Nor’easter weakens after deadly battering of Northeast
An ABC News graphic shows the forecast for Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — The worst of the deadly nor’easter that’s lashed the Northeast is behind us, and Monday will feature minor impacts as the storm winds down.
The storm claimed at least one life. The New York Police Department confirmed to ABC News that a 56-year old man died after being struck by a falling tree on Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn while walking through a parking lot.
In a statement on social media, Mayor Zohran Mamdani identified the man as Leighton Brown, an employee of the New York City Housing Authority.
The nor’easter is weakening and drifting on Monday slowly northeast from Long Island, New York, to Massachusetts, into the Gulf of Maine by Tuesday.
Mainly light rain continues to spin around the storm throughout New England.
New York City, Long Island and New Jersey should see dry skies in the mid-to-late afternoon on Monday.
By about 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Boston is also forecast to be dry. A few lingering light showers are forecast for Maine on Tuesday.
Coastal flood alerts are in place from the Delmarva Peninsula, an area that includes parts of Delaware, Virginia and Maryland, through coastal Massachusetts on Monday.
High tides on Monday morning and Tuesday morning may bring minor to moderate coastal flooding, which is forecast to be less than over the weekend.
A flood watch is in effect for eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island where an additional 1.5 inches of rain is possible today. Widespread issues are not expected but due to saturated soils some urban flooding is possible today.
High surf could reach up to 12 feet today from coastal Massachusetts through coastal Maine.
All wind advisories have been cancelled. Gusts around 20 to 30 mph are possible on Monday from New Jersey to Maine.
Doug Band, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, is seen with Ghislaine Maxwell in this undated photo. (U.S. Justice Department)
(WASHINGTON) — Doug Band, a former close adviser to President Bill Clinton, repeatedly told lawmakers that he could not recall his involvement on several topics related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, multiple sources said following Band’s appearance Tuesday before the House Oversight Committee.
Band, who began his tenure with Clinton as an intern in the mid-1990s, was questioned for four hours by the panel as part of its ongoing probe of the government’s handling of the investigations into Epstein.
Multiple sources familiar with his testimony said Band had no evidence or information that President Clinton ever went to Epstein’s island, Little St. James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, despite telling Vanity Fair on the record in 2020 that Clinton had visited the island. Band told the committee that he didn’t remember why he had made that claim to Vanity Fair.
Often described as one of the architects of Clinton’s post-presidential endeavors, including the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, Band was pressed about his own communications with Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, which were made public earlier this year by the Justice Department as part of the release of files mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Emails between Band and Maxwell included talk of meetings with Epstein and numerous exchanges containing suggestive innuendo and cheeky nicknames for each other like “babycakes” and “booboo,” according to files released by the DOJ.
The bulk of the messages were exchanged between 2001-2004, before Epstein first faced criminal charges in Florida in 2006.
Band, according to sources, told committee members that he didn’t recall sending individual emails to Maxwell, but he confirmed that an email address associated with Clinton that was found in the Epstein files was Band’s and that no one else had access to it.
Band stated that he took steps to insulate Clinton from Maxwell as Band became aware of allegations, according to the sources.
Band stated that he never had sexual contact of any kind with Maxwell and didn’t recall ever being introduced to any woman or girl associated with Maxwell, sources said.
Band also said he did not recall ever engaging with Epstein on any of the flights he took with Clinton on Epstein’s private jet, and did not recall having conversations with Epstein, said sources.
“We know that Mr. Band set up several meetings between Clinton and Epstein,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters prior to Band’s appearance. “We know Mr. Band accompanied Mr. Clinton on several flights on Epstein’s jet. We know that Mr. Band also had a lot of communication with Ms. Maxwell, so that’ll be a topic of several questions.”
Band, 54, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. His appearance before the Oversight Committee was voluntary and was not recorded. The committee has typically released transcripts of interviews after they are reviewed for accuracy and redacted to remove any potential references to alleged victims.
Earlier this year, Band told The New York Times that his messages with Maxwell occurred when he was in his 20s and unmarried — and he denied any romantic involvement with Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex-trafficking and other offenses.
“There was absolutely no physical relationship that occurred between us. Ever,” Band said in a statement to the Times, in which he referred to Maxwell as “a monster.”
Records created by Epstein’s pilots made public through civil litigation show Clinton — and an entourage that typically included Band — aboard Epstein’s plane on more than two dozen flight legs in 2002-03, but none of those flights went to the island, according to the pilot’s logs. Clinton, Epstein and Maxwell have all denied that the former president had ever been to Little St. James.
“He never, absolutely never went. And I can be sure of that because there’s no way he would have gone,” Maxwell told then then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in a recorded interview last summer.
“I’ve never been to that island,” Clinton said in his own interview with the Oversight Committee in February.
The former president has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection to his association with Epstein. He has said he stopped interacting with Epstein before any criminal allegations surfaced and has denied knowledge of any of Epstein’s crimes.
Clinton told the committee that he and Band were once “close,” and that Band had been one of the people he tasked to “operationalize” plans to develop the Clinton Global Initiative in his early post-presidency years.
“He worked for me for years,” Clinton said. “[H]e arranged airplane flights and things like that and was doing work on the first Clinton Global Initiative in 2005. And I know that he knew both Epstein and Maxwell. I do not know to what extent he was in contact with them.”
In her interview with Blanche, Maxwell said she began spending time with Clinton after he left the White House in 2001, as he was forging his post-presidential path through the establishment of the Clinton Foundation and, later, the Clinton Global Initiative.
“I was part of the beginning process of the Clinton Global Initiative. And that was something that I helped with and that was me, and Epstein may have helped me help them,” she said, according to a transcript of the July 2025 interview.
“I started spending time with the former president and with Doug and his team,” Maxwell said. “I had no purpose, really, other than I had — obviously offered something. I don’t know, ideas.”
In recent weeks the committee has heard from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and two of Epstein’s former assistants, Sarah Kellen and Lesley Groff.
Later this summer, interviews are scheduled with former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, former Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz, and Epstein’s former private banker at JPMorgan Chase, Jes Staley.
Comer has indicated that a report on the investigation’s findings will be issued by the end of the year.
(MIDLAND, Texas) — At least 11 victims were reported in an active shooter situation in Midland, Texas, on Friday morning, with at least one victim dead, according to Midland Mayor Lori Blong.
The suspected shooter is also dead following a standoff with police, Midland city officials said.
Nine victims were taken to Midland Memorial Hospital, where four were rushed into surgery and five were admitted in stable condition, hospital officials said. Three of the victims in stable condition have since been discharged, officials said.
“I would really ask Midlanders to pray for the families of those who have been impacted, for the victims themselves, for the family of the one who is confirmed deceased,” the mayor said at a news conference.
Preliminary law enforcement information indicates the shooting stemmed from a traffic stop on Wednesday, when officers tried to pull a car over, but the driver shot at officers and fled. The suspect had been in hiding since, according to law enforcement.
On Friday, when officers tried to apprehend the driver, he began firing at citizens, according to law enforcement.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Alex Stone and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia arrives with his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura and his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg (L) at U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on Dec. 22, 2025, in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice has asked an appeals court to reinstate the criminal human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
In May, a federal judge granted Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss the case, finding that the federal government failed to rebut Abrego Garcia’s “presumption of vindictiveness.”
“Because the presumption of vindictiveness remains unrebutted, the indictment must be dismissed,” U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw wrote in May.
In a brief filed Monday, attorneys for the DOJ urged an appellate court to overturn Judge Crenshaw’s May ruling, arguing that the decision to indict Abrego Garcia was supported by “legitimate reasons.”
“The decision to seek an indictment against Abrego Garcia for human smuggling was made by career prosecutors based on the evidence, the law, and their firm belief that there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Abrego Garcia had committed the offenses charged,” the DOJ said in a press release. “The indictment and prosecution of Abrego Garcia in the Middle District of Tennessee was not vindictive, and the evidence before the district court established that it was not.”
Abrego Garcia, who had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in March of last year to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to a fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he denies.
He was brought back to the U.S. last June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee, after which U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis released him from ICE detention while he awaited trial.
In May, Judge Crenshaw highlighted the involvement of high-ranking DOJ officials in the case, pointing to public statements made by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to conclude that the government could not justify its sudden shift from wanting to deport Abrego Garcia to prosecuting him.
In its filing Monday, the DOJ argued that Blanche’s public comments in an interview regarding the deportation case “do not reflect a vindictive motive.”
“At a minimum, nothing in his interview supports an inference that the United States pursued charges ‘solely’ to retaliate against Abrego for his civil suit,” the DOJ argued. “The district court’s contrary reasoning — which did not even address the full quotation — is illogical and clearly erroneous.”
The criminal charges in Tennessee stem from a 2022 traffic stop disclosed in an April 2025 press release issued by the Department of Homeland Security, which touted a “bombshell investigative report” alleging that Abrego Garcia was a suspected human trafficker. He was not charged or arrested during the traffic stop, which lasted for more than an hour.
“Instead of investigating the November 2022 traffic stop to identify who was responsible for the human smuggling, Blanche started the investigation to implicate Abrego,” Judge Crenshaw wrote in May. “He did so to justify the Executive Branch’s decision to remove him to El Salvador.”
