(MIDDLE EAST) — An F/A-18E fighter jet rolled off the side an aircraft carrier and sank to the bottom of the Red Sea, the Navy announced on Monday.
There was one enlisted crew member aboard the jet and a second enlisted crew member inside the tractor when the incident occurred.
Both personnel were able to jump out in time with only one person sustaining a minor injury, according to officials.
In the extraordinary mishap, the $70 million jet was being towed out of the hanger bay of the USS Harry S. Truman when the crew lost control.
“The F/A-18E was actively under tow in the hangar bay when the move crew lost control of the aircraft. The aircraft and tow tractor were lost overboard,” the Navy wrote in a statement.
“Sailors towing the aircraft took immediate action to move clear of the aircraft before it fell overboard. An investigation is underway,” the service added.
The USS Harry S. Truman has been operating in the Red Sea since last September when it was deployed to help protect commercial ships against near-constant attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
It’s not clear what contributed to the crew members losing control of the aircraft aboard the carrier, which has previously been targeted by the Houthis. According to a U.S. official, initial field reports suggest a sudden movement of the carrier due to Houthi fire might have been a factor in the incident.
But those reports remained unconfirmed while the investigation plays out.
The Truman carrier was involved in another incident earlier this year when it collided with a merchant ship near the Suez Canal. Its commanding officer was subsequently fired.
The carrier was slated to come home last month, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth extended its deployment while ordering another carrier — the USS Carl Vinson — to the region to bolster military power.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect additional reporting.
(WASHINGTON) — In a social media post on the day of Canada’s election, President Donald Trump suggested that Canadians should vote for him in order for Canada to become the 51st state.
“Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, with ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America,” Trump said on Monday, seeming to refer to himself as the candidate.
He added, “America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!”
Despite Trump’s suggestion, Canadians cannot vote for him since he is not on the ballot. There are 16 registered political parties in Canada — with the Liberals and the Conservatives being the most dominant. Other parties include the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the United Party and the Canadian Future Party.
In response to the president’s post, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre issued a sharp reply, saying Trump should “stay out of our election.”
“The only people who will decide the future of Canada are Canadians at the ballot box. Canada will always be proud, sovereign, and independent, and we will NEVER be the 51st state,” Poilievre wrote in a post on X. “Today, Canadians can vote for change so we can strengthen our country, stand on our own two feet, and stand up to America from a position of strength.”
Canadian Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Mark Carney posted a video on X on Monday with the message: “This is Canada — and we decide what happens here.”
Latest polls show the Liberals ahead of the Conservatives, when only a few months ago the Conservatives held a 25-point lead.
Canada has a parliamentary system, meaning if the Liberals win a majority of seats in the election, or are able to form a minority government with members of another party, Carney will continue to serve as prime minister.
Nearly all of the polls for the election are expected to close by 9:30 p.m. ET on Monday.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Gerry Connolly, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Oversight Committee, announced he will “soon” step down from his role and won’t run for reelection because his cancer has returned.
“The sun is setting on my time in public service, and this will be my last term in Congress. I will be stepping back as Ranking Member of the Oversight Committee soon,” Connolly said in a statement. “With no rancor and a full heart, I move into this final chapter full of pride in what we’ve accomplished together over 30 years.”
Connolly, 75, who was first elected in 2009, defeated Rep. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, 35, for the committee chair in December as the younger representative attempted to bring in a new generation of leadership.
Connolly announced he had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in November.
“When I announced my diagnosis six months ago, I promised transparency,” he said in his statement Monday. “After grueling treatments, we’ve learned that the cancer, while initially beaten back, has now returned. I’ll do everything possible to continue to represent you and thank you for your grace.”
Connolly has served on the Oversight Committee since his first term and has led Democrats on the subcommittee on government operations since 2013. He won the chair vote, 131-84, according to multiple Democratic sources, cementing his role in one of the most high-profile positions in Washington to combat the Trump administration and a unified Republican majority in Congress.
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic lawmakers are “urgently” calling for the White House to issue a full disclosure of financial transactions leading up to President Donald Trump’s sudden pause on a sweeping set of tariffs earlier this month, raising concerns that people close to the president “potentially violated federal ethics and insider trading laws” surrounding his actions.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., sent a letter on Monday, signed by a group of 23 other Democrats, to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, calling for a commitment from all senior White House and executive branch employees to “expeditiously” transmit all reports related to their securities transactions since the start of Trump’s term to the Office of Government Ethics, requesting, too, that all of this mandatory reporting be made public.
The letter, shared first with ABC News, also asks that any extensions granted to White House employees related to their accounting reports become public, noting that this was practiced during the first Trump administration.
“We are concerned that no periodic transaction reports have been posted on the OGE database for White House officials’ individual disclosures at any point since President Trump took office on January 20, 2025,” Schiff and Levin wrote.
“There is reason to doubt that not a single senior White House official or employee has made any financial transactions triggering a periodic transaction report since the start of the Administration,” the letter continued. “As an important point of reference, during the first Trump Administration, periodic transaction reports filed by senior White House officials were made publicly available on the OGE’s disclosure database, as required by the Ethics in Government Act and the STOCK Act.”
The White House did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment.
Hours before Trump announced he was rolling back tariffs to 10% to all countries except China, which sent the stock market soaring, he posted on Truth Social: “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” and “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”
Stocks were down the morning before Trump’s Truth Social post. Nasdaq soared 12.1% at close, the index’s largest single-day gain since 2021, while the Dow jumped 7.8%, its biggest one-day increase in five years.
“Newly identified data raises concerns about potential violations of federal ethics and insider trading laws by individuals close to the President with access to non-public information,” Schiff and Levin’s letter reads.
Trump has said he hasn’t engaged in insider trading himself — but that he couldn’t definitively claim that members of his administration have not. “I can commit to myself, that’s all I can commit to,” Trump told reporters on Friday, when asked whether he could assure Americans that no one in his administration was insider trading with information about trade deals coming together.
Trump said he hires “honorable people” but said, “I have thousands of people that work for me, but I can’t imagine anybody doing that.”
The Democrats requested a response from Wiles no later than May 9, 2025, and for a “detailed plan” for how the administration plans to address any officials and employees who may have failed to file required disclosures from the start of the administration.
“By failing to take these steps, the Administration would be withholding critical information from the American people regarding potential violations of federal ethics and insider trading laws. We look forward to reviewing all required reports and disclosures,” Schiff and Levin wrote.
“Senior White House officials have influence over or become witting of consequential policy decisions that can have market moving impacts,” the letter said. “It is critical that such officials adhere to all applicable ethics, conflict of interest, and disclosure requirements.”
“The American public deserves nothing less than full transparency, particularly in the context of the harm done to pension funds and retirement savings as a result of the President’s erratic trade policy,” it continued
The letter was signed by Sens. Chris Van Hollen, Elizabeth Warren, Jeffrey Merkley and Elissa Slotkin, as well as Reps. Brad Sherman, Brad Schneider, Angie Craig, Jerry Nadler, Rashida Tlaib, Cleo Fields, Yassamin Ansari, Seth Magaziner, Pramila Jayapal, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Nanette Diaz Barragán, Mark DeSaulnier, Madeleine Dean and Delia Ramirez.
Schiff had previously written to Wiles and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer over the rollbacks on Trump’s tariffs. In that letter, sent with Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., Schiff asked for an investigation into potential conflicts of interest. Schiff has not received a response from Wiles following his request, a spokesperson for the senator told ABC News.
(MILWAUKEE, WI) — A reserve judge will be appointed to take over the cases of Judge Hannah Dugan, who was arrested by the FBI over allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant, according to a Milwaukee County official.
The county’s chief judge, Carl Ashley, said late Sunday that a reserve judge would take over Dugan’s calendar on Monday morning. The reserve judge was not named in the statement released to media.
Dugan, a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, was arrested on Friday over allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant “evade arrest” the week prior, FBI Director Kash Patel said.
Patel said on social media that the FBI believes “Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse.”
U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement that two FBI agents arrested Dugan “for allegedly helping an illegal alien avoid arrest” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“No one is above the law,” Bondi said on Friday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday that the Secret Service caught the person who swiped her bag from a Washington restaurant on Easter Sunday while she was dining with her family.
“Thank you to @SecretService @ICE and our law enforcement partners for finding and arresting the criminal who stole my bag on Easter Sunday as I shared a meal with my family at a Washington DC restaurant,” Noem posted on X.
Authorities said a man wearing a mask took Noem’s bag, which contained $3,000, her DHS access card, passport, makeup bag, apartment key and other items.
Noem said in her post that the person arrested is “a career criminal who has been in our country illegally for years.”
“Unfortunately, so many families in this country have been made victims by crime, and that’s why President Trump is working every single day to make America safe and get these criminal aliens off of our streets,” she said.
Later Sunday, the Secret Service said it had made two arrests in the case — one in Washington and one in Miami.
The Secret Service said the defendant arrested in D.C., who it didn’t identify, is a serial offender and said the theft “had no protective nexus to Secretary Noem or her role as Secretary of Homeland Security.” It also said its investigation revealed alleged potential device and credit card fraud and would maintain jurisdiction over the case.
The person arrested in Miami is believed to be a co-conspirator with the first person in a pattern of thefts and robberies in D.C. and is believed to be the primary defendant in stealing Noem’s bag, the Secret Service said. The person is being held on an immigration detainer and their name will be released when charges are finalized, the Secret Service said.
In an interview on Thursday, Noem said she thought the theft was “professionally done.”
“It was kind of shocking, actually, because it was sitting right by my feet, actually felt my purse, he hooked it with his foot and dragged it a few steps away and dropped a coat over it and took it,” Noem said on “The Vince Show.”
Noem said she wasn’t sure if she was targeted because she was the DHS secretary. She said she felt something brush against her leg where the bag was at her feet, but thought it was one of her grandchildren.
“I think I was a busy grandma with four grandkids under the age of 4, and I was taking care of them and feeding them food and enjoying my family, yeah, but certainly had my purse even touching my feet,” she said.
A DHS official said the secretary had the cash with her because her family was in town and she was treating them to Easter festivities.
“Her entire family was in town including her children and grandchildren — she was using the cash withdrawal to treat her family to dinner, activities, and Easter gifts,” the official said.
ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson contributed to this report.
Agents from ICE and various Florida law enforcement agencies make arrests near Miami, Florida this week. Image via ICE
(MIAMI) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and law enforcement from the state of Florida have arrested 780 migrants who are in the United States illegally in a four-day operation beginning Monday, according to statistics obtained by ABC News.
The operation, dubbed “Operation Tidal Wave” uses ICE’s 287(g) authority, which allows for state and local law enforcement agencies to be deputized and to arrest those in the U.S. illegally. State and local agencies allow for ICE to be in jails and on task forces, according to the agency.
“I think the main reason why this operation is significant is because it’s the first of its kind,” Todd Lyons, the acting ICE director, told ABC News. “It’s one that not only we’ve been doing what we have, but we have surged all our federal partners together along with Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement [and] Removal Operations, which are all the enforcement arms of ICE, but we’re also using all our 287(g) partners in the state of Florida. We’re using state, local and county law enforcement agencies to assist us in our operations.
“So this is one of the first large-scale missions we’ve done like this ever,” he added. “We brought a ‘whole the government’ approach with cooperative jurisdictions that want to help ICE secure communities in neighborhoods and remove public safety threats from our neighborhoods.”
The partnerships are a “force multiplier,” he said.
“State troopers, local police officers, county sheriffs — they’re our eyes and ears,” he said. “They encountered these criminal aliens out and about during their regular duties, and they’re able to go ahead and identify those public safety threats for us.”
ICE and officials from Florida law enforcement, which includes the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, arrested 275 people in four days with final orders of removal — meaning they can be removed from the country in short order.
Madison Sheahan, who serves as the ICE deputy director, told ABC News that the partnerships will continue.
“We’ve seen historic partnerships with the state of Texas that has been going on and being able to expand. We’ve seen historic partnerships in Virginia as well as many other states that are coming to the table, even states that you wouldn’t necessarily always think of as border states,” she said.
These 287(g) operations will continue across the country in partnership with state and federal law enforcement, resulting in successful enforcement operations, according to the officials.
Since the beginning of the administration, there have been 428 new 287(g) agreements signed with state and local law enforcement agencies, representing a 371% increase, Lyons noted.
Lyons said the partnerships with state and local law enforcement are “making communities safer.”
president Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump are seen arriving at the Pope’s Funeral at the Vatican in Rome, Italy on 26 April, 2025. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(ROME) — President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met privately in Rome Saturday before attending the funeral for Pope Francis.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the press pool traveling with Trump that the two men had a “very productive session.” More details about the meeting “will follow,” he said.
This was the first meeting between the two men since their contentious encounter in the White House Oval Office in late February.
Late Friday, following Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier in the day, Trump posted that it was “A good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine,” and suggested it’s now time for the two sides to meet at “very high levels.”
“They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to “finish it off,” he wrote on his social media site.
“Most of the major points are agreed to. Stop the bloodshed, NOW. We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war!” Trump added in the post, but provided no additional information about the apparent progress.
President Zelenskyy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, were seated about seven people away from Trump and the first lady Melania Trump, according to the press pool.
Former President Biden and former first lady Jill Biden were about four rows behind them.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has rescinded a policy implemented during the Biden administration that restricted prosecutors from seizing reporters’ records in criminal investigations, according to an internal memo obtained by ABC News.
The move could signal a broader effort by Trump-appointed leadership to more aggressively pursue leaks coming from within the administration and directly target journalists for their reporting.
It was not immediately clear whether the impending policy change was prompted by any current ongoing investigation being pursued by the Trump Justice Department. But in her memo rescinding the policy, Attorney General Pam Bondi pointed to recent alleged leaks of potentially classified information to The New York Times.
“Federal government employees intentionally leaking sensitive information to the media undermines the ability of the Department of Justice to uphold the rule of law, protect civil rights, and keep America safe. This conduct is illegal and wrong, and it must stop,” Bondi said. “Therefore, I have concluded that it is necessary to rescind (former Attorney General) Merrick Garland’s policies precluding the Department of Justice from seeking records and compelling testimony from members of the news media in order to identify and punish the source of improper leaks.”
Bondi added she has directed the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy to publish new language that reflects the department “will continue to employ procedural protections to limit the use of compulsory legal process to obtain information from or records of members of the news media, which include enhanced approval and advance-notice procedures.”
“These procedural protections recognize that investigative techniques relating to newsgathering are an extraordinary measure to be deployed as a last resort when essential to a successful investigation or prosecution,” Bondi said.
The 2022 Biden-era policy was formalized following extensive negotiations between news outlets and Justice Department leadership under Garland. It restricted prosecutors from using “compulsory process” such as subpoenas, search warrants or other court orders to seize reporters’ records with very limited exceptions.
It was implemented after the department disclosed several instances during the previous Trump administration where prosecutors secretly obtained records from several journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN as part of criminal leak investigations.
“Because freedom of the press requires that members of the news media have the freedom to investigate and report the news, the new regulations are intended to provide enhanced protection to members of the news media from certain law enforcement tools and actions that might unreasonably impair news gathering,” Garland said in a statement announcing the revised media guidelines.
Last month, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the opening of a criminal investigation into the leak of an intelligence document reported by The New York Times related to the Tren de Aragua gang that he described as “inaccurate, but nevertheless classified.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has also said her department and the FBI are pursing criminal charges against officials who she said have leaked details about pending deportation operations to members of the media.
Prior to his confirmation as FBI director, Kash Patel said in several media appearances that the Trump administration would “come after” journalists who reported on President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.
“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said in a 2023 podcast interview with Steve Bannon. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”
The policy shift also comes as DOJ and FBI leadership have downplayed recent revelations of senior Trump officials sharing sensitive details about military operations in Yemen over the encrypted app Signal, which national security experts have argued likely included classified information that would normally prompt some kind of federal investigation.
Bondi signaled late last month that any criminal investigation into the matter was unlikely.
(WASHINGTON) — Seven in 10 Americans think President Donald Trump’s tariffs on international trade will drive up U.S. inflation, outweighing hopes that they’ll boost manufacturing employment and fueling a 64% disapproval rate of how he’s handling the issue.
Even nearly half of Republicans — 47% in the ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Friday — said they think tariffs will negatively impact inflation. That jumps to 75% among independents, a swing group in national politics.
The tariffs admittedly are a moving target. The administration has paused some (albeit not those on China) pending negotiations.
And there is a perceived positive: 59% said they think the tariffs will have a positive impact on creating manufacturing jobs in the United States, including 90% of Republicans and 60% of independents. That, along with bringing prices down, were some of Trump’s key campaign promises.
But — given the current state of play — the scale tips negative again on a third factor: 56% in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by Ipsos, think Trump’s handling of tariffs will negatively impact America’s economic leadership in the world vs. 42% who see a positive impact.
Democrats, for their part, are roundly opposed to the tariffs. Nine in 10 think they will negatively impact inflation (90%) and U.S. economic leadership in the world (89%) alike, and a near-unanimous 96% disapprove of Trump’s handling of them. Democrats aren’t sold on tariffs creating manufacturing jobs, either: 68% think they’ll hurt, not help.
Given inflation fears, Trump’s overall rating for handling tariffs is a broad 30 percentage points underwater, 34%-64%. That’s far worse than his 7-point deficit in approval on handling immigration (as reported here), demonstrating that public sentiment is especially prickly when economic well-being is on the line.
Indeed, in his own party, 25% of Republicans disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, as do 30% of conservatives. And disapproval reaches 48% among non-college-educated white men and 47% of rural Americans, two of Trump’s core support groups.
Methodology: This ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® April 18-22, 2025, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,464 adults. Partisan divisions are 30%-30%-29%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.
Results have a margin of error of 2 percentage points, including the design effect. Error margins are larger for subgroups. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. See details on ABC News survey methodology here.
