(NEW YORK) — The United States experienced nearly two dozen billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in 2025, causing at least 276 fatalities and costing a total of $115 billion in damages. For the first time, however, the comprehensive analysis detailing the annual impact of these disasters wasn’t released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

Discontinued by the Trump administration in 2025, the Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disaster dataset and accompanying website are now hosted and maintained by Climate Central, a non-profit climate science organization. The group hired Adam Smith, the former lead scientist for NOAA’s U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters program, to continue his work at Climate Central.

Last year, there were 23 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, the third-highest annual total on record, behind 2023 and 2024, according to the new report released Thursday by Climate Central. The past year was also the 15th straight year with 10 or more billion-dollar disasters.

The costliest event of 2025 was the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January, which caused more than $61 billion in damage, according to the analysis. Severe weather events, including severe thunderstorms and tornado outbreaks, accounted for 91% of all billion-dollar disasters last year, the analysis showed.

A record-breaking 28 billion-dollar disasters occurred in 2023, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Extreme weather events, which ranged from severe thunderstorms to hurricanes to wildfires, killed at least 492 people and impacted large swaths of the country.  

With data going back to 1980, the Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disaster database is a public record of every significant U.S. weather and climate event that has caused at least $1 billion in damages, adjusted for inflation. Government agencies, insurers, and media outlets frequently rely on the database to report the economic impact of these disasters. 

However, last May, NOAA announced that it was retiring the resource, stating there would be no updates beyond calendar year 2024. While all past reports, spanning 1980-2024, will remain accessible on the agency’s website, they will no longer be updated and no new events will be added moving forward. NOAA said that the decision to “retire” the billion-dollar weather and climate disaster product was “in alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes.” 

There have been 426 billion-dollar disasters recorded in the United States since 1980, with a total cost exceeding $3.1 trillion, according to Climate Central. The frequency of billion-dollar disasters has increased dramatically since the early 1980s, driven by rising extreme weather events and the growing number of people, homes and businesses in harm’s way.  

While climate change may not be directly responsible for causing these disasters, human-amplified climate change is making naturally occurring events more intense and more impactful.

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(MINNEAPOLIS) — President Donald Trump said the 37-year-old woman who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday was at fault because she tried to “run over” the officer, according to an interview with The New York Times published on Thursday.  

“I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen either,” Trump told the publication, calling it a “vicious situation.”

State and local officials have pushed back on the assertions from the White House and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey calling the claims about the driver “b——-” and telling ICE to “get the f— out” and Gov. Tim Walz calling it “propaganda.”

The fatal shooting was captured on video by bystanders. In the video, which ABC News has verified, the driver, who was identified by city council members as Renee Nicole Good, is driving her SUV on a road near ICE officers. As one officer reaches for the SUV’s door handle, the vehicle lurches backward and then begins moving forward, rightward, seemingly away from the officers. One of the officers can be seen firing into the moving vehicle.

Protesters gathered on the city’s streets on Wednesday. And the FBI said in a statement, “Consistent with our investigative protocol, the incident is under review, and we are working closely with our law enforcement partners.”

Noem on Wednesday described the driver’s actions as an “act of domestic terrorism,” saying that an “anti-ICE rioter weaponized her vehicle against law enforcement.”

“An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots,” Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of Homeland Security, said in a statement posted on social media.

State officials on Wednesday pushed back on such characterizations. The state’s attorney general, Keith Elllison, said in a statement that he was “heartbroken” over the shooting, but was also “angry. Very angry.” He accused the Trump administration of “weaponizing the federal government against the people of Minnesota.”

The death amounted to a “policy failure,” Ellison told ABC News in an interview, adding that there would be “an analysis on the use of force here.” Ellison said that the blame appeared to lie in part with Trump, who authorized the deployment, adding, “That’s not to take responsibility from the officer who used deadly force in a situation that does not appear to call for it.” 

Walz said on social media, “I’ve seen the video. Don’t believe this propaganda machine. The state will ensure there is a full, fair, and expeditious investigation to ensure accountability and justice.”

Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson said Wednesday that the department’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is working in conjunction with the FBI to investigate the shooting.

The FBI said in a statement on Wednesday, “Consistent with our investigative protocol, the incident is under review, and we are working closely with our law enforcement partners.”

Officials have not released the name of the officer who opened fire.

Trump on Wednesday had said the officer acted in “self defense.”

“The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense,” he said in a post on social media. 

When Trump was pressed by the Times on how he drew his conclusions about the incident, the president reportedly had an aide play a video clip from a laptop to reinforce his point.

Asked if he believed firing into a vehicle similar to Wednesday’s shooting is acceptable, Trump reportedly stuck to his position, saying of Good that she “behaved horribly.”

“And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over,” Trump said, according to the repot.

Before playing the clip to the Times reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said, “With all of it being said, no, I don’t like that happening.”

When reporters told him the clip he was showing did not appear to show an ICE officer was run over, he told them, “it’s a terrible scene.” 

“I think it’s horrible to watch,” Trump said. “No, I hate to see it.”

Ellison told ABC News that after he viewed the video, it was “clear to me” that the deadly force came as the driver was attempting to “evade” the officers, including the one who fatally shot her. 

“Renee Good deserves justice, and my office will not look away,” Ellison said on social media on Wednesday evening. “As Attorney General, I will do everything in my power to pursue the truth and ensure accountability and transparency.”

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(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — A judge sided with defense lawyers on Thursday and is instructing jurors to completely disregard the testimony of a former teacher who is a key prosecution witness in the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales.

Former teacher Stephanie Hale returned to the witness stand for an hour on Thursday in an effort to salvage her testimony, but defense lawyers ultimately argued that allowing her testimony to stand would endanger Gonzales’ right to a fair trial.

“There’s no doubt that this was crucial to the [defense] strategy,” Judge Sid Harle said. “I don’t think I have any choice, having denied the mistrial — other than to craft a remedy that will protect the due process rights and hopefully avoid any appellate review that would result in this case being reversed —  so I am reluctantly going to instruct the jury to disregard her testimony in its entirety.”

Before instructing the jury, the judge personally thanked Hale for her testimony and emphasized that she was not at fault.

“I want to emphasize that you did absolutely nothing wrong. It’s not on you,” the judge said. “I want to tell you, just from personal experience, memories of traumatic events change.”

When Hale was on the stand Thursday, defense attorney Jason Goss attempted to point out that her original account — provided to state investigators four days after the May 2022 shooting — differed from what she told the jury on Tuesday. 

“Seeing a shooter, and being shot at, are important details, you would agree with that?” Goss said. 

“It depends on who you are,” she responded. “I don’t know. I guess possibly.”

Gonzales, who was one of nearly 400 law enforcement officers to respond to the Robb Elementary School mass shooting, is charged with 29 counts of child endangerment for allegedly ignoring his training during the botched police response.

Gonzales has pleaded not guilty. His legal team says he did all he could to help students and maintains he’s being scapegoated.

If convicted on all counts, Gonzales could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the shooting. Investigations faulted the police response and suggested that a 77-minute delay in police mounting a counterassault could have contributed to the carnage.

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

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(NEW YORK) — A judge in New York has rejected Harvey Weinstein’s bid for a new trial, ruling juror complaints about decorum in the deliberation room were adequately addressed.

Weinstein was convicted of the 2006 sexual assault of Mimi Haley, a one-time production assistant on the Weinstein-produced reality show “Project Runway.” 

The defense said two jurors subsequently claimed they were pressured to convict. 

Judge Curtis Farber decided on Thursday, “The Court’s response to the jurors’ complaints appropriately balanced the competing interests of investigating the allegations while avoiding any unnecessary taint of the deliberating jury.”

Weinstein is now consulting with his attorneys about when he will be re-tried for the rape count he faces in connection with an alleged 2013 assault of Jessica Mann. The judge declared a mistrial on that one count after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. The Manhattan district attorney’s office said it would retry Weinstein on that count.  

Weinstein, 73, remains in custody at Rikers Island in New York City after nearly six years of confinement. A representative for the disgraced Hollywood producer said he is “medically fragile and in legal limbo.”

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(NEW YORK) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said she wants to “get Americans away from the highly processed packaged foods,” saying those foods are driving the obesity epidemic in America, following the release on Wednesday of new federal dietary guidelines.

“This is a whole flipping of the narrative,” Rollins said in an exclusive interview on “Good Morning America” that aired on Thursday. “It’s a flipping of what we’ve known over the last couple of decades.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the new federal dietary guidelines on Wednesday, encouraging Americans to limit highly processed food and reduce refined carbohydrates.

The new recommendations essentially turn the old food pyramid upside down, encouraging Americans to eat whole foods like fruits and vegetables, to incorporate healthy fats, to prioritize protein-rich meals including red meat and to consume full-fat dairy and whole grains with no added sugars.

“Today was a reset of all of that in these dietary guidelines focusing on eating real food, nutrient dense foods, saturated fat, meats, fruits and vegetables, whole milk, all of that now becomes front and center,” said Rollins. “And that’s real, that’s unprecedented.”

Other recommendations include limiting added sugars and highly processed foods like potato chips or cookies, as well as sweetened beverages like energy drinks, soda, and diet sodas due to their artificial sweeteners.

The guidance puts a new focus on what the administration is calling “healthy fats,” such as full-fat dairy like yogurt and cheese, and using olive oil, beef tallow or butter as a cooking oil, a recommendation that Kennedy Jr. has championed This is in contrast to the American Heart Association recommendation to “limit high-fat animal products including red meat, butter, lard and tallow, which are linked to increased cardiovascular risk.”

“Our goal is to get Americans away from the highly processed packaged foods, which is the driver in the obesity epidemic that’s facing our country right now,” Rollins told “GMA” on Thursday.

Some of these choices, however, could be costly for many Americans as they face rising grocery prices, including ground beef, which has risen 16% over the past year, according to officials.

“This is just about a general awareness amongst America on what is healthy and what we should be eating,” Rollins continued.

The guidelines also say Americans should “limit alcoholic beverages.” Previously, the dietary guidelines said adults ages 21 and over should stick to two drinks or fewer per day for men and one drink or fewer per day for women.

“The recommendation is just minimize, minimize, minimize, minimize,” Rollins said. “We’re not saying everyone should stop eating sugar and stop drinking anything. That’s not it. It’s just working to trend away from where we’ve gotten to in the last couple decades.”

The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which are updated every five years, come as Kennedy has made nutrition policy a cornerstone of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.

“Let’s focus on these good, nutritious foods,” Rollins said. “This will change everything.”

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