Northern Lights display expected for 2nd night in a row for these US states
The Aurora Borealis lights up the night sky over Monroe, Wisconsin, on November 11, 2025. (Ross Harried/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Dazzling waves of color are lighting up the skies this week.
After green and pink displays of auroras lit up the sky Tuesday night, another Northern Light array is expected to bring a gleaming light show to the northern part of the U.S. Wednesday night.
The auroras are being caused by one of the strongest geomagnetic storms of the year, which occurs when electrons from the sun collide with Earth’s magnetic field to produce colored lights, according to NOAA.
“Aurora is the name given to the glow or light produced when electrons from space flow down Earth’s magnetic field and collide with atoms and molecules of the upper atmosphere in a ring or oval centered on the magnetic pole of Earth. The collisions produce light much like how electrons flowing through gas in a neon light collide with neon and other gasses to produce different colored light bulbs,” NOAA’s website reads.
Two dozen states could see the Northern Lights Wednesday night per NOAA’s aurora viewline map that includes Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
Mike Bettwy, a meteorologist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, told ABC News that the auroras on Wednesday could be as clear as the ones on Tuesday.
“We had three coronal mass ejections leave the Sun since late last week. The third and final one is expected to impact our atmosphere later today and tonight. It is difficult to predict with a high degree of certainty or precision, but it is possible this will be as impactful as last night’s event. There were reports of aurora as far south as Tampa, Florida, overnight,” Bettwy said.
“While not unprecedented, it is quite unusual for the aurora to be visible at these low latitudes; probably only occurring once or twice per solar cycle,” he added.
The best time to see the aurora is between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., according to NOAA.
NASA recommends going to the darkest area and using a long exposure to get the best photos of the light show, per their guidance.
NASA did not immediately reply to requests for comment from ABC News.
(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.
(CHICAGO) — A federal judge is set to hear arguments Wednesday and is weighing extending restrictions on the use of force by federal immigration agents in the Chicago area.
Attorneys representing journalists, clergymen and protesters who say they’ve been harmed by federal immigration agents during lawful protests are expected to show images and call on witnesses they say prove the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents are “increasingly reckless and dangerous.”
Videos of several violent immigration arrests and clashes between federal agents and protesters in the region have become a flashpoint in the nation’s debate over immigration enforcement. But the Department of Homeland Security says their agents have been harassed and followed by violent protesters and are responding appropriately to a 1,000%-increase in attacks on agents across the United States.
“Although some protests remained peaceful, others turned violent,” the government claimed in court filings. “Rioters have attacked law enforcement personnel with fireworks, rocks, and other objects. Rioters also breached the perimeter of federal buildings, blocked all traffic into the only immigration facility in the region, damaged federal vehicles, and injured officers. At some violent protests, officers responded by issuing dispersal orders and using nonlethal crowd-control devices.”
In October, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued a temporary restraining order restricting federal agents from “using riot control weapons” against journalists, protesters and religious practitioners without first issuing warnings unless necessary to stop “an immediate and serious threat of physical harm” to agents or others.
Ellis also prohibited agents from “dispersing, arresting, threatening to arrest, threatening or using physical force” against anyone they should reasonably know is a journalist. The judge expanded the order on Oct. 16 to include a requirement for federal agents equipped with body-worn cameras to wear them and keep them on during “law enforcement activities” in the Chicago region. That order is set to expire on Thursday, Nov. 6.
But in recent weeks, plaintiffs in the case have provided several accounts, often caught on tape, of incidents they say are evidence that DHS is violating her court order. Attorneys submitted video from an incident in Evanston, IL last Friday which allegedly showed agents clashing with protesters and individuals involved in a collision with a government vehicle.
Videos taken of the incident showed a federal agent pressing a man’s head to the ground for nearly two minutes as the man yelled “I can’t breathe.” In one declaration submitted in court, an eyewitness who took a video of the incident said she saw a federal agent “bash his head on the street at least two times.” The eyewitness said she then saw the agent “strike the young man in his head with his hand or fist at least two times.”
Another declarant, David Brooks, who filmed the incident said a Border Patrol agent pointed a pistol at him.
“Step back or I’m going to shoot you,” the agent allegedly told Brooks.
“I took a step back and said ‘you’re gonna what,’” Brooks wrote.
“He then pulled out his pistol from his holster and pointed it directly at me. I was startled and stepped back again. He holstered the gun,” he added in his declaration.
In a statement about the Evanston incident, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said agents were being “aggressively tailgated” by a vehicle that crashed into them.
“A hostile crowd then surrounded agents and their vehicle and began verbally abusing them and spitting on them. One physically assaulted a Border Patrol agent and kicked an agent. As he was being arrested, he grabbed the agents’ genitals and squeezed them. As you know this is an extremely painful experience for most human beings and justifies certain responses, the agent delivered several defensive strikes to the agitator to free his genitals from the agitator’s vice,” she said.
Luigi Mangione attends a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 18, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Shannon Stapleton-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione could stand trial by the end of the year, the judge in his federal case said Friday at a hearing in a Manhattan courtroom that was filled with Mangione’s supporters.
Mangione was back in federal court, where the defense presented arguments seeking to dismiss the death penalty counts against him if he is convicted of stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk in 2024.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett did not rule on the death penalty question at the conclusion of the hearing, but suggested that if the death penalty remains on the table, jury selection would begin in early September, and the trial would commence sometime in December or January.
If the death penalty is excluded, the judge suggested the trial could start in September.
She set a date for the next hearing on Jan. 30.
Judge Garnett also ruled Friday that Mangione’s backpack was lawfully seized by police when Mangione was apprehended in a Pennsylvania McDonalds’s five days after the shooting.
Two women who flew in from Sicily and came straight from the airport were among those in the courtroom gallery, which was filled with Mangione’s supporters, mostly young women. Many of them were wearing green, the color that has come to represent advocacy for Mangione.
“We have a full house here today,” Judge Garnett said at the outset of the hearing. “It is very important that decorum be maintained.”
The appearance of Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty to federal charges, follows a three-week hearing in state court during which Mangione sought to convince the judge in his state case to exclude some of the critical evidence police said they found in his backpack, including writings and the alleged murder weapon. The judge has yet to issue a ruling.
Judge Garnett, in issuing her ruling on the legality of the backpack’s seizure, said, “I don’t think it’s really disputed that if you’re arrested in a public place, the police are supposed to safeguard your personal property.”
Garnett said she does not need to schedule a hearing to determine whether to exclude evidence taken from the backpack, but that she reserves the right to reconsider that decision. She has yet to rule on what, if anything, should be suppressed.
“The Government searched the contents of the defendant’s notebook pursuant to a judicially authorized search warrant that expressly covered, among other things, handwritten materials, including notebook entries, contained within the defendant’s backpack,” prosecutor Sean Buckley argued in an earlier court filing.
“To the extent that the defendant now seeks to challenge the validity of the Government’s warrant — an argument the defendant similarly did not make in either his moving or reply papers — that argument would also fail on the merits because the warrant, which disclosed the initial search of the defendant’s backpack by the Altoona Police Department, was supported by ample probable cause,” wrote Buckley.
Paresh Patel, a lawyer from Maryland who recently joined Mangione’s defense team, argued stalking “fails to qualify as a crime of violence” and therefore cannot be the predicate to make Mangione eligible for the death penalty.
Mangione entered the courtroom with his ankles shackled but his hands free. Unlike his recent appearance in state court, when he wore slacks and blazer, Mangione was dressed in a beige smock and pants and a white long-sleeve T-shirt as he took a seat at the defense table between defense attorneys Karen and Mark Agnifilo.
Earlier this week, prosecutors disputed a defense claim that Mangione should not face the death penalty because of a purported conflict of interest by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The defense said Bondi is continuing to benefit from a 401k established while she worked at the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, which represents UnitedHealthcare.
Prosecutors said Ballard has made no contributions to her retirement plan since her Senate confirmation as attorney general, and argued that she stands to gain nothing from a “capital outcome” in the Mangione case.
“There is simply no factual basis for the assertion that outside corporate interests influenced the Attorney General’s charging decision in any fashion. The defendant’s insinuations otherwise rest on an inaccurate financial narrative,” Buckley wrote in a court filing.
