(NEW YORK) — After a weekend of cold temperatures, snowstorms and heavy winds on the East Coast, a new storm is making its way to the South.
Southern states such as Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana should be on alert for severe thunderstorms where damaging winds, hail and a few tornadoes will be possible. This storm will move across the South in the next few days with heavy rain causing a threat for more severe weather.
Meanwhile in the West, several storms will continue to move through the area with heavy rains ranging from Washington to Northern California. The San Francisco bay area may get much-needed rain Monday night into Tuesday morning.
In the Pacific Northwest, heavy snow is expected in parts of the Washington area and a few inches coming to the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Ahead of the western storms, wildfires are being fueled by the wind and dry weather from Southern California to Texas.
More than 100 firefighters were battling a brush fire Sunday night from the air and the ground in the Hansen Dam Recreation Area, near Pacoima, California.. The fire escalated to “Major Emergency” status within the 10 p.m. hour.
Just after 11 p.m., crews appeared to get the upper hand with “a well coordinated air attack combined with a relentless ground-based offense with firefighting hand lines and hand tools,” according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Firefighters contained the Hansen Fire to four acres, according to officials. Crews will continue working the fire’s perimeter with hose lines, hand tools, and heavy equipment throughout the night to extinguish hot spots.
There are no structures threatened at this time, and no injuries have been reported. Officials said there are currently no evacuations.
(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — Two years after Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by police in her Louisville, Kentucky home, her mother met with officials at the Department of Justice, urging federal charges against the officers involved in her daughter’s death.
“The most important thing is to remember that Breonna didn’t deserve this,” her mother, Tamika Palmer, told reporters on Monday following the meeting with Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke and attorneys in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. “She was at home, in her own home minding her business when these people kicked in her door and murdered her.”
A DOJ spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that Clarke and attorneys from the Civil Rights Division met with members of Taylor’s family and attorneys, saying, “This matter is currently under investigation and we have no further comment.”
Attorney Ben Crump, who represents Taylor’s family, told ABC News that the meeting at the DOJ lasted for 45 minutes and officials said that they were conducting a “thorough investigation.”
“We don’t want to have to come here next year this time and still not have decisions made,” Crump said.
“You have to think about it from the perspective of the Black community. There are charges brought against us for a lot less, so we hope that they are just as zealous in holding these police officers who killed Breonna Taylor accountable,” he added.
Following the press conference, which took place outside the National Council of Negro Women in Washington, D.C., the family, joined by advocates and leaders in the Black Lives Matter movement, walked to the DOJ to hand-deliver 18,000 signatures from people, calling for the officers to be held accountable.
The 26-year-old Taylor, an emergency medical technician, was fatally shot down on March 13, 2020, in a hail of bullets by plainclothes officers Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove and Jonathan Mattingly. They were executing a “no knock” search warrant for Taylor’s ex-boyfriend for allegedly dealing drugs.
He was not at the residence, but her current boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thought someone was breaking into the home and fired one shot from a 9 mm pistol at the officers. Mattingly was struck in the leg and three officers fired 32 shots into the apartment, killing Taylor, who was in her bedroom.
“No-knock” warrants, which are when officers don’t announce themselves before entering a home, have come under renewed scrutiny following the Feb. 2 fatal shooting of Amir Locke, a 22-year-old Black man who was killed during a raid by Minneapolis police officers.
“For the nation, it’s been two years and one day. For me, I’m trapped in March the 13th, 2020,” Palmer said. “I don’t know how people think I should just move on; that I should just walk away from this thing. Half my life has been spent being Breonna’s mother. It’s the only thing I’ve learned to do well in my life. It’s the thing that I’ll die for – fighting to make sure she gets justice.”
ABC News reached out to the attorneys representing Hankison and Cosgrove, but requests for comment were not immediately returned.
Mattingly’s attorney Kent Wicker told ABC News they have “no comment at this time.”
Hankison and Cosgrove were ultimately fired from the police department and Mattingly retired in 2021.
Taylor’s killing gained national attention and sparked nationwide “Black Lives Matter” protests in the summer of 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minnesota, who died after an officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Six months after Taylor was killed, Kentucky Attorney General Cameron convened a grand jury to investigate possible charges against the officers.
The grand jury indicted former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison in September 2020 on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree for firing into the apartment directly behind Taylor’s, where three people were inside.
Earlier this month, a jury in Louisville found Hankison not guilty on all three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree.
But none of the officers were charged for their involvement in Taylor’s death – a decision that sparked widespread backlash from social justice advocates.
Amid a barrage of criticism, Cameron told ABC affiliate WBKO in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in October 2020 that the officers who opened fire were “justified” because they “returned fire after having been fired upon.”
He also defended his decision not to give the grand jury on the case surrounding the death of Breonna Taylor the option to consider murder charges.
“I fully take responsibility for the recommendation that we made,” he said at the time. “Based on the facts, that was the appropriate recommendation to make.”
Palmer said on Monday that Cameron and Kentucky “failed” her daughter and she is now asking the DOJ to “do the right thing.”
Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, reflects on her son’s legacy a decade after his death
ABC News’ Kendall Ross and Mark Osborne contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Police in New York City and Washington are jointly investigating the shootings of five homeless people across both cities that they said may have been committed by the same suspect.
Because of similarities in “the modus operandi of the perpetrator, common circumstances involved in each shooting, circumstances of the victims and recovered evidence,” the two departments will jointly investigate the shootings with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, they said in a Sunday news release.
The first shootings occurred in Washington on March 3, 8 and 9. The victim found on March 9 was discovered by police when they were responding to a tent fire in the city’s northeast. He succumbed to stab and gunshot wounds, according to an autopsy.
The two shootings in New York occurred on March 12. One victim was injured and another was killed, according to the joint news release.
NYPD Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and MPD Chief Robert J. Contee III said in the news release that they are committed to safety for homeless individuals and to finding the suspect in the shootings.
“Our homeless population is one of our most vulnerable and an individual praying on them as they sleep is an exceptionally heinous crime,” Sewell said in a statement.
“We are committed to sharing every investigative path, clue and piece of evidence with our law enforcement partners to bring this investigation to a swift conclusion and the individual behind these vicious crimes to justice,” Contee said.
Both communities “are heartbroken and disturbed by these heinous crimes in which an individual has been targeting some of our most vulnerable residents,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement on Sunday.
“It is heartbreaking and tragic to know that in addition to all the dangers that unsheltered residents face, we now have a cold-blooded killer on the loose, but we are certain that we will get the suspect off the street and into police custody,” they said.
The mayors said they spoke on Sunday about their cities working together on the investigation.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.
Surveillance video released by police Sunday shows the suspect who stabbed two employees inside New York City’s Museum of Modern Art leaping over a counter near the entrance with a knife in hand and proceeding to attack the workers.
The search for the suspect, identified by the New York Police Department as 60-year-old Gary Cabana, continued Sunday. Cabana allegedly committed the double stabbing a day after his membership to the museum was revoked, police said.
Security video from inside the museum shows a man wearing a dark-hooded jacket and a mask coming through the building’s glass revolving door, charging toward the reception desk with a knife in his right hand and hopping over the counter to attack the employees.
The episode unfolded around 4:15 p.m. when the suspect was denied entry to the world-renowned museum.
A female employee was stabbed in the lower back and neck and a male employee in the left collarbone, the New York Police Department said. The victims, both 24 years old, were taken to Bellevue Hospital and listed in stable condition, according to police.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller told reporters a letter was sent to the suspect revoking his membership on Friday.
“He’s known to employees here,” Miller told reporters at a news conference Saturday. It is not believed to be a random attack, he said.
Miller said the suspect’s membership was revoked due to two recent incidents of disorderly conduct, but didn’t provide more information.
He also said the suspect was connected to two other incidents in the midtown area.
Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mayor Eric Adams, said the mayor is monitoring the situation, adding that the incident is isolated.
“Neither victim is suffering from life-threatening injuries at this time,” he tweeted.
The museum announced it will be closed on Sunday.
MoMA, which opened in 1929, is one of the most popular museums in New York City. It is located on 53rd Street in the heart of midtown Manhattan.
(NEW YORK) — Two people were stabbed inside the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan Saturday afternoon, police said.
The unidentified victims were transported to Bellevue Hospital and listed in stable condition, according to the New York Police Department.
Preliminarily, per a source familiar, authorities believe a former employee came back to the museum and stabbed two people who work there. It is not believed to be a random attack.
Officers were still looking for a suspect and the investigation was ongoing, according to police.
This is a developing story. Check back for details.
Courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NEW YORK) — The East Coast is getting hit with a major late-winter storm this weekend that is bringing severe weather from Florida to Maine, as tens of millions are under winter weather alerts.
After dumping several inches of snow in the Southeast, the storm is intensifying as it moves up the East Coast, with states on alert for wintry conditions, strong wind gusts, freezing temperatures, damaging winds and heavy snow and rain.
The storm triggered severe thunderstorms in parts of Florida and the Carolina coast earlier Saturday. Wind gusts over 70 mph were reported in parts of northern Florida and along the North Carolina coast, bringing reports of wind damage. There was one reported tornado in northern Florida, though no significant damage has been reported at this time.
The heaviest snowfall is expected from Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey into Maine. As of early Saturday afternoon, the biggest totals so far have been across the central Appalachians into central New York, where over half foot of snow has been reported in some areas.
Up to a foot of snow is forecasted for inland areas from West Virginia to Maine, with the highest amounts expected in the Green and White Mountains of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
The latest Key Messages for the impending eastern U.S. winter storm. Heavy snow and gusty winds are anticipated today from the Central Appalachians into the interior Northeast, followed by record cold in the Southeast Sunday morning. More information pic.twitter.com/Ul09j0hIsm
— NWS Weather Prediction Center (@NWSWPC) March 12, 2022
Snowfall along the I-95 corridor is expected to be lighter — between 1 to 3 inches from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia and into New York City. Boston is expected to see heavy rain ending as a few snow showers.
By this evening, lingering precipitation will be focused mostly into northern New England. Strong gusty winds, blustery conditions and lingering scattered snow showers will persist across the region into the night.
Behind this storm system will be a bitter cold blast across the East. Wind chills are forecasted to be in the single digits Sunday morning from New York to Boston and feeling like the teens from Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., down to Raleigh, North Carolina, and Atlanta. Wind chills could be in the 20s in northern Florida Sunday morning.
Daily record lows will be challenged in multiple cities in the South over the next 24 hours, with temperatures running more than 20 degrees below average for this time of the year in parts of the region. A freezing warning has been issued for most of the Gulf Coast, including Florida, for Saturday night.
Thousands are without power amid the winter storm. As of noon ET, more than 183,000 customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to PowerOutage.us.
Several St. Patrick’s Day parades were postponed due to the late-winter storm, including in Albany, New York, and Erie, Pennsylvania. In Knoxville, Tennessee, the parade was canceled due to the road conditions after several inches fell.
ABC News’ Alexandra Puri contributed to this report.
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — Nearly six months after college student Miya Marcano was allegedly murdered by a man who worked in her apartment building, Florida lawmakers have passed a bill mandating stronger protections for tenants.
“Miya’s Law,” which passed Friday in the state legislature, now mandates landlords and building managers require background checks for all prospective employees, reinforces requirements regarding access to individual units and requires landlords to give tenants 24 hours notice if a repairs need to take place.
State Sen. Linda Stewart, the bill’s lead sponsor, said she and her colleagues worked to ensure that what happened to the 19-year-old Valencia College student doesn’t happen again.
“I do hope with the passing of Miya’s Law, this will bring some peace to the family and knowing that their daughter’s death was not in vain,” she said in a statement.
On Sept. 25, Marcano went missing from her apartment in the Arden Villas complex in Orlando, Florida, and was found dead a week later in the woods. Investigators said Armando Caballero, a maintenance worker at Arden Villas, kidnapped and killed Marcano after gaining access to her apartment using his master key.
Investigators found Caballero dead in his apartment on Sept. 27 from an apparent suicide. They said there are no other suspects involved in the killing.
Marcano’s family said she rebuffed romantic advances from Caballero and they accused the apartment complex’s management of failing to address complaints against Caballero. The management company said in a statement in October that “all employees are vetted using a national background check service” and that Caballero had “no record of burglary or sexual assault.”
Marcano’s family has called for stronger tenant protections and more scrutiny of prospective apartment maintenance employees.
If Miya’s Law is signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, landlords who violate the new rules could be hit with a felony or first-degree misdemeanor charge.
“I urge Gov. DeSantis to honor Miya’s name and sign this potentially lifesaving legislation into law,” Florida state Rep. Robin Bartleman, who was the lead sponsor of the house version of the bill, said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — Attorneys for the estate of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein told a judge in the U.S. Virgin Islands this week that they are “extraordinarily close” to resolving a civil case filed by the government of the island territory against the late financier’s estate, once valued at over $650 million.
“We’ve been having intense negotiations and talks for settlement. We are very, very, very close,” said Gordon Rhea, a lawyer for Richard Kahn, a former accountant for Epstein and one of the estate’s co-executors. “And I think one more push … and we could be at the finish line.”
The news of a potential deal came on Wednesday during a virtual conference in Superior Court in St. Thomas, where the parties continued to spar over the estate’s legal fees and other expenses. The hearing was the first since the case was filed more than two years ago by Denise George, the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Carol Thomas-Jacobs, a deputy attorney general, acknowledged talks are ongoing and that progress is being made, but said there were a few “sticky issues” that remain.
“We remain open to engaging in settlement discussions until there is some resolution,” Thomas-Jacobs told Superior Court Judge Harold Willocks. “We hope we can reach a resolution.”
Epstein died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial in New York on conspiracy and child sex trafficking charges.
The government’s case against the estate, filed in January 2020 under the U.S. Virgin Islands’ racketeering statute, alleged that Epstein created a network of shell companies, charitable organizations and individuals that participated in and conspired with him in a decadeslong pattern of criminal activity tied to alleged sex trafficking of minor girls and young women.
“Epstein, through and in association with defendants, trafficked, raped, sexually assaulted and held captive underage girls and young women at his properties in the Virgin Islands,” the complaint said.
The government also contends that one of Epstein’s U.S. Virgin Islands-based businesses, Southern Trust Company, misrepresented the nature of its work to fraudulently obtain more than $73 million in tax incentives.
After filing the lawsuit, George placed liens on all of Epstein’s properties, including two private islands off the coast of St. Thomas, as well as the estate’s bank accounts, which effectively gave her office control over the estate’s money.
The government has since sent dozens of subpoenas to financial institutions and individuals around the world previously associated with Epstein, including billionaire investors Leon Black and Glenn Dubin, as well as Epstein’s former paramour Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in federal court late last year. Maxwell has a pending motion for a new trial based on alleged juror misconduct.
The estate, which filed a motion to dismiss the government’s lawsuit in 2020, has so far refused to engage in any pretrial exchanges of documents with the government, arguing that it would be wasteful and unnecessary to do so until a court rules on its motion to dismiss the claims.
The government filed an amended complaint last year that added the estate’s co-executors, Khan and Epstein’s long-time attorney Darren Indyke, as individual defendants, alleging that the pair were “indispensable captains” in Epstein’s criminal organization, who had “profited substantially from their relationship with Epstein.”
“This includes their direct participation in virtually all of the business operations and financial activities of Epstein’s trafficking network, including facilitating forced marriages among Epstein’s victims to secure their immigration status,” George said in a statement early last year.
Indyke and Kahn were selected by Epstein as co-executors in a will he updated two days before his death. The documents stipulate that each of them be paid $250,000 annually for their management of the estate. The two men, through their attorneys, have denied the allegations in the lawsuit and deny any involvement in misconduct by Epstein.
Daniel Weiner, an attorney for the co-executors, told ABC News by email in 2021 that Indyke and Kahn “categorically reject the allegations of misconduct made for the first time today by the Attorney General of the Virgin Islands regarding their purported roles in the so-called ‘Epstein Enterprise.'”
“Neither Mr. Indyke nor Mr. Kahn had any involvement in any misconduct by Mr. Epstein of any kind, at any time,” Weiner wrote. “It is enormously regrettable that the Attorney General chose to level false allegations and to unfairly malign the Co-Executors’ reputation without any proof or factual basis to do so.”
The government’s attorney, Thomas-Jacobs, expressed concern during the hearing that the estate’s value had been greatly diminished over the last two years, and described some of the expenses of the estate, including more than $15 million in legal fees to date, as “extremely outrageous.” Since its initial valuation of $656 million, the estate’s coffers have dwindled to $166 million, according to the estate’s most recent accounting in probate court.
“We are absolutely concerned that in the end, there will be no money left for the people of the Virgin Islands,” she said.
Those comments drew a sharp rebuke from estate attorney Marc Weinstein, who noted that the estate had paid $175 million in taxes and $150 million to Epstein’s victims, which he said accounted for the bulk of the estate’s expenses over the last two years.
“I assume nobody on the government side is saying we shouldn’t pay the taxes and we shouldn’t pay out to the victims,” Weinstein said. “They just keep throwing out the numbers to make it sound bad.”
The estate recently filed an emergency motion for a release of $1.3 million in legal fees incurred primarily for mediation with Epstein’s victims, that the government has thus far declined to pay, according to court records.
In a statement to ABC News, George declined to comment on the status of negotiations, but said the government is “determined, among other things, to address tax benefits that Epstein fraudulently obtained from the Government and People of the Virgin Islands and to protect assets for Epstein victims who may not have resolved their civil claims.”
George’s statement noted that the estate has also refused to disclose the details of several trusts established by Epstein, including the “1953 Trust,” the sole entity listed in Epstein’s last will and testament. The beneficiaries of that trust have not been publicly disclosed.
“These concerns, along with the alleged conduct of the co-executors … in facilitating Epstein’s conduct, including through marriages allegedly forced upon his victims, raise significant concerns about the appropriateness of their management of the Estate,” George wrote.
Given the reported progress in settlement talks, Willocks placed the case on hold for at least 90 days to allow for the parties to try to reach a negotiated resolution. He set a hearing for early May on the dispute over the legal fees.
Weinstein, however, predicted that the case could be resolved without the need to be in court again.
“This case is unbelievably close to resolution,” he told the judge. “I think if the parties focus on that effort, this will be done, and you probably won’t see us again — unless they don’t pay our fees and our expenses. That’s the only reason we’re going to be before you.”
(KENOSHA, Wis.) — An off-duty police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is under fire after a video went viral appearing to show him putting his knee on the neck of a 12-year-old girl at Lincoln Middle School on March 4, while trying to stop a fight that the girl was involved in.
A video of the incident taken by one of the students at the school was obtained by ABC News and shows the officer responding to a reported fight between two students.
The 12 year-old girl, whose name has not been revealed as she is a minor, appears to push the officer and then he pins her to the ground and appears to kneel on her neck, according to the video. It is unclear what happened before or after.
Black teen handcuffed in viral video of mall fight speaks out on police treatment
Attorney Drew DeVinney, who represents the girl and her father, Jerrel Perez, told ABC News that the girl “suffered injuries to her head and neck and is currently receiving medical treatment.”
Perez shared videos of the incident on his Facebook account and expressed outrage over the police officer’s tactics, comparing the image to George Floyd — the Minnesota man who was killed in May 2020 after a police officer placed a knee on his neck for nine minutes.
Amid a national push for police reform after Floyd’s death, Wisconsin banned the use of police chokeholds in June 2021 except in life threatening situations or in situations where a police officer had to defend themselves. Chokeholds include various police neck restraints.
“Mr. Perez was saddened and upset when he saw videos of an officer using a chokehold against his twelve-year-old daughter at school,” DeVinney said. “He then felt his world collapse as he listened to his child describe how she could not breath under the weight of an adult’s knee against the back of her neck.”
DeVinney said that since chokeholds have been banned in the state, the “incident should never have occurred.”
“The family hopes to find out why this happened, so that it does not happen again to anyone else’s child,” he added.
Perez told Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN in an interview published Tuesday that his daughter was arrested for disorderly conduct.
The Kenosha Police Department released a statement on Monday addressing the incident.
According to KPD, after a fight broke out between two students in the cafeteria during lunch, Kenosha Unified School District employees, including the off duty officer, intervened and one staff member was injured.
“K.P.D. has watched the video clip and has seen the photo which has been widely shared on social media over the weekend. We are keenly aware of the significant sensitivity surrounding the photo. K.P.D., together with K.U.S.D. is investigating the incident in its entirety while being cautious not to make conclusions based off of a small piece of information shared on social media,” police said. “Both agencies will look to our respective policies and procedures for guidance in this circumstance. It is the highest priority of those officers who work in our schools to provide a safe and secure learning environment for our children and staff.”
The officer is a 37-year-old male with four years of service at KPD, police said, but when asked by ABC News whether the officer’s identity will be revealed, a KPD spokesman declined to comment. Police did not comment when asked if there were any updates on the investigation and would not confirm if the 12 year-old girl was arrested for disorderly conduct.
Tanya Ruder, chief communications officer for the Kenosha Unified School District, told ABC News on Tuesday that the officer is a “part-time KUSD employee, who was hired as an off-duty Kenosha police officer,” and is “currently on a paid leave from the district.”
“We appreciate your patience as we work with the Kenosha Police Department to investigate the facts surrounding this incident,” she added.
DeVinney said that he is working to obtain security footage of the incident from the school.
Ruder told ABC News that they cannot release the footage as this is a pending investigation.
ABC News’ Keara Shannon contributed to this report.
