Coldest temperatures of the season hit Midwest, Northeast
(Normand Blouin / EyeEm/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The coldest air of the season is invading the Midwest and Northeast as the Mid-Atlantic sees its first snow of the season.
Record low temperatures were recorded across the Midwest and Northeast on Friday morning, including: 6 degrees in Scranton, Pennsylvania; minus 4 degrees in Plattsburgh, New York, zero degrees in Springfield, Illinois; and 3 degrees in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Wind chills — what temperature it feels like — will also be a factor across the Midwest and Northeast. In Boston and Buffalo, New York, the temperature feels below zero Friday morning, while New York City woke up to wind chills in the teens.
The temperature will barely improve in the afternoon. Wind chills will only reach the mid-teens in Chicago and mid-20s in New York City/
This weekend, a blast of cold air will bring a renewed chill to Minneapolis, and then next week, another shot of arctic air will keep the Midwest and Northeast well below zero for wind chills.
Meanwhile,most of Virginia is waking up to snow on Friday, with Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., residents getting their first snowfall of the season. Richmond is forecast to get 1 to 3 inches while D.C. could see 1 inch of snow and slippery roads.
And on Saturday, a quick snowstorm will move through the Dakotas and Nebraska, dropping a few inches.
By Saturday evening, the snow will reach Iowa. Three to 7 inches of snow is possible and a winter storm watch is in place there.
Chicago could see a small amount of snow on Sunday morning.
(LAREDO, Texas.) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized an estimated $2.6 million of alleged methamphetamine hidden inside of a tractor trailer hauling batteries, officials said.
“The bad guys got a bit of a shock this weekend,” according to a statement from the CBP, when packages containing approximately 291 pounds of methamphetamine were discovered by officers at Colombia-Solidarity Bridge in Laredo, Texas.
“Our frontline CBP officers maintained strict vigilance and short circuited a significant methamphetamine smuggling attempt,” said Port Director Alberto Flores, Laredo Port of Entry. “These kinds of enforcement actions validate our ongoing border security efforts and prevent this poison from reaching U.S. streets.”
The seizure, which took place last Friday but was announced on Tuesday, happened when a CBP officer referred a box truck hauling a shipment of batteries for secondary inspection, officials said.
“Following a canine and nonintrusive inspection system examination, CBP officers discovered 40 packages containing a total of 291 pounds of alleged methamphetamine within the shipment,” officials said. “The narcotics have a street value of $2,604,215.”
CBP confiscated the narcotics and authorities said that Homeland Security Investigations special agents are investigating the seizure.
Officials didn’t detail whether any arrests were made in connection with the alleged drugs.
(LOS ANGELES) — Police said Monday officials are still trying to determine the cause and manner of death of a teenage girl whose body was found in the trunk of a Tesla registered to the singer D4vd earlier this month.
The body was discovered in the trunk of the Tesla on Sept. 8, two days after it had been towed from a Los Angeles street, police sources said.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner identified the female body as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. The teen, from Lake Elsinore in Riverside County, was reported missing last year, investigators confirmed to ABC News.
In an update on the investigation, the Los Angeles Police Department said Monday that its Robbery-Homicide Division (RHD) has been “diligently investigating” Rivas Hernandez’s death over the past several weeks.
Police said the teen may have been dead for several weeks before her body was discovered, and that the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has not yet determined the cause or manner of her death.
“As such, it remains unclear whether there is any criminal culpability beyond the concealment of her body,” police said. “RHD is thoroughly examining every aspect of this case to uncover the truth and seek justice for Celeste Rivas Hernandez and her family.”
According to a copy of the death certificate obtained by ABC News, her manner of death is pending investigation and her cause of death remains listed as “deferred.” Based on the date of birth listed, her remains were found a day after her 15th birthday. She was not pregnant, nor had she been in the last year, according to the document.
Sources told ABC News that investigators will be relying on lab tests and toxicology in an attempt to determine how she died, and that this remains a death, as opposed to a homicide, investigation.
No additional information is being released at this time, police said.
“We appreciate the public’s patience and understanding as we continue this investigation,” police said.
Officers responded to an impound lot in Hollywood on Sept. 8 “for a foul odor coming from a vehicle,” Los Angeles police said.
Authorities located a body in the front trunk of the Tesla that was in a state of decomposition, LAPD sources said.
The Tesla had been at the impound lot for two days after being found abandoned on a Hollywood street, investigators said.
The vehicle is registered to 20-year-old David Anthony Burke, known professionally as D4vd, according to a senior LAPD source.
Following the identification of the body, a Los Angeles home where D4vd had been living was searched later that night, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
ABC News has reached out to his representative and lawyer for comment several times, but has not received a response.
D4vd, who first went viral on TikTok, where he has 3.8 million followers, had been on his “Withered” world tour when the body was discovered in his vehicle. The last few shows of the tour, including in San Francisco and Los Angeles, were canceled.
Shows on the European leg of the tour have also been canceled.
Promotion on the deluxe edition of his debut album, which was set to be released on Sept. 19, has also been paused, a source close to the situation told ABC News.
: Senator John Thune (R-SD) at the annual GRAMMYs on the Hill Advocacy Day on Capital Hill on April 19, 2018 in Washington, DC. Capitol Hill’s largest and most prestigious legislative event for music creators. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/WireImage for The Recording Academ
(WASHINGTON) — With critical food assistance benefits set to run out Saturday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Wednesday said he is talking with President Donald Trump about the shutdown as lawmakers appear sympathetic, but still entrenched.
The Department of Agriculture said earlier this week that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, which serve roughly 42 million low-income Americans, will not be issued on Nov. 1 amid the ongoing government shutdown.
On Tuesday night as he traveled to South Korea, Trump signaled his administration may find a solution to help fund SNAP, saying “we’re going to get it done,” without offering any details on how.
At the same time, Trump blamed Democrats for putting Americans at risk of losing critical federal food assistance this weekend.
“The Democrats have caused the problem on food stamps … because all they have to do is sign, and, you know, they sign, I’ll meet with them,” Trump said.
Asked about Trump’s SNAP benefits comments, Thune told reporters on Wednesday that he spoke to Trump on Tuesday, but didn’t have insight into what his comments meant.
“I think that what he is saying consistently is ‘Open up the government and then we’ — and that’s the way to fund SNAP,” Thune said.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has a new bill that would fund SNAP during the shutdown. While several Republican senators support it, Thune has appeared lukewarm about bringing it to the floor.
Asked if Trump’s comments were an endorsement of bills like Hawley’s that would fund SNAP during the shutdown, Thune said he wasn’t sure if that’s what Trump was referring to.
“I think the message that he and the rest of the White House, including JD yesterday, have delivered pretty clearly is ‘Open up the government and that’s the way to fund SNAP and everything else.’ If he’s got something else he’s thinking about, I’ll certainly be open to listening to that,” Thune said.
On Wednesday morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that the impacts of the government shutdown this week — including a possible food crisis as well as missed paychecks for federal workers and air traffic controllers — are “getting really tough for the American people,” placing the onus squarely on Democrats.
“The Democrats are coming near now to a cliff that they will not be able to turn back from,” Johnson said at a news conference in the Capitol. “You’ve got families and children that rely upon SNAP benefits that are going to go hungry here at the end of the week.”
As Democrats continue their fight over health care subsidies as the Nov. 1 open enrollment date approaches, Trump said Tuesday night that he would work with Democrats — as long as they vote to fund the government.
“I’d say, open up the government and we’ll work it out,” Trump told reporters.
Democrats are working to balance their health care demands and find solutions for SNAP, with Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján expected to attempt to get the Senate to unanimously pass legislation that would direct the USDA to release available contingency funds to ensure benefits under SNAP and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program continue during the shutdown.
Luján’s bill is co-sponsored by every Democrat in the Senate, but does not have any Republican co-sponsors. Because it’s being put on the floor by Democrats, the only way the bill could pass is if every senator supports it — meaning it will likely fail as a result.
“Right now, we’re staring down the barrel at two crises at once. A health care crisis and a hunger crisis,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.
“We don’t want to pit health care and food. Thank you. We think you can have both,” he later shouted.
Schumer has continued to call on Republicans to “sit-down and negotiate with us” to reopen the government and address the health care crisis.
Thune told reporters Wednesday morning that discussions over a path out of the shutdown have “ticked up significantly” and that he’s “hopeful” that something fruitful will soon emerge.
“It’s ticked up significantly,” Thune said of talks among rank-and-file members. “And hopefully that’ll be a precursor of things to come. But yeah, there’s a lot of higher-level conversation.”
Thune stressed that conversations are going on among rank-and-file members and not among leadership.
“There are a lot of rank-and-file members that continue to, I think, want to pursue solutions and to be able to address the issues they care about, which is including health care, which as I just said right there we are willing to do, but it is obviously contingent upon them opening up the government.”
ABC News’ Megan Mistry, Isabella Murray and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.
