Persistent heat and dangerous wildfire conditions could impact these parts of the US this weekend
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A large swath of the country is expected to face dangerous heat and fire weather conditions this weekend, forecasts show.
The National Weather Service has issued red flag warnings for more than 47 million Americans from the Great Plains to the Southeast on Saturday due to widespread critical fire weather danger.
Wind gusts in the Plains are expected to reach 30 to 60 mph on Saturday. Combined with very low humidity and dry fuels, conditions could be conducive for rapid wildfire growth and spread.
Gusty winds and dry conditions will also be in place from the Gulf Coast inland across the Southeast, including cities such as Lake Charles, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; Tallahassee, Florida; Charleston, South Carolina; and Asheville, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, a temperature roller coaster is expected in other parts of the country this weekend.
A cooldown has swept across the Midwest and Northeast following warm spring days earlier in the week.
Places in the Midwest and Northeast, like Chicago and New York City, will be noticeably cooler for Saturday, but will rebound to seasonable highs by the beginning of the new workweek.
In some regions, temperatures on Saturday will be at least 10 to 20 degrees cooler than Friday — following record high temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday and seasonably warm temperatures on Friday — forecasts show.
On Friday, some regions in the mid-Atlantic broke or tied their daily record highs for March 27, including Savannah, Georgia, which reached 89 degrees Fahrenheit, and Columbia, South Carolina, which reached 88 degrees.
As March wraps up, a pattern change will bring likely warmer than normal temperatures for the eastern half of the nation and near normal temperatures for the western half for the beginning of April.
But record-shattering heat will continue in the Southeast, with no relief coming this weekend.
Friday saw another day of record-breaking temperatures.
Phoenix reached 102 degrees; Death Valley reached 101 degrees; and Tucson, Arizona, reached 98 degrees.
Daily record highs are possible again this weekend for Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Between March 15 and March 26, more than 100 monthly records were broken or tied, and 700 daily records were broken or tied across the country, according to the National Weather Service.
Since March 1, there have been more than 1,100 daily records broken or tied across the nation.
In this photo illustration, the Telekom Malaysia company logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen. (Photo Illustration by Piotr Swat/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Senior personnel at a telecommunications company orchestrated a “calculated embezzlement scheme” to divert millions of dollars into their own pockets, federal prosecutors in New York charged in the first case of its kind that involved self-reporting by the company that allowed the corporation to avoid criminal charges.
Mohd Hafiz Lockman, Mohd Yuzaimi Yusof and Khanh Thuong Nguyen allegedly misappropriated more than $20 million from Telekom Malaysia’s U.S. subsidiary using false statements, forged records, fictitious transactions and corporate and individual impersonations to deceive counterparties, suppliers, auditors and supervisors, the indictment said.
Lockman, 48, of Dublin, California, Yusof, 44, of Livermore, California, and Nguyen, 48, of Manassas, Virginia, are charged with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. All three were taken into custody last month and were released on bond. They have not yet entered pleas.
Their parent company, Telekom Malaysia Berhad, reported the alleged fraud to the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan last month and the company has been cooperating with the ongoing investigation, prosecutors said.
It’s the first prosecution to result from a self-reporting program U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton announced earlier this year. Telekom Malaysia received a conditional declination of charges against the company provided it cooperates, pays restitution and agrees to report any future criminal conduct for the next three years.
“Today’s fraud charges come within weeks of receiving a self-report from the company,” Clayton said in a statement announcing the charges. “As alleged, Mohd Hafiz Lockman, Mohd Yuzaimi Yusof, and Khanh Thuong Nguyen perpetrated a sprawling fraud to steal over $20 million. The defendants deceived counterparties, suppliers, auditors, and their own supervisors. As a result of the fact that the conduct was reported to this Office and quickly investigated, the defendants will now be held to account for fraudulently lining their own pockets.”
According to the indictment, the defendants first schemed to sell Telekom. Malaysia’s broadband capacity without authorization and divert the proceeds to their own accounts. Then, they allegedly impersonated one of Telekom Malaysia’s suppliers and intercepted payments the company made to that supplier.
They also allegedly impersonated employees and interns and captured their salaries. The fourth component of the fraud involved reimbursements for fabricated work expenses, officials said.
As one example, the indictment said the trio collaborated to request reimbursement for expenses incurred for a work trip to Las Vegas in December 2025. In fact, no such trip occurred. According to the indictment, when the parent company requested pictures from the trip, the defendants hastily organized a trip to Las Vegas and photographed scenes with Christmas trees to make it appear as though photographs had been taken in December.
Columbia University. (Sergi Reboredo/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A Columbia University student who was detained by Department of Homeland Security agents Thursday morning after the school claimed agents allegedly made “misrepresentations” to enter a dorm was released later in the day after New York City’s mayor spoke with the president.Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Thursday afternoon that President Donald Trump informed him that the student, Elaina Aghayeva, would be “released immediately” after the mayor said he spoke with the president.
Previously, following the Mamdani’s meeting, Claire Shipman, the school’s acting president, sent a letter to the school community informing them that the DHS agents entered an unspecified dorm on the campus around 6:30 a.m. and detained the student.
“Our understanding at this time is that the federal agents made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building to search for a ‘missing person.’ We are working to gather more details,” she said.
A statement from a DHS official identified Aghayeva as an Azerbajani native, and alleged her “student visa was terminated in 2016 under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes.”
“The building manager and her roommate let officers into the apartment. She has no pending appeals or applications with DHS,” the statement further said.
The statement did not address the allegations that DHS agents made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building.
Mamdani, who met with Trump at the White House Thursday, posted a statement on social media in the afternoon in which he said he spoke with the president about the incident.
“In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elaina Aghayeva, who was detained by ICE this morning. He has just informed me that she will be released imminently,” Mamdani said.
Aghayeva made a story on her Instagram page shortly after Mamdani’s announcement, in which she expressed gratitude for the support.
“I just got out a little while ago. I am safe and okay. In an uber (on the way) back home,” she said. “I am so sorry, but I am in complete shock over what happened.”
Aghayeva was seen by ABC News exiting a vehicle and entering building. She did not give a statement.
An attorney representing Aghayeva filed a petition in federal court Thursday asking a judge to order her release.
Carl Hurvich said in court documents that the student was unlawfully detained and was being held “without justification.”
The habeas petition said agents “represented they were searching for a missing person to gain entry” and did not have a warrant for Aghayeva’s arrest. Hurvich requested a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from transferring Aghayeva outside of New York.
Aghayeva is described in court documents as an undergrad student at Columbia’s School of General Studies pursuing a degree in neuroscience and political science. She entered the U.S. around 2016 on a visa, the filing says.
Protests took place on the school’s campus on Thursday following the news of the student’s detention, but there were no reported incidents or arrests.
The school was “working to reach the family, and providing legal support,” the Shipman said in her letter.
“It is important to reiterate that all law enforcement agents must have a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena to access non-public areas of the University, including housing, classrooms, and areas requiring CUID swipe access,” the letter said.
“If law enforcement agents seek entry to non-public areas of the University, ask the agents to wait to enter any non-public areas until contacting Public Safety,” Shipman wrote. “Public Safety will contact the Office of the General Counsel to coordinate the University’s response. Do not allow them to enter or accept service of a warrant or subpoena.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul released a statement condemning the federal agents’ alleged actions.
“Let’s be clear about what happened: ICE agents didn’t have the proper warrant, so they lied to gain access to a student’s private residence,” she said.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler echoed the governor’s statement.
“Law enforcement agents should not, under no circumstance, misrepresent their identity to gain entrance into a residence. These actions do not keep us safe, they only sow distrust and fear into our community. ICE is terrorizing our neighbors and ripping students from their homes,” Nadler said in a statement, in part. “We are doing everything in our power to help bring the student home.”
Thursday’s incident is not the first encounter between the Trump administration and Columbia.
Last year, pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and held for 104 days on immigration charges.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz issued an order on June 20 granting Khalil’s release on bail after determining that he presented neither a danger nor a flight risk and that extraordinary circumstances justified his temporary release while his habeas case proceeded.
The federal government has been appealing its case against Kahlil, a green card holder.
Columbia also reached a $200 million agreement with the Trump administration last July, after it threatened to remove federal funding over what it called Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
Savannah Guthrie and mother Nancy Guthrie on Thursday, June 15, 2023 — (Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie is speaking out in her first interview nearly two months after her mother, Nancy Guthrie, was kidnapped from her Tucson, Arizona, home.
Authorities say Nancy Guthrie, 84, was abducted from her house in the early hours of Feb. 1. They have released surveillance images from outside Nancy Guthrie’s house, but the person who took her remains unidentified.
In an emotional interview with her friend and former co-host Hoda Kotb, Savannah Guthrie said, “We are in agony.”
“It is unbearable,” she said. “And to think of what she went through.”
Savannah Guthrie said thoughts of the terror her mother experienced wakes her up each night.
“I wake up every night in the middle of the night. Every night,” she said through tears. “And in the darkness, I imagine her terror. And it is unthinkable. But those thoughts demand to be thought. And I will not hide my face. That she needs to come home now.”
“Someone needs to do the right thing,” she stressed.
The full interview with Savannah Guthrie will be released on Thursday and Friday, Kotb said.
Kotb has been filling in for Savannah Guthrie on “Today” since the abduction.
Anyone with information is urged to call 911, the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900.
ABC News’ Matt Claiborne contributed to this report.
