Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of JFK, has died

(NEW YORK) — Wind power production will continue to advance, despite the Trump administration’s attempts to halt the growing momentum of renewable energy, experts told ABC News.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of the Interior reached a $928 million deal with French energy company TotalEnergies to end the company’s offshore wind development off the East Coast and redirect that investment into domestic fossil fuel initiatives, describing the “landmark agreement” as a way to lower energy costs and strengthen the nation’s energy security.

The move continues efforts by President Donald Trump and his administration to stall renewable energy, including the Department of Justice suing the state of California earlier this month over its electric vehicle mandate, signing an executive order last month directing the Department of Defense to purchase electricity from coal-fired power plants and the Environmental Protection Agency rescinding the landmark “endangerment finding” that has served as the scientific and legal foundation for federal regulations on carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping greenhouse gases or more than 16 years.

Offshore wind is facing the most “headwinds” from the federal government, but is still persevering, Erin Baker, distinguished professor and faculty director at the Energy Transition Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told ABC News. The actions of the Trump administration have had “very little impact” on the global increase in production of renewable energy, Baker added.

What the nearly $1 billion deal with TotalEnergies entails
As part of the deal, TotalEnergies will commit $928 million to fossil fuel development in the United States, matching the amount the company previously paid for offshore wind leases. Upon meeting those commitments, the federal government will reimburse the company up to the value of those lease payments, the Interior Department said.

Citing national security concerns, the Interior Department said TotalEnergies has pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States.

“This agreement is yet another win for President Trump’s commitment to affordable and reliable energy for all Americans,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a ​statement. “Offshore wind is one of the most expensive, unreliable, environmentally disruptive, and subsidy-dependent schemes ever forced on American ratepayers and taxpayers.”

The agreement supports the administration’s push for affordable, reliable baseload energy, officials said, arguing that offshore wind projects are costly and less dependable. Ending the projects would reduce unnecessary federal spending while supporting domestic energy production, according to the Interior Department.

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein described the move as “a terrible deal for the people of North Carolina and our country” in a post on X.

Because offshore wind is installed in federal waters, the power of the federal government over offshore wind projects is higher than in onshore wind projects, Michelle Solomon, senior policy analyst at Energy Innovation, a non-partisan research and analysis nonprofit that supports clean energy, told ABC News.

“I think the really unfortunate thing about this news is that offshore wind is a really, really reliable resource that can really help mitigate spiking fossil fuel prices in the winter,” she said.

The momentum for wind energy is too strong to stall, experts said
Wind is the largest and most reliable source of renewable energy. It can also help energy bills stay affordable during extreme weather due to its capacity to produce fuel-free energy, Solomon said.

The power purchase agreements signed by offshore wind companies suppress electricity prices, Baker said. The companies agree to “always buy the wind when it blows,” which then brings down the entire cost to purchase electricity, she said, describing it as “good business.”

“They’re not doing it for environmental reasons,” Baker said of renewable energy companies. “They’re doing it just for business reasons.”

In 2025, wind and solar energy generated a record 17% of electricity in the U.S., up from less than 1% in 2005, according to data recently released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The total net generation from wind and solar together reached 760,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) last year, enough to power tens of millions of average American homes, according to the EIA. Wind power generated 464,000 GWh, a 3% increase over 2024.

The milestone comes amid federal energy policy changes, including the early phase-out of renewable tax incentives and other regulatory changes.

“The momentum is definitely still there,” Solomon said.

“Even though [the Trump administration] was actively trying to stop those industries, they still were growing,” Baker said.

Another benefit to wind is that it’s the type of energy that can “come online the most quickly” after it is built, Solomon said.

“In this moment, when we’re needing to build electricity generation resources really quickly to deal with low growth, data centers, [wind farms] are the ones that are going to be able to respond really quickly,” she said.

Wind and solar made up nearly 90% of new U.S. electricity capacity in 2025, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. That trend is expected to continue into 2026, Solomon said.

Global renewable energy capacity is expected to more than double by 2030, according to the EIA.

Trump has long criticized wind energy
Trump’s criticism of wind turbines dates back to his first term.

In 2019, Trump claimed that noises from wind turbines “cause cancer” and negatively impact property values. In 2024, during his presidential campaign, Trump stated that wind turbines “kill whales” and vowed to write an executive order on “Day 1” to end offshore wind projects.

On Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order to withdraw all areas of the outer continental shelf from offshore wind leasing. A federal judge in the U.S. District of Massachusetts ruled in December that the stop to permits on wind farms was illegal.

The deal with TotalEnergies is the latest move by the administration in an attempt to halt the increased production of wind power.

In December 2025, the Interior Department froze large offshore wind projects on the East Coast, citing national security concerns. Federal judges ruled that all five projects could resume construction, concluding that the government did not show that the risk was so imminent that it should stop.

The projects included Empire Wind, the wind farm being built 15 to 30 miles south of the coast of Long Island, and the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, which started delivering to the state’s power grid on Monday, developer Dominion Energy announced.

Despite the victories for the offshore wind developers, the delays to the project have led to an uncertain investment environment and increased both the cost to build and the costs to consumers’ energy bills, Solomon said.

The impact of these actions will raise energy costs in the end, Solomon said.

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(TUCSON, Ariz.) — FBI Director Kash Patel has released images and video of an “armed individual” in connection with the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.

The images showed a masked man wearing gloves, a backpack and armed with a holstered handgun at the front door of Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson-area home around the time investigators suspect she was abducted on Feb. 1.

“[L]aw enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door the morning of her disappearance,” Patel said in his post.

Savannah Guthrie posted the images to her Instagram account, with the message, “We believe she is still alive. Bring her home.”

Nancy Guthrie was taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona, on Sunday, Feb. 1, according to authorities. A Monday ransom deadline by persons claiming to be Guthrie’s abductors passed as the search for her continues.

Patel said the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s office worked with “private sector partners” in recent days to recover the video footage, which Patel said had been “lost, corrupted, or inaccessible due to a variety of factors, including the removal of recording devices.”

“The video was recovered from residual data located in the backend systems,” Patel said. “Working with four partners – as of this morning, law enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door the morning of her disappearance.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump was briefed on the latest details in the case and was reviewing the video footage posted online by Patel.

“We’re just praying for the safety of Nancy Guthrie and that she will return home soon. And the President directed me to please encourage all Americans with any information to call the FBI, and we hope that this case will come to a positive resolution as soon as possible,” Leavitt said.

The latest development in the case came a day after Savannah Guthrie made an impassioned plea to the public to help solve her mother’s disappearance.

“We are at an hour of desperation, and we need your help,” Savannah Guthrie said in an Instagram video, speaking directly to the camera. It was the fourth video that Guthrie and her two siblings had released on social media since their mother vanished.

The exact time of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance is unclear. Her doorbell camera disconnected at 1:47 a.m., on Feb. 1, according to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos. At 2:12 a.m., the camera software detected a person, and at 2:28 a.m., Nancy Guthrie’s pacemaker app disconnected from her phone, which was left behind at her house, Nanos said.

Over the weekend, the Guthrie family received a demand for a bitcoin ransom by a Monday deadline by a party claiming to be Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapper. Savannah Guthrie and her siblings said they’d pay for their mother’s return.

“We received your message and we understand,” Savannah Guthrie said in an Instagram video over the weekend. “We beg you now to return our mother to us so we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”

After the ransom deadline passed Monday evening, the FBI released a statement, saying its agents continued to work around the clock on the case and that more were being sent to Arizona to assist in the investigation.

“The FBI is not aware of any continued communication between the Guthrie family and suspected kidnappers, nor have we identified a suspect or person of interest in this case at this time,” the FBI said in its statement.

The bureau added that additional personnel from FBI field offices nationwide would continue to be deployed to the Tucson area to work on the case

“We are currently operating a 24-hour command post that includes crisis management experts, analytic support, and investigative teams. But we still need the public’s help,” the FBI’s statement said. “Someone has that one piece of information that can help us bring Nancy home.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — A mission to the International Space Station may end early due to a medical situation involving one of the astronauts aboard the station.

NASA announced that it was postponing Thursday’s spacewalk because “the agency is monitoring a medical concern with a crew member that arose Wednesday afternoon aboard the orbital complex.” 

The space agency then followed up with a statement saying, “Safely conducting our missions is our highest priority, and we are actively evaluating all options, including the possibility of an earlier end to Crew-11’s mission.”

The crew of four was gearing up for the first spacewalk of 2026, which was slated for Thursday morning. 

“These are the situations NASA and our partners train for and prepare to execute safely. We will provide further updates within the next 24 hours,” the agency wrote.

If NASA needs to end the Crew-11 mission early, there are two spacecraft capable of returning humans to Earth docked to the station, including the SpaceX Dragon that brought the crew to the ISS in August. There are currently seven astronauts aboard the station, and three would remain should Crew-11 return early. The launch window for the Crew-12 mission opens Feb. 15.

NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman were scheduled to work outside of the ISS for more than six hours to install a modification kit and route cables for a future roll-out solar array, according to the agency. They were also planning to add jumper cables, photograph the hardware and collect five microorganism samples near the station’s airlock.

At the time, the agency said it was not appropriate to share additional details due to medical privacy reasons, but confirmed the situation was stable and that a new date for the spacewalk would be announced later. 

While NASA hasn’t revealed which astronaut is affected by the medical issue, the crew consists of two American astronauts, one Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut. The American astronauts were scheduled to participate in the postponed spacewalk.

The four members of Crew-11 traveled to the ISS on Aug. 1, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. It was the first time in space for two of the four crew members — NASA astronaut and mission commander Cardman and Roscosmos cosmonaut and mission specialist Oleg Platonov. The mission is NASA astronaut and mission pilot Fincke’s fourth trip to the station and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut and mission specialist Kimiya Yui’s second trip.

NASA selected Cardman to be part of the 2017 class of astronauts. A Williamsburg, Virginia, native, she holds degrees in biology and marine sciences. 

Fincke is a space veteran, having spent more than a year in orbit and having performed nine spacewalks. The retired Air Force colonel previously served as an ISS commander and mission specialist. 

Yui, a mission specialist, is returning to the ISS for a second visit after previously spending 142 days aboard the station as part of Expeditions 44 and 45. 

Platonov, a graduate of the Krasnodar Air Force Academy, became a cosmonaut in 2018 and will serve as a mission specialist.

“I cannot tell you enough how meaningful it is to have a crew that is as kind and as thoughtful and as wonderful as they are incredibly technically competent, incredible astronauts, cosmonauts coming from multiple agencies, many different backgrounds. They make my job very, very easy as commander,” Cardman said during a pre-launch press conference.

The crew marked a historic milestone for the ISS in November, when NASA celebrated 25 years since the first crew arrived at the station.

The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program that partners with private companies to deliver humans to and from the ISS. According to NASA, Crew-11 is the “11th crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation system and its 12th flight with astronauts.”

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