(NEW YORK) — A major winter storm is making the post-Christmas travel extremely dangerous in parts of the Northeast, and the storm is set to bring the most snow to New York City in years.
The storm is also impacting flights. Nearly 800 flights have been canceled so far on Friday, with New York City’s three airports and the Detroit Metro Airport hit the hardest.
The storm first hit the Midwest. People in Wisconsin and Michigan are waking up to a layer of ice on the roads, so drivers should use extra caution.
On Friday morning, the freezing rain moves east into Pennsylvania and will cover the entire state throughout the day, making the roads extremely treacherous. An ice storm warning is in place for nearly 1 million people in parts of western Pennsylvania.
On the north side of this storm, where temperatures are cold enough to create snow instead of ice, heavy snowfall is expected in parts of New York, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, western Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The snow will begin in western New York on Friday morning and reach New York City by 5 p.m. Friday.
The snow will be heavy at times and will greatly reduce visibility, making travel treacherous.
The snow will continue overnight, ending in New York City around 9 a.m.
New York City is forecast to get about 7 inches of snow — the most snow in nearly four years.
A winter storm warning in place for the tristate region. Six to 9 inches of snow is possible in upstate New York, with 10 inches possible in the Hudson Valley. Five to 8 inches is forecast for northern New Jersey, while Hartford, Connecticut, could get about 4 inches.
Philadelphia can expect 1 to 3 inches of a sleet and snow mix, along with a glaze of ice, making travel challenging on Friday night. Baltimore can also expect icy roads.
(NEW YORK) — A doctor who admitted to distributing ketamine to Matthew Perry weeks before he died is set to be sentenced on Wednesday — the first among the five people convicted in connection with the “Friends” actor’s 2023 overdose death.
Salvador Plasencia pleaded guilty in July to four counts of distribution of ketamine. He is one of two doctors convicted of providing Perry with ketamine before the actor died in October 2023 at the age of 54. The actor was discovered unresponsive in a jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home, police said. An autopsy report revealed he died from the acute effects of ketamine.
Plasencia, an operator of an urgent care clinic in Malibu, had been set to go on trial in August in the case prior to reaching a plea agreement. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison for each count, prosecutors said.
His sentencing is scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday local time in Los Angeles federal court.
The government recommended a sentence of 36 months in prison, arguing in a filing ahead of the sentencing that Plasencia “sought to exploit Perry’s medical vulnerability for profit.”
“Indeed, the day defendant met Perry he made his profit motive known, telling a co-conspirator: ‘I wonder how much this moron will pay’ and ‘let’s find out,'” prosecutors stated.
Plasencia’s attorneys asked for a sentence of one day credit for time served and three years of supervised release in a filing ahead of sentencing, arguing that prison time is unnecessary given “the punishment Mr. Plasencia has already experienced, and will continue to experience for many years to come.”
“He has already lost his medical license, his clinic, and his career,” they wrote. “He has also been viciously attacked in the media and threatened by strangers to the point where his family has moved out of state for their safety.”
His attorneys stated that Plasencia recklessly treated Perry “without adequate knowledge of ketamine therapy and without a full understanding of his patient’s addiction,” and that it was “the biggest mistake of his life.”
They said he accepts the consequences of his actions and is working to find ways to help people without a medical license and one day hopes to start a nonprofit focused on food insecurity.
His attorneys also tried to differentiate Plasencia from the four other defendants in the case who have also all pleaded guilty — two dealers who provided the fatal dose of ketamine to Perry, the actor’s personal assistant who administered it and another doctor who ran a ketamine clinic.
Plasencia, his attorneys said, treated Perry for “a discrete thirteen-day period in the physician-patient context for depression.”
“Despite the serious treatment mistakes he made, Mr. Plasencia was not treating M.P. at the time of his death and he did not provide him with the ketamine which resulted in his overdose,” they continued.
According to Plasencia’s plea agreement, he distributed 20 vials of ketamine, ketamine lozenges and syringes to Perry and the actor’s live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, between Sept. 30, 2023, and Oct. 12, 2023.
Plasencia “admits that his conduct fell below the proper standard of medical care and that transfers of ketamine vials to Defendant Iwamasa and Victim M.P. were not for a legitimate medical purpose,” his plea agreement stated.
Iwamasa, who admitted in court documents to administering the ketamine on the day that Perry died, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death, the DOJ said.
According to Iwamasa’s plea agreement, Perry asked Iwamasa to help him procure ketamine in September 2023 and provided his assistant with “money, or promised to reimburse him, and directed him to find sources from whom to acquire the drugs.”
One of Plasencia’s patients introduced him to Perry on Sept. 30, 2023, with the unidentified patient referring to the actor as a “‘high profile person’ who was seeking ketamine and was willing to pay ‘cash and lots of thousands’ for ketamine treatment,'” according to Plasencia’s plea agreement.
Plasencia contacted his mentor, Mark Chavez, who had previously operated a ketamine clinic, to discuss Perry’s request for ketamine and purchased vials of liquid ketamine, ketamine lozenges and other items from him, according to the agreement.
Chavez pleaded guilty in October 2024 to distributing ketamine to Perry.
In discussing how much to charge Perry, Plasencia said in text messages to Chavez, “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “Lets [sic] find out,” the Department of Justice said.
Plasencia administered ketamine to Perry at the actor’s home on several occasions, and left vials and lozenges with Iwamasa to administer, according to the plea agreement. In one instance, he was paid $12,000 for such a visit, according to the agreement.
One such instance occurred outside of the home, when Plasencia administered ketamine to Perry in a parking lot near an aquarium in Long Beach, according to the plea agreement. Upon learning about that, Chavez “reprimanded” the other doctor “for ‘dosing people’ in cars, and in a public place where children are present,” Chavez’s plea agreement stated.
Plasencia returned to Perry’s home on Oct. 12, 2023, to administer ketamine, during which the actor’s blood pressure spiked, causing him to “freeze up,” according to Plasencia’s plea agreement.
“Notwithstanding Victim M.P.’s reaction, defendant left additional vials of ketamine with Defendant Iwamasa, knowing that Defendant Iwamasa would inject the ketamine into Victim M.P.,” the agreement stated.
After receiving 10 more vials of ketamine through a licensed pharmaceutical company using his DEA license, Plasencia texted Iwamasa on Oct. 27, 2023, according to the plea agreement: “I know you mentioned taking a break. I have been stocking up on the meanwhile. I am not sure when you guys plan to resume but in case its when im out of town this weekend I have left supplies with a nurse of mine …I can always let her know the plan.”
Perry died the following day after overdosing on ketamine, which Plasencia had not provided, according to the plea agreement.
Plasencia “sold vial after vial of ketamine to Mr. Perry, knowing that Perry’s personal assistant was administering the ketamine without proper oversight or medical training,” the government’s sentencing file stated. “Even after defendant saw Mr. Perry suffer an adverse reaction to a ketamine shot, he still offered to sell Perry more. While the ketamine that killed Mr. Perry on October 28 was not provided by defendant, defendant’s egregious breaches of trust and abandonment of his oath to ‘do no harm’ undoubtedly contributed to the harm that Mr. Perry suffered.”
Following their convictions, both Plasencia and Chavez gave up their medical licenses.
Chavez is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 17 and faces up to 10 years in prison.
Iwamasa is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 14, 2026, and faces up to 15 years in prison.
Two other defendants in the case — Erik Fleming and Jasveen Sangha — admitted to distributing the ketamine that killed Perry.
Prosecutors said Sangha worked with Fleming to distribute ketamine to Perry, and that in October 2023, they sold the actor 51 vials of ketamine, which were provided to Iwamasa.
Fleming pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 7, 2026, and faces up to 25 years in prison.
Sangha, allegedly known as “The Ketamine Queen,” pleaded guilty in September to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 25, 2026, and faces a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison.
A large portion of the damaged plane fuselage is lifted from the Potomac River during recovery efforts after the American Airlines crash, Feb. 3, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. government admitted some failures and accepted liability for its role in the deadly Jan. 29 mid-air crash over the Potomac River between a commercial jet and an Army helicopter, according to a filing in a civil suit, but pushed back on a number of claims that were made.
The filing came in response to a suit brought by the family of one of the 67 people killed in the crash between a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight operated by a regional carrier. The family’s lawsuit serves as the “master complaint” on behalf of all deceased passengers.
The regional jet and Black Hawk helicopter both crashed into the icy Potomac River after colliding in midair, launching an overnight search and rescue mission, with no survivors found. Sixty-four people were on the plane and three Army soldiers were aboard the helicopter, which was on a training flight at the time, officials said.
The government attorneys, in their 209-page filling on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, said that the pilots of both the Black Hawk and the regional jet “failed to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid each other.”
And it admitted that the Black Hawk pilots’ failure to maintain vigilance was “a proximate cause” of the accident.
“The United States admits that it owed a duty of care to Plaintiffs, which it breached, thereby proximately causing the tragic accident on January 29, 2025,” the government said in the filing.
The government also conceded that the air traffic controller at Reagan National Airport did not comply with regulations that state “[i]f aircraft are on converging courses, inform the other aircraft of the traffic and that visual separation is being applied.”
But it did not concede, as alleged, that the actions of the controller were responsible for the crash.
“The United States denies that any alleged negligence of the air traffic controllers on position in Washington Tower during the accident was a cause-in-fact and a proximate cause of the accident and the death of DECEDENT,” the filing says.
And it denied, as alleged in the suit, that the extremely busy airspace above Reagan National Airport presented an “accident waiting to happen.”
The government conceded that while the airspace above Reagan National is “busy at times and the risk of midair collision cannot be reduced to zero” and “that aircraft have come into close proximity to other aircraft within the Class B airspace near DCA on certain occasions” it did not admit to “collective failures” that led to the crash.
The original lawsuit as it was filed says that among the factors known to the military was that there had been “a substantial number of ‘near miss’ events in and around DCA, which were required to be analyzed to ensure that a mid-air collision did not occur and required Defendants to exercise vigilance when operating and/or controlling aircraft in the vicinity of DCA.”
But the government denied the statement that those known misses “were required to be analyzed to ensure that a mid-air collision did not occur and required Defendants to exercise vigilance when operating and/or controlling aircraft in the vicinity of DCA.”
An attorney for one of the plaintiffs in the case, Rachel Crafton, said in a statement responding to the U.S. filing, “These families remain deeply saddened and anchored in the grief caused by this tragic loss of life.”
“We continue to investigate this matter to ensure all parties at fault are held accountable, and we await additional findings from the NTSB in an anticipated January 26 hearing on this matter in Washington, D.C,” said attorney Robert A. Clifford, who represents Crafton.
The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to release its final report with the probable cause and its recommendations by the anniversary of the crash on Jan. 29, 2026.
District Judge Ana C. Reyes, who was appointed in 2023, is presiding over the case, according to court records.
Editor’s Note: A prior version of this story incorrectly attributed allegations from the family’s “master complaint” to the U.S. government, which had reprinted those allegations in its Wednesday filing in order to respond to them.
Luigi Mangione appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court, December 18, 2025 in New York City. (Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The judge overseeing Luigi Mangione’s federal case may decide on Friday if the death penalty will remain a sentencing option if he’s convicted.
Mangione, who is accused of stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan in December 2024, will return to the federal courtroom on Friday. He has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges.
The defense argued that stalking “fails to qualify as a crime of violence” and therefore cannot be the predicate to make Mangione eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted of the federal charges. The defense also argued that the decision to seek the death penalty was political and circumvented the federal government’s protocols.
Judge Margaret Garnett has said Mangione would stand trial for the federal case in January 2027 if capital punishment remains on the table, and that the federal trial would begin in October if the death penalty is taken off the table. Either way, she set jury selection for Sept. 8.
Federal prosecutors contend the Altoona Police Department’s search followed departmental procedures. Mangione’s lawyers have argued the backpack search was illegal and police should not have had immediate access to the items inside, including the alleged murder weapon, a notebook and writings.
In making their case for a July 1 state trial, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said the state has a “deep interest” in upholding the right to life, maintaining public order and delivering justice for Thompson’s family.
