(NEW YORK) — Over 2,500 flights have been canceled Monday, with airports in Denver, Dallas, Houston and Chicago hit the hardest, as a major winter storm unleashes heavy snow and ice across the South.
Up to 6 inches of snowfall has already buried parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee.
Major cities in the snowstorm’s path for Monday include Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; and Nashville, Tennessee.
Near Houston, an 18-wheeler overturned due to ice on a freeway, shutting down traffic in both directions, according to Houston ABC station KTRK.
Schools will be closed Tuesday in Little Rock and Nashville due to the weather.
The snow will keep falling in the South throughout Monday, with an icy mix moving into southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia at night. Drivers should be on the lookout for slick roads through Tuesday morning.
Record cold settles into Texas, much of the Heartland
Meanwhile, the Heartland is seeing record-low temperatures, with wind chill alerts issued from the U.S.-Canada border in Montana to the Rio Grande in Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border.
All-time lows could be recorded Monday in Sioux City, Iowa; Kansas City, Missouri; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Austin, Texas; and Dallas.
During the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa Monday night, the wind chill — what the temperature feels like — is forecast to plunge to minus 25 degrees.
On Tuesday, temperatures will be in the teens and single digits for Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.
In Chicago, the wind chill is forecast to drop to minus 23 degrees on Tuesday.
The record cold is forecast to linger over the next couple days from Nebraska to Texas to Mississippi.
Snow on the way for the Northeast, including Philadelphia and New York City
Monday night into Tuesday, snow and ice is expected from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia, New York City and Boston. Some areas could see 1 to 3 inches of snow.
Lake-effect snow is also pounding western New York.
Up to 27 inches of snow fell just south of Buffalo, New York, this weekend, with up to 1 foot of snow accumulating in the city.
The Buffalo Bills were set to host the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, but the game was pushed to 4:30 p.m. Monday because Sunday’s intense snowfall made driving nearly impossible.
On Monday morning, the Bills were still looking for volunteers to help shovel snow from the stadium.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned that many seats may still be covered in snow by game time.
The heaviest snow is ending in Buffalo, but the National Weather Service has issued another winter storm watch for the city for Tuesday night into Thursday, with the possibility of 2 to 3 feet of snowfall.
(NEW YORK) — Over 2,000 flights have been canceled Monday, with airports in Denver, Dallas, Houston and Chicago hit the hardest, as a major winter storm unleashes heavy snow and ice across the South.
Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama have already gotten 4 to 6 inches of snowfall, and more is on the way.
Major cities in the snowstorm’s path for Monday include San Antonio; Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; and Nashville, Tennessee.
Near Houston, an 18-wheeler overturned due to ice on a freeway, shutting down traffic in both directions, according to ABC Houston station KTRK.
Schools will be closed Tuesday in Little Rock and Nashville due to the weather.
The snow will keep falling in the South throughout Monday, with an icy mix moving into southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and northern Georgia at night. Drivers should be on the lookout for slick roads through Tuesday morning.
Record cold settles into Texas, much of the Heartland
Meanwhile, the Heartland is seeing record-low temperatures. All-time-lows could be recorded Monday in Sioux City, Iowa; Kansas City, Missouri; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Waco, Texas; Austin, Texas; and Dallas.
Winds are expected to make the already chilly temperatures feel even colder on Monday. The National Weather Service has issued wind chill alerts for 26 states, from the U.S.-Canada border in Montana to the Rio Grande in Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The record cold is forecast to linger over the next couple days for the central U.S. and the Deep South, from Nebraska to Texas and east to Mississippi.
Then, after a brief moderation in wind chills, another cold blast is expected to hit the nation at the end of the week. The wind chill — what the temperature feels like — is forecast to drop below zero degrees in Chicago by Thursday and Friday.
The cold blast is moving into the Northeast on Monday. Temperatures are in the teens and lower 20s, marking the chilliest day of the season from Washington, D.C., to New York to Boston.
Snow on the way for the Northeast, including Philadelphia and New York City
Snow and some ice is forecast from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia, New York City and Boston Monday night into Tuesday. Some areas could see 1 to 3 inches of snow.
The frigid air is also helping produce lake-effect snow in western New York.
So far, up to 27 inches of snow fell just south of Buffalo, New York, with up to a foot of snow accumulating in the city.
The Buffalo Bills were set to host the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, but the game was pushed to 4:30 p.m. Monday because Sunday’s intense snowfall made driving nearly impossible.
On Monday morning, the Bills were still looking for volunteers to help shovel snow from the stadium.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned that many seats may still be covered in snow by game time.
The heaviest snow is ending in Buffalo, but the National Weather Service has issued another winter storm watch for the city for Tuesday night into Thursday, with the possibility of 2 to 3 feet of snowfall.
(NEW YORK) — Over 1,800 flights have been canceled Monday, with airports in Denver, Dallas, Houston and Chicago hit the hardest, as a major winter storm unleashes heavy snow and ice across the South.
Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama have already gotten 4 to 6 inches of snowfall, and more is on the way.
Major cities in the snowstorm’s path for Monday include San Antonio; Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; and Nashville, Tennessee.
Near Houston, an 18-wheeler overturned due to ice on a freeway, shutting down traffic in both directions, according to ABC Houston station KTRK.
Schools will be closed Tuesday in Little Rock and Nashville due to the weather.
The snow will keep falling in the South throughout Monday, with an icy mix moving into southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and northern Georgia at night. Drivers should be on the lookout for slick roads through Tuesday morning.
Record cold settles into Texas, much of the Heartland
Meanwhile, the Heartland is seeing record-low temperatures. All-time-lows could be recorded Monday in Sioux City, Iowa; Kansas City, Missouri; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Waco, Texas; Austin, Texas; and Dallas.
Winds are expected to make the already chilly temperatures feel even colder on Monday. The National Weather Service has issued wind chill alerts for 26 states, from the U.S.-Canada border in Montana to the Rio Grande in Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The record cold is forecast to linger over the next couple days for the central U.S. and the Deep South, from Nebraska to Texas and east to Mississippi.
Then, after a brief moderation in wind chills, another cold blast is expected to hit the nation at the end of the week. The wind chill — what the temperature feels like — is forecast to drop below zero degrees in Chicago by Thursday and Friday.
The cold blast is moving into the Northeast on Monday. Temperatures are in the teens and lower 20s, marking the chilliest day of the season from Washington, D.C., to New York to Boston.
Snow and some ice is forecast from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia, New York City and Boston Monday night into Tuesday. Some areas could see 1 to 3 inches of snow.
The frigid air is also helping produce lake-effect snow in western New York.
So far, up to 27 inches of snow fell just south of Buffalo, New York, with up to a foot of snow accumulating in the city.
The Buffalo Bills were set to host the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, but the game was pushed to 4:30 p.m. Monday because Sunday’s intense snowfall made driving nearly impossible.
On Monday morning, the Bills were still looking for volunteers to help shovel snow from the stadium.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned that many seats may still be covered in snow by game time.
The heaviest snow is ending in Buffalo, but the National Weather Service has issued another winter storm watch for the city for Tuesday night into Thursday, with the possibility of 2 to 3 feet of snowfall.
A passport application from April 1983 when Epstein sought to replace a lost passport in time for a trip to London is seen. CREDIT: U.S. State Department
(NEW YORK) — In June 2011, the U.S. Department of State received an urgent request from an American businessman who sought a second U.S passport for impending trips to Europe and multiple African nations.
“I am frequently required on extremely short notice to schedule international trips with itineraries to multiple destinations requiring me to obtain multiple visas at the same time, which is simply not possible on such short notice without a second passport,” the letter said.
The applicant, who identified himself as the president of an international financial consulting firm, said he had business trips scheduled in the coming weeks to France, Sierra Leone, Mali and Gabon.
“Please issue me a second passport so I may have the 3 visas issued for Africa while I am using my current passport in France,” he wrote.
The businessman’s name: Jeffrey Edward Epstein.
Three years earlier, Epstein had pleaded guilty in Florida to solicitation of an underaged girl, a felony that required him to register as a sex offender for life.
The letter is found among several passport applications and renewal forms submitted over three decades by Epstein, whose staggering wealth and proximity to power have long defied ready explanation.
More than 50 pages from Epstein’s files were obtained by ABC News in a public records request to the State Department. The records span from the early 1980s, when Epstein was an unknown bushy-haired broker from Brooklyn, to 2019, when his indictment in New York for alleged sex-trafficking of children made him notorious worldwide.
The documents reveal Epstein’s penchant for reporting lost passports and his intentions to travel to far-flung destinations, including several countries — Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Senegal — that have not appeared in other accounts of Epstein’s travel.
The earliest application is from April 1983 when Epstein sought to replace a lost passport in time for an upcoming trip to London. In barely legible handwriting, then 30-year-old Epstein lists his occupation as “banker” and his address as an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The stapled color photograph depicts Epstein, who in later years favored loose-fitting track suits, in a crisp black suit and glossy tie.
In the mid-1980s, Epstein was a college dropout who taught math at an exclusive Manhattan private school and later worked for five years as a self-described “financial strategist” on Wall Street. After an abrupt exit from Bear Stearns, he claimed to have launched a career as a self-employed investment adviser for the uber-rich.
Epstein twice more in the 1980s reported his U.S. passport lost or stolen; once left behind in a London black taxi, and once stolen “out of [his] jacket pocket” as he dined at a restaurant, according to his explanations in the files.
In an application to replace his passport on Feb. 26, 1985, Epstein reported he was then residing in London. The address he provided, which has not previously been associated with Epstein, is in an area surrounded by foreign embassies.
In his affidavit of loss, Epstein indicated he had a flight booked the next day to Sweden. Less than a week later, former Miss Sweden Eva Andersson was the host of a televised musical contest in the country. Video of the event, unearthed by YouTube user “Green Clown2021,” shows Epstein in the audience, clapping half-heartedly between musical acts. Andersson would later testify, in Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial in 2021, that she and Epstein dated on and off in the 1980’s.
Epstein’s 1993 passport application shows his hair graying and his fortunes improving. His listed address on East 69th in New York City was the former residence of the Iranian ambassador which had been taken over by the State Department before Epstein rented the property. The government later terminated Epstein’s lease after he sublet the townhouse, without permission, and jacked up the rent.
The records obtained by ABC News also contain multiple instances in which Epstein applied for a second passport “in order to avoid conflicting visa stamps” when traveling to Israel and certain Arab states, including Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Epstein had long-standing connections to Ehud Barak, a former prime minister of Israel. Barak publicly acknowledged visiting Epstein “more than ten but much less than a hundred” times, including one visit to Epstein’s private estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He told The Daily Beast in 2019 that he had “never attended a party” with Epstein and had never met with him “in the company of women or girls.”
A New York Times columnist reported in 2019 that Epstein had boasted, without evidence, of speaking often with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
“For both safety and business reasons, it is imperative that Mr. Epstein have the necessary flexibility of a second passport,” one of his corporate representatives wrote in 2003.
State Department policies permit certain frequent international travelers to carry a second passport, particularly in cases where a visa stamp from one country might prohibit entry into another.
The issue arose again two years later, when Epstein reported a scheduled trip to Israel and Afghanistan.
As part of a request for an additional passport, Epstein submitted travel itineraries indicating he had booked two first-class trips in the spring of 2005.
The first was from London to Tel Aviv on March 29 that year. Epstein also provided details of a journey that would take him on April 7, 2005, to Istanbul, where he would connect through Baku, Azerbaijan, to Kabul. The records do not indicate whether he actually made the trip. On the day of Epstein’s scheduled departure from Kabul, the late former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit to the Afghan capital for a joint press conference with President Hamid Karzai. There is no evidence that Rumsfeld and Epstein’s visits were connected.
While Epstein was apparently traveling in southern Asia, police officers in southern Florida were hunting for evidence in trash cans outside his Palm Beach mansion. Three weeks earlier, the parents of a 14-year-old girl had reported to police that their daughter had been molested by a white-haired man who went by the name “Jeff.” The police investigation that followed would turn up dozens of alleged underage minor victims and begin a saga that would ultimately lead to Epstein’s permanent status as a sex offender.
But that designation would have little impact on Epstein’s ability to obtain a U.S. passport or to travel internationally, until Congress passed the “International Megan’s Law” in 2016. That legislation allowed the government to revoke the passports of sex offenders, who must re-apply for a special passport carrying a notice inside that reads, “The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor, and is a covered sex offender,” according to the State Department. It also strengthened a requirement that registered sex offenders provide advance notice of all intended international travel.
Epstein’s files indicate that a passport issued to him in 2016, and valid for ten years, was revoked. A second passport valid until 2020 was also revoked. His final application in the state department files indicates his last US passport was issued in March of 2019.
ABC News has previously obtained records of the United States Marshals Service that show the agency was looking into Epstein’s foreign trips. “Investigation reveals EPSTEIN travels Internationally quite frequently using private planes and may have failed to report all his International travel,” a January 2019 report stated.
Six months later, he was arrested at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, after his private Gulfstream Jet touched down from Paris. A federal indictment charged him with conspiracy and child sex-trafficking.
When FBI agents executed a search warrant at Epstein’s New York home later that day, they found a locked safe that contained 48 loose diamonds and $70,000 in cash.
Also recovered were three U.S. passports and one Austrian passport with Epstein’s picture, but with someone else’s name and an address in Saudi Arabia.
Epstein’s defense attorneys, seeking to secure bail for their client, said that two of the US passports were expired. The foreign passport, they claimed, was given to Epstein “by a friend,” and he had never used it to travel. They argued he received it in the 1980s for personal protection when traveling in the Middle East.
“Some Jewish-Americans were informally advised at the time to carry identification bearing a non-Jewish name when traveling internationally in case of hijacking,” his attorney said.
Partly because of that foreign passport and Epstein’s history of international travel, a judge determined Epstein was a flight risk and refused to grant bail. Three weeks later, Epstein was dead. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.
Following his death, the Marshals service investigation into his travel was dropped.
Thomas Volscho, a contributor to ABC News, is a professor of sociology at City University of New York, Staten Island. He is writing a book about the tactics of wealthy sex-traffickers.
Workers lower a ladder into a monument as they dismantle the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery December 20, 2023, in Arlington, Virginia. CREDIT: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/GETTY IMAGES
(NEW YORK) — More than 60 years after Martin Luther King Jr. uttered ‘Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia,’ racial and historical tensions continue to boil over at Stone Mountain, which doubles as the home of the largest Confederate monument in the world and the Ku Klux Klan’s 20th-century rebirth.
The Confederate monument etched into the mountain is larger than Mount Rushmore, according to the Atlanta History Center. The carving honors three Confederate figures in the Civil War — Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate states, and Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.
Stone Mountain is one of more than 2,000 Confederate memorials still in place across the country, according to the legal advocacy group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This list includes monuments, plaques, street and building names, and more.
In 2023, about 49 memorials were removed, including nine Department of Defense forts that have been renamed, according to the SPLC.
According to a Congressional Naming Commission Report, hundreds of Confederate monuments — including names, symbols, monuments, and paraphernalia — honoring figures on Department of Defense land alone were set to be removed by January 2024.
This includes the controversial Reconciliation Monument at the Arlington National Cemetery that the cemetery said promotes “a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.” Monument removals or changes — like the Reconciliation Monument and changes at Stone Mountain — have prompted legal threats and challenges from Confederate heritage groups.
This represents a growing, concerted effort to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces. Critics say these memorials distort history and praise the Confederate fight in favor of slavery.
“These memorials serve the purpose of rewriting history, telling a different story of that war and remaking Confederate heroes as American heroes,” said SPLC historian Rivka Maizlish. “You can imagine the psychological impact, especially on African Americans, but on anyone who does not believe that white supremacy is an American value, and seeing these memorials all over the country.”
She continued, “Another real goal was to claim white spaces. A lot of these memorials are put up in front of courthouses to claim the law as something that is only for whites. After Brown v. the Board of Education made segregation illegal, many schools suddenly changed their names to the names of Confederates, making a clear statement that no matter what the law says, these schools are white spaces.”
There has simultaneously been a fight to preserve these spaces, specifically for those whose ancestors played a role in the Confederate Army and who say that removing these statues removes a piece of their heritage.
Martin O’Toole, of the Georgia branch of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told ABC News that at least two of his ancestors fought under Jackson in the war.
“Stone Mountain is intended to be a memorial to the sacrifices of the people of Georgia, in particular, but the South in general in the establishment of a southern Republic, and then the sacrifices that were made were tremendous,” said O’Toole.
He continued, “When this current upsurge of destruction of monuments, historical monuments and the like took place, then many of the members became convinced that our charge that we got from General Steven D. Lee … required that we do something in the legal realm to defend these monuments.”
Stone Mountain and the surrounding park are just one of the spaces at the center of controversy.
The park is lined with streets named after Confederate soldiers and Confederate flags waving on its lawns, with the large Confederate rock etchings as their backdrop. Stone Mountain, the city at the base of the park, is a predominantly Black community, according to the U.S. Census.
The park was also the site of the reemergence of the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan in 1915 amid the national success of the controversial Civil War epic film “The Birth of a Nation,” according to the Atlanta History Center.
Before the film came to Atlanta, several men walked up Stone Mountain and set fire to a cross to symbolically resurrect the group — which would later host Klan rallies, member initiations and more for decades, the Atlanta History Center reports.
Much of this memorial is protected by old Georgia law, which states that the memorial must be maintained as “an appropriate and suitable memorial for the Confederacy.”
“The memorial to the heroes of the Confederate States of America graven upon the face of Stone Mountain shall never be altered, removed, concealed, or obscured in any fashion and shall be preserved and protected for all time as a tribute to the bravery and heroism of the citizens of this state who suffered and died in their cause,” read state code on the memorial.
This has made discussion over park changes more difficult.
Those against the Confederate monument, including history teacher Sally Stanhope of the Stone Mountain Action Committee, say they are calling for an end to the upkeep of the monument, to allow it to grow over with biomass. They also say slavery is not mentioned in the signage and historical displays around the park.
However, a museum — dubbed by park officials as a “truth-telling museum” — will address some of these issues. ABC affiliate station WSB-TV in Atlanta reports that the museum will cover the racist past of the monument, including the KKK’s resurgence and the monument’s symbolic origins.
The state has dedicated $11 million for the museum’s construction in a building that also houses the current Stone Mountain Museum, according to WSB-TV. It’s expected to take two years to complete.
O’Toole said that because of these laws, the Sons of Confederate Veterans have threatened the state of Georgia with legal actions over changes that have been proposed, as well as those that have been made at Stone Mountain. This includes changes that have been made to put the park’s Confederate flags in a more inconspicuous area.
O’Toole said the group has filed an ante litem notice in anticipation of a lawsuit, arguing that the changes are unlawful.
“They want to have it sort of basically turned into a civil rights playground,” said O’Toole. “We take the position that they need to obey the law … If they want to change things, they need to change the law.”
Mayor Beverly Jones, the first Black female mayor of Stone Mountain, has already faced backlash for making several changes around the park — this includes renaming streets that honored Confederate figures.
She said she sees these monuments as a glorification of dark aspects of life for Black Americans.
“We don’t ever want to have any cities to have monuments children have to look at every day and feel like ‘[Confederate figures] were powerful and you know, this is someone to look up to.’ We don’t want that to ever happen in the city of Stone Mountain.”
She said that while speaking to high school students who live in the city of Stone Mountain, they told her they never visited.
“They talked about the Klan and they still had this image that they were walking to this area that they have their rallies at,” Jones told ABC News in an interview.
She hopes an MLK Day march on Monday at Stone Mountain can bring attention to the ideals of freedom and King’s cause which he advocated for in his 1963 ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.
Rev. Abraham Mosley, appointed to his position as chairman of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, is at the center of the back-and-forth discussions between the two sides.
He was born and raised in Georgia, but said he has no personal connection to the mountain: “I’m a Black person and it was a place in the past — way back in the past — that a Black person wasn’t seen around,” he said.
He continued, “It’s a lot different now from what it was back then. And we’re still improving.”
However, a football-field-size rock etching is much more difficult to remove than an honorary plaque or a statue, said Mosley.
“Those problems and things that are on that mountain, they didn’t show up overnight and they’re not gonna go away overnight,” said Mosley. “So that’s gonna take some time to try to come to some common ground with everybody.”
(NEW YORK) — History was made Sunday night at the 2024 Miss America pageant.
Miss Colorado Madison Marsh was crowned Miss America, becoming the first active-duty military service member to win the title in the pageant’s nearly 100-year history, according to the U.S. Air Force.
Marsh, 22, is a second lieutenant in the Air Force and recently graduated from the Air Force Academy in Colorado.
“I’m very excited to get to represent women who can break stereotypes,” Marsh said in an interview shared on Miss America’s Instagram story, adding that she is looking forward to sharing “what it means to be a member of the military community and Miss America.”
When asked what advice she wants to share with other women, Marsh said, in part, “You can achieve anything. The sky is not the limit and the only person that’s stopping you is you.”
The U.S. Air Force celebrated Marsh’s win, sharing a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that featured photos of Marsh in uniform and winning the Miss America title.
The Air Force captioned the photos with the hashtag #AimHigh.
Marsh graduated from the Air Force Academy with a degree in physics and a focus on astronomy. She is now pursuing a master’s degree in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, according to her competition biography.
In an interview with the university’s newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, Marsh said she sees similarities between military service and pageantry, explaining that with both, “you’re serving but in a different way.”
“When I put on my uniform, I serve and I represent our country,” she said. “When I put on the crown and sash, I’m serving, representing my community.”
Marsh, who was crowned Miss Colorado last May, told the newspaper that she started competing in pageants during in her first year at the Air Force Academy.
“I don’t think I ever would have gotten into Harvard if I wouldn’t have gone to the Air Force Academy,” Marsh said. “I don’t think I ever would have become Miss Colorado without the Air Force Academy because they have trained me and honed in on my leadership.”
Marsh said she plans to devote her year of service as Miss America to raising awareness about pancreatic cancer, a disease that led to the death of her mom. Marsh’s foundation for pancreatic cancer research and advocacy is named the Whitney Marsh Foundation, in honor of her late mother.
“I really want to be able to go global with pancreatic cancer and share my mom’s story and be able to raise money and increase research funds for pancreatic cancer,” Marsh said in her post-win interview, shared on Miss America’s Instagram story.
(NEW YORK) — Over 1,500 flights have been canceled Monday, with airports in Denver, Houston and Chicago hit the hardest, as a major winter storm unleashes heavy snow and ice across the South.
Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama have already gotten 4 to 6 inches of snowfall, and more is on the way, according to the latest forecast.
Here’s a look at our office parking lot at about 11:15pm. These conditions should continue for the Concho Valley and southward for next few hours.
Major cities in the snowstorm’s path for Monday include San Antonio; Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; and Nashville, Tennessee.
Roads were treacherous early Monday in San Antonio, where the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning.
There was record snowfall in Memphis on Sunday and it continued overnight.
Schools will be closed in Nashville on Tuesday due to the weather.
The National Weather Service has also issued winter weather advisories for parts of Texas, including Dallas and Houston.
The snow is expected to keep falling in the South throughout Monday, with an icy mix moving into southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and northern Georgia at night.
People should be on the lookout for slick roads in Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; and Atlanta on Monday night and Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, the Heartland is seeing record-low temperatures. The coldest so far was in Montana over the weekend, where air temperatures fell to a numbing minus 54 degrees Fahrenheit. There were dozens of record lows in other areas, from the Rocky Mountains to the Plains.
More all-time-lows could be recorded Monday morning in Sioux City, Iowa; Kansas City, Missouri; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Waco, Texas; Austin, Texas; and Dallas.
Winds are expected to make the already chilly temperatures feel even colder on Monday. The National Weather Service has issued wind chill alerts for 26 states, from the U.S.-Canada border in Montana to the Rio Grande in Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The record cold is forecast to linger over the next couple days for the central U.S. and the Deep South, from Nebraska to Texas and east to Mississippi. Then, after a brief moderation in wind chills, another cold blast is expected to hit the nation at the end of the week. The wind chill — what the temperature feels like — is forecast to drop below zero degrees in Chicago by Thursday and Friday.
The cold blast is currently moving into the Northeast, with Monday morning being the chilliest of the season for the Interstate 95 travel corridor from Washington, D.C., to New York and Boston, where temperatures are in the teens and lower 20s.
The frigid air is helping produce lake-effect snow in western New York. So far, up to 27 inches of snow fell just south of Buffalo, New York, with up to a foot of snow accumulating in the city. The heaviest snow is ending in Buffalo, but the National Weather Service has issued another winter storm watch for the city for Tuesday night into Thursday, with the possibility of 2 to 3 feet of snowfall.
For the I-95 corridor, the southern snowstorm will track north into the Northeast with snow and some ice forecast from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia, New York City and Boston.
The National Weather Service has issued winter weather advisories for Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City from Monday evening into Tuesday afternoon. Some areas could see 1 to 3 inches of snow.
(WASHINGTON) — A toxic brew of ideological extremism, blended with rage, anger and violent tendencies is making it increasingly difficult for authorities to identify motivations behind mass casualty attacks in America, according to a new assessment by the Department of Homeland Security.
The confidential analysis, distributed to law enforcement on Jan. 10 and obtained by ABC News, describes the growing challenge posed by perpetrators who “espoused and engaged with an array of narratives,” often online, “likely fueling their mobilization to violence.”
Those attackers’ range of beliefs made it easier to escape the longstanding templates law enforcement uses to catch would-be threats – and made it harder for police to intervene or secure potential targets, the analysis found.
“Since 2018, we have observed mass casualty attacks in which the perpetrators held multiple grievances, challenging our ability to identify a primary motive,” the bulletin said.
Examining eight attacks in the past five years which collectively killed 47 people and injured nearly 130 more, DHS’ analysis found the “recent attackers influenced by mixed factors complicate target identification for law enforcement.”
Understanding what spurs a mass killer to action is a crucial piece of the intervention puzzle, experts say. And, the evolving threat environment – heightened by conflict in the Middle East and fueled by hate speech rampant on social media – requires a more elastic screening process to spot warning signs among would-be attackers that might otherwise go unheeded.
“We can no longer afford to look at emerging threats the same way we looked at them 10 years ago,” said John Cohen, a former senior official in the Department of Homeland Security, now an ABC News contributor. “Individuals who now engage in mass casualty attacks will typically adopt a blend of ideological beliefs and personal grievances that they cultivate through the consumption of online content – and if that is not recognized by investigators, they aren’t going to understand what they are seeing.”
The eight attackers analyzed by DHS “all had personal connections to their targets and exhibited a fascination with violence, judging from their digital footprint and engagement with violent content,” the bulletin said. They “particularly” showed interest in school shootings and “held homicidal and suicidal ideations, including ‘suicide by cop’ and suicide following committing a mass casualty attack.”
Some perpetrators consumed violent extremist content online, which “often promoted white supremacy narratives,” while “others expressed hate-based grievances against specific groups, including law enforcement officers, women, and the Jewish community.”
Attackers analyzed in the bulletin often chose “familiar targets over ideological ones.” A trend starkly contrasted to “other mass casualty attackers, typically domestic violent extremists (DVEs), who had a single, discernible motive for choosing targets that furthered their ideological goals.”
“It’s important that the Department of Homeland Security recognize analytically what law enforcement has been confronting for almost a decade – which is the threat environment has evolved,” said Cohen, whose research focuses on the people who commit mass casualty attacks. “When law enforcement looks at these online footprints, they see people who do not fit into the traditional categories of terrorism activity – so, when you’re evaluating them, trying to pin the issue on one single piece of ideology as the motive is not going to allow you to assess this person’s risk correctly.”
The analysis describes the “disconnect between the targets these attackers threatened in their pre-attack statements and the actual targets they attacked constrains our ability to anticipate violence.”
The man who opened fire on New York City subway passengers in April 2022 had “posted hundreds of videos on YouTube about his anger toward law enforcement, various ethnicities, and religions, but only mentioned the subway a handful of times to highlight the inability of government officials to protect the public in recent subway attacks, based on a review of his social media content,” the bulletin said, adding that “comparatively, most [domestic violent extremist] attackers with a singular motive focus on traditional, predictable targets aligned to ideological grievances and offer opportunities for target hardening.”
The “sheer amount of available violent, and often graphic, media content being shared online, particularly depicting terrorist attacks, mass killings, serial killers, accidents, school shootings, and suicide, offers a plethora of inspiration for those mobilizing to violence,” the analysis said.
Beyond “suspicious behaviors online, some attackers made concerning statements to family and friends,” the analysis said. It noted the man who opened fire at an Indiana mall in 2022 – who told an ex-girlfriend that “this world is not made for me and I will not live past 20 years old,” and that he would “take others” with him.
“According to local law enforcement, this information was not reported to police,” the analysis said, and that several years prior to the attack, the FBI “received a tip related to the perpetrator’s online fascination with mass killings but was unable to link the username to the attacker.”
Cohen equated the current threat environment to “salad bar extremism” where people subscribe to sundry narratives, and said the multiple-grievance actors are able to evade traditional detection models.
“That means you have to change your focus beyond simply looking at uncovering a specific plot to a specific location at a specific time, to individuals who represent a higher risk of engaging in violence, and focusing on managing the risk of those individuals,” he said.
“It’s not that they’re not on the radar,” Cohen added, “It’s that we’ve been looking at the wrong radar screen.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks during a news conference at the Fulton County Government building, Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta. — Joe Raedle/Getty Images, FILE
(ATLANTA) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis spoke at a church in Atlanta Sunday morning where she gave emotional and passionate remarks that appeared to acknowledge for the first time the affair allegations leveled against her last week, while also defending the special prosecutor she brought in for the election interference case against Donald Trump.
“I hope for y’all this week I don’t look like what I’ve been through,” she joked as she spoke Sunday at the Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a service to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
One of former President Trump’s co-defendants in his Georgia election interference case is seeking to dismiss the indictment against him and disqualify DA Willis, alleging she “engaged in a personal, romantic relationship” with one of the top prosecutors she brought in to work on the case, which allegedly resulted in financial gain for both of them.
In the court filing Monday, former Trump campaign staff member Michael Roman accused Willis of having potentially committed “an act to defraud the public of honest services” based on her “intentional failure” to disclose the alleged relationship that she allegedly “personally benefitted from.”
The 127-page filing from Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, alleged the prosecutor, Nathan Wade, has a “lack of relevant experience” but has been paid approximately $650,000 in legal fees since being appointed to the role — which the filing claims was a “self-serving arrangement.” Trump’s attorney said in court on Friday that they’re considering joining in the complaint against Willis.
During her remarks Sunday, which were livestreamed, Willis repeatedly referred to herself as “flawed” and “imperfect.”
Willis also said she was “a little confused” why so many questioned the decision to bring in multiple special prosecutors to the case, and though she never mentioned Wade by name, she called him a “great friend” who was paid equally to others while extensively defending his “impeccable credentials” for the job — suggesting the attacks on him were motivated by race.
“I appointed three special counselors. It’s my right to do. Paid them all the same hourly rate,” Willis said. “They only attack one. I hired one white woman: a good personal friend and great lawyer, a superstar, I tell you. I hired one white man: brilliant, my friend, and a great lawyer. And I hired one Black man, another superstar, a great friend, and a great lawyer.”
Willis never denied or directly addressed the allegations she and Wade had an inappropriate relationship. She continued to tout Wade’s résumé, saying he was paid more than double when hired by a Republican in another county, and that he “served as a prosecutor, a criminal defense lawyer, special assistant attorney general.”
“Isn’t it them playing the race card when they only question one?” she said.
Speaking for more than 30 minutes, Willis’ emotional speech Sunday detailed at length the difficulties she has faced in her position as Fulton County DA and prosecuting the Trump case. She spoke about feeling “isolation,” “loneliness,” “backstabbing” and facing constant death threats that have forced her out of her home.
“I am tired of being treated cruelly,” she said.
Willis read a letter she said she wrote to God this week in which she said felt “unworthy” of the job: “Lord, even right now, I continue to feel unworthy of the honor,” she said as she read the letter, while appearing to get choked up.
“A divorced single mom who doesn’t belong to the right social groups. Doesn’t necessarily come from the right family. Doesn’t have the right pedigree. The assignment was just too high for lowly me,” Willis said.
Speaking about threats against her, often fueled by race, she said she and her family members’ lives have been “threatened so regularly, I now think it’s not normal if I don’t have two death threats a week.”
“They call me the N-word more than they call me Fani,” she said, while noting that her home has been swept “multiple times for bombs.” She said she now spends “most days and nights” in isolation.
Willis also specifically called out Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“I never want to be like those who attack me. I never want to be like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has never met me but has allowed her spirit to be filled with hate,” she said.
Still, Willis touted the accomplishments of her team, saying they have “wins, wins, wins” and a 95% conviction rate.
“I thank you for every attack that makes me stronger,” she said.
Merchant is pushing back on Willis’ suggestion in church on Sunday that the allegations against her and the special prosecutor were motivated by race, saying, “This has nothing to do with the color of his skin.”
“If anybody doubts our claim that [Nathan] Wade is inexperienced, ask him how many RICO cases he has handled. Ask him how many felonies he has tried,” Merchant said to ABC News.
The difference between Wade and the other special prosecutors brought in to work on the case are the relationship allegations, according to Merchant.
“The biggest difference between Ms. Cross, Mr. Floyd and Mr. Wade is that Ms. Willis is not in a relationship with Ms. Cross and Mr. Floyd,” Merchant said. “And neither Ms. Cross nor Mr. Floyd have taken Ms. Willis to California, Florida or in cruises to the Caribbean.”
Merchant reiterated that she “would never file a motion that we did not have evidence to support.”
“If we need to prove the allegations in open court, we stand ready and welcome the chance,” she said.
Roman, Trump and 17 others pleaded not guilty in August to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia. Defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jena Ellis and Scott Hall subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
The former president has blasted the district attorney’s investigation as being politically motivated.
(ELOY, Ariz.) — Four people were killed and one person was critically injured when a hot air balloon crash-landed in the desert in Eloy, Arizona, on Sunday morning, the Eloy Police Department said.
The crash happened in Pinal County, a rural desert area about five miles north of town, at 7:30 a.m. local time, Eloy Police said.
The mayor of Eloy confirmed that a total of 13 people were in the hot air ballon at the time of the crash — eight skydivers, four passengers and a pilot, according to local ABC Arizona affiliate KNXV.
Just before the crash the skydivers exited the hot air balloon and witnesses who spoke to KNXV said the balloon appeared to be flying up and down before impact occurred.
One person was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, the other three victims died at the hospital and a fifth person is currently in critical condition at Valley Hospital, according to KNXV.
NTSB officials said the hot air balloon crashed due to an unspecified issue with its envelope. Officials with the NTSB and FAA are investigating the incident.
