South under severe weather and flash flood threat, Northeast expecting snow
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(NEW YORK) — A storm system that brought rain and snow to Southern California will move into Texas and the South by Wednesday, bringing flash flood and severe weather threat.
The storm’s highest rain total was in Santa Barbara County, which saw 2.23 inches. Los Angeles County saw 1.62 inches and Santa Monica had 1.38 inches. Totals were less than an inch at Los Angeles International Airport and in Downtown Los Angeles.
Western storm will reemerge in southern Plains states by late afternoon on Wednesday, into the overnight hours with severe weather possible for central and northern Texas, including Dallas.
In addition, this storm system will bring very heavy rain and flash flood threat from Texas to western Kentucky, including Dallas, Texas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee, and Paducah, Kentucky.
Locally some areas could see more than 4 inches of rain, this will lead to flash flooding on Thursday.
Snow squalls in the Northeast and Midwest
Several quick moving storm systems combined with the lake effect, will bring strong winds and snow to parts of the Great Lakes and Northeast today into Thursday.
Early on Tuesday, a snow squall warning was issued for Syracuse, New York, where visibility was dropping close to zero in spots.
At least five states this morning are under snow and wind alerts from the Midwest to the Northeast.
The heaviest snow and strongest winds will be from northern Michigan to western Pennsylvania and New York and into northern New England, where locally a foot of snow is forecast with wind gusts near 60 mph.
Whiteout conditions are possible in some of these heavier snow bands.
Further south and east, for the I-95 corridor, a dusting to 1 inch of snow is possible from Hudson Valley in New York to Connecticut and Massachusetts. Boston and Hartford could see the snow.
Emergency units respond to airplane wreckage in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington Airport on January 30, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. An American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas collided with a helicopter while approaching Ronald Reagan National Airport. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Figure skaters and coaches returning from the recent U.S. national championships were aboard the American Airlines flight that collided with a Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport on Wednesday, officials said.
No survivors were expected in the crash, officials said Thursday. There were 64 people aboard the plane and three in the helicopter, according to officials.
Fourteen figure skaters were among those on the flight, Doug Zeghibe, the CEO and executive director for the Skating Club of Boston, said he was told.
Zeghibe said six victims were from the Skating Club of Boston, including two coaches, two teenage athletes and two moms of athletes.
He identified the skaters from the Skating Club of Boston as Jinna Ha and Spencer Lane. Ha’s mother, Jin Han, and Lane’s mother, Christine Lane, were also on board. Zeghibe also identified the two coaches as Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov. The two were 1994 World Pair Champions who joined the club in 2017, Zeghibe said.
“Six is a horrific number for us but we’re fortunate and grateful it wasn’t more than six,” Zeghibe said. “This will have long reaching impacts for our skating community.”
Zeghibe emphasized how tight-knit the skating community is and that “everyone is like family.”
“We are devastated and completely at a loss for words,” Zeghibe said.
The U.S. Figure Skating organization confirmed that “several members” of the skating community were aboard American Airlines Flight 5342 which took off from Wichita, Kansas, and crashed approaching Reagan National Airport after colliding with a helicopter shortly before 9 p.m.
“These athletes, coaches, and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas,” the organization said.
“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” the organization said. “We will continue to monitor the situation and will release more information as it becomes available.”
There were 60 passengers and four crew members aboard the jet and three personnel aboard the Army helicopter, which officials said was on a training flight at the time of the crash.
Officials have not publicly confirmed the number of fatalities in the crash.
The Mayor of Wichita, Lily Wu, offered her condolences during a press conference, becoming emotional when stating there are not any survivors.
“Our hearts are heavy as a city,” Wu said. “Our hearts are heavy as a city council, and we are here to provide the support needed for our community.”
At an early Thursday morning news conference, officials said they were continuing search-and-rescue operations in the icy Potomac River but did not say whether anyone had been pulled from the water alive, or confirm any deaths.
Meanwhile, Russian media reported that two Russian figure skaters were on board the American Airlines flight, and the presidential spokesman expressed condolences to the families and friends of those killed in the plane crash.
“There were other of our fellow citizens there. Bad news from Washington today,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday morning.
Earlier, several Russian state media outlets reported that the 1994 world figure skating champions in pairs, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, were on board the plane, though U.S. authorities have not confirmed these reports.
Oklahoma City figure skating coach Jackie Brenner was in Wichita with the skaters, coaches and officials who were aboard the flight.
“I was there on Sunday at a coaching workshop, which was the first day of U.S. figure skating development camp as they were coming into their two days of training,” Brenner said. “Huge excitement in the arena and lobby of all these families.”
The U.S. Figure Skating community has been struck by tragedy in a plane crash before. In February 1961, an entire U.S. figure skating team died in a plane crash on Feb. 15, 1961. The plane, Sabena Flight 548, was carrying the team to the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Along with the team, 16 family members, coaches and friends of the skaters died in the crash.
Photo by MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told embassy officials in Guatemala this week that it was “not our intention” to uproot families deployed overseas with USAID, despite the agency issuing a 30-day mandate for their return.
“I know it’s hard to ask for patience. I know it’s hard to ask for trust,” Rubio said, according to a partial transcript of his meet-and-greet with embassy staff that was obtained by ABC News.
Rubio, who was tapped to serve as the acting director of the aid agency, also seemed to acknowledge the administration’s haphazard approach to cutting USAID — which handles foreign aid, disaster relief and international development programs — saying it was undertaken “in a manner that we would have preferred to be different, but we’re forced to do because of impediments that we would confront.”
Elon Musk, the head of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, said earlier this week he was “in the process” of “shutting down” the agency with the backing of President Donald Trump, as part of efforts to trim the size of the federal government and eliminate waste.
The Trump administration on Wednesday placed all direct-hire employees at USAID on administrative leave starting Friday, with plans to recall all foreign-based USAID employees back to the U.S. within 30 days.
In the transcript of Rubio’s meeting with Guatemalan embassy staff, he says that the ambassador to Guatemala “handed” him a list of USAID programs in the country that he said “align with our U.S. goals and our interests.” That list was the result of an all-night scramble by staff who were directed to compile it shortly after the secretary arrived in the country, according to an embassy official.
Rubio said that document “gave us the idea that we should ask the same exercise be conducted by every Mission around the world so that intelligent decisions can be made” regarding which programs to keep, before the end of Thursday.
The directive has quickly resulted in pushback from some USAID staff stationed abroad, who say the Thursday deadline set by State Department leadership will be extremely difficult for most posts to meet, and that it may be part of a strategy to avoid lawsuits from agency employees that could slow down its dismantling.
“Absolutely impossible,” one USAID employee told ABC News. “Clearly, the 90-day foreign aid review has been compressed to two days.”
Rubio’s remarks came in response to concerns from Haven Cruz-Hubbard, the USAID mission director for Guatemala, who asked about the administration’s efforts to curb foreign aid. Rubio insisted that “the United States is not walking away from foreign aid. It’s not.”
“I want to tell you that this is not about politics, but foreign aid is the least popular thing Government spends money on,” Rubio said, according to the transcript. “And I spent a lot of time in my career defending it and explaining it, but it’s harder and harder to do across the board — it really is.”
Rubio’s private comments generally reflect what he’s said publicly about the cuts to foreign aid — but his sentiments seemed more sympathetic toward the workers whose careers and livelihoods hang in the balance.
“For those of us in charge of doing the work of foreign policy, we understand [foreign aid] is essential,” he said.
The New York Times was first to report on the partial transcript.
(NEW YORK) — A winter storm has left tornado damage along the Gulf Coast and piles of snow in the Plains and the Midwest — and residents are now preparing for a new storm moving in this weekend.
This latest storm has dropped over 11 inches of snow in Iowa, 10 inches in Illinois and 7.5 inches in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
On the southern end of the storm, at least two tornadoes were reported in Alabama and Mississippi on Wednesday as winds gusted near 60 mph.
