Severe weather, including risk of tornadoes, to impact South this weekend
via ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A moderate risk for severe weather is in place from eastern Texas through Louisiana and Mississippi and into Alabama on Saturday.
The risk for severe weather begins in Texas on Saturday morning and then charges east through the evening and into overnight.
The greatest risk will be for several strong and large long-tracked tornadoes, potentially EF3 or greater, according to the Storm Predication Center.
Other risk factors will be from large hail, damaging wind and flash flooding.
As for the rain, 2 inches to 4 inches of rain is expected in the South on Saturday from Texas to Alabama and Tennessee, with localized areas of 5 or more inches possible, leading to that flash flood risk.
This same storm complex will reach the Southeast on Sunday, leading to a severe threat there as well, although it is expected to be far less extreme than Saturday will be.
Strong to severe storms will be rolling through Georgia through the morning hours, as well as the Carolinas – where major hubs like Charlotte and Atlanta may see morning delays due to the storm.
The main threats will be from damaging wind and possible tornadoes on Sunday, though again, the threat is lower than on Saturday.
Virginia may also see strong to severe storms late morning and early afternoon.
This rain will reach Philadelphia to New York City early Monday morning but likely be gone by sunrise Monday. Boston, however, will have a rainy Monday morning.
(VALLEJO, Calif.) — A California school was forced to cancel classes until further notice after its copper wiring was stolen, knocking out power to the property.
Repairs at the Solano Widenmann Leadership Academy are expected to take about a week, but if the school needs to be closed for longer, the district will arrange alternate student placements, according to the school.
“Students have been set up with alternative learning hubs or can complete work at home for the time being,” the school told ABC News in a statement.
The school will open alternative learning hubs on Wednesday to continue learning,
“Alternative learning hubs will open at six school sites: Cooper, Dan Mini, Federal Terrace, Highland, and Patterson Elementary Schools, as well as Loma Vista Environmental Science Academy. These hubs will provide academic instruction and resources, with educators from elementary and middle schools supporting students as they complete independent study work prepared by their teachers,” the school announced.
Parents and guardians were sent an online form that they can use to sign up for the alternative learning hubs.
“We are committed to ensuring that our students’ education remains as uninterrupted as possible,” Vallejo City Unified School District Superintendent Rubén Aurelio said. “The dedicated staff at Solano Widenmann Leadership Academy has worked rapidly to prepare learning materials and establish a system that keeps our students engaged during this temporary closure.”
Free breakfast and lunch will be provided at all the hubs.
For families not attending a hub, staff will be available at Solano Widenmann on Tuesday, Jan. 28, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. to distribute independent study materials.
Vallejo Police did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for a comment on the investigation.
(NEW YORK) — The FBI has interviewed multiple individuals about Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth’s personal life as part of its background check investigation, asking questions about alleged extramarital affairs, his relationship with alcohol and his character, according to sources familiar with the matter.
As part of the background investigation, the FBI reached out to people in Hegseth’s past, including individuals Hegseth has known much of his adult life, according to multiple sources familiar with the FBI’s outreach and other sources briefed on the process.
Sources tell ABC News that Hegseth sat for an interview with the FBI in recent weeks. The Armed Services Committee is expected to hold Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday, ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration.
On Friday, the top Senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., were briefed on the results of Hegseth’s FBI background investigation by a representative from Trump’s transition team, according to sources familiar with the matter. The background investigation materials were also made available for Wicker and Reed to review if they chose to do so. At this point, the FBI’s findings are only being shared with Wicker and Reed, according to sources familiar with discussions between the committee and Trump’s representatives.
A spokesperson for Reed declined to comment to ABC News, and a spokesperson for Wicker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The extent of the traditionally thorough FBI background check is an indication that the Senate could be provided with more information about Hegseth’s personal life, amid reports, disputed by Hegseth, about alleged infidelity and personal behavior that some senators have found concerning.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who described her December meeting with Hegseth as a “good, substantive discussion,” told reporters last month that she “pressed” Hegseth “on both his position on military issues as well as the allegations against him.”
The Maine Republican said she would wait for the FBI review to help her determine how to vote.
“I, obviously, always wait until we have an FBI background check, and one is underway in the case of Mr. Hegseth, and I wait to see the committee hearing before reaching a final decision,” Collins, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, said in December.
Other Republican senators have downplayed some of the reports as “anonymous” allegations.
“If people have an allegation to make, come forward and make it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in an interview on “Meet the Press” on Dec. 15. “We’ll decide whether or not it’s credible.”
As part of the process, the FBI has spoken to individuals in Minnesota, Hegseth’s home state, according to sources familiar with the outreach.
The FBI declined to comment on the details and focus of its inquiry. A spokesperson for Hegseth declined to comment. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The New York Times has also published a 2018 email from Hegseth’ s mother, Penelope Hegseth, to her son, in which she said he mistreated women for years, amid his divorce from his first wife. She later told the newspaper that she regretted her original sentiments and expressed regret to her son in a follow up email. ABC News has not obtained or reviewed the email.
The Monterey Police Department released a report last month detailing how a woman told investigators in October 2017 that she had encountered Hegseth at an event afterparty at a California hotel where both had been drinking, and claimed that he sexually assaulted her.
No charges were filed, although Hegseth subsequently paid the woman as part of a settlement agreement, which Hegseth’s attorney said was only because Hegseth feared his career would suffer if her allegations were made public. The agreement stated that Hegseth made no admission of wrongdoing in the matter.
Hegseth, who has previously said he welcomed the FBI’s work, has denied the allegations against him, writing in the Wall Street Journal that “the press is peddling anonymous story after anonymous story, all meant to smear me and tear me down.”
“It’s a textbook manufactured media takedown. They provide no evidence, no names, and they ignore the legions of people who speak on my behalf. They need to create a bogeyman, because they believe I threaten their institutional insanity,” he wrote in the op-ed.
As ABC News previously reported, the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will review Hegseth’s nomination, has also reached out to the Monterey County, California, district attorney regarding the 2017 sexual assault allegations, and to the conservative veterans’ organization Hegseth once ran following a New Yorker report about alleged financial mismanagement, alcohol abuse and sexist behavior, which Hegseth has denied.
Hegseth has denied claims of alcohol abuse, and said in a podcast interview that he won’t drink if confirmed by the Senate.
“This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,” he said last month in an appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
(WASHINGTON) — As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, one of his first orders of business will be to decide about the fate of TikTok in the United States — and some of his cabinet appointees appear to be split on the issue.
Sources familiar with the president-elect’s thinking told ABC News that he may try to stop the ban of the popular social media app, which according to a new law must either find a new U.S. owner by Jan. 19 or face a ban.
Trump’s pick to lead the FCC, Brendan Carr, signaled support for banning TikTok in 2022.
“I think either a total ban or some sort of action like that that’s going to completely sever the corporate links back into Beijing,” Carr told NPR, referencing concerns about possible data usage on the Chinese-owned app.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz — Trump’s controversial pick to for attorney general, who would lead the department that would enforce any ban — voted against a ban of the app while he was a member of the House — though he signaled some support for the initiative.
“Banning TikTok is the right idea. But this legislation was overly broad, rushed and unavailable for amendment or revision. This is no way to run a railroad (or the internet),” Gaetz wrote on X, formerly Twitter, at the time.
TikTok and its parents company, ByteDance, have sued the U.S. government over the potential ban, ABC News previously reported, saying it’s unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment, while pushing back on claims about the app being security risk.
“Congress itself has offered nothing to suggest that the TikTok platform poses the types of risks to data security or the spread of foreign propaganda that could conceivably justify the act,” TikTok’s lawsuit said.
A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
As ABC News previously reported, Trump could try to stop the ban through a number of methods, including pushing Congress to repeal the law banning the app, refusing to enforce the ban, or helping TikTok find a U.S. buyer to comply with the law and render the issue moot.
The ban of the app was spearheaded in Congress by former Rep. Mike Gallagher, who said in an April interview with the New York Times that TikTok posed an “espionage threat” and a “propaganda threat” and that China is “America’s foremost adversary.”
Responding to allegations regarding TikTok, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Nig last year said that China “has never and will not” direct companies to illegally collect data in other countries, according to The New York Times.
In testimony before Congress, TikTok’s CEO also said the app was “free from any manipulation from any government” and that he had “seen no evidence that the Chinese government has access to that data. They have never asked us, we have not provided it,” according to NPR.
Gallagher resigned early this year and took a job with software company Palantir Technologies. A spokesperson for Gallagher rebuffed questions raised at the time over his swift move to Palantir, a company that was vocal about its opposition to TikTok, according to Forbes magazine.
“Congressman Gallagher knows and complies with the House Rules, which includes those about negotiating outside employment,” the spokesperson said in a statement regarding the Forbes report.
