ABC11 Eyewitness News - Eyewitness News at 11pm - January 27, 2026

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

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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. Right now at 11, not taking any chances. Many school districts are choosing to go to remote learning for a third day in a row tomorrow. It comes as icy roads remain a concern. And now parents are scrambling to figure out how to juggle work responsibilities while the kids are at home. Hi everyone, thanks for joining us here for the news at 11. I'm Steve Daniels. Lauren is off tonight. We'll dive into that dilemma for parents in a minute. But first, the bitter cold continues and the chance for some kind of snow event this weekend continues to rise. So let's begin with Chief Meteorologist Don Schweniker. Don, what are those latest models shown us tonight? Well, we'll give those to you coming up in just a bit. Let's talk about what we're seeing out there tonight. Live look at First Alert Doppler net scanning the sky's not seeing any rain or snowfall out there. It is clear. Temperature right now, as we look live from the mutual tower, our sky came into down. Durham, 30 under a clear sky on a west-southwest wind at six miles an hour. 28, Oxford, 32, Lewisburg, 26, Rocky Mount, 29, Smithfield, Lillington, 27, Sanford, and 31 in Fayetteville. A first alert to that overnight forecast, he gets cold again tonight, not as cold as last night,

because clouds will build in four, five, six o'clock in the morning, and that'll hold us in the 20s instead of teens by 8 o'clock. We're cloudy and 24, but the clouds will give way to more sunshine tomorrow. As far as that new weekend storm goes, confidence growing that we, high confidence that we will see cold temperatures, the air in place we need for a snow to happen. Snow accumulation starting to go up a little bit. Risky travel, accumulate, risk starting to go up a little bit. And power outage is not going to be a huge power outage with this. If we see that snow this weekend, it's going to be very cold. This can be more of a fluffy dry snow, not necessarily an icing event. We'll talk more about what the models are

showing. I'm just getting the latest update. on the America model we'll show it to you next and the first alert forecast coming up in just a bit Steve we'll see in a few minutes for that don thank you new tonight both wake county schools and Durham public schools along with several others are going to remote learning tomorrow and that means the juggling act for parents is continuing into a third day as they try to manage work responsibilities with the kids staying at home Tom George live now in Raleigh at more square middle school downtown with reaction from parents and kids and also how the school districts decide to make the call like they are for tomorrow Tom

Good evening, Steve. Many saying, here we go again, and especially as you're out and about, you may think that the roads are fine again, but as you said, both Wake and Durham Public Schools now going to remote learning once again, and school leaders say it's about not taking any chances. Nikiel's not looking forward to being back in class remotely. No, I do not even want to do it at all. Why not? Because, like, it's just, it might snow later on or something. I just want to go do that, playing the snow and stuff, instead of having to have.

We do work. Both Wake and Durham schools opting for remote learning due to the threat of black ice. Parents we spoke to said while it can be a headache, they understand it. Everybody roles are different. Everybody drives differently. So if it can't prevent any type of other accidents or anything happening, then by all means, safety first. It's just an inconvenience for the parents. But again, I understand they're trying to make sure that everybody is safe.

And that's exactly the logic that school leaders say goes into making that call. Durham schools sharing these photos of the conditions they're still seeing in some areas. Even then during a two-hour delay, our school buses are still on the roads when there's potential for black ice, when the temperatures are still below freezing. And in Wake County, Superintendent Dr. Robert Taylor explains in an area so geographically large, they have to make sure everyone's accounted for. All of those systems are connected. So we have multiple calendars, a three-tiered bus system that serves multiple schools.

And so that means that if any kind of pivot we make is going to absolutely impact the entire landscape of transportation in the district. But sorry kids, staying home still means the work has to get done. How are you feeling about tomorrow? I just want to stay asleep. Hey, him and me both. I just want to stay asleep too. But hey, work hard, play hard. You'll still have time to get out in the snow.

And there's kind of two different factors here, Steve. I mean, there's obviously the weather issue of play. But then there's also kind of what everybody had to get used to during COVID. moving towards working remotely and being at home for long periods of time doing the remote learning things. So that is the model that we've kind of moved towards. And again, with the weather being what it is, that's what we're going to be seeing at least for tomorrow as well. Yeah, absolutely. I know a lot of parents who are relying on family and friends to help them through this as they're juggling all the responsibilities.

Tom George in downtown Raleigh tonight. Tom, thank you. And as we continue to clean up from last weekend storm and keep an eye on the snow for next weekend. Be sure to download the ABC 11 app. We'll keep you up to date on what's happening in your community. New here at 11 in Harnett County, the city of Dunn welcomed their new police chief during a city council meeting tonight. Timothy Lynn Gay, who's been a deputy chief in Rocky Mount, takes over in Dunn next week. He has three decades of leadership and North Carolina law enforcement experience.

He's filling the vacancy left by the resignation of former Dunn Police Chief Kerry Jackson. Nicholas Simmons has been the interim chief since her departure in October. We have an update on the breaking news. We brought you here on eyewitness news at 5. Chopper 11 flying over a house fire in Wake County on Creedmoor Road. firefighters from both Wake and Durham counties responded to help put out the flames. The cause is unclear, but as you can see, the damage is pretty significant. We've also now learned one dog was killed in the fire and another is still missing.

The emergency response shut down both directions of Creedmoor Road north of Highway 98 during the evening drive home. Chopper 11 also flying over Goldsboro where police are investigating a deadly shooting on West Oak Street. Police responded early this morning and they found 61-year-old Ronald Edwards dead inside his apartment. A family member called us here at eyewitness news and told us. Edwards was shot while he was in his bed. It's not clear what led up to the shooting. We are working to learn more about the victim. Orange County courts are back open tomorrow,

and that means deliberations should resume in the Isaiah Ross double murder trial. That case went to the jury at the end of last week, but the jury went home on Friday without a verdict, and the courts have been closed so far this week because of the weather. Ross is charged in the murder of Teenagers Lyrick Woods and Devin Clark back in September of 2022. In Raleigh, a group of 10 women and one man who say they got breasted, cancer while working or studying at Po Hall on the NC State campus are now suing the

university over allegations of deliberate indifference. Their lawsuit claims the school violated their fundamental right to bodily integrity under the state constitution. Po Hall is NC State's former education building and it was built using materials that contained PCBs, a group of harmful man-made chemicals banned in 1979 eight years after Poe Hall was built. NC State closed that building in 2023 and in a statement says it's suing Monsanto for manufacturing the the PCBs used to build its HVAC system. Monsanto responded to that lawsuit in October

saying the company believes these claims lack merit. Today, Duke University and quarterback Darien Menta announced a settlement in a lawsuit allowing MENSA to enroll at another school. And just moments ago, we learned it'll be the University of Miami. MENSA was reportedly due to earn up to $4 million as part of an NIL agreement with Duke. But then he said he wanted to enter the transfer portal.

Duke filed a lawsuit saying Mentsa violated the terms of his deal. A prior ruling allowed MENSA. to enter the portal but barred him from enrolling at another college. As NIL continues to become a bigger and bigger conversation, especially with the revenue sharing, I think trying to uphold those contracts or at least emphasize that they kind of have a point is something that maybe Duke was just trying to prove. In announcing the settlement, Duke football wrote in part enforcing contractual agreements

with student athletes is a necessary element of ensuring predictability and structure for athletic programs. It is nonetheless a difficult choice to pursue legal action. against a student and teammate. For this reason, we sought to resolve the matter fairly and quickly. Still to come here on eyewitness news at 11, North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis is calling out more Trump cabinet members tonight, saying they've destroyed public trust and the administration's ability to handle immigration and border control issues. Also, tax season challenges why one federal watchdog is warning it may take longer for you

to get your tax refund this year. And Don's back with us checking on those temps outside right now. And it's cold out there tonight. Not as cold as last night, though. temperatures at or just below freezing and it'll drop into the 20s. Talk more about that and the potential for some snow this weekend in your seven-day forecast. Coming up. That studio, your new foundation.

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TikTok reaching its settlement over claims its platform was designed to be addictive to younger users. Now the trial is moving forward in Los Angeles against YouTube and Meta, the parent company of Instagram, which is fighting claims their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. ABC's Melissa Donne has the details from Los Angeles. Two of the world's biggest social media companies, Meta and YouTube, both. facing trial in Los Angeles in a case that could have a major impact on the platforms. The case involves a 19-year-old plaintiff who sued the tech companies, saying getting hooked on social media while very young, letter to serious depression and suicidal thoughts.

She claims the tech companies borrowed techniques used by slot machines and the cigarette industry to hook users. If this litigation goes through and it's not attacking the platform directly, but instead attacking its algorithm, it could open the floodgates and definitely change the way we view social media and how they use their algorithm. The social media companies responding, arguing there are other factors that contribute to the mental health of young users. Meta saying we strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people, adding it has made meaningful changes like introducing teen accounts.

And Google, the parent company of YouTube, also says the law lawsuit allegations aren't true, adding providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work. TikTok and Snapchat were also named in the original lawsuit. Snapchat settling the case last week for an undisclosed sum. Lawyers for the plaintiffs telling ABC News, TikTok also settling ahead of jury selection today. ABC News has not yet heard back from TikTok. High profile executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to take

take the stand in this trial. Melissa Adon, ABC News, Los Angeles. New tonight, Republican North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis is once again calling out top members of President Trump's cabinet as incompetent this time over their handling of the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. Tillis is not running for re-election and he spoke to reporters this evening on Capitol Hill. He said both Stephen Miller and Christy Noem have caused serious damage to President Trump's reputation after comments both of them made about the killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretty

at the hands of border patrol agents in Minneapolis last weekend. She is taking this administration into the ground on an issue that we should own. We should own the issue of border security and immigration, but they have destroyed that for Republicans, something that got the president elected. They have destroyed it through their incompetence. Stephen Miller is in the same boat. This guy, after doing the stupid comments he made about Greenland,

getting the president in a difficult circumstance, is one of the people that came out publicly and said that this guy was a terrorist before he had even talked with anybody. on the ground and that's clearly not the case now. A week and we have over 80. He said Noam needs to make her own decision about stepping down, but she doesn't have anything in her record to be proud of and in his opinion she deserves to be out of a job. Also new tonight, the IRS may have some challenges this tax season because of staffing

shortages, delayed technology updates, and filing backlogs too. That's according to a new warning this week from a federal watchdog, the Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration, which has oversight of the IRS, says the challenges could impact the level of service taxpayers get from the agency and potentially delay tax refunds. The IRS lost roughly 19,000 staff members in the Trump administration's effort to shrink the federal workforce. That number includes 8,000 workers who process tax returns, help taxpayers in person and on the phone, stopped fraud, and also updated the agency IT.

There's a new urgent warning about artificial intelligence tonight. The CEO of AI company Anthropic is warning the government and tech companies are underestimating the danger of bad actors using the tech. technology. The 43-year-old billionaire Dario Amode also warns that technology could go rogue and begin to ignore human orders. He recently admitted during testing his own company's AI has actually tried to manipulate humans. The CEO is now pushing for strong transparency laws and heftier taxes on big AI companies. As for the economy, he predicts AI will erase half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in five years. In your health check tonight, the winter storm this past

weekend is impacting a severe blood shortage even more. The American Red Cross reports nationwide. 200 blood drives were canceled and more than 7,000 blood and platelet donations went uncollected. The American Red Cross says there's a serious shortage of platelets and types O, A negative, and B negative blood. The nonprofit says without immediate action, people who count on transfusions, including trauma victims, mothers and childbirth and people with sickle cell disease or cancer are at serious risk. So to incentivize people to donate blood this season, the American Red Cross is offering a E-Gift card to anyone who gives blood between now and the end of February. You can find blood drives in your area by going to the American Red Cross website.

All right, let's talk to Don Moore. Dive into the prospects for some snow coming our way this weekend. The timing for that is potentially late Friday into Saturday, maybe a little bit on Sunday, according to some of the models Don's been looking at. You say you have a new model run tonight you want to show us. We're going to show it to you right now. First we'll show you the seven day, then we'll get into the models. We start with the seven day.

Won't make you wait for that. Tomorrow looks great just on the cold side, but sunshine wins out. again. One of the warmer days this week, 39, 37 on Thursday. Friday 38, Saturday 26 and Sunday 31, and there are those snowflakes. So let's talk about them. We're in this window right now, four to six days out, whether it's more likely or less likely. I would say at this point it's more likely that we will see snow. We're in the right pattern. We've got cold air in place. We'll talk about that recipe in just a second. Here's the European model. It continues to show snow firing sometime midday on. Saturday and then continuing into Sunday, but it moves it out quickly by Sunday morning. European model putting down less than an inch or two on the earlier run today. The nighttime run, which is just starting to come in, is showing more than that. We just got the latest American model, too. It continues to show Saturday, 1 o'clock, some heavy snow working in.

The rain toward the coast disappears, and they could actually see heavy snow in the outer banks and along the beaches, according to the American model. So both models are starting to hint that snow is headed. our way we've increased the chances for snow but what does this mean well this means here are the ingredients for a classic winter storm we've got to have a position to the high in the right place so far that's a check we've got to have enough cold air in place so far that's a check available moisture in the position of the lower still the question marks here in a classic snow set up for us the low is right about here and it's throwing that moisture back into the cold air and we're seeing lots

of snow but there is a possibility this weekend that low sets up further to this the east. If it does, it takes that mix and snow out. We've got the cold air in place, but we do not see the snow. There's still a chance that could happen, even though those snow chances are increasing. Not seeing much in the way of snowfall out there tonight. Live look at First Lord Doppler, net. We are dried. Manny Oda Murphy, we are cold. They're above freezing down at the coast, 30 down at ECU and up in Shea City, 30 out in the triad. Boone's a little warmer tonight. They were mid-teens last night. They're at 24 degrees. Overnight, we'll drop into the 20s for lows 23 in Raleigh, 25 in Fayette.

We'll see the clouds moving in late night into early morning. Satellite radar composite shows the clouds just west of us right now out towards Charlotte. That's what we'll work in through the overnight hours. We will start off cloudy, but by the afternoon, we will see the sunshine. We're returning and out of warmest almost 40 degrees in Raleigh, 40 in Durham and 44 in Fayetteville. Let's check your temperatures across the region tomorrow, 37 in Bahama, 40 in Wendell, 41 in Clayton Garner, 41 Holly Springs, 40 in Carborough. Slide south, you'll be in the low 40s from Fort Bragg, over to Clinton, 44, 44, 43 in Lillington, Goldsboro, Pinehurst at 44, Rayford 45.

We go north, you'll stay in the 30s in that northern tier, 37 in Henderson, 39, Lewisburg, and 40 in Rocky Mountain. First alert, seven-day forecast shows that 37 on Thursday, a little cooler with some high clouds working through. Friday clouds increasing. Looking more and more like Friday will be dry. Saturday would be our chance to see snow throughout the day. How long it lasts? Still in question on the position of that low. 31 on Sunday, Monday, mostly Sunday, 38 and Tuesday, 42 degrees. Difference between last weekend and this weekend, Steve, is last weekend we had a lot more data a lot further out. This weekend, the low hasn't even formed yet. So we've got to wait until a little forms before we can get a really good track of where it might be headed. Yeah, and that's exactly why I think a lot of people are looking at their phones, thinking that's kind of a locked-in forecast. And you point out there are a lot of nuances in this storm and in the modeling right now as well. We've got to stay tuned to you for your forecast. Yeah, a lot of times, too, some phone apps will choose the worst scenario.

So you click on it, and then they get the clicks. Okay. We'll count on you. Not always honest. Okay. Thanks, John. Yeah. Still ahead.

Help is on the way for some local brides who shelled out thousands of dollars to hire a wedding photographer, only to end up with nothing to show for it. We're hearing from one photographer who's now offering up her services for free. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup that provides a clear picture of your health today and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today.

Medcan, live well for life. visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. New tonight, Dunn Police Officer Michael Godfrey was honored tonight for his response to a fatal crash in Harnet County in September of last year. That crash, which involved a cement truck and a Dodge SUV, led to the deaths

of a 34-year-old man in his five-week-old baby. Officer Godfrey is responsible for saving a two-year-old child in the SUV, another adult passenger, and the driver of the cement truck. He was named Officer of the year during the Dunn City Council leaving tonight. We have some new developments tonight

in an I-Team troubleshooter investigation. Yesterday, we told you Holly Christina Photography, the company accused of taking money from dozens of brides across the triangle and not delivering on their promised services abruptly shut down. Well, tonight we have a little bit of good news. Since our I-Team investigation began, we have heard from several photographers wanting to help Holly Christina photography brides. Wedding photographer Avery Wooten says she typically gives away one wedding every year to try and give back.

And when she heard about what the brides of Holly Christina photography are now going through, she wanted to step up and help. Essentially, I've done as many as I can myself for free, besides the lodging or besides if we need to bring on the second person. Holly Christina Photography posted on their social media pages today, this message. Two affected clients, we are actively working to release photos and videos due to large file sizes. Delivery is a staged process. We appreciate your patience. Also, the North Carolina Attorney General's office says it is investigating and they want to hear from people who have been.

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Kelly, our floor director, reminds me, because of the outcome of the game tonight, Chick-fil-A is given away free sandwiches and biscuits tomorrow if you have the Chick-fil-A app. So people can cash in. Get the app. Lunch and dinner tomorrow, or breakfast because of the pack. Thanks, Kate. All right, that does it for us tonight. We'll see you back here tomorrow at 11.

Good night. ABC 11 eyewitness News is sponsored by Capital Chevrolet. Together, let's drive. Shop Capital Chevrolet.com. Thank you.