Snowstorm pushes through Northeast with days of melting expected to follow
A man on cross-country skis travels through Central Park after a historic blizzard hit parts of the East Coast, on February 24, 2026 in New York City. (Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Snow is moving through the Northeast Wednesday morning, though much of the snow is light with heavier bands of precipitation further inland and higher elevations.
In New York City, snow is expected to last a few hours before ending in the late morning with less than an inch of snow accumulation anticipated.
In Boston, snow should end by midday with less than an inch of snow expected and, in Portland, Maine, snow totals could be up to 2 to 3 inches.
There is a chance for lingering snow showers scattered across New England through the evening but without much additional accumulation expected.
Meanwhile, temperatures the rest of the week will likely reach above freezing each day from New York City to Boston, meaning there should be some daily melting and then an overnight re-freeze that could create black ice in areas.
The chance for heavy snow across the Northeast is dwindling as the storm looks to stay farther south and temperatures too warm for snow, meaning it is much more likely this will be a rain event for the South with little to no snow for areas north of there.
While there may be thunderstorms accompanying some of the rain, no flood or severe weather threat is anticipated.
Elsewhere, on Saturday there is a chance for snow from Bismarck, North Dakota, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and through southern Michigan that should move quickly and dump a couple of inches of snow in these regions.
Some of that snow may linger into the Northeast on Sunday but, overall, it is looking weaker and light with about an inch or less expected for those experiencing the snow.
On Sunday and Monday nights, there is a chance for snow over parts of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic but it is currently too soon to know how this storm will develop with another round of rain and snow possible on Tuesday for the East and Northeast.
A wooden judge’s gavel and sounding block on a desk with a blurred courtroom in the background. (imaginima/Getty)
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Army special forces soldier who was indicted last week on charges of using classified information about the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to make more than $400,000 on the prediction market Polymarket pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Manhattan federal court and was released on bond.
Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke appeared in the same courthouse complex where Maduro appeared following the raid on his Caracas compound that Van Dyke helped plan and execute.
Judge Margaret Garnet asked how he pleaded to charges including unlawful use of confidential governmental information for personal gain.
“Not guilty, your honor,” Van Dyke said.
He was accompanied in the courtroom by his attorneys, Zach Intrater, Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian, following his arrest last week at Fort Bragg, where he is posted.
Van Dyke is currently on leave from the Army. His ultimate military status is “unsettled,” Intrater said.
The defense attorney said he expected few disputes over the factual allegations. Instead, Intrater said the case would “largely rise and fall” on motions to eliminate certain evidence and to dismiss the charges.
“This is anything but a usual case,” Intrater said.
In what is believed to be the first case of insider trading on a prediction market, prosecutors alleged that Van Dyke used inside knowledge to place 13 bets on the outcome of the Maduro operation.
According to the indictment, Van Dyke opened a Polymarket account the day after Christmas and began placing bets on Dec. 27 through the evening of Jan. 2 — hours before soldiers entered Venezuelan airspace for the pre-dawn operation. After Trump made the operation public that day, Van Dyke allegedly profited $409,881 from his $33,034 in bets.
Prosecutor Ryan Finkel said there were no plans to add defendants or bring additional charges against Van Dyke but said, “I would not entirely rule it out.”
Judge Garnet released Van Dyke on a $250,000 personal recognizance bond. His travel is restricted to California, where his family lives, North Carolina, where he is posted and New York, where he is being prosecuted.
He has surrendered his firearms. Garnet said she would modify that condition if his military service required him to possess and use a gun.
Finkel said there is a “moderate” amount of evidence in the case including Polymarket records, bank transactions, cryptocurrency exchanges and email accounts. There could also be a certain amount of classified information that would require special handling.
“The events covered by the classified information have now occurred,” Garnet said. She said the case would move faster “if evidence could be declassified to the greatest extent possible.”
Van Dyke’s next court date is Monday, June 8.
Following his arrest on Thursday, Van Dyke briefly appeared in a North Carolina courtroom on Friday. He signed a bond after acknowledging that he understood the charges and potential penalties.
His case is being overseen in New York by the same judge who is presiding over the high-profile federal case against alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione.
Amid mounting criticism of prediction markets for allegedly enabling insider trading, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said his company is “constantly” monitoring for suspicious activity and referring cases to authorities. Coplan argued that the public nature of prediction markets makes it easier to crack down on insider trading.
“The transparency afforded by onchain markets makes global compliance more effective than ever. Every trade is public, permanent, and auditable. Bad actors leave a trail,” he said.
A poster of celebrity real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander along with their brother Alon (Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A jury has found the Alexander brothers guilty on all counts in their federal sex trafficking trial in New York City.
Jury deliberations began Thursday for the former real estate titans, Oren and Alon Alexander, 38-year-old twins, along with their brother, Tal Alexander, 39, who have denied sexually assaulting anyone or running a sex trafficking conspiracy, as prosecutors have charged. They pleaded not guilty.
Throughout the five-week trial, 11 women testified that they were sexually assaulted by one or more of the brothers. At least eight of the women claimed they were drugged by one of the Alexanders.
“These are chilling, reprehensible, and unacceptable acts,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, whose office prosecuted the case, said in a statement following the verdict. “We commend the victims for their courage in coming forward and testifying at the trial. They bravely overcame the pain of reliving the abuses inflicted upon them and, as a result, prevented others from becoming victims.”
A spokesperson for the Alexander family called the verdict “deeply disappointing.”
“We believe there are substantial problems with the evidence and the way this case was presented,” the spokesperson, Juda S. Engelmayer, said in a statement. “The legal process does not end here. We will continue fighting every day until justice is done and the three brothers regain their freedom.”
An attorney for one of the brothers also vowed to keep fighting.
“There are a lot of avenues open to us. We’re not gonna stop,” Marc Agnifilo, who represented Oren Alexander, said outside court on Monday. “We believe in our client’s innocence and we’re not gonna stop fighting until we prevail. And we believe that we will one day prevail.”
The brothers’ federal sentencing has been set for Aug. 6.
Oren and Tal Alexander gained notoriety in New York’s luxury real estate market through their company, Alexander Group, and have been under federal investigation alongside Alon since late 2024.
They have been accused of luring women to nightclubs and parties, then drugging and sexually assaulting them.
In his closing statement, federal prosecutor Andrew Jones said there is “crushing evidence” that the brothers “masqueraded as party boys when really they were predators” who committed an “array of federal sex offenses.”
Jones recounted the graphic accounts of the alleged victims and said the wealthy brothers had a “playbook” luring women with exclusive parties, yachts and luxury travel so they could assault them.
“Once they had their victims where they wanted them, the defendants assaulted them using force, using drugs, or using both,” Jones said.
Then, the brothers allegedly bragged about their exploits in blog posts with titles like “It’s not rape if… you use her tears as lube” and “It’s not rape if… she secretly wants it.”
Jones told the jury the allegations are corroborated “by the sheer number of other victims who testified here — women who never met each other, who have each led different lives, in different professions, sometimes in different cities. But they had one horrific thing in common — they were each raped by these men. And they described near identical experiences of their assaults.”
During closing arguments, defense attorney Howard Srebnick conceded the brothers could be “obnoxious” and their conduct “inappropriate,” but he told the jury, “Nobody was being assaulted, nobody had been trafficked.”
Srebnick urged jurors to reject the government’s case against his client, Alon Alexander, insisting prosecutors failed to meet their burden of proof.
In her closing argument, Deanna Paul said the brothers “are not mobsters,” though sometimes they acted like “entitled a——-.”
A defense attorney for Tal Alexander, Paul argued that prosecutors have asked the jury to “connect dots that really aren’t there.”
In his summations, Agnifilo suggested to the jury that the victims in this case were dissatisfied with their encounters with the Alexanders, which motivated them to testify in this trial.
A view of Hunter College of The City University of New York, April 10, 2017, in New York. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A New York City college professor has been placed on leave amid backlash over what the school called her “abhorrent remarks” during a public school district meeting.
Hunter College associate professor Allyson Friedman made the remarks during a NYC District 3 Community Education Council (CEC3) meeting earlier this month that she was virtually attending as a parent in the Manhattan district, the university confirmed.
While an unidentified eighth grade student spoke against the potential closing of her school, Friedman can be heard saying in a video of the meeting, “They’re just too dumb to know they’re in a bad school. … Apparently Martin Luther King said it. Like if you train a Black person well enough, they’ll know to use the back, you don’t have to tell them anymore.”
Friedman appeared to be referencing remarks made earlier in the meeting by District 3 interim acting superintendent Reginald Higgins, who had quoted the Black scholar Carter G. Woodson: “When you can control a man’s thinking, you do not have to send him to the back door, he will go without being told.”
During Friedman’s remarks, other attendees could be seen reacting in shock and someone interrupts her to say, “What you’re saying is absolutely hearable here, you’ve got to stop.”
riedman has apologized for her remarks, which she said were taken out of context during an accidental unmute and did not truly reflect her own views.
“During a recent online CEC3 meeting, I was trying to explain the concept of systemic racism to my child by referencing an example of an obviously racist trope,” Friedman said in a statement to ABC News. “Due to an inadvertent unmute, only part of that conversation was captured. My complete comments make clear these abhorrent views are not my own, nor were they directed at any student or group. I fully support these courageous students in their efforts to stop school closures. However, I recognize these comments caused harm and pain, while that was not my intent I do truly apologize.”
Hunter College said earlier this week that it is “reviewing the situation under the university’s applicable conduct and nondiscrimination policies.” On Wednesday, Hunter College President Nancy Cantor updated that Friedman, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, has been placed on leave while the school investigates the incident.
“This painful incident unfolded at a meeting where Black History Month was being celebrated and the pernicious and enduring effects of anti-Black systemic racism were being discussed, especially with regard to the role of educational institutions in addressing them,” Cantor said in a statement. “Hunter has long embraced such a role, which requires constant vigilance to remain attentive and responsive to the ways in which we continually draw and redraw discriminatory social lines.”
ABC News has reached out to Friedman for comment on Thursday, following the update from Hunter.
CEC3 has condemned Friedman’s remarks as “racially offensive.”
“Regardless of intent, these comments were deeply harmful and wholly unacceptable,” CEC3 said in a draft statement. “That such remarks were made while a student was courageously offering public comment makes this incident even more troubling.”
New York City Public Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has also condemned her remarks, saying at an unrelated press briefing on Tuesday, “It was abhorrent to listen to. And our students deserve so much better.”
