Above-normal activity predicted for 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA forecasts
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(NEW YORK) — The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season will likely experience above-average activity, the National Hurricane Center announced on Thursday.
Between 13 and 19 named storms are expected for the 2025 season, which starts on June 1 and lasts until Nov. 30, according to the NHC. Storms are named when become tropical storms or stronger.
Meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict between six and 10 hurricanes and between three and five major hurricanes, at Category 3 or higher.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(COLUMBIA, SC) — The body of a young woman was discovered inside a rented house in Columbia, South Carolina, over the weekend, according to a press conference held by Columbia Police Department on Monday.
She was later identified as Logan Federico, a 22-year-old from Waxhaw, North Carolina, police said. Her cause of death was a fatal gunshot wound to the chest, according to Columbia Coroner Naida Rutherford.
The college student was spending the weekend with friends in a rented house in South Carolina when she was “randomly murdered by a career criminal” who was “on a spree of thefts, break-ins and credit card fraud,” the CPD said.
Alexander Dickey, 30, allegedly broke into a neighboring home around 3 a.m. and stole a firearm, credit and debit cards, and keys to a vehicle, the CPD said.
The suspect then allegedly entered the house where Federico was staying, entered her room, and shot her, police said, before fleeing the scene in a stolen vehicle.
Dickey is believed to have used the stolen cards to make purchases across Lexington County before his stolen vehicle broke down, officials said. He had it towed back to a residence in Lexington County, where investigators said they tracked him down.
When law enforcement closed in, Dickey fled into nearby woods, leading to a manhunt in severe weather conditions, police said. He later broke into another home and set it on fire, they added.
Officers were able to extract Dickey through a window and take him into custody, the CPD said.
Federico’s father, Steve Federico, spoke through tears during the press conference.
“I am Logan Haley Federico’s father, better known as ‘Dad,’ or her hero. Unfortunately, that day, I could not be her hero,” he said. “My daughter, I cherished. She was a strong, fun-loving individual who did what she wanted to do and was spicy.”
“My daughter was working hard at school, working two jobs, to become a teacher. She loved and adored kids, children of all ages,” he said. “The message I wanted to send to Dickey, who took my daughter’s life — this is from her: ‘You can’t kill my spirit. You might be able to kill my body … but you cannot kill my love that my family and friends shared with me.'”
“Logan was not an intended target,” Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook said at the press conference, adding that her death “touches all of us in a way that it’ll never leave us.”
He said that the CPD issued warrants charging Dickey with murder, two counts of first-degree burglary, weapons possession and larceny. The Lexington County sheriff said Dickey was also charged with burglary first degree and arson second degree, and that he was denied bond.
(WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, NJ) — A massive fire on Sunday that leveled a New Jersey home, where first responders later recovered the bodies of a man and a woman, has been ruled a murder-suicide, authorities said Tuesday.
Neighbors reported hearing a blast around the time of the fire early Sunday in the Gloucester County community of Washington Township and said it sounded like a bomb going off.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office said the woman found dead in a bed at the destroyed residence had suffered a fatal bullet wound to the head before the house became engulfed in flames. Her death was ruled a homicide by the Gloucester County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The man was discovered dead in the living room of the destroyed home with a handgun lying near his body, the prosecutor’s office said. His death was ruled a suicide by fire, according to the statement from the prosecutor’s office.
The identities of the two people were being withheld pending official confirmation by the medical examiner, according to the prosecutor’s office.
“The investigation conducted in the aftermath of the fire revealed the presence of an accelerant and that the home’s gas line had been tampered with, enabling unrestricted flow of natural gas into the home’s interior,” the statement said.
A motive for the murder-suicide remains under investigation by the prosecutor’s office, the Washington Township Police Department and the Gloucester County Fire Marshal’s Office.
News of the medical examiner’s findings came a day after the Washington Township Police Department said the explosion had prompted a “criminal investigation” and that the incident was “not accidental.”
The fire occurred at 2:02 a.m. on Sunday and prompted multiple 911 calls from neighbors reporting a loud explosion and fire in the area of Tranquility Court and Orion Way, according to a statement released by the Washington Township Police.
“Responding officers arrived at 13 Tranquility Court and observed that the residence was fully engulfed in flames and appeared to have been heavily damaged by an apparent explosion,” according to the police statement.
Washington Township Fire Department firefighters arrived shortly after the police and extinguished the flames, according to the statement.
Video taken by ABC Philadelphia station WPVI showed damage to at least one home near the destroyed house. The footage also showed a car that had apparently been damaged.
Neighbors who live blocks away reported being rattled awake.
Investigators said the fire was likely not caused by an explosion and that the blasts neighbors heard may have happened after the fire had already ignited, according to WPVI.
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(BOULDER, CO) — As his friends caught fire in front of his eyes in Boulder, Colorado, Omer Shachar felt “panic right away” and said he knew he had to help extinguish the flames.
Shachar, a co-leader of Run for Their Lives in Boulder, told ABC News he was standing in front of the group outside the Boulder courthouse Sunday afternoon when a man threw a Molotov cocktail under their legs.
“They’re literally on fire,” he said of the walk participants. “I don’t know if I can express it enough — literally on fire and trying to pull my friend out of the fire.”
“Once someone could help her, I was reaching out to the [attacker] and try, I don’t know what I thought, but maybe to tackle him … but we saw that he’s approaching to a container full of bottles and realized that it’s not a good idea, so we stepped back,” Shachar said. “We’re trying to keep people away as much as possible, although some of them couldn’t walk. One of them was on the ground where the fire is.”
Shachar said passersby stepped in with water bottles to try to help put out the blaze.
The suspect, 45-year-old Mohamed Soliman, was apprehended after allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails in an “act of terrorism” during the pro-Israel demonstration, officials said.
Twelve people were injured, officials said.
Soliman allegedly told police “he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead,” federal court documents said. “SOLIMAN stated he would do it (conduct an attack) again.”
He “said this had nothing to do with the Jewish community and was specific in the Zionist group supporting the killings of people on his land (Palestine),” the state documents said.
Soliman has been charged with a federal hate crime and state charges including 16 counts of attempted first-degree murder, according to court documents.
Shachar said Run for Their Lives holds a peaceful walk every Sunday to raise awareness about the hostages who remain held in Gaza by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023.
Participants include those who are “Jewish and non-Jewish, right and left, Israelis and non-Israelis, Americans and non-Americans,” he said. “And people are coming for the same cause — to bring those hostages back home.”
Shachar said he hopes the group can return to their walks soon.
“At the moment, Run for the Lives, the international group, asked to stop walking until we understand better safety arrangements and security arrangements,” he said. “However, personally, I will say that as long as we can do it, and as long that we’re working with the police and we can do it, I will walk until the last hostage is back home.”
