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Frigid monster storm across US claims at least 24 lives
Millions of people hunkered down against a deep freeze Sunday morning to ride out the frigid storm that has killed at least 24 people across the United States and is expected to claim more lives after trapping some residents inside houses with heaping snow drifts and knocking out power to several hundred thousand homes and businesses.
The scope of the storm has been nearly unprecedented, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.
Some 1,346 domestic and international flights were canceled as of early Sunday, according to the tracking site FlightAware.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.
Read: Wild winter storm envelops US, snarling Christmas travel
The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, with hurricane-force winds and snow causing whiteout conditions, paralyzing emergency response efforts — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said almost every fire truck in the city was stranded Saturday — and shutting down the airport through Tuesday morning, according to officials. The National Weather Service said the snow total at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport stood at 43 inches (109 centimeters) at 7 a.m. Sunday.
Daylight Sunday revealed cars nearly covered by 6-foot snowdrifts and thousands of houses, some adorned in unlit holiday displays, dark from a lack of power. With snow swirling down untouched and impassable streets, forecasters warned that an additional 1 to 2 feet of snow was possible in some areas through early Monday morning amid wind gusts of 40 mph.
Two people died in their suburban Cheektowaga, New York, homes Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical conditions, and another died in Buffalo. Four more deaths were confirmed overnight, bringing the total to seven in Erie County, where County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned there may be more dead.
“Some were found in cars, some were found on the street in snowbanks,” said Poloncarz. “We know there are people who have been stuck in cars for more than 2 days.”
Freezing conditions and day-old power outages had Buffalonians scrambling to get out of their homes to anywhere that had heat amid what Hochul called the longest sustained blizzard conditions ever in the city. But with streets under a thick blanket of white, that wasn’t an option for people like Jeremy Manahan, who charged his phone in his parked car after almost 29 hours without electricity.
“There’s one warming shelter, but that would be too far for me to get to. I can’t drive, obviously, because I’m stuck,” Manahan said. “And you can’t be outside for more than 10 minutes without getting frostbit.”
Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was on his way to visit relatives in Hamilton, Ontario, for Christmas with his daughters Friday when their SUV was trapped in Buffalo. Unable to get help, they spent hours with the engine running in the vehicle buffeted by wind and nearly buried in snow.
By 4 a.m. Saturday, with their fuel nearly gone, Ilunga made a desperate choice to risk the howling storm to reach a nearby shelter. He carried 6-year-old Destiny on his back while 16-year-old Cindy clutched their Pomeranian puppy, stepping into his footprints as they trudged through drifts.
“If I stay in this car I’m going to die here with my kids,” he recalled thinking, but believing they had to try. He cried when the family walked through the shelter doors. “It’s something I will never forget in my life.”
The storm knocked out power in communities from Maine to Seattle. But heat and lights were steadily being restored across the U.S. According to poweroutage.us, less than 300,000 customers were without power at 8 a.m. EDT Sunday - down from a peak of 1.7 million. In North Carolina, less than 6,600 customers had no power - down from a peak of 485,000 or more.
Concerns about the need for rolling blackouts across eastern states subsided Sunday after PJM Interconnection, the mid-Atlantic grid operator, said its utilities could meet the day’s peak electricity usage. PJM had called Saturday for the 65 million consumers in its territory to conserve electricity because of struggles by some power plants to operate amid frigid temperatures.
Across the six New England states, about 121,300 customers remained without power on Sunday, with Maine still the hardest hit.
Read: 18 die as monster storm brings rain, snow, cold across US
In New York, more than 39,000 households were still without power Sunday , including 27,000 in Erie County, as crews battled high winds and found substations damaged. Hochul said that even the National Guard, which now has 200 people on the ground and another 200 expected by Monday, struggled with getting stuck in the snow.
Storm-related deaths were reported in recent days all over the country: seven in Erie County, New York; 10 dead in multiple crashes in Ohio, including a pileup involving some 50 vehicles, a man whose sport utility vehicle ran into a snowplow and an electrocuted utility worker; four motorists killed in separate crashes in Missouri and Kansas; a Vermont woman struck by a falling branch; an apparently homeless man found amid Colorado’s subzero temperatures; a woman who fell through Wisconsin river ice.
In Florida, the thermometer plunged below freezing for the first time in almost five years at Tampa International Airport, and hit 43 degrees (6.1 degrees Celsius) in West Palm Beach, according to the National Weather Service. The temperature drop and freezing sleet was conducive to iguanas falling out of trees since the cold-blooded reptiles typically become immobilized in unusually cold weather.
Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband, Rick, weathered a 34-hour traffic jam in a rig outfitted with a diesel heater, a toilet and a refrigerator after getting stuck trying to drive from Alabama to their Ohio home for Christmas.
“We should have stayed,” Terry Henderson said after they got moving again Saturday.
In Buffalo, William Kless was up at 3 a.m. Sunday He called his 8-, 9- and 12-year-old children at their mother’s house to wish them Merry Christmas and then headed off on his snowmobile for a second day spent shuttling people from stuck cars and frigid homes to a church operating as a warming shelter.
Through heavy, wind-driven snow, he brought about 15 people to the church in Buffalo Saturday, he said, including a family of five transported one-by-one. He also got a man in need of dialysis, who had spent 17 hours stranded in his car, back home, where he could receive treatment.
“I just felt like I had to,” Kless said.
US slams Taliban for women’s NGO jobs ban in Afghanistan
The U.S. has condemned the Taliban for ordering non-governmental groups in Afghanistan to stop employing women, saying the ban will disrupt vital and life-saving assistance to millions.
The Taliban takeover last year sent Afghanistan’s economy into a tailspin and transformed the country, driving millions into poverty and hunger. Foreign aid stopped almost overnight. Sanctions on Taliban rulers, a halt on bank transfers and frozen billions in Afghanistan’s currency reserves have already restricted access to global institutions and the outside money that supported the country’s aid-dependent economy before the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.
“Women are central to humanitarian operations around the world,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday. “This decision could be devastating for the Afghan people.”
Read more: Taliban bar women from university education in Afghanistan
The NGO order came in a letter from Economy Minister Qari Din Mohammed Hanif. It said any organization found not complying with the order will have their operating license revoked in Afghanistan. It is the latest blow to female rights and freedoms since the Taliban seized power last year and follows sweeping restrictions on education, employment, clothing and travel.
The flurry of edicts from the all-male and religiously driven Taliban government are reminiscent of their rule in the late 1990s, when they banned women from education and public spaces and outlawed music, television and many sports.
The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was deeply disturbed by reports of the NGO ban.
Read more: Taliban official: 27 people lashed in public in Afghanistan
“The United Nations and its partners, including national and international non-governmental organizations, are helping more than 28 million Afghans who depend on humanitarian aid to survive,” he said in a statement.
Aid agencies and NGOs are expected to make a statement Sunday.
The Economy Ministry’s order comes days after the Taliban banned female students from attending universities across the country, triggering backlash overseas and demonstrations in major Afghan cities.
At around midnight Saturday in the western city of Herat, where earlier protesters were dispersed with water cannons, people opened their windows and chanted “Allahu Akbar (God is great)” in solidarity with female students.
In the southern city of Kandahar, also on Saturday, hundreds of male students boycotted their final semester exams at Mirwais Neeka University. One of them told The Associated Press that Taliban forces tried to break up the crowd as they left the exam hall.
“They tried to disperse us so we chanted slogans, then others joined in with the slogans,” said Akhbari, who only gave his last name. “We refused to move and the Taliban thought we were protesting. The Taliban started shooting their rifles into the air. I saw two guys being beaten, one of them to the head.”
A spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor, Ataullah Zaid, denied there was a protest. There were some people who were pretending to be students and teachers, he said, but they were stopped by students and security forces.
18 die as monster storm brings rain, snow, cold across US
A frigid winter storm killed at least 18 people as it swept across the country, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses and leaving millions of people on edge about the possibility of Christmas Eve blackouts.
The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, New York, with hurricane-force winds causing whiteout conditions. Emergency response efforts were paralyzed, and the city’s international airport was shut down.
Across the U.S., officials have attributed deaths to exposure, car crashes, a falling tree limb and other effects of the storm. At least three people died in the Buffalo area, including two who suffered medical emergencies in their homes and couldn’t be saved because emergency crews were unable to reach them amid historic blizzard conditions.
Deep snow, single-digit temperatures and day-old power outages sent Buffalo residents scrambling Saturday to get out of their houses to anywhere that had heat. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the Buffalo Niagara International Airport would be closed through Monday morning and almost every fire truck in the city was stranded in the snow. “No matter how many emergency vehicles we have, they cannot get through the conditions as we speak,” Hochul said.
Blinding blizzards, freezing rain and frigid cold also knocked out power in places from Maine to Seattle, while a major electricity grid operator warned the 65 million people it serves across the eastern U.S. that rolling blackouts might be required.
Read more: US braces for dangerous blast of cold, wind and snow
Pennsylvania-based PJM Interconnection said power plants are having difficulty operating in the frigid weather and has asked residents in 13 states to conserve electricity through at least Christmas morning. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity to 10 million people in the state and parts of six surrounding ones, directed local power companies to implement planned interruptions but ended the measure by Saturday afternoon. The start of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans’ game in Nashville was delayed an hour by a planned power outage.
Across the six New England states, more than 273,000 customers remained without power on Saturday, with Maine the hardest hit and some utilities saying it could be days before electricity is restored.
In North Carolina, 169,000 customers were without power as of the afternoon, down from a peak of more than 485,000, but utility officials said rolling blackouts would continue for “the next few days.”
Those without power included James Reynolds of Greensboro, who said his housemate, a 70-year-old with diabetes and severe arthritis, spent the morning bundled beside a kerosene heater with indoor temperatures “hovering in the 50s.”
In the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, two people died in their homes Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical conditions, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. He said another person died in Buffalo and said the blizzard may be “the worst storm in our community’s history.” It was taking ambulances over three hours to do one trip to a hospital, Poloncarz said.
Forecasters said 28 inches (71 centimeters) of snow accumulated as of Saturday in Buffalo. Last month, areas just south of the city saw a record 6 feet of snow (about 1.8 meters) from a single storm.
The latest storm knocked out the furnace in the Buffalo home of Brian LaPrade, who woke up Saturday morning to indoor temperatures dipping below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius).
“I had to go out and dig out the vents,” LaPrade said. “As it was, the snow was taller than my snow blower.”
Plows were on the roads, but large snow drifts, abandoned cars and downed power lines were slowing progress.
On the Ohio Turnpike, four died in a pileup involving some 50 vehicles. A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.
A utility worker in Ohio was also killed Friday while trying to restore power, according to the Buckeye Rural Electric Cooperative. It said the 22-year-old died in “an electrical contact incident” near Pedro in Lawrence County.
Read more: Storm blowing through California dumps snow in SierraA woman in Vermont died in a hospital Friday after a tree broke in the high winds and fell on her. Police in Colorado Springs said they found the body of a person who appeared to be homeless as subzero temperatures and snow descended on the region. Near Janesville, Wisconsin, a 57-year-old woman died Friday after falling through the ice on a river, the Rock County Sheriff’s Office announced.
Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband, Rick, were stuck for 34 hours in a massive traffic jam caused by several accidents. The truck drivers weathered the wait in a rig outfitted with a diesel heater, a toilet and a refrigerator but nonetheless regretted trying to drive from Alabama to their home near Akron, Ohio, for Christmas.
“We should have stayed,” Terry Henderson said after they got moving again Saturday. The storm was nearly unprecedented in its scope, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.
As millions of Americans were traveling ahead of Christmas, more than 2,360 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Saturday, according to the tracking site FlightAware.
In Mexico, migrants camped near the U.S. border were facing unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seeking asylum.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.
Western New York often sees dramatic lake-effect snow, which is caused by cool air picking up moisture from the warm water, then dumping it on the land. But even area residents found conditions Christmas Eve to be dire.
Latricia Stroud and her two daughters, 1 and 12, were stranded without heat or power in their Buffalo house since Friday afternoon, with the snow too deep to leave.
“I have to go over a snowbank to get out,” Stroud told the AP. “There’s a warming center, I just need a ride to get there.”
Wild winter storm envelops US, snarling Christmas travel
A wild winter storm continued to envelop much of the United States on Saturday, bringing blinding blizzards, freezing rain, flooding and life-threatening cold that created mayhem for those traveling for the Christmas holiday.
The storm that arrived earlier in the week downed power lines, littered highways with piles of cars in deadly accidents and led to mass flight cancellations.
The storm was nearly unprecedented in its scope, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.
Freezing rain coated much of the Pacific Northwest in a layer of ice, while people in the Northeast faced the threat of coastal and inland flooding.
The frigid temperatures and gusty winds were expected to produce “dangerously cold wind chills across much of the central and eastern U.S. this holiday weekend,” the weather service said, adding that the conditions “will create a potentially life-threatening hazard for travelers that become stranded.”
“In some areas, being outdoors could lead to frostbite in minutes,” it said.
Military bases had $260M in damages from Afghan evacuation
Military bases that housed tens of thousands of Afghan refugees in the U.S. incurred almost $260 million in damages that in some cases rendered buildings unusable for troops until significant repairs to walls and plumbing are made, the Pentagon’s inspector general found.
Over the last two weeks of August 2021, the U.S. Air Force managed the largest humanitarian evacuation in its history, airlifting 120,000 people from Afghanistan in just 17 days. The bulk of those passengers were Afghans fleeing Taliban rule, and U.S. aircraft delivered tens of thousands of those Afghans initially to bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Italy, Bahrain and Germany.
After processing, many of the refugees were flown to eight military bases in the U.S., where many were housed for months as they awaited visa processing and resettlement; the last Afghan refugee left military housing in February.
The refugees were housed at Fort Bliss, Texas; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey; Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.; Camp Atterbury, Indiana; Fort Pickett, Fort Lee, and Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia; and Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico.
The sheer volume of people in the temporary housing left those barracks and buildings with significant wear and tear, the inspector general found.
Read more: Afghan survivors of US drone strike: Sorry ‘is not enough’
In one case, training for the Indiana National Guard was relocated from Camp Atterbury to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, due to damages caused during “Operation Allies Welcome.” The facilities need to be restored “to a condition that enables them to conduct trainings, prepare for future events, and return to normal base operations,” the IG found.
For example, of the $260 million in approved restoration costs, the Defense Department approved about $16 million for Camp Atterbury “to replace mattresses and furniture and repair floors, doors, windows, plumbing, fire alarm systems, and landscaping.”
But the inspector general questioned whether all the repair work requested by the eight bases was connected to the refugees’ stay.
For example, Fort McCoy, which housed 12,706 refugees, was approved for $145.6 million to repair buildings and plumbing, an amount that was more than three times the combined restoration needs of Fort Bliss and Fort Pickett, which had housed similar numbers of refugees.
Read more: US says drone kills IS bombers targeting Kabul airport
Microsoft will fight US over $68.7B Activision Blizzard deal
Microsoft is headed for a battle with the Federal Trade Commission over whether the U.S. will block the tech giant’s planned takeover of video game company Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft on Thursday filed a formal response to the FTC’s claims that the $68.7 billion deal is an illegal acquisition that should be stopped.
After years of avoiding the political backlash that has been directed at big tech peers such as Amazon and Google, the software giant now appears to be on a collision course with U.S. regulators emboldened by President Joe Biden’s push to get tough on anti-competitive behavior.
Read more: Microsoft’s Windows-centred PC business widely expected to take a hit
The FTC claims the merger could violate antitrust laws by suppressing competitors to Microsoft’s Xbox game console and its growing Xbox Game Pass subscription business.
At the center of the dispute is Microsoft’s rivalry with PlayStation-maker Sony to secure popular Activision Blizzard franchises like the military shooter game Call of Duty.
Microsoft’s response to the FTC tries to downplay Xbox’s role in the industry, describing itself as the “third-place manufacturer of gaming consoles” behind Sony and Nintendo, and one of just many publishers of popular video games with “next to no presence in mobile gaming,” where it is trying to make gains.
Activision Blizzard filed its own rebuttal to the FTC complaint on Thursday criticizing what it described as the FTC’s “unfounded assumption” that Microsoft would want to withhold Call of Duty from platforms that compete with Xbox. Its CEO Bobby Kotick said he believes the companies will prevail.
The dispute could be a difficult test case for Biden-appointed FTC Chair Lina Khan, who has sought to strengthen enforcement of antitrust rules. The FTC voted 3-1 earlier in December to issue the complaint seeking to block the deal, with Khan and the two other Democratic commissioners voting in favor and the sole Republican voting against.
The deal is also under close scrutiny in the European Union and the United Kingdom, where investigations aren’t due to be completed until next year.
The FTC’s complaint points to Microsoft’s 2021 acquisition of well-known game developer Bethesda Softworks and its parent company ZeniMax, as an example of where Microsoft is making some upcoming game titles exclusive to Xbox despite assuring European regulators it had no intention to do so.
Microsoft on Thursday objected to the FTC’s characterization, saying it made clear to European regulators it would “approach exclusivity for future game titles on a case-by-case basis, which is exactly what it has done.”
The FTC’s suit describes top-selling franchises like Call of Duty as important because they develop a base of loyal users attached to their preferred console or streaming service.
“With control of Activision’s content, Microsoft would have the ability and increased incentive to withhold or degrade Activision’s content in ways that substantially lessen competition — including competition on product quality, price, and innovation,” the FTC lawsuit says. “This loss of competition would likely result in significant harm to consumers in multiple markets at a pivotal time for the industry.”
Read more: Microsoft discloses malware attack on Ukraine govt networks
Microsoft signaled that it will vigorously fight the case in court with a team led by high-profile corporate attorney Beth Wilkinson, while also leaving open the possibility of a settlement.
“Even with confidence in our case, we remain committed to creative solutions with regulators that will protect competition, consumers, and workers in the tech sector,” said Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, in a statement Thursday. “As we’ve learned from our lawsuits in the past, the door never closes on the opportunity to find an agreement that can benefit everyone.”
Microsoft’s last big antitrust battle occurred more than two decades ago when a federal judge ordered its breakup following the company’s anticompetitive actions related to its dominant Windows software. That verdict was overturned on appeal, although the court imposed other penalties on the company.
The FTC’s decision to send the complaint to its in-house Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell instead of seeking an urgent federal court injunction to halt the merger could drag the case out at least until August, when the first evidence hearing is scheduled. Microsoft’s agreement with Activision Blizzard requires it to pay the video game company a breakup fee of up to $3 billion if it can’t close the deal before July 18.
The timing and trajectory of the case could change depending on how regulators in the U.K. and Europe rule on the merger next year. If Microsoft wins approval in Europe, it could use that to try to expedite the process in U.S. courts.
The merger faced yet another challenge this week from a group of individual video game players who sued in a San Francisco federal court to stop the deal on antitrust grounds.
The plaintiffs, all fans of Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty franchise and other popular titles such as World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Diablo, are particularly concerned about how the consolidation would affect future game quality, innovation and output, said their attorney Joseph Alioto.
“When there’s a lack of competition, the quality necessarily goes down,” Alioto said. “By eliminating Activision, it gives such a strong position to Microsoft that they can do whatever they want.”
Capitol insurrection: Jan. 6 panel unveils report, describes Trump 'conspiracy'
The House Jan. 6 committee’s final report asserts that Donald Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol, concluding an extraordinary 18-month investigation into the former president and the violent insurrection two years ago.
The 845-page report released Thursday comes after the panel interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, held 10 hearings and obtained millions of pages of documents. The witnesses — ranging from many of Trump’s closest aides to law enforcement to some of the rioters themselves — detailed Trump’s actions in the weeks ahead of the insurrection and how his wide-ranging pressure campaign to overturn his defeat directly influenced those who brutally pushed past the police and smashed through the windows and doors of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,” reads the report. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”
The insurrection gravely threatened democracy and “put the lives of American lawmakers at risk,” the nine-member panel concluded.
Read more: Capitol insurrection: Jan. 6 panel urges criminal charges against Donald Trump
The report’s eight chapters of findings tell the story largely as the panel’s hearings did this summer — describing the many facets of the remarkable plan that Trump and his advisers devised to try and void President Joe Biden’s victory. The lawmakers describe his pressure on states, federal officials, lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to game the system or break the law.
Trump's repeated, false claims of widespread voter fraud resonated with his supporters, the committee said, and were amplified on social media, building on the distrust of government he had fostered for his four years in office. And he did little to stop them when they resorted to violence and stormed the Capitol.
The massive, damning report comes as Trump is running again for the presidency and also facing multiple federal investigations, including probes of his role in the insurrection and the presence of classified documents at his Florida estate. This week is particularly fraught for him, as a House committee is expected to release his tax returns after he has fought for years to keep them private. And Trump has been blamed by Republicans for a worse-than-expected showing in the midterm elections, leaving him in his most politically vulnerable state since he won the 2016 election.
It is also a final act for House Democrats who are ceding power to Republicans in less than two weeks, and have spent much of their four years in power investigating Trump. Democrats impeached Trump twice, the second time a week after the insurrection. He was acquitted by the Senate both times. Other Democratic-led probes investigated his finances, his businesses, his foreign ties and his family.
On Monday, the panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans officially passed their investigation to the Justice Department, recommending the department investigate the former president on four crimes, including aiding an insurrection. While the criminal referrals have no legal standing, they are a final statement from the committee after its extensive, year-and-a-half-long probe.
Trump has tried to discredit the report, slamming members of the committee as “thugs and scoundrels” as he has continued to falsely dispute his 2020 loss.
In response to the panel’s criminal referrals, Trump said: “These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me.”
Read more: Trump rebuked for call to suspend Constitution over election
The committee has also begun to release hundreds of transcripts of its interviews. On Thursday, the panel released transcripts of two closed-door interviews with former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified in person at one of the televised hearings over the summer and described in vivid detail Trump’s efforts to influence the election results and indifference toward the violence as it occurred.
In the two interviews, both conducted after her July appearance at the hearing, she described how many of Trump’s allies, including her lawyer, pressured her not to say too much in her committee interviews.
US braces for dangerous blast of cold, wind and snow
A large swath of the U.S. braced for a dangerous mix of sub-zero temperatures, howling winds and blizzard conditions expected to disrupt plans for millions of holiday travelers.
The blast of frigid weather began hammering the Pacific Northwest Tuesday morning, and is expected to move to the northern Rockies, then grip the Plains in a deep-freeze and blanket the Midwest with heavy snowfall, forecasters say. By Friday, the arctic front is forecast to spread bone-chilling cold as far south as Florida.
Authorities across the country are worried about the potential for power outages and warned people to take precautions to protect the elderly, the homeless and livestock — and, if possible, to postpone travel.
The northern-most regions of the U.S. could see wind chills approaching 70 degrees below zero (minus 57 Celsius) — cold enough to leave exposed skin frostbitten in a matter of minutes.
Even warm-weather states are preparing for the worst. Texas officials are hoping to avoid a repeat of the February 2021 storm that left millions without power, some for several days. Temperatures were expected to dip to near freezing as far south as central Florida by the weekend.
The drop in temperatures will be precipitous. In Denver, the high on Wednesday will be around 50 degrees (10 degrees Celsius); by Thursday, it is forecast to plummet to around zero (minus 18 Celsius).
Read: Heavy rain, wind, snow blows through California into Sierra
The heaviest snow is expected in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, according to the National Weather Service, and frigid wind will be fierce across the country’s mid-section.
“I would not be surprised if there are lots of delays due to wind and also a lot of delays due to the snow,” said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.
The Northwest was already experiencing the effects by Tuesday. In Vancouver, Canada, authorities at the city’s YVR airport said the conditions have resulted in an “unprecedented number of cancelled flights,” adding that cancellations and delays “will persist for the majority of scheduled flights” and that de-icing operations will continue to be necessary. In Seattle, a combination of snow, rain and low visibility caused nearly 200 flight cancellations at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Greyhound cancelled bus service between Seattle and Spokane, Washington.
In Oregon, one person died Tuesday after a semi-truck collided with an SUV. Police said a thin layer of ice on the highway may have been a contributing factor.
Nearly 113 million Americans were expected to travel 50 miles or more from home this holiday season, up 4% from last year but still short of the record 119 million in 2019, according to AAA. Most were planning to travel by car; around 6% were planning to fly.
Several inches of snow were expected from Chicago through the Great Lakes region by Friday. Snow also was forecast in the lower Midwest. With the storm approaching, Delta, American, United and Southwest airlines said they were waiving change fees for people traveling through affected airports.
The National Weather Service predicted wind-chill levels in Montana that could approach 60 degrees below zero (minus 51 Celsius) by Thursday morning. Almost impossibly, the forecast was even worse for parts of Wyoming. The 1,500-resident town of Lusk could see wind chills of 70 degrees below zero (minus 57 Celsius.)
“Please take precautions: Check on elderly/vulnerable, protect pets, shelter livestock, cover exposed skin!” the local branch of the National Weather Service said on Twitter.
Read: Storm blowing through California dumps snow in Sierra
Karina Jones’ family raises about 400 head of cattle in north-central Nebraska near Broken Bow, where wind chills as low as 50 below zero (minus 46 Celsius) are expected Thursday and Friday mornings. She said Nebraska cattle ranchers are “a hearty bunch,” but the bitter cold is rough.
Ranchers “lie awake at night praying that you did everything you could for your livestock,” Jones said.
In Kansas, where up to 4 inches of snow is expected to accompany wind chills dipping to 40 degrees below zero (minus 40 Celsius), Shawn Tiffany runs three feedlots with about 35,000 cattle combined. He’s worried about keeping 40 employees safe and warm.
“Every conversation I’ve had for the last four days has consisted of ‘Are you prepared and are you ready?’ Everybody is taking it very seriously,” Tiffany said.
In Texas, where the temperature is expected to drop to around 11 degrees (minus 12 Celsius), the state’s power grid will be put to the test once again.
A historic freeze in February 2021 led to one of the biggest power outages in U.S. history, knocking out electricity to 4 million customers in Texas and leading to hundreds of deaths.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s power grid, said last week it expects to have sufficient generation to meet anticipated electricity demand during this week’s winter blast. The council said it has implemented reforms to increase reliability, including bringing more generation online sooner if needed and purchasing more reserve power.
But a report on the power grid that ERCOT published last month said that Texans could still face possible power outages this winter if an extreme storm prompted very high demand for electricity.
In Jackson, Mississippi, where dangerously cold weather is expected by the weekend, all eyes are on the capital city’s troubled water system. A cold snap in 2021 left tens of thousands of people without running water after pipes froze, and Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said Monday that the water distribution system remains a “huge vulnerability.”
The deep-freeze will be particularly dangerous for people without homes. Salt Lake City will make 95 additional shelter beds available after five died in recent days amid sub-freezing temperatures, Mayor Erin Mendenhall, a Democrat, said.
In Kansas City, Missouri, emergency shelters are opening for anyone needing warmth, food or safety. Organizers warn, though, that capacity is limited overnight.
“We’re going to get in as many as we can,” said Karl Ploeger, chief development officer for City Union Mission, a Christian nonprofit.
If the shelters are over-capacity at night, the mission works with other organizations to try and find alternatives for people.
Northern Florida cities such as Tallahassee may see temperatures in the low 20s (minus 3 Celsius) on Friday, Christmas Eve and Christmas nights. The forecast calls for temperatures to drop to near freezing as far south as Tampa.
Capitol insurrection: Jan. 6 panel urges criminal charges against Donald Trump
The House Jan. 6 committee urged the Justice Department on Monday to bring criminal charges against Donald Trump for the violent 2021 Capitol insurrection, calling for accountability for the former president and “a time of reflection and reckoning.”
After one of the most exhaustive and aggressive congressional probes in memory, the panel’s seven Democrats and two Republicans are recommending criminal charges against Trump and associates who helped him launch a wide-ranging pressure campaign to try to overturn his 2020 election loss. The panel also released a lengthy summary of its final report, with findings that Trump engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to thwart the will of voters.
At a final meeting Monday, the committee alleged violations of four criminal statutes by Trump, in both the run-up to the riot and during the insurrection itself, as it recommended the former president for prosecution to the Justice Department. Among the charges they recommend for prosecution is aiding an insurrection — an effort to hold him directly accountable for his supporters who stormed the Capitol that day.
The committee also voted to refer conservative lawyer John Eastman, who devised dubious legal maneuvers aimed at keeping Trump in power, for prosecution on two of the same statutes as Trump: conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstructing an official proceeding.
While a criminal referral is mostly symbolic, with the Justice Department ultimately deciding whether to prosecute Trump or others, it is a decisive end to a probe that had an almost singular focus from the start.
Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said Trump “broke the faith” that people have when they cast ballots in a democracy and that the criminal referrals could provide a “roadmap to justice" by using the committee's work.
“I believe nearly two years later, this is still a time of reflection and reckoning,” Thompson said. “If we are to survive as a nation of laws and democracy, this can never happen again.”
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the panel’s Republican vice chairwoman, said in her opening remarks that every president in American history has defended the orderly transfer of power, “except one.”
The committee also voted 9-0 to approve its final report, which will include findings, interview transcripts and legislative recommendations. The full report is expected to be released on Wednesday.
Read more: Some Capitol rioters try to profit from their Jan. 6 crimes
The report’s 154-page summary, made public as the hearing ended, found that Trump engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the election. While the majority of the report’s main findings are not new, it altogether represents one of the most damning portraits of an American president in recent history, laying out in great detail Trump’s broad effort to overturn his own defeat and what the lawmakers say is his direct responsibility for the insurrection of his supporters.
The panel, which will dissolve on Jan. 3 with the new Republican-led House, has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, held 10 well-watched public hearings and collected more than a million documents since it launched in July 2021. As it has gathered the massive trove of evidence, the members have become emboldened in declaring that Trump, a Republican, is to blame for the violent attack on the Capitol by his supporters almost two years ago.
After beating their way past police, injuring many of them, the Jan. 6 rioters stormed the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Biden’s presidential election win, echoing Trump's lies about widespread election fraud and sending lawmakers and others running for their lives.
The attack came after weeks of Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat — a campaign that was extensively detailed by the committee in its multiple public hearings, and laid out again by lawmakers on the panel at Monday's meeting. Many of Trump’s former aides testified about his unprecedented pressure on states, on federal officials and Pence to object to Biden's win. The committee has also described in great detail how Trump riled up the crowd at a rally that morning and then did little to stop his supporters for several hours as he watched the violence unfold on television.
The panel aired some new evidence at the meeting, including a recent interview with longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks. Describing a conversation she had with Trump around that time, she said he told her that no one would care about his legacy if he lost the election.
Hicks told the committee that Trump told her, “The only thing that matters is winning."
Read more: Capitol riot panel blames Trump for 1/6 'attempted coup'
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the former president slammed members of the committee Sunday as “thugs and scoundrels” as he has continued to falsely dispute his 2020 loss.
While a so-called criminal referral has no real legal standing, it is a forceful statement by the committee and adds to political pressure already on Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith, who is conducting an investigation into Jan. 6 and Trump’s actions.
On the recommendation to charge Trump on aiding an insurrection, the committee said in the report's summary that the former president “was directly responsible for summoning what became a violent mob” and refused repeated entreaties from his aides to condemn the rioters or to encourage them to leave.
For obstructing an official proceeding, the committee cites Trump’s relentless badgering of Vice President Mike Pence and others to prevent the certification of the election results on Jan. 6. And his repeated lies about the election and efforts to undo the results open him up to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States, the panel said.
The final charge recommended by the panel is conspiracy to make a false statement, citing the scheme by Trump and his allies to put forward slates of fake electors in battleground states won by President Joe Biden.
Among the other charges contemplated, but not approved, by the committee was seditious conspiracy, the same allegation Justice Department prosecutors have used to target a subset of rioters belonging to far-right groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.
Thompson said after the hearing that the seditious conspiracy charge is “something that the committee didn’t come to agreement on.”
The panel was formed in the summer of 2021 after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of what would have been a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the insurrection. When that effort failed, the Democratic-controlled House formed an investigative committee of its own.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California, a Trump ally, decided not to participate after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected some of his appointments. That left an opening for two anti-Trump Republicans in the House — Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — to join seven Democrats, launching an unusually unified panel in the divided Congress.
McCarthy was one of four House Republicans who ignored congressional subpoenas from the panel and were referred to the House Ethics Committee on Monday for their non-compliance.
The Republican leader, who is hoping to become speaker of the House when his party takes the majority in January, has acknowledged he spoke with Trump on Jan. 6. The committee also referred Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona, all of whom were in touch with Trump or the White House in the weeks leading up to the attack.
While the committee’s mission was to take a comprehensive accounting of the insurrection and educate the public about what happened, they've also aimed their work at an audience of one: the attorney general. Lawmakers on the panel have openly pressured Garland to investigate Trump’s actions, and last month he appointed a special counsel, Smith, to oversee two probes related to Trump, including those related to the insurrection and the presence of classified documents at Trump's Florida estate.
The committee members said that full accountability can only be found in the criminal justice system.
“No one should get a pass,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
US plans for more migrant releases when asylum limits end
The Department of Homeland Security said more migrants may be released into the United States to pursue immigration cases when Trump-era asylum restrictions end next week in one of its most detailed assessments ahead of the major policy shift.
The department reported faster processing for migrants in custody on the border, more temporary detention tents, staffing surges and increased criminal prosecutions of smugglers, noting progress on a plan announced in April.
But the seven-page document dated Tuesday included no major structural changes amid unusually large numbers of migrants entering the country. More are expected with the end of Title 42 authority, under which migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum more than 2.5 million times on grounds of preventing spread of COVID-19.
A federal judge in Washington ordered Title 42 to end Dec. 21 but Republican-led states asked an appeals court to keep it in place. The Biden administration has also challenged some aspects of the ruling, though it doesn't oppose letting the rule lapse next week. The legal back-and-forth could go down to the wire.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled this week to El Paso, Texas, which witnessed a large influx Sunday after becoming the busiest corridor for illegal crossings in October. El Paso has been a magnet for Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, Colombians, Ecuadoreans and other nationalities.
The geographic shift to Texas' westernmost reaches was likely a result of smugglers' calculations on the best route, said Nicolas Palazzo, an attorney at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso.
Like other advocacy groups that work directly with directly with Homeland Security, Palazzo said he has had no conversations with the department about post-Title 42 planning. One key question: How will authorities process migrants who have long been waiting to seek asylum?
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said Customs and Border Protection officials told him Wednesday that about 50,000 migrants are believed to be waiting to cross once Title 42 is lifted.
Read more: Those wanting to travel to US as visitor or student should apply as early as possible: Embassy
Authorities plan to admit those seeking asylum who go through ports of entry but return to Mexico those who cross illegally between official crossings, Cuellar said in an interview. It was unclear how they will return nationalities that Mexico won't accept — like Cubans and Nicaraguans — and are difficult to send home due to strained diplomatic relations and other challenges.
Administration officials are developing additional measures, which Cuellar said they would not disclose.
“I think the first week is going to be a little bit of chaos,” he said.
U.S. officials in El Paso are currently exempting 70 migrants daily from Title 42, said Palazzo, who questioned how officials will handle more people.
Unless they raise processing capacity significantly, migrants who go through official crossings may be told to wait a year or so for an appointment, said Palazzo. “Realistically can they tell me with a straight face that they expect people to wait that long?”
In its latest assessment, CBP said government agencies “have been managing levels well beyond the capacity for which their infrastructure was designed and resourced, meaning additional increases will create further pressure and potential overcrowding in specific locations along the border.”
More single adults and families with young children may be released into communities with instructions to appear in immigration court without help of nongovernmental groups or financial sponsors, the department said.
The department didn't indicate how many migrants may cross the border when Title 42 ends. Earlier this year, they expected as many as 18,000 a day, a staggering number. In May, migrants were stopped an average of 7,800 times a day, the peak month of Joe Biden’s presidency.
In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, migrants were stopped 2.38 million times, up 37% from 1.73 million times the year before. The annual total surpassed 2 million for the first time.
The numbers reflect deteriorating economic and political conditions in some countries, relative strength of the U.S. economy and uneven enforcement of Trump-era asylum restrictions.