Teen suspected of killing Maine paddleboarder to be charged with murder Friday
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(UNION, Maine) — The 17-year-old suspect in the murder of a paddleboarder earlier this month will appear in court on Friday, where he is expected to be charged with one count of murder.
Sunshine Stewart was found dead on July 3 at Crawford Pond in Union, Maine. Her cause of death was strangulation and blunt force trauma, Maine State Police revealed Thursday.
The suspect, who is male, was arrested without incident Wednesday night, police said. He came to the pond area to spend summer vacation time with his family, according to an official familiar with the investigation.
He is expected to appear remotely from the South Portland juvenile detention facility, where he is being held, in front of a Knox County district judge.
It is unclear whether the 17-year-old will be charged as an adult.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
An ABC News graphic shows flood watches for Tropical Storm Chantal as of 5 a.m. on Sunday, July 6, 2025.
Tropical Storm Chantal made landfall at about 4 a.m. on Sunday near Litchfield Beach, South Carolina, according to the National Hurricane Center.
As of 8 a.m. ET, the center of Chantal was about 15 miles to the northwest of Conway, South Carolina, or about 100 miles north of Charleston, according to the National Hurricane Center. Chantal’s maximum sustained winds had decreased slightly from around 60 mph early Sunday to 40 mph, with the storm moving north-northwest at 8 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
A tropical storm warning remains in effect from the South Santee River, South Carolina, to Surf City, North Carolina, including Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Peak winds in the area are forecast to be 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 45 mph.
About an hour after making landfall, Chantal had weakened, with sustained winds then up to 50 mph.
Scattered showers and thunderstorms from Chantal’s outer bands continue to impact portions of inland South and North Carolina, with the more concentrated showers and thunderstorms from Chantal’s inner bands moving from the South and North Carolina coastline inland.
The tropical storm watch has been discontinued from Edisto Beach to South Santee River, South Carolina, including Charleston.
Chantal is expected to continue to weaken as it moves inland, likely becoming a tropical depression later today and dissipating by Monday.
The storm is forecast to produce scattered showers, and some areas will see heavy rain and gusty winds from thunderstorms throughout the day.
Flood watches remain in effect at least until Sunday night from Myrtle Beach to the west of Wilmington, North Carolina. Flood watches are expected to extend into parts of inland North Carolina, including Fayetteville and Raleigh, until Monday.
Chantal, the third named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, was forecast to bring 2 to 4 inches of rain to portions of the eastern Carolinas, with isolated amounts up to 6 inches that could cause flash flooding.
Thunderstorms from the bands of Chantal may also produce isolated tornadoes, as well as lightning and gusty winds.
The storm was also expected to bring minor storm surges to parts of the Carolina coastline, with between 1 to 3 feet of storm surge possible during high tide for coastal areas under the tropical storm warnings.
(WASHINGTON) — Neil Jacobs, the atmospheric scientist nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has vowed to place science, human safety and technological innovation at the forefront of operations if confirmed as the agency’s administrator.
On Wednesday, U.S. senators interviewed Jacobs on how he would run NOAA, the federal agency that manages the National Weather Service, the nation’s primary source for weather forecasts and data, and is responsible for monitoring and managing coastal and marine resources.
“NOAA has an important, unique mission that spans the sea floor to the Sun’s surface,” Jacobs said. “Not only do they conduct cutting-edge coastal and ocean research, but they also provide life-saving forecast predictions in a wide range of environmental phenomena.”
Jacobs said he has a “very detailed understanding” of what is needed to manage NOAA, from the policy, budget and personnel sides as well as opportunities for innovative solutions.
“If confirmed, it would be a tremendous honor to lead such a distinguished organization,” Jacobs said. “I can assure the committee that I will do my best to ensure this team of scientists, engineers, forecasters and uniformed officers have the resources and leadership needed to fulfill their mission of science, service and stewardship.”
Taylor Jordan, the nominee for assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction, and Harris Kumar, nominee for assistant secretary of commerce for legislative and intergovernmental affairs, also appeared in the confirmation hearing,
If confirmed, Jacobs would lead NOAA during a tumultuous time at the agency.
Since his nomination in February, NOAA and the NWS have lost hundreds of staffers, research funding and experienced weather data collection disruptions due to cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
“I support the president’s budget,” Jacobs said, when asked whether he supports cuts throughout the agency.
If confirmed, this would be Jacobs’ second stint leading NOAA. He served as acting administrator from 2019 until Trump left office at the end of his term in January 2021.
He is remembered for the so-called “Sharpiegate” incident that took place during a press briefing from the Oval Office in September 2019. A map of the storm track of Hurricane Dorian appeared to have been altered with a black pen to include southern Alabama, even though the official storm track by the NWS did not have the storm hitting the state.
Trump had also inaccurately declared a few days earlier that the storm would strike the region. Shortly after, NOAA issued a statement that sided with Trump and admonished the NWS for publicly saying that Alabama was not in danger from the storm.
Dorian ultimately stayed east of Florida and did not make landfall in the U.S.
The NOAA Science Council subsequently investigated Jacobs, saying that he violated the organization’s scientific integrity policy by issuing a statement supporting Trump’s incorrect claim about Dorian’s storm track as an official NOAA release.
When asked by Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-NM, on Wednesday whether he would “make the same decision again,” Jacobs replied, “There’s probably some things I would do differently.”
At the time of his nomination, Jacobs was the chief science adviser for the community Unified Forecast System (UFS), part of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s (UCAR) Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science at North Carolina State University.
Before serving as NOAA’s acting director, Jacobs was the chief atmospheric scientist at Panasonic Avionics Corporation, where he directed the research and development of its aviation weather observing platforms and modeling programs.
Jacobs was recognized as a 2025 Fellow of the American Meteorological Society earlier this year and holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from the University of South Carolina and master’s and doctoral degrees in atmospheric science from North Carolina State University.
In a podcast interview in November 2024, Jacobs shared his views on the future of government agencies, like NOAA, and efforts by the GOP to repeal and eliminate various weather and climate initiatives within the agency.
“The executive branch can’t just come in and completely change something that’s authorized in law,” he said.
Jacobs also said that “NOAA has all of these congressional mandates that are codified. Congress would have to rewrite a mountain of legislation to undo all that.”
ABC News’ Matthew Glasser, Daniel Manzo and Daniel Peck contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Scandal-plagued former congressman George Santos reported to federal prison Friday to begin his more than seven-year sentence after pleading guilty to a series of fraudulent schemes after being convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The ex-congressman did not speak with reporters as he entered the facility. However, in the days leading up to his incarceration, Santos had a lot to say.
On Wednesday, Santos posted a clip of Frank Sinatra singing a portion of “My Way,” beginning with the lyrics “…and now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain.”
He offered one final, emotional goodbye in an hour-and-a-half long spaces conversation on X Thursday evening.
Santos began the stream by addressing questions on whether he would receive a pardon, saying that only President Donald Trump has the answer.
“The only person that could answer that question is, you know, whoever the President of the United States is — in this case, President Donald Trump.”
At one point, over 800 people were on the call as several of his supporters calling on listeners to sign an effort launched prior to the call asking Trump to pardon Santos.
Santos advised listeners not to follow his example.
“I think that the importance here is for people to understand: make better choices, be smarter than me, that’s for sure,” Santos said.
“I’ve made a string of s— choices in my life and for that, I’m sorry. To those I’ve disappointed, to those I’ve let down, to those that I have caused irreparable damage even, I’m sorry,” Santos said.
The event saw a host of supporters bid goodbye to Santos, including Matt Gaetz’s wife Ginger Gaetz. He said he hosted the call because he had been “curled up in a ball … for the last week” and wanted to do “something normal.”
Santos repeatedly thanked fellow speakers and listeners for their support and, at several points, he became choked up as several friends started to cry during their remarks.
“I love you,” Santos said. “We built common ground through trust and transparency, and I wouldn’t have done it any other way.”
Santos, along with some supporters who chimed in, called his sentence unfair.
“Incarceration is not supposed to be a demonic torture or torturous process,” Santos said. “I think a lot of our sentencing in our country tends to be punitive and full of reprisal.”
Santos also criticized the broader criminal justice system.
“There’s something to be said about the prison industrial complex, by the way. They’re selling f—— Twinkies for $5. I mean, they have to be making banging profits,” he said. “I mean, I’m thinking maybe when I get out of prison, I open a prison.”
Santos joked about advice he had gotten about living behind bars, saying he had heard that finding the “biggest person” in prison and beating them up to establish his toughness was not a good idea.
Taking a more serious tone, Santos said he was hoping to teach civics inside the prison and planned to bring a standard white notepad, a Bible his grandmother gave him and a pocket constitution with him.
He also said he had not yet made a decision regarding whether he would keep his social media running throughout his sentence or delete his accounts, but had “spoken to some people who have voluntarily elected” to post on his behalf.
Santos promised to go into and come out of prison in style, saying “I’m surrendering in Ferragamo so I can walk out in Ferragamo.”
Santos said he had learned through the experience the need to be “unapologetically, 100% authentically yourself.”
“I would not change much of what I decided to do with my career, I would just change the how,” he said. “I’m every congressperson and politician’s nightmare because I set such a high standard for transparency and communication.”
Santos ended the call by calling on listeners to come together despite political differences.
“I hope you all keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing, which is keeping each other honest and engaging in very much needed discourse, because we are in a time in our life where we need to come closer as humans and not further,” he said.
