised release for one year.
“ICE has granted José a stay of removal for one year and released him under an order of supervision,” Meinecke said at Friday’s press conference. “This means ICE has decided José’s release is warranted due to urgent humanitarian factors. José will now be able to return home where he can resume the process of donating his kidney and saving his brother’s life.”
He noted that González will have to check in with ICE periodically during this time.
“This is part of an alternative to detention program for individuals whose continued detention is not in the public interest,” Meinecke said on Friday. “While José is released on an order supervision, he will be eligible to apply for a work permit at the end of one year, ICE could detain him and could ultimately seek to remove him to Venezuela.”
An ICE spokesperson provided a statement Friday evening in response to an ABC News request for comment evening stating: “Jose Gregorio Gonzalez, 43, is a citizen of Venezuela who has been ordered removed to his home country by an immigration judge. Gonzalez was arrested and placed in ICE custody March 3 without incident. After providing proper documentation ICE granted Gonzalez a temporary stay on humanitarian grounds.”
Meinecke, an attorney with The Resurrection Project, told ABC News in an interview on Wednesday that Pacheco reached out to the group earlier this month seeking support after González was detained.
Speaking in Spanish, Pacheco addressed a crowd of supporters during a press conference on Monday and called for his brother’s release.
“My health is at serious risk — I have 100% kidney failure and depend on dialysis three times a week,” he said, according to a translation provided by The Resurrection Project.
“It’s extremely difficult — sometimes, I can barely get out of bed. I have three children, 9-year-old twins and a 17-year-old back home, and I want to live to see them grow up. My brother used to take me to my appointments, but now I’m alone. My brother is a good man, not a criminal in Venezuela or here — he came only with the hope of donating his kidney to me. I thought I was alone, but seeing the support of this community has moved me deeply.”
Meinecke said that he had been in touch with González’s ICE officer over the past few weeks and submitted a request for release on temporary humanitarian parole on March 25.
“He needs to show that his release is either in the public interest or is necessary for like, urgent humanitarian factors. And in his case, we argue both,” Meinecke said. “You know, obviously, the medical conditions kind of speak to both. They’re both urgent humanitarian factors by now, but organ donation is in the public interest as well.”
Meinecke explained that Pacheco was admitted into the U.S. from Venezuela in 2023 and was permitted to apply for asylum, so he has a work permit while his asylum application is pending. His wife and three children remain in Venezuela. But soon after he arrived in the U.S., he suffered from stomach pain, according to Meinecke.
“[Alfredo] went to the hospital with severe abdominal pain, which is when he was diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure,” Tovia Siegel, director of organizing and leadership at the Resurrection Project, told ABC News on Wednesday. “At the time, he was told he had 2% functioning of his kidneys and would need dialysis consistently, multiple times a week to survive, and really, his best chance to live a full, healthy life would be a kidney transplant.”
Since his diagnosis in 2023, Pacheco’s condition has deteriorated, Siegel said.
“[Alfredo] currently receives [dialysis] three times a week, from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m., and his brother José came here to help care for him, and with the intention of being able to donate his kidney and save Alfredo’s life,” Siegel said. “And so for the last year, José has essentially been a full-time caretaker for Alfredo, helping with cooking, cleaning, etc, and with the intent to donate his kidney.”
But unlike Pacheco, when González arrived to the U.S. from Venezuela “primarily to assist” his brother, he failed to pass the credible fear screening, which did not allow him to apply for asylum like Pacheco had done, according to Meinecke, so he was detained by ICE for several months and then he was granted temporary supervised release but still faced a pending removal order. During his time on supervised release, González routinely checked in with his ICE officer, provided his address and wore an ankle monitor, Meinecke said.
Siegel said that González was detained while the brothers were leaving their home to go to Pacheco’s kidney dialysis appointment.
“It was shocking and devastating,” she said. “They had been living life together, and an incredibly difficult life where one of the brothers was undergoing incredible medical distress and suffering.”
“They were taking care of one another and surviving for a year together,” she added. “And during that time, clearly, you know, caring deeply for one another, loving each other as family members do. José [Gregorio] had no contact with police, the criminal legal system, and then one morning, with, you know, completely unexpected, ICE came to their home.”
González is likely going to donate for a swap but is hoping he’s a match, according to Siegel.
Friday’s release came after ICE denied on Monday a stay of removal request submitted by his attorneys and then the case was elevated to an ICE Chicago Field Supervisor, according to The Resurrection Project.
“This is literally a matter of life and death,” said Erendira Rendón, vice president of immigrant justice at The Resurrection Project. “ICE has the discretionary authority to release Mr. González on humanitarian grounds. Every day he remains detained is another day his brother’s life hangs in the balance.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris, in separate remarks on Thursday, criticized President Donald Trump and the White House for moves that they called unconstitutional or contributing to an erosion of the country’s values.
Neither Obama or Harris have spoken much publicly since Election Day in 2024.
Obama, in a speech at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, on Thursday, criticized the second Trump administration for levying new tariffs, for threats against universities and law firms, and for what he framed as upending the international order, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by a spokesperson and shared on Obama’s Medium profile.
“Look, I don’t think what we just witnessed in terms of economic policy and tariffs is going to be good for America, but that’s a specific policy. I’m more deeply concerned with a federal government that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech,” Obama said during a discussion on how he feels the values of the United States have “eroded.”
Obama added, “I am more troubled by the idea that a White House can say to law firms, ‘If you represent parties that we don’t like, we’re going to pull all our business or bar you from representing people effectively.’ That kind of behavior is contrary to the basic compact we have as Americans.”
The White House has defended actions toward universities as holding them accountable for their responses to antisemitism or other issues, and has said executive actions against law firms are meant to bolster national security or to stop work detrimental to the country.
Obama added that if he had threatened law firms or made moves similar to the second Trump administration, he would not have been tolerated, and said that he wasn’t discussing this from a “partisan basis.”
“This has to do with something more precious, which is who are we as a country and what values do we stand for … I think people tend to think, ‘oh, democracy, rule of law, independent judiciary, freedom of the press,'” he said. “That’s all abstract stuff because it’s not affecting the price of eggs. Well, you know what? It’s about to affect the price of eggs.”
He also criticized the Trump administration on foreign policy, and for striking against what Obama called the “rules-based system” of alliances and trade abroad, calling out the White House’s stated aim of getting control of Greenland for the sake of national security.
“And this is an important moment, because in the last two months, we have seen a U.S. government actively try to destroy that order and discredit it,” Obama said, according to the transcript. “And the thinking, I gather, is that somehow, since we are the strongest, we’re going to be better off if we can just bully people into doing whatever we want, and dictate the terms of trade all the time, and if we see a piece of land, be like, ‘who’s going to stop us? Greenland looks good.'”
Harris, speaking on Thursday at the Leading Women Defined Summit in California, framed actions by the White House as unconstitutional and said they are contributing to a “sense of fear,” according to video of her remarks provided by the Leading Women Defined Foundation to ABC News.
Harris said “we are in the midst of seeing progress being rolled back.”
“What has changed is that there is a sense of fear that has been taking hold in our country, and I understand it,” Harris said. “But we’re seeing people stay quiet. We are seeing organizations stay quiet. We are seeing those who are capitulating to clearly unconstitutional threats, and these are the things that we are witnessing each day in these last few months in our country.”
“And it understandably creates a great sense of fear. Because, you know, there were many things that we knew would happen, many things — I’m not here to say ‘I told you so,'” Harris said to laughter and cheers.
She added after, “I swore I wasn’t gonna say that.”
But Harris separately also framed showing courage as being able to galvanize others.
“Fear has a way of being contagious … Courage is also contagious. When one person, when a few, stand with the courage that is the courage exhibited by the leaders in this room every day, to stand, to have the courage to say, ‘I feel fear,’ the courage to say, ‘what is happening is wrong,’ the courage to say that there is a way that we must chart to get through this — understanding our power in the democracy we still have if we hold on to it,” Harris said. “Courage is contagious.”
Harris, who is considering a California gubernatorial bid, according to sources, did not say anything about her future plans.
In response to a request for comment from ABC News on Obama’s and Harris’s remarks, White House spokesman Kush Desai wrote, “During her time in office, Kamala Harris presided over the weaponization of our justice system against political opponents, the coercion of social media companies to censor free speech, and the wholesale destruction of our country’s economy and borders.
“Neither she nor Barack Obama, who wrote off worker layoffs by saying ‘some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back’, are in any position to weigh in on the merits or constitutionality of the Trump administration’s historic action to put Americans and America First,” he added.
ABC News’ Averi Harper and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
(LOS ANGELES) — An investigation is underway after authorities found a body matching the description of a missing 13-year-old boy, Los Angeles police said.
Oscar Omar Hernandez, of the San Fernando Valley, was reported missing by his family on Sunday after he “failed to return home from visiting an acquaintance in Lancaster,” LAPD Capt. Scot Williams said in a statement.
The Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division assumed the lead Tuesday in the investigation, which subsequently led them to an “area of interest” in the city of Oxnard, west of Los Angeles, Williams said.
“In collaboration with our partners at the FBI, a coordinated foot search of that area took place,” Williams said. “During the search, a body matching the description of the missing teen was discovered.”
The identity of the deceased has not been officially confirmed, and the cause of death remains undetermined, police said.
Detectives are pursuing leads to “determine the cause of death and to identify any individuals who may be involved or possess information relevant to this investigation,” Williams said.
LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton told reporters at the scene in Oxnard on Wednesday that they were working to establish a timeline in the case.
“The family was aware of his destination, and I’m going to kind of leave it at that as part of the investigation,” he said.
Police would not say what led them to Oxnard.
“All we can say is that our investigation led us to this point here … in the unincorporated area of Ventura County,” Hamilton said.
Family and friends of Oscar paid tribute to the teen on Thursday at the site where the body was found on the side of a road in Oxnard.
“He didn’t need to be treated like an animal. That was my son,” his mother, Gladys Bautista, cried out in Spanish, ABC News’ Los Angeles station KABC reported.
Loved ones also gathered outside his home in the North Hollywood area, where friends remembered him as the “nicest person” who was “always kindhearted” and a great dancer.
Police did not have an update on the investigation on Friday.
“Anyone that thinks they’re going to get away with any kind of foul play or nefarious activity or criminal activity, they’re going to learn that the Los Angeles Police Department will stop at nothing to bring people to justice,” Hamilton said at the scene Wednesday.
(FRISCO, Texas) — A 17-year-old student charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of another student at a track meet allegedly confessed to the killing and officers say he told them he was protecting himself, according to the arrest report.
The incident occurred Wednesday morning at a Frisco Independent School District stadium during a track and field championship involving multiple schools in the district.
Austin Metcalf, 17, an 11th grader at Frisco Memorial High School, died after police said another student stabbed him during an altercation in the bleachers at the meet.
The suspect in the deadly stabbing — Karmelo Anthony, a student at Frisco Centennial High School — has been charged with first-degree murder, police said.
One officer who responded to the scene said Anthony told him unprompted, without being asked any questions about the incident, “I was protecting myself,” according to the arrest report.
When the officer advised another responding officer that he had “the alleged suspect,” Anthony reportedly responded, “I’m not alleged, I did it,” according to the arrest report.
As he was walking toward the squad car, Anthony “was emotional,” reportedly saying unprompted, “He put his hands on me, I told him not to,” according to the arrest report. Once in the back seat, he also reportedly asked if Metcalf was “going to be OK,” according to the report.
Anthony “made another spontaneous statement” and reportedly asked an officer if what happened “could be considered self-defense,” according to the arrest report. Another officer reported that the suspect was “crying hysterically” while being walked away from the stadium, the report said.
Anthony is being held in the Collin County jail on $1 million bond, court records show. When reached for comment on Friday, his attorney told ABC News he had been on the case for only a few hours and needed to catch up.
Anthony’s father told ABC News on Thursday that they do not have a statement to make at this time.
The stabbing occurred under the Memorial High School tent in the stadium bleachers at approximately 10 a.m. on Wednesday, according to the arrest report.
Responding officers say they spoke to multiple witnesses, including one who reported that the altercation began after Metcalf told Anthony to move out from under their team’s tent, according to the arrest report.
The witness reported that Anthony allegedly reached inside his bag and said, “Touch me and see what happens,” according to the arrest report.
According to a witness, Metcalf grabbed Anthony to move him, and Anthony allegedly pulled out what the witness described as a black knife and “stabbed Austin once in the chest and then ran away,” the arrest report stated.
An officer recovered a bloody knife in the bleachers, according to the report.
Metcalf was transported to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:53 a.m. on Wednesday, according to the arrest report.
His twin brother, Hunter Metcalf, was also at the meet and spoke to officers at the scene. He said that after his brother told Anthony he had to leave the tent because he didn’t go to Memorial, the two “went back and forth and then Austin stood up and pushed the male to get him out of the tent,” according to the arrest report.
“I tried to whip around as fast as I could, but I didn’t see the stab,” Hunter Metcalf told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA. “It was really senseless. I don’t know why a person would do that to someone, just over that little argument.”
The track meet has been postponed to Monday and will be held at a new location, WFAA reported. Frisco ISD will share more details on updated security measures with families, according to the station.
(NEW YORK) — U.S. stocks closed down significantly on Friday after a continued selloff amid fallout from President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 2,230 points, or 5.5%, while the S&P 500 plunged 6%.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 5.8%. The decline put the Nasdaq into bear market territory, meaning the index has fallen more than 20% from its recent peak.
The trading session on Friday marked the worst day for U.S. stocks since 2020. The second-worst day for U.S. stocks since that year happened on Thursday, a day earlier. Over the past two days, the S&P 500 dropped more than 10%.
Corporate giants that rely on supply chains abroad were among the firms that continued to see shares fall. Apple fell 7% and e-commerce firm Amazon slid 4%.
Shares fell for each of the so-called “Magnificent Seven,” a group of large tech firms that helped drive stock market gains in recent years.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, dropped 5%. Chipmaker Nvidia slid 7%.
Tesla, the electric carmaker led by Trump-advisor Elon Musk, declined more than 10%.
On Friday, China said it will impose 34% tariffs on U.S. goods in response to the levies issued by Trump earlier this week.
In a social media post hours later, Trump signaled a commitment to the tariff policy.
“TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Trump later criticized China in a different social media post, saying, “CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED – THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!”
All three major American stock markets closed down on Thursday, marking their worst day since June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NASDAQ fell 6%, the S&P 500 4.8% and the Dow Jones nearly 4%
Global markets gave early signals of the difficulty to come on Friday. Japan’s Nikkei index lost 3.5% on Friday, while the broader Japanese Topix index fell 4.45%.
In South Korea, the KOSPI index was down 1.7%, with the country grappling with both Trump’s tariffs and the news that South Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Indian investors joined the sell-off on Friday, with the Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex indexes both falling more than 1%. India’s stock markets had previously performed better than others thanks to lower tariffs than competitors like China, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Australia’s S&P/ASX, meanwhile, continued its slide into Friday with another 2% drop taking the index to an 8-month low.
In Europe, too, stock markets fell upon opening. Britain’s FTSE 100 index dropped more than 1%, Germany’s DAX fell 0.75%, France’s CAC lost 0.9% and Spain’s IBEX slipped 1.4%.
ABC News’ Leah Sarnoff, Max Zahn, Victor Ordoñez and Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Maryland has granted a preliminary injunction and ordered the government to facilitate the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador in error, by Monday.
“I am going to grant the motion for preliminary injunction I’ve reviewed, and I’ll read this word for word, so that there is no dispute that the oral order is the written order,” said U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis at Firday’s hearing, making a reference to the Alien Enemies Act court case in which the government failed to carry out another judge’s oral order.
“The two defendants are hereby ordered to facilitate the return of plaintiff Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States by no later than 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 7, 2025,” Judge Xinis said.
Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador as part of what the Trump administration described as a $6 million deal with Salvadoran authorities in which they would house deported migrants in exchange for payment. At Friday’s hearing, however, the Justice Department attorney denied there was such a contract.
“The way I see the record, though, is that there is an agreement between your clients and El Salvador where your clients are [paying] upward of $6 million to house individuals,” Judge Xinis said. “There’s nothing to suggest that they’re still not in the custody of DHS and immigration.”
Erez Reuveni, Acting Deputy Director for the Office of Immigration Litigation for DOJ, replied, “There’s nothing in the record that there is a contract.”
When Judge Xinis pushed back and said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem have spoken about an agreement between the two countries, Reuveni said he could not speak for them.
“I can’t speak to where they got their information from,” Reuvani said. “But neither of them said there is a contact.”
“They may not have used the word contract, but agreement sounds a lot like contract where we paid $6 million,” Judge Xinis replied. “I think I can draw a logicial inference.”
Abrego Garcia, despite having protected legal status, was sent to the notorious CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador following what the government said was an “administrative error.”
“The facts are conceded,” Reuvani said during Friday’s hearing. “Mr. Abrego Garcia should not have been removed.”
Although the government has acknowledged the error, it said in an earlier court filing that because Abrego Garcia was no longer in U.S. custody, the court cannot order him to be returned to the U.S., nor can the court order El Salvador to return him.
Last month, Abrego Garcia, who has a U.S. citizen wife and 5-year-old child, was stopped by ICE officers who “informed him that his immigration status had changed,” according to his attorneys. He was detained and then transferred to a detention center in Texas, after which he was sent to El Salvador’s CECOT prison, along with more than 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members, on March 15.
Abrego Garcia entered the United States in 2011 when he was 16 to escape gang violence in El Salvador, according to his lawyers. His attorneys say that in 2019, a confidential informant “had advised that Abrego Garcia was an active member” of the gang MS-13. Abrego Garcia later filed an I-589 application for asylum, and although he was found removable, an immigration judge “granted him withholding of removal to El Salvador,” the attorneys said.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say that he “is not a member of or has no affiliation with Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other criminal or street gang” and said that the U.S. government “has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation.”
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt — while acknowledging the government’s error in sending him to El Salvador — called Abrego Garcia a leader of MS-13.
“The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” Leavitt said.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney representing Abrego Garcia, acknowledged at Friday’s hearing that his client could have been removed to another county — just not El Salvador.
“He certainly was removable to many countries on Earth — El Salvador is simply not one of them,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
“There was no removal order as to El Salvador,” he added. “This was essentially the equivalent of a forcible expulsion.”
When asked by Judge Xinis under what authority law enforcement officers seized Abrego Garcia, Reuveni said he was frustrated that he did not have those answers.
“Your honor, my answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating and I’m also frustrated that I have no answers for you on a lot of these questions,” Reuvani said.
Following the hearing, Abrego Garcia’s wife said she will continue to fight for her husband.
“I want to say thank you to everyone that has helped us, that has supported us in fighting this, and we will continue fighting for Kilmar, for my husband,” said Jennifer Varquez Sura.
