Dangerous, potentially historic flooding to hit from Arkansas to Ohio this week
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A dangerous and potentially historic flooding event is bearing down on 22 million Americans from Arkansas to Ohio, and residents are urged to prepare now.
The life-threatening flooding will likely hit from Wednesday night through Sunday morning, with multiple rounds of heavy rain pounding the same spots over the course of the week.
Twelve to 18 inches of rainfall is forecast for the bull’s-eye of the storm, which spans from Little Rock, Arkansas, to the Arkansas-Missouri border, to Louisville Kentucky, to Evansville, Indiana.
Residents are urged to avoid flooded roads and be prepared for power outages.
Before the flooding moves in, severe storms are heading to the Heartland.
Damaging winds, hail and tornadoes are in the forecast Tuesday night from central Oklahoma to central Kansas.
On Wednesday and Wednesday night, the hail, wind and strong tornadoes could stretch from Chicago to St. Louis to Indianapolis to Louisville to Little Rock.
On the north side of the storm, heavy snow is expected across northern Minnesota. Six to 12 inches of snow could fall from Tuesday night to Wednesday night, along with wind gusts up to 40 mph.
(WASHINGTON) — A day after a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to provide details about two deportation flights to El Salvador over the weekend, the Trump administration is escalating its legal battle against him.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Saturday blocked the Trump administration from deporting noncitizens under the Alien Enemies Act and ordered that they turn around two flights the administration said were deporting migrant gang members to El Salvador.
After officials failed to turn the flights around, Judge Boasberg demanded that they provide more information about the flights, under seal, but DOJ attorneys refused, citing national security concerns.
According to a court filing Wednesday morning, DOJ attorneys say they are considering invoking the state secrets privilege to deny the judge that information.
Despite signaling a willingness, in a filing Tuesday, to provide the information if it’s shielded from public view, the administration said Wednesday they should not be forced to provide the information privately.
“The underlying premise of these orders, including the most recent one requiring the production of these facts ex parte today at noon, is that the Judicial Branch is superior to the Executive Branch, particularly on non-legal matters involving foreign affairs and national security,” they wrote. “The Government disagrees. The two branches are coequal, and the Court’s continued intrusions into the prerogatives of the Executive Branch, especially on a non-legal and factually irrelevant matter, should end.”
President Donald Trump lashed out again at Boasberg Wednesday morning in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!” Trump wrote.
The escalation comes after Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment.
“Many people have called for his impeachment, the impeachment of this judge. I don’t know who the judge is, but he’s radical left,” Trump told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in a Fox News interview on Tuesday.
“He was Obama-appointed, and he actually said we shouldn’t be able to take criminals, killers, murderers, horrible, the worst people, gang members, gang leaders, that we shouldn’t be allowed to take them out of our country,” Trump said. “That’s not for a local judge to be making that determination.”
In the wake of Trump’s call for impeachment, Chief Justice Roberts issued an unusual statement of rebuke.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in the statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Congress can impeach a judge if a simple majority is reached in the House. If the articles were taken up and ultimately clear the House, the Senate would need to hold a trial. It would require a two-thirds majority vote in the upper chamber to convict a judge.
It’s rare, but not unprecedented, for members of Congress to file articles of impeachment against a judge.
Trump, meanwhile, brushed off Roberts’ criticism, saying, “He didn’t mention my name in the statement. I just saw it quickly. He didn’t mention my name.”
(WASHINGTON) — A group of advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday challenging Donald Trump’s recent executive order seeking to overhaul the U.S. election system, accusing the president of trying to enact “unlawful actions” to enforce “lawless mandates.”
The lawsuit alleges that Trump’s unilateral efforts to reshape voting in federal elections — including requiring proof of citizenship when registering and restricting mail-in voting deadlines — exceeds his authority as president and threatens to strip millions of their voting rights.
“The Order violates and subverts the separation of powers by lawlessly arrogating to the President authority to declare election rules by executive fiat,” the lawsuit alleged. “The Order is an attack on the constitutionally mandated checks and balances that keep American elections free and fair.”
The lawsuit — filed in the D.C. federal court by the Campaign Legal Center and State Democracy Defenders Fund on behalf of a League of United Latin American Citizens, Secure Families Initiative and Arizona Students’ Association — asks a federal judge to block the implementation of parts of the order and force the Trump administration to rescind any guidance they issued.
It names a number of defendants, including the Executive Office of the President, the Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense, as well as the United States Election Assistance Commission and its commissioners — an independent government commissioner focused on election administration.
Trump’s executive order, signed last week, alleged that the United States “fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections.” The order instructs the Department of Justice to prosecute elections crimes in states the administration deems are not in compliance with federal law, requires the Department of Homeland Security to work with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to review state voter registration lists, and directs the Election Assistance Commission to withhold federal funding if states do not institute “uniform and nondiscriminatory” standards for counting votes.
“Under the Constitution, State governments must safeguard American elections in compliance with Federal laws that protect Americans’ voting rights and guard against dilution by illegal voting, discrimination, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error,” the order said.
Specifically, the executive order calls for proof of citizenship nationwide on the form used when registering to vote — a change from current election laws and a provision voting rights experts have taken issue with. Documents that can be used for proof, according to the order, include a passport, Real ID, a military ID card, or a valid federal or state ID.
But the lawsuit points out that the order does not accept identification documents issued by Tribal governments or birth certificates as forms of proof. The suit also raises questions about the approved methods, arguing that only half of Americans possess a passport and “most” Real IDs do not indicate citizenship.
Regardless, the lawsuit suggests the order’s direction to the Election Assistance Commission to change the form to add the proof of citizenship requirement could violate the Voter Registration Act of 1993, which according to the lawsuit gives the EAC “exclusive authority” to administer the form.
“In keeping with the NVRA’s intent to create a simple and easy-to-complete registration form, the NVRA specifies that the Federal Form may not “include any requirement for notarization or other formal authentication,” the lawsuit states.
Trump’s order suggested that noncitizens can easily vote in federal elections, but experts have called noncitizen voting a “vanishingly rare phenomenon” that is easily prosecuted. According to a study of over 23 million votes cast in the 2016 election, officials identified only 30 suspected incidents of noncitizen voting, only 0.0001% of the total votes cast.
Separately, the executive order also takes aim at mail-in voting, making federal funding conditional on states setting a deadline for ballots to be received by Election Day. Trump — who was charged with multiple federal crimes for his effort to overturn the 2020 election in cases that were dropped once he was elected — has repeatedly suggested that mail-in ballots have led to an increase in voting fraud.
The lawsuit claims the provision about mail-in ballots is unlawful, arguing that “states have wide discretion and flexibility” to establish the time, place, and manner of federal elections under the Elections and Electors Clauses in the Constitution.
“Congress can enact election laws if it chooses, but absent a conflict with federal law, States have the power to establish and follow their own election laws,” the lawsuit states.
According to the suit, seventeen states, plus Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have laws that allow ballots to be counted as long as they are mailed by Election Day and received by a certain deadline afterward.
“Many of these States have had such receipt deadlines for many years, and Congress has declined to pass any laws dictating ballot receipt deadlines,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit notes that Congress has “long established” that the federal Election Day is the first Tuesday in November, in addition to establishing the date that presidential electors must be appointed, but “has left further regulation in this area largely up to States.” The lawsuit says the U.S. Supreme Court “has said that while votes must be cast by Election Day, some aspects of the election process, such as tabulating all votes, will naturally take place after Election Day.”
“The Attorney General does not have the authority to ‘enforce’ the federal Election Day statutes, and the President cannot order her to do so. Nor does a State “violate” those statutes when it counts validly cast ballots mailed by Election Day that are received after Election Day if State law so allows,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit also suggests the executive order could make it harder for citizens abroad and those serving in the military to vote. The executive order signed by Trump directs to secretary of defense to update the form used by these groups to register and request an absentee ballot — called the “Federal Post Card Application” — to include a requirement of documentary proof of citizenship as well as “proof of eligibility to vote in elections in the State in which the voter is attempting to vote.”
The lawsuit notes this form is required by law as part of the the The Uniformed And Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, passed in 1986 to “protect the voting rights of Americans serving in the military, their families, and other U.S. citizens living abroad.” The suit claims the changes required by the order would be “impossible given the format required by Congress.”
“Neither the President nor the Secretary of Defense has any legal authority to disregard UOCAVA’s statutory requirement to make such a post card available to military and overseas voters,” the lawsuit states.
Together, these provisions would have a “significant impact” on voting rights., the lawsuit claims.
Members of LULAC — a Hispanic and Latin American civil rights organization — for example, would be harmed if some of its members “who are eligible to vote often do not have the requisite citizenship documents.” the lawsuit states. The organization expects that efforts to register voters “will plummet.”
The Arizona Students’ Association will similarly be harmed by the proof of citizenship requirement, the lawsuit states, despite it being required when voters register on the state form there.
“Even those members who are able to register face imminent harm. Some members will be able to obtain or access DPOC only by spending significant time, money, and/or effort to do so, and will face greater difficulty registering because of the DPOC Requirement,” the lawsuit said.
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — An alleged portrait is beginning to emerge of the 17-year-old boy who opened fire at his Nashville high school on Wednesday, killing one student and wounding a second student, according to police.
Solomon Henderson, who was armed with a pistol, fired multiple shots in the cafeteria at Antioch High School around 11:09 a.m., Nashville police said.
Henderson confronted a 16-year-old girl, Josselin Corea Escalante, in the cafeteria and shot and killed her, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at a news conference.
Another victim, a 17-year-old boy, was injured with a graze wound and has been treated and released from the hospital, Drake said.
The suspect died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head while he was in the cafeteria, police said.
Another student was transported to the hospital after suffering a facial injury from a fall, police said.
The suspect rode the bus to school Wednesday morning and later went to the bathroom to “retrieve his weapon,” Drake said.
A motive is not known, police said.
“There are some materials on the internet that we’re looking at,” Drake said.
According to a detailed analysis conducted by SITE Intelligence, the suspected shooter praised mass shooters and showed an affinity for extremist views.
Online material allegedly written by Henderson “detailed the individual’s apparent far-right politics, shaped by fringe online forums,” SITE reported.
“Henderson was highly in fringe online communities, including several known neo-Nazi venues. Across these sites and his writings, Henderson expressed admiration for far-right and incel mass shooters,” SITE reported.
According to the intelligence group, Henderson claimed online that the school shooter in the Abundance Life Christian School attack in December, Samantha Rupnow, followed him on his X accounts. Additionally, documents online allegedly written by Henderson “detail his admiration” of Christchurch, New Zealand shooter Brenton Tarrant, the suspect in the Slovakian gay bar shooting in 2022 and other mass shooters, according to SITE.
The intelligence group reported that Henderson also appeared to “post photos of himself in attire commonly associated with neo-Nazis.”
As the investigation into the school shooting continues, officials said Wednesday it’s not yet clear where the suspect obtained the gun. Police have reached a parent of the suspect, the police chief said.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee wrote on social media, “I’ve been briefed on the incident at Antioch High School and am grateful for law enforcement & first responders who responded quickly. … I join Tennesseans in praying for the victims, their families & the school community.”
The White House said it had been monitoring the shooting.
