(NEW YORK) — A heat advisory is in place across the Northeast, from Maryland to Maine, where residents are bracing for temperatures 5 to 15 degrees above average.
The heat index — what the temperature feels like with humidity — could reach 103 degrees in Philadelphia on Wednesday and Thursday.
New York City and Boston could feel like 100 degrees with humidity on Wednesday and Thursday.
Further north, the heat index may climb into the upper 90s in Burlington, Vermont, and Syracuse, New York, on Wednesday.
The dangerous heat is also invading the South and West.
The heat index could hit a scorching 105 to 109 degrees on Wednesday in New Orleans; Memphis, Tennessee; and Little Rock, Arkansas.
In the West, a heat advisory is in place from Northern California to northern Washington with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees above average. Portland, Oregon, could near 100 degrees on Wednesday and Seattle could reach the 90s.
(WASHINGTON) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired two top deputies at the Department of Health and Human Services, ABC News has learned.
Heather Flick Melanson, Kennedy’s chief of staff, and Hannah Anderson, deputy chief of staff of policy, are departing, according to a department spokesperson and another person familiar with the decisions.
Neither Flick nor Anderson immediately responded to an ABC News request for comment.
No reason was given for the ousters. The person familiar with the situation told ABC that Kennedy “has every right to make personnel decisions.”
“Secretary Kennedy has made a leadership change within the Immediate Office of the Secretary,” according to a statement provided by an HHS spokesperson to ABC News. “Effective immediately, Matt Buckham will serve as Acting Chief of Staff.”
“Mr. Buckham currently serves as the Kennedy’s White House liaison at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he oversees the recruitment and onboarding of political appointees across the agency. He brings valuable experience in personnel strategy and organizational management to this new role,” the statement continued.
“Secretary Kennedy thanks the outgoing leadership for their service and looks forward to working closely with Mr. Buckham as the Department continues advancing its mission to Make America Healthy Again,” the statement concluded.
(MARICOPA COUNTY, AZ) — Police have recommended charges in the drowning of influencer Emilie Kiser’s 3-year-old son, Trigg Kiser, who was found unresponsive in his family’s backyard pool in May.
“After a thorough review of the evidence, we have submitted the case to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for further review and any potential prosecutorial decisions,” the Chandler, Arizona, Police Department said in a statement Thursday.
A felony charge of child abuse was recommended by the police department. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has final say in whether charges are actually brought against anyone.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Tennessee is set to hear from federal prosecutors on Wednesday regarding their request that Kilmar Abrego Garcia be detained pending trial.
Last month, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia not to be detained pending trial and set conditions for his release. However, after the federal government requested a stay of the order, a district judge scheduled an evidentiary hearing to allow the government to argue their request for his detention.
Robert E. McGuire, the Acting United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, said in a filing that he could call on a Department of Homeland Security official to testify at the hearing about his review of body and camera footage from a 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
In a separate filing on Tuesday, McGuire argued Abrego Garcia should be detained pending trial because “there is no combination of bail conditions that can reasonably assure either the safety of the community or the defendant’s appearance in future court proceedings.”
McGuire said that the evidence he presented during a detention hearing last month “was overwhelming, corroborated, and otherwise uncontradicted by anything else in the record.” He also argued the court cannot “be reasonably assured” Abrego Garcia will refrain from committing additional crimes and appear for court proceedings given the likelihood of deportation that he faces.
The government in both the criminal case and the Maryland case has said that Abrego Garcia will likely be deported to a third country if released from criminal custody.
An official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified last week in Maryland that Mexico and South Sudan were among a handful of countries where the U.S. has deported noncitizens who have asked not to be returned to their countries of origin out of fear of torture or persecution.
Abrego Garcia’s legal team in the Maryland case requested the court to order that he not be removed from the U.S. without at least 72 hours notice should he be released on bond from detention in Tennessee.
(WASHINGTON) — Private spaceflight is transforming from joy rides for billionaires into a gateway for nations to establish their space presence, one expert says, as the latest Axiom Space mission returned to Earth on Tuesday.
The mission marked a historic moment for India, Poland and Hungary, who sent astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time in decades. Rather than waiting for traditional space programs, these nations booked private flights through Axiom Space, which aims to build the world’s first commercial space station, and SpaceX, which provided the spacecraft the astronauts traveled on.
“This is huge,” said ABC News contributor and astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi. “These nations didn’t go through NASA or wait for Russia. They booked the private flight and brought their own experiments. That is a global power flex.”
The mission serves as more than just a demonstration of private space capabilities, Oluseyi said. With NASA planning to decommission the ISS by the end of 2030, Axiom Space, headquartered in Houston, is positioning itself to become “the new landlord of low Earth orbit,” according to Oluseyi. The company has already secured agreements with multiple countries for its own planned space station.
However, the increasing privatization of space access raises questions about America’s future role in space exploration. While another private company, SpaceX, currently provides the only means for launching astronauts from U.S. soil, Oluseyi emphasized the importance of maintaining both public and private investment in space.
“We perform best when there is a combination of both public and private investment,” Oluseyi said, noting current federal budget pullbacks in space and science funding. “Strategically, America needs both public and private to maintain leadership… This is a time not to pull back, but to invest ever more aggressively.”
As space becomes more accessible to new participants, Oluseyi said continued investment and innovation are crucial for maintaining U.S. leadership in space exploration — even as private spaceflight takes off.
“You can’t stop that cat out of the bag, but you can maintain leadership, you can be the one to innovate and take us to the next level,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is praising an Internal Revenue Service’s court filing, which effectively clears the way for churches to endorse political candidates — a reversal of decades of legal precedent.
Yet half a dozen religious leaders told ABC News they didn’t foresee a large increase in political endorsements from their peers, despite last week’s IRS court filing. The filing said it would not revoke nonprofit status from two Texas churches, Sand Springs Church and First Baptist Church Waskom, for doing so.
The filing formalizes for the first time a lack of enforcement of the 1954 Johnson Amendment, which prohibits nonprofits from endorsing or opposing political candidates if they want to remain tax exempt. Both political parties have tested the line in trying to harness the power of the pulpit, with many Republicans wooing evangelical leaders while Democrats often try to curry favor with Black churches.
“God is once again welcomed back into our public square,” Trump said of the filing during a White House Faith Office summit on Monday.
The president has opposed the Johnson Amendment since his first term. He said he asked religious leaders for their endorsements while running in 2015, but came up against the barrier of the Johnson amendment.
“I said, ‘you have more power than anybody, but you’re not allowed to use your power.’ I said, ‘we’re going to get rid of that because people want to hear what you have to say more than anybody else,'” Trump said Monday. “You were even afraid to talk about it. But they’re not afraid any longer, and I think they appreciate it.”
Tax experts predict the filing could transform how money flows around elections, making houses of worship a way to avoid both taxes and transparency for campaign finances.
Ellen Aprill, a professor emerita of tax law at Loyola Marymount University Law School, said the filing could open the door to political campaigns channeling money through churches to take advantage of their tax-exempt status and lower application and reporting requirements.
Unlike other 501c3 organizations, churches are not required to file 990 forms disclosing financial information, leadership and activities. They also qualify automatically for tax exemption — while other nonprofits have to apply.
“One of my concerns, and others of us in this area, is this will encourage the creation of fraudulent churches who want to be able to get tax deductible money to engage in opposing or supporting candidates … so they don’t have to disclose any other campaign intervention activities,” Aprill said.
Many evangelical Christians viewed the filing as a win for free-speech rights.
Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, praised the filing and said he “personally thanked President Trump” for the outcome.
“This would have never happened without the strong leadership of our great President Donald Trump!” Jeffress wrote in an X post. “Government has NO BUSINESS regulating what is said in pulpits!”
Jeffress was on Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board during his first campaign and had expressed support for the president in the leadup to the 2024 election, which he said led the IRS to investigate his church. Jeffress’ church is distinct from First Baptist Church Waskom, the plaintiff in the case against the IRS.
Cary Gordon, senior pastor and president at Cornerstone Church in Sioux City, Iowa, said he thought “anyone with half a brain” could see that “the Johnson Amendment was unconstitutional.”
A longtime opponent of the amendment, Gordon has said since 2010 that he hopes the IRS would sue him for his political speech so that he could fight the agency in court. That year, Gordon led an effort organizing religious leaders across Iowa to oppose retention for three Iowa Supreme Court Justices who supported same-sex marriage. The IRS has not sued Gordon.
Gordon said although he thinks “hardly any pastors in the country will ever” endorse a candidate, the filing could allow religious leaders to address politics more directly.
“The issue is not, ‘oh no, they’re going to endorse someone.’ It’s really about free speech and being able to communicate on any issue someone might perceive as political in a sermon, which must be done because all of our problems are moral, all of our problems are theological,” he said.
Brad Sherman, a former Iowa state representative who founded Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville, Iowa, and is now running for governor, said he thought the filing was “long overdue,” but he didn’t anticipate a surge in endorsements.
“There are other reasons why pastors and Christian leaders do not endorse candidates,” Sherman said, adding that some leaders may be wary of pushback from their congregations.
Regarding whether the filing would lead him to consider seeking endorsements from religious leaders during his own campaign, he said, “I haven’t really thought much about it yet, but yes, it may influence that to some degree.”
Reactions from leaders of Black churches were more mixed.
Rev. Thomas Bowen, who served in the Biden White House as a faith liaison and preaches in Black churches both in Ohio and D.C., said he was concerned the filing could risk turning churches into “campaign surrogates.”
“For me, the new ruling opens the doors to money that’s just not transparent, money that can be used for political influence,” Bowen said. “The fear that our sacred spaces will be at risk of becoming these stages for unchecked influence causes me to tell folk to tread carefully … Moral authority is sacred and it must never be sold for access.”
Unlike Bowen, Pastor Jamal Bryant said he approved of the filing. Bryant heads a congregation with more than 10,000 members at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia, which hosted Democratic nominee Kamala Harris when she visited the state during the 2024 presidential elections.
Bryant said he would “absolutely” consider explicitly endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, including in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.
“There’s a whole lot on the line,” he said. “All of America is going to be leaning in with intentionality for the midterm election on who best will speak for the masses.”
(NEW YORK) — A tropical threat on the Gulf Coast has a 40% chance for development into a tropical depression in the next 48 hours, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The system, which could currently be considered a “tropical rainstorm” or “tropical disturbance,” is likely to bring heavy rain to the central Gulf Coast for days — especially to the state of Louisiana.
The disturbance is expected to move along the coast, but the closer it stays to shore, the less chance it will have to grow into a tropical depression or storm since these weather patterns need time over water to develop, though a change to a more southerly track would give it a chance to gain steam.
A flood watch will go into effect at 1 p.m. this afternoon for portions of Louisiana and Mississippi and is expected to last at least through Friday night, with the eastern part of the watch in effect until at least Saturday evening.
This tropical disturbance is expected to produce long duration heavy rainfall and, if it develops into a tropical storm, it would be designated by the name Dexter.
Rainfall totals are generally expected to be between 2 and 6 inches, but the National Weather Service is highlighting some localized areas expected to receive as many as 15 inches in the region.
Elsewhere, heavy showers and thunderstorms are expected today for Ohio, West Virginia all of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey with rainfall rates of potentially more than 2 inches per hour on Wednesday and Thursday.
Storms are expected to begin around 2 p.m. in Ohio and then move east in a very scattered fashion through the afternoon, evening and overnight.
A flood watch is already in place for central and northern New Jersey where 1 to 2 inches of rain could fall in a 1-to-3-hour period, likely in the evening or overnight hours for this location.
A severe risk for damaging wind and tornadoes, along with flash flooding, is in place for portions of Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, including Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay and Peoria.
A flood watch is already in place for Green Bay where they are expecting 2 to 3 inches of rain over a short time span, with locally higher amounts possible, and storms may reach Chicago, Milwaukee and Green Bay around 4 p.m. local time.
Heavy thunderstorms are also possible late tonight from Kansas to northern Missouri, with rainfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour possible.
Meanwhile, 70 million Americans are under heat advisories coast-to-coast, with dangerously hot conditions expected today for people in the Northwest, South and Northeast.
For the Northwest, a heat advisory is in place from northern California to northern Washington as Portland, Oregon, could reach near 100 degrees and Seattle, Washington, could hit the low to mid 90s — temperatures that are 10 to 15 degrees above average.
A heat advisory is in effect for parts of the South from Louisiana to Illinois, with a heat index up to 105 to 109 possible, including New Orleans, Memphis, Little Rock and Shreveport — temperatures that are 5 to 10 degrees above average.
The United States is now heading into the hottest part of the year, climatologically, and this weekend looks seasonally hot across the nation, with above average heat possible next week, especially for the Midwest, South and East, meaning temperatures in the upper 90s and lower 100s, with humidity making things worst for these regions.
(WASHINGTON) — After an earlier setback for the Trump administration when House Republicans failed to advance a key procedural vote on a package of legislation including three crypto measures, President Donald Trump said late Tuesday he has made a deal with Republican members of Congress to advance the legislation on Wednesday.
Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that he met in the Oval Office with 11 of the 12 GOP members needed to pass the package.
“After a short discussion, they have all agreed to vote tomorrow morning in favor of the Rule,” Trump said. “Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was at the meeting via telephone, and looks forward to taking the Vote as early as possible.”
Trump did not provide specifics about the deal.
In a lengthy statement released later, Johnson thanked Trump for helping lock down the necessary votes to advance the crypto legislation.
“I’m thankful for President Trump getting involved tonight to ensure that we can pass the GENIUS Act tomorrow and agreeing again to help us advance additional crypto legislation in the coming days,” Johnson said, referencing the name of one of the bills.
Earlier Tuesday, a dozen House Republicans bucked Trump and Johnson to prevent the legislation from advancing on the floor — joining the entire Democratic caucus — and, at least temporarily, freezing activity in the House. The final tally was 196-223.
Johnson had said earlier that while he anticipated that there may be enough opposition to defeat the effort, he felt that it was “important” to try to advance the bills. Republicans have a narrow majority in the House — with 220 Republicans compared to 212 Democrats.
Johnson said that he would attempt to work with Republican holdouts to answer questions.
The speaker explained that conservatives who voted against the rule want the crypto bills — CLARITY, GENIUS and Anti CBDC Surveillance Act — combined into one big package, rather than take separate standalone votes on each measure.
“This is the legislative process. We have some members who really, really want to emphasize the House’s product,” Johnson said. “They want to, want to push that and merge them together. We’re trying to work with the White House and with our Senate partners on this. I think everybody is insistent that we’re going to do all three, but some of these guys insist that it needs to be all in one package.”
The intraparty rebellion comes after Trump strongly urged Republicans to vote in favor of advancing the crypto bills.
“The GENIUS Act is going to put our Great Nation lightyears ahead of China, Europe, and all others, who are trying endlessly to catch up, but they just can’t do it,” Trump posted on Truth Social Tuesday. “Digital Assets are the FUTURE, and we are leading by a lot! Get the first Vote done this afternoon (ALL REPUBLICANS SHOULD VOTE YES!).”
The no votes came from Reps. Andy Biggs, Tim Burchett, Michael Cloud, Andrew Clyde, Eli Crane, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Harris, Anna Paulina Luna, Scott Perry, Chip Roy, Keith Self and Victoria Spartz. Majority Leader Steve Scalise also changed his vote to “no” to preserve the capability to call the measure back up for another attempted vote.
Luna, a Florida Republican, told ABC News that she is “pro-crypto,” but voted against the procedural vote because she continues to have concerns about creating a “backdoor” to a Central Bank Digital Currency — a worry echoed by Greene.
“I just voted NO on the Rule for the GENIUS Act because it does not include a ban on Central Bank Digital Currency and because Speaker Johnson did not allow us to submit amendments to the GENIUS Act,” Greene, R-Ga., posted on X. “Americans do not want a government-controlled Central Bank Digital Currency. Republicans have a duty to ban CBDC. President Trump included a ban on CBDC in his January 23rd executive order and Congress must also include the ban on CBDC in the GENIUS Act.”
The vote came during what the White House is calling “Crypto Week” and marks a rare instance when House Republicans have defied Trump’s direction.
Trump, who launched his own crypto meme coin earlier this year, recently said he is a “fan of crypto” and called it a “very powerful industry” that the U.S. has “dominated.”
“I’m president. And what I did do there is build an industry that’s very important,” Trump said last month. “If we didn’t have it, China would.”
Once a crypto skeptic, Trump and his family have fully immersed themselves in the cryptocurrency marketplace, developing not only the $TRUMP meme coin, but also a bitcoin mining firm, a stablecoin firm and a crypto reserve.
(BOSTON) — A woman who served on the grand jury as part of the high-profile investigation into Karen Read — who was acquitted of murder charges last month in the death of her boyfriend — agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge she leaked information from the secret proceeding, according to a court document filed Tuesday.
Jessica Leslie agreed to plead guilty to a charge of criminal contempt that accused her of willfully disobeying court rules against disclosure of grand jury information.
Leslie disclosed “the names of various witnesses appearing before the grand jury and the substance of their testimony and other evidence presented to the grand jury, all while said information was under seal and not subject to disclosure,” federal prosecutors said.
While the charging document did not specify that Leslie was a grand juror in the Read case, sources confirmed the case to ABC News.
Read was originally indicted by a Boston grand jury in June 2022 in the death of her police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe. Prosecutors alleged Read hit O’Keefe with her car outside the home of a fellow police officer after a night of heavy drinking in January 2022 and then left him to die there during a major blizzard.
The first trial ended in a mistrial last year after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
In a second trial that ended last month, Read was found not guilty of the most serious charges against her — murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene after an accident. She was convicted of operating under the influence of liquor and sentenced to one year of probation.
Leslie agreed to a sentence of incarceration for one day, deemed served, and 24 months of supervised release, court records said.
A plea hearing was not immediately scheduled.
Federal prosecutors did not say how they learned Leslie had disclosed secret grand jury information, but sources said authorities had been monitoring social media accounts and other communications during a case that received widespread attention.
(WASHINGTON) — After President Donald Trump threatened to impose “very severe” economic penalties against Vladimir Putin’s Russia if he doesn’t agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine within 50 days, the Trump administration has so far declined to provide many additional details about the consequences Russia will face or why he picked the deadline he chose.
“Well, at the end of 50 days, if we don’t have a deal, it’s going to be too bad,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
When asked why he decided to give the Russian leader nearly two months to comply with his demand, President Trump deflected.
“I don’t think 50 days is very long. It could be sooner than that,” Trump said.
“You should have asked that same question to Biden. Why did he get us into this war?” he continued. “You know why he got us in? Because he’s a dummy, that’s why.”
Despite pledging additional U.S. made weapons for Ukraine, Trump also said he didn’t support Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy ordering strikes on the Russian capital.
“He shouldn’t target Moscow,” he said. “No, we’re not looking to do that.”
On Monday, Trump said that Russia’s failure to reach a negotiated settlement with Ukraine within 50 days would lead to his administration imposing a 100% tariff rate on Russian imports as well as what he called “secondary tariffs” on countries that have continued to do business with Moscow.
“We’re very, very unhappy with him,” Trump said of Putin on Monday. “We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days.”
U.S. imports from Russia, which totaled around $3 billion in 2024 according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, account for a small share of Moscow’s revenue, meaning Trump’s threat to hike tariffs on Russian goods likely wouldn’t pack much punch.
However, the president’s promise to raise tariffs on imports from third-party countries could carry more weight.
Some secondary sanctions aimed at weakening Russia’s war economy are already in place. The Biden administration steadily ramped up its use of the penalties throughout the conflict, primarily targeting foreign financial institutions accused of supporting Moscow’s military industrial complex and the so-called “shadow fleet” of tanker operators working to circumvent Western sanctions and price caps on Russian oil.
But going after countries that import oil and other resources from Russia would be a significant escalation.
Through much of the war, the Biden administration avoided taking direct aim at Russian energy exporters out of concern that doing so would cause global fuel prices to rise. Instead, the former administration worked with other members of the G7 to cap the price of Russian oil products, cutting into Moscow’s profits while allowing the exports to remain on the market.
Trump, on the other hand, has previously promised to go after Russia’s customers.
In March, Trump threatened to put “secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia” during an interview with NBC News — adding “if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States.”
What countries would feel the impact?
The White House has yet to release specific details on Trump’s secondary tariffs, but his ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, said on Monday the top importers of Russian oil would be in the administration’s crosshairs.
“It’s about tariffs on countries like India and China that are buying their oil. And it really is going to I think dramatically impact the Russian economy,” he said during an interview with CNN.
But whether the secondary tariffs would stop at countries like China and India is an open question.
Despite the web of sanctions in place against Russia, the country still has many meaningful trade relationships, including ones with European allies.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU has significantly dropped its share of Russian oil and gas imports and its plan to fully phase out those imports isn’t expected to fully come to fruition until the end of 2027 at the earliest.
Some Eastern European and Central Asian countries also have economies that rely on doing business with Russia, meaning they would almost certainly be unable to significantly scale back trade with Russia and would have the face the consequences of secondary tariffs.
The next 50 days
If the president sticks to his 50-day window, Russia can continue to carry out its summertime campaign against Ukraine until early September without facing additional consequences.
In his interview with CNN, Whitaker was also asked about how Trump made the decision on the timeline but didn’t give a clear answer.
“The time to end the slaughter is now. The time to end the killing is now. And so 50 days is the appropriate amount of time because it needs to happen now,” he responded.
Currently, Russia is making modest gains against Ukraine and may soon seek to leverage those advances to launch additional offenses in the eastern reach of the country, according to a recent assessment from the Institute of the Study of War.
Many officials and experts have long predicted that the Kremlin would push off serious talks on ending the war until the cooler months set in because it hopes to strengthen its position at the negotiating table by claiming as much territory as possible during the summer season.
In an interview with the BBC on Monday, Trump indicated he still wanted to pursue diplomacy with Russia, but that his patience with Putin was wearing thin.
“I’m not done with him, but I’m disappointed with him,” he said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded to Trump’s threats on Monday, saying Moscow needed “time to analyze” the comments.
“The U.S. president’s statements are very serious,” Peskov said.
