ABC11 Eyewitness News - Eyewitness News at 11pm - December 27, 2025

Episode Date: December 28, 2025

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Right now, live coverage from your local news leader, preparing you for tomorrow starting tonight and your first alert forecast. Here's what's happening where you live. This is ABC 11 eyewitness news. And right now at 11 tracking a return of the cold today. Central Carolina saw a taste of spring in winter. Here's a live look at the Durham and Raleigh skyline. It was nice out there today. So, but take a look at this.

temperatures they're going to soon fall you guys get ready take a look at the prediction on your screen there a cold welcome especially on new year's eve good saturday evening thanks for joining us on eyewitness news that 11 i'm bianca holman well today it was a picture perfect start of the weekend but don't get too comfortable because it's about to get chilly once again so let's go ahead and send things over to meteorologist cruise medina with more so cruise we got spoiled today get ready to break out the fur for new year's eve yeah we really did it was in the the 60s and even 70s in some areas, but we've got some big time cold on the way. So we're just showing you that graph there, but I also want to show you what you won't see on that graph. And this is because we're going to add in the wind so that will factor into our fields like temperatures or the wind chill. So as we go into Monday afternoon, notice it's going to be warm. Tipters will be well into the 60s ahead of an Arctic front. Then once that front pushes in, look at these feels like temperatures as we start the day on Tuesday. We will have feels like tipjures and the teens and 20s here locally, then out toward the mountains.

There could even be some negative wind chills out toward Boone. So this is once again Tuesday morning. This is just a look ahead at what to expect as we go forward in time. But tonight, temperatures in Raleigh have cooled down to 45 degrees. We're seeing 41 in Roxborough and Fayetteville. You're still holding on to 51. As we go into the rest of tonight, tipgers will drop farther into the 30s and we'll see the clouds increased by tomorrow morning. So here's how tomorrow plays out.

Obviously, the morning is going to be pretty cold, but even for the afternoon, we're socked in on cloud cover. Tipters will barely make it into the low 50s for highs, and some of you could even be stuck in the 40s. So tomorrow's cold, warming up Monday, and cooling down on Tuesday. We'll talk a little bit more about that New Year's Eve forecast coming up in just a few minutes. Bianca, back to you. All right, Cruz, thank you. Well, now is a great time to go ahead and download the free ABC 11 mobile app. It's a great way to go ahead and stay up to date on the weather, especially as the cold air starts to settle back in.

Well, new here at 11, several people were heard following a nasty crash in Wake Forest. Our cameras were able to capture the video on Dr. Calvin Jones Highway and the NC-98 bypass. Police say several cars were involved in a crash there, and the cause is unclear at this time. But police say multiple injuries were reported. The road has since reopened. Well, we're following new details into an armed robbery that led to an officer involved shooting in Rocky Mount. Police now say the investigation centers around a 42-year-old man. It began around 11.30 a.m., police say Willie McGee, Jr., allegedly went inside First Citizens Bank on Wakelawn Street with a letter claiming his truck was rigged with an explosive.

Hours later, police found McGee in a Hobby Lobby parking lot on Sutter's Creek Boulevard and Rocky Mountain. But when police approached his truck, McGee hopped out and started shooting. Officers returned fire, striking McGee. McGee was taken to the hospital and is expected to be okay. No officers were hurt in the shooting. In Durham, an investigation is underway into a possible link between a shooting and a deadly crash. It happened overnight around 1.30 a.m. on Lodesteone Drive, law enforcement say someone was shot there and that a car that may have been involved in a crash on Wake Forest Highway. The driver died, and at this time, no arrest have been made. And in Goldsboro, someone is fighting for their life after being shot.

out of sheets on North Spence Avenue. It happened late last night. No arrest have been made in that case. Well, tonight the holiday travel rush continues to be a headache for millions of travelers nationwide. So here's a live look right now at RDU. 15 flights have been canceled so far. 161 flights were delayed. Most of the disruptions were caused by that winter weather in the northeast and major flooding out west.

We were able to talk with a woman who says her travel plans were turned upside down. Well, we were to fly home yesterday, had a flight booked on Southwest, and it was delayed twice, and then eventually it was entirely canceled. And they said they would rebook you or you could look for something else that you preferred. We were rebooked for tomorrow, Sunday, from Friday. So then I looked for something else, and that was going to be today. It took two hours on the phone, but accomplished it. That had a connecting flight in Nashville. We were to be two hours in Nashville layover,

and then on the way at the airport today, it showed the layover in Nashville was turning into five hours. And potentially, I was thinking this may be canceled just like the one yesterday. So started looking again, rebooked on JetBlue. Supposed to leave at six. An exhausting day for so many people. Well, 3.7 million North Carolinians are expected to travel. holiday season. Here at home, tomorrow, the party will officially end for the skaters at the

rink in downtown Raleigh. Earlier this month, the rink announced it will end its season early. It's a decision they made to support recovery efforts at the Raleigh Convention Center. All ticket holders for any days after tomorrow will be refunded. The decision comes after this massive fire erupted inside the convention center. It caused extensive damage, and now the city will use the Red Hat Ample Theater as a mobile kitchen. The rink was supposed to be open through January 4th. The city of Raleigh is less than a week away from its new noise ordinance going into effect. The new rules only apply to amplified sound coming from commercial businesses like bars, restaurants and nightclubs.

Under the new rules, decibel levels will vary based on time of day, day of the week, and location. Glenwood South's designation as a hospitality district will allow for higher decibel limits than other parts of the city. Oh, new tonight, a Wendell woman detained by federal immigration officials shares her experience with eyewitness news. Fatima Velasquez Antonio returned home from an immigration detention center on Tuesday. John Dowding has more on how her family is feeling. It was a great Christmas for Fatima Velasquez and her family. She's getting accustomed to being back home again, grateful for the support she received, but also optimistic about her future here in this country. I mean, it's amazing got her back at home.

Christmas gift, a long-awaited reunion for the family of a Wendell woman detained for more than a month by federal immigration officials. She says, I'm so happy to be back home with my family. Fatima Velazquez Antonio returned back home Tuesday. Border Patrol agents detained her on November 18th while at an HVAC job site in Raleigh. For the last month, she stayed at a detention center in Georgia and was released after her attorney filed a habeas corpus petition asking a judge to, if her detainment is legal. The whole time you were detained, did you get any explanation as to why you were brought there? Did you receive some explanation

of the officials there? Why you're detained? No. Fatima, telling us, no, no one gave me any explanation. Fatima came to the U.S. from Honduras as an unaccompanied minor at 14. At 14. According to federal documents, Fatima has no aggravated felony convictions, and the government identifies her detainment as involving a non-criminal individual. As we previously reported, Fatima's

attorney says Fatima has no criminal record and says she was allowed to stay in the country as her asylum case processed. But instead, for the last month, Fatima says she spent 24 hours a day in a room with 60 other women. Fatima, telling us, when you go to the bathroom, you have no privacy. It's the same thing when you have to bathe. Everyone can see you.

It's hard. Fatima says her faith kept her strong. Fatima says, I pray to God every day. Every day, I woke up, and before I went to bed, I asked him to help me, give me patience,

give me the strength to get through my ordeal. What also helped her get through, support from the Wake County community, including neighbors and elected leaders who held a rally calling for her release. All the community and the governor, the congresswoman, I mean, all that support have a lot. I mean, we appreciate that a lot with all my heart. Fatima telling us, I know many of them didn't know me, but I have to thank them from the bottom of my heart for their support. Just thank you so much. One day, I'd like to see them and thank them in person.

Fatima's family is still raising money to cover her legal expenses. Her boyfriend, Brian, tells me he's saving up money again to buy her an engagement ring after the money he was saving up had to be used to get her attorney. Now, as for Fonsuma, she has a hearing back in court next week. Outside the Raleigh, I Witness News Center, I'm John Dowding. ABC 11, eyewitness News. John, thank you. Well, still to come, conflict and Ukraine, Russia has resumed bombing Kiev.

It comes a day before President Trump is expected to. to meet with the president of Ukraine. What's at stake and the devastation we're now seeing? Well, temperatures tonight are in the 40s, and it'll be similar as we go into New Year's Eve. I'll have the full breakdown on that forecast coming up after the break. Today, Russia launched a large-scale attack on Kiev. It comes hours before the Ukrainian president is set to meet with President Trump in Florida.

ABC's senior White House correspondent, Selena Wang, has more. Russia launching another major attack against Ukraine, explosions hurt across the Capitol for hours, targeting energy infrastructure and residential buildings. Russia launched more than 500 drones and dozens of missiles. I think thanks for air defense power, but it's not enough. There was shelling all night. This woman says we were at home hiding in the corridor. Ukraine President Zelensky now set for a high-stakes meeting.

Tomorrow I will have, I hope, very important and very constructive media for President Trump. This could be a pivotal moment in the effort to end the war in Ukraine. President Trump will be hosting President Zelensky at his Mar-Lago club here in Florida tomorrow. Now, Zelensky is pushing for stronger U.S. security guarantees as part of a 20-point peace plan. He wants to ensure that Vladimir Putin can't just invade Ukraine again. And Zelensky is also offering the idea of a demilitarized buffer zone in the Donbass region, eastern Ukraine, that is territory that Vladimir Putin has long sought to control. Trump told Politico that Zelensky, quote, doesn't have anything until I approve it.

We need to stop this war in any way, and we need two things, pressure on Russia and sufficient strong support for Ukraine. For his part, Russian President Putin today dressed in military fatigues, huddling with his war generals. Russia has indicated as part of any deal, it was. wants Ukraine to seed land, Russia doesn't control. Selina Wang, ABC News with the president, Palm Beach County, Florida. Governor John Stein is inviting the public to sign a book of condolences for the former governor. The book is lying at the North Carolina state capital in the rotunda. You can write a brief message to former Governor Jim Hunt's family from now until next Friday, January 2nd.

Governor Stein will then present the book to Governor Hunt's family on behalf of North Carolina residents. We've got a scam alert for those traveling over the new year. If you're flying, the TSA has issued an alert about the risk of what's known as juice jacking at USB ports found at airports and other public places. This is where hackers can install malware at public charging stations in order to steal your personal information. Instead, it's being advised that you bring your own portable battery packs to charge your devices. Another threat this holiday are public Wi-Fi's. We really encourage, you know, people to not use those free Wi-Fi sites, or if you do, do not do anything with personal information, banking, anything like that. If you have to use free

Wi-Fi, just keep it real surface level. All right, some great advice there. The Better Business Bureau says hackers can set up fake, unsecured networks to steal your data leading to fraud. To protect yourself while traveling, use your phone's hotspot or wait for secure networks. Well, no access to their storage units. Customers upset after they say they were locked out of their storage facility for days. So they reached out to troubleshooter Diane Wilson for help. You can see the truck filled with boxes and her home still filled with lots of things. I need to be out of my house by this weekend and I don't have any place to store my items.

I mean, I have half my items in the storage already, but I need to put the other half in there. Despite renting a storage unit at this Chapel Hill public storage on Marvin Edwards Lane, Robbie Broadway, says she wasn't able to access it for several days last week before her move. I came here to unload more stuff into the storage unit, and there was no power, no employees here, no note, no nothing. We just could not access anything, couldn't go through the drive-thru gate. Robbie says she called the customer service line for public storage and was told someone would get back to her. There's no communication. I've left maybe nine voicemails.

I sent an email, and still, no one from public has responded back to me on any of it. And Robbie isn't alone, as I met other customers who faced the same issue. We met Robbie at the public storage last Thursday afternoon. Some of the lights were on, but the gate to drive through so customers could get to their storage units still not working. Instead, just a front door and this side gate open on the fence. I have a truck load of stuff, huge boxes to go into storage, and it's just impossible. I can't carry them through there. I need to be able, I rented purposely the outside unit so I could back the truck up to the unit to make unloading and loading a lot easier on me.

An employee on site told me on Sunday or Monday of last week, the electrical unit at the storage facility was fried and customer service was supposed to call customers to let them know. He said crews were working on getting the gate access working again. I also called customer service for more answers as to when everything would get fixed and was told they would have the district manager get in touch with me within 24 to 48 hours, but it hasn't happened. Meanwhile, a few hours later, Robbie got the call. She can now get access through the drive-thru gate. She was able to drive her truck right to her storage unit and get everything from our house moved to her storage unit. now when diana asked why a sign wasn't posted at the storage facility letting customers know about the power outage the worker said it's against company policy to hang signs on the door to inform customers of the problem

all right let's go ahead and switch gears and talk about weather as we planned sunday and get ready to go into the final week of 2025 can you believe it cruz yeah it's gonna i guess we're gonna end on a roller coaster note. Oh. That's the only way I could put it. 2025 has been a roller coaster that's right. Shock to the system because today was so warm you literally could have worn shorts outside and then as we go into tomorrow not only is it going to be colder but it's also going to be cloudy and in the mix there could be a few sprinkles as well. Now by Monday it's warm, it's windy and that says a front comes in. That front is going to knock our tipters down significantly as we go into the middle of the upcoming week. So today's tipter's

just to revisit. It was pretty chilly for those of you north and east of the triangle. In the triangle, we had tipters well into the 60s, and then in the sand hills, we had plenty of low to mid-70s down there. And we have already cooled down significantly as a front is sweeping through our region right now. Tiptures in Roanuck Rapids in South Hill, Virginia, in the 30s right now. We've got 40s in the triangle and still a few 50s showing up near southern pines and Fayetteville. Now, through the first half of the night, we've got a pretty clear sky that's going to aid in helping those tipters continue to fall deeper into those 30s, but by tomorrow morning, the clouds start rolling in. So when you wake up, it's not going to be sunny like it was today. Tipters will be

in the 30s heading out the door. So if you're going to something like an early morning church service or heading out for breakfast early, you'll definitely need the jacket. By the afternoon, the clouds stick around. High temperatures will struggle to even get to 50 degrees in some spots. And in the mix, there could be a few spots of drizzle or at least some light showers moving on through those quickly pass through so by Monday we'll wake up at least with a little bit of sunshine and look at these tipters in the morning so this is 6 a.m and we're already near 60 degrees in many spots that's because it will have a breezy southwest wind pushing in that'll push our highs into the 60s but then the front moves in that brings a few showers and tanks our temperatures

as we go into Monday afternoon and evening so back to tomorrow definitely not going to be warm like Monday. Tipters in our northern counties will only make it into the 40s for highs. We are all cloudy throughout tomorrow, the triangle topping out in the low 50s and mid-50s as you work your way into the sand hills. Now let me show you this front here. This is the one I told you is going to bring the warm and windy conditions on Monday. After that departs our region, the Arctic air is going to move in behind it. So you're going to notice that it's going to be pretty cold as we go into Tuesday and that Arctic air really settles in. But by then we're at least back to sunshine.

So with the sun, if you're standing in direct sunlight, hopefully it feels at least a little bit warmer. But I will say standing outside could make it feel a little bit colder. So we talked about those feels like tipters at the start of the show. It's because we're going to have winds gusting up to 35 miles per hour as we go through Monday and into early Tuesday. Those winds will remain a bit gusty. So just a heads up for that.

So just to recap here tonight, tipters are going down into the 30s. We'll see clouds move in late. And by tomorrow morning, you're waking up cloudy. It's going to be cloudy in the afternoon. Tipters will be in the 40s across the north and 50s elsewhere in central North Carolina. Your first solar, acuether seven-day forecast shows that by Tuesday afternoon, only reaching those 40s for highs. Wednesday, only reaching 50s. So your plans for New Year's Eve, they're definitely going to be cold, plan to dress warm with midnight temperatures ranging from 34 to 38 and then staying in the 50s as we end out that week.

All right. Do you have any New Year's traditions? Traditions, no. Oh. Are you something like eating grapes under a table or something like that? Some people, they toss, you know, lentils over them. What about you? Just a New Year's Day meal, right?

Okay. So greens, black eyed peas, oysters. Healthy. I mean, I guess. Everything's layered in some, you know, fat, I guess. All right, well, yeah, perfect. It'll be chilly in dress warm. Exactly.

We will. Okay. All right. Well, still to come, celebrating Kwanza. Today, dozens came out for a celebration in Carborough while organizers say it's an event that means so much. So today, dozens came out to celebrate Kwanza. Our cameras captured this event at the Drake Library complex in Carborough. The event featured live performances, traditional drumming, spoken word, and local vendors. Organizers say it's an event unlike any other. To let folks know as far as the importance of culture, traditions that we share each and every year that it just doesn't start with today, with Kwanza, but it's all year round, and it brings the community together, and that's what is all about is bringing community together. The nationally recognized holiday spans over seven days from the day after Christmas through New Year's Day. The town of Kerry showed out for the really, really free market. Our camera is grabbing this video of the happenings at Walnut Park. The event prides itself on ensuring everything available at the market is 100% free of charge. Well, it's a question that many of you probably ask every day, what should we eat for dinner?

If you're trying to reach health goals, it may be harder to find an answer to that question. And experts say wrong food choices are actually made every day because of certain misconceptions. Mandy Gaither has five food myths to leave behind. as we moved into 2026. From social media to well-meaning friends, food trends can spread like fire, and they're not always true. As anyone who's tried any food trend,

it's not a one-size-fits-all. Registered dietitian Julia Zampano with Cleveland Clinic says the first common myth, to lose weight, you have to give up all your favorite foods. Maybe you have a little less often at a smaller portion, but I think all foods can fit into a problem. plan. Next, avoid grain products when trying to lose weight. That's false. Zupano says it's a matter of how much of those you're eating, what you're pairing them with, and how you prepare them.

It's most important just to choose whole grains and a very balanced diet. Third, going gluten-free is healthier. Zumpano says if you have gluten sensitivity, yes, avoid gluten. But she says that doesn't equal weight loss. Gluten free products are pretty much the same product like bread, but just made with a flour that doesn't have that protein in it. Fourth, avoid all fats to lose weight, again, false. Zumpano says fat is essential to our bodies, but she says to limit the intake and focus on eating healthy fats. Finally, going vegetarian helps you lose weight and be healthier. That's a myth. While plant-based diets are healthy, simply avoiding meat doesn't necessarily equate to healthier outcomes. You may not be meeting your protein needs, your calcium needs, or other nutrient needs.

Make sure you get all your nutrient needs by the food choices you're making. For House Minute, I'm Mandy Gather. All right, thanks, Mandy. Let's switch gears. We're talking everything sports. Hey, Trey. Hey, Bianca. We've got a big night of sports.

Of course, we're going over what happened at the John Wall Invitational. Today, we're also talking about the Carolina Panthers. They've got a pretty big matchup this weekend with the Seattle Seahawk coming to town. We'll talk more about that when we come back with sports. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. We're going to be. We're going to be.

We're going to be able to do. We're going to be able to be. We're going to be able to be. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to be able to be. BOR. BOR.

BOR. BOR. BOR. BOR. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm going to

I'm going to We're going to be. I'm going to be. We're going to be able to be. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. And so. We're going to be.

4. TO BEEN SULLIV. TO BEEN SULLIV. WHICH O'SKI. WHICH O'M ACH-ha-Bahn... ...that-bye-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Bianca, just so we are clear, the Carolina Panthers can clinch a playoff birth tomorrow and win the division. If they win against the Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers loses against the Miami Dolphins,

we'll have to see if that happens. Faith, right? We're here to receive it. That's right. Okay, if we can manifest it in the spiritual, they already got to win. That's right. need to worry. That's right. You're right. Cheray. Thank you. All right. Well, the countdown to the ball drop. Dick Clark's New Year's Rock and Eve is expected to be unlike any other. Next, an exclusive look at the performers expected to light the stage ahead of 2026. And later,

celebrating our LGBTQ community, the special event honoring those who paved the way.