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Trump to Visit North Carolina and California, With Disaster Aid an Open Question

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Trump to Visit North Carolina and California, With Disaster Aid an Open Question

President Trump on Friday began his first trip since returning to the White House to storm-ravaged North Carolina and California, which is facing some of the most deadly and destructive blazes in the state’s history.

The trip comes as the president has left the question of additional disaster aid for California unsettled.

Mr. Trump is expected to make his first stop in Asheville, N.C., which had devastating flooding from Hurricane Helene last fall. The president then plans on traveling to the Los Angeles area, where he will observe the damage from wildfires that have killed more than two dozen people, destroyed entire neighborhoods and forced desperate evacuations.

But Mr. Trump has struck very different tones on the likelihood of additional federal aid for each state. While he has expressed support for North Carolina, Mr. Trump has criticized California’s Democratic leaders for the disaster response and threatened to withhold federal aid if they did not make changes to unrelated environmental policies in the state.

“It’s been a horrible thing the way that’s been allowed to fester, and we’re going to get it fixed up,” Mr. Trump told reporters of the previous administration’s disaster recovery effort. “North Carolina’s been treated very badly, so we’re stopping there.”

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For the Los Angeles stop, Mr. Trump said he wanted “to take a look at a fire that could have been put out if they let the water flow, but they didn’t let the water flow, and they still haven’t.”

“We’re going to have a very interesting time,” he said.

Presidents have typically visited areas recovering from natural disasters to show personal support and assure community members of federal aid for emergency medical workers and local leaders. Mr. Trump, however, has often used natural disasters as a vehicle to unleash political grievances, threatening to withhold money from political opponents, making false statements about disaster responses by Democrats and promising support for political allies.

During Mr. Trump’s first term, he told aides he wanted to stop money from reaching Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, claiming that the island’s leadership was corrupt. After wildfires erupted in California in 2018, Mr. Trump said on social media that he had ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to “send no more money” unless the state changed its approach to forest management.

Before traveling on Friday, Mr. Trump had already displayed different approaches to California and Republican-led North Carolina.

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“We’re going to get that thing straightened out because they’re still suffering from a hurricane from months ago,” Mr. Trump said in a taped interview with Fox News that aired on Wednesday night.

Since the early days of the hurricane response, Mr. Trump has made a number of accusations about the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene that were debunked by the local, state and federal authorities in the disaster areas.

The false statements included claims that FEMA had spent huge sums on housing for migrants and that it had told victims of the storms they would receive only $750. The string of false claims prompted President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to accuse Mr. Trump of spreading “outright lies.”

In the same interview with Fox News, Mr. Trump issued broadsides against Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor — whom the president has called “Newscum” — for his management. He also threatened to withhold disaster aid for wildfires unless the state changed environmental policies that he claimed had prevented enough water from going to Southern California.

“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,” Mr. Trump added.

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State and fire experts have said those policies have no connection to the fires in the Los Angeles area.

During a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Newsom expressed confidence that the Trump administration would still reimburse California for the disaster-related funds. He added that he planned to be at the airport to greet Mr. Trump, even though he did not know whether he would be invited to accompany the president during his tour of the Los Angeles area.

While Mr. Newsom was left in the dark, Mr. Trump appeared to extend last-minute invitations to Senators Adam B. Schiff and Alex Padilla, Democrats of California, to join him in his visit to the state, days after calling Mr. Schiff “scum” on Inauguration Day.

A spokesperson for Mr. Schiff, with whom Mr. Trump has long had an acrimonious relationship, said on Thursday that the senator would not be able to make the trip because of expected Senate votes on cabinet nominees.

“Senator Schiff greatly appreciates the president’s visit to see the devastation of these wildfires firsthand and the invitation to accompany him,” the spokesperson said in a statement. The statement added that Mr. Schiff would work with Mr. Trump’s team and other officials “to ensure that California gets the aid and support it needs.”

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Mr. Padilla will also not join Mr. Trump because of the Senate vote schedule, his spokeswoman said, but he welcomed Mr. Trump’s support “for federal disaster aid to assist the thousands of families and businesses impacted by these devastating fires.”

Annie Karni contributed reporting.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

@fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @Bogs4NY via X

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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