Jennifer Coolidge has a lot to say about Legally Blonde‘s 20th anniversary, which is July 13. The actress, who played the lovable and hilarious Paulette Bonafonté, has some thoughts on how the movie should celebrate its milestone.
“I’m curious if there will be fireworks,” Coolidge, 59, joked toEntertainment Tonight. “I don’t know what they will do. I feel like it will be a big deal.”
The actress continued, “It’s going to be like a giant jet ride to somewhere really far away and I think there must be a party in some big castle or something… At least that’s what I will be hoping for.”
As for how she feels about Legally Blonde turning 20, Coolidge quipped, “All I had to do was age 20 years and I am at the anniversary. I mean, I didn’t even have to work for this. Twenty years went by and then you get credit for being alive and making it to 20.”
“You see, all of the other girls when we made Legally Blonde were, like, 11,” she teased. “My journey was much harder.”
Coolidge was also asked about the upcoming third Legally Blonde movie, but refused to reveal anything.
“I have not seen the script,” Coolidge confessed. “I am told Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon are talking about it and I hear it is going to be finished soon. I heard it is close but I haven’t seen it, I really haven’t,” then joked, “I hope I am alive by then.”
Legally Blonde 3 is set to arrive in theaters in 2022, a little under 20 years since the franchise’s second installment — Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde — hit the box office.
Legally Blonde, also starring Witherspoon, Luke Wilson and Selma Blair, hit theaters on July 13, 2001.
(NEW YORK) — The NFL and Twitter announced a new game plan on Thursday.
The league extended its partnership with the social network in a multi-year deal, which will include the use of Twitter Spaces, Twitter’s new live audio feature.
“The commitment to Twitter Spaces represents another innovative step forward in the longstanding partnership between the NFL and Twitter,” Blake Stuchin, the NFL’s vice president of digital media business development, said in a statement. “We’re excited to bring NFL fans a new way to engage with live audio ahead of our biggest events of the year and every week throughout the NFL season.”
The league plans to host more than 20 Twitter Spaces for the upcoming 2021 season. They will “include participation from current NFL players and other NFL talent to discuss season matchups and insights,” the NFL said.
“We’re excited to super-serve NFL fans with even more of what they love to see on Twitter, including epic touchdown highlights all season long,” Twitter’s head of U.S. sports partnerships, TJ Adeshola, said in a statement. “In addition to fueling the timeline with the best moments from each game in real time, we’ll be doubling down on innovation by leveraging our live audio format, ‘Spaces’, to bring fans even closer to the game.”
Late AC/DC vocalist Bon Scott would’ve celebrated his 75th birthday today.
Born Ronald Belford Scott on July 9, 1946, the rocker replaced original AC/DC vocalist Dave Evans in 1974, and sang with the future Rock & Roll Hall of Famers up until his tragic death in 1980 at age 33.
Scott’s tenure with AC/DC was among the band’s most prolific periods, having produced six albums in five years, including the classics High Voltage, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and Highway to Hell. His studio output was matched by a tenacious live presence, and he’s now considered to be among the greatest frontmen in rock history.
“Fond memories of our ‘lightning flash in the middle’ Bon, who would be 75 today,” says AC/DC guitarist Angus Young, referencing Scott’s assertion that he was represented by the lightning bolt in the middle of the band’s now-iconic logo.
Following Scott’s death, a distraught AC/DC considered calling it quits but ultimately decided to press on, and found a new singer in Brian Johnson. Their first album with Johnson was the instantly legendary Back in Black, which became one of the best-selling albums in history. Johnson remains AC/DC’s vocalist to this day.
To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Scott’s birth, his family has launched a dedicated website, BonScottOfficial.com, that includes testimonials, history, merchandise and more.
“This is an invitation for Bon’s fans and friends to gather and share their memories and observations of him and his music,” the Bon Scott Estate says. “His legacy lives in the hearts and minds of those who love him.”
Also in conjunction with Scott’s birthday, a Spotify playlist has premiered featuring all of his available recordings with AC/DC, as well as with such pre-AC/DC groups as The Valentines and Fraternity.
(NEW YORK) — Allyson Felix is the most decorated athlete in the world and she’s on the brink of striking more gold at this year’s Olympics.
In addition to being the all-star athlete that she is, she’s also a devoted mom who’s passionate about empowering other fellow women athletes.
Aligning with that passion, Felix has teamed up with apparel company Athleta and the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF) to launch The Power of She Fund: Child Care Grants.
This new $200,000 grant program has made a commitment to cover childcare costs for professional mom-athletes traveling to competitions.
The first group of recipients, including six that are also headed to the Tokyo Olympics, will receive $10,000 each.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the families of Olympic athletes, unfortunately, won’t be able to travel to Tokyo. Only nursing children will be allowed to join their moms for the upcoming games.
The Power of She Fund: Child Care Grants is aiming to help provide resources to empower mom-athletes to compete without limitations.
“This is going to make a huge difference in their lives,” Felix told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “Childcare is one of the huge barriers that we have to overcome.”
She continued, “I really do hope also that this spurs an industry-wide change, and we look to support women holistically.”
While this won’t be Felix’s first time at the Olympics, it will be her first time competing as a mom to her 2-year-old daughter Camryn.
“As a mom and an athlete, I know firsthand the obstacles women face in sports,” said the six-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion in a statement.
She added, “It was important to me and to Athleta that our partnership reflects that I am more than just an athlete. In fact, part of my contract includes provisions for my daughter, Camryn, to join me whenever I am competing. But not everyone has access to this type of support from a partner or sponsor. These grants are about showing the industry that all mom-athletes need this same comprehensive support to be able to participate in their athletic endeavors.”
One of this year’s grant recipients, sitting volleyball player Lora Webster, who is a mother of three — ages 10, 8 and 5 — shared in a statement that she doesn’t have family nearby to help with child care. She said a lot of her training happens at home with her kids.
“There have been many instances where we simply can’t justify the cost of a babysitter on top of the cost of the gym and training site, so my training falls by the wayside,” she said.
Webster added, “This money has given us such a big breath of relief in the past few weeks.”
For Marvel movie fans, the wait is finally over: Black Widow swings into theaters today.
The movie is set before Natasha Romanoff’s heroic sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. Scarlett Johansson‘s character returns to her past, teaming up with her adoptive “family” of spies, including Florence Pugh as Ylena, and their “parents,” Rachel Weisz as Melina and David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov, AKA the Red Guardian, Russia’s answer to Captain America.
The film has the re-assembled team taking on the cruel “Black Widow program” that turns girls into assassins.
They also face off with a baddie known as Taskmaster, who can mimic any opponent he faces. For director Cate Shortland, the order of the day was to make the fights feel real. “The character can do what [Natasha] can do, basically, so she can’t…use those skills,” the filmmaker explained at a recent press conference.
“[The] fights became messy and raw and that was really fun,” she said, adding the goal was, “watching humans fight, not superheroes.”
Johansson explained her character’s eventual sacrifice weighed on her prequel’s performance: “We knew that in this film she had to evolve into a place [where] she had resolved the trauma from her past…that she felt like a different person moving forward…”
Stranger Things veteran Harbour gets big laughs as his past-his-prime Red Guardian. The actor said he’d love to face off with the current Captain America: “I love Anthony Mackie just as an actor, too, and now…whoever wears the suit…Alexei hates that guy and who he represents.”
Harbour adds, “Some of the funniest stuff to me is where [Alexei] is like, ‘[Cap] actually was a colleague of mine…We had a lot of respect for each other.’ I just think that that dynamic would be really fun to see…”
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — The Taliban has claimed it now controls most of Afghanistan as the United States military withdrawal from the country looms and a day after U.S. President Joe Biden defended his decision to bring home American forces following two decades of war.
A Taliban delegation gave a press conference in Moscow on Friday following a week where rapid advances by the militant group in northern Afghanistan unsettled neighboring Central Asian countries and heightened concerns over the U.S.-backed Kabul government to retain control after the final American exit.
The three Taliban officials at the press conference, though, sought to counter those concerns, presenting the group as ready to share power with. At the same time, they claimed the group now controls 85% of Afghanistan — a figure that is likely a substantial exaggeration.
“We don’t want to fight. We want to find a political solution through political negotiations. Negotiations of the kind are ongoing in Doha,” Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman told reporters in remarks quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax.
The officials said the Taliban was not seeking total control of power and wanted to include all members of Afghan society in government.
Taliban forces have surged in regions across Afghanistan, estimated to have captured more than a quarter of the country’s districts since the U.S. began the withdrawal of its troops in May. This week, Russia said the group now controls two-thirds of Afghanistan’s border with Tajikistan — and videos have emerged appearing to show Taliban officials now manning customs posts there.
It is difficult to assess how much territory the Taliban now controls and estimating it has long been highly contested. But an assessment by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction in 2018 found that the Afghan government controlled just over half of Afghanistan’s districts.
That control has drastically shrunk again in recent weeks, with the Taliban succeeding in taking over dozens of districts.
Biden in a press conference on Thursday bluntly defended his decision to withdraw American troops and rejected that a Taliban takeover of the country is “inevitable.”
“The Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable,” Biden said.
Asked by reporters about Biden’s comment on Friday in Moscow, the Taliban officials said it was his personal opinion.
“We should declare that this is Mr. Biden’s personal opinion. You can see for yourselves that up to 14 districts have joined the Islamic emirates in a week,” Taliban official Shahabuddin Delawar said.
The rapid advances have deepened worries about the Kabul government’s ability to withstand a Taliban offensive after the U.S. exit, and the threat that could pose to human rights, in particular for those of women.
The Taliban gains have also added renewed urgency to the issue of thousands of former Afghan interpreters and their families whose safety could be at risk and who the Biden administration has promised to help leave amid accusations it has abandoned them.
The Pentagon has said it is looking at evacuating thousands of the interpreters and the families to U.S. territories, military installations and countries outside Afghanistan.
The Taliban delegation in Moscow pledged that the interpreters would not be harmed if they stayed in Afghanistan.
“We guarantee that they can be in Afghanistan, live normal lives, they will not be harmed,” Shaheen said.
There are approximately 18,000 Afghans seeking a Special Immigrant Visa, which gives those who worked for the U.S. military or diplomatic mission in Afghanistan and Iraq the chance to move themselves and their families to the U.S.
The U.S. has said the group may be moved to Afghanistan’s three northern neighbors: Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. But a U.S. official told ABC News this week the planning is still in the early stages.
The Taliban’s appearance in Moscow came as its advances in the north have disturbed Russia by unsettling its neighbor Tajikistan. Over 1,000 Afghan troops and other refugees fled into Tajikistan this week as the Taliban also took control of much of Afghanistan’s border with the country.
The moves alarmed Tajikistan which mobilized 20,000 troops in response. The tensions presage the possible regional upheaval that may follow the U.S. exit and have worried Russia, which has a military base in Tajikistan and sees the former Soviet countries of Central Asia as vital to its security.
Following talks on Thursday in Moscow, Russia’s foreign ministry said it had received assurances from the Taliban that the group would not allow its forces to violate the borders of Central Asian countries.
Russia has maintained relations with both the Taliban and Afghanistan’s government, hosting several rounds of Afghan talks in recent years. Moscow wants to prevent the conflict from destabilizing its Central Asian neighbors and stopping Islamic extremists, in particular the Islamic State, from infiltrating them from Afghanistan.
Delawar said the Taliban would not allow the Islamic State to exist in Afghanistan or for the country to be used to launch attacks on its neighbors.
(NEW YORK) — Simone Biles opened up about the depression she suffered after being sexually abused.
In the latest installment of the Facebook Watch docuseries “Simone vs Herself,” Biles said that for a period of time, she struggled to cope.
“I was so depressed,” she said. “I slept all the time, and it’s basically because sleeping was basically better than offing myself. It was like my way to escape reality. And sleeping was the closest thing to death for me at that point, so I just slept all the time.”
In 2018, Dr. Larry Nassar, the disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison for sexually assaulting hundreds of girls and women. During the trial, 156 women and girls provided victim impact statements, including Olympic gymnastic stars Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney and Jamie Dantzscher.
For some time, Biles said she was in denial about what happened and refused to discuss it. However, one day, when she was driving on a highway in Texas, she said, she finally was able to tell her mother that she, too, had been abused. She went public with her story in January, 2018.
“I just remember breaking down and calling my mom,” she recalled. “She told me to pull over. She was like, ‘Can you drive?’ because I was crying so hard.”
Nellie Biles added, “She was just hysterical. She didn’t say anything, she just cried, and we just cried together because I knew. … She didn’t have to say anything.”
Previously, Biles said in an interview with ABC News’ Good Morning America that she takes medication and goes to therapy to treat her anxiety. In “Simone vs. Herself,” she explained that she takes recovery “day by day.”
“With gymnasts, if you get injured … your ‘heal time’ is four to six weeks. But then with something so traumatic that happens like this, there’s no four to six weeks,” she said. “There’s like actually no time limit or healing time for it.”
“It’s OK to say ‘I need help,’ and there’s nothing wrong with that,” she added.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.
(NEW YORK) — A rejection to allow swim caps made for natural hair in the Olympics has started a larger conversation on bias, gatekeeping and representation in the sport.
Soul Cap, a U.K.-based company that sells swimming caps for “thick, curly and voluminous hair,” had submitted its product to the International Swimming Federation (FINA) for approval last year so that athletes with these types of hair could use them while participating in the Tokyo Olympics.
FINA subsequently denied the request, as well as the company’s appeal this past June, Soul Cap confirmed to ABC News’ Good Morning America, saying that the caps don’t follow “the natural form of the head” and to its “best knowledge, the athletes competing at the international events never used, neither require to use, caps of such size and configuration.”
After receiving backlash for the decision, the watersports governing body released a statement on July 2, saying that it’s “currently reviewing the situation with regards to ‘Soul Cap’ and similar products, understanding the importance of inclusivity and representation.”
However, many people say the damage has already been done.
‘Beyond the cap’
Soul Cap founders Michael Chapman and Toks Ahmed told GMA the decision represented an extension of the cultural barriers people of color face in different areas of life.
“It’s another barrier which predominantly impacts Black people, and predominantly women with longer or thicker hair,” they said in a joint statement.
Diversity in Aquatics, a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating the disparity among historically underrepresented populations in aquatic activities, called FINA’s explanation for rejecting the swim caps a “coded policy.”
“Coded policies substitute terms describing racial identity with seemingly race-neutral terms that disguise explicit and/or implicit racial prejudice,” the nonprofit said.
Maritza McClendon, a 2004 Olympic silver medalist and the first African American woman to join a U.S. Olympic swim team, says that the decision goes “beyond the cap.”
“The undertone behind what their decision was speaks beyond the cap,” McClendon told GMA. “You’re basically saying that Black swimmers aren’t at the elite level and they don’t really need a cap that works best for them.”
McClendon also criticized FINA’s latest statement promising to review its decision. The organization said, “There’s no restriction on ‘Soul Cap’ swim caps for recreational and teaching purposes.” McClendon says this section points to a form of gatekeeping.
“So you can use it recreationally and at other competitions but just not at a FINA-sanctioned meet, which happens to be the Olympics, which happens to be the ultimate goal for most competitive swimmers at that level,” she said.
“This is discrimination,” Noelle Ndiaye, swim coach and founder of Afro Swimmers, told GMA. “There’s no competitive advantage to wearing a larger swim cap except to build confidence in the water.”
The language FINA used, Ndiaye said, is an example of the “disconnect between the competitive swim world, the white swim world and the Black swim world.”
She noted that the swim caps made by Soul Cap and other similar companies have been circulating through the Black community for some time now.
“So when FINA first made their decision that these caps weren’t necessary, that’s why people were so confused because what do you mean they’re not necessary? We’ve been purchasing these. We’ve been using these,” Ndiaye said.
FINA did not immediately respond to requests for comment from ABC News about the decision.
A history of barriers
Disparities in swimming are not new. According to the USA Swimming Foundation, 65% of Black children have none or low swimming ability in 2017, compared to 45% of Latino children and 40% of white children.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that drowning death rates for Black people are 1.5 times higher than the rates for white people. The disparity is highest among Black children; those ages 5 to 9 faced a 2.6 times higher risk of drowning compared to white children while those ages 10 to 14 faced a 3.6 times higher risk.
The reason for this gap is due to a number of barriers Black people have faced and continue to face with swimming, McClendon said.
“There’s access, there’s costs, there’s a generational trauma,” McClendon said. “Our parents and grandparents went through segregation and they never were afforded the ability to have access to a pool, so why would you think to take your kids to a pool and learn how to swim?”
Then there are the differences in hair and skin, McClendon said. For a long time, the only swim caps available were made in a single size and made of constrictive latex or silicone.
“One size has never fit all,” Ndiaye said, adding that in high school she suffered from frequent headaches and lightheadedness due to the tightness of her swim caps.
FINA’s decision only further isolates people of color from a sport that has been predominantly white, said McClendon. Before companies like Soul Cap, Swimma and Swimmie Caps broke into the scene with caps that vary in size and material, swimmers had to choose between the sport and being their authentic selves.
“My hair would break from the material of the cap so the bottom back of my hair was always short because it would just never grow — it was constantly being tugged at by these caps,” McClendon said.
Rather than feeling uncomfortable and trying to fit all of her curls into the cap, McClendon cut her hair before her Olympic trials in 2004.
“That was mainly because I didn’t have any other options,” she said. “The only cap that I had was the one that was ‘approved.'”
Calls for governing bodies to do better
The Black swim community is now calling for a change in light of FINA’s decision.
The ban is indicative of a larger problem surrounding representation in competitive sports, both in leadership and athletes, swimmers say. According to Soul Caps’ founders, the rules have been based on FINA’s “view of who a ‘typical’ competitive swimmer is and looks like.”
“If there was more diversity of decision-makers in the governing body, it would provide a greater breadth of knowledge and give an opportunity for issues which affect minorities to be recognized,” Chapman and Ahmed said in their joint statement. “We think it would really help to make positive change.”
In addition to being inclusive, organizations need to be more empathetic and listen, said Brooke DeVard, host of the “Naked Beauty” podcast.
She said that FINA’s decision “sends a message that a lot of the decision-makers at the very top of the sport aren’t being empathetic to the diverse needs of different types of swimmers” and that they have “categorically ignored an entire group of people and their needs.”
“It really showed a lack of empathy,” DeVard added.
This lack of representation is why athletes like McClendon are actively working with organizations to increase Black participation in swimming. USA Swimming reported in February 2020 that with a membership of over 300,000 athletes, less than 2% are Black.
Out of 26 women on USA Swimming who are headed to the Tokyo Olympics, only two are Black. In the U.K., where Soul Cap is based, Alice Dearing will be the first Black woman to ever represent the nation in Olympics swimming.
“We’re trying to bridge that gap,” McClendon said. “People are coming up with solutions but the problem is that we’re still being met by barriers and people standing in the way of progress.”
Leaving the choice in the hands of the swimmers is another thing organizations can do to support their athletes better, Ndiaye says.
“This should be the choice of the swimmer and their coach,” Ndiaye said. “It should not be up to a governing body of what a person should wear in the pool to feel comfortable in their own skin.”
(NEW YORK) — The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine has been pitched with one major advantage over its counterparts since it was authorized for use: It requires just one dose. But with the exponential spread of the highly transmissible delta variant, questions have arisen over whether recipients might need to “top off” their immunity against the now-dominant strain in the U.S. with a second shot.
Although the J&J vaccine’s efficacy at protecting against symptomatic COVID-19 in clinical trials was less than the two-dose mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, it showed 100% effectiveness against hospitalization and death.
Recent research suggests that mRNA vaccines, such as the Pfizer and Moderna, appear to hold up against the delta variant as long as you’ve been fully vaccinated with two doses.
Pfizer reported Thursday that initial data showed that receiving a third dose, six to 12 months after being fully vaccinated, may give more protection and promised to have data to publish in the coming week to ask the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend a third dose.
Johnson and Johnson has put out its own data suggesting that their single dose also holds up against the dominant variant, but it was a small study and people are thinking more is more.
The promising preliminary data suggests that the J&J vaccine offers good protection against the delta variant.
In a laboratory experiment, researchers analyzed the blood of 10 people who had been vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and tested it against multiple concerning variants, including delta.
They found the vaccine appeared to work against the variants, shown by “neutralizing antibody titers” and other immune system response indicators.
What level immune response is required to achieve protection is still open science, but the experiment offered promising clues, if not definitive proof of real-world protection.
The news offers some measure of reassurance for the more than 12 million Americans who have received the J&J vaccine; it’s also prompting some medical experts to reevaluate what role a “booster” shot might have — whether it’ll still be needed, and if so, when, and for whom.
“The new data does in fact change my opinion,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist from Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News medical contributor. “We try as much as possible to stick to the science when it comes to vaccine strategy, and overall this is really encouraging news.”
All vaccines available in the U.S. have so far shown to be both safe and effective for at least up to eight months. Brownstein said that receiving a booster is likely safe, and looks forward to further data. In the meantime, this new data lends some hope to those who received the J&J vaccine, that for now, they still have protection.
“We want to wait for data to support any kind of vaccine strategy that we recommend,” Brownstein said, highlighting the importance of uniform recommendations backed by data.
The science has yet to be settled, experts say.
“I think there are still open questions for those who are immunocompromised,” Brownstein said. “Talk to your doctor — especially if you’re in the high-risk category.”
Dr. William Schaffner, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, explained that “when talking about people who are immunocompromised, that includes a large spectrum of disease, and there are no studies at the present time to indicate that an additional dose will benefit you or what sort of reactions you might get from an additional dose.”
For now, Schaffner firmly stands against the idea of an additional booster shot without formal recommendations. He emphasized that the CDC is yet to recommend any booster, under any circumstances at the present time.
“People are making these recommendations on the basis of hope: hope that it would work and hope there wouldn’t be any adverse events. But there certainly has been no formal study to support it at this time,” Schaffner added.
In fact, following Pfizer’s announcement, the FDA and the CDC released a joint statement urging caution on the need for a booster shot, as still only 47.7% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated at this time.
“Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time,” the agencies said in the statement Thursday. “FDA, CDC, and NIH (National Institutes of Health) are engaged in a science-based, rigorous process to consider whether or when a booster might be necessary.”
While many experts remain split on the issue of boosters, it’s not for lack of confidence in the single-shot vaccine doing its job. Dr. Vin Gupta, a critical care pulmonologist and faculty at University of Wisconsin Medicine, said an added booster shot on top of the single J&J vaccine would essentially be an additional layer of protection.
Gupta advocated for a booster not because he thinks the J&J shot doesn’t work well, but rather, to ensure level protection for all vaccines across the board. He stands by that stance.
“The idea is, if we are going to have one uniform set of policies, everyone should be entitled to the same level of immunity and effective vaccines,” Gupta said. “The point is a booster with mRNA doesn’t appear to be harmful and bringing everyone to the same level of immunity should be our goal.”
(NEW YORK) — More than 50 million Americans remain under a flash flood watch on Friday as Tropical Storm Elsa moves up the East Coast, bringing heavy rain and gusty winds.
After making landfall in Florida and pummeling the southeastern United States, Elsa is heading north with the eye of the storm sweeping over the coastlines of Delaware and New Jersey early Friday morning before it is expected to hit New York later in the morning and then Massachusetts by the afternoon, according to the latest forecast from the National Weather Service.
As of 5 a.m. ET, Elsa was moving to the northeast at 31 miles per hour with its center located about 5 miles southwest of Atlantic City, New Jersey. The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour.
The National Weather Service said it doesn’t anticipate a significant change in Elsa’s strength through Friday and the storm is forecast to become a post-tropical cyclone by nighttime, when it is expected to head into Nova Scotia and then out to sea.
Flash flood watches are still in effect for the mid-Atlantic and northeastern regions, from Virginia to Maine. That includes several major cities, such as Philadelphia, New York City and Boston. The storm’s current track shows it hugging the northeast coastline, with those areas expected to see the heaviest rainfall.
Much of the northeast is forecast to receive 2 to 4 inches of rainfall through Friday, with up to 6 inches possible in parts of New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. That could trigger “considerable flash and urban flooding,” the National Weather Service warned.
Tropical storm warnings also remain in effect for a large swath of the East Coast, from North Carolina’s Outer Banks to Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, a “tornado or two” will be possible over parts of New York’s Long Island and southeastern New England through early Friday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
Severe weather has already disrupted flight schedules at LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City’s Queens borough. New York City has also closed its mobile COVID-19 vaccination clinics through Friday due to the forecast.
New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority said there were system-wide delays for buses due to Elsa and the storm could impact service along some subway and rail lines. Meanwhile, empty tractor-trailers and tandem trucks are banned on the seven bridges and two tunnels that the MTA manages until at least noon on Friday due to the weather.
