(NEW YORK) — The calendar says it’s spring, but a nor’easter is pounding the Northeast with heavy snow, torrential rains and dangerous winds.
Up to 13 inches of snow has been reported near Killington, Vermont, and up to 1 foot of snow fell north of Portland, Maine. The snow will continue Thursday morning and afternoon.
More than 2 feet of snow is possible in the mountains of New Hampshire and Maine.
Low visibility is expected and travel is discouraged, Maine Gov. Janet Mills said.
“Folks need to be prepared at home for the possibility of an extended power outage with emergency supplies, alternate power sources, and should charge their mobile devices in advance,” Pete Rogers, director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said in a statement.
The nor’easter is also slamming the Northeast with torrential rains, which wreaked havoc on roads in New York and New Jersey on Wednesday.
Dangerous winds gusts reached 64 mph on Long Island, New York, and in Stamford, Connecticut.
In Armonk, New York, near the New York-Connecticut border, a tree fell on a car Wednesday evening, killing the driver, local police said.
Two people in cars were also killed by downed trees in separate incidents near Philadelphia, according to Philadelphia ABC station WPVI.
On Thursday, coastal flooding remains a threat from the Mid-Atlantic to coastal New England.
Meanwhile, another storm over the Great Lakes has dumped more than 14 inches of snow in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia saw more than 5 inches of rain and significant flooding.
Anna Paquin walked a New York City red carpet with the help of a cane on Wednesday night.
The Piano actress was promoting her new film — her husband and former True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer‘s directorial effort, A Bit of Light— when the 41-year-old revealed to People that she’s had a rough go of it healthwise over the past two years. “It hasn’t been easy,” the New Zealand-born movie star said.
Paquin is reportedly dealing with an undisclosed health issue that has left her with speech and mobility problems, from which a source tells the magazine she’ll “hopefully” fully recover.
That said, she soldiered on to talk up the film, which was based on a play and has Paquin playing Ella, an alcoholic mother who loses custody of her children.
She called Moyer, her husband since 2010, “my favorite person to play with.”
She also added she wouldn’t have worked for the 54-year-old if she didn’t think he had the chops behind the camera just because they’re married. “I’m not sentimental when it comes to work,” Anna reportedly laughed.
The couple share 11-year-old twins — daughter Poppy and son Charlie — and being a mom gave her some perspective on the role.
“Not everyone ends up having the journey with motherhood that they have hoped or had planned,” Paquin tells People. “We’re all flawed and imperfect, and Ella is kind of on some level repeating some sort of familial patterns as far as stuffing feelings down.”
(NEW YORK) — As schools across the United States continue to rebound from pandemic interruptions, more than half of teachers still say their profession is a difficult job and public education is in decline, according to newly released Pew Research Center data.
Pew conducted two surveys last fall, one of 2,531 public K-12 teachers and a second survey of 5,029 U.S. adults, the findings of which were published Thursday. Pew also published a data essay titled “What Public K-12 Teachers Want Americans To Know About Teaching.”
Of the teachers surveyed, 51% said they want the public to know teaching is a difficult job and that teachers work hard.
“We know that they’ve [teachers] been facing a lot of challenges from, you know, COVID learning loss, from all of these political issues that we’ve been hearing about, so that’s our drive in conducting this survey,” Luona Lin, lead author of the K-12 teachers report, told ABC News.
Of the teachers surveyed, 54% said in five years the American education system will be worse than it is now, and 51% of adults surveyed said public education is going in the wrong direction, according to Pew.
The survey of teachers also found that about four in five teachers (82%) believe the overall state of public education has gotten worse compared to five years ago.
Pew released findings from the K-12 survey in February that focused on the ongoing scrutiny placed on classroom curricula, mainly regarding race and LGBTQ identities.
The data out Thursday comes as education staffing shortages persist across the country, with 70% of teachers who participated in the latest survey saying their schools are understaffed, according to Pew’s report.
In its survey, more than three-quarters of teachers said the job was often stressful, according to Pew.
New York City special education teacher Traci Tucker told ABC News that special ed vacancies have made the job “overwhelming,” but she said she doesn’t want her students to “fall through the cracks.”
“It’s been extremely hard to find licensed, qualified, certified staff to fill those vacancies,” Tucker said. “Making sure that their [the students’] needs are met is both mentally and physically taxing.”
Difficulties include work-life balance, compensation and students
More than 80% of teachers are at least somewhat satisfied with their jobs, according to Pew’s K-12 teachers survey, but the survey found there are still challenges.
Teachers find it difficult to balance work with their personal life 53% of the time, according to the Pew report, with 84% of those surveyed saying they didn’t have enough time to do regular school tasks — such as grading, lesson planning and other paperwork — throughout the day. Four in five teachers said it’s just too much work, Pew found.
“Time is always an issue and it has gotten worse” since the pandemic, Minnesota social studies teacher Rich Rosivach told ABC News. “It’s all-consuming. It’s all the time.”
Despite yearly step increases and federal initiatives to raise teacher salaries, half of teachers are not satisfied with their pay, according to the survey.
Nearly three-quarters of the American adults surveyed by Pew also believe teachers should be paid more.
At least 91% of teachers said their students have anxiety and depression, experience poverty or are chronically absent, the survey found. Virtually all teachers see these issues daily, according to Pew’s survey and interviews conducted by ABC News.
“Anxiety is very high and a variety of other student mental health issues,” Rosivach said, adding: “Where you might in the past have had 30 to 35 students, you might have had one or two students [with these issues] — now you’ll have four or five. And for some of them, it’s debilitating and it causes them to not be able to come to class.”
Education experts and researchers said chronic absenteeism, defined by federal data as a child missing at least 10% of the school year, existed before COVID. Now, it has been exacerbated, making it harder for instructors to teach consistently, according to FutureEd Policy Director Liz Cohen. Teachers build on material in order for students to accumulate knowledge in the way they need, Cohen told ABC News. If students rarely show up, Cohen said, there is no foundation to build on.
“It’s like trying to play Jenga with all the foundational pieces missing,” she said. “That tower is going to fall.”
Pew also found that other top problems for teachers remain: Students are still disinterested and being disrespectful at school — something educators who have spoken with ABC News have also consistently said.
Optimism in public education is down
Overall optimism in public education is down across the board, according to the Pew surveys and ABC News’ interviews.
Teachers believe the political climate — like challenges to school curricula — is a major factor, as well as the impact of the pandemic. But nearly 70% of adults say not enough emphasis in schools is being placed on teaching core academic subjects, according to the survey. Another major reason, according to the survey of adults, is that teachers have brought their personal political views into the classroom.
As for the future, more than half of teachers lack confidence in the recruitment of the next generation, with 52% saying they wouldn’t recommend their profession to a young person, according to Pew’s data.
“I worry very much about my younger colleagues — people who are entering the profession,” Rosivach said. “I think that we’re in a situation where we’re not creating opportunities for people to enter this profession, to do it in a way that is sustainable or is going to be really building strong institutions.”
Most of the teachers surveyed have been in the profession for more than a decade, according to Pew, like Tucker of New York and Rosivach of Minnesota. However, Lin with Pew said their survey found that newer teachers showed more positivity than their peers.
“Newer teachers, you know, those who have been in the profession for under six years, are more likely to recommend a person starting out today to become a teacher than teachers with longer tenure,” she said.
Tucker said she is less concerned with the future of public education, but said she does worry that technology could outpace the current school structure.
“I think that things need to happen faster in public education as far as integrating technology and equipping teachers with the skills that they need so that they can prepare students,” Tucker said.
Rosivach said he is worried, too. Before anything else, he said he hopes to save students who are struggling the most.
“Add more mental health services for young people … because I think it leads to other things, it leads to chronic absenteeism, it leads to higher rates of depression, it leads to less completion of school,” he said. “A lot of the things that we need to get to are going to be about finding kids help with their mental health.”
Despite rumors of trouble in their marriage, Justin Bieber and his wife, Hailey, seem to be doing just fine.
The model and beauty mogul posted a photo on her Instagram Story of a shirtless Justin snuggling under the covers with one of the couple’s dogs. Meanwhile, a source tells People that the two are “doing very well,” adding, “There’s no divorce and no truth to that whatsoever. They are very, very happy.”
The divorce rumors evidently began after Hailey’s father, Stephen Baldwin, shared a post in March from a minister who asked for prayers for the couple, but didn’t explain why.
Hailey responded a week later by writing on her Instagram Story, “Just FYI the stories and constant ‘blind items’ I see on TikTok are 100% of the time wrong Made out of thin air… Come from the land of delusion… sorry to spoil it.”
Justin, meanwhile, has stayed out of the spotlight for the past few weeks.
The rockers, who wrapped their final tour in New York in December, have made a deal with Pophouse, the Swedish company behind ABBA’s London hologram show, Voyage. Pophouse will acquire their music catalog, including master recordings and publishing rights, as well as their brand name and likeness.
Johan Lagerlöf, head of investment at Pophouse, said in a statement that the company’s aim is “to fulfill the band’s vision to become immortal, and to let new generations discover and be part of the KISS journey and carry it forward.”
“We will safeguard and enrich this legacy through future global endeavors, by breathing new life into their characters and personas while also leveraging and elevating the visual world of KISS,” Per Sundin, CEO at Pophouse, adds.
The deal will include the development of the already announced KISS avatar show, which is set to debut in 2027.
“We have always been breaking new ground in popular culture, and this partnership will ensure that we continue to do so for years to come,” KISS’ Gene Simmons shares. “The future could not be more exciting!”
Paul Stanley adds, “As we embark on this venture, we aim to weave our legacy into the tapestry of different worlds, ensuring that the KISS experience continues to captivate both our devoted fans and those yet to discover the thrill. This partnership is not just a chapter; it’s an eternal symphony of rock ‘n’ roll immortality.”
While Pophouse and KISS did not disclose the terms of the deal, The Associated Press reports that Pophouse paid more than $300 million for the catalog.
Raven-Symoné is addressing a comment she made in 2014 during an interview with Oprah Winfrey that she said has haunted her ever since.
At the time, Winfrey was asking Raven-Symoné about her journey with sexuality, to which the That’s So Raven alum replied, “I don’t want to be labeled gay.”
“I want to be labeled a human who loves humans,” she said. “I’m tired of being labeled — I’m an American, I’m not an African American. I’m an American.”
In response to her answer, Winfrey said, “Oh, girl, don’t set Twitter on fire.”
In Tuesday’s episode of the Tea Time With Raven and Miranda podcast with her wife, Miranda Maday, Raven-Symoné reflected on the controversial comment.
“When that aired, I felt like the entire internet exploded and threw my name in the garbage,” the former Disney Channel star said. “There was so much backlash from my community and others that misunderstood/ didn’t hear the exact words that I said. And the exact words that I said is that, ‘I’m an American, not an African American.'”
“A lot of people on the internet thought I said that I wasn’t Black, and I never said that. There’s a difference between being Black and African,” she said.
When Maday asked her to clarify, she continued, “When I say that African American does not align with me, that label, it doesn’t mean that I’m negating my Blackness or I’m not Black.”
“It means I am from this country, I was born here, my mom, my dad, my great-great-great-great-great — and that’s what I’m saying. The pure logistics of it,” she explained.
Raven-Symoné also addressed critics who questioned her knowledge of her ancestry.
“I understand my history. I understand where my ancestors come from,” she said. “I also understand how much blood, sweat and tears they soaked into this earth in order to create the America that I live in today — free, happy, tax-paying American citizen.”
She added, “When I am in another country, they don’t say, ‘Hey, look at that African American over there,’ they say, ‘That’s an American,’ plain and simple.”
Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, are seen in undated photos released on March 31, 2024, by the Texas County Sheriff’s Department. (Texas County Sheriff’s Department)
(NEW YORK) — Two missing mothers in Oklahoma appear to be victims of “foul play,” according to authorities, who are investigating why the women never appeared to pick up children as planned.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said earlier in the week it is looking into the “suspicious disappearance” of Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, after their vehicle was found abandoned over the weekend in a remote part of the state near the Kansas border.
“Based on the information obtained from the victim’s vehicle, our investigators believe there was evidence to indicate foul play,” the bureau said in an update on Wednesday.
The women were traveling together to pick up children when they went missing, the bureau said in a statement.
“They never made it to the pickup location,” an earlier law enforcement advisory said. “Their car was located abandoned on the side of the road.”
Their vehicle was found on Saturday in Texas County in Oklahoma — south of Elkhart, Kansas, near Highway 95 and Road L — the bureau’s statement said. The local sheriff’s office located the vehicle, OSBI spokesperson Hunter McKee told ABC News.
“There’s every reason to believe that they could be in danger,” McKee said. “It was a very rural area. They’re nowhere to be found. … The fact that we’ve had no contact with them for this long.”
Both women are involved in church communities in Hugoton, Kansas, according to Butler’s pastor, Tim Singer.
Kelley is the wife of a pastor at Hugoton First Christian Church, according to Singer.
Singer described the two mothers as “acquaintances” and said that they were picking up Butler’s children to attend a birthday party when they went missing.
Deadline reports The Bachelor‘s season 28 finale ended with not only an engagement, but the franchise’s best ratings in two years. The episode, which saw Joey Graziadei propose to Kelsey Anderson, drew 6.31 million total viewers — the highest it’s been since Clayton Echard’s finale episode. That figure represents a 54% increase from the episode’s live and same-day audience of 4.1 million. Additionally, in the three-day window, The Bachelor finale marked a 19% increase in total viewers from the premiere episode’s performance …
Ozark‘s Julia Garner has been tapped to play Shalla-Bal, a version of the iconic Silver Surfer in Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four, set to hit theaters July 25, 2025, sources tell Deadline. As previously announced, Pedro Pascal will play Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby will portray Sue Storm/the Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn will take on the role of Johnny Storm/the Human Torch and Ebon Moss-Bachrach will play Ben Grimm/the Thing …
Jennifer Garner has reportedly signed on to star in the Netflix holiday comedy Mrs. Clause, according to Deadline. Plot details have yet to be revealed. This will be Garner’s latest collaboration with the streamer, following Leave, Yes Day, The Adam Project and most recently, Family Switch …
(LOS ANGELES) — Los Angeles, like other major cities, has seen a surge in crime committed on buses, trains and stations’ transit hubs, according to statistics compiled by ABC News, and now transit officials are working to find a solution.
Crimes reported on Los Angeles MTA properties increased by 65% since 2020 and, between March 2023 and February 2024, average monthly violent crimes on MTA properties rose more than 15%, according to LAPD data compiled by ABC News.
“We’ve had drivers where machetes have been pulled. Urine has been thrown on them. Feces, you name it, whatever they can get their hands on,” Christine Ivey, a Los Angeles bus operator for 30 years, told ABC News.
Ivey currently works for the Santa Monica Municipal Bus Lines and said the same concerns of assaults on drivers in the southern California have been ongoing for years.
As the city has struggled to find solutions and deal with staffing issues concerning security officials who handle transit, riders and operators have been pleading for help.
City and transit officials said they have been working to combat crime while also addressing concerns about homelessness in the mass transit hubs, mental health issues and repeat violent offenders.
LA Metro said in a statement that it has instituted a “multi-layered safety plan, which includes a combination of unarmed care-based personnel, transit security officers and law enforcement, to best serve a diverse customer base with differing views on safety.”
In addition, the agency’s metro ambassador program — a three- to five-year pilot — is one part of their multi-layered plan. According to L.A. Metro, ambassadors are present to support riders from providing directions to resources available for people experiencing homelessness.
But Andrew Black, the former deputy chief of security for the LA Metro, told ABC News that other security measures need be implemented to curb crime in LA’s mass transit system.
Black said he felt tackling fare evasion is key to keeping commuters safe.
“Lacking control of who gets onto the system was the root of the majority of the problems. It wouldn’t solve all the problems, but by controlling access, non-paying individuals, non-paying members of the public, you could dramatically decrease crime on the metro,” he said.
Black had proposed hiring more officers to patrol the city’s mass transit, but five months into his job at the end of 2022 he was terminated. Black sued the LA Metro claiming in court documents that a top metro executive told him “not to speak to bus operators, further, about the need for increased staffing.”
LA Metro denied all of Black’s allegations in a response to his suit. The agency has come under fire following its recent dismissal of another security official.
Last week Gina Osborn, the MTA’s chief security officer, was fired two days after she filed a report with the agency inspector general’s office, according to her attorney. Her attorney said the report dealt with a “safety issue.”
Osborn was named in Black’s lawsuit, which alleges she told him “she had gotten in trouble herself … for having spoken honestly in the past.”
LA Metro told ABC News in a statement, “Any claims of retaliation are categorically untrue. Metro will not comment further on this personnel matter, litigation, or speculative litigation.”
While LA Metro addresses security leadership concerns, some mass transit employees in southern California have been pushing for their own solutions.
As chair and legislative representative with the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transporation Workers, Ivey said her assault prevention and safety committee is “looking at ways of making sure that the company is doing their due diligence, to make sure that the customers know that they are not tolerating the assaults on their personnel.”
“We have various ideas that we’re trying to entertain. One is extending jail time for assailants who assaulted drivers in the commission of their duty, either inside that bus or outside that bus,” she said.
ABC News’ Alex Stone and Talisa Treviño contributed to this report.
A partial solar eclipse is seen in San Salvador, El Salvador, Oct. 14, 2023. (SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Excitement is mounting for one of nature’s most unique spectacles, the total solar eclipse, set to cast a historic shadow across a path through the United States on April 8, 2024.
The track of the moon’s shadow across Earth’s surface is called the path of totality, and to witness the April 8 total solar eclipse in totality, viewers must be within the 115-mile-wide path.
But for anyone outside the path of totality, eclipse day will still offer a celestial spectacle worth getting eclipse glasses for.
“The entire contiguous United States, Hawaii and Alaska will see at least a partial eclipse,” Michael Zeiler, expert solar eclipse cartographer and founder of Greatamericaneclipse.com, told ABC News. “The closer you are to the path of totality, of course, the deeper the eclipse will be.”
To discover when to see the solar eclipse in totality or the partial eclipse in locations across the U.S. outside of the path, check out NASA’s Eclipse Explorer tool.
What is the difference between a total and partial solar eclipse?
A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth and, for a short time, completely blocks the face of the sun, according to NASA.
A partial solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the sun and Earth, but the celestial bodies are not completely aligned, according to the agency.
During a partial solar eclipse, the sun appears to be a crescent shape, according to NASA.
“The difference between a total and a partial solar eclipse is literally night and day,” Zeiler said, adding that unless you are within the path of totality, the chance to see the sun’s corona disappears.
“Even if you stand just a little bit outside the path of totality, even if you are in the zone of 99%, the sunlight is still 10,000 times brighter than the Sun’s corona,” Zeiler said. “So it’s impossible to see the corona unless you are truly inside the path of totality.”
Despite missing the total solar eclipse, Zeiler encourages all Americans to “step outside” on eclipse day.
“Enjoy the spectacle of the partial eclipse,” Zeiler said. “Because that’s still very interesting and brings you closer to the movements of the sun and moon — seeing the solar system in motion.”
Using Los Angeles, California, as an example, during the maximum of the partial solar eclipse, at 11:12 a.m., local time, 58% of the sun will be occulted by the moon.
“So it’ll be noticeably dimmer than normal, but not exceptionally,” Zeiler said, adding, “In fact, you might not even realize that an eclipse is happening unless you are paying attention to it.”
Partial solar eclipse path, magnitude and time in the US
Below is a list of some American cities where the April 8 partial solar eclipse will be most visible — pending weather forecasts — the magnitude of the eclipse in those locations and what time, locally, the partial eclipse view will be at maximum, according to Space.com.
The magnitude is the fraction of the sun’s diameter covered by the moon during the partial eclipse.
Atlanta, Georgia: 3:04 p.m., 0.846 magnitude
Boston, Massachusetts: 3:29 p.m., 0.931 magnitude
Chicago, Illinois: 2:07 p.m., 0.942 magnitude
Cincinnati, Ohio: 3:09 p.m., 0.993 magnitude
Denver, Colorado: 12:40 p.m., 0.715 magnitude
Helena, Montana: 12:40 p.m., 0.474 magnitude
Honolulu, Hawaii: 7:12 a.m., 0.286 magnitude
Houston, Texas: 1:40 p.m., 0.943 magnitude
Juneau, Alaska: 10:33 a.m., 0.064 magnitude
Los Angeles, California: 11:12 a.m., 0.58 magnitude
Miami, Florida: 3:01 p.m., 0.556 magnitude
New Orleans, Lousiana: 1:49 p.m., 0.844 magnitude
New York City, New York: 3:25 p.m., 0.91 magnitude
Seattle, Washington: 11:29 a.m., 0.311 magnitude
St. Louis, Missouri: 2:00 p.m., 0.988 magnitude
Tucson, Arizona: 11:19 a.m., 0.749 magnitude
Washington, D.C.: 3:20 p.m., 0.89 magnitude
Total solar eclipse live stream
For those outside of the path of totality, NASA will be streaming the view of the total solar eclipse live on April 8, 2024.
“Tune in for live views from across the path, expert commentary, live demos, and more,” according to the agency’s official broadcast.
