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(KENTUCKY) — A tornado watch has been issued for parts of Kentucky and Tennessee on Saturday, effective until 6 p.m. CT.

The tornado watch warning includes areas devestated by an outreak of tornadoes that left 93 dead across five states last month.

The severe weather system brought heavy rain, thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail and strong straight-line winds impacting much of Western, Eastern and South Central Kentucky, according to a press release issued by the governor’s office.

“The severe weather caused flash flooding, loss of power and damage of public infrastructure and private properties,” the governor’s office said in the release.

A total of between 2 to 5 inches of rain is expected to fall on Saturday, with a cold front arriving in the evening, which could complicate the response, according to the governor’s office.

At least one tornado has already been reported in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency Saturday due to severe weather across most of the state.

“A tornado touchdown was reported in Hopkinsville, causing severe damage to downtown businesses, and a possible tornado touchdown was reported in Taylor County, where numerous households have been damaged,” the governor’s office said.

Strong thunderstorms have been hitting parts of Kentucky Saturday morning, bringing a high risk of torrential rain and flash flooding.

“It is devastating that we are once again experiencing severe weather just weeks after the deadly tornadoes hit Western Kentucky. Sadly, some counties have been affected by both of these events,” Gov. Beshear said. “We will continue to monitor the weather and provide needed updates. Everyone be aware, stay safe and seek shelter when advised.”

Major flash flooding is ongoing in Pike County and surrounding areas of Kentucky as numerous flash flood warnings remain in place across southern parts of the state.

Flash flooding was also reported in Green, Barren, Taylor, Adair, Owsley, Breathitt and Casey counties resulting in road closures and water rescues, according to the governor’s office.

The threat of severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes will increase in the next few hours, with possible damaging wind gusts and tornadoes in the watch area Saturday evening.

Kentucky Emergency Management activated the State Emergency Operations Center. Personnel from the Kentucky National Guard, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Kentucky State Police and Kentucky Department of Public Health are monitoring the situation, according to the governor’s office.

“Please give way to emergency responders operating in numerous counties and stay off of transportation routes today if at all possible,” Michael Dossett, director of Kentucky Emergency Management, said in the press release.

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(DENVER) — Prosecutors who charged Rogel Aguilera-Mederos following a deadly crash vowed to release previously undisclosed information from the case to the public after Colorado Gov. Jared Polis granted the truck driver clemency on Thursday, commuting his 110-year sentence to 10 years.

“We look forward to sharing more information with our community that we were ethically prohibited from releasing while the case was pending,” Jefferson County District Attorney Alexis King, the prosecutor in the case, said in a statement on Thursday.

It is unclear when the DA will release the new information or what it would include. ABC News has reached out to King’s office, but a request for comment was not immediately returned.

Mederos was sentenced on Dec. 13 to 110 years in prison for a 2019 fatal crash on Interstate 70, outside Denver, that killed four people and injured several others — a sentence the judge said he wouldn’t have chosen if he had the discretion.

Aguilera-Mederos’ attorneys, Leonard Martinez and James Colgan said they were “surprised” by how fast Polis acted, adding that it is “unusual” for a governor to act on clemency before the appellate process takes place.

But now that Polis has acted, Colgan said they believe that the case is no longer in the jurisdiction of the courts or the DA’s office and King’s promise to release new information is a case of “sour grapes” and based on “political motivations.”

“It wouldn’t matter what she disclosed now,” Colgan told ABC News.

“I’m not aware of any law that allows [the DA’s office] to have jurisdiction over the case,” he added.

Asked what the new information may be, “I have no idea,” the attorneys both said.

Polis commuted Mederos’ sentence two weeks after his legal team applied for clemency and ahead of a scheduled hearing next month requested by King for the court to reconsider the sentence.

“After learning about the highly atypical and unjust sentence in your case, I am commuting your sentence to 10 years and granting you parole eligibility on December 30, 2026,” Polis wrote in a statement on Thursday.

Martinez said he was on the phone when Polis’ office called Mederos to inform him that his sentence was commuted.

“He was shocked … and he said he was very grateful,” Martinez said.

“Rogel is very grateful for all the support he’s gotten not only locally, but nationally. He’s humbled by it,” Martinez said.

His mother, Oslaida Mederos, who spoke exclusively with “Nightline” earlier this week, is also “grateful” and “celebrating” the decision but would like her son home “even sooner,” Martinez added.

Amid mounting public backlash over the sentence, King filed a motion earlier this month asking the court to reconsider the 110 years and suggested a sentencing range of 20-30 years instead.

King said that the range was determined after conversations with the victims and their families.

“We are disappointed in the Governor’s decision to act prematurely,” King said on Thursday.

“We are meeting with the victims and their loved ones this evening to support them in navigating this unprecedented action and to ensure they are treated with fairness, dignity, and respect during this difficult time,” she added.

Martinez said he believes that the clemency from the governor takes any other legal avenues, including an appeal, off the table.

But because it is so “unusual” that Polis acted before the appellate process took place, the legal team needs to “review” all options, he added.

The court has not officially vacated the hearing to reconsider the original sentence, which is set for Jan. 13, but Mederos’ attorney said they expect the judge to do so next week.

Mederos was charged with 42 counts and found guilty by a Jefferson County jury of 27 counts — the most serious was first-degree assault, a class-three felony.

The number of the charges, mandatory minimum laws and a classification that mandates some sentences be served consecutively resulted in the lengthy sentence.

Mederos testified that his brakes failed – a point not contested by prosecutors, but some points of contention in the case appear to be decisions Mederos allegedly made before the crash took place and once he found out that he was having brake problems.

ABC News’ Jeffrey Cook and Mark Osborne contributed to this report.

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(ILLINOIS) — Police have arrested a suspect wanted in connection with the shooting of two Illinois police officers that left one of them dead, while a second suspect remains at large, authorities said.

Darius Sullivan, 25, was taken into custody Friday morning without incident after authorities conducted a search warrant on a home in North Manchester, Indiana, police said. Narcotics and multiple weapons were found inside the home, according to Indiana State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield.

Sullivan had warrants out of Illinois for his arrest on first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm charges, Fifield said, in connection with Wednesday’s fatal shooting at a hotel in Kankakee County, Illinois.

Bradley Police Department Sgt. Marlene Rittmanic, 49, was killed after responding to a noise complaint at a Comfort Inn, authorities said. Her partner, Officer Tyler Bailey, 27, was wounded in the shooting and remains hospitalized in critical condition, Illinois State Police said in an update Thursday night.

Sullivan, of Bourbonnais, Illinois, will be transferred to the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Department, Fifield said. Police are still determining his connection to the North Manchester residence. It is unclear if he has an attorney.

An arrest warrant has also been issued for a second suspect in connection with the shooting, Xandria Harris, 26, of Bradley, Illinois, state police said. She was not present at the North Manchester home when Sullivan was taken into custody, according to Fifield.

“We are actively looking for her,” Fifield said.

The Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office was offering a $25,000 reward for information that led to the arrest of Sullivan. Fifield said the reward still stands for information leading to the arrest of Harris.

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(FLORIDA) — An official at the Naples Zoo, where a tiger attacked a man who allegedly stuck his hand in the cage, said on Friday that it supports that deputy’s decision to shoot the animal.

The man had called 911 after the tiger attacked him at the Florida zoo. Initial reports suggest that the tiger grabbed the man’s arm and pulled it into the enclosure after the man jumped over the initial fence barrier and put his arm through the fencing, authorities said on Thursday.

The tiger, named Eko, died after being shot in the neck by a responding deputy. Eko was a Malayan tiger, a species that is critically endangered due to poaching and habitat loss, according to the Naples Zoo.

President and CEO of Naples Zoo, Jack Mulvena, said the zoo hasn’t considered pressing charges against the man, identified as a 26-year-old River Rosenquist.

“It was a bad mistake, a bad decision, but we only wish him well in the recovery,” he said during a press conference Friday.

Mulvena said he spoke with the zoo’s weapon’s team and they said if they were in the officer’s position, under the same circumstances, they would have made the same decision.

“The deputy faced a very difficult decision and we support that decision,” Mulvena said.

Rosenquist, who worked for a third-party cleaning company, had entered an unauthorized area of the Florida zoo. Authorities said on Thursday that he could face criminal charges.

Mulvena said that third parties hired to work for the zoo, including HMI Commercial Cleaners, where Rosenquist worked, were aware they should not be in certain areas.

“Their responsibilities were very specific; cleaning of our new hospital and commissary, our gift shop, admissions and our two public bathrooms,” Mulvena said.

The zoo’s security team never saw Rosenquist or any cleaning crew members depart from what they were supposed to be doing, Mulvena said Friday.

“In this instance, unfortunately, River made the decision to breach a visitor barrier and get close to the exhibit itself. We don’t know what happened and why he did that. We suspect it was to pet or to feed, but we don’t know that for certain. Only River knows that,” Mulvena said.

The zoo is in the process of conducting an internal investigation and review of all its policies and protocols, he said.

“[We] don’t believe our policies and protocols were in any way responsible for this,” Mulvena said.

The zoo will also consider whether it should install security cameras.

“I think the lesson learned here is you can’t 100% prevent people from making really, really horrible decisions,” Mulvena said.

The zoo established the Eko Tiger Conservation Fund in memory of the tiger. All the proceeds from the fund will be going to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which Mulvena said has been doing some of the best work in the world on Malayan tiger conservation.

“We want his memory to live on and we want it to live on in terms of saving Malayan tigers in the wild,” Mulvena said.

Eko’s body is currently in the zoo’s hospital and a necropsy is scheduled for Monday.

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(NEW YORK) — Federal prosecutors in New York officially dropped charges against Tova Noel and Michael Thomas – the two correctional officers on duty when Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in a federal lockup there.

In August 2019, Epstein was found dead in his cell in the early hours of the morning at the now-closed Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Noel and Thomas allegedly falsified government records and fell asleep on the job according to a November 2019 indictment. Leaders from the federal correctional officers union argued this case was unprecedented and typically would be handled administratively.

In May, the two officers entered into a deferred prosecution agreement – contingent on Thomas and Noel completing community service and having good behavior.

In a Thursday court filing, prosecutors said they were dropping the case, formally ending the prosecution of the two officers.

The Justice Department has yet to release any report regarding the timeframe leading up to Epstein’s suicide or days after.

Documents obtained by ABC News through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in early December from the Bureau of Prisons do shed a little light on what occurred.

“I have no interest in killing myself,” Epstein told a BOP psychologist two weeks before he died by suicide, according to the documents.

Epstein also previously attempted suicide on July 23, according to the records, which were first obtained by the New York Times.

Included in the records was an e-mail from an unnamed inmate who worked in the kitchen at MCC.

“Jeffrey Epstein definitely killed himself. Any conspiracy theories to the contrary are ridiculous,” this inmate wrote to the BOP. “He wanted to kill himself and seized the opportunity when it was available.”

This inmate told BOP officials he heard Epstein ripping up the bed sheet he used to hang himself.

Former Attorney General William Barr told The Associated Press shortly after the suicide that it was the “perfect storm of screw ups” that lead to his death.

Earlier this week, Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Epstein, was convicted on five of six counts related to the abuse and trafficking of underage girls.

Maxwell faced a six-count indictment for allegedly conspiring with and aiding Epstein in his sexual abuse of underage girls between 1994 and 2004.

Prosecutors alleged that Maxwell played a “key role” in a multi-state sex trafficking scheme in which she allegedly “befriended” and later “enticed and groomed multiple minor girls to engage in sex acts with Epstein” and was also, at times, “present for and involved” in the abuse herself.

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