Elmo’s X account posted antisemitic and racist posts after it was hacked on Sunday, a spokesperson for the makers of “Sesame Street” said in a statement. 

On Tuesday, Elmo’s X account posted a statement saying the account “was briefly hacked by an outside party, in spite of the security measures in place.”

“We strongly condemn the abhorrent antisemitic and racist content, and the account has since been secured,” it said. “These posts in no way reflect the values of Sesame Workshop or Sesame Street, and no one at the organization was involved.”

A spokesperson for Sesame Workshop, which is the nonprofit organization behind “Sesame Street,” had said on Monday that Elmo’s X account was “briefly compromised” on Sunday “by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts.”

The spokesperson said the social media account, which is verified and has more than 600,000 followers, has since been secured.

The posts contained slurs against Jews and commentary about President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who killed himself in prison in 2019 as he faced federal sex trafficking charges. The posts were removed Sunday afternoon, shortly after appearing on the platform. 

Epstein’s case has been back in the news after the Justice Department and FBI released a report saying their review had found no evidence of a long-rumored “client list,” and that security video confirms no one entered the cell area before Epstein’s death. The findings sparked a furor among some Trump supporters after right-wing media figures spent years promoting the idea of a cover-up or conspiracy.

The posts on Elmo’s X account were published several days after the team behind Grok, Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot, deleted several posts on Musk’s X in which the chatbot made antisemitic comments and praised Adolf Hitler. The company later issued an apology. 

Musk and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, have been criticized for a surge of antisemitic and other hate speech on the site since he took ownership in October 2022. Musk allowed previously banned users back onto the platform — including Andrew Tate, Kanye West and some notorious neo-Nazi figures — and reduced content moderation in the name of free speech.

The Anti-Defamation League has also also been tracking a rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. The nonprofit organization said that last year, it recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents nationwide, which is the highest number since it started monitoring more than four decades ago. That marked a 5% increase in incidents since 2023, and a 893% increase over the past decade.

The Associated Press

contributed to this report.

MONTPELIER, Vt. — After six 12-hour shifts milking cows, José Molina-Aguilar’s lone day off was hardly relaxing.

On April 21, he and seven co-workers were arrested on a Vermont dairy farm in what advocates say was one of the state’s largest-ever immigration raids.

“I saw through the window of the house that immigration were already there, inside the farm, and that’s when they detained us,” he said in a recent interview. “I was in the process of asylum, and even with that, they didn’t respect the document that I was still holding in my hands.”

Four of the workers were swiftly deported to Mexico. Molina-Aguilar, released after a month in a Texas detention center with his asylum case still pending, is now working at a different farm and speaking out.

“We must fight as a community so that we can all have, and keep fighting for, the rights that we have in this country,” he said.

Ryan Brissette, spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said agents initially responded to a report from a concerned citizen who saw two people carrying backpacks entering private farm property near the Canadian border. Agents apprehended one person at the scene and more during the ensuing search of the area, he said.

The owner of the farm declined to comment. But Brett Stokes, a lawyer representing the detained workers, said the raid sent shock waves through the entire Northeast agriculture industry.

“These strong-arm tactics that we’re seeing and these increases in enforcement, whether legal or not, all play a role in stoking fear in the community,” said Stokes, director of the Center for Justice Reform Clinic at Vermont Law and Graduate School.

That fear remains given the mixed messages coming from the White House. President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to deport millions of immigrants working in the U.S. illegally, last month paused arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels. But less than a week later, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said worksite enforcement would continue.

Asked for updated comment Monday, the department repeated McLaughlin’s earlier statement.

“Worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to safeguard public safety, national security and economic stability,” she said.

Such uncertainty is causing problems in big states like California, where farms produce more than three-quarters of the country’s fruit and more than a third of its vegetables. But it’s also affecting small states like Vermont, where dairy is as much a part of the state’s identity as its famous maple syrup.

Nearly two-thirds of all milk production in New England comes from Vermont, where more than half the state’s farmland is dedicated to dairy and dairy crops. There are roughly 113,000 cows and 7,500 goats spread across 480 farms, according to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, which pegs the industry’s annual economic impact at $5.4 billion.

That impact has more than doubled in the last decade, with widespread help from immigrant labor. More than 90% of the farms surveyed for the agency’s recent report employed migrant workers.

Among them is Wuendy Bernardo, who has lived on a Vermont dairy farm for more than a decade and has an active application to stop her deportation on humanitarian grounds: Bernardo is the primary caregiver for her five children and her two orphaned younger sisters, according to a 2023 letter signed by dozens of state lawmakers.

Hundreds of Bernardo’s supporters showed up for her most recent check-in with immigration officials.

“It’s really difficult because every time I come here, I don’t know if I’ll be going back to my family or not,” she said after being told to return in a month.

Like Molina-Aguilar, Rossy Alfaro also worked 12-hour days with one day off per week on a Vermont farm. Now an advocate with Migrant Justice, she said the dairy industry would collapse without immigrant workers.

“It would all go down,” she said. “There are many people working long hours, without complaining, without being able to say, ‘I don’t want to work.’ They just do the job.”

___

Ramer reported from Concord, N.H.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill announced Thursday she is investigating whether pharmaceutical giant CVS improperly used customers’ personal information to send out text messages lobbying against a proposed state law.

Murrill also said she plans to issue a cease-and-desist letter to the company to stop the messages.

As lawmakers debated a now-failed bill on Wednesday they held up screenshots of text messages sent by CVS.

“Last minute legislation in Louisiana threatens to close your CVS Pharmacy — your medication cost may go up and your pharmacist may lose their job,” one such text, obtained by The Associated Press, read.

The proposed legislation would have prohibited companies from owning both pharmacy benefit managers and drug stores.

The CVS Health Corporation owns retail pharmacies as well as CVS Caremark, one the country’s top three pharmacy benefit managers with a market share of more than 100 million members. CVS Caremark and other managers serve as middlemen purchasing prescription drugs from manufacturers and setting the terms for how they are distributed to customers.

“These powerful middlemen may be profiting by inflating drug costs and squeezing Main Street pharmacies,” a 2024 Federal Trade Commission report warned.

CVS says on its website that it “negotiates lower costs for our customers and expands coverage to affordable medications that people need to stay healthy.”

The company’s text messages to Louisiana residents included a link to a draft letter urging lawmakers to oppose the legislation that someone could sign with their email address and send to legislators.

“The proposed legislation would take away my and other Louisiana patients’ ability to get our medications shipped right to our homes,” the letter read. “They would also ban the pharmacies that serve patients suffering from complex diseases requiring specialty pharmacy care to manage their life-threatening conditions like organ transplants or cancer. These vulnerable patients cannot afford any disruption to their care – the consequences would be dire.”

Rep. Dixon McMakin pointed to some of the messages from CVS, saying they were misleading and false. He specifically pointed to ads, that people reported seeing on social media, alleging that lawmakers “may shut down every CVS pharmacy in the state.”

“No we’re not, you liars. Quit being liars. Quit using scare tactics,” McMakin said.

Republican Rep. Bryan Fontenot held up his phone, showing that he, too, had received a text message from CVS.

“It’s in the same text thread (used) to notify when my prescription is filled,” he said. “They’ve now taken that to send me political texts.”

CVS sent messages to “large numbers” of state employees and their families to lobby against proposed legislation involving the company’s pharmaceutical benefits manager, Murrill said in an X post.

Customers gave CVS their phone numbers to receive pharmaceutical information such as vaccine availability or prescription pick-ups but the company is using this personal information “for their own personal corporate interests against pending legislation,” Murrill told reporters. “That’s not why anybody gave them their phone number.”

Amy Thibault, a spokesperson for CVS, said the texts were the result of a last-minute amendment to the bill Wednesday without an opportunity for a public hearing.

The amendment was crafted behind closed-doors by a conference committee — a regular practice utilized in the statehouse when the House and Senate cannot agree on final versions of a bill.

“We believe we have a responsibility to inform our customers of misguided legislation that seeks to shutter their trusted pharmacy, and we acted accordingly,” Thibault said in an email. “Our communication with our customers, patients and members of our community is consistent with law.”

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has continued to push the bill as the state’s legislature concluded Thursday afternoon.

The bill, which proponents said would bolster independent pharmacies and reduce the cost of prescription medications, received overwhelming approval in the House, with a vote of 88-4.

Among those who voted against the measure was Rep. Mandie Landry. The Democrat said that while she wanted to vote in favor, but she was receiving messages from people in her district urging her not to. She said CVS’s lobbying had reached them and as a result they feared that they wouldn’t be able to access their medications.

“CVS … you should be so ashamed of this. You are scaring people,” Landry said.

The bill ultimately died with the Senate opting not to take it up in the final hour of the 2025 session.

Landry said he plans to call a special session in hopes of passing similar legislation.

“Yes we will have a special to lower prescription drugs for our citizens,” Landry said a statement. “It’s that important.”

___

Brook reported from New Orleans.

___

This story has been updated to corrects that Gov. Jeff Landry, not his spokesperson, issued a written statement.

After two days of testimony about how her relationship with Sean “Diddy” Combs grew violent and coercive, Cassie Ventura faced six hours of grueling cross-examination on Thursday, as defense attorneys attempted to cast doubt on her credibility and portray her as a willing participant in their sexual activities.

Defense attorneys turned to a decade of archived text messages to question Ventura about the consistency of her earlier testimony, highlighting her apparent eagerness to engage in Combs’ lifestyle of swinging at drug-fueled orgies. They insist that she was not a victim of sex trafficking or racketeering and that Combs is innocent of the federal charges he’s facing.

During other portions of the cross-examination, Combs’ attorney Anna Estevao appeared to use seemingly mundane messages – like planning dates or expressing their romantic feelings to one another – as an opportunity to humanize Combs, who occasionally nodded his head as his lawyers questioned Ventura.

Combs’ lawyers have argued that, while he has made mistakes, engaged in domestic violence and abused drugs, he never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone. Seated next to his lawyers, Combs appeared engaged in the cross-examination and at one point signaled a heart with his hands toward the wife of his main defense attorney, a former prosecutor whose clients now include alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione, who has entered a not guilty plea.

Ventura’s testimony as the star witness for the prosecution is expected to conclude tomorrow, given concerns that the singer, now eight months pregnant, could go into labor as early as this weekend.

Defense lawyers use text messages to show mutual affection between Combs and Ventura

Ventura openly acknowledged in both her direct and cross-examinations that she loved Combs for more than a decade and hoped to build a life with him. She told jurors she fell in love with Combs shortly after they met, and jurors saw messages from the start of their relationship.

“We’ve only really had one week of each other just together and I can say that it’s been the best and worst,” Ventura wrote in 2007. “I’m sad, mad, frustrated and hurt that you just don’t feel like I’m the right one.”

Jurors also saw messages from August 2009, when the couple first went public with their relationship, and other messages from more than two years into their relationship.

“I love you so much it consumes my life,” she wrote in April 2010.

Ventura testified that while the messages appeared positive, she began to see a different side of Combs as they spent more time together – one that she said was prone to violence, jealousy and rage.

“The more time I spent with him and got to know him, his real personality — or at least what I thought was his real personality — came out,” Ventura testified.

Defense lawyers press Ventura about apparent willingness to engage in freak-offs

During her direct examination, Ventura acknowledged she first agreed to participate in a freak-off to make Combs happy by indulging in his sexual fantasy. She said she quickly realized she did not enjoy the drug-fueled orgies that could go on for days and included her having sexual encounters with prostitutes and strangers.

To counter Ventura’s assertion she was coerced to plan and participate in freak-offs, defense attorneys presented a series of messages apparently showing a different attitude. “I’m always ready to freak off,” she wrote in August 2009.

Jurors also saw text messages that suggested Combs expressed interest in Ventura’s desires, though she had previously testified those did not matter to Combs. The messages also seem to show she attempted to please Combs by preparing for the freak-offs, including by visiting a sex shop in advance of an orgy.

“Trying to find something to impress you,” she wrote in one message. At least one of the jurors raised his eyebrows as an explicit message was shown in court.

Defense attorneys pressed Ventura about her reasons for being reluctant to engage in freak-offs, suggesting she was frustrated not by the violence or coercion but rather because she wanted more from the relationship.

“When we used to freak off when were so in love. There were no questions asked, it felt right, like it literally made sense for the next step in our sex life together. I get nervous that I’m just becoming the girlfriend that you get your fantasies off with and that’s it. I don’t get the other part,” Ventura wrote in a message to Combs from December 2009.

During her first two days of testimony, Ventura testified at length about a 2016 episode when she said she tried to leave a freak-off but was attacked by Combs – an assault that was captured on surveillance video and shown to jurors. On cross-examination, Ventura was shown text messages that suggested she was eager to participate in the freak-off, and Combs’ violence might have been influenced by his drug use.

“The drugs that you and Mr. Combs took that day were a bad batch of MDMA, right?” Estevao said.

“I have no idea,” Ventura asked.

Defense attorneys suggest relationship was defined by mutual jealousy

Defense attorneys pressed Ventura about the flaws in her relationship with Combs, arguing the jealousy and infidelity went both ways for the couple.

Ventura admitted she “had some jealousy” of Kim Porter, the late mother of four of Combs’ children, and was upset when Combs continued a relationship with another woman.

“It was disappointing and hurtful to find out you weren’t the main girlfriend?” Estevao asked.

“Yes,” Ventura replied. “It didn’t pertain to every situation, but I was definitely jealous of certain situations he was in.”

Jurors were shown text messages showing Combs and Ventura expressing anger about each other’s infidelity, with Combs seeing another woman while Ventura was in a relationship with actor Michael B. Jordan. Ventura was asked about her relationship with Kid Cudi – whose real name is Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi, and who she previously testified she stopped seeing because of tension with Combs – and how she said Combs “lunged” at her when he discovered their relationship during a freak-off.

“Did you feel justified in cheating on him with Mr. Mescudi because of Mr. Combs’ infidelity?” Estevao asked.

“I could have, I don’t know,” she answered.

The Trump administration is under scrutiny after The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg said he was inadvertently added to a Signal group chat that included top national security officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in which the officials discussed plans for a U.S. attack on Houthis in Yemen.

Goldberg revealed the mishap in a piece for the magazine on Monday and told ABC News that he was apparently added to the chat by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.

Goldberg provided two screenshots in the magazine piece and did not provide details or quotes, only a description of the operational part of the Signal message chain.

Both the Trump administration and top officials involved have repeatedly denied that war plans or classified information were discussed, as Goldberg reported.

Below is a timeline spanning from the creation of the group chat to what has happened since.

March 11

In an interview with “ABC News Live” Monday evening, Goldberg told Linsey Davis he received a message request on the Signal app from White House national security adviser Mike Waltz, or someone “who’s purporting to be Mike Waltz” on March 11.

He said the invitation was “not an unusual thing in Washington.”

“I’m a journalist, I’ve met him in the past, so I accept it,” he told ABC News.

Goldberg said he accepted the request, with nothing occurring until several days later, when he was added to a “group of seemingly very high national security officials of the United States” including Vice President JD Vance, with Waltz apparently creating this chat.

“Mike Waltz puts this group together and says it’s a planning group for essentially upcoming action in Yemen,” Goldberg said.

Goldberg told ABC News he initially thought it was a hoax since it would be “completely absurd to me that the national security leadership of the United States would be meeting on a messaging app to discuss forthcoming military action, and that then they would also invite the editor of The Atlantic magazine to that conversation.”

March 14

Goldberg told ABC News a “long conversation” occurred between the group chat members on March 14, discussing “whether or not they should or shouldn’t take action in Yemen.”

The messages went back and forth with “a lot of resentment directed at European allies of the United States, which obviously enhanced the credibility of this chain,” Goldberg said.

He told ABC News at this point the members of the chat sounded like people he knew within the administration, but was still not sure whether or not it was a hoax.

March 15

Goldberg told ABC News he continued to track the incoming messages from the group chat, to see “who was trying to entrap me or trick me.” Then on March 15, he said it became “overwhelmingly clear” it was a legitimate group chat, he told ABC News.

At 11:44 a.m., he said he received a text in the chain from someone claiming to be Hegseth, or “somebody identified as Pete,” providing what Goldberg characterized as a war plan. The message included a “sequencing of events related to an upcoming attack on Yemen” and promised results by 1:45 p.m. Eastern time.

Goldberg told ABC News he was in his car and waiting with his phone to “see if this was a real thing.”

“Sure enough, around 1:50 [p.m.] Eastern time, I see that Yemen is under attack,” he said.

When the attacks seemed to be “going well,” Goldberg told ABC News that members of the chat began sending congratulatory messages along with fist, fire and American flag emojis.

“That was the day I realized this is possibly unbelievably the leaders of the United States discussing this on my messaging app,” Goldberg told ABC News. “My reaction was, I think I’ve discovered a massive security breach in the United States national security system.”

Goldberg told ABC News he removed himself from the group chat once the operation was completed.

“I watched this Yemen operation go from beginning to apparent end, and that was enough for me to learn that there’s something wrong in the system here that would allow this information to come so dangerously close to the open wild,” Goldberg said.

March 16

Waltz appeared on ABC’s “This Week” the day after the strikes on Yemen and said the U.S. airstrikes “took out” multiple leaders of the Iranian-backed Houthis, which he said differed from the Biden administration’s launches against the group.

“These were not kind of pinprick, back and forth — what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks,” Waltz said. “This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted Houthi leaders and took them out. And the difference here is, one, going after the Houthi leadership, and two, holding Iran responsible.”

March 24

Goldberg published a story in The Atlantic revealing the mishap, in a piece titled “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.”

Shortly after the story’s publication on Monday afternoon, White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes shared with ABC News the statement he provided to The Atlantic confirming the authenticity of the Signal group chat.

“At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain. The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our servicemembers or our national security,” Hughes said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Hegseth denied he sent war plans in the chat.

“I’ve heard how it was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth told reporters in Honolulu while on a layover on his trip to Asia.

Hegseth called Goldberg a “deceitful and highly discredited, so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.”

“This is the guy that pedals in garbage. This is what he does,” Hegseth said about Goldberg.

During an event at the White House on Monday, President Donald Trump was asked about Goldberg’s article. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic,” he said.

Top Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries voiced outrage at the administration after this mishap.

“It is yet another unprecedented example that our nation is increasingly more dangerous because of the elevation of reckless and mediocre individuals, including the Secretary of Defense,” Jeffries said in a statement on Monday.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who faced scrutiny over her alleged use of a private email server while at the State Department, shared her reaction to the Signal group chat on X: “You have got to be kidding me.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also criticized this apparent breach of military intelligence, urging Senate Republicans to work with Democrats in a “full investigation” to look into how this incident occurred.

“If you were up in arms over unsecure emails years ago, you should certainly be outraged by this amateurish behavior,” Schumer said on the Senate floor, referencing the scandal over Clinton’s emails.

March 25

On Tuesday morning, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Goldberg is “well-known for his sensationalist spin” and emphasized that “no ‘war plans’ were discussed.”

“As the National Security Council stated, the White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread. Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President Trump, and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective. Terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump,” Leavitt shared on X.

Trump told NBC News he remains confident in Waltz even after the use of an unsecured group chat.

“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump told NBC correspondent Garrett Haake.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were grilled by Democratic Sen. Mark Warner on Tuesday regarding the mishap. Both officials said while testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence there was no classified information on the chain.

Ratcliffe said he believed the “national security adviser intended this to be as it should have been, a mechanism for coordinating between senior level officials, but not a substitute for using high side or classified communications for anything that would be classified.”

Speaker Mike Johnson continued to downplay the mishap but admitted the breach was a “serious” mistake on Tuesday.

“Look, they have acknowledged that there is an error, and they are correcting it. And I would’ve asked the same thing of the Biden administration,” Johnson said during a news conference Tuesday morning.

During a White House meeting with ambassadors on Tuesday afternoon, Trump said this incident is “just something that can happen” and that there was “no classified information” in the group chat.

He added that Signal is “not a perfect technology.”

“Sometimes somebody can get onto those things,” Trump said. “That’s one of the prices you pay when you’re not sitting in the Situation Room with no phones on, which is always the best, frankly.”

Waltz said the White House’s tech and legal teams are looking into the mishap.

“No one in your national security team would ever put anyone in danger,” Waltz said.

He also claimed to have never met Goldberg.

“We are looking into him, reviewing how the heck he got into this room,” Waltz said.

A spokesperson for The Atlantic released a statement on Tuesday night following the comments from Trump and his aides.

“Attempts to disparage and discredit The Atlantic, our editor and our reporting follow an obvious playbook by elected officials and other in power who are hostile to journalists and the First Amendment rights of all Americans,” the magazine said.

The statement went on to say that “any responsible national security expert would consider the information contained in this Signal chat to be of the greatest sensitivity, and would agree that this information should never be shared on non-government messaging apps.”

On Tuesday night, Waltz said he was the one responsible for what took place.

“I take full responsibility. I built the group,” Waltz told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.

At the same time, Waltz tried to flip the script and blame Goldberg — suggesting the editor could have somehow wormed his way in to the group chat.

“Of course, I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else. Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean, is something we’re trying to figure out,” Waltz said, without evidence, on Fox News.

March 26

Schumer and other top Senate Democrats on national security committees wrote a letter to Trump seeking more information about the mishap, requesting a “complete and unredacted” transcript of the Signal group chat for the appropriate committees to review in a secure setting.

“We write to you with extreme alarm about the astonishingly poor judgment shown by your Cabinet and national security advisors,” the Senators wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by ABC News. “You have long advocated for accountability and transparency in the government, particularly as it relates to the handling of classified information, national security and the safety of American servicemembers. As such, it is imperative that you address this breach with the seriousness and diligence that it demands.”

The Atlantic on Wednesday published a new article detailing purported information about recent American strikes in Yemen it says was accidentally shared in the Signal group chat.

The article suggested that Hegseth updated members of the “Houthi PC small group” Signal chat on “favorable” weather conditions ahead of planned airstrikes on Houthi leaders and other targets in Yemen.

The article said Hegseth also notified the group of a planned timeline for flights of F-18 strike aircraft, MQ-9 Reaper drones and Tomahawk cruise missiles that were launched for the mission.

Shortly after the article was published, Leavitt said in a post on X “these were NOT ‘war plans.'”

“This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin,” the White House press secretary said.

Waltz said Wednesday morning that the chat didn’t include war plans or specific details about the strike.

“No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests,” Waltz posted on X.

Also on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg was assigned to a federal lawsuit against five Cabinet members over the administration’s use of Signal. Boasberg is also handling the case against the Trump administration over its deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act.

The lawsuit — which names Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the National Archives as defendants — asked a federal judge to declare the use of Signal unlawful and order the cabinet members to preserve the records immediately.

“Nobody’s texting war plans,” Hegseth said on Wednesday. “I noticed this morning out came something that doesn’t look like war plans. And as a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans because they know it’s not war plans.”

“It’s very clear Goldberg oversold what he had,” Vance posted to X.

Goldberg, during an interview with ABC News Live anchor Kyra Phillips, responded to the administration pushback.

“They have decided obviously, instead of simply saying, ‘Yeah we had a security breach and we’re going to try to plug that breach and do better next time,’ they’ve decided to blame the guy who they invited into the conversation,” Goldberg said.

ABC News’ Peter Charalambous, Fritz Farrow, Anne Flaherty, Luis Martinez, Isabella Murray, Allison Pecorin, Lauren Peller, Olivia Rubin, Michelle Stoddart, Selina Wang and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.

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Sir Keir Starmer could take disciplinary action against a second Labour MP over offensive WhatsApp messages, following his sacking of health minister Andrew Gwynne.

Oliver Ryan, the 29-year-old MP for Burnley, said in a statement that comments he made in a WhatsApp group — whose members also included Gwynne — “were completely unacceptable”.

Ryan said he regretted “not speaking out at the time” about the comments shared on the group, in which Gwynne made a string of derogatory statements about constituents and fellow MPs.

A government source told the PA news agency that Labour’s chief whip would speak to Ryan “and no action is off the table”, leaving Starmer with a new party management problem.

“I did not see every message, but I accept responsibility for not being more proactive in challenging what was said,” Ryan added.

“I also made some comments myself which I deeply regret and would not make today and for that, I wholeheartedly apologise.”

Ryan said he would co-operate fully with Labour’s investigation into the comments made on the WhatsApp group, called “Trigger Me Timbers”.

The Conservatives have called on the prime minister to look into the comments of others on the WhatsApp group.

The Mail on Sunday, which revealed Gwynne’s comments, said he shared the group with more than a dozen Labour councillors, party officials and at least one other MP, all based on the outskirts of Manchester.

The newspaper reported various messages sent by Gwynne — including one in which he said he hoped a pensioner who did not vote Labour would die before the next election.

It also disclosed antisemitic slights, derogatory comments about Labour colleagues and “jokes” about a constituent being “mown down’” by a truck.

Matthew Pennycook, housing minister, told Sky’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday: “I don’t know, personally, what other people on that WhatsApp conversation have said.” He added: “I’m being very clear, there’s an investigation taking place into the whole incident.”

Starmer sacked Gwynne, MP for Gorton and Denton in Greater Manchester, on Saturday night as soon as he became aware of the comments, a spokesperson for the prime minister said.

Gwynne, who was junior minister for public health, said he deeply regretted his “badly misjudged comments” and apologised for any offence caused.

The government said: “The prime minister is determined to uphold high standards of conduct in public office and lead a government in the service of working people. He will not hesitate to take action against any minister who fails to meet these standards, as he has in this case.”

Labour said: “We are investigating comments made in this WhatsApp group in line with the Labour party’s rules and procedures. Swift action will be taken if individuals are found to have breached the high standards expected of them as Labour party members.”

One ally of Starmer said of Gwynne’s WhatsApp exchanges: “The PM was bloody furious and appalled by it. I think everyone recognised he acted very quickly.”

Gwynne has also lost the Labour whip in the House of Commons.

For Starmer, who is struggling to galvanise his government, it was an unwelcome political blow. Gwynne’s comments were seized upon by the Conservatives as evidence that Labour was scornful of pensioners.

In 2018, Gwynne was disclosed to have been in a Facebook group in which antisemitic messages were shared.

At the time he responded: “I was added to this Facebook group without my knowledge or permission. I DO NOT support the posts and I ABHOR anti-Semitism.”

A 2020 report by the UK equalities watchdog into antisemitism inside Labour found that under Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer’s predecessor as leader, the party conducted “unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination”.

Alex Burghart, Tory shadow Cabinet Office minister, said: “This really does suggest that just beneath the surface, between all the sort of the window dressing that Keir Starmer has done, that with senior Labour politicians, there may still be a very serious problem with antisemitism.”

WASHINGTON — Racist text messages invoking slavery raised alarm across the country this week after they were sent to Black men, women and students, including middle schoolers, prompting inquiries by the FBI and other agencies.

The messages, sent anonymously, were reported in several states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. They generally used a similar tone but varied in wording.

Some instructed the recipient to show up at an address at a particular time “with your belongings,” while others didn’t include a location. Some of them mentioned the incoming presidential administration.

It wasn’t yet clear who was behind the messages and there was no comprehensive list of where they were sent, but high school and college students were among the recipients.

The FBI said it was in touch with the Justice Department on the messages, and the Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the texts “alongside federal and state law enforcement.” The Ohio Attorney General’s office also said it was looking into the matter.

Tasha Dunham of Lodi, California, said her 16-year-old daughter showed her one of the messages Wednesday evening before her basketball practice.

The text not only used her daughter’s name, but it directed her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina, where Dunham said they’ve never lived. When they looked up the address, it was the location of a museum.

“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said. “Everybody’s just trying to figure out what does this all mean for me? So, I definitely had a lot of fear and concern.”

Her daughter initially thought it was a prank, but emotions are high following Tuesday’s presidential election. Dunham and her family thought it could be more nefarious and reported it to local law enforcement.

“I wasn’t in slavery. My mother wasn’t in slavery. But we’re a couple of generations away. So, when you think about how brutal and awful slavery was for our people, it’s awful and concerning,” Dunham said.

About six middle school students in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, received the messages too, said Megan Shafer, acting superintendent of the Lower Merion School District.

“The racist nature of these text messages is extremely disturbing, made even more so by the fact that children have been targeted,” she wrote in a letter to parents.

Students at some major universities, including Clemson in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, said they received the messages. The Clemson Police Department said in a statement that it had been notified of the “deplorable racially motivated text and email messages” and encouraged anyone who received one to report it.

Fisk University, a historically Black university in Nashville, Tennessee, issued a statement calling the messages that targeted some of its students “deeply unsettling.” It urged calm and assured students that the texts likely were from bots or malicious actors with “no real intentions or credibility.”

Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel said Black students who are members of the organization’s Missouri State University chapter received texts citing Trump’s win and calling them out by name as being “selected to pick cotton” next Tuesday. Chapel said police in the southeastern Missouri city of Springfield, home of the university, have been notified.

“It points to a well-organized and resourced group that has decided to target Americans on our home soil based on the color of our skin,” Chapel said in a statement.

Nick Ludlum, a senior vice president for the wireless industry trade group CTIA, said: “Wireless providers are aware of these threatening spam messages and are aggressively working to block them and the numbers that they are coming from.”

David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said that they aren’t sure who is behind the messages but estimated they had been sent to more than 10 states, including most Southern states, Maryland, Oklahoma and even the District of Columbia. The district’s Metropolitan Police force said in a statement that its intelligence unit was investigating the origins of the message.

Brody said a number of civil rights laws can be applied to hate-related incidents. The leaders of several other civil rights organizations condemned the messages, including Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said, “Hate speech has no place in the South or our nation.”

“The threat — and the mention of slavery in 2024 — is not only deeply disturbing, but perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates back to before the Jim Crow era, and now seeks to prevent Black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalized.”

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Associated Press reporter Summer Ballentine contributed to this report from Jefferson City, Missouri.

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The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Officials in a number of states are responding to reports of racist texts received by residents in the days after the 2024 election.

The Virginia Attorney General’s Office told ABC News it “is aware of these text messages and unequivocally condemns them.”

The office confirmed that the text language corresponds with the text reportedly received by an employee at ABC affiliate 13News Now in Norfolk, Virginia, which read: “You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation. Be ready at 12 pm sharp with your belongings. Our executive slaves will come get you in a brown van. Be prepared to be searched down once you’ve enter the plantation. You are in plantation group W.”

The office urges anyone who believes they are under threat to contact local law enforcement as well as their local FBI field office. They could not confirm or deny whether an investigation was taking place.

The North Carolina Department of Justice told ABC News that it is working with federal and industry partners to investigate the source of the robotexts.

The office is also encouraging North Carolinians to report such texts to the state’s DOJ office and local law enforcement.

The FBI said in a statement that it is “aware” of the suspicious messages and “is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter.”

“As always, we encourage members of the public to report threats of physical violence to local law enforcement authorities,” the agency said.

A spokesperson for the Federal Communications Commission said in a statement, “Our Enforcement Bureau is aware of these and is looking into them alongside federal and state law enforcement.”

Mass “disparaging” texts were also reported by local news outlets in Ohio, Michigan, Alabama, Wisconsin and South Carolina.

In an online statement, Clemson University Police Department in South Carolina said it received reports of students receiving text messages “containing disparaging language from unrecognized numbers.”

“These numbers have been determined to be associated with online spoofing sites. CUPD is actively investigating the matter and working with state partners to identify the source of the messages,” read the statement.

The department said there is no indication of a credible threat to members of the local community and also urged recipients to report the texts.

ABC News’ Abby Cruz, Luke Barr and Emmanuelle Saliba contributed to this report.