(NEW YORK) — A major storm is moving from the Rockies to the East Coast over the next two days, bringing with it heavy snow to the Upper Midwest and severe thunderstorms to the east.
A winter storm warning has been issued in the Upper Midwest and the Great Lakes where snow is set to blow through Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. A winter storm warning is in effect for cities including Aspen, Sioux Falls and Minneapolis.
Meanwhile, from Arkansas to Tennessee to Kentucky to Indiana, the threat will be strong tornadoes and damaging winds on Friday night.
Shortly before 7 p.m. local time, a “large and extremely dangerous tornado” was confirmed near Jonesboro, Arkansas, moving northeast at 60 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
Tornado watches have also been issued in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee.
The worst tornado threat is from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. Tornadoes are especially dangerous at night because residents may sleep through alerts.
Temperatures are forecast to climb to 62 degrees in Boston, 66 in New York, 73 in Washington, D.C., and 77 in Savannah, Georgia.
Wind alerts are being issued from Chicago to Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. Power outages are possible.
(NEW YORK) — The countdown is on for “Good Morning America” co-anchor Michael Strahan and the Blue Origin crew of astronauts to blast off to space aboard New Shepard.
The team completed its Flight Readiness Review and confirmed the vehicle has met all mission requirements for launch.
The Dec. 11 mission will be the New Shepard rocket’s third human flight this year and marks the first with a full astronaut manifest of six crew members in the capsule, according to Blue Origin.
The “GMA” co-anchor took part in a training camp with his fellow crew members ahead of today’s launch from Blue Origin’s “Launch Site One” facility in a remote area in the West Texas desert.
Dec 11, 5:31 am
What Strahan will bring to space
Strahan told “GMA” that he’s bringing a few personal items to space including his Super Bowl and Hall of Fame rings, his retired Giants jersey, special watches and the shell casings from the gun that was fired at his father’s military funeral. Strahan said he also added his grandfather’s pocket watch that was given to him by his mom.
“This is a once in a lifetime experience, of course, you want to have your most prized possessions and meaningful belongings with you,” Strahan said.
Dec 11, 5:26 am
Meet the crew
Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of astronaut Alan Shepard who was the first American in space and the fifth man on the moon, will follow in her father’s footsteps on Saturday. She told “GMA” her father would tell her to enjoy the moment and take in the view.
Space industry executive and philanthropist Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, and Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess and his child, Cameron, will also be part of the crew for New Shepard’s 19th mission. Lane and Cameron Bess will become the first parent-child pair to fly in space.
Dec 11, 5:18 am
Thursday launch delayed, pushed to Saturday
Strahan and five others originally trained and prepared for a Thursday launch from West Texas, but the Jeff Bezos-owned aerospace travel company made the call Wednesday to delay due to weather.
“Due to forecasted winds on Thursday, December 9 and Friday, December 10, the New Shepard launch team has made the call to delay the launch of NS-19 to Saturday, December 11,” Blue Origin said in a statement. “Liftoff from Launch Site One is targeted for 8:45am CST / 14:45 UTC.”
(KENTUCKY) — A devastating tornado outbreak in western Kentucky has claimed the lives of at least 50 people, according to Gov. Andy Beshear.
The total could reach 75 to 100 people, he added, calling it “one of the hardest nights in Kentucky history.”
One tornado was on the ground for 200 miles, he said, devastating towns like Mayfield and Princeton late Friday. At least four tornadoes tore through western Kentucky.
Beshear has activated the National Guard for search and rescue and recovery operations.
“We will make it through this, we will rebuild. We are strong, resilient people,” Beshear said at a 4 a.m. press conference.
Tornadoes were also confirmed on the ground in Princeton, Kentucky, just after 10 p.m. local time, in Mayfield, Kentucky, at about 9:30 p.m. local time and near Hornersville, Missouri, at about 8 p.m. local time.
Tornado watches were also issued in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee.
Shortly before 7 p.m. local time, a “large and extremely dangerous tornado” was confirmed near Jonesboro, Arkansas, moving northeast at 60 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
In Monette, Arkansas, one person was killed at a nursing home when a suspected tornado moved through Friday night, Craighead County, Arkansas, Judge Marvin Day told Jonesboro ABC affiliate KAIT. Authorities had initially said two people were killed. Five others suffered serious injuries.
Meanwhile, a winter storm warning has been issued in the Upper Midwest and the Great Lakes where snow is set to blow through Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. A winter storm warning is in effect for cities including Aspen, Sioux Falls and Minneapolis.
This will be the first major winter storm for the Minneapolis-St. Paul region this season. The Twin Cities area could see more than 1 foot of snow.
Along the East Coast, record-high temperatures are possible Saturday afternoon.
Temperatures are forecast to climb to 62 degrees in Boston, 66 in New York, 73 in Washington, D.C., and 77 in Savannah, Georgia.
But strong thunderstorms may hit the Carolinas and the Northeast on Saturday night. There is a small chance of tornadoes in the Mid-Atlantic.
Wind alerts are being issued from Chicago to Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. Power outages are possible.
The Smashing Pumpkins frontman and his longtime partner Chloe Mendel have joined the site, which allows you to purchase personalized video messages from celebrities, to raise money for their hometown no-kill animal shelter PAWS Chicago.
Corgan, of course, is a longtime supporter of PAWS Chicago — you may remember the adorable photo of him and his cats on the cover of a 2014 issue of PAWS Chicago magazine.
The Cameos cost $250 for personal use, and $4,500 for business use, in case you’re hoping to use Corgan’s words to inspire your employees or customers.
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — The city of Columbus, Ohio, has agreed to pay $5.75 million in damages to people injured during a wave of protests last year, according to a settlement reached Thursday.
Protests had erupted across the nation and in Columbus after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck on May 25, 2020 while Chauvin was arresting Floyd.
Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of Floyd. He received a sentence of 22 1/2 years in prison on June 25.
Some protesters had filed a lawsuit against the city in July 2020 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, alleging the police department used excessive force against them, violating their constitutional rights.
“During the protests in Columbus, some plaintiffs were significantly injured. Therefore, it’s incumbent upon the City to accept responsibility and pay restitution,” city attorney Zach Klein said in a statement. “Many Columbus Division of Police officers did perform their jobs professionally during that time, but this litigation highlighted serious issues that must be addressed.”
As part of the settlement, the city also agreed to a permanent injunction on the use of non-lethal force against peaceful protesters, who are not harming people or destroying property.The injunction bans the use of tear gas, pepper spray, flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets, wooden pellets, batons and more against peaceful protesters.
“While this has certainly been a difficult and painful moment for our community, it has yielded important, and in some instances long overdue, reforms to policing practices, policies, and oversight,” Klein said.
A federal judge had placed a preliminary injunction on the city earlier this year ordering police to stop using non-lethal force on non-violent protesters; the permanent injunction prevents police from reintroducing those tactics.
“We have implemented significant changes in protest response and training since last year’s protests,” said Columbus department of public safety director Robert Clark “Before there can be healing, there must be accountability,” he stated.
The settlement is conditional on the approval of the Columbus City Council, according to court filings. The funds to pay for the settlement will come from the city’s general fund account.
(LIMA, Peru) — The COVID-19 pandemic spread across South America at an alarming rate in 2021, with the death toll surpassing one million in Latin America and the Caribbean in May, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the prevalence of hunger is now at 9.1% — the worst rate in 15 years, according to a United Nations report published in 2021.
According to the report, the prevalence of hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean increased by 2% between 2019 and 2020, with 59.7 million people in the region suffering from hunger.
Number of omicron cases in US ‘likely to rise,’ CDC director says
In a small neighborhood outside the Peruvian capital of Lima, Olinda Huamani, who is a single mother of three, has struggled to feed her children.
Huamani said she used to clean houses for a living and her children would accompany her to work, but due to the COVID-19 lockdowns, she lost her source of income.
“We don’t have anything. Everything you see has been tossed out by others and were picked up from the trash,” she told ABC News.
“I would go to the garbage to look and would think there would be COVID in the trash but thankfully I didn’t get it. I would wash the fruit. I would wash it with hot water so my kids wouldn’t get sick and they didn’t. Only God protected us.”
Huamani’s family is one of millions in Latin American and the Caribbean who are dealing with hunger and in Peru, the situation is particularly dire.
According to a study by the COVID-19 resource center at Johns Hopkins University, Peru has the worst death rate per capita than any other nation in the world, with more than 600 deaths from the virus for every 100,000 residents. Meanwhile, in the United States there are 242 COVID deaths per 100,000 people, the study shows.
Patients overwhelmed the health care system, despite closed borders and nationwide lockdowns and amid the pandemic, the poverty crisis in Peru intensified and millions more faced hunger due to a rise in poverty.
In 2020, 30.1% of Peru’s population was affected by poverty – an increase of 9.9% since 2019, according to local statistics.
Victor Zamora, a former Peruvian health minister, told ABC News that there’s “hope” because the vaccination campaign has helped the situation, but people have yet to recover economically.
“I hope our leaders in Peru; economic and political, social leaders will find a way to lead the country out of this very poor situation,” he said.
The surge in poverty has made food distribution centers like Olla Comun, which means the “community pot,” essential for some families to survive.
“Sometimes we only think about kids but older adults need to be fed also to have a better quality of life,” a staff member at Olla Comun told ABC News.
Leybi Barrios Briceno, a mother to three young children, told ABC News that she had to move with her children to an orphanage so that they can have access to food and a safe place to spend the night.
“Someone I know told me about this place. Surely they saw I had nowhere to go or anything to eat so I came here and immediately they opened their doors to me,” she said.
“I don’t think any mother wants to sleep on the street with her kids and run the risk of them getting sick, hurt, kidnapped — all of that is scary.”
Meanwhile, Huamani is hoping that 2022 will bring better days for her and her family.
“Hopefully next year things get better. I have the hope they do,” she said.
Anderson .Paak announced Friday he is hosting his annual .Paak House charity holiday event for the first time in his Oxnard, California hometown.
The Grammy winner will perform with his group, The Free Nationals, and he will also present special surprise entertainment at the event on December 22. Anthony Anderson, Ty Dolla $ign, Snoh Aalegra, Jhené Aiko, Raphael Saadiq, Goapele, The Game, Schoolboy Q, Cordae, and Thundercat are among the celebrities who have appeared in the past.
“After a long year of studio sessions, promotional tours, and award shows, I’m excited to give back to the community. This year we are going to give Oxnard something they can remember for a lifetime,” Anderson said in a statement. “We can’t wait to see you all at .Paak House 2021!”
Tickets are on-sale now on the event website. For those not able to attend in person, .Paak House will be livestreamed.
This will be the fourth annual .Paak House, presented by the 35-year-old-singer’s Brandon Anderson Foundation. The event previously raised over half a million dollars toward community initiatives and served over 3,000 families providing them with basic hygiene care, food, toiletries, clothing, school supplies, and more.
Paak has released four solo albums, with his latest, Ventura, dropping in 2019. As a member of the duo Silk Sonic, with Bruno Mars, their debut single, “Leave The Door Open,” is up for four Grammy Awards:
Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best R&B Song, and Best R&B Performance.
The smash hit also won an American Music Award for Favorite R&B Song, and Soul Train Awards for Song of the Year and Video of the Year.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has weighed in on the Department of Labor report out Friday that shows the consumer price index, which measures the prices consumers pay for a market basket of everyday goods and services, climbed at its fastest rate in nearly 40 years.
“It matters to people when you’re paying more for gas, although in some states we’ve got the price down below three bucks a gallon. But the point is, it’s not gone down quickly enough, but I think it will,” Biden said at the end of his remarks closing out the Summit for Democracy.
The White House — trying to walk a fine line — acknowledged that Americans’ wallets are taking a hit but that the increased prices will not last forever. The Biden administration also used the new numbers as an opportunity to tout the “Build Back Better” social spending plan, which it says will ease the financial squeeze many are facing despite good signs from other economic indicators.
“Every other aspect of the economy is racing ahead. It’s doing incredibly well. We’ve never had this kind of growth in 60 years,” Biden said.
The president pointed to his social spending agenda as a way bring down the costs of child care and other expenses addressed in the bill.
“Economists think is going to, in fact, diminish the impact on inflation… because it’s reducing costs for ordinary people,” Biden said, noting that the plan does not have bipartisan support.
Asked how he planned to get holdout Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on board given his concerns over inflation, Biden said he would be speaking with the senator early next week, but once again stressed his plan would help combat rising prices, not add to it.
“The reason for the inflation is that we have a supply chain problem that is really severe, and it’s causing a significant increase in prices and things that, in fact, are hard to get access to. Because at the bottom, the bottom of it all, is COVID. COVID has had a serious impact on the ability to produce a whole lot of necessary products, particularly those imported from the Pacific and other places,” he said.
While Biden painted an optimistic view that inflation will soon be waning, White House press secretary Jen Psaki clarified that the White House is still deferring to the Federal Reserve about official predictions.
The new inflation numbers came the same day The Congressional Budget Office released a modified estimate of the cost of Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill that finds that if all proposed programs were made permanent rather than temporary, the bill would add $3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.
That, however, is not what Democrats are proposing in the bill. The House-passed version of the “Build Back Better” bill, which is expected to be modified by the Senate, sunsets many programs well before the 10-year period. The Child Tax Credit, for example, would only be extended for one additional year. As currently drafted, the CBO found the House-passed version of the bill adds $0.2 trillion to the deficit.
This modified score comes in response to a request from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo.
Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer dismissed the new estimate in a statement, slamming Republicans for “requesting fake scores based on mistruths”.
“Republican-requested fake CBO score does not take into account the fact that President Biden and Democrats have committed that any extensions of the Build Back Better Act in the future will be fully offset, therefore ensuring BBBA will not increase the deficit,” Schumer said. “The GOP’s fake CBO score request is nothing more than a partisan attempt to mislead the public.”
Still, the modified score could prove a huge hurdle for Senate Democrats working to win over Manchin.
Graham said in a press conference that Manchin was “stunned” when the two discussed the new report this morning.
“I talked to him this morning, he was stunned,” Graham said. “I think he felt vindicated in that his concerns were legitimate.”
For its part, The White House brushed off concerns over the new score. Still, Psaki acknowledged there was still work to be done to earn the support of Manchin, whose vote is pivotal to passing the bill. She added that the president would make his case to the senator that now is the time to act.
“You know, you saw every single Republican in the house vote against Build Back Better. What were they voting against? Yes they were voting against the president’s agenda. They were also voting against lowering costs. They were voting against lowering costs for child care, lowering costs for elder care, lowering costs for health care,” Psaki said.
“I think the case he will make is that this is exactly the time to pass this bill and move it forward so that we can lower costs for the American people on all of those topics, including insulin in areas that really pinch — force American families to pinch pennies,” she added.
ABC News’ Catherine Thronbecke contributed to this report.
Halsey has released the sticky, sweet performance video for the song “Honey” off her album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power.
In the clip, filmed live in Los Angeles, Halsey performs the upbeat tune in a white lace dress. Midway through the song, they begin to literally cover themselves in honey. By the end of the song, Halsey’s dancing around, completely covered in it.
Earlier this week, the singer hinted on Twitter that they’re thinking about not releasing any more music. When one fan suggested what their new “era” should be, Halsey responded, “Bold of you to assume I’m gonna make more music.”
They later explained why they’re considering hanging up their music career, writing, “im highly sensitive since having my child and I want to protect him from having to read or hear unnecessary things about me in the future considering I have 0 control over what people say about me and he didn’t ask to receive that volume of info so I do think about it sometimes.”
Halsey added, “Perhaps I will learn to stop spilling my guts and become the reclusive homestead farmer I was always meant to be. Write lots of books that I won’t let anyone publish till I die. Probably not. but if it happens, here’s the foreshadowing.”
Fozzy frontman Chris Jericho was reportedly hospitalized with a “non COVID-related, treatable health issue.”
That’s according to the U.K.’s Sin City Swansea venue, where the “Judas” rockers were scheduled to play Friday.
“We were devastated to learn that Fozzy will have to cancel their planned date with us,” reads a statement posted to the club’s Facebook. The post also says that the venue received a message from Fozzy reading, “Chris was checked into hospital by doctors, with a non COVID related, treatable health issue.”
Fozzy also posted a statement on their own social media, writing that “due to circumstances beyond our control,” they will not be playing the Swansea gig. The statement made no mention of Jericho’s condition, though a rep for the band tells People that Chris is “feeling much better” and will “hopefully will be out of the hospital quickly.”
Fozzy had just announced the details of their new album Boombox earlier Friday. The record, due out April 15, includes the singles “Sane” and “Nowhere to Run.”
