2.3 magnitude earthquake recorded near Sleepy Hollow, New York

(NEW YORK) — Two elite Northeast institutions of higher education have been rocked by horrific acts of gun violence, just days apart.

In the first incident, two people were killed and nine were injured in a mass shooting at Brown University, when a gunman opened fire on the Rhode Island campus, officials said.

Two days later, some 50 miles away in neighboring Massachusetts, an esteemed professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was killed in a shooting at his home, officials said.

Following a dayslong manhunt, authorities identified the suspect in both shootings as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old former Brown graduate student, who attended the school some 25 years ago. Valente, a Portuguese national, and the slain MIT professor both attended the same physics engineering program at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, the school confirmed to ABC News.

Officials have not yet provided a motive for the back-to-back shootings that left residents of parts of New England on edge for days.

Here’s how the tragic shootings unfolded.

Nov. 26-Nov. 30

Valente, who is believed to have lived in Florida, rents a hotel room in Boston, according to federal officials.

Dec. 1

Valente rents a gray Nissan Sentra with Florida plates from a car rental agency in Boston and then drives to the vicinity of Brown University in Providence, where the vehicle is seen “intermittently” through Dec. 12, according to federal officials.

Dec. 13

A person of interest in the Brown shooting — subsequently believed to be the suspect, Valente — is seen in surveillance footage walking through a residential neighborhood near the campus, beginning around 2 p.m., in images and footage released by the FBI. But police have said they believe he had been around the Brown campus as early as 10 a.m. that day “casing out the area.” The individual is seen dressed from head to toe in dark clothing, including wearing a surgical mask over his face.

Around 2:16 p.m., an unknown person — later identified as a man who introduced himself as John — is seen interacting with the person of interest, according to the arrest warrant affidavit for Valente.

The shooting at Brown occurs at 4:03 p.m. in a lecture hall in the school’s Barus & Holley Engineering building during a final exam review, according to authorities and school officials.

Just after the shooting, a security video captures the person of interest emerging onto Hope Street from what investigators described as “lot 42” on the Brown campus.

The last video in the FBI’s timeline shows the individual walking north on Hope Street at 4:07 p.m.

Valente returns to Massachusetts over the next day, where at some point he switches the plates on his rental car to an unregistered plate out of Maine, according to federal officials.

Dec. 14

A man initially thought to be a person of interest in the Brown shooting is detained at about 3:45 a.m. at a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Providence, according to law enforcement sources and police, though that individual is released hours later without being charged.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha says during a late-night press conference that there had been evidence pointing to this individual, but that evidence “now points in a different direction.”

Dec. 15

Authorities release new images and video of the person of interest in the mass shooting at Brown and the FBI announces it is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the individual responsible.

That night, authorities respond to a residence in Brookline, Massachusetts, after receiving a report of a man shot at his home, according to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office.

The victim is identified by the office as 47-year-old Nuno Loureiro, a Portugal native who is a faculty member in MIT’s departments of Nuclear Science & Engineering and Physics and the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

Video surveillance captured Valente in the area of the professor’s apartment that evening, according to federal officials.

Following the shooting, Valente drives to a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, which he had rented in November, according to federal officials.

Dec. 16

Loureiro is pronounced dead at an area hospital in the morning, according to the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office.

Authorities release a new image and enhanced video of the person of interest sought in the Brown shooting.

Police received an anonymous tip in the investigation into the Brown shooting referencing a Reddit post in which the poster — later identified as John — called for police to “look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates,” according to the affidavit.

Dec. 17

A Brown University faculty member reports to state police seeing a suspicious vehicle in the area of the campus the morning of Dec. 11, describing it as a gray sedan with Florida plates, according to the affidavit.

Providence police announce they are seeking the public’s help in identifying and speaking to the unknown individual — later identified as John — “who was in proximity of the person of interest” in the Brown shooting.

John approaches Providence police officers at Brown University to report his interaction with the person of interest, according to the affidavit. He tells detectives that he saw the man approach a gray or silver sedan with a Florida license plate the afternoon of Dec. 13 at a location near Brown’s campus, according to the affidavit.

“John informed detectives that he recognized one of the images released to the press as the person he encountered that day, which prompted him to post on Reddit,” the affidavit states.

Detectives trace the vehicle to the one rented by Valente in Boston, according to the affidavit.

Dec. 18

A Rhode Island state court issues a state arrest warrant for Valente, charging him with two counts of murder and 23 felony counts of assault and felony firearms offenses in the Brown shooting.

While executing search warrants on the Salem storage unit facility shortly before 9 p.m., Valente is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a storage unit, authorities said.

During a late-night news conference, authorities identify the suspect in the Brown mass shooting as Valente and confirm he is believed to be the same man who gunned down Loureiro, saying the professor was the intended target.

Officials say investigators linked the Brown and MIT shootings through the vehicle, financial records and video footage.

ABC News’ Josh Margolin, Aaron Katersky, Jon Haworth and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — A cross-country storm continued on Monday to produce heavy snow and strong winds in the upper Midwest and Great Lakes region, including an ice storm in northern Michigan, prompting thousands of flight cancellations and delays.

More than 3,400 flights within or out of the United States have already been canceled on Monday and more than 14,000 flights have been delayed, according to FlightAware.com, which tracks flights throughout the nation.

Between Saturday and Monday morning, more than 5,000 flights were canceled nationwide due to weather, with 3,000 flights scrapped on Sunday alone.

A major winter storm sweeping across the country has produced blizzards, ice storms and widespread destruction across parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes states.

Overnight, parts of Wisconsin recorded more than 2 feet of snow, including the city of Wausau, which received 23.4 inches of snow on Sunday and was adding to its snow totals on Monday morning.

Blizzard conditions are still occurring in parts of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota, where the city of Minneapolis recorded 8.8 inches of snow overnight and into Monday.

Meanwhile, more than 391 reports of damaging winds have been recorded from Texas to Ohio. At least eight states — including Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and New York — have reported destructive wind gusts of 70 mph.

More than 500,000 utility customers from Texas to New York were without power on Monday morning, according to the website PowerOutage.com.

Most of the power outages are in northern Michigan, where an ongoing ice storms have toppled power lines.

Fire and ice

The March storm is also forecast to continue whipping up dry and windy conditions in the South, fueling a critical fire threat in areas of the central U.S. already dealing with wildfires.

In Nebraska, three wildfires, the largest being the Morrill Fire, have burned more than 700,000 acres of land across multiple counties in western Nebraska and killed at least one person in Arthur County, Gov. Jim Pillen said at a news conference on Saturday.

On Monday, red flag warnings for fire weather danger are in place from southern Texas through southern Louisiana, including the cities of Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi.

Severe weather outlook for Monday

On Monday, a moderate risks of severe storms is forecast to spread into South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and up to Maryland, including the cities of Washington, D.C., Richmond and Raleigh.

Severe storms are also expected to develop from Georgia to Pennsylvania, including the cities of Savannah, Charleston, Charlotte, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Destructive winds gusts greater than 70 mph could develop in these areas, especially from South Carolina to Maryland.

There’s also a risk of tornadoes popping up about midday from South Carolina to Maryland.

A line of severe thunderstorm could also spawn tornadoes from the Florida Panhandle to the West Virginia. A tornado watch was in place earlier for Florida, Alabama and Georgia.

A tornado watch is also in place for Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and much of New Jersey until 7 pm ET on Monday.

More snow in store for the East Coast

By 6 p.m. ET, snow is expected to be falling from western Virginia, West Virginia, eastern Pennsylvania and western New York. Showers and thunderstorms are also forecast to move along the East Coast from North Carolina to Maine.

The weather system is expected to move out late Monday afternoon. But lake-effect snow is expected to continue through Tuesday on the eastern side of the Great Lakes.

Snow could also make a brief appearance from the Dakotas to Ohio on Tuesday and into Tuesday night.

Record heat wave in the West

Record heat is expected to continue as a summer-like heat dome settles over the West.

Many cities throughout the West — Sacramento, San Jose, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Denver — could reach all-time high temperatures for March.

Extreme heat alerts have been issued from southern Arizona up to the Bay Area of Northern California, where temperatures could reach the mid-90s.

Part of Southern California could see temperatures climb to 109 degrees.

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(NEW YORK) — Commodities from Indonesia beyond shrimp will almost certainly test positive for a radioactive isotope in the coming weeks and months, according to a new intelligence bulletin that follows a recall last month of 84,000 bags of frozen raw shrimp imported from Indonesia.

Federal regulators announced the recall on Dec. 19, after finding the shrimp may have been prepared, packed or held under conditions that could have exposed them to cesium-137, a radioactive isotope.

The new Homeland Security bulletin, a copy of which was obtained by ABC News, said the contamination is “very likely” to continue for the foreseeable future and spread beyond Indonesian imports that have already been interdicted — including shrimp, as well as spices and sneakers.

“Due to the high number of factories and wide variety of goods produced at facilities in the area of the contamination, additional commodities from Indonesia will almost certainly test positive for Cs-137 in the coming weeks and months,” the bulletin said. “While improbable, we cannot rule out the potential that Cs-137 contaminated goods will arrive in the United States via tourism or passenger travel.”

The bulletin noted that the U.S. is “nearly certain” the contamination was not intentional and that Customs and Border Protection is “well postured to detect and interdict all impacted bulk cargo shipments, reducing the likelihood that the public will encounter contaminated commodities shipped in bulk from Indonesia.”

The December shrimp recall followed a recall of imported shrimp that began in August and was processed by the same Indonesian company, PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati, according to the FDA.

The FDA said it has also detected the presence of cesium-137 in one sample of cloves from the Indonesian-based company PT Natural Java Spice.

Contaminated sneakers originating from Indonesia were also interdicted at several U.S. ports last summer, according to the DHS bulletin.

At this time, no product that has tested positive or alerted for cesium-137 has entered the U.S. marketplace, the FDA said.

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