Artemis II crew talks to ABC News from space: Their journey so far and what’s ahead
CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen and NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover speak with ABC News from the Orion spacecraft as it heads to the moon, April 2, 2026. (NASA)
(NEW YORK) — The Artemis II mission launched on Wednesday, taking four astronauts on a historic, 10-day mission around the moon and giving them views of a lifetime along the way.
A day after lift-off, ABC News’ Gio Benitez spoke with astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen from their Orion spacecraft about the journey so far, and what they are anticipating for the days ahead.
“I don’t know what we all expected to see … but you could see the entire globe, from pole to pole,” Commander Wiseman said of the crew’s view of Earth from space Thursday.
“You could see Africa, Europe, and if you looked really close, you could see the northern lights. It was the most spectacular moment, and it paused all four of us in our tracks,” he added.
This mission marks the first time humans have flown beyond low-Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission that landed on the moon in 1972.
The crew is going on a 685,000-mile journey around the moon, also known as a lunar fly-by.
The launch on Wednesday was seen around the world, as the crew successfully lifted off at 6:35 p.m. ET from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Hansen, mission specialist and part of the Canadian Space Agency, said that even though they were all expecting it, when the rocket boosters actually lit up and they left the launch pad, “there’s just a moment of disbelief.”
“The fact that we launched — it just totally takes you by surprise, even though you’re expecting it, at least for me anyway, and just had a huge smile across my face,” he said.
Koch, a mission specialist who holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman at 328 days, addressed the toilet issue onboard the spacecraft, which was reported after launch.
‘”I’m proud to call myself the space plumber,” Koch said. “I like to say that it is probably the most important piece of equipment on board.”
Crew members said at the time that the Orion capsule’s toilet, dubbed the Universal Waste Management System, had a blinking fault light while they tested it, but it had been resolved since.
“So we were all breathing a sigh of relief when it turned out to be just fine,” Koch said.
Glover, the mission pilot who will make history as the first person of color to go to the moon, said from high Earth orbit, the divisions of Earth are far out of view.
“Trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful,” he said of Earth. “You also look like one thing. Homo sapiens is all of us, no matter where you’re from or what you look like. We’re all one people.”
“We call amazing things that humans do ‘moonshots’ for a reason, because this brought us together and showed us what we can do when we not just put our differences aside, when we bring our differences together and use all the strengths to accomplish something great,” Glover said.
Before speaking with ABC News on Thursday, the Artemis II crew successfully completed a critical milestone in the mission, the translunar injection burn that boosted the Orion spacecraft out of Earth’s orbit onto a trajectory toward the moon.
During a press conference after the maneuver, Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator at NASA, said that the critical translunar injection burn was “flawless.”
“From this point forward, the laws of orbital mechanics are going to carry our crew to the moon, around the far side and back to Earth,” Glaze said.
The Colorado River flows below the Glen Canyon Dam on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, in Page, Arizona. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Cold and snowy conditions dominated the winter season in the Northeast with much of the region experiencing its coldest winter in a decade or more, and several cities seeing their biggest snowfall in years. However, if you live in other parts of the country, this winter was very different.
Meteorological winter — December to February — was unseasonably warm across much of the contiguous U.S., ranking as the second-warmest winter on record since 1895, behind the 2023-24 season, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the Northeast faced persistent blasts of bitter cold and snow, exceptional winter warmth in the West nearly pushed the nation to a new all-time high for the season.
Nine states finished off with their warmest winter on record: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. Dozens of cities in the West and Plains saw a top 5 warmest winter with cities such as Albuquerque, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City seeing their all-time warmest.
Dallas, Texas, recorded 16 days with high temperatures of at least 80°F, the highest seasonal total on record.
For much of the country, winter was not only exceptionally warm, but exceptionally dry, ranking as the driest winter in 45 years across the Lower 48. Much of the western United States entered the season already grappling with drought, and persistent warmth fueled the worst snow drought in decades across parts of the Rockies as more precipitation fell as rain instead of snow.
Drought on its own already stresses water supplies, agriculture, and ecosystems. But when winter fails to deliver significant mountain snow, those impacts can intensify, according to NOAA.
A persistent snow drought can trigger a cascade of hydrologic changes. Low snowpack and early snowmelt can affect vegetation, reduce surface and subsurface water storage and alter streamflow, all of which directly impact water management and planning across the West.
Snowmelt supplies a large share of the region’s water used by communities, agriculture, and ecosystems. In some states, up to about 75 percent of water supplies can come from melting snow, according to the USGS.
The Colorado River provides water for more than 40 million people and fuels hydropower resources in seven states: California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.
Widespread, persistent drier-than-average conditions also impacted parts of the Heartland and Southeast, bringing drought expansion and intensification during the winter months. Multiple states, including Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Nebraska, experienced one of their driest winters on record.
According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor reportreleased on March 5, more than half of the contiguous U.S. is experiencing drought conditions, an increase of about 10% from the beginning of February.
Florida is enduring its worst drought in 25 years, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System, with a heightened risk of wildfires this spring as conditions worsen across the state.
All of Florida is currently experiencing some level of drought, with more than 70% of the state facing an extreme drought level 3 of 4, U.S. Drought Monitor data shows.
“We expect the drought to continue or even worsen in the next couple of months, as we are in the heart of peninsular Florida’s dry season that usually lasts until mid-May,” Florida State Climatologist David Zierden told ABC News. “Then the summer convective rains kick in and provide some relief.”
The National Interagency Fire Center says Florida faces an above-average risk of significant wildland fires throughout meteorological spring, which began on March 1. Dozens of counties across the state have issued burn bans due to the ongoing drought and elevated wildfire risk.
The worsening conditions are raising concerns beyond wildfires, including impacts to water supplies and agriculture.
“Four of the five Water Management districts have either voluntary or mandatory water restrictions limiting outdoor irrigation,” Zierden added. “Range and pasture for cattle is the agricultural commodity that is hit hardest right now.”
Khelin Marcano, Stiven Prieto and their one-year-old daughter Amalia were released from immigration detention this month. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — As Khelin Marcano was preparing for her routine scheduled appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in December, she debated packing a bag full of her 1-year-old daughter’s clothes. While she and her husband had been attending appointments without issue, she knew others were being detained at government buildings by immigration authorities.
“When they told us we were being detained, it felt like we already knew, all along,” Marcano told ABC News.
The family, including 1-year-old Amalia, was quickly sent from El Paso to Texas’ Dilley immigration detention center, where they were detained for 60 days — joining hundreds of other families that the government has held for durations that advocates say exceed the limits established by federal court rulings.
Those restrictions stem from the Flores Settlement, a 1997 legal agreement that a federal court has interpreted to mean that the government generally should not hold children in immigration custody for more than 20 days.
As of last month, there were about 1,400 people being held at Dilley, including children and parents, according to RAICES, a legal immigrant advocacy group. The facility was closed during the Biden administration and was re-opened last year as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown ramped up.
The 60 days that Marcano, her husband Stiven Prieto, and their daughter were held there is three times the general legal limit permitted by the settlement.
“The Trump administration is holding children and families in detention for prolonged periods of time, weeks, months,” Elora Mukherjee, the family’s lawyer, told ABC News. “Children and families at the Dilley facility don’t have access to sufficient clean drinking water, where they don’t have access to sufficient nutritious food, [and] don’t have access to adequate medical care.
‘Why does this happen to us?’ The family entered the U.S. using the Biden-era Customs and Border Protection app in 2024, according to court documents. They were processed and granted parole to live in the country while applying for asylum. The family was released last week after their 60-day detention and their first court date is scheduled for 2027, according to their attorney.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said the family “was released into the country under the Biden administration,” and confirmed their detention.
“For years, the Flores consent decree has been a tool of the left to promote an open borders agenda,” the DHS spokesperson said. “It is long overdue for a single district in California to stop managing the Executive Branch’s immigration functions. The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our immigration system.”
Early on during their detention, the family says 1-year-old Amalia developed a persistent fever. Marcano told ABC News that despite her repeated pleas for medication, the medical staff dismissed the symptoms.
“The doctor told me that fever was a good sign because it meant she was actively fighting a virus,” Marcano said in Spanish. “I got really upset … and told her that whatever the case was, a fever is not a good thing. If she didn’t know that fever could kill people, or that fever could cause convulsions, fever would never be good.”
In a habeas petition Marcano filed against the government, she and her attorney claimed the Dilley facility lacked basic hygiene and nutrition, and that they saw bugs in the food. They alleged that the tap water smelled so strongly of chlorine that the family spent their limited funds on bottled water for their daughter.
Marcano told ABC News that at one point during their detention, Amalia seemed to lose her strength and collapsed in her arms.
“I grabbed her and I dressed her and I took her back to the clinic, and I began to argue with the doctors, asking who would be responsible for my daughter if something happened to her,” Marcano said.
Marcano said it was only then that staff at Dilley transported her and Amalia by ambulance to a regional hospital, and later to a larger hospital in San Antonio. The 1-year-old was diagnosed with COVID-19 and a respiratory virus. according to the family and their habeas petition.
According to Marcano’s complaint, hospital staff provided her with a nebulizer and Albuterol to treat Amalia’s respiratory distress — but when they returned to the Dilley facility, the staff immediately confiscated both the nebulizer and the medication.
“They took her treatment away,” Marcano said. “Why does this happen to us if we have done everything right? I was begging the officers to please help me get out of there, and no one listened to me.”
The family was released together shortly after they filed a habeas petition. Marcano told ABC News that, while inside the facility, she met families with pregnant women and saw children as young as 2 months old.
Long-term effects Several immigrant advocates and attorneys told ABC News that the Trump administration is keeping children and families who are seeking asylum and other forms of legal relief in prolonged detention.
In Minneapolis, where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was detained along with his father on their way home from school last month, local school officials told ABC News that immigration authorities had detained four other students from the district. One of them, 11-year-old Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano, was detained along with her mother for more than one month, according to the family’s attorney, Bobby Painter.
“They were pulled over by ICE and pulled out of their car, thrown on an airplane and sent to Dilley, all in the span of maybe 24 hours,” the attorney said.
Some families have been held for months, attorneys told ABC News.
“The effects of detention are long-term on children,” Mukherjee, Marcano’s attorney, told ABC News. “Children who are with their parents and who are safe with their parents should never be detained when it’s not in a child’s best interest.”
The DHS, in a statement, said “being in detention is a choice.”
“We encourage all parents to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App,” the spokesperson said. “The United States is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now.”
Since being released, Marcano said her daughter hardly cries at night anymore like she did when they were at the detention center.
“We’re feeling very good and thank god for his blessings,” she told ABC News. “We’re still a little on edge about what we were planning to do given everything ahead. So we’re left here thinking about what is going to happen to us and that gives us a bit of fear.”
“Are they going to leave us alone?” Marcano said. “That’s what we hope, but we don’t know.”
Meredith Gaudreau, widow of former Columbus Blue Jackets hockey player, Johnny Gaudreau speaks with ABC News, Feb. 24, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Meredith Gaudreau, the widow of professional hockey player Johnny Gaudreau, is speaking out about the emotional moment the U.S. men’s hockey team celebrated her husband and their children at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.
As soon as USA beat Canada 2-1 in the gold medal game on Sunday, the players brought two of Johnny Gaudreau’s kids onto the ice. Three-year-old Noa and Johnny Jr. — who turned 2 that same day — posed with their dad’s number 13 jersey as they sat in the arms of the new Olympic champions.
“They didn’t have to do that,” Meredith Gaudreau told ABC News Live on Tuesday.
“I was just very, very proud, and I’m very thankful to them for including my kids in it, and just honoring my husband the way they do,” she said. “It’s the classiest thing. They do all these really kind gestures and include our kids in everything, because I know that’s exactly what John would want.”
Meredith Gaudreau said she told her daughter, “Daddy’s friends want to take a picture with you and Johnny. … You get to do this because of daddy and they love and they miss him, too.”
“She was really excited,” she said. “… She’s started to put things together and she’s very, very proud.”
Johnny Gaudreau’s parents were also in the crowd to witness the special moment.
Johnny Gaudreau, a 31-year-old Columbus Blue Jackets star known as “Johnny Hockey,” died on Aug. 29, 2024, alongside his brother, Matthew Gaudreau, 29, a former pro hockey player.
The brothers were riding bikes in New Jersey on the eve of their sister’s wedding when they were struck by a driver suspected of being under the influence of alcohol, according to police. The suspected driver was arrested and has pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated manslaughter, vehicular homicide, evidence tampering and leaving the scene of an accident. He’s not yet gone to trial.
“Still every day is kind of a gut punch,” Meredith Gaudreau said. “So when the guys do what they can to still include John and our kids, it just means everything to me. You know, these guys are really good people, really good friends of ours. And I just consider them really great role models.”
She added that it shows “how much they love John and all the respect they have for him. … I am really proud of John for having that type of impact.”
Meredith Gaudreau said her third baby, Carter — who was born about seven months after his father died — didn’t travel with them to the Olympics, but watched the game from home.
“He doesn’t have a passport yet cause he’s only, almost 11 months old. So I felt so bad, but he watched along and he looks pretty good wearing number 13!” she said.
Matthew Gaudreau also left behind a wife, Madeline Gaudreau, who was pregnant at the time of his death. Their son, Tripp, was born four months after the crash.
