Earliest snow since 2010 hits parts of Vermont, blankets upstate New York
(BURLINGTON, Vt.) Residents of parts of upstate New York and Vermont awoke to winter-like weather Thursday morning, including the earliest a foot of snow has fallen in the higher elevations of the Green Mountain state in 14 years.
The overnight snowfall brought 12 inches to Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont, and 15 inches to the summit of Whiteface Mountain in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.
The snowy weather ties 2010 as the earliest date that the snow depth at Mount Mansfield has reached a foot, according to the National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont.
Winter storm watches and warnings were also issued in the West from Oregon to Colorado, where one to more than two feet of October snow is forecast through Saturday for the Rocky Mountains.
Millions of people from Oklahoma to Maine were feeling their coldest air of the season Thursday morning. Frost and freeze alerts were issued in 20 eastern states or about half of the country.
Frost alerts were also issued for Little Rock, Arkansas, Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta. Asheville, North Carolina, which is still recovering from devastating floods caused by Hurricane Helene last month, was under a frost alert Thursday.
The weather was also chilly in Tampa Bay, Florida, where temperatures dipped to the 50s Thursday morning.
The cold spell is expected to be short-lived. A warm-up is on the way for much of the eastern half of the United States. Temperatures are forecast to jump to the 70s in the Northeast and the 80s across the South over the weekend.
The high forecast for New York City on Sunday is 73 degrees, while Tampa could reach 83 on Sunday.
The first major winter storm of the season is moving through the Pacific Northwest on Thursday. Ahead of this storm, gusty winds and dry conditions are sparking fire weather alerts across the West Coast.
Red flag warnings signaling elevated fire danger have been issued for the San Francisco Bay Area and much of Northern California. Red flag warnings were also in place Thursday for parts of Colorado and Minnesota, and extreme fire danger is forecast for Nebraska, where warm, dry and gusty winds could spread fires quickly.
(NEW YORK) — Sean “Diddy” Combs has been charged with sex trafficking by force, transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy, alleging he ran an “enterprise that he engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor or, kidnapping, arson and other crimes,” according to the indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
Combs was arrested at the Park Hyatt hotel in Midtown Manhattan Monday night and he spent the night in federal custody, sources told ABC News. He will be arraigned in federal court on Tuesday.
A federal grand jury in Manhattan returned an indictment against Combs, which set in motion his arrest, sources told ABC News.
Combs “knew this was coming,” the music mogul’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, told reporters Tuesday on his way into federal court.
“We brought him to New York two weeks ago because, sure, we knew this day would come and it’s here,” Agnifilo said.
He said Combs has anticipated federal charges ever since the March raids on his homes in Florida and California.
Combs’ spirits are good, Agnifilo said, adding, “He’s dealing with this head on the way he has dealt with every challenge in his life.”
Agnifilo said in an earlier statement, “We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community.”
“He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal,” Agnifilo said. “To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”
Combs has been under investigation for the better part of a year since his former, longtime girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, came forward with allegations in a civil lawsuit. At least 10 additional lawsuits followed. Combs has denied the allegations in all of them.
In March, when Combs’ Los Angeles and Miami homes were raided by federal agents, a Homeland Security Investigations spokesperson said the raid was executed as part of an “ongoing investigation.”
Law enforcement sources told ABC News in March that federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations seized a number of electronic devices as part of the court-authorized searches of Combs’ two properties.
The searches were part of a federal sex trafficking investigation into the hip-hop and liquor mogul, the sources said.
HSI agents flooded Combs’ mansions and gathered evidence as part of an investigation led by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.
(MIAMI, FLORIDA) — As Election Day nears, Donald Trump is continuing his long-standing effort to recast the violent events of Jan. 6, 2021, now calling it a “day of love” even as he tries to distance himself from what happened.
A Republican audience member, during a Univision town hall on Wednesday, pressed Trump on his actions that day as thousands of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, temporarily disrupting the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
“I want to give you an opportunity to win back my vote,” the participant said, adding he found Trump’s actions and alleged inaction on Jan. 6 a “little disturbing” and wanted to know why some of Trump’s former top administration officials are no longer supporting him — some even calling him a danger to national security and democracy.
Trump quickly went on defense and in the process repeated some false or misleading claims that have been long disproved or debunked.
The former president said he “totally disagreed” with then-Vice President Mike Pence’s adamance to his constitutional duty to uphold the certification process and not unilaterally reject the election results. Pence has said he is not endorsing Trump this cycle.
Trump then claimed thousands of his supporters who traveled to Washington “didn’t come because of me,” despite his posting on social media in mid-December 2020 that there would be a “big protest” on Jan. 6.
“Be there, will be wild!” Trump famously wrote on Twitter, where he’d amassed some 88 million followers.
One man who admitted to illegally entering the Capitol that day, Stephen Ayres, testified in court documents and before the House Jan. 6 committee that he was influenced heavily by Trump’s activity on social media to come to Washington for the rally at the Ellipse.
“They came because of the election,” Trump said on Wednesday. “They thought the election was a rigged election, and that’s why they came. Some of those people went down to the Capitol but I said peacefully and patriotically. Nothing done wrong at all.”
Trump went on to say, “Ashli Babbitt was killed. Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there.”
Babbitt, a 35-year-old Trump supporter and Air Force veteran, was fatally shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer as one of a group of rioters who tried to break into the House floor through barricaded entrances near the Speaker’s Lobby.
She was one of several people who died during or after the riot of various causes. Four officers who responded to the Capitol attack later died by suicide. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was pepper sprayed by rioters, suffered strokes and died the next day. A Washington medical examiner determined he died of natural causes but said his experience that day played a role.
The Justice Department has noted that in court it has been proven that “weapons used and carried on Capitol grounds include firearms; OC spray; tasers; edged weapons, including a sword, axes, hatchets, and knives; and makeshift weapons, such as destroyed office furniture, fencing, bike racks, stolen riot shields, baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles, PVC piping, and reinforced knuckle gloves.”
More than 1,500 people have been federally charged with crimes associated with the Capitol attack, the Justice Department said earlier this year. That includes 571 charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement agents and 171 defendants charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon.
At least 943 individuals have pleaded guilty — including 161 who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement and 67 who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement with a dangerous or deadly weapon — and an additional 195 people have been found guilty at trial.
Approximately 140 law enforcement officers were injured during the riot, the DOJ has said.
Jan. 6 began with Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, in which he did tell supporters to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol, as he now likes to note, but also stoked tensions by saying they have to “fight like hell” or they wouldn’t have a country.
“But that was a day of love,” Trump said at the Univision town hall. “From the standpoint of the millions, it’s like hundreds of thousands. It could have been the largest group I’ve ever spoken to before. They asked me to speak. I went and I spoke, and I used the term ‘peacefully and patriotically.'”
The comments come as Trump and his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance continue to deny the 2020 election outcome and downplay what transpired on Jan. 6.
Vance on Wednesday when asked if Trump lost the election replied, “No, I think there are serious problems in 2020 so did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use.”
Vance has also said he wouldn’t have certified the election were he in Pence’s shoes in 2021.
The election denialism and Jan. 6 comments have prompted swift push back from Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris has cast Trump as a threat to democracy as the 2024 campaign enters its final weeks.
ABC News’ Jack Date, Soorin Kim, Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — An OceanGate whistleblower testified during a United States Coast Guard hearing into the deadly 2023 implosion of the Titan that he had “no confidence” in the way the experimental submersible was being built.
David Lochridge, the former director of marine operations for OceanGate, said he was known as a “troublemaker” in the tourism and expeditions company because he was so outspoken about his safety concerns — voiced years before five people were killed when the Titan catastrophically imploded during a deep-sea voyage to the Titanic wreckage in June 2023.
Lochridge said Tuesday during an ongoing Coast Guard hearing into the deadly implosion that he was hired in 2015 to in part work on the operations for the Titan but was ultimately not involved in its development. Lochridge said he was “phased out” after butting heads with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush — one of the five people who died in the implosion.
When asked by the Marine Board of Investigation for the U.S. Coast Guard if he had confidence in the way the Titan was being built in 2017, Lochridge said, “No confidence whatsoever, and I was very vocal about that, and still am.”
Lochridge submitted a report in January 2018 outlining his concerns about the submersible’s carbon-fiber hull, including imperfections, after he said Rush asked him to inspect it.
“At the end of the day, safety comes first,” Lochridge said. “Yes, you’re taking a risk going down in a submersible, but don’t take risks that are unnecessary with faulty, and I mean faulty, deficient equipment.”
Lochridge testified Rush “liked to do things on the cheap.” Asked why the company resorted to cost-cutting measures, Lochridge said, “The desire to get to the Titanic as quickly as we could to start making profit.”
He said he did not know about the financial side of the company, but that “there was a big push to get this done.”
“A lot of steps along the way were missed,” he said.
Lochridge testified that Rush wanted to do manned testing of the first Titan prototype, though Lochridge recommended doing unmanned testing due to his concerns.
“I knew that hull would fail,” he said. “It’s an absolute mess.”
Lochridge was fired from OceanGate in 2018, days after submitting his report and attending an hourslong meeting with OceanGate executives, including Rush, ABC News previously reported. Documents reviewed by ABC News stated that it was clear Lochridge and Rush were “at an impasse” regarding the Titan hull, and “the only option was the termination of your employment.”
Lochridge testified Tuesday he was terminated because he was “anti-project.”
“I didn’t want to lose my job,” Lochridge said. “I wanted to go to Titanic. It was on my bucket list. I wanted to dive this, but dive it safely.”
Following his termination, Lochridge said he reached out to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in February 2018 with his concerns about public safety and was placed under the agency’s Whistleblower Protection Program. Recent Stories from ABC News
“I wouldn’t want to see anybody dying for the sake of going in a sub,” Lochridge said Tuesday. “It’s a magical place. I love it. I’m very passionate about what I do. If there’s risk like that, don’t do it.”
A defect was discovered in the first prototype of the carbon-fiber hull in 2019, and it was not used on Titanic missions, the Coast Guard said.
A second carbon-fiber hull was subsequently made that was used on Titanic missions, including the doomed dive on June 18, 2023.
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the implosion.
The Coast Guard’s hearing into the implosion is scheduled to last two weeks. Lochridge is the only witness scheduled to testify on Tuesday.
During his testimony, Lochridge said he started being phased out of his duties after he inadvertently “embarrassed” Rush during a 2016 dive to the Andrea Doria shipwreck on OceanGate’s Cyclops 1 submersible.
Lochridge, a veteran submersible pilot, said he was meant to take several paying clients down to the wreck to take a 3-D model, but Rush wanted to pilot the dive instead. Lochridge said he objected, noting that the wreck is “dangerous” and that over a dozen people died during dives to the site at the time — and eventually persuaded Rush to let him go along.
He said Rush ended up getting the vessel stuck in the wreck and refused to relinquish control of the submersible to Lochridge until one of the crew members yelled at Rush to give Lochridge the PlayStation controller that piloted the vessel.
Lochridge said Rush threw the controller at his head and one of the buttons came off, though he testified that he was able to repair it and get them back to the surface.
After that, Lochridge said Rush stopped talking to him.
Lochridge testified he raised objections after OceanGate phased out its relationship with the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory in 2016. He said Rush decided to do all engineering for the Titan in-house.
Asked by the board why that was the case, Lochridge said, “Arrogance.”
He also testified the company only cared about making money and it wasn’t interested in scientific research.
“The whole idea behind the company was to make money, that’s it,” Lochridge said. “There was very little in the way of science.”
OceanGate sued Lochridge following his termination, alleging, among other things, breach of contract, fraud and misappropriation of trade secrets. Lochridge alleged in a counterclaim lawsuit that he was fired for raising concerns about quality control.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Lochridge said he dropped his OSHA case and walked away from the lawsuits in late 2018 because he didn’t want to “put my family through any more of this,” financially and emotionally.
“It was going nowhere,” he said. “It was too much for us as a family.”
Lochridge and OceanGate settled the dispute out of court in November 2018. Lochridge said OSHA closed the case in December 2018 following the settlement agreement.
“I never paid a penny to OceanGate, I’m going to state that clearly,” Lochridge said Tuesday. “I gave them nothing, they gave me nothing.”
In his final remarks, Lochridge said he hopes the investigation will shed light on “why OSHA did not actively address my concerns.”
“I believe that if OSHA had attempted to investigate the seriousness of the concerns I raised on multiple occasions, this tragedy may have been prevented,” he said. “As a seafarer, I feel deeply let down and disappointed by the system that is meant to protect not only seafarers but the general public as well.”
ABC News has reached out to OSHA for comment. OSHA had previously declined to comment to ABC News on the case.
The Coast Guard hearing is scheduled to resume on Thursday, with testimony from the company’s former scientific director and a crew member who was on board OceanGate’s 2016 dive to the Andrea Doria shipwreck.