Thanksgiving forecast: Where the snow, rain is headed this holiday week
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Snow is headed to the Midwest and the West ahead of Thanksgiving, while rain will target the East Coast on Thanksgiving Day.
Here’s your weather forecast for the holiday week:
Monday
Snow is headed to Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on Monday, while rain is possible from Chicago to Detroit to Indianapolis.
In the West, lots of snow will accumulate in the California mountains. Parts of the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range below the snow line could see 4 to 8 inches of rain through Monday night.
Throughout the South, temperatures will be above average — in the 70s or 80s — on Monday.
Tuesday
Rain is headed to the Northeast on Tuesday, potentially causing flight delays during this busy travel week.
In the West, snow will continue in the Sierra Nevadas and will target the Rockies.
Rain showers are possible from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area.
Wednesday
The Midwest, including Chicago, will see a mix of rain and snow on Wednesday.
In the West, snow totals will reach 3 to 5 feet for parts of the southern Sierra Nevadas in California. Up to 7 feet of snow is possible at the highest elevations.
The Rocky Mountains in Colorado are forecast to get 1 to 3 feet of snow. Wind gusts may reach 35 to 50 mph.
Temperatures on Wednesday will return to potentially record-breaking highs for Houston and Austin, Texas, with highs in the mid-80s.
Thanksgiving
A storm is expected to bring rain to most of the East Coast on Thanksgiving.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City will be rainy and chilly, with temperatures in the 40s.
Snow is possible in upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and northern Maine.
Temperatures will be average or below average for most of the country on Thanksgiving. But temperatures will be above average for Phoenix; New Orleans; Jacksonville, Florida; and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Ilana Panich-linsman/Innocence Project/AFP via Getty Images
(AUSTIN, Texas) — In an 11th-hour turn of events, Robert Roberson, the first person set to be executed in the U.S. based on the largely discredited “shaken baby syndrome” hypothesis, was granted a temporary hold on his death sentence.
Late Thursday evening, the Texas Supreme Court issued a temporary stay in the case, delaying the looming execution and capping, for now, a back-and-forth series of legal maneuvers, including an earlier decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to intervene in the case.
When he learned of the last-minute delay of his execution, Roberson, who was convicted of murder in the death of his 2-year-old daughter, was “shocked,” and then “praised God, thanked his supporters and proclaimed his innocence,” said Amanda Hernandez, director of communications for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, during a news conference Thursday evening.
The Texas high court’s ruling came after Travis County District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum initially put a temporary hold on Roberson’s execution to allow him to testify in a legislative hearing next week — something sought by a bipartisan group of state lawmakers who had subpoenaed Roberson to appear in a bid to delay the execution.
The temporary hold came through less than two hours before Roberson was scheduled to be executed. Shortly thereafter, however, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed it, putting the execution back on track.
In response, state lawmakers quickly sought a temporary stay by the state’s Supreme Court, which ultimately granted the request.
Notably, Roberson’s execution warrant was only valid through Oct. 17.
A legislative hearing at which Roberson is set to testify is scheduled for noon on Monday in the Texas State Capitol.
“For 22 years, this man has been held in prison — on death row — and we’re hoping that with this ruling today we’ll be able to bring light and get to truth,” Texas State Rep. John Bucy told reporters after the Texas Supreme Court issued its order halting the execution.
Monday’s hearing, in part, will examine laws in Texas targeting “junk science” or unreliable forensic science evidence.
“We needed Robert to be there as a first-hand account, to be able to testify to how it’s been used in his case,” Bucy said.
Roberson was found guilty of the murder of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, based on the testimony from a pediatrician who described swelling and hemorrhages in her brain to support a “shaken baby syndrome” diagnosis, even though there is limited evidence that this is a credible diagnosis.
The hypothesis has come under serious scrutiny in biomechanical studies, as well as a growing body of medical and legal literature. The medical examiner at the time also suspected that Nikki sustained multiple head injuries and considered the death a homicide in the official autopsy.
Roberson is autistic, according to his legal team, which affects how he expresses emotions — a concern that also arose during the trial.
Since his conviction, newly presented evidence found that Nikki had pneumonia at the time of her death and had been prescribed respiratory-suppressing drugs by doctors in the days leading up to her death.
A medical expert who performed post-mortem toxicology reports and reexamined her lung tissue said they found that chronic interstitial viral pneumonia and acute bacterial pneumonia were damaging her lungs, causing sepsis and then septic shock, likely leading to vital organ failure.
Over 30 medical and scientific experts have written to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, asking it to reconsider Roberson’s sentence because it hinged on the “shaken baby syndrome.”
A bipartisan group of 86 Texas House of Representatives members have also spoken in support of Roberson’s clemency request, arguing that a state law enables reviews of wrongful convictions based on changes in scientific evidence. In Roberson’s case, they believe that the new evidence should have led to a new trial.
In his plea to halt the execution to the Supreme Court, Roberson argued that his federal due process rights were violated when Texas’ highest court refused to consider his bid to reopen the case based on “substantial new scientific and medical evidence.”
The plea itself followed two previous efforts: to have his sentence commuted to life in prison and to have his execution delayed. Both requests were denied by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
In its statement of opposition to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the state of Texas claimed that there has been no violation of Roberson’s constitutional rights that would warrant intervention from the higher court.
It said that its own courts have adequately considered and rejected Roberson’s requests to review the evidence, writing: “As noted by the [Criminal Court of Appeal’s] opinion on direct review and Judge [Kevin] Yeary’s recent concurrence, ‘the tiny victim suffered multiple traumas’ that are inconsistent with a short fall from a bed or complications from a virus.”
Before the flurry of back-and-forth decisions in Texas on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Roberson’s request for a stay and his petition that the justices take up the case.
(NEW YORK) — More than 10,000 books were removed from school library shelves over the 2023-2024 school year, free expression advocacy group PEN America said in a new report released Monday at the start of national Banned Books Week. The tally marks a nearly triple-fold increase from the 3,362 bans in the previous school year.
The count includes books both temporarily and indefinitely removed from shelves.
About 8,000 of these book removals were recorded in just two states: Florida and Iowa. Both states have laws in place restricting content related to sex, gender and LGBTQ content.
The book bans have overwhelmingly featured stories that are by or about people of color and the LGBTQ community, according to PEN America.
The study also found that the book-banning efforts have increasingly restricted stories by and about women and girls, and include depictions of or topics concerning rape or sexual abuse.
The restrictions have impacted titles by well-known authors including James Baldwin, Agatha Christie, Alice Walker, Jodi Picoult, Toni Morrison and more.
PEN America predicts higher book removal totals are to come as more laws concerning content restriction are set to impact classrooms in the ongoing 2024-2025 year.
This includes laws like Utah’s H.B. 29, signed in March, which requires all schools to remove a book if school officials from at least three school districts or at least two school districts and five charter schools have determined that a book constitutes “objective sensitive material.”
Critics of these laws say they are akin to censorship, while supporters argue that these laws protect students from what they believe to be inappropriate content.
PEN America found that both legislation and political “parents rights” groups were two key factors in the spike in book removals.
“Our numbers are certainly an undercount, as stories of book bans often go unreported,” PEN America stated in the report. “These numbers also do not account for the many reports of soft censorship, including increased hesitancy in book selection, ideologically-driven restrictions of school book purchases, the removal of classroom collections, and the cancellations of author visits and book fairs.”
(SARASOTA, Fla.) — While it’s still hours away from making landfall and has yet to cause any damage, Hurricane Milton is already rewriting the record books, officials said.
“I think for the west-central coast of Florida, this has the potential to be the most impactful hurricane we’ve seen in living memory, given the scope of the impacts from the storm surge,” Mike Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center, told ABC News.
Milton is forecast to make landfall between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET Wednesday near Sarasota as a Category 3 hurricane with wind gusts of over 100 mph. On Wednesday afternoon, Milton was a Category 4 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico about 150 miles southwest of Tampa, and moving toward Florida’s west coast at 16 mph.
Once it makes landfall, the hurricane is expected to create a 10-to-15-foot storm surge in Sarasota and a storm surge of 8-to-12 feet from Tampa down to Fort Myers.
But the storm, the ninth hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, has already made an impact on the record books.
Milton is the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin in terms of pressure since Hurricane Wilma, which hit Florida in 2005. The storm is also the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin in terms of windspeed since Hurricane Dorian in 2019.
On Monday, Milton was producing maximum winds of 180 mph, making it the third strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin on record in terms of wind.
According to the National Hurricane Center records, Milton is one of the top rapidly intensifying hurricanes after increasing 95 mph in 24 hours this week. Only hurricanes Wilma and 2007’s Felix had a greater intensification, according to the records.
Milton is also the fifth strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin on record by pressure.
Brennan said Milton is a different beast from other hurricanes due to its “unusual” track.
“Often we see hurricanes approach Florida from the east or the southeast,” Brennan said. “But this track is somewhat unusual and is really a worst-case scenario for these very storm-sensitive areas along the west coast of Florida because the circulation of Milton is going to be pushing that Gulf of Mexico water right up onto dry land here in these vulnerable places.”
