Brutal, life-threatening cold invades Midwest and Northeast: Latest
Bitter Cold – Tuesday AM Wind Chills Map. ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A major arctic blast is stretching from the Midwest to the Northeast, bringing dangerously cold weather to 43 million people.
On Monday morning, the wind chill — what temperature it feels like — plunged to minus 30 degrees in Minneapolis; minus 27 degrees in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; minus 22 degrees in Chicago; and minus 22 degrees in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The brutal Midwest wind chill continued on Tuesday morning, hitting minus 13 degrees in Chicago; minus 23 in Green Bay; and minus 12 in Cleveland.
The freeze hit the Northeast on Tuesday morning, with the wind chill dropping to minus 11 degrees in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; 7 degrees in Washington, D.C.; and 5 degrees in New York City.
The Arctic blast is also bringing heavy lake effect snow to the Midwest and Northeast. The heaviest lake effect snow is expected in western Michigan and western and upstate New York where, 6 to 12 inches of snow is forecast.
Click here for what you need to know to stay safe in the cold.
Men work in construction in Manhattan on December 16, 2025 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The federal government released two major economic reports this week, easing a backlog of data pent up by the 43-day government shutdown.
The data flashed some warning signs, showing the unemployment rate had ticked up to its highest level in four years and retail sales had stalled at the outset of the holiday season, some analysts told ABC News. Even so, the reports offered bright spots and elicited a dose of skepticism about numbers released after a weeks-long delay, analysts added.
The latest snapshot of the economy arrives at a wobbly period, landing amid a slowdown of hiring alongside an uptick of inflation.
The jobs report on Tuesday “paints a sobering picture of a job market that may officially be turning frigid after a prolonged cooling period,” Laura Ullrich, director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told ABC News in a statement.
Even so, Ullrich acknowledged, “the incomplete and unconventional jobs report may always need an asterisk attached to it.”
Mark Blyth, professor of political economy at Brown University, echoed that view, saying the fresh numbers should be taken with more than a few grains of salt.
“Eventually you’re just left with salt,” Blyth told ABC News.
The U.S. added 64,000 jobs in November, which marked a significant decline from 119,000 jobs added in September, the most recent month for which complete data is available, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.6% in November from 4.4% in September. Unemployment remains low by historical standards but has inched up to its highest level since 2021.
Partial data for October — limited by the government shutdown — showed a staggering loss of 105,000 jobs that month, though the decline owed largely to employees who accepted a deferred resignation offer by the federal government earlier this year.
“The October payrolls figure is jarring,” Elyse Ausenbaugh, head of investment strategy at JP Morgan Wealth Management, told ABC News in a statement.
A retail sales report on Tuesday also sounded a cautionary note about consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. Retail sales were left unchanged in October from September, meaning performance remained flat despite the ramp up of the holiday season, U.S. Census Bureau data showed.
“October was supposed to be the big holiday shopping kickoff,” Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate, told ABC News. “About half of holiday shoppers planned to begin making purchases before the end of October, but consumer pullbacks elsewhere left October retail sales right where they were in September.”
“Retail sales seem to be losing momentum at a crucial time of year,” Rossman added.
To be sure, the fresh data offered up some positive signs. As in previous months, the health care sector stood out as a robust source of hiring in November, adding 46,000 jobs, the BLS said. The construction and social assistance industries also contributed to the uptick in hiring.
Unemployment ticked up due to a larger number of people searching for work and in turn counting toward the tabulation, rather than a rise in the count of people out of work altogether, the Royal Bank of Canada economics team told ABC News in a statement.
On Tuesday, the White House touted continued growth in the labor market.
“The strong jobs report shows how President Trump is fixing the damage caused by Joe Biden and creating a strong, America First economy in record time. Since President Trump took office, 100% of the job growth has come in the private sector and among native-born Americans — exactly where it should be,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Retail sales, meanwhile, demonstrated some areas of strength. Core retail sales, which strips out volatile items like auto fuel, exceeded economists’ expectations, Bret Kenwell, U.S. investment analyst at eToro, told ABC News in a statement.
“Even if October’s retail sales data is dated, it reinforces a central theme for investors and the Fed: The resilience of US consumers,” Kenwell added.
The fresh jobs data arrived less than a week after the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate a quarter of a percentage point in an effort to boost the sluggish labor market. The move amounted to the third rate cut this year, bringing the Fed’s benchmark rate to a level between 3.5% and 3.75%.
Interest rates have dropped significantly from a recent peak attained in 2023, but borrowing costs remain well above a 0% rate established at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C., last Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell touted the rate cut as an effort to improve the labor market, but he suggested the central bank may be cautious about further rate reductions.
“We’re well-positioned to wait and see how the economy evolves,” Powell said.
Luigi Mangione appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 9, 2025 in New York City. Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Security camera footage of accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione using a laptop at a Best Buy appliance store was among the evidence turned over to the NYPD following his arrest, according to testimony Tuesday on the eighth day of Mangione’s evidence suppression hearing in New York City.
The hearing will determine what evidence will used against Mangione when he goes on trial on charges of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk last year.
Patrolman George Featherstone, the Altoona, Pennsylvania, police officer in charge of cataloging the evidence, testified about photographing and processing all the items found on Mangione’s body and in his backpack after Mangione was apprehended last December in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s five days after the shooting.
Police said they pulled a slip of crumpled white paper from Mangione’s pocket that appeared to be a to-do list. Best Buy was listed under the reminders for Dec. 8. Featherstone said officers also recovered a Best Buy receipt from Mangione, a photo of which was shown in court, that listed items including a Polaroid waterproof digital camera and memory cards.
Security camera footage also showed Mangione at a CVS drug store. He had a plastic CVS bag with him the day he was arrested at McDonald’s that Featherstone said contained a package of 25 CVS-brand medical masks.
Featherstone testified that he has been involved in hundreds of arrests, about 30%-40% of them involving backpacks or bags, and that “every one of them resulted in a search.”
When prosecutor Zachary Kaplan asked how many of those searches involved a warrant, Featherstone said none that he recalled.
The defense has argued the officers violated Mangione’s constitutional rights against illegal search and seizure because they lacked a warrant when they searched his backpack.
In this April 5, 2025, file photo, guests ride Stardust Racers, a new dueling roller coaster ride in Celestial Park during a preview day for Universal Epic Universe in Orlando, Fla. Patrick Connolly/Orlando Sentinel/TNS via Getty Images, FILE
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — Investigators have found no criminality in the death of a 32-year-old man who was found unresponsive after riding a roller coaster at Universal’s Epic Universe theme park in Florida in September, authorities announced on Thursday.
Kevin Rodriguez Zavala died after sustaining multiple blunt impact injuries while riding the Stardust Racers roller coaster at the Universal Orlando Resorts park on Sept. 17.
He was pronounced dead at a hospital that night, authorities said.
Following a monthslong investigation, an Orange County Sheriff’s Office report found the “case was deemed an accidental death and was closed accordingly.”
“Because it was determined that no criminal acts occurred in this case, this concludes the Orange County Sheriff’s Office role in this case,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Following his death, the local medical examiner determined that Zavala died from multiple blunt impact injuries and that the manner of death was accidental.
The sheriff’s office investigation’s finding was based on sworn statements, video surveillance, the medical examiner’s findings and the “standard operating procedures provided by Epic Universe,” among other evidence, the report stated.
One person who responded to the scene said in a sworn statement that Zavala was found unresponsive with “severe facial trauma,” and he was still secured in the ride via the lap bar, according to the report.
Zavala’s girlfriend, who was with him on the ride, told authorities in a sworn statement at the hospital that on the first drop he “partially came up out of his seat and hit his head on the metal bar in front of them,” and he “continually hit his head on the bar in front of them as the ride descended.”
She said the ride operator pushed on the lap bar three times until it locked in place, and that he was in the seat correctly, “she just felt the lap bar was too low.”
In the wake of his death, Zavala’s family retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who said they are conducting an independent investigation to get to the “truth” and determine if anything could have prevented his death.
Zavala’s father, Carlos Rodriguez Ortiz, said in a press briefing in September that his son was born with a spinal cord atrophy. He used a wheelchair but was “not under any medical restrictions that would have prevented him” from riding the Stardust Racer, Crump said.
His mother said he “loved theme parks” and roller coasters and was excited to go to Universal’s Epic Universe with his girlfriend.
An internal review found the ride systems “functioned as intended,” the “equipment was intact” during the ride and park employees followed procedures, according to a memo sent in the wake of Zavala’s death from Universal Orlando Resort President Karen Irwin to staff.
A Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News following the death that the department’s current findings “align with those shared by Universal after monitoring the same tests and reviewing the same information.”
