Senate confirms Kelly Loeffler, former Georgia senator, to lead Small Business Administration

Senate confirms Kelly Loeffler, former Georgia senator, to lead Small Business Administration

By MEG KINNARD Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia businesswoman and former senator, to lead the Small Business Administration, returning a stalwart supporter of President Donald Trump to Washington.

At SBA, Loeffler will oversee the entity that describes itself as the only Cabinet-level federal agency “fully dedicated to small business” by providing “counseling, capital, and contracting expertise as the nation’s only go-to resource and voice for small businesses.” Typically, the agency — which was founded in 1953 — offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs caused by a disaster, loans that can be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable and other expenses that would have been met if not for the disaster.

The Senate confirmed Loeffler on a 52-46 vote.

Loeffler, who co-chaired Trump’s second inaugural committee, served briefly in the U.S. Senate in the final year of the president’s first term. Appointing her to the Senate to fill out the term of Johnny Isakson, Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp touted Loeffler as a successor in the Republican’s moderate mold. But facing an immediate reelection campaign in 2020, Loeffler hewed closely to Trump to stave off challengers from her right flank, characterizing herself as “more conservative than Attila the Hun.”

She and fellow Republican incumbent David Perdue, another Trump ally, advanced to the January 2021 runoffs following a November election in which Biden narrowly beat Trump in Georgia. Trump infamously pressured Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to flip the results, then blasted Raffensperger and Kemp for not helping overturn the election.

Loeffler called for Raffensperger’s resignation after he certified Biden’s victory in the state.

With Loeffler, Perdue and Trump casting doubts on Georgia’s election system, and with Trump not on the January runoff ballot, GOP turnout dipped, resulting in Loeffler’s defeat to Raphael Warnock and Perdue’s loss to Jon Ossoff, one day before Trump supporters ransacked the U.S. Capitol in the Jan. 6 riots.

The Republican losses in Georgia gave Democrats control of the Senate by the slimmest of margins. Trump won Georgia in last year’s election, and Loeffler’s home state continues to be critical for the fortunes of both the president and his party nationally.

Since her loss to Warnock, Loeffler started a conservative voter registration organization and dove into GOP fundraising, becoming one of the top individual donors and bundlers to Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign.

Loeffler’s confirmation also adds another Cabinet member of significant wealth to the billionaire president’s second administration. Loeffler — a former WNBA owner and executive who during her brief stint on Capitol Hill was the Senate’s wealthiest member — is married to Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, the publicly traded firm that owns the New York Stock Exchange.

Winter-weary East Coast hit with another storm as temperatures plunge elsewhere

Winter-weary East Coast hit with another storm as temperatures plunge elsewhere

By BEN FINLEY and JOHN RABY Associated Press

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Officials urged people to stay off the roads Wednesday in portions of Virginia and North Carolina where a storm dropped heavy snow and caused hundreds of accidents in places unaccustomed to significant accumulations.

The storm that already dropped snow in the Midwest spread across the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys and into places that are just starting to clean up after a weekend of deadly floods.

Up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of snow was possible through Thursday along the Atlantic Coast in Virginia and major ice accumulations were forecast in eastern North Carolina.

The National Weather Service said snowfall rates of up to 2 inches (5 centimeters) per hour were seen in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia and in northeastern North Carolina.

Meteorologist Alec Butner said additional accumulations were likely Thursday morning. While Butner said the snowfall in Norfolk won’t approach the 1892 record of 18.6 inches (47.2 centimeters), it’s still “fairly infrequent” to reach snowfall totals of about 8 to 9 inches (20 to 23 centimeters).

Virginia State Police reported 275 accidents by late Wednesday afternoon, including at least two dozen involving injuries. Accidents also closed portions of Interstate 95 and I-85 near Raleigh, North Carolina.

Nearly 5,600 flights were canceled or delayed across the U.S., including more than 400 in and out of Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, according to the flight-tracking site FlightAware.com.

Elsewhere, a polar vortex sent temperatures plunging from Montana to southern Texas.

‘Too much for us’

As thick snowflakes pelted Norfolk, Virginia, a line of shoppers snaked deep into a Harris Teeter grocery store, past loaves of bread on shelves. In the parking lot of a Total Wine store, college students in fraternity sweatshirts lugged a keg of beer to their car.

But on the sidewalks of the city’s historic Ghent neighborhood, there was an eerie quiet. A white-haired shih tzu named Sasha tramped delicately in newly fallen snow Wednesday.

“This is a little weird for her. I love the snow, but it looks like this is a bit too much for us,” said Sasha’s owner, Lotfi Hamdi, who stocked up on milk and bread. “If it’s more than five inches, I think that’s a bit risky for us. Luckily I’m off for the next couple of days.”

Sasha isn’t alone in feeling out of sorts. The winter months in this city of 230,000 people on the Chesapeake Bay sometimes pass with barely a dusting of snow. Schools and many businesses closed Wednesday throughout the Hampton Roads region and could remain shuttered into the weekend. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard reduced operations.

Deja storm all over again

Virginia remained under a state of emergency that Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued for another storm last week that allowed the National Guard and state agencies to assist local governments. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein followed with an emergency declaration Tuesday. Both urged motorists to stay off the roads.

As snow, sleet and freezing rain arrived, Stein warned that “our greatest concerns remain power outages and road safety.”

Potential ice accumulations of up to one-half inch (1.3 centimeters) in places like Greenville and Goldsboro would cause tree branches to snap, said North Carolina Emergency Management Director Will Ray.

Officials said more than 1,200 crew members were ready or already clearing roads.

Snow after floods

Weekend storms that pummeled the eastern U.S. killed at least 19 people, including 14 in Kentucky, where a half-foot (15 centimeters) or more of snow was expected Wednesday.

“This is a snowstorm in the middle of a natural disaster,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.

In southern West Virginia, weekend floods killed three people in McDowell County, destroying roads and disrupting public water systems. Shelters remained open at churches and schools.

The incoming snowstorm “is going to severely hinder, if not halt, a lot of the efforts that we have,” said McDowell County Commissioner Michael Brooks.

Bone-chilling cold

About 100 million people in the nation’s midsection were gripped by a cold wave. Hundreds of public school districts canceled classes or switched to online learning for a second day Wednesday in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri.

Ashley Pippin, a spokeswoman for Special Olympics Kansas, is getting tired of the cold even as the group organizes a series of fundraising polar plunges, including three this weekend. It’s so cold, firefighters might have to go out and break the ice.

“We’ve done it before,” Pippin said.

Hettinger, North Dakota, recorded a low temperature of minus 45 degrees (minus 42 Celsius) on Wednesday and had warmed to minus 13 (minus 25 Celsius) by midday. Denver broke a 19-year-old record when it dipped to minus 6 (minus 21 Celsius). In San Antonio, Texas, wind chill readings could dip as low as minus 2 (minus 19 Celsius) early Thursday. .

Earlier this month, famous groundhog Punxsatawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter weather.

“I was thinking I’d like to choke him,” said Robin White Stevens of hard-hit Grundy, Virginia, whose challenges this winter have included falling on her hip while walking along icy ditch lines. “We can’t catch a break weatherwise. Snow, flood. It’s a mess around here.”

But Michele Hunter, who drives a bus for a southeast Virginia transit authority and hails from Buffalo, New York, had a different take on winter. While she stocked up on groceries because stores were closing down, she said she’s more accustomed to blizzards that bring feet of snow — not inches.

In Buffalo, life still mostly goes on, she said, unlike the standstill she’s witnessing in coastal Virginia.

“This is light,” she said of the snow falling around her. “In Buffalo, we have to dig tunnels in order to get to the end of the street, to get on a snowmobile, to go get groceries. This is nothing.”

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Raby reported from Charleston, West Virginia. Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, and Gary Robertson and Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

DOGE notches courtroom wins as Elon Musk crusades to slash federal government

DOGE notches courtroom wins as Elon Musk crusades to slash federal government

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, CHRIS MEGERIAN and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Although some parts of President Donald Trump ’s agenda are getting bogged down by litigation, Elon Musk ’s Department of Government Efficiency is having better luck in the courtroom.

Labor unions, Democrats and federal employees have filed several lawsuits arguing that DOGE is running roughshod over privacy protections or usurping power from other branches of government.

But judges appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents haven’t always gone along with those arguments, at least so far. Most notably, DOGE critics are failing to obtain temporary restraining orders that would prevent Musk’s team from accessing sensitive government databases.

“It is not the job of the federal courts to police the security of the information systems in the executive branch,” wrote U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in a case involving the Office of Personnel Management. Moss was appointed by President Barack Obama.

The success is striking given the other challenges that Trump has faced in the judicial system, which has blocked — at least temporarily — his efforts to limit birthright citizenship, freeze congressionally authorized foreign aid and stop some healthcare services for transgender youth.

If Musk’s opponents continue struggling to gain traction with lawsuits, he could be largely unencumbered in his crusade to downsize the federal government and workforce.

“The continued successes in the courts in favor of the Trump administration shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has ever read our great Constitution, which clearly lays out the role of the Executive Branch, and which President Trump and his entire administration are following to a T,” Harrison Fields, the White House deputy press secretary, said in a statement. “The resistance campaign can try, but they will continue to fail in their pursuit to rewrite the Constitution and deny the people the legal authority of the President to run the Executive Branch.”

An exception to DOGE’s legal victories has been a suit regarding Treasury Department systems, which are used to distribute trillions of dollars in federal money. The databases can include sensitive information like bank accounts and Social Security numbers, and they’re traditionally maintained only by nonpartisan career officials.

A judge in Washington restricted DOGE’s access to two staff members, while another judge in New York has temporarily blocked DOGE altogether.

Norm Eisen, a lawyer who worked for House Democrats during their first impeachment of Trump, said it was too early to say that the legal efforts wouldn’t work. He noted that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, also appointed by Obama, expressed concern about Musk’s apparent “unchecked authority” in a case involving federal data and worker layoffs.

Although she didn’t issue a temporary restraining sought by Democratic attorneys general from 14 states, Chutkan said they could still make a strong argument Musk and DOGE violated the Constitution as the case progresses.

Eisen is representing current and former employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was shut down by Musk and Trump. His lawsuit alleges that Musk and DOGE are exercising powers that should only belong to those elected by voters or confirmed by the Senate.

“These are not minor peccadillos,” Eisen said. “These are some of the most fundamental issues that our Constitution and laws address.”

John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California in Berkeley, said an important factor has been the administration’s contention that Musk is a presidential adviser without any independent authority. He said there are echoes of another legal battle from the 1990s, when Hillary Clinton chaired a healthcare task force as first lady. A federal appeals court in Washington ruled that the task force did not need to comply with rules on open meetings.

“That’s how they’re winning the lawsuits,” Yoo said. “They’re trying to stay on the side of the line that the D.C. circuit has drawn.”

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman heard more than three hours of arguments Wednesday on a request for a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit challenging DOGE’s access to personal information collected by the federal government.

She did not issue a decision, and expressed skepticism about the argument from labor unions. But she also pressed administration lawyers on why DOGE representatives “need to know everything.”

Emily Hall of the Justice Department said DOGE was tasked with making “broad, sweeping reforms” that require such access.

“It’s a pretty vague answer,” responded Boardman, who was appointed by President Joe Biden.

A major victory for Trump and Musk came in Boston, where U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. allowed the administration to implement its deferred resignation program.

Commonly described as a buyout, the program allows workers to quit while getting paid until Sept. 30. It was challenged by a group of labor unions, but O’Toole ruled against them on technical legal grounds, saying they didn’t have standing to sue. O’Toole was appointed by President Bill Clinton.

Moss, the judge in the case involving the Office of Personnel Management, also decided not to block Musk’s team from viewing Education Department data. He pointed out that DOGE employees had testified in court papers they would follow laws around information sharing.

U.S. District Judge John Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush, also did not stand in the way of DOGE’s involvement at the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Although Bates said he had “serious concerns” about the privacy issues raised by the legally complex case, he found the evidence did not yet justify a court block.

Administration lawyers said the DOGE team was not “running rampant, accessing any data system they desire” and had gotten security training and signed nondisclosure agreements.

Trump and Zelenskyy trade barbs as US-Ukraine relations sour over the war with Russia

Trump and Zelenskyy trade barbs as US-Ukraine relations sour over the war with Russia

By HANNA ARHIROVA and JUSTIN SPIKE Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Relations between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump deteriorated rapidly Wednesday as Zelenskyy said Trump was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space” and Trump called Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” in comments that were sure to complicate efforts to end the war.

Zelenskyy also said he would like Trump’s team “to be more truthful” as he offered his first response to a series of striking claims that Trump made a day earlier, including falsely suggesting that Kyiv was to blame for the war, which enters its fourth year next week.

The comments from Trump and Zelenskyy were a staggering back-and-forth between leaders of two countries that have been staunch allies in recent years under Trump’s predecessor. While former President Joe Biden was in the White House, the U.S. provided crucial military equipment to Kyiv to fend off the invasion and used its political weight to defend Ukraine and isolate Russia on the world stage.

The Trump administration has started charting a new course, reaching out to Russia and pushing for a peace deal. Senior officials from both countries held talks Tuesday to discuss improving ties, negotiating an end to the war and potentially preparing a meeting between Trump and Putin after years of frosty relations.

Trump lashed out at Zelenskyy in a social media post, calling him “a modestly successful comedian” who “talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle.”

Trump went on to say that the only thing Zelenskyy “was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’” He advised Zelenskyy to “move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would like to meet with Trump.

Russia’s army crossed the border on Feb. 24, 2022, in an all-out invasion that Putin sought to justify by saying it was needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine and prevent the country from joining NATO. Ukraine and its allies denounced it as an unprovoked act of aggression.

“I would like to have a meeting, but it needs to be prepared so that it brings results,” Putin said Wednesday in televised remarks. He added that he would be “pleased” to meet Trump but noted that Trump has acknowledged that a Ukrainian settlement could take longer than he initially hoped.

The Russian leader hailed Tuesday’s talks between Russian and U.S. senior officials in the Saudi capital of Riyadh as “very positive.” He said officials who took part in the talks described the U.S. delegation to him as “completely different people who were open to the negotiation process without any bias, without any condemnation of what was done in the past,” and determined to work together with Moscow.

Putin said “the goal and subject” of Tuesday’s talks “was the restoration of Russia-U.S. relations.”

“Without increasing the level of trust between Russia and the United States, it is impossible to resolve many issues, including the Ukrainian crisis. The goal of this meeting was precisely to increase trust between Russia and the United States,” Putin said.

He brushed off Zelenskyy’s complaints about Ukraine being left out of the U.S.-Russian talks, saying that Kyiv’s reaction was “unfounded.”

“President Trump told me during our phone call that the United States are proceeding from the assumption that the negotiations process will involve Russia and Ukraine,” Putin said. “No one is going to exclude Ukraine out of it.”

Putin also added that he was surprised to see Trump showing “restraint” regarding the European leaders who backed his rival in the U.S. election.

“All European leaders effectively intervened directly in the U.S. elections,” he said, adding that some “directly insulted” Trump. “Frankly speaking, I’m surprised to see the newly elected U.S. president’s restraint regarding his allies, who have behaved in a boorish way to put it straight.”

Putin reiterated the Kremlin’s official line that Russia never rejected the possibility of talks with Kyiv or its European allies. “The Europeans have stopped contacts with Russia. The Ukrainian side has forbidden itself to negotiate,” he said in a reference to Zelenskyy’s 2022 decree that rejected any talks with Moscow.

Zelenskyy’s remarks Wednesday came shortly before he was expected to meet with Keith Kellogg, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine and Russia as part of the administration’s recent diplomatic blitz.

Ukraine and its European supporters have expressed concern that they weren’t invited to the talks between top American and Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia, amid larger worries that the deal taking shape could be unfavorable to Kyiv.

At a news conference Tuesday, Trump showed little patience for Ukraine’s objections to being excluded. He also said, without providing the source, that Zelenskyy’s approval rating stood at 4%, while telling reporters that Ukraine “should have never started” the war and “could have made a deal” to prevent it.

Zelenskyy replied Wednesday at his own news conference: “We have seen this disinformation. We understand that it is coming from Russia.” He said that Trump “lives in this disinformation space.”

Zelenskyy said he hoped Kellogg would walk through Kyiv and ask Ukrainians “if they trust their president? Do they trust Putin? Let him ask about Trump, what they think after the statements made by their president.”

Russian state TV and other state-controlled media reacted with glee to what they portrayed as Trump’s cold shoulder to Zelenskyy.

“Trump isn’t even trying to hide his irritation with Zelenskyy,” the Rossiya channel said at the top of its newscast.

“Trump steamrolled Zelenskyy for his complaints about the talks with Russia,” the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda said.

Trump also suggested Ukraine ought to hold elections, which have been postponed due to the war and the consequent imposition of martial law, in accordance with the Ukrainian Constitution.

Zelenskyy also referred to “the story” that 90% of all aid received by Ukraine comes from the United States.

He said that, for instance, about 34% of all weapons in Ukraine are domestically produced and over 30% of support comes from Europe.

The battlefield has brought more grim news for Ukraine in recent months. A relentless onslaught in eastern areas by Russia’s bigger army is grinding down Ukrainian forces, who are slowly but steadily being pushed backward at some points on the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line.

American officials have signaled that Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO to ward off Russian aggression after reaching a possible peace agreement won’t happen. Zelenskyy says any settlement will require U.S. security commitments to keep Russia at bay.

“We understand the need for security guarantees,” Kellogg said in comments carried by Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne Novyny on his arrival at Kyiv’s train station.

“It’s very clear to us the importance of the sovereignty of this nation and the independence of this nation as well. … Part of my mission is to sit and listen,” the retired three-star general said.

Kellogg said he would convey what he learns on his visit to Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “ensure that we get this one right.”

Phil Berger’s confirms reelection bid, setting up likely 2026 primary with local sheriff

Phil Berger’s confirms reelection bid, setting up likely 2026 primary with local sheriff

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger confirmed plans Tuesday to seek reelection to his chamber seat in 2026, days after his home-county sheriff said he’d run for the seat regardless of whether his fellow Republican would seek it again.

Longtime Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page announced last week that he would vie for the 26th Senate District seat held by Berger. The day before, Berger told reporters that he enjoyed the legislative work but didn’t want to “prejudge any decision” about his political future, especially with the candidate filing period more than nine months away.

On Tuesday, however, Berger told another group of reporters that “my intent has been all along to run again.”

“I intend to run. I intend to continue to be the senator from the 26th District,” he added.

The decision appears to set up a Page-Berger GOP primary in March 2026 in the district, which covers all of Rockingham County and part of Guilford County. The primary winner would likely take on a Democrat in the general election the following November for a two-year term. The primary fight could open the door for a Democrat in a district where Berger won this past November with just 54% of the vote.

Berger is curently in his 13th two-year term in the Senate and has been the only Senate leader since Republicans took over the chamber in 2011. One of the state’s most powerful politicians, Berger is considered a top architect of state government’s rightward shift on matters such as taxes, education and social issues.

The conflict between Page, who was first elected sheriff in 1998, and Berger gained attention in 2023 when Page and allies visited the Legislative Building to oppose an attempt by Berger and others to increase the number of casinos in the state in part by allowing one within Rockingham County. The casino effort failed.

Page, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2024, said last week that local residents should have had more say over any casino. Page also said that public safety would be a top issue for him in a Senate race.

Asked on Tuesday about the prospects for casino legislation in 2025, Berger said “it is not something that I’m working on” and “I don’t think it’s something that will see the light of day as far as the legislative session that we’re in.”

The position of Senate leader — known as the Senate president pro tempore — is chosen by all 50 members in the chamber every two years.

Arctic air sweeping south over Plains shatters record temperatures in North Dakota

Arctic air sweeping south over Plains shatters record temperatures in North Dakota

By JACK DURA Associated Press

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — More than 95 million people are facing gripping cold Tuesday as a polar vortex sends temperatures plunging to record levels, closing schools, bursting pipes and forcing communities to set up more temporary shelters for the homeless.

“Some of the coldest temperatures of the entire winter season right now across the central United States,” said Andrew Orrison, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The harsh cold descended on the nation’s midsection Monday on the heels of weekend storms that pummeled the Eastern U.S. killing at least 17 people. Some areas in the Midwest have wind chills as cold as -50 to -60 degrees, Orrison said.

It is so dangerous that hundreds of public school districts canceled classes or switched to online learning Tuesday in Oklahoma, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Kansas and Missouri. And in Kansas City, Kansas, dozens of tents were set up in one building to house the homeless.

The biggest batch of record-setting cold temperatures are likely to hit early Thursday and Friday, Orrison said. But North Dakota already felt more like the North Pole on Tuesday as Bismarck hit minus 39, breaking the record of minus 37 (minus 38.3 C) set in 1910 for the same date.

Stephanie Hatzenbuhler’s family has been contending with the cold in many ways on their farm and ranch west of Mandan, North Dakota, from their calving operation, to vehicles and equipment starting, to their coal-fired furnace keeping up.

“There’s always something new to learn and something new to experience. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve done this, so you have to adapt,” said Hatzenbuhler, who called the cold spell “the Siberian experience.”

Conditions were rapidly deteriorating across northeast, east and central Oklahoma as residents in these parts of the state were dealing with freezing rain, ice and snow, according to the National Weather Service.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said US Highway 75 between Tulsa and Okmulgee was shut down in both directions because of the amount of vehicles and semi-tractor trailers that were stuck on the road due to ice.

“Our troopers are working to get salt and sand trucks to the area to treat the roads but it is extremely slick in that area,” the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said in post on X.

In upstate New York, a foot or more of lake-effect snow was expected to fall Tuesday in some areas east of Lake Ontario. The blowing snow created white-out conditions and prompted travel advisories.

Snowfall across the U.S. measured as much as 3 feet (0.91 meters) to 6.5 feet (1.98 meter) in southeastern Wyoming’s Snowy Range, to several inches from South Dakota to Missouri.

Kentucky braces for winter storm

In flood-battered Kentucky, the state was bracing for a winter storm that could dump a half-foot or more of snow in some parts of the state, starting Wednesday.

“This is a snowstorm in the middle of a natural disaster,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference Tuesday in Frankfort, the capital city.

The weather-related death toll in Kentucky rose to 14, the governor said, with the two latest fatalities in Jefferson County, which includes Louisville. The two, an adult male and an adult female, were apparently homeless and both appeared to die from hypothermia, he said.

“So that should tell all of us that the weather conditions are as dangerous as that water is,” Beshear said.

Part of Virginia prepares for a foot of snow

Officials in Virginia prepared for up to a foot of snow in the state’s southern region, less than a week after being pummeled with snow, freezing rain and floodwaters.

“If you are not where you want to be by midnight tonight, please don’t go,” Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in a news conference on Tuesday.

Youngkin said the National Guard will be deployed across the state, and officials have also stockpiled water and meals for those in need. Local governments will also keep the doors of their homeless shelters open.

North Carolina governor declares a state of emergency

In North Carolina, Gov. Josh Stein declared a state of emergency on Tuesday as the National Weather Service forecast the approaching storm could bring up to 9 inches (22.9 centimeters) in far northeastern counties near the Atlantic coast.

The most populated areas of the state, including Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro, could see from 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 7.6 centimeters) of snow, according to the weather service. Mountain areas still recovering from Hurricane Helene in the fall are largely expected to receive an inch or two.

Stein and state Emergency Management Director Will Ray also warned residents — particularly in east-central counties — about freezing rain and ice accumulation that could threaten power outages and make roads treacherous.

“At this time our greatest concerns are potential power outages and road safety,” Stein said at a media briefing.

Ray said more than 180 North Carolina National Guard members have been activated to help any affected communities. Over 1,300 state Transportation Department employees and contractors were preparing for the storm in part by pretreating roads.

In Tennessee, Obion County Mayor Steve Carr said on social media Monday evening that there are currently no reports of missing people or deaths after a levee failed Saturday, flooding the small community of Rives, home to around 300 people in the western part of the state.

After assessing the destruction with the sheriff, the mayor said it is “unprecedented and has profoundly impacted the community.” Rives remains under a state of emergency and more than 75% of the city has had power restored, the mayor said.

West Virginia had 3 storm-related deaths

In southern West Virginia, officials announced three flood-related deaths in McDowell County, where multiple roads were destroyed, public water systems were severed, schools remain closed and thousands were still without power Tuesday.

The county has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation.

More than 90 people have been helped from their southwest Detroit homes after a nearly century-old water main burst Monday, leaving streets and basements flooded during below-freezing temperatures. The flood waters receded later Monday morning after the break was found and the water flow stopped, according to the Great Lakes Water Authority.

What caused the break has not yet been determined. Nearly 400 homes are in the emergency flood zone, Mayor Mike Duggan told reporters Tuesday.

Scores of snow-covered vehicles were stuck in water up to their wheel wells or engine hoods. Fire and dive team crews used inflatable boats to help some people from homes. A few people were driven out in the bucket of a front-end loader.

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Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, Julie Walker in New York, Corey Williams in Detroit, Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky, Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, Olivia Diaz in Richmond, Virginia, Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, Leah Willingham in Charleston, West Virginia, Juan Lozano in Houston, and Michael Hill in Albany, New York, contributed to this report.

Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

As egg prices soar, Trump administration plans new strategy to fight bird flu

As egg prices soar, Trump administration plans new strategy to fight bird flu

By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — With egg prices soaring, the Trump administration is planning a new strategy for fighting bird flu that stresses vaccinations and tighter biosecurity instead of killing off millions of chickens when the disease strikes a flock.

The federal government will seek “better ways, with biosecurity and medication and so on” rather than the current standard practice of destroying all the birds on a farm when an infection is detected, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said Sunday on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

Hasset said the administration planned to announce further details this week. He said they were “working with all the best people in government, including academics around the country and around the world,” to get the plan ready.

Spokespeople for the U.S. Department of Agriculture did not immediately respond to messages Tuesday seeking more information.

Normally when chickens or turkeys start dying from the disease, officials will “depopulate,” or destroy all the birds on the farm to prevent it from spreading.

But the resulting culling of millions of chickens per month has caused egg prices to skyrocket, with shortages that have led some retailers to ration sales. The average price of a dozen Grade A eggs in U.S. cities hit $4.95 in January, and the USDA predicts it will soar another 20% this year.

Hassett didn’t provide many details of how the Trump administration’s new approach would work. But he said it would involve a “better, smarter perimeter” around poultry farms. He said it doesn’t make sense to kill all the chickens inside that perimeter when the disease is being spread by wild ducks and geese.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told “Fox and Friends” that her first briefing after being sworn in was on bird flu.

“We are looking at every possible scenario to ensure that we are doing everything we can in a safe, secure manner but also to ensure that Americans have the food that they need,” Rollins told Fox News.

The poultry industry has long resisted vaccinating flocks against bird flu because of the potential impacts on export markets, as well as the expense. Most U.S. trading partners won’t accept exports from countries that allow vaccinations due to concerns that vaccines can mask the presence of the virus.

“We support the administration and their goals to bring down food inflation and cut regulatory red tape and hopefully eliminate this virus,” said Tom Super, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, which represents the broiler industry which produces chickens for meat. But he said in an interview that producers need ”robust trade protection” to ensure they don’t lose markets.

Leaders of the Congressional Chicken Caucus said in a letter to Rollins last week that while the egg industry has lost the most birds, the broiler industry could bear a disproportionate share of the costs of any policy change. According to USDA figures 77.5% of the nearly 159 million commercial birds lost to avian influenza since February 2022 have been layers, or over 123 million. That compares to 13.7 million broilers, or 8.6%, and 18.7 million turkeys, or 11.8%.

Avian influenza vaccines have long been available. Animal health company Zoetis announced on Friday that it had received a conditional license from the USDA for a new vaccine. But using it would be up to federal authorities in partnership with the industry, the company said in a statement. Other manufacturers are also working on them.

Dr. Carol Cardona, a bird flu expert at the University of Minnesota, said tighter biosecurity to prevent cross-contamination and limit outbreaks to one barn “requires an incredible amount of work on the ground,” she said.

‘I’ve seen it work,” Cardona said in an interview. “I’ve seen it fail dramatically in other cases.”

For “precision depopulation” to work, she said, there must be effective barriers to transmission between barns, such as ensuring that farm workers don’t carry the virus on their boots or clothes. And workers need to be alert for the earliest signs of abnormal deaths, she added.

Another barrier is the logistical difficulty in giving shots to up to 3 million birds or more at a single egg farm. Current vaccines are all injectables. Farms might opt to limit them to new pullets coming onto a farm, she said.

Vaccines that could be economically administered through a farm’s water supply would require new innovations, Cardona said. But until there’s a market for vaccines, she said, there won’t be an incentive to develop them.

“Today’s technology isn’t where were going to be for long, but it’s where we’re at,” Cardona said.

Gov Stein declares State of Emergency in advance of winter storm

Gov Stein declares State of Emergency in advance of winter storm

RALEIGH, N.C. (WPTF) — North Carolina Governor Josh Stein has declared a state of emergency as a major winter storm approaches, expected to bring snow, sleet, and freezing rain across the state starting Wednesday. State agencies, power companies, and local authorities are gearing up for potential power outages and hazardous road conditions.

“We are taking every precaution to ensure the safety of North Carolinians,” Stein said. He noted that additional power crews are arriving from other states to support Duke Energy, municipal power systems, and cooperatives already preparing for the storm.

State Emergency Management Director Will Ray warned that roads would be severely impacted by the wintry mix. “Travel will be treacherous,” Ray said, advising residents to avoid driving when possible.

Joey Hopkins, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Transportation (DOT), confirmed that road preparations are well underway. Crews are brining major highways and critical routes in anticipation of ice and snow accumulation.

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for much of central and eastern North Carolina, with the heaviest snowfall expected north and west of Raleigh. Areas to the south and east have a greater chance of freezing rain and sleet, increasing the likelihood of downed power lines and travel disruptions.

Duke Energy spokesperson Jeff Brooks said the company is monitoring weather developments and is ready to respond to outages. “We have local crews on standby and are bringing in additional resources as needed,” Brooks told WPTF News.

Meteorologist Nick Pietro from the National Weather Service emphasized the potential for rapidly deteriorating conditions once the storm begins. “This will make life tough on the roads,” Pietro said, noting that the storm’s impact could extend through the rest of the week.

Residents are urged to prepare for power outages and avoid non-essential travel once the storm arrives.

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