(NEW YORK) — A parade of storms is continuing to pound the West Coast, bringing high waves, strong winds, heavy rain, snow and the threat of avalanches.
In the Rocky Mountains, where another 2 to 4 feet of snow is forecast though the weekend, an avalanche watch has been issued from 5 p.m. Friday until 5 p.m. Monday.
More rain is headed to the West Coast on Friday night and Sunday morning. Local rivers will continue to rise and flooding is expected in Washington and Oregon.
High wind alerts have been issued for Northern California, Oregon, Wyoming and Montana, where wind gusts could reach 70 mph.
The West Coast will finally get a break from the severe weather next week.
Meanwhile, in the South, a strong storm brought eight reported tornadoes to Texas and Louisiana on Thursday.
On Friday, more damaging winds, hail and an isolated tornado are possible from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama, to Pensacola, Florida.
A new storm system is bringing another tornado threat this weekend.
On Saturday, an elevated tornado threat is forecast from Louisiana to Alabama. Cities in the bull’s-eye include Jackson, Mississippi; Hattiesburg, Mississippi; and Alexandria, Louisiana.
On Sunday, this storm system will move into the Southeast and could bring severe weather from Georgia to the Carolinas to southern Virginia. Damaging winds and a few tornadoes will be possible.
Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The Mega Millions jackpot has surged to $1.15 billion — and a winner could take home the fifth largest prize in Mega Millions history.
The next drawing will take place on Friday at 11 p.m. ET, with the cash value of the jackpot estimated to be $516.1 million.
No one has won the grand prize in the last 30 drawings, as the jackpot has ballooned. The last time the jackpot was won was at $810 million in Texas on Sept. 10.
No ticket matched the numbers drawn on Christmas Eve; the numbers drawn were 11, 14, 38, 45, 46 and gold Mega Ball 3.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350, according to Mega Millions.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets are $2 for one play.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents assigned to a region near the Canadian border in Washington found two backpacks left out in the woods containing an estimated $1.1 million of cocaine, officials said. Image via U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
(NEW YORK) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents assigned to a region near the Canadian border in Washington found two backpacks left out in the woods containing an estimated $1.1 million of cocaine, officials said.
The incident occurred when agents on patrol in the Blaine Sector of Washington, approximately 110 miles north of Seattle, discovered two black backpacks weighing 78 pounds lying on the ground in a wooded area near the border in Lynden, according to a statement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection released on Monday.
When the agents looked inside, they found “30 brick-like packages containing a white powdery substance,” officials said. The substance was later tested and determined to be cocaine.
“Thanks to the vigilance of Blaine Sector Border Patrol agents these dangerous narcotics were prevented from reaching our communities,” said Chief Patrol Agent Rosario “Pete” Vasquez. “Our agents work tirelessly day in and day out to protect this nation, and this seizure highlights that crucial commitment.”
The narcotics were immediately turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, officials said.
Authorities did not reveal how the bags got there, who they might belong to or if any arrests have been made in connection to the case.
(NEW YORK) — The stock market climbed to record highs in 2024, extending banner gains achieved the previous year.
The S&P 500 — the index that most people’s 401(k)’s track — climbed nearly 28% this year, as of Monday.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq leapt a staggering 34% over that period; while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 16%.
Consecutive years of strong stock market performance have posed a quandary for forecasters: Will high stock prices scare off would-be investors in 2025, or will momentum push shares even higher?
Experts have attributed the rise of share prices this year to a set of favorable trends: Solid economic growth, enthusiasm about artificial intelligence and the long-awaited start of interest rate cuts at the Federal Reserve.
Those tail winds are expected to keep pushing stocks skyward in 2025, experts said, but they cautioned about more-than-usual uncertainty that could prevent further gains or even amplify them. The biggest unknown for stocks in 2025, they said: President-elect Donald Trump.
“As we close the books on 2024 and peer into 2025, perhaps the uncertainties this time are of a magnitude beyond the norm,” Kevin Gordon and Liz Ann Sonders, a pair of investment strategists at Charles Schwab, said last week. “Good luck figuring this one out.”
Good news abounded for the stock market this year, in part because the economy defied doomsayers.
The economy continued to grow at a solid clip in 2024, while inflation fell. That performance kept the U.S. on track for a “soft landing,” in which the economy averts a recession while inflation returns to normal.
Gross domestic product grew at a robust 2.8% annualized rate over three months ending in September, the most recent period for which data is available.
“U.S. strength remains undiminished,” Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, told ABC News in a statement.
Inflation has slowed dramatically from a peak of more than 9% in June 2022. A months-long stretch of progress earlier this year helped nudge the Federal Reserve toward its first interest rate cuts in four years.
In recent months, the Fed has cut its benchmark rate three-quarters of a percentage point, dialing back its fight against inflation and delivering some relief for borrowers saddled with high costs.
Over time, rate cuts ease the burden on borrowers for everything from home mortgages to credit cards to cars, making it cheaper to get a loan or refinance one. The cuts also boost company valuations, potentially helping fuel returns for stockholders.
The Fed is expected to continue cutting interest rates next year, though a recent bout of stubborn inflation could slow, or even pause, the lowering of rates, experts previously told ABC News.
“Markets expect gradual rate cuts next year, which would imply inflation stays under control, the job market hums along at an acceptable pace, stocks rise, and everybody is happy,” Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management, said in a statement to ABC News.
“Reality isn’t that cut and dry, though,” Cox added.
Some analysts pointed to Trump’s policies as a major source of uncertainty for the nation’s economic performance and, in turn, the stock market.
Trump has vowed to cut taxes for individuals and corporations, which could spur economic growth and raise stock prices, some experts said. However, they added, Trump’s proposed tariffs could hurt some U.S. producers and retailers that depend on imported raw materials, and may cause a resurgence of inflation. As a result, some stocks could suffer.
“The most significant wild card on the table for 2025 will be the potential implementation of tariffs,” David Sekera, chief U.S. market strategist for Morningstar, said earlier this month.
Since 1990, there have been 12 years in which the S&P 500 has gained 20% or more, Cox said. The stock market crossed that threshold last year, and is almost certain to do so when 2024 comes to an end. It will be difficult for the stock market to achieve that feat for a third consecutive year, Cox added.
“If you’re expecting a repeat of 2024, you’re asking a lot of the market gods,” Cox said.
Still, the enticing possibility of another rally will draw investor interest as observers watch for any early signs of sputtering.
“The opportunities for investors are plenty, but so are the obstacles,” Shah said.
(KISSIMMEE, Fla.) — A pregnant woman who ordered pizza in Florida was stabbed 14 times by a delivery driver who police say was disgruntled over her $2 tip.
Osceola County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the Riviera Motel in Kissimmee, Florida, over reports of a home invasion and stabbing on Dec. 22, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by ABC News.
Arriving deputies located a victim, Melinda Irizarry, who was stabbed multiple times and was then transported to an area hospital.
She underwent emergency surgery for a ruptured lung and suffered stab wounds to the chest, arms, legs and abdomen, according to the affidavit.
Irizarry is currently in stable condition, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said in an update on Facebook.
Authorities identified 22-year-old Brianna Alvelo as the delivery driver and suspect in the case, according to the affidavit.
Officials say that Irizarry placed an order at Marcos Pizza Shop and 30 minutes later the suspect believed to be Alvelo arrived at their motel with the order, which totaled $33.10.
Irizarry handed the suspect a $50 bill and requested change, however, to which she was told it was store policy not to provide change, the affidavit said.
After getting smaller bills to fulfill the order, Irizarry ended up giving the driver a $2 tip. After the incident, Irizarry told deputies the driver “rolled her eyes and walked away without saying anything,” according to the affidavit.
Officials said Alvelo allegedly later returned to the victim’s motel room with an unknown male suspect — who was armed with a firearm — and “forced their way into the room.”
Alvelo, who deputies say was armed with a knife, attacked the victim and stabbed her 14 times, according to the affidavit.
Police say items were also taken from the motel room in the invasion.
Alvelo was arrested on home invasion with a firearm, attempted murder, kidnapping, and aggravated assault violations, according to the affidavit.
Officials say the unknown male suspect is still at large and request anyone with information regarding the case to contact Crimeline at (800) 423-8477.
(MICHIGAN) — Jennifer Crumbley, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting her son carried out at a Michigan high school, is asking to be released from prison as her appeal moves through the courts.
Dezsi said that Crumbley should be allowed to post bond, which would let her leave the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility while promising to appear at court dates.
“There’s no reason to keep her locked up,” Dezsi said. “She hasn’t hurt anyone, and she’s not a flight risk. This case is an overreach, blaming a parent for the problems of a whole nation.”
The trials were a rare case of parents facing criminal charges over their role in a shooting carried out by their child.
Dezsi called the sentence unfair and claimed the case was based on secret deals with two witnesses.
“Keeping Mrs. Crumbley in prison sets a bad example and rewards unfair prosecutions,” Dezsi said.
“We’re not just standing up for her — we’re standing up for all Americans who could face this kind of situation someday,” he added.
The court hasn’t decided yet whether she’ll be allowed to post bond. The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
The Crumbleys’ son, Ethan Crumbley, was 15 years old at the time he opened fire at Oxford High School in 2021, killing four students. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors said Jennifer and James Crumbley ignored several warning signs in the days leading up to the shooting. The parents also bought their son the gun used in the shooting and failed to secure the weapon and limit their son’s access to it, prosecutors argued.
(WASHINGTON) — Marianne Williamson, spiritual leader and author who ran two longshot Democratic presidential campaigns in 2020 and 2024, is running for chair of the Democratic National Committee, framing her run as a way to reimagine the Democratic Party as the party regroups and takes stock of its losses during the 2024 election cycle.
“I feel that in order for the Democrats to rise like a phoenix on the ashes of our electoral defeat, we need to look at more than just the outer issues, such as data analysis and field organizing and fundraising,” Williamson said. “We need to transform — in a way, we need to reinvent the Democratic Party in order to counter what MAGA is bringing to the table.”
In an accompanying blog post, Williamson stressed Democrats must better understand President-elect Donald Trump’s appeal and strategy to better counter it, adding that she wants to “reinvent the party from the inside out.”
“President Trump has ushered in an age of political theater — a collective adrenaline rush that has enabled him to not only move masses of people into his camp, but also masses of people away from ours. It does not serve us to underestimate the historic nature of what he has achieved,” Williamson wrote. “In fact, it’s important that we recognize the psychological and emotional dimensions of Trump’s appeal. We need to understand it to create the energy to counter it.”
“As Chairwoman, I will work to reinvent the party from the inside out. For if we want a new President in four years, and a new Congress in two, then we must immediately get about the task of creating a new party,” she added later.
Williamson also said that she would have a “a 365-days-of-the-year strategy” to allow Americans to be politically involved yearround and that she wants the party to inspire Americans.
Williamson was unable to generate a groundswell of support in either of her bids for president, although she stayed in the race until the Democratic presidential primaries concluded and she gained some traction with Democrats who wanted to protest the White House on the Israel-Hamas war.
“We have a very frayed bond of affection with millions of Americans particularly working people in the United States. We have to address the problem on that level. On the level of the heart. On the level of the mind,” Williamson told ABC News Live anchor Kyra Phillips on Thursday afternoon. “People aren’t feeling it about Democrats anymore. At least not enough of them to make for the kind of victory we need in ’26 and ’28.”
Williamson needs to get the support of at least 40 DNC members to qualify for the first DNC candidate forum in early January. The DNC plans on hosting four moderated forums before the election.
She joins a handful of other declared candidates for DNC chair, including Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler and Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair Ken Martin and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. Jamie Harrison, the current chairman, isn’t running for reelection.
DNC leadership elections will be held at National Harbor outside Washington on Feb. 1.
(SEATTLE, Wash.) — A month after a woman was caught stowing away on a Delta Air Lines flight headed to France, ABC News has confirmed another unticketed individual was caught on a flight headed to Hawaii, this time on Christmas Eve.
The recent stowaway was apprehended after boarding a flight from Seattle to Honolulu on Dec. 24, according to the airline.
Delta flight 487 was taxiing for departure when it returned to the gate after the crew learned of an unticketed passenger onboard. The identity of the individual has not been released.
“As there are no matters more important than safety and security, Delta people followed procedures to have an unticketed passenger removed from the flight and then apprehended,” Delta said in a statement to ABC News.
The flight was delayed more than two hours as TSA conducted additional security checks and rescreened all passengers, according to the airline.
Law enforcement responded to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport and detained the unticketed passenger.
According to the airport officials, the stowaway exited the plane after it returned to the gate, and the Port of Seattle Police located them in a terminal restroom with the help of video surveillance.
The passenger was arrested for trespassing and booked into South Correctional Entity jail, according to Seattle Tacoma International Airport authorities.
In their investigation, airport authorities found that the stowaway had gotten through a TSA security checkpoint the evening before the flight without a boarding pass but was properly screened otherwise.
TSA said in a statement to ABC News it is working with the Port of Seattle Police on this incident.
Additionally, Delta said the investigation is ongoing, but preliminary findings suggest the passenger boarded the plane without showing a boarding pass at the gate.
News of the second Delta Air Lines stowaway comes after Svetlana Dali, a Russian national, was caught stowing away on a Delta Air Lines flight from the United States to France in November.
Dali had snuck aboard Delta Flight 264, which departed from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and was bound for Charles-de-Gaulle International Airport in Paris.
According to a statement from the French Interior Ministry at the time, “She was not admitted to French territory due to lack of a valid travel document (visa) and was placed in the waiting area for the time necessary for her re-routing to the United States since she held a valid US residence permit.”
Just over a week later, Dali was arrested again on Dec. 4 after cutting off her ankle monitor and trying to sneak into Canada, law enforcement sources told ABC News at the time.
The person she was staying with in Philadelphia discovered the bracelet cut and alerted authorities.
Dali was apprehended in Buffalo, New York, while aboard a Greyhound bus trying to cross into Canada.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
(SEATTLE, Wash.) — A month after a woman was caught stowing away on a Delta Air Lines flight headed to France, ABC News has confirmed another unticketed individual was caught on a flight headed to Hawaii, this time on Christmas Eve.
The recent stowaway was apprehended after boarding a flight from Seattle to Honolulu on Dec. 24, according to the airline.
Delta flight 487 was taxiing for departure when it returned to the gate after the crew learned of an unticketed passenger onboard. The identity of the individual has not been released.
“As there are no matters more important than safety and security, Delta people followed procedures to have an unticketed passenger removed from the flight and then apprehended,” Delta said in a statement to ABC News.
The flight was delayed more than two hours as TSA conducted additional security checks and rescreened all passengers, according to the airline.
Law enforcement responded to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport and detained the unticketed passenger.
According to the airport officials, the stowaway exited the plane after it returned to the gate, and the Port of Seattle Police located them in a terminal restroom with the help of video surveillance.
The passenger was arrested for trespassing and booked into South Correctional Entity jail, according to Seattle Tacoma International Airport authorities.
In their investigation, airport authorities found that the stowaway had gotten through a TSA security checkpoint the evening before the flight without a boarding pass but was properly screened otherwise.
TSA said in a statement to ABC News it is working with the Port of Seattle Police on this incident.
Additionally, Delta said the investigation is ongoing, but preliminary findings suggest the passenger boarded the plane without showing a boarding pass at the gate.
News of the second Delta Air Lines stowaway comes after Svetlana Dali, a Russian national, was caught stowing away on a Delta Air Lines flight from the United States to France in November.
Dali had snuck aboard Delta Flight 264, which departed from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and was bound for Charles-de-Gaulle International Airport in Paris.
According to a statement from the French Interior Ministry at the time, “She was not admitted to French territory due to lack of a valid travel document (visa) and was placed in the waiting area for the time necessary for her re-routing to the United States since she held a valid US residence permit.”
Just over a week later, Dali was arrested again on Dec. 4 after cutting off her ankle monitor and trying to sneak into Canada, law enforcement sources told ABC News at the time.
The person she was staying with in Philadelphia discovered the bracelet cut and alerted authorities.
Dali was apprehended in Buffalo, New York, while aboard a Greyhound bus trying to cross into Canada.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — There are early indications that a Russian anti-aircraft system may have struck the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, killing dozens, a U.S. official told ABC News.
There is new evidence that the passenger plane may have been shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile from a Pantsir-S1 system, a high-level Azeri government source told ABC News.
If Russia did indeed strike the Azerbaijan plane, the U.S. official said it would be yet another example of Russia’s recklessness in the war with Ukraine. The plane was flying over an area where Moscow’s air defense has battled Ukrainian drones recently.
The White House referred ABC News to officials in the region as the investigation continues.
At least 38 people are dead and 29 others injured after the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger aircraft crashed near Kazakhstan’s Aktau Airport on Wednesday morning, a spokesperson for Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Emergency Situations told ABC News.
Many of the 29 survivors were hospitalized, including two children, the spokesperson said.
The aircraft was flying from Baku in Azerbaijan to Grozny in Russia when it crashed near Aktau in Kazakhstan, the spokesperson said. The flight had been rerouted to Aktau due to fog in Grozny, Russian news agencies reported.
The prosecutor general’s office of Azerbaijan has launched a criminal case regarding the facts of the crash, officials announced during a press briefing on Wednesday.
“Currently, the investigation process is ongoing in cooperation with the prosecutor’s office of Kazakhstan. All versions are being explored in the criminal case,” Farid Huseynov, a spokesperson for Azerbaijan Airlines, said.
Aviation authorities from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia are collaborating to determine the exact cause of the crash, a spokesperson for Kazakhstan’s ministry of emergency situations said.
The plane was carrying 69 people: 64 passengers and five crew members. Based on preliminary data, the passengers included 37 Azerbaijani citizens, six from Kazakhstan, three from Kyrgyzstan and 16 from Russia, officials said.
Embraer, the aircraft manufacturer, released a statement about the crash, saying, “We are closely monitoring the situation, and we remain fully committed to supporting the relevant authorities.”
ABC News’ Dragana Jovanovic and David Brennan contributed to this report.
