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More than 125 million Americans under dangerous heat coast to coast

An ABC News graphic shows the forecast on Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (ABC News)

(NEW YORK) — More than 125 million Americans are on alert for sweltering heat from coast-to-coast, as heat alerts are in place from Southern California to the intermountain West and northern Plains, upper Midwest and across to the Northeast.

Daily record highs may be broken in Rapid City, Fargo, Grand Forks in the northern Plains on Tuesday.

In the Northeast, record daily highs could be broken at Plattsburgh and Syracuse, New York. Other parts of New England may get with a degree or two of a daily record today.

Those daily record highs would follow several broken on Monday, including in Bismarck, North Dakota, with 105 degrees F; International Falls, Minnesota, at 97; and Hibbing, Minnesota, at 93. Rapid City, South Dakota, and Dickinson, North Dakota, tied records with 102 and 103, respectively.

On Wednesday, daily record highs are possible around Grand Rapids, MI and Wilmington, Delaware. An extreme heat warning is in place through Thursday for Minneapolis, Minneapolis, with daily high heat index up to 100 possible.

Other extreme heat warnings are in place from Utah to the upper peninsula of Michigan.

In Utah, Salt Lake City is expected to reach near 100 on Tuesday. Fargo is under an extreme heat warnings for a heat index as high as 105.

The heat index for places like Calumet, Michigan, and Duluth, Minnesota, could reach near 100.

Detroit, Michigan, is under a heat advisory for a heat index near 105.

The rest of the week will remain hot and humid across the upper Midwest with highs in the 90s and heat indices feeling even warmer.

In the Northeast, a heat wave begins today, with 3 or more days of temperatures at or above 90 degrees for New York City, Philadelphia and D.C. Those high temperatures could last five days, through Saturday.  

A heat advisory is in place for at least Tuesday and Wednesday across much of the Northeast due to heat indices around 100 expected. The upper Northeast will be hottest today with a heat index of 100 to 104 from Rochester and Albany, New York, to Boston, Massachusetts.

The area between New York City and D.C. will likely be the hottest on Wednesday, with heat indices near 100 in NYC and near 105 in D.C.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Trenton, New Jersey, are under an extreme heat warning for heat indices up to 107 on Wednesday.

Out West, southern California is under heat alerts through Thursday.

Temps will reach 85 to 90 across the coastal valleys and up to 105 for the interior valleys through Tuesday.

A heat advisory stretches up to San Jose, California, where temps will reach the mid to upper 90s on Tuesday.

Wednesday and Thursday will be hotter, with temps in downtown Los Angeles reaching the middle to upper 90s and interior valleys reaching up to 110.

Next week, temperatures look less extreme across America.

Significant flood threat in Texas

For the next three days, there is a level 3 of 4 flood threat in place in South-Central Texas.

That warning came amid a very rare and dangerous setup. Everyone in the region should be on alert, especially those near rivers and low water crossings. But even areas that don’t normally flood must be alert.

The greatest threat will lie across the Edwards Plateau into Hill Country and along the Rio Grande Valley between the Big Bend down toward Eagle Pass.

Rainfall rates each day could exceed 2″ per hour.

Each day on Tuesday through Thursday could see 3″ to more than 7″ of rainfall over this area.

Three-day totals over that region could top 15″ in some places.

Severe weather threat in northern New England

Fueled by the extreme heat and humidity and a sinking cold front from Canada, severe storms capable of destructive winds of more than 70 mph, large hail large than ping pong balls, and a strong tornado or two will move over northern New England today.

A level 3 of 5 risk is in place from northeast New York through northern Vermont, northern New Hampshire, and northern Maine on Tuesday afternoon and evening. It includes Burlington, Vermont; Plattsburgh, New York; Caribou, Maine; Colchester, Vermont; and Massena, New York.

Storms are most likely after 4 p.m. ET and continuing into the night as the cold front sinks south.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A DC trial was wrapping up when jurors made a discovery that shocked the courtroom

By CNN
(CNN) — The charges at a monthlong criminal trial in Washington’s federal court last month were fairly straightforward: That one man had allegedly held up seven 7-Elevens and a few other gas stations in spring 2023 and stolen cars.But the trial of Shamell Naquan Joyner had a twist. While deliberating, jurors found a Chinese yuan in one sweatshirt that was in evidence. And inside a jacket that was also part of the case, they found suspicious white powder in a folded up piece of paper. The prosecutors and judge said it appeared to be drugs.The DC US Attorney’s Office, law enforcement on the case and the defense team hadn’t known.The events of the jury deliberation raised eyebrows across the federal court in recent days, as word spread of what happened.Several longtime lawyers in Washington told CNN last week they hadn’t heard of a situation as embarrassing as this one, though some former prosecutors in DC conceded that every few years, a jury might land upon a piece of evidence that wasn’t examined by law enforcement thoroughly enough.Judge Rudolph Contreras, who presided over the trial, was flabbergasted.“The Court shares Mr. Joyner’s amazement at law enforcement’s failure to uncover the Chinese Yuan, note, and powdery substance in the physical evidence,” the judge, who has a decade of experience on the bench, wrote in an opinion a few days later.“Mr. Liolos, who I know is from New York, is probably astonished that any money got past the police department,” the judge also said on the bench, referring to John Liolos, one of Joyner’s lawyers.The FBI declined to comment when asked how agents on the case weren’t aware of the drugs and money in the pockets.When asked about how the evidence oversight happened, a spokesperson for the DC US Attorney’s Office didn’t answer directly.The accusationsProsecutors alleged Joyner had robbed 10 convenience stores and gas stations in central Washington, Maryland and northern Virginia in the spring of 2023. The robberies at first started a few days apart in April, then by May 2, Joyner was hitting several in the same day, they alleged. He also was accused of armed carjackings around two of the days that the armed robberies occurred.The series of incidents resulted in a 28-count indictment against Joyner in 2003. He wasn’t charged with drug possession.The case was big for the US Attorney’s Office. The trial lasted a full month, with the jury hearing witnesses testify over 10 trial days, then deliberations lasting another week. Joyner had as many as nine lawyers and three prosecutors at trial.The discoveryAs the jury was leaving on July 22, their second day of deliberations, a juror told courthouse staff they had found some items inside a jacket and a sweatshirt found in one of the carjacked cars that had been worn by the alleged robber.“We were looking at (the jacket), and (one of the jurors) reached in the breast pocket and she pulled out — it looked like a receipt, but there was a white powder or white substance inside,” the jury foreperson told the court on July 23, the next morning, according to a trial transcript obtained by CNN.“Some of it, kind of, spilled out a little bit, but (a juror) put it back in the pocket and we put it back in the bag,” the unnamed juror said.There was a sweatshirt the jurors could examine too as evidence in the jury room. A juror had looked in the pocket there “and he pulled out — it was crumpled up — it was a bill … one of the Chinese Yuan bills,” the foreperson then said.When the jurors found the suspected drugs and money in the pockets at the end of the second day of jury deliberations, the issue opened up major legal questions for Joyner.Both items of clothing had been key evidence putting Joyner at the scene of two of the May 2 robberies, and were inside the Toyota he was accused of stealing when police captured it a few days later.Would the jurors be prejudiced against Joyner now? Had the jury finding the suspected drugs corroborated witness testimony from the trial further than what Joyner’s defense lawyers anticipated?The Justice Department argued that a witness testified about Joyner stealing money during the armed robbery of four different convenience stores. At one of the 7-Elevens, a witness said the robber took his wallet, and it had in it a Chinese Yuan from a college study abroad trip.A cooperator who drove Joyner separately testified Joyner had paid him in drugs the night Joyner allegedly held up a gas station. The jacket with the apparent drugs in the pocket had been worn by the armed robber.After the discovery in the pockets, Contreras brought each of the jurors into the courtroom one by one.He told them the Chinese bill and the apparent drugs weren’t part of the evidence in the case. The jurors each told the court they could set aside those items in their consideration of the case against Joyner.They went back to deliberating.The verdictThe following Monday — the fifth day of deliberations — the jury had reached another predicament.They said they realized they couldn’t agree on more than half of the charges — representing five of the alleged armed robberies and one carjacking — Joyner faced.“The jury remains deadlocked on or unable to vote on the remaining 15 counts in this case,” they said in a note to the judge. “Our differences are in the areas of what constitutes a reasonable doubt and in how to determine identity beyond a reasonable doubt … In the absence of additional evidence or testimony, we cannot reach verdicts on the remaining 15 counts.”So, Contreras ended deliberations, taking a partial verdict.The diligence of the jury, unable to come to an agreement on several of the charges against Joyner, echoed an unusual challenge the US Attorney’s Office has faced in several other criminal trials this year.Still, the jury found Joyner guilty of 13 criminal charges, representing an armed robbery in mid-April 2023 in downtown Washington, and four armed robberies and a carjacking on May 2, 2023, in Northwest Washington and Maryland. “The jury’s verdict ensures the defendant will face a 31year mandatory minimum sentence, making the D.C. community safer with this serial robber off the streets,” a spokesperson from the US Attorney’s Office said about the case.Joyner’s defense attorneys haven’t yet appealed his conviction. They declined to comment because a final judgment in the case is not set in stone.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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