Tornado outbreak possible in Upper Midwest, millions on alert
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — More than 36 million Americans are on alert for severe weather in the Upper Midwest, with thunderstorms, large hail and a tornado outbreak possible starting Monday.
On Sunday, 10 tornadoes and hail larger than a baseball were reported in western Nebraska. Near Hyannis, Nebraska, a train was derailed by a tornado, according to the Nebraska State Patrol.
Additionally, locations in both Texas and South Dakota reported wind gusts reaching 75 mph.
The severe weather conditions will continue to ramp up on Monday, with a moderate risk in place for northern Iowa, eastern Minnesota — including Minneapolis — and western Wisconsin. These areas face the greatest likelihood for strong tornadoes, very large hail and destructive thunderstorm wind.
Enhanced risks are also in place from Kansas City, Missouri, to Green Bay, Wisconsin; Duluth, Minnesota; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Marquette, Michigan. A second enhanced risk is in place from west Texas to western Oklahoma. Tornadoes, damaging wind and large hail are also a possibility in these areas.
There is also a slight risk for severe weather in place from west Texas to the western Great Lakes, including Oklahoma City and Chicago.
The severe storms are likely to start popping up late in the afternoon on Monday in Minnesota and northern Iowa. As the storms continue to move east into Wisconsin, the longevity of the storms depends on how much the atmosphere has been able to recover from prior showers earlier in the morning.
Additional storms are expected for Kansas City and Oklahoma City around midnight.
The possibility for severe weather continues on Tuesday, with an enhanced risk in place from central Ohio to western New York. Damaging wind, tornadoes and large hail are all possible in these areas. A slight risk for severe storms is also in place from western Texas all the way up to northern Vermont.
A moderate risk for excessive rainfall is also in place over northern Texas, central Oklahoma, southeast Kansas and southwestern Missouri starting Tuesday afternoon and continuing into Tuesday evening.
Up to seven inches of rain, large hail, strong winds and possible tornadoes are likely in these areas, causing a heightened risk to Oklahoma and northern Texas, where heavy rain already occurred throughout the weekend.
One person died on Saturday due to the flash flooding in Oklahoma, according to police. Highly saturated top-soil and local streams running at high levels increases the risk for additional flash flooding in the area after these incoming storms.
Going into Wednesday, a moderate risk for excessive rainfall will be focused on eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas, potentially bringing additional heavy rain, which will continue the enhanced threat for flash flooding.
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(WASHINGTON) — A group of 21 Democratic attorneys general are suing the Trump administration to block the dismantling of the Department of Education, alleging the firing of 50% of its employees “incapacitates” the department’s ability to compete its legally-required functions.
The lawsuit – filed in Massachusetts federal court – asks a judge to immediately pause the Trump administration’s mass firings and declare that the dismantling of the Department of Education is unlawful.
“This massive reduction in force is equivalent to incapacitating key, statutorily mandated functions of the Department, causing immense damage to Plaintiff States and their educational systems,” the lawsuit said. “Far from being just a ‘first step,’ the layoffs are an effective dismantling of the Department.”
The attorneys general allege that the twenty states and District of Columbia who brought the case would suffer irreparable harm from the dismantling of the Department, arguing the federal government is ” deeply intertwined” with their education systems through funding for low-income children, support for students with disabilities, federal student aid, and laws that prevent discrimination in education.
According to the lawsuit, the reduction in force would prevent the department from completing its legally mandated functions, and that neither President Donald Trump nor Education Secretary Linda McMahon have the authority to break down a department created by Congress.
“This massive RIF is not supported by any actual reasoning or specific determinations about how to eliminate purported waste in the Department—rather, the RIF is part and parcel of President Trump’s and Secretary McMahon’s opposition to the Department of Education’s entire existence,” the lawsuit said.
The DOE began sending “reduction in force” notifications on Tuesday night, impacting about 1,315 employees so far. The agency said it will “continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) —
The son of a local sheriff’s deputy allegedly opened fire near the Student Union at Florida State University in Tallahassee on Thursday, killing two people and injuring six others, authorities said.
The suspect — 20-year-old Pheonix Ikner, a current FSU student — was shot by responders and has been hospitalized, police said. He was taken into custody with non-life-threatening injuries, multiple law enforcement officials told ABC News.
Ikner is the son of a current Leon County sheriff’s deputy, according to Sheriff Walter McNeil. He had access to one of his mother’s personal weapons, which was one of the weapons found at the scene, the sheriff said. It appeared Ikner had a handgun and a shotgun with him, police said.
The suspect’s mother has been a deputy with the department for more than 18 years and “her service to this community has been exceptional,” McNeil said.
The suspect was also a “long-standing member” of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office’s Youth Advisory Council, McNeil said.
He was “engaged in a number of training programs that we have,” the sheriff said, adding, “Not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons.”
The campus has been secured, police said.
Police have not identified the two people killed but said they were not students.
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare said it’s received six patients, all in fair condition.
Sophomore Paula Maldonado told ABC News she was in class near the Student Union when she heard what sounded like yelling outside.
“Right after, the active threat alarm went off,” she said. “Everyone in my class quickly turned off the lights, put desks to block off the door and hid by the front of the classroom.”
“We were quiet and some were whispering,” Maldonado said. “Some were also crying and helping each other. Like a student next to me told me to put my backpack in front of me to protect myself.”
“A cop came inside and I thought it was the shooter, so it was very scary. But after a couple of minutes another cop came back in and told us to go outside with our hands up, Maldonado said.
Student Daniella Streety told ABC News she was in the building across the street from the Student Union when alert sirens started blaring, and people who were standing outside ran into her building.
Students then fled from the Student Union as law enforcement flooded the scene, she said.
Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was killed in the Parkland high school shooting in South Florida in 2018, said some of Jaime’s classmates now attend FSU.
“Incredibly, some of them were just a part of their 2nd school shooting and some were in the student union today,” Guttenberg, who has become a gun reform supporter, wrote on social media. “As a father, all I ever wanted after the Parkland shooting was to help our children be safe. Sadly, because of the many people who refuse to do the right things about reducing gun violence, I am not surprised by what happened today.”
President Donald Trump has been briefed on the shooting, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said, “My heart breaks for the students, their families, and faculty at Florida State University. There is no place in American society for violence. Our entire nation is praying for the victims and their families.”
FSU said classes are canceled through Friday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Olivia Osteen, Sony Salzman and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
(BOSTON) — A Massachusetts woman is on trial again for the death of her police officer boyfriend, after a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the initial murder trial last year.
Karen Read is accused of killing her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, in January 2022. The prosecution alleges that, following a night of drinking in Canton, Read struck O’Keefe with her SUV outside of a private residence, then left the scene. An autopsy found that he died of hypothermia and blunt force injuries to the head.
Read’s defense attorneys have long centered on allegations that the defendant was the subject of a cover-up.
Read has maintained her innocence. She pleaded not guilty to charges including second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a collision causing death.
During opening statements Tuesday in Norfolk County Superior Court in Dedham, special prosecutor Hank Brennan focused on numerous accounts Read has given in interviews with the media, in which he claims Read makes a series of “admissions.” Brennan announced his intent to present Read’s numerous statements to the media as important evidence in the Commonwealth’s case.
“You are going to hear from her own lips, and many of her statements, her admissions to her extraordinary intoxication. Her admissions to driving the Lexus. Her admissions to being angry at John that night,” he said.
Brennan directed the jury’s attention to a clip of the defendant’s interview from October 2024.
“I didn’t think I ‘hit him,’ hit him,” Read said in the interview. “But could I have clipped him, could I have tapped him in the knee and incapacitated him?”
Brennan told jurors they will see a host of video and DNA evidence during the trial, including what he said is DNA of O’Keefe’s hair recovered from Read’s bumper.
He also pointed to evidence pulled from Read’s Lexus, which he said will show that the defendant’s vehicle reversed at least 70 feet around the time of the alleged murder. Brennan repeatedly highlighted the broken taillight identified on the defendant’s vehicle as evidence that her Lexus struck O’Keefe.
Defense attorney Alan Jackson asserted in his opening statement that Read did not cause the death of O’Keefe.
“There was no collision with John O’Keefe,” Jackson repeated three times.
Jackson said the assertion that O’Keefe was struck by Read’s Lexus SUV is “contrary to science.”
“John O’Keefe did not die from being hit by a vehicle, period,” Jackson said.
Jackson promised to show the jury that the police investigation on which the Commonwealth has based its case is “riddled with errors.”
He made numerous references to personal relationships that investigating officers held with witnesses in this case, including Boston police officer Brian Albert, who owned the residence where O’Keefe was found dead on the lawn.
The attorney also criticized the involvement of former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, the lead investigator in the case. Jackson introduced Proctor as “a longtime family friend of the Alberts who has been disgraced by his own agency,” alluding to his dismissal by state police.
“You’ll see from the evidence in this case that this case carries a malignancy, one that is spread through the investigation,” Jackson said. “It’s spread through the prosecution from the very start, from the jump, a cancer that cannot be cut out, a cancer that cannot be cured, and that cancer has a name. His name is Michael Proctor.”
The attorney promised to show the jury personal text messages between Proctor and his high school friends, in which he made vulgar and sexist comments about Read. Jackson then alleged that Proctor admitted in the same text conversation to seizing the defendant’s cell phone without her permission and searching her phone for nude photos.
Proctor’s family responded to Jackson’s opening statement, calling it “yet another example of the distasteful, and shameless fabrication of lies that embodies their defense strategy” in a statement to ABC Boston affiliate WCVB.
“Jackson is under no oath to tell the truth; he does not have to speak in truths,” the statement continued. “The defense team continues to do anything to deflect from facts of the case and continues to use inappropriate analogies like casting someone as a cancer. We wholeheartedly believe the truth will prevail in this case, and justice for Officer John O’Keefe and his family will be achieved.”
The Commonwealth’s first witness, Timothy Nuttall, a Canton firefighter and paramedic who administered medical aid to O’Keefe, testified that he heard Read say, “I hit him,” at the scene.
“She said, ‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,'” Nuttall said. “I remember it very distinctly.”
In his cross-examination, Jackson focused on the witness’ ability to accurately recall details from that morning.
Jackson pointed to an inconsistency between Nuttall’s testimony in Read’s first trial, where he stated that Read said, “I hit him,” twice, and his statements Tuesday in court, where he now claims she repeated the statement three times.
“So your memory is clearer today, now, as you sit here, than it was a year ago, when you testified it was two times?” Jackson asked.
“Yes, sir,” Nuttall said with a nod.
The next witness, Kerry Roberts, testified that she saw Read point to an abnormality in the taillight of her SUV the morning that O’Keefe was found and that she recalled seeing a piece missing.
Roberts will resume her testimony on Wednesday. The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.
Hours before the proceedings began on Tuesday, roughly two dozen protesters supporting Read gathered near the courthouse. Judge Beverly Cannone ordered a 200-foot no-protest zone around the courthouse in the interest of ensuring a fair trial.
A man “lingering and filming” within the buffer zone was arrested Tuesday morning after police say he ignored multiple requests to leave the zone, Massachusetts State Police said. The Arlington man was expected to be arraigned Tuesday on a trespassing charge, police said.
ABC News’ Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report.
