(CAPE CANAVERAL, FL) — The two NASA astronauts whose return to Earth was delayed for months are on their way home.
Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore left the International Space Station on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft early on Tuesday and began an about 17-hour journey toward a splashdown off the Florida coast.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were also onboard the craft as it undocked at about 1:05 a.m. ET.
Williams and Wilmore had in June 2024 performed the first astronaut-crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. What was expected to be a weeklong trip to the ISS instead turned into a nine-month stay. The Boeing Starliner that was expected to carry them home after about 10 days experienced issues, leaving the pair at the station for months.
Their return spacecraft early on Tuesday maneuvered in space, moving above and behind the station, before firing a series of departure burns that sent it back toward Earth.
NASA said it expected the return trip to end at about 5:57 p.m., when the Dragon is scheduled to splash down off the Florida coast.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Matthew Glasser and Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
(LOS ANGELES) — A sheriff’s deputy died in a police chase after his patrol car crashed into a bystander’s car and then slammed into a light pole, splitting the vehicle in half, police said.
The chase began on Monday morning shortly before 11 a.m. in San Bernardino, California, when law enforcement received a call about a possible stolen vehicle that was spotted by a deputy on duty from the Victorville City Station, according to ABC News’ Los Angeles station KABC.
“Deputies attempted a traffic stop but the suspect, Ryan Turner, failed to yield and a pursuit ensued,” according to a statement from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department. “During the pursuit, Deputy Hector Cuevas, Jr. was involved in a traffic collision with another vehicle.”
During the police pursuit, Cuevas crashed near the intersection of El Evado and Seneca roads, where his patrol car struck a bystander’s vehicle before slamming into a light pole, causing his car to be severed in half.
“Cuevas succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced deceased at the scene,” police said. “The female driver of the other vehicle was transported to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.”
The suspect, named as Ryan Dwayne Turner, Jr. — a 22-year-old resident of San Bernardino – continued to flee before stopping his car at El Evado Road and Zuni Lane and attempting to escape on foot, law enforcement said.
The pursuit didn’t last long, and Turner was subsequently caught and taken into custody, police said.
Cuevas was a six-year veteran of law enforcement who worked at the Victorville station for the last three years, according to KABC.
Turner was booked on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and evading a peace officer and causing death or serious injury, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said during a news conference on Monday.
“I really have no words to describe this tragedy. Hector is the type of law enforcement officer that we all want to be,” Dicus said. “He was a grand and great protector and a great father, and we will be suffering his loss and supporting his family for quite some time.”
Vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies escorted the deputy’s body in a solemn procession across local freeways to the San Bernardino County Coroner’s Office following the incident, KABC said.
“We currently do not know the exact circumstances surrounding the collision as of yet,” Dicus said, confirming that an investigation on the crash is underway.
“We are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of a San Bernardino County deputy,” the San Bernardino Police Officers Association said in a statement on social media. “Our thoughts and prayers are with their family, friends, and the entire agency during this difficult time. They made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their community, and their bravery will never be forgotten.”
(ROATÁN, HONDURAS) — An aircraft crashed into the sea with 17 people on board in Roatán, Honduras, on Monday, according to local officials.
Honduras Civil Aviation confirmed that the accident occurred at 6:18 p.m. at Juan Manuel Gálvez International Airport. There were 15 passengers and two crew members on board, HCA said.
The Jetstream 32 was departing from Roatán with the intended destination of La Ceiba, which is located on the north coast of Honduras. Preliminary reports indicate that the plane crashed seconds after takeoff.
Honduran police said that they’re present at the scene and attempting to rescue those involved in the crash.
Honduran President Xiomara Castro released a statement saying that she activated an Emergency Operations Committee.
“They have immediately arrived at the scene of the plane crash that occurred 1 km from Roatán International Airport and are tirelessly assisting in the unfortunate incident,” she said in the statement.
“The public hospitals in San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba are now ready to treat injured passengers,” Castro added.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Allen Ferguson in a family photo. (Courtesy of family)
(OKLAHOMA CITY)– An Oklahoma father is being remembered as a hero after officials say he died while trying to save his son in wildfires that ravaged the state last week.
Allen Ferguson, a “beloved” youth wrestling coach from Chandler, died from injuries sustained in the wildfires, Oklahoma House Rep. Jim Shaw said.
Ferguson “tragically lost his life while trying to save his son, Will, who remains in critical condition,” Shaw said in a statement on Monday.
“Allen was a hero, and his dedication to his family and our community will never be forgotten,” the statement continued.
Family friend Shane Earp also remembered Ferguson as a “good man and a hero” to ABC News.
Ferguson carried his 15-year-old son, Will Conley, through the fire in Chandler to a road where they were found by rescuers, according to Earp. He spoke to his son throughout their ambulance ride to keep him calm, Earp said. Ferguson, who suffered severe burns, died at a hospital on Saturday, the family friend said.
The father of four boys was a “great man all around,” Earp said.
“Whether it be fishing, metal detecting, sports, making art out of anything, Civil War reenactment and many other things, if his family was interested in it, he would find a way to learn it and make it happen,” Earp said. “Always had jokes and funny comments so you must be ready to laugh when around him.”
Ferguson was one of four people killed in Oklahoma due to fires or high winds after scores of wildfires broke out throughout the state last week amid extreme fire weather conditions, officials said. Over 140 people were injured, officials said.
More than 400 homes and structures have been damaged in the high wind-fueled fires, the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management said.
Following the devastating blazes, Oklahoma continues to be on alert for fire danger.
Parts of Oklahoma, as well as Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Texas, face a critical threat of fire danger on Monday.
The fire threat continues in Oklahoma on Tuesday and increases for parts of the Texas Panhandle and southeastern New Mexico.
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Find Your Light Foundation
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) appears to have taken down a webpage from the Office of the Surgeon General (OSG) that included an advisory on gun violence.
In June 2024, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory declaring gun violence to be a public health crisis in America, calling for an evidence-based approach to public health change as well as a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines for civilian use.
“Firearm violence is an urgent public health crisis that has led to loss of life, unimaginable pain, and profound grief for far too many Americans,” Murthy said in a statement at the time.
The OSG issued a press release at the time showing that at least 10 national medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Surgeons, American Public Health Association and the YWCA — wrote statements in support of the advisory.
However, the webpage where the advisory existed currently displays a “Page Not Found” message.
“We’re sorry, but there is no www.hhs.gov page that matches your entry. Possible reasons: The page may have been moved, it no longer exists, or the address may have been typed incorrectly,” the website states, as of Monday.
The White House did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
In a statement to ABC News, the HHS said that the department “and the Office of the Surgeon General are complying with President Trump’s Executive Order on Protecting Second Amendment Rights.”
Last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order, directing the Attorney General to review “[a]ll Presidential and agencies’ actions from January 2021 through January 2025 that purport to promote safety but may have impinged on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has previously stated he believes in the Second Amendment but that he wants to determine the cause of mass shootings.
In a 2023 live stream on X with Elon Musk, Kennedy falsely claimed there is “tremendous circumstantial evidence” that people using antidepressants were more likely to commit school shootings. Experts previously told ABC News there is no evidence to suggest that patients with mental health disorders, or those who are on medications for disorders, are more likely to be violent.
Firearm-related injuries are the leading cause of death in the U.S. among kids and teens. Gun-related suicides have risen among all age groups from 2012 to 2022; the greatest rise has been among 10–14-year-olds, according to Murhty’s advisory.
Gun violence prevention programs, such as GIFFORDS — which was founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords — criticized the Trump administration for the removal of the advisory.
“By removing this important public health advisory with lifesaving resources, President Trump has chosen to prioritize gun industry profits over protecting kids and families,” Emma Brown, executive director of GIFFORDS, said in a statement. “Guns have been the number one killer of American children and adolescents since 2020, and non-partisan health care experts have understood gun violence as a public health crisis for years.”
ABC News’ Medical Unit’s Dr. Jade Cobern contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is taking aim at one of his predecessor’s final acts in office: preemptive pardons for members of the House Jan. 6 select committee.
In a late-night social media post, Trump claimed without evidence President Joe Biden used an autopen to sign the pardons and so he considered them “hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT.”
Trump, who made retribution against his perceived political enemies a focal point of his 2024 campaign, said the committee members should “fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level” despite no findings of wrongdoing.
Despite his claims, legal experts told ABC News that Trump does not have the power to overturn Biden’s actions.
A president’s clemency power is vested in Article II of the Constitution and is “broad and virtually unlimited,” said Jeffrey Crouch, an assistant professor at American University and expert on presidential pardons.
Its few restrictions include that it can only apply to federal offenses and can’t interfere with the impeachment powers of Congress.
In 1929, a memo by the solicitor general to the attorney general on pardons held that “neither the Constitution nor any statute prescribes the method by which Executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced.”
“It is wholly a matter for the President to decide, as a practical question of administrative policy,” the department said. “Nobody but the President can exercise the power, but the power having been exercised the method of making a record and evidence thereof is a mere detail which he can prescribe in accordance with what he deems to be the practical necessities and proprieties of the situation.”
The memo was cited in a federal appeals court ruling just last year that said pardons don’t necessarily have to be in writing.
And while autopens (mechanical devices used to automatically add a signature to a document) have come under scrutiny in the past, the Justice Department as recently as 2005 determined they were constitutional and could be used for a president to sign a bill into law in a study commissioned by then-President George W. Bush.
Former President Barack Obama used an autopen to extend the Patriot Act, avert a fiscal crisis and more during his administration. Other presidents, including Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy, are also documented as having used the device or one similar.
“If the autopen is illegal, then many of the actions and regulations that presidents have done for the past four or five decades are null and void. It’s a ridiculous argument,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
“There is nothing in the Constitution that requires that a pardon must be signed without an autopen. Obviously, that is a 20th century invention, and earlier presidents had no access to such technology. Nonetheless, Trump has zero authority to undo a Biden pardon, just as the next president has no authority to undo Trump’s pardons,” said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law expert at the University of North Carolina.
ABC News has inquired with Biden’s team and the current White House to learn more about their autopen usage but has not received comment.
Aboard Air Force One late Sunday, Trump was asked if any executive order or action from Biden that included an autopen would be considered null.
“It’s not my decision, that’ll be up to a court,” Trump responded, “but I would say that they’re null and void because I’m sure Biden didn’t have any idea that it was taking place, and somebody was using an autopen to sign off and to give pardons.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also suggested, without evidence, that Biden was unaware of his signature being affixed to the pardons.
“Was his legal signature used without his consent or knowledge?” Leavitt said during Monday’s briefing.
Asked specifically if attorneys at the White House told Trump he has the legal authority to undo a pardon because it was signed by autopen, Leavitt said Trump was just “begging the question that I think a lot of journalists in this room should be asking.”
Biden issued the eleventh-hour pardons just hours before Trump’s inauguration. He spoke several times in his final media interviews about how he was considering such an option for people he feared could be targeted in the next administration, such as Liz Cheney or Anthony Fauci.
What would happen if Trump tried to ignore or challenge Biden’s action?
“It could open a Pandora’s box if a sitting president tried to undo a pardon by one of their predecessors. The better rule would be that pardons — whether perceived as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ decisions — should be final,” said Crouch.
ABC News’ Molly Nagle and Nicholas Kerr contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The wing of a Delta plane struck the runway as it was coming in for a landing at LaGuardia Airport on Sunday evening, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
At approximately 10:10 p.m. on Sunday, the plane’s “left wing struck the runway while landing” and the pilots then “executed a go-around,” according to the FAA.
A go-around is a safe, routine maneuver where the pilot discontinues the landing approach and returns the aircraft to an altitude to safely make another landing attempt.
The plane, a CRJ-900 aircraft, was traveling on its regularly scheduled service from Jacksonville, Florida, to New York City, according to Delta.
On air traffic control audio, the controller told the pilot, “Somebody saw some sparks from one of your wings, you guys feel anything?” The pilot responded, “We didn’t, but we’ll check it.”
The flight was operated by Endeavor, the same regional carrier as the Delta plane that crashed while landing in while landing in Toronto in February. The plane in that incident was also a CRJ-900.
The 76 passengers, two pilots and two flight attendants on board Flight 4814 were unharmed, with no injuries reported, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the three major New York City area airports.
“We apologize to our customers for the experience,” Delta said in a statement.
The airline said the plane has been taken out of service while maintenance teams evaluate and did not indicate when the aircraft will return to flying.
The incident also did not cause an impact to airport operations, according to the Port Authority.
The FAA is continuing to investigate the situation.
(NEW YORK) — Despite the deadly storms over the weekend, one of the core government facilities tracking severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, is listed on the website of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as one with a planned office closure.
The Storm Prediction Center — one of several entities housed at the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma — issues severe weather forecasts across the nation and identifies threat zones where dangerous thunderstorms and tornadoes could move through days in advance.
A spokesperson with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the federal agency that studies and reports on the oceans, atmosphere and coasts as well as oversees the Storm Prediction Center as well as the National Weather Service — confirmed that the “building lease issue is in flux.”
With this latest storm, the Storm Prediction Center began alerting about a potential significant severe weather event across parts of the Midwest and South several days ahead of the first tornadoes. The center also tracks which parts of the country could face critical to extreme fire weather conditions — as Oklahoma, where the center is located, remains under alert for fire danger after being devastated by deadly blazes over the weekend.
At least 40 people were killed amid more than 970 severe storm reports across more than two dozen states over the weekend. A three-day tornado outbreak tore through at least nine states.
Republican Rep. Tom Cole claims that he intervened and that the center in Norman will not lose its lease.
“I am so proud to have advocated for them. As the Representative for Oklahoma’s Fourth District, I will always fight for Oklahomans and my constituents!” Cole wrote in a release last week.
But the building is still listed, along with hundreds of others, as a target of DOGE’s cuts.
The White House said that the General Services Administration is “reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization.”
“A component of our space consolidation plan will be the termination of many soft term leases. To the extent these terminations affect public facing facilities and/or existing tenants, we are working with our agency partners to secure suitable alternative space. In many cases this will allow us to increase space utilization and obtain improved terms,” a White House spokesperson said.
When the GSA briefly listed office leases it planned to terminate a few weeks ago, the NOAA locations sent shockwaves through the scientific community especially with tornado season (and hurricane season) coming up.
The Norman facility has, according to local outlets, been impacted by some staffing cuts.
Online the center boasts of some 500 scientists, engineers, meteorologists and climatologists from NOAA, the University of Oklahoma and state agencies. It specializes in storm prediction and advancing radar technology.
“We serve as a national resource for severe weather research and work collaboratively with the National Weather Service to ensure that their forecasters have the knowledge, capabilities, and technologies to remain world leaders in effectively communicating accurate, timely, and actionable forecasts and warnings of extreme weather to the public and commerce,” their mission statement reads.
ABC News has reached out to local Oklahoma lawmakers for comment, but hasn’t heard back by the time of publication.
Allison Robbert for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has scheduled a hearing at 5 p.m. ET Monday to address the question of whether the Trump administration knowingly violated a court order when it handed over more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvadoran authorities over the weekend.
Shortly before the hearing’s scheduled start time, the judge, James Boasberg, denied a request from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to call off the hearing.
Justice Department attorneys subsequently asked the circuit court to step in and stop the hearing and to assign the case to a different judge.
President Donald Trump’s administration made a calculated decision Saturday to ignore the judge’s directive to turn around two flights containing hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Saturday’s verbal instructions from Boasberg accompanied a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from deporting noncitizens currently in custody, which the judge issued less than two hours after Trump attempted to invoke the 18th century law to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Boasberg, in his temporary restraining order, explicitly told the government to turn around any aircraft that had already departed the country if they were still in the air. However, sources said top lawyers and officials in the administration made the determination that since the flights were over international waters, Boasberg’s order did not apply, and the planes were not turned around.
DOJ attorneys argued in their Monday court filing that court should vacate the hearing because they do not believe they violated the court’s orders, and they are not prepared to provide any further operational security or national security details to the plaintiffs or to the public.
Bondi, Blanche and additional top DOJ leadership wrote that “an oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction” — claiming the government not violate any order because the oral directive in court, issued at 6:46 p.m. ET Saturday, was not in the written order that was filed to the docket at 7:25 p.m. ET.
In a court filing late Sunday night, lawyers with the ACLU and Democracy Forward Foundation argued that the Trump administration may have committed a “blatant violation” of the court’s directive by acting as if the order only applied to flights in U.S. airspace and individuals on American soil.
“This Court orally and unambiguously directed the government to turn around any planes carrying individuals being removed pursuant to the AEA Proclamation,” the filing said.
Lawyers with the Department of Justice insisted in a court filing Sunday that they removed “gang members” pursuant to Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation before the court issued its order.
However, lawyers representing some of the migrants argued that assertion not only conflicts with the timeline of events but also misconstrues when the United States loses jurisdiction of the noncitizens.
“Whether or not the planes had cleared U.S. territory, the U.S. retained custody at least until the planes landed and the individuals were turned over to foreign governments,” the plaintiffs’ filing said. “And the Court could not have been clearer that it was concerned with losing jurisdiction and authority to order the individuals returned if they were handed over to foreign governments, not with whether the planes had cleared U.S. territory or had even landed in another country.”
Plaintiffs’ attorneys said that based on publicly available information, it appears that two flights carrying migrants under the Alien Enemies Act landed after the court’s verbal and written orders. They added that “public comments made by Defendants and the President of El Salvador” boasting about the court being “too late” to stop the deportations reinforces concerns that the Trump administration may have violated the order.
“Defendants could have turned the plane around without handing over individuals subject to the Proclamation and this Court’s [Temporary Restraining Order],” the lawyers argued.
Finding the deportations would cause irreparable harm, Boasberg’s temporary restraining order on Saturday barred the Trump administration from deporting “all non-citizens who are subject to the AEA proclamation” for at least 14 days.
“You shall inform your clients of this immediately any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg said during Saturday’s hearing. “However that’s accomplished, turning around the plane, or not embarking anyone on the plane. … This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”
Plaintiffs’ lawyers have asked Judge Boasberg to order the Trump administration to submit sworn declarations to determine whether the government knowingly violated his court order.
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump’s tariffs sent stocks tumbling in recent weeks, but the uncertainty helped propel a different asset viewed as a safe haven: gold.
The price of gold topped $3,000 per ounce for the first time ever last week, and the precious metal continued to hover around that mark in early trading on Monday.
Gold prices have soared 12% so far this year, while the S&P 500 has plummeted nearly 7%. Over that period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped 2% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq has tumbled 8.5%.
The rush toward gold makes financial sense, experts said. The asset offers investors a hedge against uncertain stock performance, since gold prices often display a degree of independence from movements in equities markets.
However, gold prices carry volatility of their own, some experts added, especially when buyers enter the market at a high point, risking losses instead of providing a security blanket. “Investors need to be careful,” Campbell Harvey, a professor at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business who studies commodity prices, told ABC News.
“At a time of heightened uncertainty, people look toward a safe haven – and gold is a perceived safe haven. But most people don’t realize that gold is volatile,” Harvey added.
The run-up in gold prices comes amid a market slump set off by an escalating global trade war.
Last week, the S&P 500 closed down more than 10% since its high in February, meaning the decline officially qualified as a market correction. It marked the index’s first correction since October 2023. At the same time, the Dow suffered its worst one-week drop-off since 2023.
“Right now, it’s a very anxious marketplace,” Jim Wyckoff, senior market analyst at Kitco Metals, told ABC News. “That’s been a detriment for stock-market bulls and a boom for gold-market bulls.”
The flight to gold in moments of market crisis draws on decades of evidence, according to an analysis co-authored by Harvey in 2020. The price of gold moved higher during seven of the last nine major stock market selloffs stretching back to the late 1980s, researchers found.
“It’s a good track record, but it’s not a sure thing,” Harvey said. “Even though it went up seven out of nine of these drawdown periods, that doesn’t mean it will be seven out of nine in the next nine drawdowns.”
Last week, Paris-based financial firm BNP Paribas raised its forecast for gold prices, predicting the precious metal would exceed $3,100 an ounce. The company attributed the rosy outlook to economic uncertainty incited by Trump, but it warned such gains would likely fizzle out by the second half of this year.
“The gold market will price in or normalize Trump-driven trade risks, as it typically does with geopolitical risk,” BNP Paribas said in a report shared with ABC News. “Thus, if there is no ongoing escalation in trade tensions, gold prices will, in our view, struggle to maintain further upside momentum.”
Some experts who spoke to ABC News acknowledged the current price boom may eventually lose steam, but they still encouraged investors to add the precious metal to their portfolios as a means of offsetting the heightened risk of stocks.
“Gold offers diversification,” Trevor Yates, an analyst at investment firm Global X, told ABC News. “We see gold warranting a place in the portfolio.”
Investors who add gold for the sake of diversifying their portfolio, however, may want to add other assets alongside it, such as Treasury bonds or real estate, Harvey said.
“There are other safe assets besides gold,” Harvey said. “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.”
