(NEW YORK) — A moderate geomagnetic storm could bring northern lights displays to U.S. states further south than usual, forecasts show.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  has issued a storm watch for a G2 geomagnetic storm due to a coronal mass ejection expected to begin Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET and continue until Thursday at 8 p.m. ET.

A coronal mass ejection is a massive eruption of solar material and magnetic field from the sun’s outer atmosphere.

Auroras can occur when the charged particles from the sun clash with the atoms and molecules in Earth’s upper atmosphere — causing those atoms and molecules to emit a glow that appears as a spectrum of light in the night sky.

In the U.S., northern lights could be visible in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine, according to the NOAA .

A G2 storm can also impact high-latitude power systems, spacecraft operation and high frequency radio propagation, according to NOAA. Fluctuations to weak power grids and minor impacts on satellite operations can occur as well.

Migratory animals could possibly be affected by geomagnetic storms, according to NOAA. A  found that inclement space weather may cause fewer birds to migrate during the disturbances — likely due to more difficulty in navigating — and  has researched whether solar storms cause an increase in marine mammal strandings, possibly due to similar navigation issues.

The  is often an active month for northern lights displays.

The weeks before and after the spring equinox on March 20 are considered “aurora season,” as geomagnetic storms are more likely due to the way solar wind interacts with the Earth’s magnetosphere, according to .

The spring equinox comes as the solar maximum comes to a close. The sun’s 11-year cycle peaked around late 2024 and has continued to emit strong solar activity and geomagnetic storms, leading to an increase in aurora displays.

The best time to see the northern lights in the U.S. is generally between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. local time, and traveling to the darkest location possible is recommended for the best viewing, according to NOAA.

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(NORFOLK, Va.) — A person was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, on Thursday.

The school shooting was allegedly committed by a former Army National Guardsman who was convicted of giving material support to ISIS, an FBI official told ABC News.

The gunman opened fire in Constant Hall, an academic building, around 10:43 a.m. and was found dead minutes after officers arrived, Old Dominion University Police Chief Garrett Shelton said during a press briefing.

The suspected gunman was identified as Mohamed Jalloh, who was previously convicted in 2016 of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic militant group.  

Two of the victims were members of the university’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program, according to U.S. Army Cadet Command.

Students in the ROTC class fought the shooter, an Army official told ABC News.

Jalloh, a former member of the Army National Guard, was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2017 and released in December of 2024, according to Bureau of Prisons records. 

He allegedly walked into a room and asked if it was an ROTC class, and when someone answered, “yes,” he shot the instructor several times, according to sources.

When he pleaded guilty in 2016, Jalloh admitted he had communicated with a member of ISIS who was located overseas who introduced him to an individual in the U.S. who was actually an FBI confidential informant.

The ISIS member was believed to be actively plotting an attack and believed Jalloh would assist the informant in carrying it out. During one meeting with the FBI informant, Jalloh was asked about a timeline for an operation and commented that it was better to plan an attack for the month of Ramadan, court records say.

Prosecutors had recommended Jalloh serve 20 years in prison. It’s not immediately clear why he was released before the end of his 11-year sentence, though it is not unusual in the federal prison system for inmates to be released before serving their full term of imprisonment. 

A sophomore named Jennifer told that she was waiting for a midterm exam when she heard a group of people saying, “get out, get out, get out.”

“All of a sudden, we heard a commotion. A lot of people rumbling, starting to get up,” she said. “The guy next to me, we looked at each other, we started running, and that’s when we heard, you know, gunshots.” 

She commended the university’s quick communication through alerts, saying, “I’m very, very proud of how quick the situation was handled.”

Shelton told reporters that the investigation is still ongoing and they were combing through the campus for clues.

“We now have to search every single room in that facility. There were students that we found that were hiding and faculty and staff,” he said.

The police did not say how the gunman died.

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the bureau is treating the shooting as “as an act of terrorism,” and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force will be working with local police in the investigation.

There’s no longer a threat, the university said, adding that classes are canceled for the rest of the day and Friday.

“Today was a tragic day for the campus of Old Dominion University,” Old Dominion President Brian Hemphill told reporters.

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Robert Cosby Jr., the son of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Mary Cosby, has died at 23.

Mary Cosby of her son’s death in a social media post on Wednesday.

“Our beloved son Robert Jr. has been called home to the Lord,” she wrote. “Though our hearts ache, we take comfort in God’s promise and in knowing he is finally at peace.”

She added, “We are grateful for your prayers and trust in the Lord to carry us through this time of sorrow.”

The Salt Lake City Police Department confirmed Cosby Jr.’s death to ABC News on Wednesday.

Police said they responded to a call for an overdose on Monday at an address associated with someone matching Cosby Jr.’s name and age in Salt Lake City, which turned into a death investigation.

The Police Department did not share a cause of death.

Bravo host Andy Cohen on social media, writing, “Devastatingly sad news out of SLC. This is every parent’s worst nightmare. My heart is broken for Mary, and I am sending all my love to her and Robert Sr.”

Mary Cosby had recently of her son on Instagram, prior to his death, writing in the caption, “#godfirst Love you all. My Beautiful Son.. I love him sm.”

Cosby Jr. was born to parents Mary Cosby and Robert Cosby Sr.

Mary Cosby’s Bravo cast bio states that she is “committed to supporting her son Robert Jr.’s sobriety and navigates life after the passing of her estranged mother.”

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(WASHINGTON) – -The two West Virginia National Guard members shot in November will receive the Purple Heart, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday while addressing troops at the base of the Washington Monument.

Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her injuries on Nov. 26, the day before Thanksgiving. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe was shot in the head and remains in recovery, with skull reconstruction surgery scheduled for March.

“One lost, one recovering, both soon to be Purple Heart recipients,” Hegseth said, “because they were attacked by a radical.”

The suspected gunman, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who previously worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, was  including first-degree murder, assault with intent to kill and illegal possession of a firearm.

Prosecutors say they are seeking additional charges that would make Lakanwal eligible for the death penalty. He has pleaded not guilty.

Purple Hearts are typically reserved for troops wounded or killed by clearly identified enemy combatants in war zones, with awards for attacks on American soil relatively rare.

The question of eligibility resurfaced after the 2015 shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee, when Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez opened fire on a Navy Reserve center and a nearby recruiting station. Four Marines and a sailor died, Abdulazeez was killed by law enforcement. 

For months, that attack sat in a bureaucratic gray zone for the Purple Heart. FBI Director James Comey eventually determined the shootings were motivated by foreign terrorist propaganda.

The determination cleared the way for then- Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to announce Purple Hearts would be awarded to the victims of the shooting. 

The Trump administration has labeled Lakanwal a terrorist, though it has not publicly produced evidence tying him to any designated terrorist organization.

Lakanwal was among thousands of Afghans evacuated to the United States after the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, and his asylum application was approved in 2025 during the Trump administration.

In Afghanistan, Lakanwal was affiliated with a so-called Zero Unit that worked closely with the CIA and elite special operations units, ABC News reported in December.

Officials with direct knowledge of the matter said he was considered a trusted member of the unit, which carried out American counterterrorism missions.

Investigators also believe Lakanwal was under financial strain after his work permit expired and may have been experiencing a mental health crisis.

“This announcement brings long-overdue honor to their service, offers meaning and reassurance to their families, and stands as a solemn reminder that West Virginia will never forget those who sacrifice in defense of others,” West Virginia GOP Gov. Patrick Morrisey, who called for Purple Hearts to be awarded after the ambush, said in a statement to ABC News. 

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Those accounts showed applications to multiple community colleges — and much more.

“We noticed that there [was] a lot of activity” on accounts created in their names, Mayor said in an interview with ABC News. “There are a lot of applications, loan applications, grant applications … then we panicked.”

Mayor knew immediately that something was amiss. He assumed his identity had been stolen. But he had no concept of the breadth of the scheme that had ensnared his and his son’s identity, and he had certainly never heard of the army of digital fraudsters perpetrating the crime.

‘A huge issue’
They are known as “ghost students,” and for thousands of colleges across the country, these sophisticated thieves have a become a scourge. The scammers will use stolen or fake identities to enroll in classes online and sign up for Pell grants and loans, then disappear once they get the money — robbing the federal government of hundreds of millions of dollars and leaving an untold number of victims like Mayor and his son in their wake.

“It’s a huge issue,” said Jason Williams, the assistant inspector general for investigations at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General. “As they’re stealing identities … these loans are not being repaid. They’re being assigned to people [who] don’t even know they have a debt with U.S. Department of Education … [until] the Internal Revenue Service says you owe the Department of Education money.”

Fraudsters have attempted to steal student financial aid for decades, Williams said. But “when the pandemic [hit], everybody went to online learning. Well, by doing that, it really did open the door” for more widespread fraud, said Williams.

Scammers have realized that the move to remote learning at community colleges provides an opportunity to leverage the power of artificial intelligence to expand their reach and circumvent identity verification controls. Almost overnight, experts said, the fraud grew exponentially.

Over the past five years, the federal government has investigated more than $350 million in fraud perpetrated by “ghost student” schemes, Williams said. “And that’s only in the universe of what we know, and what we have adjudicated,” he added. “There’s a lot of stuff that we don’t know that’s out there.”

Williams said his office has more than 200 investigations open nationwide, with some schemes suspected of racking up more than a billion dollars in ill-gotten gains.

Open season on open enrollment
The federal government is on the hook for tuition aid lost to scammers. But it is the community colleges, which accept almost all applicants through open enrollment, that often carry the burden of sniffing out fake applications. And doing so requires the resources, technology and expertise that many institutions do not possess.

Experts say the scope of the fraud is enormous. In California alone, nearly a third of all community college applicants in 2024 were identified as fraudulent, according to the California Community Colleges, the state’s administrative body for the community college system.

Similar figures exist across the country. ABC News and its nationwide network of owned and operated stations investigated the rise of “ghost students” and found that almost no community college has been spared.

Gina Macklin, a senior administrator at Delaware County Community College, told WPVI-TV in Philadelphia that the school found more than 500 fake students enrolled in its classes in 2023, which she described as “a terrible year” for the school, not least of which because those fraudsters “had taken seats from legitimate students.”

Dr. Beatriz Chaidez, the chancellor of the San Jose Evergreen Community College District, told KGO-TV in San Francisco that at one point, a 50-person online class was booked in minutes and had 100 individuals on its waitlist. The school later learned that just six of those “students” were real people trying to get an education.

“The rest were fraudulent accounts,” she said. “Ghost students.”

Software solutions
The Trump administration last year implemented enhanced fraud controls and identity verification requirements for schools, which experts say helped schools combat fake applicants. But to help root out the fraud, many community colleges have turned to a growing marketplace of identity verification software vendors.

Maurice Simpkins, a retired NFL linebacker, operates one such business. His software is called Student Application Fraudulent Examination, or S.A.F.E.

The platform acts as a firewall for the schools, Simpkins said. “From a football term,” he likes to say, “it’s an offensive line.” He says it catches around 95% of fake applications instantaneously and refers more to the school for additional scrutiny. After just two years on the market, S.A.F.E. is in use in more than 150 schools nationwide, he said.

Administrators at more than a dozen community colleges characterized the rise of “ghost students” as a true crisis. The fraudsters, those administrators say, are taking advantage of a vulnerability created by the degree to which these schools are accessible to students.

Officials say the scammers’ schemes range from the savvy to the sloppy — and all are brazen. One school administrator at a midwestern community college who asked not to be identified shared a “business proposal” he said he received last year from an alleged scammer.

In an email, the alleged scammer, who identified themselves as “Ken from Tanzania,” offered to pay the administrator a share of the proceeds for his help in perpetrating the fraud. “I would really like us to partner and work for 3semesters [sic] and we get something good for us and our families.”

Scammers who operate from overseas present a special challenge, according to investigators. But many of the “ghost students” operate within U.S. borders.

Before their arrests in 2018 and 2019, a father and son in Arizona made off with more than $7 million from ghost student scams, and both served 12-month prison sentences after pleading guilty. And a Maryland man who used the identities of 60 people to take in more than $6.7 million in fraudulent financial aid was sentenced in 2023 to four years in prison.

Murat Mayor, the 58-year-old business analyst, believes he and his son had their identities stolen as part of a massive hack of their health care provider in 2024. After months of back-and-forth with law enforcement and administrators at community colleges in Maryland and Utah, he finally cleared himself and his son from enrollment records earlier this month.

“He’s a straight-A student, has been very successful — an honor student, so he’s doing well,” Mayor told ABC News regarding his son.

Mayor’s son has applied to study business finance in the fall. And this time, it will really be him.

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A moment like this always had to end, and Kelly Clarkson is explaining why.

The Emmy and Grammy-winning star has announced that she’ll be ending The Kelly Clarkson Show after this season. She shared the news �����Ի� explained, “Stepping away from the daily schedule will allow me to prioritize my kids, which feels necessary and right for this next chapter of our lives.”

In 2025, Kelly’s children, River and Remington Blackstock, lost their father, Kelly’s ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, to cancer at age 48. Blackstock’s photo was included in the “In Memoriam” segment of Sunday night’s Grammys, as Blackstock’s stepmother, Reba McEntire, performed.

“I am forever grateful and honored to have worked alongside the greatest band and crew you could hope for,” Kelly’s message continued. She went on to thank “all the talent and inspiring people who have shared their time and lives with us” and “all the fans who have supported our show.”

“This isn’t goodbye. I’ll still be making music, playing shows here and there, and you may catch me on The Voice from time to time … you never know where I might show up next,” she added.

In fact, you’ll be able to see Kelly on The Voice later this month as season 29, dubbed , launches Feb. 23.

Kelly’s message concluded, “For for now, I want to thank y’all so much for allowing our show to be a part of your lives, and for believing in us and hanging with us for .”

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(NEW YORK) — New work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are set to go into effect on Feb. 1 and it could mean that millions of Americans lose their benefits.

Nearly 42 million Americans, including low-income families and vulnerable households, rely on the federal program to help pay for groceries or other household essentials.

However, under President Donald Trump’s megabill that was signed into law in July, work requirements were amended for most people to receive benefits for longer than three months over three years.

Under the megabill, the upper age limit for those who need to meet  was raised from age 54 through age 64 for the first time for able-bodied adults without dependents.

Additionally, exemptions were changed for parents or other family members with responsibility for a dependent under 18 years old to under 14 years old.

“Millions of people will unnecessarily be kicked off the rolls,” Joel Berg, CEO of the nonprofit Hunger Free America, told ABC News. “They will lose the food they need, and sometimes family members need. … More Americans will go hungry. Soup kitchens and food pantries and the food banks that supply them will not have the resources to meet this need.”

According to  from the Congressional Budget Office, about 1.1 million people will lose SNAP benefits between 2025 and 2034, including 800,000 able-bodied adults through age 64 who don’t live with dependents and 300,000 parents or caregivers up to age 64 with children aged 14 and older.

An additional 1 million people who are able‑bodied adults ages 18 to 54 — or 18 to 49 starting in 2031 — who do not live with dependents but would have received a waiver from work requirements could also lose benefits.

Exemptions were also removed for homeless individuals, veterans and young adults who were in foster care when they turned age 18 under the megabill.

Berg said it could be very difficult for these populations to not only get jobs but provide the documentation to prove to the government they are meeting work requirements.

“It will be extraordinarily difficult for them, and they are among the most vulnerable Americans already,” he said. “Some of the most vulnerable populations — homeless people, veterans and young people who just left foster care — are going to lose their food, lose their groceries and there is no plan in place to fix that.”

CBO estimates that while there will be reductions in SNAP participation among these groups, it will be partially offset by the increases in participation among American Indians, who received exemptions under the megabill.

Supporters of the work requirements have said they are necessary to combat waste, fraud and abuse. SNAP benefits are administered under the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) by the Department of Agriculture.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in an interview on Fox Business on Friday that SNAP benefits are meant to be used temporarily and not long-term.

“The American dream is not being on [a] food stamp program,” Rollins said. “The American dream is not being on all these programs. That should be a hand up, not a handout. … As of yesterday, we have moved 1.75 million people off of SNAP. … A stronger economy, higher wages, I mean this is what we’re fighting for every day, not bigger programs, smaller programs. People to have real jobs, real health care, a real opportunity for their children and their grandchildren.”

FNS didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for further comment.

Data from the  shows the majority of American families receiving SNAP benefits had at least one family member working in the past 12 months.

However, work requirements can reduce program participation. A  found SNAP work requirements could lead to up to 53% of eligible adults exiting the program within 18 months.

“These work requirements aren’t really about promoting work. They’re about dehumanizing people and attacking the ‘other’,” Berg said. “Most SNAP recipients are pro-work, and most SNAP recipients are already working, or children or people with disability or older Americans. So all this is sort of a diversionary debate.”

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Every year they are made with the best of intentions — with the hope and desire to become a better version of ourselves — so why is it that millions of people make New Year’s resolutions knowing the odds of them ever following through with them are minimal?

Jasper Rook Williams — fitness expert, online coach and owner of JRW Fitness — has made a successful career so far working with hundreds of clients around the world on improving their nutrition, training and lifestyle calibration. He has a good idea why.

“The goals, if sometimes a little ambitious, are rarely the problem and they are all set with best intentions,” Rook Williams tells ABC News. “The issue is there’s rarely enough thought put into the approach. People have high ambitions hinging on mostly unrealistic and unsustainable methods. Rather than just thinking ‘I’ll eat salads and join a gym’, people need to prioritize achievable routines, sustainability and lifestyle changes from a broader and more holistic perspective.”

According to research, Rook Williams isn’t wrong. The failure rate for New Year’s resolutions is said to be an estimated 80% with most people losing their resolve and motivation just weeks later in mid-February, according to U.S News and World Report.

“Changing your habits is very difficult, including finding the right moment to make a change,” Bas Verplanken, professor of social psychology at the University of Bath, said in a report released by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in 2017. “Changing from December 31st to January 1st is not a dramatic discontinuity. Many resolutions are made on December 31st, and go down the drain on January 2nd.”

Psychologically speaking, the beginning of a new year is often viewed as a seminal moment — a time to reflect on the previous year and look ahead to the new one. But this doesn’t necessarily translate to immediate change and action just because of timing.

“Anything worthwhile is never without obstacle”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the top three New Year’s resolutions made each year are living healthier (23%), personal improvement or happiness (21%) and losing weight (20%), according to a report published by Statista in Nov. 2022.

“A great question to ask yourself when starting out is “does this feel sustainable?” Rook Williams explains to ABC News. “If you can’t keep up the routine then you definitely won’t keep the results.”

One of the things that Rook Williams has found leads to people maintaining their success is when people have — or are given — a sense of accountability.

“You have to bear in mind that creating new habits is hard and progress for anything worthwhile is never linear,” he said. “There will be times when either you want to stop or results seem to have stopped and that can be hard to deal with. That’s when having someone to guide you can keep you accountable can be invaluable in the process of change.”

Ultimately, to successfully make a change for the better, it comes down to striking the right balance, according to Rook Williams.

“In the case of fitness, it’s not just the food or training or wider lifestyle that will create the change but all three of these things working together,” he continued. “They’re not mutually exclusive. Lacking motivation is common and, in my experience, is something that comes when you don’t have a plan. Whether you hire a professional or not, just removing the guesswork and gaining a sense of direction always helps the individual on their path to success.”

“Motivation is temporary”
One of the biggest obstacles to maintaining resolutions, particularly when it comes to fitness objectives, is to choose goals that are both achievable and sustainable.

An estimated 12% of all new gym memberships per year occur in January, according to a study done by IHRSA, the fitness industry’s only global trade association that represents health clubs worldwide. Another study indicates that four out of every five people who join the gym in January will actually quit within five months.

“Motivation is temporary for everyone,” says Rook Williams. “So the best thing you can do is use that time to create the habits and routines needed to see you through once it wanes. And it will wane. It always does. The classic thing new gym starters do in the new year is go from zero to 100 mph … They want to go from not working out at all and eating what they want to training five, six, seven days a week and eating like a rabbit. This just sets them up for failure because it’s just not realistic.”

One of the biggest reasons why Rook Williams’ clients often succeed when it comes to setting goals is the focus on maintaining a healthy outlook every day and “saying no to short-termism.”

“Being new at something and hoping to be perfect straight away is a sure fire way to give up on anything very quickly,” Rook Williams explains. “Be sure to cut yourself some slack. If you planned to train three days one week but only managed two, that doesn’t make you a failure. It’s still two more than you were doing before, so just wipe the slate clean and try it again without holding on to guilt or punishing yourself.”

“Everyone falls off the horse at some point, even the pros,” Rook Williams continued. “What’s important is how quickly you dust yourself off and get back to work. Those who make it do this right away. But those who let one mistake spill over into more mistakes are the ones who are most likely to give up and start again next year.”

“Never just one solution”
No matter what resolution you may make in the New Year, for Rook Williams, success is all about perspective and making changes in incremental ways that suit your lifestyle rather than completely disrupting it.

“There is never just one solution to a problem, whatever that problem might be,” he continued. “Your goal might be set in stone, but how you achieve it shouldn’t be. Don’t get married to just one method. Finding sustainable success is all about finding the method that is easiest and most maintainable for you.”

Unrealistic expectations and the dangers of expecting to get it right the first time are one of the main things that Rook Williams warns his clients about.

“With so much conflicting information out there and each of us having our own unique goals, schedules and responsibilities, the chance of getting your nutritional approach spot on when going alone immediately is incredibly slim,” Rook Williams explains. “Even if it is working, it might not be sustainable so be prepared for a period involving a lot of trial and error.”

For Rook Williams this was a huge reason why he became a coach in the first place. “It took me ages to piece it all together and, once I had, I wanted to help others do the same and in far less time.”

Research actually backs this up. According to a 2012 study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Weight and Eating Disorders Program, 65% of dieters return to their pre-diet weight within three years and only 5% of people who lose weight on a restrictive diet, such as a liquid or no-carb, manage to keep the weight off — just one out of every 20 dieters.

“Carbs are tasty, alcohol can be fun, food is for eating and going without all these things forever is, for most people, totally unrealistic. When you think about it logically like that, it’s no surprise the majority of people fail to keep off the weight they lose.”

Ultimately, making any major change in your life requires more than just the desire to do so. It requires a goal, determination and a willingness to learn all mixed with a heavy dose of reality and a well-constructed approach to change.

“If you have a day where you feel like you can’t be bothered with anything, remember you are running your own race,” Rook Williams explains. “Success isn’t made by being perfect everyday but by doing your best everyday, whatever that looks like to you. What I have learned myself — and what I have really seen leads people to success — is if you have good habits and routines in place that you have created over time, that’s what is going to get you to where you want to be.”

Said Rook Williams: “It’s not just the food or training or wider lifestyle that will create the change but all three of these things. They’re all connected.”

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Actor Isiah Whitlock Jr. has died, his manager confirmed to ABC News.

“It is with deep sadness that I share the passing of Isiah Whitlock Jr. He passed away today peacefully in NYC after a brave battle with a short illness,” his manager Brian Liebman said in a statement. “Isiah was a brilliant actor and even better person. He was loved by all who had the pleasure to work with or know him.”

������������������������� to the actor on Instagram, writing, “If you knew him – you loved him. May his memory forever be a blessing. Our hearts are so broken. He will be very, very missed.”

He is known for The Wire and for frequently collaborating with director Spike Lee on films like Da 5 Bloods�����Ի� BlacKkKlansman.

Born on Sept. 13, 1954, in South Bend, Indiana, Whitlock got his start as an actor while attending college at Southwest Minnesota State University, where he had a football scholarship and studied theater. He joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, CA, after graduating in 1976.

In 1987, he landed a role in the TV series Cagney & Lacey, in which, according to IMDB, Whitlock played a man getting in a cab.

He went on to book a few more roles in films like Gremlins 2: The New Batch, 1990’s �ҴǴǻ�ڱ��������,��the TV series As the World Turns and more.

From 2002 to 2008, he starred as Senator R. Clayton “Clay” Davis in The Wire. He made the role his own when he developed a catchphrase for his character: “Sheeeeee-it.”

Following The Wire, Whitlock continued to star in several TV series, including Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Rubicon and Meet the Browns. He also starred in the 2011 film Cedar Rapids and the 2008 film Cadillac Records alongside �����DzԳ�é, Adrien Brody and Jeffrey Wright.

In 2012, he collaborated with Lee for Red Hook Summer and also starred in the TV series Smash.

He went on to star in Veep alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus from 2013 to 2015 as George Maddox.

In 2020, he starred in the TV series Your Honor as Charlie Figaro alongside Bryan Cranston. The show lasted two seasons and wrapped in 2023.

His most recent role was as Larry Dokes in the Netflix miniseries The Residence, which he starred in with Uzo Aduba, Giancarlo Esposito, Randall Park and more.

In the upcoming 2026 Disney film Hoppers, Whitlock voiced the character of Bird King. The film also stars Jon Hamm, Meryl Streep, Kathy Najimy and Dave Franco.

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Finn, 60, died on Dec. 22 following a three-year battle with cancer, which had been in remission but then returned.

Finn began his career as an improv comedian alongside his college pal Chris Farley. His first big break in television came on The George Wendt Show, where he played the brother of Wendt’s character, George Coleman. He went on to recurring roles in shows like Murphy Brown and 3rd Rock from the Sun, and played Bill Norwood on The Middle from 2010 to 2018.

Seinfeld fans knew Finn as Joe Mayo, a character in the episode “The Reverse Peephole,” while Friends fans would remember him as Dr. Roger, Monica’s boyfriend in the episodes “The One That Could Have Been, Part 1” and “The One That Could Have Been, Part 2.”

Finn also appeared in films like Dude, Where’s My Car and It’s Complicated, and was an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado and his alma mater, Marquette University.

He’s survived by his wife, Donna Finn, and their three children as well as his parents and siblings.

(This is an updated version of a story that was originally published Dec. 25, 2025 at 3:53 p.m.)

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General Hospital star Anthony Geary has died, his publicist confirmed to KABC. He was 78.

The soap opera star was known for playing Luke Spencer on the hit ABC daytime drama.

Fans remember Geary’s Luke Spencer for being quirky, impulsive, brash and sassy, which made him one of daytime TV’s most iconic characters.

Geary’s longtime role as Luke Spencer began in 1978. He played the iconic soap opera character on TV until 2015.

“He was not created to be a heroic character,” Geary told Nightline in 2015. “He was created to be an anti-hero and I have treasured the anti-side of the hero and pushed it for a long time.”

“He’s not a white hat or a black hat, he’s all shades of grey,” he continued. “And that has been the saving grace of playing him all these years.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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This fee is part of the agency’s next phase of the REAL ID implementation process and will require individuals to verify their identity through a biometric or biographic system if they don’t have a compliant form of identification before they’re permitted to cross through the checkpoint.

The announcement follows a proposed rule published in the Federal Register last month, but the agency increased the fee from its previously proposed amount of $18.

“The fee was necessary because we needed to modernize the system. We needed to make sure that the system is safe,” Steve Lorincz, TSA’s deputy executive assistant administrator for security operations, told ABC News.

TSA says the fee will cover the administrative and IT costs associated with the ID verification program and ensure the expense is covered by the travelers and not the taxpayers.

Individuals traveling without a REAL ID can go online at �����Ի� follow the instructions listed to verify their identity and pay the fees once it goes into effect next year.

After completing the steps, they will receive an email confirmation to show the TSA officer before they can pass through the checkpoint. The whole process should typically take between 10 to 15 minutes, but could also take as much as 30 minutes or even longer.

The agency warns that even then, there is no guarantee that individuals will be cleared to cross through the security checkpoint.

“We still need to go through the process to make sure that we verify who you are. And for whatever reason, if we can’t do that, then you can’t go through the process,” Lorincz said.

Travelers in line who get to the checkpoint without an acceptable form of ID will be sent out of the line to complete the online verification process before they can proceed. TSA says those with a lost or stolen REAL ID or passport will also have to pay fees.

Once verified, the fees will cover access through the TSA checkpoint for up to ten days. After that, if the individual travels without a REAL ID again, they will have to pay the fees.

The agency says around 94% of travelers are already using a REAL ID or another acceptable form of ID.

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(NEW YORK) — Mars is a cold, dry, desert-like planet. But billions of years ago, scientific evidence suggests that it had a thick atmosphere, which kept it warm enough to support flowing water on its surface. So, what happened to the Red Planet, and could it happen to Earth?

“From everything we know about the history of Mars through robotic exploration, it had very similar chemistry [to Earth]. It had very similar periods of time and development. It had that thicker atmosphere, had standing water, fresh water. All the things that Earth had,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society.

“So, what went wrong? Why don’t we see Mars as a rich planet now? That’s exactly the kind of thing that helps us put Earth in context and hopefully makes us appreciate Earth a little bit better as an outcome of that,” he added.

Dreier says one of the reasons Mars no longer has a dense and protective atmosphere is that the planet lacks the same kind of magnetic field that keeps Earth safe from the sun’s highly charged particles.

To better understand how solar wind energy interacts with Mars’ atmosphere and magnetic environment, and how that might have altered the planet’s surface, NASA and the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory are sending twin orbiters to the Red Planet.

The ESCAPADE mission, short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, is the first dual-satellite mission to another planet. Two identical spacecraft will orbit in formation to provide a first-of-its-kind 3D view of Mars’ magnetosphere and upper atmosphere.

A unique route to the Red Planet

Scheduled to lift off on Sunday at 2:45 p.m. ET from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket, the two probes will take a unique path to Mars. Instead of the traditional route used by previous Mars missions, UC Berkley says the ESCAPADE will first travel to a Lagrange point, an area in space where the pull of Earth’s and the sun’s gravity is balanced. The two craft will loop around it for about a year and then slingshot back toward Earth on their way to Mars. 

This flexible route could pave the way for future Mars missions by allowing for launch schedules spread over many months, which is essential if humans are to send fleets of spacecraft to Mars.

Sunday’s launch is only the second flight of the New Glenn rocket, a much more powerful rocket than the company’s New Shepard, which it uses for its regular space tourist missions to the edge of space. New Glenn is more than 320 feet tall, partially reusable and capable of delivering payloads to low, medium and geosynchronous orbits.

Unlocking the magnetic mysteries of Mars

NASA says the two identical Mars probes, which are nicknamed Gold and Blue after UC Berkeley’s school colors, “will reveal the planet’s real-time response to space weather and how the Martian magnetosphere changes over time.”

The two probes are about the size of a mini-fridge and weigh nearly 250 pounds.

Once they arrive at Mars in 2027, “The twin probes are designed to complement each other and unlock a more complete, real-time picture of how the Martian atmosphere blows off into space,” according to an analysis of the mission by the Planetary Society.

Dreier says that understanding what happened and is happening to Mars could help scientists better protect our own climate and atmosphere from current and future solar threats.

“The interaction between the sun’s particles and the atmosphere of Mars is thought to be one of the driving reasons that Mars no longer has a dense and protective atmosphere itself on the planet. So, understanding that relationship helps us understand the history and processes that have stripped away Mars’s atmosphere over time,” Dreier explained.

Safeguarding future astronauts from solar threats

The mission’s principal investigator, Robert Lillis of the Space Sciences Laboratory, emphasized that mapping Mars’ magnetic fields and how they respond to space weather is also critical for safeguarding future astronauts who may visit the planet. Solar storms and background cosmic radiation could pose significant risks to settlers, and lessons from this mission could help NASA protect human crews who may eventually spend time there.

“We will be making the space weather measurements we need to understand the system well enough to forecast solar storms whose radiation could harm astronauts on the surface of Mars or in orbit,” Lillis said in a press statement.

Dreier says the ESCAPADE mission is building on the science collected by MAVEN, another probe that has been studying the planet’s atmosphere since 2014. He notes that the mission is costing significantly less than previous scientific missions to space.

A mission on a budget

“This is a very, very, very low-cost mission for these types of science missions. This is roughly $70 to $80 million,” said Dreier. “It’s one of these smallest mission classes that NASA has, and as a consequence of that, it’s a very limited and focused set of scientific priorities, and it’s almost itself demonstrating the feasibility of doing missions like this.”

Dreier points out that NASA is facing the prospect of significant budget cuts and the decommissioning of a number of spacecraft, including MAVEN. He says wiping out the space agency’s science missions could have detrimental long-term consequences.

“It was actually looking at planets like Mars and also looking at planets like Venus that made scientists on Earth realize our climate and our planet is not this fixed, unchanging sphere. Things can go really, really, really wrong over the course of long periods of time,” said Dreier.

“Understanding that we weren’t owed an atmosphere, that we aren’t owed this protection from our magnetic field, puts this into context that the life and the habitat that we have here on Earth is actually very rare, but it’s also relies on and is protected by a number of these external factors that we are really just beginning to understand over the last generation or two,” he added.

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(WASHINGTON) — Most Americans oppose the demolition of the White House’s East Wing to make way for President Donald Trump’s ballroom, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.

A 56% majority of Americans oppose the Trump administration tearing down the East Wing of the White House as part of the construction of a 90,000-square-foot ballroom paid for by $300 million in private donations, including 45% who “strongly” oppose it, the poll finds.

Just 28% of Americans support it, with 15% strongly supporting the East Wing being torn down for a ballroom, the poll found. Another 16% say they are not sure.

Support breaks down by party lines, with a 62% majority of Republicans in support and 88% of Democrats opposed. A 61% majority of independents oppose the East Wing tear town and ballroom, with nearly half opposing it strongly, according to the poll.

Opinions are much stronger among Democrats: 78% of Democrats strongly oppose the teardown and ballroom, a much smaller 35% of Republicans strongly support it.

A majority of liberals (76%) and about half of moderates (51%) strongly oppose the East Wing teardown and ballroom, while just about a third of conservatives (34%) support it strongly.

Strong support peaks among strong Trump approvers, with 58% saying they strongly support the teardown of the East Wing and ballroom. Among those who somewhat approve of Trump, just 11% strongly support the plan.

Among strong Trump disapprovers, 82% strongly oppose tearing down the East Wing and building a ballroom, while a much smaller 37% of those who somewhat disapprove of the president strongly oppose the plan.

Just about four in 10 conservative Republicans (42%) say they are strongly in favor of the plan. Conversely, 82% of liberal Democrats and 73% of moderate and conservative Democrats oppose it strongly.

Methodology: This ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® Oct. 24-28, 2025, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,725 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.9 percentage points, including the design effect. Error margins are larger for subgroups. The partisan divisions are 28% Democrats, 31% Republicans and 41% independents or something else.

See more details on ABC News’ survey methodology

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(WASHINGTON) — Legend says that George Washington once chopped down his father’s cherry tree.

Satellite images show President Donald Trump’s  has appeared to take down at least six trees on the White House grounds — including two historic magnolia trees commemorating Presidents Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The satellite images released on Thursday provide the fullest picture yet of the extent of the demolition work on the White House’s East Wing and its effect on the surrounding parkland — changes made without consulting the government commission established by federal law to ensure the preservation and integrity of government buildings in D.C., according to former commission officials who spoke to ABC News.

Visible construction work on the new ballroom appears to have begun more than three weeks ago, according to satellite images of the White House complex taken over the last month. An image taken on Sept. 26 shows preparations for the construction, including the removal of multiple trees in President’s Park. 

The Jacqueline Kennedy Garden — established by first lady Edith Roosevelt in 1903 adjacent to the East Wing — was also leveled during the demolition, according to satellite images. Earlier this year, Trump also paved over the Rose Garden, which was designed by the same architect who designed the Kennedy Garden.

The White House said in an announcement this summer that the project would begin in September and be completed “long before the end of President Trump’s term.” 

Satellite images of the White House taken by Planet Labs on Thursday show that the East Wing has been leveled, while preparations appear to have begun on nearby land that the ballroom is expected to occupy.

At least six trees that once surrounded the East Wing appear to have been removed from the White House grounds, according to the images.

Two historic magnolia trees originally dating to the 1940s — designated as commemorative trees for Presidents Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt — appear to have been removed during the construction.

A magnolia tree commemorating Harding was originally planted by first lady Florence Harding in 1922 northeast of the entrance to the original 1902 East Wing, according to the National Park Service. The tree was replanted in 1947 and later re-designated as a commemorative tree in the 1950s, according to the park service.

The  was originally planted in 1942 southeast of the entrance to the newly constructed East Wing, according to the park service. The tree was designated as a commemorative tree in the mid-1950s.

The White House did not respond for a request for comment about the removal of the trees. 

Trump previously vowed that the ballroom project would not “interfere with the current” East Wing structure. 

“It’ll be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” Trump said in July. 

A White House official said that Trump intends to submit plans to the National Capital Planning Commission for approval but has not done so yet. According to multiple former members of the NCPC, plans have historically been submitted and approved before any demolition work began. 

When speaking about the ballroom project earlier this month, Trump marveled at what he said was the lack of an approval process, compared to his experience constructing buildings in New York. 

“I said, ‘How long will it take me?’ ‘Sir, you can start tonight, you have no approvals.’ I said, ‘You gotta be kidding,'” Trump said. “They said, ‘Sir, this is the White House, you’re the President of the United States, you can do anything you want.'”

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