The Illinois Supreme Court has thrown out former Empire actor Jussie Smollett’s conviction for lying about a 2019 hate crime.
Smollett was found guilty in 2021 for faking a racist and homophobic attack and lying to the police. His lawyers said this violated his Fifth Amendment rights because, in 2019, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx had already agreed to drop the charges if Smollett paid $10,000 and did community service. A special prosecutor later charged him again, leading to his trial and conviction.
In its decision, filed on Thursday, the court stated they are resolving a "question about the State’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants."
The court stated it did not find that the state could bring a second prosecution against Smollett after the initial charges were dismissed as part of an agreement and the actor performed the terms of the agreement, noting that Illinois case law establishes that it is "fundamentally unfair to allow the prosecution to renege on a deal with a defendant when the defendant has relied on the agreement to his detriment."
"We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust. Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied," it said.
The Illinois Supreme Court's decision cancels earlier rulings by Cook County and appellate courts. The court has now sent the case back to the lower court to officially dismiss the charges.
A jury convicted Smollett in December 2021 on five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct stemming from him filing a false police report and lying to police, who spent more than $130,000 investigating his allegations.
He was sentenced to 150 days in county jail, ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution to the city of Chicago, fined $25,000 and ordered to serve 30 months of felony probation.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) -- As controversy continues to cloud some of President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet picks, his team has an ominous warning for Republicans who don't fall in line behind his nominees.
ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reports that one senior Trump adviser said the message to lawmakers is, "If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you're buying yourself a primary."
"That is all," the adviser told Karl. "And there's a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it."
"The president gets to decide his Cabinet. No one else," the adviser added.
The threat came as Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth (tapped for attorney general and defense secretary, respectively) made the rounds on Capitol Hill this week to shore up support. They were escorted by Vice President-elect JD Vance, the junior senator from Ohio.
Gaetz announced Thursday afternoon he was withdrawing his name from consideration, stating his confirmation bid was "unfairly becoming a distraction."
Gaetz faces allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, which he's long denied, that was the subject of a federal investigation and a House Ethics Committee probe. Hegseth has been accused of sexual assaulting a woman in 2017, an encounter Hegseth told police was consensual.
Trump stood firm with the selections, which also raised eyebrows for their relative lack of experience to lead the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense. Trump said it was ultimately Gaetz's choice to withdraw.
Some of the president-elect's other picks have similarly faced scrutiny over their qualifications, including Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of Health and Human Services.
Trump previously made a demand for Republican leadership to back so-called "recess appointments" to skirt the traditional confirmation process. That route would require lawmakers to adjourn and for senators to give up the "advice and consent" role they play in nominations, as laid out in the Constitution.
But his demand is being met with some resistance from some Senate Republicans.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a senior Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said recess appointments for Cabinet posts should be "absolutely off the table."
"And quite honestly, any serious candidate for Cabinet-level position, I would really have to wonder if they would want it or be willing to accept it under a recess," Tillis said. "These positions are too important. They carry too much weight internationally to take a short cut."
Several senators have said they want the full "process" and vetting of candidates to play out.
Sen. Josh Hawley said on Wednesday his intention to vote for all nominees.
"The Constitution gives us a role in personnel called advice and consent. My view is that's exactly what will unfold here when these nominees are actually sent forward, and we'll treat them like we've treated all others with the proper vetting," said longtime Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who recently stepped down from the role.
(NEW YORK) -- Important bodies of water that supply water to populated regions in the Northeast have dried up due to drought conditions in recent months, according to experts.
Water levels at reservoirs in the region have decreased to the point of concern for water supply managers, hydrologists told ABC News.
Over the past three months, there has been a significant lack of precipitation all over the Northeast, Elizabeth Carter, an assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Syracuse University, told ABC News.
Data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows rivers and channels throughout the Northeast region are at extremely low levels. Fall is the time of year when rivers and streams are typically near full capacity, refilling from the summer months when usage is at the all-time high, said Brian Rahm, director of the New York State Water Resources Institute at Cornell University.
"This would be a low level that we would expect to see less than once every 100 years," Carter said.
The heavy rain soaking the Northeast on Thursday will help ease the drought but will not be enough to refill the reservoirs to normal levels, experts say.
Current water data from the USGS show extremely low streamflow conditions, which indicate that the groundwater table has dropped in tandem to the lack of precipitation -- as the groundwater continues to flow out of perennial streams without any replenishment, Carter said.
Water levels in the Wanaque Reservoir in New Jersey, the second-largest in the state with a capacity of 29 billion gallons, is currently at just 44% capacity, according to the USGS. Before-and-after satellite images show how much the body of water has shrunk since November 2023. Surface levels are currently at 16 feet below where it was at this time last year.
In New York City, the water system was at 63% capacity as of Monday, according to the city.
But the Northeast is home to many small towns that manage their own water. Water levels in smaller reservoirs have likely decreased at much more dramatic rates than the larger ones, Anita Milman, a professor in the Department of Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told ABC News. Smaller reservoirs are more severely impacted by the drought, Gardner Bent, information specialist at the USGS New England Water Science Center, told ABC News.
The Cambridge Reservoir in Massachusetts, which has a capacity of 1.5 billion gallons, is below 50% capacity, Bent said.
"Those are the places that I would be the most concerned about, because they have a limited amount of water and storage, and they need that water," she said.
Reservoirs all over the U.S. are experiencing declines, according to a paper published in August in Geophysical Research Letters. Major reservoirs -- including the Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the largest in the U.S. -- are experiencing longer, more severe and more variable periods of low storage than several decades ago, the study, led by the USGS, found.
The Northeast has been in a rain deficit since September. Since last week, drought conditions have continued to worsen across New Jersey, with 100% of the state now in a severe drought, and extreme drought conditions expanding across parts of South Jersey, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The state of New Jersey issued a drought warning for the first time since 2016. This is also the first time a drought warning has been issued for New York City since 2002, according to officials.
Will the Northeast receive more rain in the coming weeks?
Looking ahead, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says that odds favor above average precipitation for a large swath of the nation through the end of November, including much of the Plains, the Midwest, and East Coast.
In the Northeast, a much-needed stretch of wet weather began impacting the region on Wednesday night and is expected to continue through Friday.
A large swath of the region, including northern New Jersey, New York City, and New York's Hudson Valley, is expected to receive more than 2 inches of rain over that time.
The soaking rain will effectively end the elevated wildfire danger that has been plaguing much of the region in recent weeks.
For cities like New York and Newark, New Jersey, more than 2 inches of rain would completely erase the rainfall deficit for November and cut the current fall season deficit by around 25%.
However, even after this drenching rainfall, much of the Northeast, including the I-95 corridor, would still need to receive several inches of rain in the coming weeks to significantly improve drought conditions. More than a half-foot of rain would need to fall to completely wipe out the current rainfall deficit that many large cities have been experiencing since September.
Recent rounds of significant precipitation have been alleviating drought conditions across portions of the Plains, Midwest and South over the past seven days. For the contiguous U.S., overall drought coverage decreased from 49.84% to 45.48% week over week, according to an update released on Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor. The soaking rain currently sweeping across the Northeast will not be factored into the drought monitor until next week's update.
But it will take months for dry conditions to recuperate, the experts said.
"We're really looking for sustained seasonal precipitation to slowly bring these systems back to, you know, to where we expect them to be," Rahm said.
The current drought situation took months to evolve, and it will likely take several more rounds of significant rainfall over the span of weeks or even months to completely eliminate the widespread drought in the region, Bent said.
What will happen if drought conditions don't improve?
Every state in the U.S. has a drought contingency plan in the event that water levels dwindle to alarming levels, which include steps to deal with increasingly restricted supply availability, the experts said. Once drought conditions worsen to a "warning," water managers begin to implement actions that wouldn't necessarily be triggered by a "watch," Rahm said.
If dry conditions persist in the Northeast, the first step will be voluntary restrictions, Milman said. Then, legal mandates would be issued to reduce water use, she added.
One saving grace for the extremely dry conditions in the Northeast is that the fall is not the time of year when water usage is at its highest, the experts said. During the summer, people are often expending a lot of water for their lawns and gardens, but those plants will soon go into dormant mode, Milman said.
Conversely, it means that drought protection measures that are intended to be implemented during the summer, when all levels are low, may not make as much of a difference, Milman said. Outdoor water and the times people are permitted to water their lawns -- when sunlight isn't at its highest -- are typically targeted first.
"We recognize that indoor water use is essential for most human needs," Milman said.
The Northeast is typically considered a "water rich" region, and the infrastructure is set up based on expectations of average seasonal precipitation, Rahm said.
"The infrastructure that we have established to use that water is reliant -- in some ways -- on our expectations of how that water will fall," he said.
In other countries with arid climates, cutbacks can involve rationing, such as differing segments of a town getting a certain amount of water pressure during certain times a week, which has proved successful, Milman said.
"I've never seen this in the eastern United States," she said. "... But this is what other countries do all the time when they don't have enough supply."
(NEW YORK) -- Bitcoin vaulted to a record high on Thursday, surging more than 3% in early trading and hurtling toward investors' long-sought milestone of $100,000.
The price of bitcoin briefly exceeded $98,000 for the first time on Thursday morning, before retreating to about $97,600.
The value of the world's most popular cryptocurrency has soared 31% since the reelection of former President Donald Trump, who is widely viewed as friendly toward digital currency.
By comparison, the S&P 500 has climbed 2.4% since Election Day, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has increased 2.6%.
The run-up of bitcoin extended to other parts of the crypto industry. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, jumped 8% in early trading on Thursday. Lesser-known litecoin rose nearly 6%, and dogecoin ticked up more than 2%.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to bolster the cryptocurrency sector and ease regulations enforced by the Biden administration. Trump also promised to establish the federal government's first National Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Trump said he would replace Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, whom many crypto proponents dislike for what they perceive as a robust approach to crypto regulation.
In July, Trump told the audience at a cryptocurrency conference in Nashville, Tennessee, that he wanted to turn the U.S. into the "crypto capital of the planet."
"I'm calling it the 'election dividend,'" James Butterfill, head of research at digital asset management firm CoinShares, told ABC News. "We went from being worried about a Democrat getting elected to what we've got: a Republican clean sweep."
The recent rise follows a period of stellar returns that stretches back to last year. The price of bitcoin has soared more than 150% since November 2023. Over that period, the S&P 500 has climbed about 30%.
Those gains have been propelled, in part, by U.S. approval in January of bitcoin ETFs, or exchange-traded funds. Bitcoin ETFs allow investors to buy into an asset that tracks the price movement of bitcoin, while avoiding the inconvenience and risk of purchasing the crypto coin itself.
Options trading for bitcoin ETFs
On Tuesday, options on BlackRock's popular iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) were made available for trading on the Nasdaq. The options, which provide a new avenue for bitcoin investors, allow individuals to commit to buy or sell the ETF at a given price by a specific date. While such investments typically come with additional risk, they can also make large payouts.
The price of IBIT jumped 3.1% on Thursday.
The newly available options may account for some of the rise in the price of bitcoin over recent days, Bryan Armour, the director of passive strategies research at financial firm Morningstar, told ABC News.
"The options add volatility on top of volatility, which has interested some of the crypto investors," Armour said.
The crypto industry entered this year bruised after a series of high-profile collapses and company scandals.
FTX, a multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange co-founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, collapsed in November 2022. The implosion set off a 17-month legal saga that resulted in the conviction of Bankman-Fried for fraud. In April, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The surge of bitcoin since Election Day may continue for the foreseeable future, since past periods of momentum have been shown to propel the cryptocurrency, Armour said. But crypto investments remain highly volatile, he added, recommending that the asset make up no more than 5% of a person's portfolio.
"It's notoriously difficult to provide a value for bitcoin's price," Armour said. "It can go up; it can go down."
"I would continue to keep any allocation small," Armour added.
(WASHINGTON) -- Vice President-elect JD Vance returned to Capitol Hill Thursday to accompany President-elect Donald Trump's controversial pick to be secretary of the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, where they met with Republican senators in hopes of helping his nomination process amid new details about a 2017 sexual assault claim against him.
Hegseth met with several Republican senators Thursday morning including Sens. John Barrasso, Roger Wicker, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty.
Hegseth emerged from his final meeting with the Republicans and thanked Trump, Vance and the senators, for the "incredible opportunity" to be nominated as the secretary of the Department of Defense. He said he takes the senate's advice and consent for this nomination "very seriously."
"It's an Incredible opportunity that I do not take lightly," Hegseth said.
Barrasso met with Hegseth Thursday morning and called the former Fox News host a "strong nominee."
"Pete pledged that the Pentagon will focus on strength and hard power -- not the current administration's woke political agenda," Barrasso said.
Sen. Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee -- which will manage the secretary of defense nomination and eventual hearing, met with Hegseth and Vance Thursday morning for about an hour.
After the meeting, Wicker said Hegseth would be in "pretty good shape" during his confirmation process.
Hegseth, an Army veteran, could face a challenging road to confirmation and is speaking with Republican senators to in hopes of helping his nomination process.
Hegseth's visit to Capitol Hill comes after new details emerged on the 2017 sexual assault claim against him.
The woman who accused Hegseth of sexual assault in 2017 told police at the time that he took her phone and blocked her from leaving the room the night of the incident, according to a 22-page police report posted online overnight. Hegseth told police the encounter was consensual.
The woman told police she had drank "much more than normal" and could not remembers many details of the evening, but remembered saying "no" a lot during her encounter with Hegseth, according to the report.
On Thursday, Hegseth responded to a question about the sexual assault claim, saying "the matter was fully investigated and I was completely cleared and that's where I am going to leave it."
Asked if the Hegseth allegations and police report came up in their conversation, Wicker said they didn't get into specifics.
"We weren't specific, but, ya know, since no charges were brought by the authorities, we have only press reports," Wicker said.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said she believes an FBI background check into Hegseth would be "helpful" in knowing more about Trump's pick.
Ernst, a combat veteran and member of the Senate Armed Services committee, also said "there's a lot floating around out there, we need to actually be able to visit with him face to face, and I know the committee will do a thorough vetting."
Hegseth has been involved in other controversies as well. He has said in interviews before being named that he advocated a "frontal assault" on the DOD, including firing what he called "woke" generals and eliminating the Pentagon's diversity goals. He also argued that the United States "should not have women in combat roles."
Hegseth's Capitol Hill visit comes just one day after Vance and former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump's nominee to be attorney general, met with senators to make his case for the role. Gaetz announced Thursday that he is withdrawing his name from consideration to be Trump's attorney general.
Gaetz's meetings with senators took place the same day the House Ethics Committee decided against releasing the report into him over allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
-ABC News' Arthur Jones and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) -- E-cigarettes in kid-friendly flavors are driving retail sales and contain more addictive nicotine than ever, according to a new report from the nonprofit CDC Foundation and advocacy group Truth Initiative.
The report showed a 47% increase in e-cigarette sales at U.S. retail outlets between 2019 and 2023, with flavors like fruit, candy, mint, menthol and desserts accounting for more than 80% of those sales.
Most flavored products are not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and are therefore on the market illegally, according to Truth Initiative.
Vaping among youth is declining in the U.S., but more than 1.6 million children still vape, and nearly 90% of them report using flavored products, according to the report.
States that have implemented strong enforcement policies have seen a dramatic drop in sales. Massachusetts, for example, saw an 86% drop in overall e-cigarette sales in brick-and-mortar stores, the report said.
The proliferation of kid-friendly flavored vapes is not authorized by the FDA to be in stores, making the booming sales technically illegal -- but that could change if the industry succeeds in a major case before the U.S. Supreme Court next month.
Vape makers have sued the FDA, which has blocked the sale and marketing of most flavored products, alleging the agency is stonewalling good science and common sense. They claim flavors like "Jimmy the Juice Man" and "Iced Pineapple Express" are ideal for helping adult smokers quit a cancer-causing habit.
The Supreme Court will delve into the science during arguments on Dec. 2 and decide next year whether the FDA analysis has been flawed and unfair, potentially opening the flood gates to widespread legal production and sale of flavored nicotine products.
There has been a major decline in the number of students who reported current e-cigarette use, according to federal data released last month from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey.
The number of users was 2.13 million in 2023 compared to 1.63 million in 2024, the report found. Usage among high school students in particular dropped to 1.56 million from 1.21 million over the same period.
ABC News' Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
(SPRINGFIELD, Ill.) -- The Illinois Supreme Court has thrown out former "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett’s conviction for lying about a 2019 hate crime.
Smollett was found guilty in 2021 for faking a racist and homophobic attack and lying to the police. His lawyers said this violated his Fifth Amendment rights because, in 2019, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx had already agreed to drop the charges if Smollett paid $10,000 and did community service. A special prosecutor later charged him again, leading to his trial and conviction.
In its decision, filed on Thursday, the court stated they are resolving a "question about the State’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants."
The court stated it did not find that the state could bring a second prosecution against Smollett after the initial charges were dismissed as part of an agreement and the actor performed the terms of the agreement, noting that Illinois case law establishes that it is "fundamentally unfair to allow the prosecution to renege on a deal with a defendant when the defendant has relied on the agreement to his detriment."
"We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust. Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied," it said.
Among the cases cited in the court's decision is Bill Cosby's, whose conviction on sexual assault charges was overturned in 2021 by Pennsylvania's highest court.
Cosby was sentenced in 2018 to three to 10 years in state prison for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004. After hearing Cosby's appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that his prosecution should never have occurred due to a deal the comedian cut with former Montgomery County prosecutor Bruce Castor, who agreed not to criminally prosecute Cosby if he gave a deposition in a civil case brought against him by Constand.
While citing the Cosby case, the Illinois Supreme Court said the state "reneging on a fully executed agreement" after Smollett forfeited a $10,000 bond "would be arbitrary, unreasonable, fundamentally unfair, and a violation of the defendant’s due process rights."
The Illinois Supreme Court's decision cancels earlier rulings by Cook County and appellate courts. The court has now sent the case back to the lower court to officially dismiss the charges.
A jury convicted him in December 2021 on five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct stemming from him filing a false police report and lying to police, who spent more than $130,000 investigating his allegations.
He was sentenced to 150 days in county jail, ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution to the city of Chicago, fined $25,000 and ordered to serve 30 months of felony probation.
The case began after the openly gay actor told police that he was set upon by two men while walking on a street near his Chicago apartment early on Jan. 29, 2019. The attackers allegedly shouted racist and homophobic slurs before hitting him, pouring "an unknown chemical substance" on him and wrapping a rope around his neck.
Chicago police said Smollett's story of being the victim of an attack began to unravel when investigators tracked down two men, brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who they said were seen in a security video near where Smollett claimed he was assaulted and around the same time it supposedly occurred. The Osundairo brothers told police the actor paid them $3,500 to help him orchestrate and stage the crime.
In March 2019, a grand jury indicted Smollett on 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct for filing a false police report. In a stunning move, Foxx's office dropped the charges later that month despite acknowledging Smollet fabricated the street attack on himself in an attempt to get a pay raise for his role on "Empire." As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Smollett forfeited 10% of a $100,000 bond and preemptively completed community service prior to the charges being dropped.
The case was reopened in June 2019, when a Cook County judge appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the decision to dismiss all charges against Smollett. The actor was subsequently indicted again in February 2020 on six felony counts of disorderly conduct for making false reports to police.
Matthew McConaughey says it took turning down a $14.5 million payday for Hollywood to take him seriously in dramatic roles.
The actor appeared on tennis pro Nick Kyrgios' Good Trouble podcast and revealed he left Hollywood for Texas because he kept getting scripts for romantic comedies.
After a string of successful ones, like How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days and The Wedding Planner, he wanted more.
"When I was rolling with the rom-coms, and I was the 'rom-com dude,' that was my lane and I liked that lane. That lane paid well ... I was so strong in that lane that anything outside that lane – dramas and stuff that I want[ed] to do ... Hollywood said, 'No, no, no. You should stay there.'"
He added, "So, since I couldn't do what I wanted to do, I ... moved down to the ranch in Texas."
He reportedly told his wife, Camila Alves McConaughey, "I'm not going back to work unless I get offered roles I want to do."
The actor and author says he stuck to his guns even after studios sweetened the deal with a potential paycheck as high as $14.5 million. "That was probably seen as the most rebellious move in Hollywood by me because it really sent the signal, 'He ain’t f****** bluffing,'" McConaughey recalled, noting the gambit worked.
He insists, "The devil's in the infinite yeses, not the no's. 'No' becomes more important than 'yes.'"
McConaughey says N-O is even more important if you've become successful. "We can all look around and see we've over-leveraged our life with yeses and going, 'I'm making C-minuses and all this s*** in my life because I said yes to too many things.'"
(WASHINGTON) -- President-elect Donald Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail but has since nominated several authors or contributors from the controversial conservative presidential wishlist to his administration.
Trump called the Project 2025 policy proposals -- which include restrictions on abortion pills, birth control pills and Medicare access, as well as eliminating a couple of federal agencies -- "extreme, seriously extreme" in a July 20 rally.
"I don't know anything about it. I don't want to know anything about it," he previously said, despite having many connections to its authors and contributors.
Democrats pounced on Trump for Project 2025 during the election season, calling it a warning of what is to come under a second Trump term.
"Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump's MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins," the Biden campaign stated.
Project 2025 is an over 900-page playbook of policy proposals created by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation intended to guide the next conservative administration. The organization behind the document told ABC News in a past statement that it was not intended to speak for any candidate during the election.
Project 2025 and Trump's Agenda47 share similarities -- including proposals to eliminate the Department of Education, increase fossil fuel energy production, and begin mass deportations.
At the ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump reiterated his earlier sentiment on the project. "This was a group of people that got together, they came up with some ideas, I guess some good, some bad, but it makes no difference. I have nothing to do [with it]."
Now, several Project 2025 authors and contributors are not just connected to Trump, but also nominated for roles in his administration.
Russ Vought, who authored a chapter on "Executive Office of the President" for Project 2025's "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise," is also under consideration for a cabinet-level position in the next administration and has been vetted by Trump's transition team, sources told ABC News. He was also the RNC platform committee's policy director.
Here's a look at which Project 2025 contributors may have a place in the incoming Trump administration:
Brendan Carr
Brendan Carr, Trump's nomination for chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is credited as the author of Project 2025's FCC recommendations which include: a ban on TikTok, restrictions on social media moderation, and more.
Carr would be tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Trump has suggested that he would expand the White House's influence over the FCC and potentially punish TV networks that cover him in a way he doesn't like.
Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC's general counsel and as the senior Republican for the FCC. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission.
John Ratcliffe
Ratcliffe, listed as a contributor who assisted "in the development and writing" of Project 2025, has been nominated to serve as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Ratcliffe is a three-term Republican congressman from Texas and served as the director of national intelligence from mid-2020 until the end of Trump's first term.
Project 2025's Intelligence Community chapter, credited to The Heritage Foundation's intelligence research fellow Dustin J. Carmack, notes that the "CIA's success depends on firm direction from the President and solid internal CIA Director–appointed leadership. Decisive senior leaders must commit to carrying out the President's agenda and be willing to take calculated risks."
Tom Homan
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan has been designated as Trump's "border czar" -- which is not an official Cabinet position.
Homan, who is expected to be in charge of the mass deportations promised by the Trump campaign, is listed as a contributor to Project 2025 who assisted in its "development and writing."
Project 2025's Department of Homeland Security chapter, credited to Trump's former Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli, calls for full use of ICE's "expedited removal" authority and further development of immigrant detention spaces. This all aligns with Trump's immigration proposals on mass deportations and funds for the construction of detention centers.
Other links to Project 2025
Christopher Miller is credited with the project's Department of Defense recommendations. Miller served as Acting Secretary of Defense and Special Assistant to the President under Trump from November 2020 to January 2021.
Ben Carson is credited with the project's Housing and Urban Development recommendations. He served as the Secretary of HUD under Trump's first administration.
Adam Candeub is credited with the project's Federal Trade Commission recommendations. He served under the Trump administration as Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Telecommunications and Information.
Bernard L. McNamee is credited with recommendations on the Department of Energy and Related Commissions. He was nominated to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by Trump in October 2018.
Cuccinelli -- who wrote the Department of Homeland Security section -- was also part of Trump's former administration as the Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security.
The RNC platform committee's Deputy Policy Director Ed Martin is also president of the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, which is listed on the project's advisory board.
Others connected to Trump, including Trump's United Nations Commission on the Status of Women appointee Lisa Correnti, are listed among the contributors.
While at Disney's APAC Content Showcase Wednesday at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, Anthony Mackie shed a little light on his upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe entry, Captain America: Brave New World.
The movie, which debuts in theaters Feb. 14, will be Mackie's first after his character Sam Wilson took on the mantle of Captain America in the Disney+ show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
According to Deadline, Mackie said his character — which fans met as a veteran counselor in Captain America: The Winter Soldier — is staying true to his roots.
"He's still a [counselor]. He's still serving soldiers, but at the same time, now he's a leader of his community in the country," Mackie reportedly said.
Unlike Chris Evans' Steve Rogers, however, Wilson never took the super soldier cocktail that gave Steve's Cap his superior strength.
"When you don't have the serum, you have to be smart and engineer different ways of [fighting]," the actor said, explaining that "he uses more of his brains than brawn. He uses more of his wit than his fist."
That said, the trailer to the movie shows him going toe-to-toe with Harrison Ford's Red Hulk.
The trade also reports head Kevin Feige made a virtual appearance and revealed that The Fantastic Four: First Steps is about to wrap, and with its debut in July, "Marvel's First Family ... [goes] right into the next Avengers movies."
(NEW YORK) -- The woman who accused Pete Hegseth of sexual assault in 2017 told police at the time that he took her phone and blocked her from leaving his hotel room on the night of the incident, according to a 22-page police report obtained by ABC News.
The report, compiled in Oct. 2017 by the Monterey Police Department, provides graphic new details of an alleged altercation that now threatens to derail Hegseth's bid to become President-elect Donald Trump's Defense Secretary.
The report documents a police investigation that did not result in charges against the former Fox News star. It includes interviews with the woman, who is identified only as Jane Doe, and Hegseth, who told police that the encounter was consensual.
As ABC News has previously reported, Doe met Hegseth at an event hosted by the California Federation of Republican Women in Monterey, California, where Hegseth was featured as a speaker.
At an event afterparty, according to the police report, Doe told police she had drank "much more than normal" and described her recollections as "fuzzy," but that she recalled confronting Hegseth at one point after observing him "rub the women on their legs" -- a claim one other witness confirmed in a separate interview with police.
"JANE DOE stated the next memory she had was when she was in an unknown room" with Hegseth, who she said "took her phone from her hands" and, when she attempted to leave, "blocked the door with his body," according to what she told investigators.
Doe said she remembered Hegseth's military dog-tags "hovering over her face" and said he eventually "ejaculated on her stomach," according to the report. Doe told police that she recalled saying "no" a lot during the encounter.
Days later, Doe told her partner she believed she had been the victim of a sexual assault and visited a nurse, who administered a sexual assault examination and first alerted the authorities.
When police approached Hegseth as part of their investigation, he "stated that the engagement between himself and JANE DOE was mutual."
"HEGSETH stated there were a couple of times he had made sure JANE DOE was comfortable with what was going on between the two of them," according to the report.
The officer who prepared the report wrote that the two had "been drinking and the events were blurred and lacked specifics and a fluid sequence of events." Investigators obtained video surveillance from the hotel and collected Doe's clothes and underwear as evidence in their probe.
Tim Parlatore, a lawyer for Hegseth, said in the statement on Saturday, prior to the report being posted online, that the allegations were false and Hegseth settled in December 2020 only because he feared his career would suffer if her allegations were made public.
Parlatore emphasized police did not bring charges and said Hegseth was the victim of "blackmail" and "false claims of sexual assault."
LONGVIEW – According to a report from our news partner, KETK, an 18-year-old remains behind bars after leading police on a Tuesday pursuit and then crashing a stolen vehicle into a building, the Longview Police Department said.
Officers were called around 12:17 a.m. to a deadly conduct in the 1300 block of Lawndale Street. While responding to that call on the northwest Longview street, police saw a vehicle that had been reported stolen an hour earlier and initiated pursuit. “A short pursuit followed and then ended when the suspect vehicle crashed into a vacant building after striking a home as well,” said Longview PD. “There were no injuries at any of the involved locations.”
The driver, identified as 18-year-old Xavier Tennison of Longview, was booked into the Gregg County Jail. He was charged with evading arrest or detention with a vehicle, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unauthorized use of a vehicle, and unlawful carrying of a weapon. He is being held on a total $87,000 bond.
Anyone with information on the case is urged to contact the Longview Police Department at 903-237-1199.
(LONDON )-- As Jahanzeb Wesa fled toward the Pakistani border in the middle of the night, he wondered if his career defending human rights would help protect him now that he was a refugee himself.
A 28-year-old Afghan journalist and women's rights advocate, Wesa said he was attacked by a Taliban fighter while covering a women's rights protest just after the fall of Kabul in August 2021. If he didn't make it across the border, he said, he knew he would likely be killed.
"We worked for 20 years for a better future for Afghanistan," he recalled thinking. "Why did we lose everything?"
But arriving in a new country brought no sense of safety.
Following the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, some Afghan journalists said they have been in limbo waiting for humanitarian visas while living in exile in Pakistan, where they fled across the shared border when Kabul fell.
The Taliban's violent suppression of criticism, along with draconian crackdowns on women's rights, meant journalists who stayed in Afghanistan were at constant risk of being detained, tortured, disappeared or killed.
In Pakistan, unable to legally work and threatened with deportation through government ultimatums and face-to-face interactions, some Afghan journalists applied for visas from countries that promised to help Afghan refugees.
Almost three years later, many said they still have not received a decision.
In the meantime, their prospects in Pakistan are dire, several told ABC News.
Life in Pakistan
Several Afghan journalists living in Pakistan told ABC News that their fear of deportation is omnipresent.
Khatera, a journalist from northern Afghanistan who asked ABC News not to publish her last name for her safety, fled to Pakistan in April 2022 after the Taliban raided her newsroom, destroying radios and TVs.
"After that," she said, "everything was a nightmare."
Like many Afghan journalists in Pakistan, Khatera arrived on a tourist visa she had to renew every six months through a private travel agent. Visa renewals were sometimes denied without reason, and officials often asked for bribes, she said.
The Pakistani government did not reply to a request for comment.
Housing, health care and transportation in Pakistan can be prohibitively expensive for Afghans, whose tourist visas don't allow them to work. Many rely on depleting savings, support from family members, or under-the-table jobs, according to those who spoke to ABC News. Given the economic strain, the biannual visa fee and the corresponding bribes present significant burdens, they said.
But not having proper documentation can bring serious consequences. "Anywhere you're going, the police are asking about your valid documents," said Khatera. They sometimes conduct nighttime home check-ins and try to deport those who can't provide valid papers, she said.
Those disruptions to daily life don't appear to be unique to journalists. A 2023 Human Rights Watch report declared a "humanitarian crisis" of Pakistani authorities committing widespread abuses, including mass detentions and property seizures, against Afghans in Pakistan. Over a month and a half, the report said, Pakistani authorities deported 20,000 Afghans and coerced over 350,000 more to leave on their own.
Afghan journalists regularly receive death threats from the regime at home over social media, Wesa said. "If I'm deported to Afghanistan," he said, "the Taliban is waiting for me."
"No journalist has been condemned to torture, disappearance, or death by the government of Afghanistan," said a spokesperson for the Taliban-run Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adding that "all citizens of the country are equal in the eyes of the law regardless of their position and profession."
Some journalists said they also face a widespread mental health crisis. Rahman, an Afghan journalist who asked ABC News to use his middle name due to what he described as ongoing threats from the Taliban, struggles with worsening depression and anxiety. He said he fears for himself and his family, still in Kabul.
"It's daily mental torture," he said.
An endless wait
The conditions in Pakistan have spurred many Afghan journalists to apply for humanitarian visas from the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and other European countries. Yet, some have not heard back for about three years.
Wesa applied for an Australian humanitarian visa on Jan. 4, 2022, six months after he arrived in Pakistan. He supplemented his application with support letters from Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International and other nongovernmental organizations stating his life was at risk, he told ABC News.
More than two years after filing his initial application, he has received a confirmation of receipt but no further updates, he said.
A departmental spokesperson from the Australian Department of Home Affairs said they "expect it will take at least 6 years from the date of receipt for processing to commence on [the applications] lodged in 2022, 2023, or 2024."
"We will wait – there is no other way," Wesa said in response. "I hope they help us as soon as possible."
"Day by day, I'm faced with depression and health issues," he said. "My only hope is that Australia will save my life."
Rahman, who reported on women's rights in Afghanistan, is saving up to apply for a family visa from Australia, where his fiancée lives. The process costs over $9,000. He said he believes a humanitarian visa application will not receive a response.
Requests for help from the French embassy and the U.N. have also yielded no results, he said.
"I believe these countries have always been for freedom and for democracy. They can help out," he said. "I just wonder why it takes such a long time."
Khatera applied for a visa from the Swiss embassy. It took a year and a half to receive the file number, she said. She was told she needed close relatives in the country, but otherwise, they would likely not be able to help.
"I'm getting depression," she said. "I'm just trying to fight."
Every Afghan journalist in exile interviewed by ABC News said they continue to receive threats from the Taliban over social media and fear for their lives every day.
The Taliban denied sending the threats, saying "the government and officials of Afghanistan have not threatened any journalists."
Broken promises
Afghan journalists waiting in worsening conditions for responses to their visa applications said they feel that Western countries have broken their promises to help Afghan refugees.
The United States expanded a resettlement program for Afghan refugees in 2021 to include journalists and humanitarian workers who had helped the United States. However, as of 2023, The Associated Press reported that only a small portion of applicants had been resettled.
The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The Afghan Pro Bono Initiative, a partnership providing free legal representation to Afghan refugees, published a 2023 report entitled "Two Years of Empty Promises." The report found that the U.K. resettlement programs for Afghan refugees were fraught with delays, understaffing, administrative hurdles, narrow eligibility and technical issues.
Earlier this year, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other NGOs called on Western countries to adopt prima facie refugee status for Afghan women and girls, which would grant refugee status without the need for individual assessments, potentially streamlining the application process and decreasing lengthy wait times.
Despite the dragging wait times and the pervasive hopelessness, many of the 170 Afghan journalists in exile in Pakistan continue to speak out against the Taliban.
Wesa's X account includes frequent posts about Afghanistan -- legal updates, protest videos and women singing to resist what they describe as draconian Taliban policies.
"In any country, I will stand for Afghan women," he said. "I will risk my life for them."
Robert Pattinson is teaming up with his Tenet director Christopher Nolan again, according to Variety. The actor is reportedly joining the filmmaker’s secretive next project at Universal Pictures. The cast already includes Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Lupita Nyong’o, Anne Hathaway and Zendaya ...
Storm Reid won’t be returning to Euphoria for season 3. The actress, who played Gia, the younger sister of Zendaya’s character, Rue, confirmed the news to Rotten Tomatoes on the Governors Awards red carpet. “Unfortunately, Gia’s not returning to the third season, but I am so, so indebted to the cast and the crew of that show, to HBO,” she said. The third season is set to begin production in January ...
Emily is heading back to Paris. According to Variety, the fifth season of the Lily Collins-starring Netflix series will begin filming in May. It will also partly shoot in Rome. Collins will return alongside co-star Lucas Bravo, who plays French chef Gabriel in the series ...
