By Chris Boyette, CNN

(CNN) — A man who was shot by ICE agents during a traffic stop, then arrested by the FBI after his release from the hospital, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in California, according to court documents.

Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez faces two counts of assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon and one count of destruction of government property, following a traffic stop last month in which federal agents fired at him as he allegedly tried to flee.

An arraignment and status hearing is scheduled for Monday at 9:30 a.m. before US District Judge Dale A. Drozd, according to court records.

ICE identified Mendoza Hernandez as an undocumented immigrant whom the department described as an “18th Street Gang member wanted in El Salvador for questioning in connection to a murder.”

But “from everything we can find, he was not” a gang member, his attorney, Patrick Kolasinski, said in a news conference the day after the shooting.

“Specifically, Mendoza Hernandez refused to comply with lawful orders from federal officers, operated his vehicle in a manner that damaged a federal vehicle, and drove his vehicle toward officers in a manner that would have caused serious bodily injury or death had the officers not taken evasive action,” the criminal complaint said.

Kolasinski said his client attempted to flee the traffic stop only after he’d been shot at and “was just scared that he was going to die.”

The case has been marked by uncertainty and conflicting narratives.

The federal complaint says agents surveilled Mendoza Hernandez’s home, followed him as he left, then pulled him over on the morning of April 7 as part of an operation to “locate and arrest Mendoza Hernandez because he is an illegal alien with no status in the U.S.”

During the stop, Mendoza Hernandez identified himself but refused to exit the vehicle despite repeated commands, the complaint said. After agents broke the front passenger window to extract him, Mendoza Hernandez drove forward, striking an agent, then rapidly reversed into a federal vehicle parked behind him, causing significant damage, according to the complaint.

Mendoza Hernandez then accelerated forward toward two agents, one of whom was directly in his path and had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit, the complaint said. He then jumped the center median and drove the wrong way against traffic before colliding with another vehicle, striking a guardrail and coming to rest about 500 feet from the traffic stop, according to the DOJ.

Dashcam video of the incident reviewed by CNN doesn’t clarify exactly what happened.

During the incident, two agents discharged their firearms at Mendoza Hernandez, the complaint said. Agents rendered medical aid at the scene, and Mendoza Hernandez was transported to a hospital, where he underwent three surgeries after being shot about six times, including in the face, according to Kolasinski.

After receiving medical treatment, Mendoza Hernandez was taken into FBI custody on April 13, the DOJ said. A judge initially granted a $50,000 bond, but on April 20, the court ordered him detained as a flight risk, according to court records.

Mendoza Hernandez, 36, is the father of a toddler and is engaged to a US citizen. He was on his way to work

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By Lily Hautau, CNN

(CNN) — How’s the weather up there?

Standing at nearly 5 feet 2 inches tall, I’ve rarely been able to reach the highest shelves at the library or in my kitchen without a step stool, if at all. Standing in a crowd at a concert, I quickly learned that the standing room only section was not for me, since all I could see when I looked straight ahead were people’s backs.

I’ve always wondered how my perspective and confidence would change if I were as tall as my dad, who stands at 6 feet 4 inches. Or if I were even just a few inches taller than I am without having my feet ache wearing heels that only give me a few inches, if that.

Then came the same height party: an event built around a simple, slightly crazy idea that everyone in the room, no matter their actual height, could meet at eye level.

The idea traces back to the late German artist Hans Hemmert’s creation of “Level” in 1997.

His participatory art installation is best known for using custom platform footwear to equalize participants’ heights, turning a physical difference into something you can step in and out of.

Decades later, Lucian Novosel hosted his own same-height party in a warehouse-style artist space in Oakland with about 15 people. Novosel has a reputation among his friends for projects that may sound crazy until you see them. One project was a human-size gerbil feeder and another a life-size origami horse. With a new goal, he set out to recreate that “leveling” effect as a wearable social experiment. This is one project that I wish I got to experience myself, however, I did talk with Novosel and a few of his guests about their experiences at the party.

It wasn’t just the idea “make tall shoes” to make people taller. He wanted to see how he could get his shortest friend — around 4 feet 11 inches — standing eye to eye with the tallest — about 6 feet 5 inches. Novosel used his tallest friend, Spencer, who did not want his last name published for privacy reasons, as the anchor height: “I know the tallest guy coming, and now everyone else will have to have shoes made for them,” he said.

So he made his version using a 3D printer.

How to make everyone the same height

Novosel started months before the party because the leveling effect only worked if the math and the materials held up under practical use. He said he needed time to create prototypes first and enough time to convince himself he could build platforms people could walk on safely before he felt comfortable inviting friends.

Roughly three months out, the event started to come together. He locked down the guest list, gathered measurements and secured a venue designed for stability. “It was hard,” he said — partly because a shifting guest list can mean rebuilding shoes from scratch — so he finalized the guest list about three months ahead.

Then it was time to gather data. Guests were asked for their barefoot height, shoe size and the lift of their everyday shoes. Next came the task of building those shoes, which involved nearly four weeks of cutting, stacking and reinforcing. Novosel used 1-inch foam in large sheets to build up platforms that widened progressively toward the ground.

The pyramid shape wasn’t designed for aesthetics but instead for balance to prevent “teeter-tottering.” “Imagine an elephant walking on a very small area,” Novosel said. “It’s not going to work.”

He used custom, 3D-printed brackets and zip ties in the assembly and kept the pattern adaptable enough to cover a wide range of shoe sizes.

He recommended the “Pink Panther” brand of rigid 1-inch foam insulation for anyone trying to recreate the build, as well as a hot blade and respirators for cutting the foam.

The tallest shoes? 18 inches.

Even w

By Betsy Klein, CNN

(CNN) — Winding down a major US airline is a complicated business. Doing so when the president of the United States hints it could be saved adds another layer of complexity.

Wracked with financial trouble, Spirit Airlines had filed for bankruptcy for the second time in August 2025. Months later, the conflict with Iran had driven up fuel prices and made its financial position even more untenable, putting it on the brink of closure.

For weeks, Trump administration officials were in talks with the bargain airline on the possibility of a $500 million bailout package. The proposal would effectively give the government control of the overwhelming majority of Spirit’s shares.

President Donald Trump publicly suggested that he would be on board “if we can get it at the right price.”

“They have some good aircrafts, some good assets, and when the price of oil goes down, we’d sell it for a profit,” he told reporters in the Oval Office last month.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with Trump to lay out the options, according to two sources familiar with the meeting, which prompted some internal division among the president’s team.

Lutnick, one source familiar with the deliberations told CNN, “was pushing” for a deal, with a second source familiar suggesting that he argued it would be a political win for the administration. But there were reservations about the possibility of a bailout from officials including Duffy, Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and members of the White House counsel’s office, a third source familiar with deliberations told CNN. Those included concerns about pumping money into a company with a bad financial record, two of the sources said.

The idea of a bailout for a single airline also sparked backlash from both the airline industry and among Republicans in Congress. Previous bailouts have been in support of all US airlines, not a single carrier or group of airlines. And those rescue packages were in response to a paralyzed industry, like when passengers were afraid to fly in the wake of terrorist attacks or a pandemic, not because of increased costs and losses.

Trump, meanwhile, “was like a dog on a bone trying to figure out a way to keep Spirit afloat,” Duffy told reporters Saturday, adding that he was “in the Oval many times” with the president in the days before the airline shuttered.

After that initial meeting with Duffy and Lutnick, it became clear that a bailout would be more complex than Trump’s efforts to gain government control over companies like US Steel or Intel. The possibility of invoking the Defense Production Act — a law that gives the government more control to direct industrial production during emergencies — was raised, but rejected by the Department of Defense, two of t

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