Helene live updates: Track path as storm nears Florida landfall
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A new storm — which will strengthen into Hurricane Helene — is taking aim at Florida, where it’s forecast to make landfall along the Big Bend area as a hurricane on Thursday.
Here’s how the news is developing:
State of emergency declared in 61 Florida counties
Helene is forecast to be a major hurricane by the time it makes landfall Thursday night, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned Monday.
A state of emergency has been declared in 61 of Florida’s 67 counties, DeSantis said.
“The Big Bend and Panhandle should be especially prepared for a direct impact,” the governor said, and he urged residents to know their evacuation zone.
“You have time to be able to put this place into place,” DeSantis said, noting Helene’s impacts could begin Wednesday.
Latest forecast
Helene will strengthen to a hurricane Tuesday night, and rain is expected to begin in Florida Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning.
On Thursday evening, Helene will make landfall along Florida’s Big Bend area, located between Tallahassee and Gainesville.
Storm surge could reach up to 15 feet in the Big Bend area.
Heavy rain and strong winds are also major threats.
A hurricane watch is in effect for Florida’s Gulf Coast and a tropical storm watch was issued from Orlando to the Florida Keys.
By Thursday night into Friday, the storm will quickly push into Georgia with very heavy rain, gusty winds and possible flash flooding.
This weekend, the storm will stall over the Mid-South, bringing heavy rain and possible flooding to the Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys.
A flood watch has been issued in Florida from Fort Myers to Tampa to Tallahassee, as well as in southern Georgia and Alabama.
(WASHINGTON) — The United States has seen a significant increase in the use of clean energy over the last few years; however, Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of energy, has claimed otherwise.
Wright, chief executive of Liberty Energy — the world’s second-largest fracking services company — has made several comments chastising efforts to fight climate change. One example is a video he posted to LinkedIn last year in which he denies the existence of a climate crisis and disputes a global transition to green energy.
“There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either,” Wright said.
Wright has been an outspoken critic of policies aimed at curbing climate change, including the Department of Energy’s goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
While Wright does not dispute the existence of climate change, he has argued that policies aimed at reducing the impact of climate change are misguided and alarmist, claiming that any negative impacts of climate change are “clearly overwhelmed by the benefits of increasing energy consumption.”
But the IPCC, the world’s most authoritative body on climate change, has stated that human-amplified climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe, and this has led to widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people.
And the clean energy momentum the country is experiencing will continue as alternative sources of fuel take more market share in the energy sector, experts told ABC News. That’s despite efforts by Republican politicians to bolster the fossil fuel industry in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s website even states, “A clean energy revolution is taking place across America, underscored by the steady expansion of the U.S. renewable energy sector.”
And the world now invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels. Investment in solar panels now surpasses all other generation technologies combined, according to the International Energy Agency.
“The U.S. is definitely in an energy transition, as is the rest of the globe,” Lori Bird, U.S. energy program director at the World Resource Institute, told ABC News.
Coal is one of the industries in which the energy transition is most apparent, Bird said.
Coal plants are seeing an average of 10,000 megawatts of capacity closures per year, according to the Institute for the Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Installed U.S. coal-fired generation capacity peaked in 2011 at 317,600 megawatts and has experienced a consistent downward trend ever since, the analysis found. In 2020, during the pandemic, coal’s share of power generation in the U.S. fell below 20% for the first time. In 2024 so far, coal’s share of power generation barely topped 16%.
“Based on current announcements and IEEFA research, we expect operating coal capacity to continue its steady decline for the remainder of the decade,” the report states.
Accompanying the sharp decrease in coal generation and usage has been the increase in capacity and storage for electricity generation from solar, wind and battery power, Bird said.
A record 31 gigawatts of solar energy capacity was installed in the U.S. in 2023 — roughly a 55% increase from 2022, according to a report by the World Resource Institute that found that clean energy continues to be the dominant form of new electricity generation in the U.S.
“Everywhere you look, in every facet of the economy, there are clean technologies ramping up and being brought to bear,” Julie McNamara, senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News.
In addition, the Inflation Reduction Act stimulated an “unprecedented” slate for the creation of domestic clean energy manufacturing facilities, the report found. Since August 2022, 113 manufacturing facilities or expansions, totaling $421 billion in investments, have been announced, according to American Clean Power.
The Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that came before it includes tax credits for both the home and commercial installation of charging stations for electric vehicles, evidence in the growing market share for EVs, which reached 10% in U.S. automotive sales in the third quarter of 2024, Bird said.
But the federal government isn’t the ultimate decider of the energy transition in the U.S., Bird said. While there could be a slowdown in progress during the next administration, the energy transition will continue to be driven by other stakeholders “who want this to happen,” she said.
“It would be impossible to halt the energy transition at this stage,” Bird said.
States in the U.S. are also continuing to pass ambitious climate and energy policies, a trend experts expect to continue despite who is living in the White House. State actions are considered critical to ensuring a successful clean energy transition, as federal actions alone are insufficient, according to the WRI. There are 29 states that have renewable electricity standards or clean energy standards in place, and a third of U.S. states have have standards to shift to 100% clean electricity, Bird said.
At the beginning of 2023, Minnesota adopted a 100% clean energy standard, while Michigan did the same later that year, joining states like California and New York in passing permitting reforms intended to make it easier to build clean energy and transmission.
“While the federal leadership may slow some of this transition, it’s being driven by states,” Bird said.
Another critical piece of the energy transition is tech companies, which are very large users of energy. committing to using sustainable energy to power their data centers, Bird said. One example is Microsoft paying to restart one of the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania to power the company’s AI data center.
“Those companies that are driving a lot of this want clean energy,” Bird said. “That’s not going to go away. They’re committed.”
Throughout the 2024 election, Republicans stuck to party lines when it comes to rhetoric about the fossil fuel industry, which invests heavily into GOP politicians and candidates, David Konisky, a professor of environmental politics at Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, told ABC News in August. The rhetoric often includes misrepresentations on clean energy solutions rather than all-out climate denial, experts told ABC News.
The fossil fuel industry, through its lobbying in government, has attempted to slow any efforts at the energy transition, McNamara said.
“The only reason to say there’s no energy transition underway is to attempt to solidify policies and incentives that that anchor short-term profits for fossil fuel interests,” McNamara said.
Misinformation and disinformation about the climate crisis is “not helpful to the situation,” especially given that people all over the world are already experiencing the impacts of a warming climate in the form of extreme weather events, Bird said, adding that bipartisan support will be crucial going forward.
“We’re hopeful that with the new administration, that additional progress could be made,” Bird said.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous, Matthew Glasser, Calvin Milliner and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries and two others were arrested Tuesday as part of a criminal sex trafficking investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.
Jeffries, his partner Matt Smith and a third man, Jim Jacobson, are accused of operating an international sex trafficking and prostitution business that recruited young men for parties in the U.S. and abroad, according to an indictment.
The former retail executive and Smith relied on their vast financial resources, Jeffries’ power as the CEO of Abercrombie, and numerous people, including Jacobson and a network of employees, contractors and security professionals, to run a business “that was dedicated to fulfilling their sexual desires and ensuring that their international sex trafficking and prostitution business was kept secret,” the indictment alleges.
Federal prosecutors said the trio paid dozens of men to travel around the world to engage in sex acts. The indictment mentions 15 alleged victims, identified as John Does #1-15. Jeffries allegedly recruited, hired and paid a slate of household staff to “facilitate and supervise the Sex Events.”
Jacobson traveled throughout the United States and internationally to recruit and interview men for the so-called sex events. During “tryouts” of potential candidates, Jacobson required that the candidates first engage in sex acts with him, according to prosecutors.
The indictment said many of the men were coerced, led to believe that attending the events would yield modeling opportunities with Abercrombie or otherwise benefit their careers, or, in the alternative, that not complying with requests for certain acts during the sex events could harm their careers.
The defendants are charged with sex trafficking and interstate prostitution. They are expected to make appearances in the jurisdictions where the men were arrested in Florida and Wisconsin before they’re brought to Central Islip in Long Island, New York, at a later date for arraignment.
“We will respond in detail to the allegations after the Indictment is unsealed, and when appropriate, but plan to do so in the courthouse – not the media,” Brian Bieber, an attorney for Jeffries, told ABC News on Tuesday.
Attorneys for the other two defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Abercrombie & Fitch declined ABC News’ request for comment.
Federal prosecutors had acknowledged the investigation in January after alleged victims filed a civil lawsuit a year ago.
Jeffries, who transformed Abercrombie from a traditional Ohio outfitter into a powerhouse teen fashion brand, has been accused in civil lawsuits of exploiting young men for sex at parties he hosted at his Hamptons estate in New York, London, Venice and elsewhere with his partner, Smith.
One of the plaintiffs, David Bradberry, a former crewman on the reality series “Below Deck,” said Jeffries made Abercrombie successful by the “oversexualization of young men.”
His lawsuit accused Jeffries, Smith, Jacobson and Abercrombie itself of luring attractive young men under the guise of making them an Abercrombie model and then forcing them to take drugs and perform sex acts.
The plaintiff’s attorney, Brad Edwards of Edwards Henderson, told ABC News in a statement: “As we laid out in our lawsuit, this was an Abercrombie run, sex trafficking organization that permeated throughout the company and allowed the three individuals arrested today to victimize dozens and dozens of young, aspiring male models.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends a news conference on November 14, 2023, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been charged with five counts in an alleged long-standing conspiracy connected to improper benefits, illegal campaign contributions and an attempted cover-up, according to a sweeping indictment unsealed Thursday morning.
Adams, 64, faces one count of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy, two counts of solicitation of a contribution from a foreign national and one count of bribery, according to the indictment, charges that expose the mayor to significant prison time if convicted.
Adams, who was elected in 2021, is the first sitting New York City mayor to ever face charges.
Many of the accusations relate to Adams’ relationship with wealthy foreign businesspeople and Turkish officials.
Prosecutors say Adams accepted more than $100,000 in improper benefits, many of which came in the form of flight upgrades and stays in luxury hotels, none of which were publicly divulged as required.
He also allegedly received illegal campaign contributions to his first run for mayor and ongoing fundraising for a reelection run.
“ERIC ADAMS, the defendant, sought and accepted illegal campaign contributions in the form of ‘nominee’ or ‘straw’ contributions, meaning that the true contributors conveyed their money through nominal donors, who falsely certified they were contributing their own money,” the indictment states.
“As a result of those false certifications, ADAMS’s 2021 mayoral campaign received more than $10,000,000 in public funds,” the indictment alleges.
Adams addressed the press shortly after the indictment was unsealed, alongside a group of supporters, maintaining his innocence and vowing to fight the charges.
“I ask New Yorkers to hear our defense before making any judgments,” he said at the news conference, during which he was shouted at by some hecklers.
Adams vowed to continue to serve his duties.
“My day-to-day will not change,” he said.
“Everyone who knows me knows I follow campaign rules and I follow the law,” he reiterated several times.
Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, however, alleged that Adams knowingly violated those laws for years.
Williams outlined allegations in the indictment in a news conference Thursday and alleged Adams provided special favors for Turkish business leaders and government officials in exchange for campaign funds and lavish gifts, including upgraded airline tickets and trips and lavish hotel rooms.
“Adams started accepting undisclosed luxury travel benefits at least as early as 2016. He took these benefits nearly every year through 2021,” he said.
The gifts were worth over $100,000 and none of it was disclosed, according to Willaims. In fact, in some cases he told staffers that he paid for the trips when that was a lie, the U.S. attorney alleged. Adams, when he was the Brooklyn borough president, allegedly solicited foreign campaign contributions while traveling in Turkey in January 2019.
“I want to be clear these upgrades and freebies were not part of some frequent flier or loyalty program available to the general public. As we alleged, this was a multi-year scheme to buy favor with a single New York City politician on the rise, Eric Adams,” Williams said.
The indictment alleges Adams used straw donations to apply for the city’s matching funds program, which gives candidates public funds to match small donations only from New York City residents for any political campaign. As early as 2018, Adams and an unidentified staff member were in communication with a Turkish businessperson who funneled tens of thousands of dollars to straw donors for Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign, according to the indictment.
“All told, the 2021 Campaign reaped over $10 million in Matching Funds based on the false certifications that the campaign complied with the law, when in fact ERIC ADAMS, the defendant, knowingly and repeatedly relied on illegal contributions,” the indictment said.
In addition, Williams alleged that a Turkish government official tried to open a new high-rise building in 2021 in Manhattan that would house Turkey’s consulate and pushed Adams to speed up the construction permits. Despite warnings from New York City fire safety professionals, Adams pressured the fire department to open the building.
“The FDNY professionals were convinced that they would lose their jobs if they didn’t back down. And so they did. They got out of the way and let the building open. The Turkish official got what he wanted,” Williams said.
“Just four days after Adams held up his end of the bargain, he went right back to soliciting more travel benefits from the Turkish airline,” Williams added.
Adams’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, said in a statement: “We have known for some time that they would try to find a way to bring a case against Mayor Adams. Yesterday — more improper leaks. Today — they emailed us a summons (and created the spectacle of a bogus raid). And very soon they will no doubt hold an hour-long dog-and-pony show presser rather than appear in open court.”
He continued, “Federal judges call them out all the time for spinning in front of the cameras and tainting jurors. But they keep doing it because they can’t help themselves, the spotlight is just too exciting. We will see them in court.”
The alleged conduct predates Adams’ time as mayor, when he served as Brooklyn borough president, up through his campaign for mayor and during his time in office.
“In 2014, ERIC ADAMS, the defendant, became Brooklyn Borough President,” the indictment begins. “Thereafter, for nearly a decade, ADAMS sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him.”
“By 2018, ADAMS-who had by then made known his plans to run for Mayor of New York City-not only accepted, but sought illegal campaign contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign, as well as other things of value, from foreign nationals,” it continued. “As ADAMS’s prominence and power grew, his foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him, particularly when, in 2021, it became clear that ADAMS would become New York City’s mayor.”
It continued, “ADAMS agreed, providing favorable treatment in exchange for the illicit benefits he received. After his inauguration as Mayor of New York City, ADAMS soon began preparing for his next election, including by planning to solicit more illegal contributions and granting requests from those who supported his 2021 mayoral campaign with such donations.”
Williams said the investigation is ongoing and there may be others charged.
Federal agents showed up at Gracie Mansion, the city’s mayoral residence, and seized the mayor’s phone Thursday morning, Spiro told ABC News.
“He has not been arrested and looks forward to his day in court,” Spiro said, “They send a dozen agents to pick up a phone when we would have happily turned it in.”
Adams called the accusations “entirely false” in a taped speech addressed to New Yorkers on Wednesday night and said he would fight the indictment with “every ounce of my strength and my spirit.” He also said he would not resign as mayor.
“I always knew that If I stood my ground for all of you that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said.
