HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that a man pardoned for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol has been released from federal prison – but now must face a local charge of soliciting a minor he picked up before the insurrection. Andrew Taake, 36, of Houston, was among the more than 1,500 people pardoned for their participation in the riot. Taake in 2023 pleaded guilty to assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon, and last year was sentenced to more than 6 years in federal prison. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office confirmed Friday that Taake is now considered wanted in connection to a 2016 online solicitation of a minor charge. He was not in custody as of Friday. According to court documents, Taake was accused of soliciting a person he “believed to be younger than seventeen years of age” with the expectation there would be sexual contact. The charge is a third degree felony that is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Netflix announces 2025 slate during Next on Netflix event: All the details
During its Next on Netflix presentation on Thursday, Netflix announced a slew of upcoming releases for their most-anticipated shows and movies of 2025. Here's a look at some of the highlights:
Squid Game season three will premiere on June 27. The final episodes will pick up just after season two’s cliffhanger ending.
While the fifth and final season of Stranger Things is set to release this year, it still doesn't have a premiere date. Wednesday season two doesn't have a release date either, but the streamer did release first-look footage from the new episodes.
Ginny & Georgia season three debuts June 5, while Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney, a new live talk show hosted by the comedian, kicks off March 12 at 10 p.m. ET.
As for other series coming this year, fans can expect a new installment of Ryan Murphy's Monster, as well as new seasons of Black Mirror, Emily in Paris, Nobody Wants This, The Witcher, My Life With the Walter Boys and The Vince Staples Show.
On the film side of things, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is slated for a November release, while Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the third installment in the Knives Out series, is due out this fall.
Jay Kelly, a new Noah Baumbach film starring George Clooney, Adam Sandler and Laura Dern, is also premiering this fall. The film is described as a “heartbreaking comedy.”
Other movies coming to the streamer include the Charlize Theron-starring sequel The Old Guard 2, out on July 2, and a currently untitled film by Kathryn Bigelow, arriving in the fall.
In addition to these highlights, Netflix has entered an exclusive first-look deal with Lena Dunham, who will develop and create projects for them through her company Good Thing Going.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Longview debates where to place EV charging stations
LONGVIEW — When Paul Guidroz heard his East Texas town could build an electric vehicle charging station, he began to think of what it could mean for the local economy.
Drivers traveling along Interstate 20 could pull into town, charge up and give a boost to small businesses, he said.
“They could stop here, get a coffee at one of our local coffee shops or even lunch while they charge their vehicles,” said Guidroz, Longview’s Main Street Coordinator who helps support local businesses.
The town of 83,236 sandwiched between Tyler and Shreveport, Louisiana, is on 56 stops the Texas Department of Transportation, or TxDOT, identified to establish the state’s “Electric Alternative Fuels Corridor.” The corridor is largely paid for by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill signed by President Joe Biden. Continue reading Longview debates where to place EV charging stations
Patrick outlines legislative priorities
AUSTINI – The Dallas Morning News reports Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick named school choice, property tax cuts, religion in schools and banning hemp-derived THC products among the top Senate priorities for the legislative session Wednesday. “Over the last four years, the Texas Senate held the line, fighting back against President Biden’s disastrous agenda,” Patrick, a Republican, said in a statement. “Now, with President Trump back in office, Texas has a friend in the White House. The Texas Senate will continue to lead as the preeminent legislative body in America by passing our bold, conservative agenda, helping President Trump deliver on his promise of making America great again.” Every session, leaders of the House and Senate reserve the lowest bill numbers for their highest priorities – the budget, for example, is Senate Bill 1 – with the fastest track to passage. Patrick, who presides over the Senate, released a list of his top 25 bills, promising 15 more will come later.
The nation’s largest teachers’ group, the Association of Texas Professional Educators, expressed disappointment that increasing public school funding and raising teacher pay did not make the top priorities. “Our teachers and other public school employees need financial relief to stay in the profession,” executive director Shannon Holmes said in a statement. “Our school districts can’t cover the cost of the meaningful safety reforms implemented by the Legislature. They also can’t keep up with the cost of special education for our most vulnerable students.” Only the budget and Senate Bill 2, which creates a voucher-style program to supplement private school tuition, have been filed. SB 2 was approved by a Senate committee Tuesday. Farther down the list, Senate Bill 6, when it’s filed, will establish investments in electric grid reliability, while Senate Bill 9 will institute bail reform, Patrick said. Senate Bills 10 and 11 will deal with prayer and the Ten Commandments in schools, while two other bills will address “inappropriate books” and “drag time story hour” — a pre-emptive strike targeting the influence of transgender and LGBTQ communities and a popular social issue among evangelical Christian conservatives.
Two Mineola men dead after vehicle crashes into tree
WOOD COUTY — Two men from Mineola are dead after their vehicle crashed into a tree on Monday afternoon, according to reports from our news partner, KETK.
Texas DPS Sergeant Adam Albritton reported that the two men were traveling on County Road 2270 near Lake Holbrook at around 3 p.m. when the vehicle lost control and ran off the pavement, striking a tree. The driver, 22-year-old Nicholas Wilkins and 19-year-old passenger Brekeilyn Martin were pronounced dead at the scene, Albritton said.
The cause of the crash is currently unknown and remains under investigation.
Gabbard stands firm on Snowden, frustrating key senators
(WASHINGTON) -- Lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee peppered director of national intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard with questions about her controversial rhetoric on Russian aggression, Syria’s use of chemical weapons, and government surveillance programs at her high-stakes confirmation hearing on Thursday.
But it was her statements about Edward Snowden, the prolific leaker of national secrets, that generated the most colorful moments of her three hours of public testimony.
Senators from both sides offered Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, countless opportunities to withdraw her past support of Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who fled the country with more than 1 million classified records.
And while she acknowledged on multiple occasions that Snowden broke the law, she stood firm in ways that seemed at times to frustrate even some Republicans on the panel.
Gabbard has in the past called Snowden a “brave” whistleblower who uncovered damning civil liberties violations by the intelligence community. As a lawmaker, she introduced legislation supporting a grant of clemency.
On Thursday, she repeatedly refused to withdraw that characterization of him. And she repeatedly refused to call him a “traitor.”
“This is where the rubber hits the road,” Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet boomed inside the hearing room. “This is not a moment for social media, this is not a moment to propagate conspiracy theories … this is when you need to answer the questions of people whose votes you’re asking for to be confirmed as the chief intelligence officer of this nation.”
“Is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America? This is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high,” he continued.
She declined to say. Instead, Gabbard repeated that she felt his acts were illegal and that she disagreed with his methods.
"Edward Snowden broke the law,” she said. “I do not agree with or support with all of the information and intelligence that he released, nor the way in which he did it."
But, she added, he "released information that exposed egregious, illegal and unconstitutional programs."
Gabbard faces perhaps the most difficult route to confirmation of all of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks. She cannot afford to lose any Republican votes in the committee, and at least two members of the panel, Susan Collins and Todd Young, declined to offer their support after the open portion of the hearing concluded.
While she stood firm on Snowden, Gabbard backtracked on other matters, including her suggestion in 2022 that U.S. and NATO forces had provoked Russia into its war with Ukraine. Asked by Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who bore responsibility for Moscow’s aggression, Gabbard was unequivocal: “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin started the war in Ukraine.”
She also said that she “shed no tears for the fall of the Assad regime,” referring to Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian dictator who fled Damascus late last year. Gabbard was chastised in 2017 for meeting with Assad in person and later casting doubt on intelligence tying his regime to the use of chemical weapons.
Several senators also raised Gabbard’s past criticism of government surveillance programs, including the FISA 702 authority, which allows the U.S. government to collect electronic communications of non-Americans located outside the country without a warrant.
Gabbard expressed support for FISA 702 and explained her vote as a congresswoman against its reauthorization as a reflection of her stance on defending civil liberties.
“I will just note that my actions in legislation in Congress were done to draw attention to the egregious civil liberties violations that were occurring at that time,” Gabbard said.
But on Snowden, Gabbard refused to back down. Republican Sens. James Lankford and Todd Young presented her with several opportunities to clarify her views on the government leaker. Each time, she equivocated.
“Did [Snowden] betray the trust of the American people?” Young asked.
“Edward Snowden broke the law,” she said, “and he released this information in a way that he should not have.”
Gabbard did at one point back off her support of a presidential pardon for Snowden, who now resides in Moscow, where he is not subject to extradition treaties. In an exchange with Collins, she said the DNI does not have a role in advocating for clemency actions.
"My responsibility would be to ensure the security of our nation's secrets,” Gabbard said. “And would not take actions to advocate for any actions related to Snowden."
Collins said after the hearing that she has not made up her mind on whether she will support Gabbard’s nomination and was still reviewing portions of her testimony that she missed while attending a concurrent hearing.
But when asked if the jury was still out on her support, she said, “that’s correct, I want to make a careful decision.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, the committee chairman, said he would move to a vote on Gabbard’s nomination soon. The closed-door portion of the hearing continued on Thursday afternoon.
-ABC News' Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Sulphur Springs PD search for suspect responsible for T-Mobile robbery
SULPHUR SPRINGS — Our news partner, KETK, reports that a search is underway for the person responsible for a robbery on Sunday afternoon in Sulphur Springs.
According to the Sulphur Springs Police Department, a man reportedly robbed a T-Mobile on 151 Industrial Dr. E Ste 300 at around 3:45 p.m.
Detective Joe Scott of the Sulphur Springs PD said the suspect went into T-Mobile asking to look at three iPhones and when the store clerk brought them to him, he ran out of the store with the phones. Scott said the phones are worth a total of $4,900. Scott said the suspect is believed to be 6’4, around 240 pounds and not local to the area.
If anyone has any information regarding the investigation, call Detective Scott at 903-885-7602.
David Rancken’s App of the Day 01/30/25 – Roomie Remote!
How about having all of your remotes, in one remote source? Go get David Rancken’s App Of The Day. It’s called Roomie Remote. You can find Roomie Remote in the Apple Store.
‘Smallville’ actor Tom Welling arrested for DUI
Smallville alum Tom Welling was arrested Sunday in the early morning hours and charged with driving under the influence, according to a police report obtained by Good Morning America.
The 47-year-old actor, best known for playing Superman/Clark Kent on the long-running series, was also charged with DUI, having a blood alcohol level that exceeded the legal limit of 0.08% in California, the arrest record from the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office says.
Welling was arrested by police in Yreka, California, at 12:09 a.m., booked at 2:10 a.m. and released at 7:07 a.m. local time on Sunday.
The actor, also known for his roles in Judging Amy, Cheaper by the Dozen and Lucifer, is due back in court on March 11 regarding the charges.
Welling's arrest occurred the same day he celebrated wife Jessica Welling's birthday in a sweet Instagram post.
"Happy Birthday to our Angel who makes our dreams come true and inspires us even more!" he wrote in the caption. "We love you to the moon and back!"
The couple married in November 2019 and share two sons, 6-year-old Thomson and 3-year-old Rocklin.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
‘Shower of sparks’: Witness describes midair collision over Potomac River
(WASHINGTON) -- While driving home Wednesday night on the George Washington Parkway near Ronald Reagan National Airport, Ari Shulman said a "spray of sparks" in the sky caught his attention as he watched in horror the midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter unfold.
Authorities said Thursday that the crash shattered the regional commuter airplane into pieces as it and the military helicopter plummeted into the icy Potomac River, killing everyone aboard both aircraft -- 67 victims combined.
"I looked back and [the plane] was banked all the way to the right … it was illuminated yellow underneath and there was a spray of sparks on the underside," Schulman told ABC News chief national correspondent Byron Pitts.
Security video released shortly after the crash confirmed Shulman's description of the first major U.S. air disaster in nearly 16 years.
Video footage showed Flight 5342 with 60 passengers and four crew members aboard making its final approach to Reagan National when it was struck by a Black Hawk helicopter traveling south with a flight crew of three.
"I knew something was very wrong because it was very, very close to the ground -- banked all the way to the right," Shulman of Alexandria, Virginia, said.
He said he glanced at the road for just a moment.
"I looked back again and it was gone," Shulman said. "I didn't see any crash into the ground. I didn't see a fireball, an explosion, or flames."
Fire Chief John Donnelly of the Washington D.C. Fire Department said at a news conference Thursday morning that an American Airlines plane, operated by its subsidiary PSA Airlines, was found "inverted" in three pieces in waist-high water of the Potomac. He said the helicopter was discovered nearby.
"At this point, we don't believe there are any survivors from this accident," Donnelly said.
Donnelly said the search-and-rescue mission was not a search-and-recovery operation. He said 27 bodies had been recovered from the airplane and one from the helicopter.
Donnelly said that at 8:48 p.m. local time, the control tower at Reagan National sent out an alert of a plane crash.
"Very quickly, the call escalated," Donnelly said.
He said 300 first responders raced to the river in a desperate attempt to find survivors, which would prove futile. Within 10 minutes, the first emergency unit arrived on the grisly scene, surveying the wreckage of both aircraft in the Potomac River.
"The water that we're operating in is about 8 feet deep," Donnelly told reporters at the somber early-morning briefing. "There is wind … pieces of ice out there, so it's just dangerous and hard to work in. And because there's not a lot of lights, you're out there searching every square inch of space to see if you can find anybody."
He added, "Divers are doing the same thing in the water. The water is dark, it is murky, and that is a very tough condition for them to dive in."
Meanwhile, the medical staffs of three major Washington, D.C., hospitals said they were prepared to treat victims, but as the minutes turned into hours, no ambulances arrived from the crash site with patients.
From the banks of the Potomac, search helicopters were seen probing the water with searchlights as fire boats made trips back and forth through the icy Potomac, transporting what appeared to be debris from the crash, including suitcases.
Inside, the usually bustling airport was eerily quiet Wednesday evening. The departure and arrivals boards were nearly blank.
Jack Potter, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, said some family members were waiting to pick up loved ones before the crash, and American Airlines had set up a center in the airline's lounge for family members.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Transgender service members sue to block Trump order
(WASHINGTON) -- Transgender service members represented by LGBTQ advocacy groups on Tuesday filed suit against the White House executive order that bans transgender people from serving in the military.
The order signed late Monday rescinded Biden administration policies that permitted transgender service members to serve openly according to their gender identity. The order said the "assertion" that one might identify as transgender would be a "falsehood … not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."
Space Force Col. Bree Fram, a transgender woman who came out and transitioned while serving, told ABC News that banning transgender individuals from serving would bring a "collective harm to our national securit
Transgender troops "are meeting or exceeding the high standards the military has set for performance, and they're doing so here at home, around the world, and in every service, every specialty that the military has to offer," Fram said, who was speaking in her personal capacity and not on behalf of the Pentagon.
According to the suit filed Tuesday by plaintiffs represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Law and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the order directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth "to reverse the current accession and retention standards for military service and to adopt instead a policy that transgender status is incompatible with 'high standards'" that the executive order lays out.
Sasha Buchert, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal who represented plaintiffs who sued and temporarily blocked a similar order in 2017 in the first Trump administration, called the new order "cruel" and said it "compromises the safety of our country."
She told ABC News the order "will force transgender service members to look over their shoulder" and "stamp them with [a] badge of inferiority."
Buchert said her firm and the Human Rights Campaign also intend to file suit.
"We have been here before…as we promised then, so do we now: we will sue," Buchert said.
Buchert said transgender troops will now "worry about...whether they're going to have to end their illustrious military careers by being drummed out of the military."
"Trans military folks have been serving now for 10 years, openly and proudly and deploying to austere environments and meeting every service-based standard that their peers can meet," said Buchert, who is a veteran.
The executive order, paired with another that demands the dissolution of diversity, equity, and inclusion "bureaucracy" in the Defense Department, came on Hegseth's first day of work at the Pentagon.
The Pentagon said in a statement to ABC News that it "will fully execute and implement all directives outlined" in all executive orders from the president.
The executive order does not make reference to transgender individuals. It directs the Pentagon to update guidelines around medical standards for individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a precursor to transition care that affirms one's gender.
According to a Defense official, 4,240 military personnel who are currently serving are diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Over a 10-year period since 2014, only a slightly higher total number of service members were diagnosed with gender dysphoria -- 5,773.
Over that period, roughly 3,200 received gender-affirming hormone therapy, the official said, and about 1,000 received gender-affirming surgery.
The cost for both -- as well as psychotherapy and other treatments over the last decade -- was $52 million, or over $5 million per year.
Trump as a candidate said he would take aim at "transgender insanity" as president. The order says the military must root out "ideologies harmful to unit cohesion."
The logic around cohesion is familiar, Buchert said.
"We've seen this as a country on many occasions. We're still correcting improper discharges for people that were, you know, drummed out of the military based on discriminatory motives in the past," she said.
Cassie Byard, a Navy veteran who served with a service member who was transgender, said she "never saw any adverse effect on readiness or cohesion."
Fram believes openness about her identity has made her unit more cohesive.
"My being authentic is actually reflected back to me and builds the strong bonds of teamwork that we need at the military to succeed, because we need everyone to be able to bring their best self to work," she said.
While the order brings a "period of uncertainty" as the Pentagon weighs updates to medical guidelines over a two-month window to implement it, Fram said "my job right now, and the job of every transgender service member, is simply to do our duty. It's to lace up our boots and get to work and accomplish the mission that we've been given."
"We swore an oath to uphold the duties that we've been given, [to] support the Constitution," she added. "And we're going to continue to do so, unless told otherwise."
-ABC News' Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Pentagon intelligence agency pauses events, activities related to MLK Day, Black History Month
(WASHINGTON) -- In response to President Donald Trump's executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, the Pentagon's intelligence agency has paused special event programs and related events, including for Juneteenth, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Black History Month, Holocaust Days of Remembrance and Pride Month, according to a memo obtained by ABC News.
Despite being on the list of the Defense Intelligence Agency's paused events and activities, the memo clarified that Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth will remain federal holidays.
"The Defense Intelligence Agency is working with the Department of Defense to fully implement all Executive Orders and Administration guidance in a timely manner," Lt. Cmdr. Seth Clarke, DIA spokesman, told ABC News in a statement when asked about the memo. "As we receive additional guidance, we will continue to update our internal guidance."
A copy of the memo began circulating on social media Wednesday morning.
The affected events, per the memo, which is dated Jan. 28, 2025, include: Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday, Black History Month, Women's History Month, Holocaust Day and Days of Remembrance, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Pride, Juneteenth, Women's Equality Day, National Hispanic Heritage Month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month and National American Indian Heritage Month.
The pause comes as Black History Month is set to begin on Saturday, Feb. 1.
Trump has targeted DEI initiatives in a series of executive orders in his first week in office, with the White House saying that "DEI creates and then amplifies prejudicial hostility and exacerbates interpersonal conflict."
The memo also noted that the DIA would "pause Agency Resource Groups, Affinity Groups, and Employee Networking Groups, effective immediately and until further notice."
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Some government employees dismayed after Musk jokes about buyout offer
(WASHINGTON) -- After the Trump administration offered two million federal employees buyouts on Tuesday, Elon Musk -- the world's richest man and the architect of Trump's effort to reduce the size of the government -- took to his own social media platform to boast and joke about the offer, leaving some federal employees who spoke to ABC News dismayed.
By replying to an email sent out Tuesday, all full-time federal employees -- with the exception of military personnel and postal workers -- have the option to get eight months' salary if they agree to leave their jobs.
"The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work," the email sent to employees said, offering them what it called a "deferred resignation" from their positions.
Commenting on X, Musk laughed at a specific aspect of the offer, writing, "Hit 'Send,'" accompanied by a screenshot of the letter to employees describing how to submit their resignation via email.
Musk's attitude as he works to enact sweeping changes across the federal government -- potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of career employees who have spent their lives working behind the scenes -- is not lost on some workers, who told ABC News that the Trump administration and Musk's tone have been "cruel" and "demoralizing."
"It feels like the new administration thinks we are dirt and do nothing for the country," said one 20-year federal employee who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution. "This is heartbreaking."
According to a copy of the resignation letter posted by the Office of Personnel Management, federal employees have to acknowledge that the positions they vacate could be eliminated or consolidated, and their response to the buyout email may be used "to assist in federal workforce reorganization efforts."
While employees are not expected to work during their deferred resignation period, resigning workers need to commit to a "smooth transition" out of their roles.
Bolstered by an executive order that would make it easier to fire career government employees, administration officials said they expect the reduction of the government workforce from the buyout and other executive actions to be "significant."
Unprecedented in its scope and nature, the buyout appears to be one part of Trump's sweeping approach to reducing the size of the government -- using an approach that mirrors tactics used by Musk in the past. When Musk took over Twitter in November 2022, he similarly sent a company-wide email that gave workers an ultimatum: work harder or leave with severance. Yesterday's email shared the same subject line -- "A fork in the road" -- that Musk used in his email.
As federal employees were digesting the terms of the buyout Wednesday, it was unclear exactly who was eligible for it and whether there would really be severance payments, which could be delayed by litigation.
Max Alonzo, national secretary-treasurer for the National Federation of Federal Employees, expressed skepticism about the terms of the resignations.
"Absolutely do not resign. There is nothing that says that the day that you resign, that they can't just let you go. They don't have to pay you -- there's nothing that says they have to pay you till September 30," he said. "This is nothing that has been done before. This is not in our regulations. There's no regs about it. We're not even sure if it's actually legal. This is about trying to cut the federal workforce down, really kind of just breaking down these pillars of democracy."
Foreign service officers within the State Department received the "fork in the road" email, but so far, State Department officials have been unable to provide their 16,000-person workforce a clear answer on whether they're eligible to take it, according to an official familiar with the matter. Even if staffers are deemed eligible for the buyouts, there's concern that -- if enough of them take the federal government up on its offer -- it will have an impact on national security because of the sudden, drastic downsizing.
"The implications could be really scary," said the official, who also asked not to be identified. "This could really do some damage."
The sweeping approach appears to be one of the first monumental steps to reshape the government by Musk, who supported Trump's election with $250 million in contributions and became one of Trump's closest advisers.
When Trump first announced his plans to establish the "Department of Government Efficiency" in November, he framed it as an outside group that would advise the White House on how to make government more efficient. Two months later, when Trump actually established DOGE through an executive order, he took a different approach, giving Musk control of what used to be known as the United States Digital Service, a unit within the Executive Office of the President tasked with improving government websites.
In an executive order signed the same day, Trump also tasked the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to work with DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management to "submit a plan to reduce the size of the Federal Government's workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition."
In addition to helming DOGE, Musk has extended his influence in the federal government by having his former employees and DOGE loyalists take on critical roles in other parts of government. Scott Kupor -- Trump's pick to lead the Office of Personnel Management. -- thanked the president for the "opportunity to serve" the country by helping Musk, and OMP's chief of staff Amanda Scales worked for Musk's AI company as recently as this month.
To run the Office of Management and Budget, Trump tapped Project 2025 architect Russell Vought, who shares Musk's desire for historic spending cuts and workforce reductions. Vought was a central figure in Trump's attempt to categorize thousands of civil servants as political appointments, making it easier to fire employees without the protections given to civil servants. As one of his first acts in office, Trump signed an executive order to strip thousands of government workers of their employment protections.
The new hirings and executive orders represent the first steps in Musk's plan for "mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy," as he wrote in the Wall Street Journal in November.
"DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions," wrote Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently departed DOGE to run for public office.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Crackdown on do-it-yourself firearm kits is curbing ghost guns. Will it last?
(BALTIMORE) -- Deep inside headquarters of the Baltimore Police Department, a vault holds thousands of artifacts from a generation of gun crime and clues to a tide that may be turning.
Most of the firearms lining the vault's walls have serial numbers indicating origin and ownership, but many of the most recent additions to the collection are homemade and unmarked.
"You can buy the pieces online, put them together and you can have a fully assembled firearm that is untraceable," said BPD Commissioner Richard Worley, who gave ABC News a rare inside look at the cache.
The number of privately made firearms, or ghost guns, recovered from crime and accident scenes nationwide has exploded into an epidemic in recent years, up nearly 17-fold between 2017 and 2023, according to the Justice Department.
Baltimore has been a microcosm of the problem. Just a dozen of the untraceable weapons were picked up by police in 2018. By 2022, there were more than 500 recovered from homicide scenes, mass shootings, drug busts and traffic stops.
But now, the city is cautiously celebrating a dramatic downward trend of ghost guns and what could be a harbinger of progress in the fight against gun violence across the country.
In 2024, 309 ghost guns without serial numbers were recovered across Baltimore. Eight have been collected so far this year, according to police.
Officials credit a series of federal, state and local restrictions imposed on gun kits in 2022 and 2023 with slowing online sales by requiring background and age checks of buyers and banning some kit sales in Maryland altogether.
"I think it's made a huge difference for not just Baltimore city but the entire state," said Worley, who added that the latest data prove that commonsense regulations can have a significant impact.
Daniel Webster, a leading expert on firearm policy at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, said the turnabout has been stunning.
"I want to underscore just how sharp that increase was prior to these policies going into place," he said. "Now you see an abrupt change in a slope going exactly the other direction."
Whatever progress is attributable to the regulations may now be at risk, according to some experts.
The gun industry has lobbied the Trump administration to roll back restrictions on gun kit sales and filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging treatment of gun parts the same as fully assembled firearms.
"We don't sell firearms. So my company will never have a federal firearms license and therefore will never perform the NICS background checks," said Cody Wilson, owner and founder of Defense Distributed, one of the largest do-it-yourself gun kit and 3D gun blueprint manufacturers.
Wilson is a plaintiff in a Supreme Court case this spring that will decide whether federal restrictions on gun kits, such as requiring background checks and serialization, should be struck down. The justices are expected to rule by the end of June.
"We've been developing technology in this direction, digital and physical or mechanical technologies, to help you make firearms, design your own firearms, reproduce your own firearms," he said, adamant that gun kit manufacturers will continue to push boundaries of the law.
Ghost guns assembled from parts kits purchased online or manufactured by at-home 3D printing have increasingly turned up in high-profile attacks and mass shootings.
Last month, a convicted felon armed with a ghost gun allegedly shot and critically wounded two kindergarten children on a school playground in California. That same day in New York City, a man equipped with a homemade gun allegedly assassinated the UnitedHealthcare CEO on a sidewalk.
"Anyone, a felon, a teenager, anybody could order a kit online and within an hour and some handy instructions from YouTube put together their own working firearm," Webster said. "It goes around every law, federal and state, that has been designed to keep guns out of people that it's broadly agreed are too dangerous to have them."
And it's not just bad guys.
Until recently, do-it-yourself gun kits have been especially popular among teenagers who are not old enough to buy firearms in stores legally and instead obtain a gun kit online with only a credit card.
"This industry is really undermining parents' ability to keep their kids safe and arming teenagers in a way that the laws are really set up to prevent," said Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown Law, a gun safety advocacy group.
Ghost gun violence has devastated families in nearly every state: a 15-year-old killed at a corner store near Philadelphia by another teenager, two teenagers murdered in Virginia after a fight on social media, a 10th grader nearly killed in a student bathroom at a Maryland high school.
Outside Detroit in May 2021, Guy Boyd was accidentally shot in the face by his then-best friend. He nearly died and lost his eye.
"Ghost guns. It's in the name. It's a gun," Boyd said. "It's a firearm. It's projectile. It's something that can take somebody's life or almost take somebody's life, in my scenario."
Worley, of the BPD, said Baltimore is hopeful that the reduction in ghost gun violence since the recently implemented layers of restrictions won't be fleeting.
"There were so many on the street that it's going to take us years to get rid of them," he said of the untraceable guns. "But our men and women work every single day tirelessly to take them off the street."
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
In brief: David Lynch to be posthumously honored with WGAW 2025 Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement and more
David Lynch will be posthumously honored with the Writers Guild of America West's 2025 Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, the guild announced Wednesday. The iconic screenwriter and director will receive the lifetime achievement award from the guild, an honor that is given to members who "advanced the literature of motion pictures and made outstanding contributions to the profession of the screenwriter.” Kyle MacLachlan will present the award on Feb. 15 at the 77th annual Writers Guild Awards ...
Annette Bening is attached to star alongside Anya Taylor-Joy in the upcoming limited series Lucky, Deadline reports. The show, which will be on Apple TV+, comes from creator Jonathan Tropper and executive producer Reese Witherspoon. The show will be based on the Marissa Stapley novel of the same name. It follows a young woman who has to embrace her darker side to escape her criminal past. Bening will play a mob leader named Priscilla ...
Eddie Murphy will star in the upcoming film Blue Falcon for Sony Pictures. Deadline first reported that the action comedy is based on a screenplay by Chad St. John, who wrote London Has Fallen and Motor City. Murphy will play a retired spy who attends his son's destination wedding, where he finds himself in close proximity to his biggest nemesis ...
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.