Thanksgiving travel tips: Best and worst days to fly or drive
Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A record number of Americans are expected to travel for Thanksgiving this year, AAA said.
AAA predicts 81.8 million people will travel during the holiday period (between Tuesday, Nov. 25, and Monday, Dec. 1), which is a 1.6 million jump from last year.
Thanksgiving — which falls on Thursday, Nov. 27 — comes just weeks after the 43-day-long government shutdown that caused massive flight cancellations across the country, but airlines say they’re not expecting any residual impacts during the holiday.
Here’s what you need to know:
Air travel AAA anticipates 6 million people will fly within the U.S. over Thanksgiving — up 2% from 2024.
Sunday, Nov. 30, is predicted to be the busiest air travel day, according to data from aviation analytics company Cirium, with 3,280,652 domestic seats.
But flight bookings for Nov. 26 through Nov. 30 are down 3.3% compared to last year, Cirium said, likely due to uncertainty from the government shutdown.
American Airlines says it will operate more than 80,000 flights over the Thanksgiving period, with its busiest day expected to be Sunday, Nov. 30.
United Airlines said it is expecting its highest number of Thanksgiving travelers ever this year. The airline warned that its busiest days are forecast to be Sunday, Nov. 30, Saturday, Nov. 29, and Monday, Dec. 1.
The busiest U.S. airports are expected to be Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Denver International Airport, according to Hopper.
Road travel AAA predicts at least 73 million people — nearly 90% of Thanksgiving travelers — will go by car to their destination.
Renting a car this Thanksgiving will be 15% cheaper than last year, according to AAA.
The busiest days on the roads are expected to be Tuesday, Nov. 25; Wednesday, Nov. 26; and Sunday, Nov. 30, AAA said.
The best time to hit the road ahead of Thanksgiving is before noon on Tuesday, Nov. 25, or before 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 26, according to analytics company INRIX. Traffic will also be light on Thanksgiving Day.
When you’re heading home, the best times to drive are: before 11 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 28; before 10 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 29; before 11 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 30; or after 8 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 1, INRIX said.
Law enforcement at the scene of a shooting at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colo., Sept. 10, 2025. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office
(EVERGREEN, Colo.) — A student who authorities say opened fire at his Colorado high school, wounding two classmates and then turning the gun on himself, has died, according to the local sheriff’s office.
The gunfire at Evergreen High School broke out at about 12:24 p.m., according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
Three students were taken to the hospital in critical condition following the gunfire, including the suspected shooter, who was injured by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office confirmed the suspect died in a post on social media Wednesday evening.
Authorities have not publicly released his identity.
One of the wounded students with non-life-threatening injuries was released Wednesday night, with the second wounded student remaining in critical condition, hospital officials said on Thursday.
A fourth student was also transported to the hospital, but with an unknown injury, authorities said on Wednesday.
In a statement, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said he was “devastated” by the shooting.
“My heart goes out to the victims and their families as they grapple with this senseless act of violence,” Polis said.
After the shooting, the school was placed in a lockdown and officials swept the campus.
“This is the scariest thing you’d think could ever happen,” said sheriff’s office spokesperson Jacki Kelley at an earlier news conference.
Kelley said she could not provide any other details about the suspected shooter, including the suspect’s age or gender.
“I don’t know if our suspect is even old enough to drive,” Kelley said.
She said authorities were seeking a warrant for the student’s home and locker.
The sheriff’s office said the suspect was armed with a revolver handgun.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded to the scene.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the FBI was “aware on the tragic situation unfolding near Denver,” with officials providing “full support of local authorities to ensure everyone’s safety.”
After the shooting, hundreds of police officers were on the scene searching each room on campus, according to law enforcement.
Parents were asked to reunite with students at Bergen Meadow Elementary.
Damage caused by the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers condominium building, Surfside, Miami Beach, Florida. (Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — More than four years after the deadly collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex in Surfside, Florida, federal investigators are expected to announce their preliminary findings on Tuesday regarding the cause of the tragedy.
“It is more likely that the collapse initiated in the pool deck than the tower,” a slide deck prepared ahead of today’s National Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee meeting states.
Champlain Towers South was an oceanfront complex just north of the Miami Beach city line. The collapse of the structure killed 98 people in the middle of the night in June 2021.
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology have preliminarily concluded that the pool deck started to collapse more than seven minutes before the building fell to the ground, confirming what was suggested in earlier media reports.
The exact cause of the collapse has been under investigation in the years since the incident, but investigators have long focused part of their attention on the pool deck.
“At the time of the failure, the pool deck’s slab-column connections had critically low margins of safety,” the presentation notes. “The bulk of the critically low margins of safety was caused by design understrength and misplaced slab reinforcement.”
Officials noted in their presentation that issues with the pool deck existed from the time Champlain Towers South was built more than four decades ago.
“The structure had low resistance to progressive collapse, allowing the collapse of the pool deck to spread into and throughout the middle and east parts of the tower,” the slides added.
The federal probe into the collapse has been delayed several times. The final investigative report was previously expected to be completed in 2025, but that goal has since been pushed back another year.
(WASHINGTON) — Federal prosecutors investigating former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly making false statements to Congress determined that a central witness in their probe would prove “problematic” and likely prevent them from establishing their case to a jury, sources familiar with their findings told ABC News.
Daniel Richman — a law professor who prosecutors allege Comey authorized to leak information to the press — told investigators that the former FBI director instructed him not to engage with the media on at least two occasions and unequivocally said Comey never authorized him to provide information to a reporter anonymously ahead of the 2016 election, the sources said.
Comey, who was indicted last month on charges of making a false statement and obstruction related to 2020 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, is due to appear in a Virginia courtroom for the first time for his arraignment Wednesday — but Justice Department officials have privately expressed that the case could quickly unravel under the scrutiny of a federal judge and defense lawyers.
According to prosecutors who investigated the circumstances surrounding Comey’s 2020 testimony for two months, using Richman’s testimony to prove that Comey knowingly provided false statements to Congress would result in “likely insurmountable problems” for the prosecution.
Investigators detailed those conclusions in a lengthy memo last month recommending that the office not move forward in charging Comey, according to sources familiar with the memo’s contents.
Lindsey Halligan, a Trump loyalist hand-picked to replace the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia who resisted bringing prosecutions against Trump’s political foes, still moved forward in presenting the case before a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, and secured two out of three counts she sought against Comey over his 2020 congressional testimony.
During grand jury proceedings, prosecutors have no obligation to present evidence favorable to a defendant — but such evidence must be handed over to the defendant before trial.
Halligan’s deputy raised similar concerns about the case the same week the former White House aide-turned-prosecutor asked a grand jury to indict Comey, bolstering the conclusion that no single piece of evidence could demonstrate that Comey lied to Congress and warning against relying on Richman, who she described to colleagues as a hostile witness, sources said.
Prosecutors further expressed concerns about the department’s ability to take the case to trial quickly due to problems identifying all the relevant materials that would need to be handed over to Comey’s lawyers, sources said. They also raised alarms over the potential for Comey’s defense to cite the statute of limitations for the case, which derives from testimony in 2017 and was only reinforced by Comey during his 2020 testimony in response to a question from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
Comey, who is expected to plead not guilty to the charges, denies wrongdoing and has argued that he is being targeted for political reasons. His indictment came just days after Trump’s unprecedented demand that his Justice Department act “now” to bring cases against the former FBI director and others.
“Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, and Leticia??” Trump wrote in a social media post last month, directly addressing Attorney General Pam Bondi and referring to California Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
Halligan alleges that Comey intentionally misled Congress in 2017 and 2020 when he testified that he never authorized another person at the FBI to provide information to the media anonymously. The allegation is that Comey authorized Richman to speak to the press anonymously, contradicting his testimony.
Trump later accused Comey of breaking the law by sharing his memos, arguing they contained classified information, though Richman later told ABC News in a statement that none of the documents had any classification markings.
When prosecutors met with Richman in September, he told them that he never served as an anonymous source for Comey or acted at Comey’s direction while he was FBI director, sources familiar with his interview told ABC News. In at least two cases when Richman asked if he should speak with the press, Comey advised him not to do so, sources said.
Investigators who reviewed material from Comey’s emails, including his correspondence with Richman, could not identify an instance when Comey approved leaking material to a reporter anonymously, sources told ABC News.
Richman, a longtime friend of Comey, has previously acknowledged his role as an intermediary between Comey and reporters after Comey was fired from his role as FBI director, including leaking memos written by Comey about his interactions with Trump following his termination.
Federal prosecutors have focused their inquiry on Comey’s actions as FBI director — including the alleged leak of information about the Trump and Clinton campaigns ahead of the 2016 election — to find evidence that Comey intentionally mislead Congress.
As ABC News previously reported, career prosecutors in the office not only determined that the vast amount of evidence they collected in their investigation would be insufficient to convince a jury to convict him at a trial, but would also fail to meet a lower standard of reaching probable cause to even bring a case.