19 fatalities in Jamaica from Hurricane Melissa, death toll expected to rise
(NEW YORK) — Nineteen people are confirmed dead in Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa tore through the island as a Category 5 hurricane this week — and that death toll is expected to rise, officials said.
Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Dana Morris Dixon said there are credible reports of several other fatalities, but they won’t be counted in the official death toll until the bodies are retrieved.
“We are at 19 confirmed, but we do expect that that number will change today,” she said on Friday.
Melissa ripped across Jamaica with torrential rain and rough winds after making landfall on Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane, one of the most powerful landfalls on record in the Atlantic basin.
Thirteen cargo relief flights arrived on Thursday at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston and more than 20 additional cargo flights are expected to arrive on Friday, according to Minister of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport Daryl Vaz.
Eight to 10 U.S. government helicopters that are capable of airlifting patients are also on the way, he said.
“The relief and the support we have gotten is overwhelming. And we thank our partners all across the world,” Vaz said.
As Jamaicans start their recovery, many remain in the dark.
Jamaica Public Service, the nation’s electric utility, reported that 462,000 customers — about 66% of customers — remained without power Friday morning.
(PHOENIX) — Multiple areas across the country are expected to have dangerous heat and fire weather concerns this weekend with over 35 million Americans on alert for dangerous heat.
Extreme Heat Warnings remain in effect for Phoenix, Arizona, Palm Springs, California, and lower elevations of the Grand Canyon National Park. High temperatures there will once again be well into the 100s and go up to 115 in spots during the weekend.
Heat advisories are also in effect on Saturday for other scattered areas of the Southwest, with more widespread Heat Advisories stretching across the Plains as the heat begins to expand out.
Places under these heat advisories include: Albuquerque, New Mexico; El Paso and Dallas, Texas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Little Rock, Arkansas; Wichita, Kansas; Springfield, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri.
High temperatures between 100 and 110 are possible for these areas on Saturday. Record high temperatures are possible for Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Flagstaff, Arizona, later Saturday.
The extreme heat peaked on Friday for parts of the Desert Southwest and is expected to ease this weekend.
There are also fire weather alerts in places across four states in the West — Oregon, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming — for critical fire weather conditions keeping a strong foothold into the weekend.
Single digit humidity and gusty winds are possible, which will be conducive for rapid fire spread with any new or existing wildfires in these areas.
While the extreme heat and the fire weather concerns are lingering for select parts of the Southwest this weekend, both will generally continue to wane into the beginning of next week.
Heat is also building up in the Northwest, where there’s an extreme heat warning in effect for Medford, Oregon, as well as from Eugene to Portland, Oregon.
High temperatures between 97 and 110 degrees are possible during the weekend into the beginning of next week. Very warm, low temperatures between 65 and 70 degrees are possible for these areas, providing little relief at night from the extreme heat.
Other areas of the Northwest are under heat advisories this weekend for high temperatures between 93 and 112, as well as low temperatures only getting into the 60s and 70s. These areas include Spokane, Washington; Lewiston, Idaho; Longview, Washington; and Mount Shasta, California.
Next week, widespread heat will return to the Northeast and much of the country.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker speaks at a news conference October 06, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. Scott Olson/Getty Images
(CHICAGO) — Members of the Texas National Guard have arrived in Illinois, according to sources familiar with their whereabouts and video taken of them at an Army Reserve training facility in a Chicago suburb.
The Texas National Guard boarded a military plane on Monday afternoon in Texas, as state and city leaders in Illinois were holding a news conference asking them to stay away from Chicago.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday shared a photo on social media showing what he called the state’s “elite” National Guard boarding a plane, but he did not say where they were headed.
“Illinois will not let the Trump administration continue on their authoritarian march without resisting,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said. “We will use every lever at our disposal to stop this power grab because military troops should not be used against American communities.”
Pritzker said at a news conference on Monday that over the weekend, he called on Abbott “to immediately withdraw his support of this decision” to send the Texas National Guard members to Chicago.
Earlier Tuesday, Abbott had replied to Pritzker on social media, saying, “I fully authorized the President to call up 400 members of the Texas National Guard to ensure safety for federal officials.”
During a news conference on Tuesday morning, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said he had not received no advance information on the whereabouts of the Texas National Guard troops.
“We have not heard directly, of course, from the president or his administration and my expectation is that, regardless of what this administration is doing, I’m going to remain firm and committed to protecting the rights and the civility of our nation and will start right here in Chicago,” Johnson said.
“We do know that much like what we’ve seen in other parts of the country, there is a process that the National Guard goes through before they’re actually released into the streets of Chicago or anywhere,” Johnson added.
Johnson said that what he does know is that the deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago is “illegal, unconstitutional, it’s dangerous, it’s wrong.”
The state of Illinois and city of Chicago filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to block the federalization and deployment of the National Guard.
The foundational principle separating the military from domestic affairs is “in peril” as Trump seeks to deploy the National Guard to cities across the country, lawyers for Illinois and Chicago wrote in the lawsuit.
“Let me be clear, Donald Trump is using our service members as political props and as pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation’s cities,” Pritzker said during a news conference.
To support his point, Pritzker played a video of an ICE raid conducted last week on an apartment complex in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago, which he claimed was filmed by federal authorities with high-definition cameras for social media purposes. He said it was the same video that Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted on social media on Saturday.
“They brought Black Hawk military helicopters and more than 100 agents in full tactical gear,” Pritzker said.
He added, “In the dead of night and seemingly for the cameras, armed federal agents emerged from the Black Hawk helicopters, rappelling onto the roof of that apartment building.”
The governor alleged the Trump administration is following a playbook to “cause chaos, create fear and confusion, make it seem like peaceful protesters are a mob by firing gas pellets and tear gas canisters at them. Why? To create the pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act so that he can send military troops to our city,” Pritzker said.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, Trump said he did not yet see the need to use the Insurrection Act, but “if I had to enact it, I’d do it, if people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up.”
(HARRISBURG, Pa.) — Three people have been hospitalized, including one child and a woman in a wheelchair, after a minivan drove through the Kipona Festival in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Monday.
It is unclear if the act was intentional at this time, according to police. The driver is in custody and officials are investigating.
The Kipona Festival is an annual, three-day event held over Labor Day weekend that celebrates the region’s Native American heritage.
During a press conference Monday evening, Harrisburg Bureau of Police Captain Atah Akakpo-Martin said the vehicle came through one of the barricaded areas just after 6 p.m. when festival ended.
The three people who were hit include a 6-year-old boy, who is in critical condition, Harrisburg Mayor Wanda Williams said. The other two adults, a man in the city’s traffic engineering department and a woman who was in a wheelchair during the incident, are in stable condition, the mayor said.
It is uncertain if the driver was alone in the car or if the driver was injured at the time, officials said. Photos from the scene show the red minivan sustained damage to the front of the vehicle in the incident.
The minivan came to a stop after hitting multiple objects and driving for multiple blocks through the festival, police said.
