Tropical storm warnings extended up to North Carolina as Chantal approaches
ABC News
(SURF CITY, NC) — Tropical storm warnings have been extended up to Surf City, North Carolina, as Tropical Storm Chantal is offshore from the southeastern U.S. on Saturday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The storm has maximum sustained wind of up to 45 mph and is moving north at just 3 mph.
The center of the storm is located about 105 miles southeast of Charleston, South Carolina.
Scattered showers and thunderstorms from Chantal’s outer bands are impacting portions of the South and North Carolina coastline Saturday afternoon along with increasing rough surf and dangerous rip currents.
Chantal is forecasted to continue tracking north towards South Carolina later Saturday, where it is forecast to make landfall on South Carolina on Sunday morning as a weak tropical storm.
Tropical storm conditions are expected to begin Saturday evening for portions of the Carolina coastline from South Santee River to Surf City, where the Tropical Storm Warning is in effect.
Tropical storm conditions are possible beginning later today south of the South Santee River to Edisto Beach in South Carolina where the Tropical Storm Watch is in effect.
Heavy rainfall across the coastal Carolinas will cause some flash flooding through Monday, with storm total rainfall of 2 to 4 inches and local amounts up to 6 inches expected for the Carolinas.
Chantal will bring minor storm surge for parts of the Carolina coastline, with between 1 to 3 feet of storm surge possible for coastal areas under the Tropical Storm Warning.
The system is also expected to bring life-threatening surf and rip currents along parts of the East Coast from northeastern Florida to the Mid-Atlantic states over the next couple of days.
The third named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season forms on average around Aug. 3, according to the National Hurricane Center.
(BOSTON) — A first responder testified Monday in Karen Read’s murder retrial that she heard the defendant say, “I hit him,” multiple times after her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, was found unresponsive in the snow outside a Massachusetts home in 2022.
Prosecutors allege, following a night of drinking in Canton, that Read struck O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV outside of a get-together at another officer’s home and left him to die in a blizzard in January 2022. An autopsy found that the 46-year-old died of hypothermia and blunt force injuries to the head.
After a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the initial murder trial last year, Read is being retried on charges including second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a collision causing death. She has pleaded not guilty and maintains her innocence, with her attorneys arguing the police investigation was “riddled with errors” and alleging that witnesses colluded on their narrative about O’Keefe’s death.
Katie McLaughlin, a Canton firefighter paramedic who responded to the scene after Read and two others found O’Keefe in the snow outside the residence, was one of several witnesses who testified Monday in the ongoing trial.
As she did when she testified during the first trial, McLaughlin told the court that Read told her, “I hit him,” while she was trying to get details on O’Keefe during the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
“I asked if there had been any significant trauma that happened that preceded this, and she answered with a series of statements that she repeated — ‘I hit him. I hit him,” McLaughlin testified.
McLaughlin testified that she heard Read say, “I hit him,” four times.
An officer who was also present then signaled for his sergeant to come down, she said.
McLaughlin said she didn’t ask Read to clarify what she meant.
“I felt at that point, given the situation and how disturbing — and it was a very emotional situation, the woman was very upset — I didn’t feel comfortable pushing and asking for more. I just didn’t think that it was the right time for that,” she said. “And it was also really not my place at that point, and I feel like that was something that the police were — that’s more their role.”
McLaughlin said she subsequently told two colleagues in the ambulance at the scene what Read allegedly said.
O’Keefe was found by a flagpole near the home of Boston police officer Brian Albert.
Similar to the first trial when McLaughlin testified, defense attorney Alan Jackson grilled the witness on her relationship with Albert’s daughter, Caitlin, while mentioning times the two have attended the same social functions.
McLaughlin described Caitlin Albert as someone she went to high school with, shares mutual friends and socializes with, but wouldn’t consider a friend.
“We’ve known each other for years, but we are not close friends,” McLaughlin said. “We don’t have a relationship, just her one-on-one. It’s just group settings.”
Jackson also questioned if McLaughlin took any notes on what she said she heard Read say. The paramedic said she didn’t, and had only jotted down demographic information on O’Keefe onto her glove, such as his name and date of birth.
Asked by the prosecutor how she remembered Read’s alleged remarks, she said, “I won’t ever forget those statements.”
Jennifer McCabe, a key witness for the prosecution, testified last week that she also heard Read say, “I hit him,” while standing with Read and McLaughlin.
Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A day after a highly anticipated Oval Office meeting in which the president of El Salvador said he would not return a wrongly deported Maryland man being held in his country, the federal judge who ordered his return will hear from Trump administration attorneys at a court hearing Tuesday afternoon.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is entering his second month in an El Salvador mega-prison after he was deported there on March 15 despite being issued a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country.
Trump administration officials say Abrego Garcia, who escaped political violence in El Salvador 2011, is a member of the criminal gang MS-13, but to date they have provided little evidence of that assertion in court.
He is being held in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, along with hundreds of other alleged migrant gang members, under an arrangement in which the Trump administration is paying El Salvador $6 million to house migrants deported from the United States as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, in an Oval Office meeting Monday with President Trump and the visiting El Salvador president, said that Abrego Garcia’s return is “up to El Salvador.”
“If El Salvador … wanted to return him, we would facilitate it,” she said.
Asked by reporters about Abrego Garcia, President Bukele responded, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
In a motion filed Tuesday in advance of the hearing, lawyers for Abrego Garcia argued that the Trump administration has not taken any steps to comply with the orders to facilitate his release.
“There is no evidence that anyone has requested the release of Abrego Garcia,” they wrote in the filing.
The attorneys also took issue with the government’s interpretation of the word “facilitate,” which the administration has argued in court filings is limited to removing any domestic obstacles that would impede the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States.
Interpreting the term in that manner, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys argued, would render “null” the Supreme Court’s order that the government facilitate his release.
“To give any meaning to the Supreme Court’s order, the Government should at least be required to request the release of Abrego Garcia. To date, the Government has not done so,” they wrote in their motion.
In its daily update on the status of the case, ordered last week by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, Justice Department attorneys said Monday afternoon that the Department of Homeland Security does not “have the authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”
The Supreme Court last week unanimously ruled that Judge Xinis “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
“The Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps,” the high court added.
In an interview Monday evening with ABC News’ Linsey Davis, an attorney for Abrego Garcia said he hopes Tuesday’s hearing “lights a fire under the government to comply with the Supreme Court’s order.”
“What we’re asking [of Trump] is exactly what the Supreme Court told him,” attorney Benjamin Osorio said. “I personally have worked with DHS before to facilitate the return of several other clients who were deported and then won their cases at circuit court levels or at the Supreme Court, and ICE facilitated their return.”
“So we’re not asking anybody to do anything illegal,” Osorio said. “We’re asking them to follow the law.”
“It feels a little bit like the Spider-Man meme where everybody’s pointing at everybody else,” Osorio said of Bukele’s claim that he doesn’t have the power to return Garcia. “But at the same time, I mean, we are renting space from the Salvadorans. We are paying them to house these individuals, so we could stop payment and allow them to be returned to us.”
Asked if he is confident that Abrego Garcia will be returned, Osorio said he was concerned but hopeful.
“I’m worried about the rule of law, I’m worried about our Constitution, I’m worrying about due process,” he said. “So at this point, I am optimistic to see what happens in the federal court hearing.”
(JACKSON, Tenn.) — Gunfire erupted in a Jackson, Tennessee, park Saturday night leaving seven people, including juveniles, injured and police seeking the perpetrators of the shooting, authorities said.
The shooting occurred at the Kate Campbell Park northeast of downtown Jackson, according to the Jackson Police Department.
One of the gunshot victim was hospitalized in critical condition, two were in stable condition and four others were treated and released, police said in an updated statement Sunday morning.
No arrests have been announced.
Police officers responded to the park after receiving reports at around 8:41 p.m. of a shooting incident involving juveniles, authorities said in an earlier statement.
The circumstances surrounding the shooting and a motive for it remain under investigation, police said. Investigators were continuing to collect evidence at the crime scene Sunday morning and were interviewing witnesses.
The Jackson Police Department urged anyone with information about the shooting or who may have video footage of the incident to contact investigators immediately.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
