(NEW YORK) — One winter storm has wreaked havoc on Midwest roadways, and another is gearing up to bring a dangerous wave of ice and snow to the Northeast.
The first storm slammed the Midwest Tuesday, dropping 10 to 30 inches of snow in some areas.
The Minnesota State Patrol reported 373 crashes in the last 24 hours, injuring 34 people.
The second storm is forecast to bring major ice accumulation this week from Texas to New York state.
On Wednesday the storm will create horrendous conditions on roads in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. A winter storm warning has been issued for Dallas where ice will be the biggest threat.
The storm then moves north, bringing rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow to the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
On Thursday morning an icy mix will bring sleet, snow and freezing rain to the Mid-Atlantic and Washington, D.C., area.
Thursday night, a more significant wave of ice and snow will arrive to the Interstate 95 corridor from D.C. to Philadelphia and into northern New Jersey.
Freezing rain and sleet will fall Thursday night into Friday morning from Philadelphia to New York City to New York’s Hudson Valley.
Friday morning’s rush hour may be very dangerous in New Jersey, New York City and up to Boston.
The storm will start to move out Friday afternoon with lingering snow most of the afternoon in New England.
Heavy snow is expected from central New York into Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Some areas could see up to 1 foot of snow, especially from Albany, New York, to Boston.
Northern Pennsylvania, the lower Hudson Valley, Connecticut and northern New Jersey could get 4 to 8 inches of snow.
Ice, sleet and freezing rain will be the biggest threat for Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey and New York City.
(ATLANTA) — Ahmaud Arbery Day has been officially recognized in Georgia on the second anniversary of Arbery’s death, just one day after his killers were found guilty on all counts in the federal hate crime case surrounding his death.
The Ahmaud Arbery Foundation, a mental wellness organization focused on Black men that was founded by Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, announced that the non-profit will offer six $3,000 scholarships for higher education opportunities to seniors from Arbery’s former high school.
“Nothing will bring my son back, but I know that God wants us to repurpose the pain, my pain into service to make life better for other young men,” Cooper-Jones said at an event at the National Center of Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta.
She added, “It is my honor to serve others in this way in recognition of my son’s life.”
The Georgia General Assembly passed a resolution on Feb. 2 to permanently declare Feb. 23 to be Ahmaud Arbery Day.
“The state of Georgia honors one of the most distinguished citizens,” said state representative Sandra G. Scott at the Wednesday event as she read the resolution. “Mr. Arbery was a loving son, brother of Jasmine Arbery, uncle, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend who left an impact on countless Georgians and Americans.”
She continued, “A compassionate and generous man, Mr. Arbery will long be remembered for his love of family and community.”
They encouraged communities to “run with ‘Maud,” by running 2.23 miles annually on this day, as a call for racial justice and equity in honor of Ahmaud who was killed while jogging.
In the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Georgia, where Arbery was killed, a ceremony is planned near the site of his death at 1 p.m., where religious leaders and family will honor his memory and release doves.
A candlelight march is also planned for later that afternoon at 5 p.m. at the Brunswick Ahmaud Arbery mural.
A prayer vigil will be held in Marietta by the Cobb County’s District Attorney’s office at 2 p.m. on Marietta Square.
The memorials follow celebrations outside of the federal courthouse in Brunswick, after the guilty hate crime verdict was read against Arbery’s three killers on Tuesday.
“We got justice for Ahmaud in the federal and the state,” Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery, said following the jury’s announcement.
Gregory McMichael, his son, Travis McMichael, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, were guilty of being motivated by racial hate, interfering with Arbery’s civil rights and attempted kidnapping in Arbery’s death.
Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was chased down and shot to death by the three men while he was out for a Sunday jog on Feb. 23, 2020, in Brunswick. All three men have also been convicted in connection with his murder.
Travis McMichael, who delivered the fatal shot, and Gregory McMichael were sentenced to life without possible parole. Bryan, 53, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
ABC News’ Nadine El-Bawab and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
(ATLANTA) — Ahmaud Arbery Day has been officially recognized in Georgia on the second anniversary of his death, just one day after his killers were found guilty on all counts in the federal hate crime case surrounding Arbery’s death.
The Georgia General Assembly passed a resolution on Feb. 2 to permanently declare Feb. 23 as Ahmaud Arbery Day. Several events have been planned throughout the city by friends, family and local leaders to honor his memory.
The Ahmaud Arbery Foundation, a mental wellness organization focused on Black men that was founded by Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, will hold a private event at the National Center of Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, at 10:30 a.m. where the organization will announce plans to foster “positivity” in light of the tragic killing.
In the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Georgia, where Arbery was killed, a ceremony is planned near the site of his death at 1 p.m., where religious leaders and family will honor his memory and release doves.
A candlelight march is also planned for later that afternoon at 5 p.m. at the Brunswick Ahmaud Arbery mural.
A prayer vigil will be held in Marietta by the Cobb County’s District Attorney’s office at 2 p.m. on Marietta Square.
The memorials follow celebrations of justice outside of the federal courthouse in Brunswick, after the guilty hate crime verdict was read against Arbery’s three killers.
“We got justice for Ahmaud in the federal and the state,” Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery, said following the jury’s announcement.
Gregory McMichael, his son, Travis McMichael, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan were guilty of being motivated by racial hate, interfering with Arbery’s civil rights and attempted kidnapping in Arbery’s death.
Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was chased down and shot to death by the three men while he was out for a Sunday jog on Feb. 23, 2020, in Brunswick.. All three men have also been convicted in connection with his murder.
Travis McMichael, who delivered the fatal shot, and Gregory McMichael were sentenced to life without possible parole. Bryan, 53, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
ABC News’ Nadine El-Bawab and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — Opening arguments will take place Wednesday in the trial for the sole Louisville, Kentucky, police officer charged in connection to the “no-knock” search warrant raid that killed Breonna Taylor.
Brett Hankison is charged with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment of Taylor’s neighbors. He allegedly fired shots that endangered three people who were inside an apartment directly behind Taylor’s.
Hankison was fired from the Louisville Police Department after the March 2020 shooting.
Hankison is the only officer charged in connection with the incident and no officers have been charged with shooting Taylor.
The deadly shooting took place shortly after midnight on March 13, 2020. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black medical worker, was asleep at home with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker.
Officers arrived and executed a “no-knock” search warrant as part of an investigation into a suspected drug operation, allegedly linked to Taylor’s ex-boyfriend.
Walker, who claims he thought the officers were intruders, fired one gunshot, striking an officer in the leg. In response, police opened fire, and Taylor was shot multiple times. No drugs were found in Taylor’s apartment.
Hankison has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
Two other officers involved were also fired from the police department: the officer who fired the shot that killed Taylor per a ballistics analysis and the officer who prepared the search warrant.
(WASHINGTON) — The National Guard Bureau said on Tuesday night that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved requests for 700 National Guard members to aid Washington ahead of the arrival of at least three separate trucker convoys.
Those convoys plan to head to the Washington area to potentially disrupt traffic beginning Wednesday.
About 400 members of the D.C. National Guard and 300 members from outside of the district will support traffic control. None will carry firearms “or take part in law enforcement or domestic-surveillance activities,” according to the National Guard Bureau.
Trucker convoy protests are expected to continue through early March, before and after Biden’s first State of the Union address on March 1.
Protestors are traveling from California, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to voice concerns about a myriad of issues, from COVID-19 vaccine mandates to domestic oil production. The convoys are coming just weeks after similar protests in Canada’s capital, Ottawa, and on the U.S.-Canada border paralyzed traffic and trade.
Officers from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department will increase patrols on Feb. 22 through March 5, shortly after the State of the Union, according to an internal MPD message obtained by ABC News. The department will also have two rapid response teams ready.
On Tuesday, district officials sent a push alert warning residents of potential disruptions to traffic this week. Sources told ABC News that fencing outside of the Capitol is expected to be raised on Wednesday.
Bob Bolus Towers & Truckers for America is one of three convoys expected to begin their journey to Washington this week. All groups have said they will be coming to the D.C. area, but they stopped short of saying they would be in downtown Washington, alluding to plans to disrupt traffic in Maryland and Virginia.
Convoy leader Bob Bolus, a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, told ABC News affiliate WJLA-TV on Tuesday that he plans to travel from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to protest in Virginia and Maryland. He told WJLA he planned to stay out of Washington, but, unlike at the protests in Ottawa, he doesn’t plan to instruct his convoy to camp out on the highway. Instead, he plans to cause gridlock on Interstate 495.
“We’re not camping on the Beltway. We’re gonna have our voices heard and let them understand this is only the tip of the iceberg,” Bolus told WJLA.
He also said that if he doesn’t have enough support, he will scrap his plans to protest at the last minute.
Another group, The People’s Convoy, is set depart from Adelanto, California, on Wednesday for an 11-day journey to the beltway area. That group is calling for the Biden administration to end the COVID-19 National Emergency and to lift all mask and vaccine mandates.
The People’s Convoy, like Bolus, said in a statement that it “will abide by agreements with local authorities, and terminate in the vicinity of the DC area, but will NOT be going into DC proper.”
“With the advent of the vaccine and workable therapeutic agents, along with the hard work of so many sectors that contributed to declining COVID-19 cases and severity of illness, it is now time to re-open the country,” the group wrote in the statement.
The American Truckers Freedom Convoy, a group funded by “The Great American Patriot Party” political action committee, said it will travel beginning March 1. Its convoys will arrive in the Washington area from California, Georgia and Ohio. They are currently fundraising for their upcoming effort.
Traffic in the city could be disrupted by the convoys, D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee said on Friday.
“I think we have to be realistic about, you know, what we could potentially see there will be disruptions to traffic … And I think we need to be very candid with the public about what some of the expectations based upon what we’ve seen in Ottawa, what some of those things could be that we might see here in the District,” Contee said.
However, Contee noted Washington is different than Ottawa when it comes to rerouting due to protests: “We have alternative modes of transportation. People love to bike in our city. People love to walk in our city.”
(KAUAI, Hawaii) — Four people are dead after a civilian-contracted helicopter crashed at a U.S. naval facility, officials said.
The incident occurred at the Pacific Missile Range Facility, a Navy base in Kauai, Hawaii, shortly after 10 a.m. local time Tuesday.
The helicopter was operated by Croman Corporation, which “provides range support services” to the base, a Pacific Missile Range Facility spokesperson said in a statement.
The helicopter was taking part in a range training operation on the base in Kekaha when it crashed on the northern area of the installation, the spokesperson said.
Emergency personnel responded to the crash, the spokesperson said. There were four fatalities. The names of those killed have not yet been released.
All four crew members were Croman employees, Brian Beattie, the company’s director of operations, said in a statement.
“The helicopter was conducting routine training operations under contract to the U.S. Navy,” Beattie said. “No further details are available.”
An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident, the Pacific Missile Range Facility spokesperson said.
The National Transportation Safety Board also confirmed it is investigating the crash of a Sikorsky S-61N helicopter near Kekaha.
The Federal Aviation Administration is also investigating, Beattie said.
Pacific Missile Range Facility is the “world’s largest instrumented, multi-dimensional testing and training missile range,” according to the U.S. Navy. It has over 42,000 square miles of controlled airspace.
(BRIDGEWATER, N.J.) — The 14-year-old who was handcuffed by police as they broke up a fight at a New Jersey mall is speaking out about the incident, which prompted an internal investigation over the police’s apparent treatment of the Black teen.
In a viral video of the incident, police are seen responding to a fight between the teen, Kye, and another teenager at the Bridgewater Commons Mall in New Jersey on Feb. 12, but after breaking up the fight, police only handcuffed Kye, who is Black.
Kye, who is only being identified by his first name at the request of his mother, told GMA3 that the experience has been “stressful” for him and he didn’t expect his story to get national attention.
“It’s been kind of weird thinking about, like, how I was treated differently based on the color of my skin,” he said.
The video, which was taken by a bystander, appears to show the two teens arguing and then they begin to throw punches at each other. Kye told New York ABC station WABC that the fight started after the other teen began picking on Kye’s friend and he stood up to him. Shortly after, two Bridgewater Township police officers arrived at the scene and broke up the altercation.
In the video, the female officer sits the other teen who exchanged punches on the sofa and then proceeds to assist the male officer in handcuffing Kye.
The other teenager involved in the fight sat on a couch watching as both police officers put their knees on Kye’s back, the video showed.
Kye said he was held for about 30 minutes and was released without charges.
Ben Crump, the attorney representing Kye’s family, told GMA3 “there’s no question” that this incident is a case of “biased policing.”
“We have ocular proof. I mean, you see it with your own eyes,” Crump said, referring to the video.
The Bridgewater Township Police Department told ABC News in a statement that police have asked the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office to assist in an internal investigation of the incident.
“We recognize that this video has made members of our community upset and are calling for an internal affairs investigation,” police said, urging anyone with additional videos of the incident to share them with law enforcement.
Asked by ABC News if any action has been taken regarding the officers, police did not return a request for comment.
Frank Roman Jr., deputy chief of the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office, told ABC News in a statement that the incident is being investigated by the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office Internal Affairs Unit.
Asked if there are any updates, the prosecutor’s office said Monday that the investigation is ongoing.
Kye’s mother, Ebone, told GMA3 that the support her son has gotten from the public has been “awesome,” but “he’s had a really hard time” and is seeking counseling.
“We can’t really get him out the house, we’re worried about, you know, the hate that possibly can come to him,” she said.
Crump said that the family wants the officers to be held accountable.
“If there’s no accountability, there’s no deterrent,” he said. “We can’t have two justice systems in America.”
Asked what he wants to see happen, Kye said that he wants the officers to get fired.
“There’s gonna be some type of change so we aren’t treated differently because of the color of our skin,” he said.
ABC News’ William Gretsky and Ben Stein contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Officials are investigating what caused a fire that killed two people and displaced multiple residents at an apartment building in Washington, D.C., early Tuesday.
The two that died, a man and a woman, had been taken to the hospital in critical condition, but succumbed to their injuries, according to D.C. Fire and EMS.
The two-alarm fire began early Tuesday on the third floor of the apartment building in Southwest Washington, D.C., the fire department said.
After arriving at the scene, around 100 firefighters were able to knock down the fire and get all of the residents out of the building, according to the fire department.
Fire officials said Tuesday that there are 40 apartments deemed uninhabitable due to the fire. Residents are being assisted with housing options.
They said they will return to the scene to distribute fire prevention information and test all smoke alarms, replacing or installing new ones as needed.
(ST. PAUL, Minn.) — A federal jury is poised to begin deliberating the fates of three former Minneapolis police officers accused of violating George Floyd’s civil rights by not providing medical aid during his fatal arrest and failing to stop their senior officer’s excessive use of force.
The U.S. District Court jury in St. Paul, Minnesota, is expected to get the case Wednesday morning and begin weighing the evidence against Thomas Lane, 38, J. Alexander Kueng, 28, and Tou Thao, 35.
The panel heard closing arguments on Tuesday from prosecutors and defense attorneys, but was sent home before being handed the case due to a snow emergency declared in St. Paul.
In her closing argument, U.S. Assistant Attorney Manda Sertich asked the jury to convict all three defendants, alleging they ignored their duty to intervene as they watched Derek Chauvin “commit a violent crime” by kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed Floyd for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, rendering him unconscious and without a detectable pulse.
“No one did a thing to help,” Sertich told the jury.
Chauvin was convicted in state court last year of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison. He later pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges stemming from Floyd’s 2020 death and the physical abuse of a handcuffed 14-year-old boy in 2017.
“A human being, someone’s son, father, friend, significant other, George Perry Floyd Jr. died a slow and torturous death … underneath their knees, handcuffed, unarmed, not resisting in broad daylight on a public street,” Sertich said.
Defendants failed to follow ‘plain, old common sense’
Sertich cited the inactions of all three men, starting with Thao, who testified during the trial that he never touched Floyd and was focused on “crowd control” during the Memorial Day 2020 episode. But Sertich said Thao refused to stop Chauvin’s brutality despite witnesses, including an off-duty firefighter, yelling at him to check on Floyd’s well-being.
She said Kueng and Lane, both rookie cops at the time of Floyd’s death, and Thao failed to follow “plain, old common sense.”
“Chauvin’s use of force was obvious and unreasonable to everyone, including bystanders which included juveniles,” Sertich said.
She added that Thao appeared more concerned with arguing and belittling “people trying to make him do what the law — not to mention human decency and common sense — required him to do.”
Turning her attention to Kueng, Sertich said that even as Floyd begged for his life and repeatedly complained he could not breathe, Kueng pressed the handcuffed man’s wrists into his back and laughed when Chauvin told Floyd that talking uses a lot of oxygen.
While Lane questioned Chauvin about whether they should put Floyd on his side to help ease his breathing and went with Floyd in the ambulance to assist paramedics, Sertich said he “did nothing to give George Floyd the medical aid he knew Mr. Floyd so desperately needed.”
All three defendants testified during the trial and each attempted to shift the blame to Chauvin, who was a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department.
“I would trust a 19-year veteran to figure it out,” Thao testified. Lane told the jury that Chauvin “deflected” all his suggestions to help Floyd and Kueng testified that Chauvin “was my senior officer and I trusted his advice.”
Sertich told the jury that Chauvin barely spoke to Lane, Kueng and Thao during the incident and certainly wasn’t “ordering them around.”
‘A tragedy is not a crime’
Thao’s attorney, Robert Paule, acknowledged in his closing argument that Floyd’s death was a tragedy.
“However, tragedy is not a crime,” Paule said.
Paule argued that the actions of all three officers showed they did not willfully neglect to help Floyd. Paule said Thao was the officer who radioed for an ambulance to step up its dispatch to the scene and suggested using a hobble device to restrain Floyd.
He also said Thao believed that Floyd was suffering from excited delirium, a syndrome in which a subject displays wild agitation and violent behavior, and the best thing to do was hold him down until paramedics arrived.
“They didn’t do that for a bad purpose,” Paule said. “They did that to get medical people there quickly.”
He asked the jury to review videos of the incident presented at the trial, noting, “Three officers are not able to control a person in handcuffs.”
Kueng’s attorney, Thomas Plunkett, said his client’s inadequate training by the Minneapolis Police Department, lack of experience and his “perceived subordinate role to Mr. Chauvin” combined for a perfect storm that cost Floyd his life and disproves the government’s allegations that Kueng willfully deprived Floyd of medical aid and failed to stop Chauvin.
Plunkett said Kueng was “under the influence” of Chauvin, his training officer.
“He respected this person. He looked up to this person. He relied on this person’s experience,” Plunkett said.
He added, “We often hear about the mob mentality. Courts are this country’s protection against the mob and courts depend vitally on you as jurors.”
Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray, wrapped up the closing arguments by accusing the government of indicting an “innocent man.”
“In other words, you can do an innocent act and you can end up in a courtroom like this because that’s what happened to Thomas Lane,” Gray told the jury.
Gray left the jury to ponder the question, “Why did the government indict them?”
“We all know why,” Gray said. “Politics, ladies and gentlemen.”
ABC News’ Whitney Lloyd contributed to this report.
(TRENTON, N.J.) — New Jersey announced Thursday it is notifying nearly 200,000 homes and businesses that they are receiving drinking water from service lines contaminated with lead, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The announcement came on the heels of the state’s Lead Service Line Replacement law, which was enacted in July 2021. The law calls for the replacement of these service lines by 2031.
The 186,830 known lead service lines identified by the DEP feed into buildings all over the state, officials said.
A map on the DEP’s website allows residents to enter their addresses and see if they are affected.
Service lines are the portion of a pipe that connect a water main to a building inlet and therefore could be serving multiple units within a property and could be serving both residential and commercial properties, according to the New Jersey DEP. Therefore, the total number of people affected is unknown.
New Jersey alone has almost 3,500 drinking water systems, Shawn LaTourette, the state environmental commissioner, said Thursday.
“There is no safe level of lead in drinking water or elsewhere,” LaTourette said. “We have to eliminate it where we find it, period.”
“It poses a significant threat, particularly to our children” LaTourette added.
Water systems were required by the new law to notify residents no later than Monday if their drinking water was coming from one of the identified lead service lines.
Water systems submit inventories of the lead service lines in their service areas to the DEP, most recently in January.
According to the DEP, homes and buildings constructed before 1988 must determine if interior lead solder or lead pipes are present.
The DEP also said that those notified they have a lead service line need to replace it in full, from main to home.
Until the lines are replaced, residents are encouraged to let the water run from the tap for about 15 to 30 seconds to flush out the lead.
