(NEW YORK) — One of the strongest geomagnetic storms of the year will create auroras in a large swath of the northern continental U.S., possibly even as far south as Oregon and Illinois.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center is tracking four “notable” coronal mass ejections [CME] — a sudden eruption of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun’s corona — that occurred between Monday and Wednesday.
At least one of the CMEs is expected to arrive late Thursday into early Friday as a strong G3 geomagnetic storm, according to NOAA.
Two dozen states could see the northern lights, NOAA’s viewline map shows: Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
Some of the northernmost states could continue to see auroras on Friday night, the map shows.
A geomagnetic storm watch will remain until Friday morning, according to NOAA. A G3-level geomagnetic storm could impact technology due to the impact on satellite operations — especially GPS technology, the Space Weather Prediction Center said.
Northern light displays occur when a solar flare interacts with the atoms and molecules in Earth’s atmosphere.
As the solar flare clashes with the upper atmosphere, it causes the atoms to emit a glow, creating a spectrum of light in the night sky.
The sun’s magnetic field reached its solar maximum phase of its 11-year cycle in October 2024, which has led to an increase in northern lights activity, according to NASA.
Intense magnetic activity caused by sunspots are expected to last through 2026, according to NOAA, and the best times to see the northern lights in the U.S. is between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.
The Space Weather Prediction Center recommends traveling to the darkest location possible for the best viewing.
Smartphones and digital cameras are more sensitive to the array of colors and may be able to capture images of the auroras, even if not visible to the naked eye, according to NASA.
(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — Nine people remain missing after a UPS plane departing Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport in Kentucky on Tuesday crashed in a ball of flames, killing at least 12 people. Officials continue to search through half a mile of “charred, mangled” debris to find any additional victims, authorities said.
“It’s been a long 36 hours of tragedy,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said at a press conference on Thursday.
UPS Flight 2976 crashed around 5:15 p.m. local time on Tuesday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 freighter plane was headed to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, when the plane’s left engine detached after a “large plume of fire” erupted from the plane’s left wing, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The aircraft’s three crew members are believed to be among the deceased, Greenberg said. The coroner is working on identifying the other nine victims who were found, Greenberg added.
Authorities will now begin to move the debris, including the “charred, mangled metal,” to see if they can locate additional individuals, Greenberg said.
The nine missing individuals are believed to have been near the scene at the time of the crash, Greenberg said.
“Our hope is that we have located all the victims at this point, but we don’t know,” Greenberg said.
Two individuals who were hospitalized still remain in critical condition, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said on Wednesday.
During a briefing on Wednesday, the NTSB said the plane’s black boxes have been recovered and they will be sent to Washington, D.C., for analysis.
A probable cause of the crash has not been revealed, the NTSB said.
“The plane lifted off and gained enough altitude to clear the fence at the end of runway 17R. Shortly after clearing that fence, it made impact with structures and the terrain off of the airport property,” according to NTSB board member Todd Inman.
The NTSB is scheduled to provide an update on the investigation on Thursday afternoon.
Video captured the moment the plane — loaded with thousands of gallons of fuel for a long-distance flight to Hawaii — crashed, resulting in a large fireball.
Two businesses on the ground were impacted by the crash, Beshear said.
The FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are now assisting in the investigation, Greenberg said.
(NEW YORK) — Eli Lilly’s next generation of weight loss drugs appear to show promise, possibly leading to even faster weight loss and added health benefits, early trial results suggest.
The pharmaceutical company presented the results for its newer drug at the annual ObesityWeek conference on Thursday.
Known as amylin analogs, these drugs slow digestion and curb appetite, similar to the more well-known GLP-1 drugs, but act through a different hormone.
Amylin is a hormone that is co-secreted with insulin through the pancreas and helps regulate blood glucose levels, appetite and gastric emptying, which is the process of food moving from the stomach to the intestines.
These drugs can treat type 2 diabetes and obesity by imitating the body’s natural amylin.
While the effects are similar to Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 drugs, Mounjaro and Zepbound, some studies have suggested that amylin analogs may lead to a lower loss of lean muscle mess relative to fat mass.
Early trial results of Eli Lilly’s amylin analog, known as eloralintide, helped patients who were overweight or obese — with at least one pre-existing condition related to obesity and without type 2 diabetes — lose 9.5% to 20.1% of their body weight.
This was compared to patients who lost 0.4% when taking a placebo, according to the trial results, which were published in the medical journal The Lancet.
Patients who were treated with eloralintide also saw improvements in blood pressure, fat levels in the blood stream and markers of inflammation.
Eli Lilly said it will begin phase 3 clinical trials after the promising results, with the aim to enroll patients by the end of the year.
“Obesity is a complex condition, and no single treatment works for everyone. To truly address each patient’s needs, we need therapies with different mechanisms of action so that each person can receive the treatment that offers the best balance of effectiveness and tolerability for them,” Dr. Liana K. Billings, lead author of the study and director of clinical and genetics research in diabetes and cardiometabolic disease at Endeavor Health in Skokie, Illinois, said in a statement.
She added that the early trial results underscore “the potential of amylin receptor agonists to expand our therapeutic strategies and better serve individuals living with obesity.”
Eli Lilly is not the only drug company testing amylin analogs. Novo Nordisk’s version, called cagrilintide, led to about a 12% weight loss over 68 weeks in early, previously published studies.
Novo is testing a combination of cagrilintide and semaglutide — the latter of which is known under the brand name Wegovy — that produced about a 22% weight loss in people with obesity but not diabetesin a previously published, late-stage clinical trial.
(NEW YORK) — A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered a lower court to take another look at whether President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money prosecution in Manhattan deserved to be heard in federal court.
After Trump was convicted last year on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, he sought to move the case into federal court from state court due to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year granting the president immunity for official acts.
U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied the request, concluding that Trump failed to show good cause for move after the jury had rendered its verdict.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Hellerstein to reconsider.
“We cannot be confident that in doing so, the District Court adequately considered issues relevant to the good cause inquiry so as to enable meaningful appellate review,” the opinion said. For example, the District Court did not consider whether certain evidence admitted during the state court trial relates to immunized official acts or, if so, whether evidentiary immunity transformed the State’s case into one that relates to acts under color of the Presidency.”
Trump was found guilty last year of orchestrating an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election by directing his personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, to pay $130,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to prevent her from publicly discussing a long-denied sexual encounter with Trump, and then falsifying New York business records to cover up that alleged criminal conduct.
New York Judge Juan Merchan, on the eve of Trump’s inauguration in January, sentenced him to an unconditional discharge — the lightest possible punishment allowed under New York state law — saying it was the “only lawful sentence” to prevent “encroaching upon the highest office in the land.”
Trump is separately appealing his conviction in a New York appellate court, arguing that it was based on evidence the Supreme Court later decided should have been off limits.
(WASHINGTON) — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that she will retire at the end of her current term in Congress, starting the long goodbye as the California Democrat wraps up one of the most consequential legislative careers in U.S. history.
“I want you, my fellow San Franciscans, to be the first to know,” Pelosi said in a video message. “I will not be seeking reelection to Congress. With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative.”
Pelosi’s term in Congress ends on Jan. 3, 2027.
Pelosi, 85, was the first woman elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and the first woman to lead a major political party in either chamber of Congress.
She has represented part of the San Francisco area in the House since 1987. This is her 19th term.
“As we go forward, my message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” Pelosi said in the video announcement.
For weeks, Pelosi had deflected questions about her political future, insisting her central focus was on ensuring that Prop 50 redistricting ballot measure passed in California. With that achievement in the rear-view mirror, Pelosi quickly made her plans clear that she will not seek another term in the House.
“I say to my colleagues in the House all the time, no matter what title they have bestowed upon me, Speaker, Leader, Whip, there has been no greater honor for me than to stand on the House floor and say, I speak for the people of San Francisco. I have truly loved serving as your voice,” Pelosi said in the video.
Pelosi’s rise Pelosi was elected as the first woman speaker in 2007 and elected again in 2019 — the only speaker in 70 years to have won the office twice after having lost the office when Republicans regained the House majority in 2010.
She led the House Democrats for 19 years, previously having served as House Democratic whip. She rose to prominence in 2002 after whipping the majority of the party against an Iraq War resolution that her mentor, then-Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri, crafted with President George W. Bush’s administration. She became minority leader when Gephardt stepped down to run for president.
“This is an historic moment,” she said in a speech after accepting the speaker’s gavel for the first time. “It’s an historic moment for the Congress. It’s an historic moment for the women of America.”
Her measured rise to power was characterized by her steady command of inside politics and her ability unite conflicting factions of Democrats in order to achieve legislative success.
Journalist Susan Page, the author of a biography about the House speaker, called Pelosi a “master of the inside game of politics and of being a legislative leader” in an April 2021 interview with ABC News’ “Powerhouse Politics” podcast.
Page revealed in her book that Pelosi originally planned to step down after the 2016 election but changed her mind after President Donald Trump was elected in 2016.
In 2019, Pelosi led the investigation that resulted in the third presidential impeachment in history following what the impeachment charges said were Trump’s alleged moves to solicit foreign intervention in the 2020 presidential election and withhold congressionally appropriated assistance to Ukraine.
Pelosi headed Trump’s second impeachment in 2021 after his supporters mounted a violent insurrection against the U.S. Capitol following the 2020 presidential election that Trump sought to overturn. She then led the House in creating a bipartisan select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack.
“I have enjoyed working with three presidents achieving historic investments in clean energy with President George Bush, transformed health care reform with President Barack Obama and forging the future from infrastructure to health care to climate action with President Joe Biden,” Pelosi said in a speech bidding farewell to the speakership in December 2022, notably leaving Trump off the list.
Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 26, 1940 to an Italian-American family. Her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was a Democratic politician who represented Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District in the House and later served as mayor of Baltimore. Her mother, Annunciata M. “Nancy” D’Alesandro, was also involved in Democratic politics as an organizer.
She met Paul Pelosi at Georgetown University in 1961. The couple married in 1963 and had five children. Pelosi raised their children in San Francisco and started a Democratic Party club at her home, until she began working for the presidential campaign of California Gov. Jerry Brown in 1976, when she was 36.
By 1981, she was the Democratic Party chair for the state of California.
In 1987, Pelosi won a special election for California’s then-5th Congressional District which encompassed most of the city of San Francisco. Pelosi advanced through the ranks of the House Democratic Caucus to be elected House minority whip in 2002. She was elevated to House minority leader the following year, becoming the first woman to hold each of those positions in either chamber of Congress.
In October 2022, Paul Pelosi was the victim of an attack at the couple’s San Francisco home. The assailant, later told authorities the attack was intended for Nancy Pelosi, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court.
Following the loss of a Democratic majority in the House in November 2022, Pelosi said she would be giving up the gavel for the last time.
“History will note she is the most consequential Speaker of the House of Representatives in our history,” Biden said in a statement at the time.
(LONDON) — Ukraine appears at increasing risk of losing the city of Pokrovsk, an important stronghold in eastern Ukraine where its embattled defenders have held off Russia’s grinding assaults for more than a year and a half.
The devastated city — which was home to some 60,000 people before Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion — has become a key focus of the Kremlin’s yearslong push to capture all of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Oblast, which along with neighboring Luhansk Oblast makes up the Donbas region.
Although Ukraine for now is still maintaining a defense, the fall of Pokrovsk would be one of the most serious defeats Ukraine has suffered since March, when its troops were forced to retreat from Russia’s Kursk region.
Russia has for many months been attempting to encircle Pokrovsk and neighboring Myrnohrad from the north and south. Moscow’s forces are now close to cutting off the main roads into Pokrovsk, with its two key supply routes already under fire from Russian drones making it dangerous and difficult to bring in supplies and also threatening Ukrainian forces ability to withdraw.
In recent weeks, a growing number of Russian troops have advanced into Pokrovsk, with small groups using infiltration tactics to penetrate into the heart of the city, according to both Ukrainian and Russian military analysts.
Intense street fighting is now taking place inside Pokrovsk, with Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi describing the situation as “difficult.”
“The enemy in Pokrovsk is paying the highest price for attempting to fulfill the Kremlin dictator’s task of occupying Ukrainian Donbas,” Syrskyi wrote in a post to Telegram on Saturday.
Ukrainians outnumbered, under fire Ukraine in recent days has launched counterattacks to push Russian forces back from the northern edge of Pokrovsk and keep a road there open to Myrnohrad.
Last weekend, for example, special forces troops under the command of Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) chief Kyrylo Budanov launched an audacious heliborne operation into territory that Russian forces claimed they already controlled. The GUR later uploaded video of the assault.
But the momentum in Pokrovsk appears to be with the attacking Russian forces. The city’s fall would be a blow to Ukrainian morale and would complicate its broader defense of the Donbas region.
There are also concerns in Ukraine that its loss could open a route for a Russian offensive towards the cities of Kostyantynivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk — the largest Donbas cities still controlled by Kyiv.
But military analysts who spoke to ABC News suggested that the fall of Pokrovsk alone would not necessarily imperil Ukraine’s forces holding the area.
“The Ukrainians could quite likely just as easily continue to defend outside Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad,” Pasi Paroinen of the Finland-based Black Bird Group open-source intelligence analysis organization told ABC News.
Though urban centers “usually make decent tactical defensive positions,” Paroinen added, “when you are already surrounded from three sides and your lines of communications have been cut off or are being disrupted as badly as they are right now over there, then those positions become liabilities, and they are just basically draining Ukrainian resources.”
A Ukrainian withdrawal may even improve Kyiv’s prospects, Paroinen said, assuming that new defenses have been prepared to the city’s west. If those new fortifications are not ready, “then they have a bigger problem than failing to hold Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad,” he said.
The Institute for the Study of War think tank suggested that Russia is unlikely to have the reserves to exploit Pokrovsk’s potential fall to advance rapidly to seize more of the Donbas region. Rather, Moscow’s mauled forces would likely have to continue their slow and costly forward grind, the ISW said.
Regardless, the situation is fraught for Ukrainian units still present in the city. The omnipresent threat of drones could complicate any Ukrainian retreat effort, which would likely see Kyiv’s troops attempt to break out to the west of the city using its under-fire supply routes.
If unable to retreat, large numbers of Ukrainian troops could find themselves cut off and potentially captured. To date and with the exception of the Russian siege of Mariupol in the early stages of the invasion, Kyiv’s forces have avoided being forced into mass surrender, even as they’ve gradually ceded territory in the east of the country.
The fall of Pokrovsk would also likely buoy Russian morale and send a signal that the war is going in its favor — a signal likely to be amplified by Russian state-aligned media and the Kremlin.
Moscow has amassed around 170,000 troops in the Donetsk region with a focus on Pokrovsk, according to remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday — a signal, he said, of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intent to capture the area.
Russia has not said how many troops it has deployed to the area. Ukrainian troops defending it are outnumbered eight-to-one, Zelenskyy said.
Visiting a command post in the Dobropillia sector — just north of Pokrovsk — this week, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces there are “defending Ukraine and our territorial integrity. This is our country, this is our East, and we will certainly do our utmost to keep it Ukrainian.”
Russian soldiers have already paid a high price. Ukraine’s General Staff said that, since the start of 2025, Moscow has lost some 200,000 soldiers who have been killed or wounded in Donetsk, most of them in the Pokrovsk and Kupyansk directions.
Russia does not release details about its casualties, making it difficult to independently confirm that figure. Ukrainian estimates of Russian casualties have broadly chimed with estimates from U.S. and European intelligence agencies since 2022.
A Russian victory in Pokrovsk will be welcome good news for the Kremlin as Putin maneuvers for advantage over his Ukrainian and American counterparts in anticipation of possible talks over a proposed ceasefire and eventual peace deal.
Russian Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov last week sought to play up the significance of Moscow’s advance on the city, telling Putin that up to 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers were “encircled” in areas including Pokrovsk — a claim later denied by Ukrainian officials and even disputed by some Russian military analysts, and that most military observers say is currently false.
Fight or flight? The current situation in Pokrovsk is following a similar pattern as other embattled Donbas cities like Bakhmut in 2023 and Avdiivka in 2024. In all three, Russian forces edged forward over several months at staggering human cost despite a resolute Ukrainian defense, according to figures released by Kyiv. In Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Ukrainian forces were eventually forced to abandon the cities.
Zelenskyy and his generals have been criticized by some military bloggers and analysts in Ukraine and abroad for their perceived sluggishness in ordering retreats from doomed Donbas cities.
“The Ukrainians are committing to defending these towns, I would say, for too long,” Paroinen said. “The Russians are already too deep, and I think in too many numbers inside Pokrovsk for Ukrainians to be able to throw them out.”
Ukrainian political and military officials have repeatedly said that military — not political — considerations are front of mind, framing their defense of certain cities as a means to further bleed Russia’s attacking units. Others have argued for a nimbler “defense-in-depth” approach to preserve Ukrainian lives and conserve stretched resources.
“Defense-in-depth is not something the political leadership appreciates too much,” Oleksandr V. Danylyuk — an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K. and the chairman of the Center for Defense Reforms think tank in Kyiv — told ABC News. “That’s why I would rather expect the government to fight for as long as they can.”
“I think that potentially, Ukraine can actually keep the ground in Pokrovsk, in the same way as the ground has been kept in Chasiv Yar, for instance,” Danylyuk — who has previously served as an adviser to top Ukrainian military and intelligence officials — added, referring to the pivotal fortress city to the northwest where Ukrainian troops have been pushed back but retain a foothold after a yearlong Russian offensive.
“I’m not quite sure if Pokrovsk is of the same importance militarily as Chasiv Yar,” Danlyluk said.
“Personally, I don’t see any real military reason to actually fight for Pokrovsk,” he said. “I understand political reasons. I understand symbolic reasons. And I believe that it is doable. It’s just a matter of price. And I’m not quite sure if we need to pay the price.”
Oleksandr Merezhko — a member of the Ukrainian parliament representing Zelenskyy’s party and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee — downplayed the criticism of the decision to fight for Pokrovsk.
“I guess our military philosophy is to defend a particular point till the last opportunity, but at the same time to save people,” he told ABC News. “To make the Russians lose more of their soldiers and to save our soldiers.”
But influential military figures, such as Vitalii Deineha — the well-known Ukrainian volunteer and founder of the Come Back Alive Foundation — are already calling for Kyiv to abandon the city.
“The General Staff reports to the top contain more and more lies every day,” Deineha wrote in a post to Facebook. “In fact, we have practically already lost Pokrovsk, which means that holding Myrnohrad also makes no sense.”
“We should not be afraid of rating drops, because there will be no elections: next year there will be war again. And someone will have to fight it,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — One year out from the 2026 midterms, major Democratic Party names have been taking the show on the road, saying that they’re helping the party lay the groundwork to battle for the U.S. House.
They also might be preparing to run for president.
ABC News has tracked at least 24 visits by Democratic presidential hopefuls to the campaign trail in the key 2025 elections that Democrats swept — New Jersey and Virginia’s gubernatorial races, New York City’s mayoral election, and California’s redistricting ballot proposition election.
Separately, ABC News has tracked at least 43 visits or planned visits so far in 2025 and 2026 by Democratic presidential hopefuls to key early or battleground presidential election states. Some of those states are also expected to be key House battlegrounds in 2026.
The early and battleground state count excludes if the state is their home state and does not count multiple visits by the same candidate.
“Anybody who’s looking at the 2028 cycle is starting to head out on the road … Putting an emphasis on states that could determine control of the House is your best bet, and probably should be your only focus between now and the midterms,” Sawyer Hackett, a veteran Democratic strategist who worked on presidential campaigns for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro, told ABC News.
2025 election states: New Jersey, Virginia, California, New York City
In New Jersey, Democratic candidate and U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill received support on the trail from a crowd of presidential hopefuls, including former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, California Rep. Ro Khanna, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
And in Virginia, Democratic candidate and former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger had the support of Beshear, Buttigieg, Emanuel, Gallego, Kelly, Khanna, Moore, Shapiro, and Whitmer.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Klobuchar separately stumped for “Proposition 50” in California, while Khanna and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stumped for Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in New York City.
Key early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina
Some of the presidential hopefuls have flocked to states with early nominating contests. The Democratic Party is currently reevaluating its calendar for when those early contests will occur, but Hackett said Democrats hoping to run are still covering their bases.
Iowa, which usually boasts first-in-the-nation caucuses, will host a closely watched Senate race next year. The state also has some competitive House seats.
Iowa hosted former Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in March and Buttigieg for a town hall in May, while Gallego visited in August and Emanuel came by in September. Kelly is set to visit in November, while Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen spoke to Iowa Democrats in September.
New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first presidential primaries and will hold a contested U.S. Senate race in 2026 for the seat being vacated by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, has hosted several lawmakers. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear visited earlier this month; Gallego and Khanna stopped by in August; Klobuchar was there in July and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker will visit in November.
When Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker visited in April, he painted a dire picture for his party.
“Fellow Democrats, for far too long, we’ve been guilty of listening to a bunch of do-nothing political types who would tell you that America’s house is not on fire, even as the flames were licking their faces,” Pritzker said.
South Carolina, meanwhile, also has an early presidential primary. This year, it saw visits from Beshear, Khanna and Newsom in July — who told rural residents “what we’re experiencing is America in reverse.”
Kelly visited in September, while Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Walz visited in late May for South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn’s “Fish Fry” event, which has often been fertile waters for would-be Pennsylvania Avenue hopefuls.
Both Walz and Moore have told ABC News previously they are not “running” for president or have no plans to run.
Battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
Several 2028 presidential hopefuls have also made their way around the seven battleground states, which have been considered winnable by either party and have an outsized influence on where campaigns place their resources.
A few potential candidates have or plan to pay visits to Arizona, including Ocasio-Cortez, who visited in March as part of the Fighting Oligarchy tour run by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. Whitmer visited in March, while Booker visited in April and Buttigieg visited in October. Harris, who recently said she’ll “possibly” run for president again, will be speaking there in April 2026.
Arizona has two congressional seats currently held by Republicans viewed as competitive, according to the Cook Political Report.
Georgia is often the site of both a close presidential race and critical down-ballot races. Khanna visited in August, while Harris made a stop there on her book tour in October.
Further north, Moore and Khanna have paid visits this year to the battleground state of Michigan, where both President Donald Trump and Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin won in 2024.
Wisconsin, which had the closest margin between Trump and Harris in 2024 of the battleground states, saw visits from Klobuchar in March, Khanna in May, Walz in March and September and Whitmer in October.
Nevada, which also often figures early in the presidential primary calendar, saw visits this year from Ocasio-Cortez in March, Pritzker and Khanna in August, and Gallego and Kelly in September.
North Carolina saw visits from Pritzker in July and Buttigieg in September. Harris visited for her book tour there in October, while fellow Californian Khanna will drop by in November.
Pennsylvania is also a key battleground state. Moore delivered a commencement address at Lincoln University in Gettysburg in May, the same month Gallego and Khanna paid their own visits. Notably, two Republicans in Pennsylvania, Reps. Scott Perry and Ryan Mackenzie, are expecting to face fierce fights to hold onto their seats.
Khanna recently said the party’s focus is to win back control of the House, which has a Republican majority.
“We have already a number of great candidates for 2028 that’ll emerge, but right now the focus has to be to take back the House in terms of political priority,” Khanna told public media organization WHYY.
(NEW YORK) — Over the last week, Martina Santos said she feels like she’s been living a nightmare.
The 67-year-old from the Bronx, New York, is one of the nearly 42 million Americans who saw their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits lapse on Nov. 1.
Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would partially fund the program using emergency funds, officials said it could take “a few weeks to up to several months.” Additionally, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that no benefits will be distributed until the government reopens.
The uncertainty of if or when SNAP benefits will be funded is leaving many Americans, like Santos, wondering whether she is going to pay rent, pay her bills or buy food.
“This is crazy. I’m nervous … thinking about how I can get the money to buy what I need right now, because I don’t have food stamps,” she told ABC News. “I need to make a decision if I pay my rent, when I pay my electricity or I buy food. It’s not easy.”
Santos, who volunteers at the nonprofit West Side Campaign Against Hunger, said she is asking her landlord if it’s possible to make a partial payment for the month of November.
She added that she’s going to a pantry this week because she doesn’t have much food in her house besides packets of beans and cereal, along with a gallon of milk her son bought for her.
In addition to food, Santos said the loss of benefits is particularly devastating because she uses them to purchase distilled water for her CPAP machine, which helps treat sleep apnea and, in turn, her high blood pressure.
“When I don’t use the machine, by the next day, I [wake] up tired, I don’t want to do anything, because I don’t sleep [well],” she said. “I want to wake up. How can I get out of this nightmare right now?”
Domestic violence survivors impacted by loss of SNAP benefits
Nicole, 42, from Long Island, New York — who asked that her last name not be used — started receiving SNAP benefits in 2024 after leaving a domestic violence situation.
She receives about $994 in SNAP benefits per month to help buy groceries for her and her three children — ages 12, 13 and 17 — which she said is a struggle.
“Food is so expensive right now. So, when you go into stores and you’re buying and trying to budget and save, it’s just not enough,” she told ABC News. “That’s the feeling that I get when I go food shopping. I’m a budget shopper. I try to look out for deals that they’re having and just stock up and be a bulk shopper.”
Nicole said she receives cash assistance and help from family, which has helped cover the cost of some groceries in the wake of SNAP benefits being halted, but added she has been occasionally checking her mobile app to see if the EBT card balance is still $0.
“I’ve been checking periodically just to see if it’s going to say that food stamps are going to be available. I just still have this little hope in praying that it will be there,” she said. “And I was thinking to myself today, like, ‘How long do you think it’s gonna go and thank God we’re getting the cash assistance and some people they just don’t have it. They just don’t have family.'”
She said she thinks this situation is going to last for a couple of months and said she is using this as motivation to hopefully get off of SNAP benefits for good.
Nicole Branca, CEO of New Destiny Housing, a nonprofit that provides housing to domestic violence survivors and their children, said 70% survivors that the organization serves receive SNAP benefits.
She said the loss of benefits can compound the physical and mental health struggles that many survivors already experience.
“Domestic violence survivors are particularly harmed by this loss of SNAP benefits because of the economic abuse that they’ve experienced,” she said. “Nearly 100% of DV survivors experience financial abuse as part of the abuse, so that means their abuser restricted their access to bank accounts, ruined their credit and didn’t allow them access to their own paycheck. And so we work with them to start from scratch.”
Branca continued, “It’s so hard to find the words to describe how devastating this is for our families, who are just starting to recover financially, emotionally, physically and the thought of not being able to pay for food on the table for their kids or having to decide between food and rent. It’s really taking a toll on our families.”
‘Anxious and concerned’
Elayne Masters, 68, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, started receiving SNAP benefits in 2017 after suffering a traumatic brain injury following a fall down a flight of stairs.
In addition to her injury, Masters also suffers from hypothyroidism, which occurs when the thyroid gland doesn’t make and release enough thyroid hormone in the bloodstream, as well as Lyme disease, an inflammatory illness usually caused by an infected tick bite.
Masters typically receives about $250 in SNAP benefits, saying it allows her to buy healthy foods that help improve symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, confusion and joint pain.
She said her various conditions are improved by a healthy diet, and she’s worried that she won’t be able to buy nutrient-dense food without SNAP benefits.
“Foods that are basically high amounts of produce, vegetables and fruits, help to decrease the problematic health symptoms that I have and when I’m eating a really healthy diet, I’m doing better, I’m seeing the doctor less frequently, I’m taking fewer medications. I’m more functioning,” she told ABC News.
“And when I’m not able to pay for those healthy foods, my health declines, my cognitive functioning declines,” Masters went on. “If I weren’t able to maintain those healthy levels of eating, because it affects me so dramatically, so it’s a huge, huge difference in my quality of life and my ability to be a productive part of society as well.”
Masters said she went to a pantry last Wednesday and received a pre-packaged bag of food after attending a meeting at the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
She said she is “anxious and concerned” about being able to pay her electric bill, car insurance and house insurance within the next month.
“Winter is coming, and heating bills will be higher. If anything breaks down, I’m in trouble,” she said. “The holidays are coming, and I may not be able to finish gift shopping.”
In the past, to make ends meet, Masters said she has done things to stretch the shelf life of her food, such as cutting mold off a block of cheese, peeling the rotting layers of an onion to reach the layers that are still good or saving vegetable scraps to make her own broth.
“I’m starting to consider, okay, what kinds of things can I do that are going to help me stretch my dollars and some of the strategies that I’ve used in the past?” Masters said. “I may be able to skate through a month, but much beyond that, and it’s going to be difficult.”
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(NEW YORK)- — A father’s lawsuit against the online gaming platform Roblox will remain in the public eye after a California judge denied the company’s attempt to force the dispute into a private resolution process.
While the ruling issued last week by California Superior Court Judge Nina Shapirshteyn applies only to one case in San Mateo County, attorneys representing dozens of families view the ruling as a legal precedent that opens the door for other victims to pursue their lawsuits against the company through the judicial system.
Roblox, launched in 2006, has been at the center of recent controversy, with some parents alleging that the platform has been used to help facilitate child sexual exploitation and grooming. The company is facing over 35 lawsuits, with one law firm telling ABC News that it is investigating thousands of child sexual exploitation and abuse claims.
Roblox had nearly 83 million average daily active users in 2024, according to its financial reports. It reported $3.6 billion in revenue last year.
The attorneys general of Louisiana and Kentucky have filed lawsuits against the company, and recently Florida’s attorney general subpoenaed Roblox for information about its age verification and chat moderation policies.
The company has consistently responded to the lawsuits and allegations by stating that protecting children is a priority and announcing investments in safety measures, including artificial intelligence age verification.
“We are deeply troubled by any allegations about harms to children online and are committed to setting the industry standard for safety,” a spokesperson for Roblox told ABC News. “To protect our users, we have rigorous, industry-leading policies, including limiting chat for younger users and employing advanced filters designed to block the sharing of personal information. Roblox also does not allow users to share images or videos. We also collaborate closely with law enforcement.”
The Roblox spokesperson told ABC News the company disagrees with the ruling from the California judge and plans to appeal.
‘The gateway to all of this happening’ Steve, the father whose lawsuit prompted last week’s ruling in California, told ABC News that in 2023, he created a Roblox account for his son who was 13 years old at the time.
A year later, Steve — who asked ABC News not to publish his last name out of concern for his son’s safety — made a devastating discovery. He says he found messages on his son’s phone from an individual who, according to civil court documents, found his son on a children’s game in the online platform and initiated contact, despite him and his son not being “friends” on the platform.
According to Steve and court records, the perpetrator, who had initially posed as a 16-year-old, moved communication off of Roblox and onto Discord, a separate communication platform. Once there, he allegedly began exploiting Steve’s son by offering Robux gift cards — Roblox’s in-game currency — in exchange for explicit images and videos.
The messages Steve found allegedly included direct threats after his son failed to show up to an arranged in-person meeting, with the accused predator reminding the teenager that he knew his New Jersey address, according to the complaint.
“He had our home address, what school he went to, his phone number, everything,” Steve said.
Steve told ABC News he immediately contacted local police who later told him that the man who messaged his son was a known predator who was facing charges in another case for sexually exploiting another child. According to the complaint, authorities believe the same individual similarly exploited at least 26 other children using online platforms.
In February, Steve filed a lawsuit against Roblox and Discord, alleging the companies misled him and other parents about the platforms’ safety and features, leading directly to his son’s “sexual exploitation and abuse.”
In a statement to ABC News, a Discord spokesperson said the company is “committed to safety” and said it requires all users to be 13 to use their platform.
“We maintain strong systems to prevent the spread of sexual exploitation and grooming on our platform and also work with other technology companies and safety organizations to improve online safety across the internet,” the spokesperson said.
“I’ve traditionally kept myself as a ‘helicopter parent,’ so I did all my research,” Steve said. “I did my best to enable every parental control I could find, and a lot of them are pretty confusing, but I tried my best to keep him safe online and teach him as best I could, and it still happened.”
Steve told ABC News that Roblox “was the gateway to all of this happening” because that’s where “all the conversations started.”
‘Everyone deserves a day in court’ Alexandra Walsh, the attorney representing Steve and about a dozen other clients suing the company, said Roblox’s response to the lawsuit was to file a motion to compel arbitration — a private, out-of-court process where claims are settled confidentially by a third party.
“[It was] a motion to silence this family, to prevent this family from presenting what happened to them to a judge and jury, and instead put it into a secret rigged system,” Walsh told ABC News. “Roblox has followed suit in multiple other cases … they’ve either filed similar motions to compel arbitration, or made very clear that they intend to do so.”
In court filings, Roblox has said the dispute must be settled confidentially, because Steve, when he signed up for Roblox, was provided notice of the Terms of Service and the Arbitration Agreement mandating that any dispute “will be subject only to binding arbitration.”
The company said in filings that their arbitration agreement is “consumer friendly and cost friendly.”
Last week, Judge Shapirshteyn rejected Roblox’s motion to compel arbitration.
Walsh told ABC News the company has a right to defend itself, but it should do so “in the light of day so the public can see, and so that a jury made up of citizens of this country can decide if they’re liable or not.”
Steve told ABC News the ruling was “reassuring.”
“Everyone deserves a day in court, but Roblox and these companies don’t want that to happen,” Steve said. “They want to keep things quiet.”
Steve told ABC News that his family moved across the country because they did not feel safe in their home.
“It was an eye-opening experience,” he said. “Predators aren’t down at your local park anymore. They’re not hanging out in the dark city places … it has become just so easy for them to come online and pretend to be somebody that they’re not.”
(NEW YORK) — Typhoon Kalmaegi was barreling on Thursday morning toward Vietnam after leaving a trail of destruction in the Philippines.
The storm was expected to make landfall later on Thursday or early on Friday, the U.S. Consulate in Vietnam said in a weather advisory.
Vietnam’s Prime Minister urged the country’s emergency response agencies and ministries to ready themselves as the country braces for the impact of the typhoon.
The Vietnamese National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting said coastal areas may see waves up to 26 feet and a storm surge up to 2 feet. Winds were expected to be as strong as about 84 mph, the center said.
The country is already battling flash floods and landslides after record rainfall in late October. Those floods killed at least 35 people, officials told AFP.
Some 100,000 homes flooded and the country experienced more than 150 landslides, Vietnam’s environment ministry said, according to AFP.
The typhoon is expected to bring a heightened risk of flooding, flash floods and landslides, weather and state officials said.
“Additionally, infrastructure already weakened by previous flooding may be increasingly unreliable,” the U.S. Mission’s advisory added.
A trail of destruction in the Philippines
In the Philippines, where the typhoon made landfall on Tuesday amid heavy rains and flooding, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. approved a state of emergency declaration on Thursday.
That declaration was intended to “expedite government response efforts in areas” affected by the storm, according to a press release from the official Philippine Information Agency.
The storm killed at least 66 people, according to state-run media. The official Philippine News Agency reported that “most” of those deaths “were due to fallen debris, landslides and flooding.”
Another six Philippine Air Force personnel were killed in a helicopter crash on Tuesday while performing humanitarian assistance, officials said.
The country was already recovering from an offshore earthquake and typhoons in the last few months. The Philippine Area of Responsibility is hit an average of 20 per year, most in the world, according to the Philippines Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.
Another potential super typhoon is approaching the country now, local officials said in a news release. That storm is expected to make landfall either Friday night or Saturday morning, officials said.
