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(NEW YORK) — The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season ended on Tuesday after 21 named storms, continuing a record-breaking pattern from 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This year’s storms used each of the names from the tropical cyclone list, marking the first time in recorded history the list has been exhausted two years in a row, NOAA said. Storms are named when wind speeds hit 39 mph.

This was also the seventh year in a row that a named storm formed before the official start of the season on June 1, NOAA said.

Before the season began, NOAA predicted a 60% chance that the season would be busier than usual, but said it would not surpass 2020’s historic level of activity. Seven of the named storms in 2021 were classified as hurricanes.

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season had 30 named storms, the most in recorded history, with two more than in 2005, which included Hurricane Katrina. Six of 2020’s storms were designated as hurricanes.

The effects of climate change already may be evident in the behavior of recent hurricane seasons.

The increase in activity in the past two years can be attributed to higher-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, weaker tropical Atlantic trade winds and an enhanced west African monsoon, NOAA scientists said.

Although most of the storms stayed out in the open ocean, 2021 proved to be more costly than 2020.

Total losses due to property and infrastructure damage this year have totalled about $105 billion — eclipsing $100.2 billion in 2020, according to NOAA.

Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in Louisiana in late August and tracked northeast to New York City before exiting into the Atlantic Ocean, was responsible for about $60 billion in damage alone, according to NOAA.

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(OXFORD, Mich.) — Three people, all believed to be students, were killed in a shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford, Michigan, on Tuesday, authorities said.

Six others were shot and injured, including a teacher, authorities said. Their conditions were not immediately clear.

The suspected shooter, a 15-year-old male student, was taken into custody within five minutes, authorities said. A handgun has been confiscated, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said.

Authorities said they believe he acted alone. The teen has not mentioned a motive, authorities said.

Over 100 calls poured into 911 as the shooting unfolded, authorities said. The entire incident lasted five minutes, authorities said.

Oxford is about 40 miles north of Detroit.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — A woman prosecutors have referred to as “Jane,” one of the three alleged minor victims whose allegations against Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell are detailed in a federal indictment, testified on the second day of her trial.

She told the jury that she met Maxwell and Epstein while attending summer camp at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, the beginning of what prosecutors earlier called “a nightmare that would last for years.”

After returning home to Palm Beach, Florida, “Jane” said, she began visiting Epstein at his seaside mansion, where she testified that she had her first sexual contact with Epstein in 1994 when she was just 14. According to “Jane,” Epstein abruptly took her to his pool house, pulled down his pants and “proceeded to masturbate on me” while she remained “frozen in fear.”

The abuse continued, “Jane” said, during subsequent visits to Epstein’s house, and Maxwell contributed, she alleged, by “leading me to a massage table and showing me how Jeffrey likes to be massaged.”

On Tuesday morning, Epstein’s former pilot, Larry Visoski, testified that he met “Jane” in the cockpit of Epstein’s plane, though he later acknowledged he did not know how old she was at the time and could not recall whether she had actually taken a flight.

Maxwell faces a six-count indictment for allegedly conspiring with and aiding Epstein in his sexual abuse of underage girls between 1994 and 2004. She has been held without bail since her arrest in July 2020 and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(LAS VEGAS) — More than 40 years after a teenage girl’s murder in Las Vegas, her suspected killer has been identified through DNA evidence and genetic genealogy.

Kim Bryant, 16, was kidnapped, raped and killed on Jan. 26, 1979, police in Las Vegas said.

The teen was last seen at a Dairy Queen restaurant near her high school and was reported missing after she didn’t return home, police said.

Her body was found one month later in a desert area, police said.

For decades, her slaying went unsolved.

Semen from a suspect was recovered during Bryant’s autopsy, but the DNA sample could not be identified at the time, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Lt. Raymond Spencer said at a news conference on Monday.

“We first attempted DNA on this particular case back in 2008. We were not able to get a DNA profile,” Kimberly Murga, director of laboratory services for the Las Vegas police, said at the news conference. “Technology has continued to advance and revolutionize. We again attempted DNA on different items of evidence in January of this year. We were able to obtain a foreign male DNA profile on some evidence and we put that DNA profile into CODIS — the Combined DNA Index System — and at that time we obtained no hits.”

That’s when the department turned to advanced genetic genealogy testing, she said.

Through genetic genealogy, DNA left at a crime scene can be used to identify a suspect’s family members, who voluntarily submit their DNA to a genealogy database. This allows police to create a more detailed family tree than if they were limited to using law enforcement databases like CODIS. Genetic genealogy gained visibility as an investigative tool in 2018 when the “Golden State Killer” was arrested.

Employees of Othram Inc., a private laboratory, built a genealogical profile of Bryant’s unknown killer through his family tree, Michael Vogen, director of case management at Othram, said at the news conference.

Othram and police eventually narrowed the search to a relative who was willing to give a DNA sample, officials said.

That sample allowed investigators to zero in on their suspect, Johnny Peterson, who died in January 1993, police said.

Peterson was 19 and living in Las Vegas at the time of the murder, Spencer said. Peterson had previously attended Bryant’s school, though it’s not clear if they had interacted, Spencer said.

In April 1980, Peterson was arrested for sexual assault, but that case was dismissed, Spencer said.

Peterson was never on the department’s radar as a suspect in Bryant’s case, Spencer said.

For Bryant’s family, Spencer said, “Nothing is gonna make the pain go away, but at least the family has some closure.”

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(NEW YORK) — A spacewalk by two U.S. astronauts was called off on Tuesday morning due to the risk of space debris, NASA announced in a statement.

NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Thomas Marshburn were scheduled to leave through the International Space Station’s Quest airlock at 5:30 a.m. EST to replace a part on the space station, according to a NASA blogpost.

“Marshburn and Barron will work at the Port 1 truss structure, where the antenna is mounted. The antenna recently lost its ability to send signals to Earth via NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System,” NASA said in the blog.

However, four hours before the scheduled spacewalk, the ISS tweeted that the repair would be delayed until more information was available.

The source of the debris hasn’t been confirmed. Two weeks ago Russia had conducted an anti-satellite test that created a “dangerous” debris field in the orbit.

The spacewalk was scheduled to last 6 1/2 hours and be Barron’s first and Marshburn’s fifth spacewalk, NASA said.

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(NEW YORK) — Julie Anne Genter, a Green Party member of the New Zealand Parliament, is a keen cyclist who used her skills to bike to the hospital in the middle of the night while in labor Sunday. Within an hour of setting off, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

“I genuinely wasn’t planning to cycle in labor,” she wrote on Instagram later that day, “but it did end up happening.”

Genter shared photos of her nighttime journey on a cargo bike, smiling through contractions while locking up in the Wellington, New Zealand, hospital car park.

“My contractions weren’t that bad when we left at 2 a.m. to go to the hospital,” she said on Instagram. “Though they were 2-3 min apart and picking up in intensity by the time we arrived 10 minutes later.”

At 3.04 a.m., her daughter was born.

Originally, the plan was for her partner Peter Nunns to cycle with her in front, Genter told New Zealand outlet Stuff. When they realized there was too much weight with her hospital bag, Genter “just got out and rode.”

Genter is a dual U.S.-NZ citizen. She grew up in Los Angeles and moved to New Zealand in 2006 as a post-grad scholar at the University of Auckland. She credits her L.A. upbringing with her interest in transportation and urban design. She worked in transport and urban planning before becoming a Member of Parliament in 2011 where she has been an advocate of cycling and increasing bike infrastructure. Her baby girl was born two days after her 10-year anniversary in parliament.

This is the second time the lawmaker has cycled to the hospital to give birth. She did so in 2018 for the birth of her first child, although on that occasion, labor was induced, she said.

New Zealand’s parliament is one of the most gender-equal in the world, electing 49% female members in its 2020 election. It also has a reputation for being family-friendly.

The country’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gave birth to her daughter Neve while in office in 2018, making headlines as one of the first sitting world leaders to do so. Genter followed her lead, bringing her firstborn to a UN meeting a year later.

In 2019, the Speaker of Parliament, Trevor Mallard, appeared in headlines around the world when he cradled and fed a bottle to a baby boy during a general debate.

Mallard told ABC News at the time that inclusivity is something that he focused since becoming speaker in 2017. “When I became speaker, I made it clear that I wanted the parliament to be much more family-friendly than it had been,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — A bitter cold is gripping the South with states from Florida to Georgia experiencing wind chills in the 30s.

The wind chill — what temperature it feels like — plunged Tuesday morning to 24 degrees in Raleigh and 31 degrees in Atlanta, Charleston and Montgomery.

A freeze warning has been issued as far south as Tallahassee, where the actual temperature fell to 30 degrees.

The wind chill dropped Tuesday morning to 15 degrees in Boston and 25 degrees in New York City.

Milder air will thaw the East Coast by Wednesday and Thursday. Temperatures are expected to reach the middle to upper 50s for Boston and New York City and near 60 degrees in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, more heavy rain is expected for Washington state and Oregon, where some areas could see 3 to 6 inches over the next few days.

Two weeks ago, over 1 foot of rain pummeled the Pacific Northwest within days, bringing rivers into major flood stages and flooding roads and neighborhoods.

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