International

Flights canceled, at least 2 killed as ice storm freezes US

Photo: Lola Gomez/The Dallas Morning News via AP

February 1^st |

Wintry weather brought ice to a wide swath of the United States on Tuesday, canceling more than 1,700 flights across the country and blocking roads. At least two people were killed on slippery roads in Texas and two law enforcement officers in the state were seriously injured, including one officer who was trapped under a truck, authorities said.

As the ice storm moved eastward Tuesday, watches and warnings stretched from the western heel of Texas to West Virginia. Several rounds of mixed precipitation, including freezing rain and sleet, were expected in many areas through Wednesday, meaning some regions could be affected multiple times, the federal Weather Prediction Center warned.

Emergency responders rushed to attend to hundreds of auto collisions in Texas and Gov. Greg Abbott urged people to stay off the roads.

Authorities said one person in Austin was killed in a pre-dawn pileup Tuesday. A 45-year-old man also died Monday night after his pickup truck slid into a guardrail on a highway near Dallas in slippery conditions and rolled down an embankment, according to the Arlington Police Department.

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More than 900 flights to or from the main U.S. airport hub, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and more than 250 to or from Dallas Love Field were canceled or delayed Tuesday, according to the FlightAware tracking service. At Dallas-Fort Worth, more than 50% of Tuesday’s scheduled flights had been canceled by Tuesday afternoon.

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines canceled more than 560 flights Tuesday and delayed more than 350 more, FlightAware reported.

As of Tuesday morning, about 7,000 power outages were reported in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said after a briefing in Austin on the worsening conditions. He stressed that the outages were due to factors such as ice on power lines or downed trees, not the performance of the Texas power grid that collapsed for days during a deadly winter storm in 2021.

Fleets of emergency vehicles were deployed among 1,600 roads affected by the freeze.

In Texas, a sheriff’s deputy who stopped to help the driver of an 18-wheeler that went off an icy road Tuesday was hit by a second truck that trapped him under one of its tires, according to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. About 45 minutes after the accident on State Highway 130, the officer was freed from the wreckage and taken to a hospital, where he was in surgery Tuesday afternoon, authorities said. The deputy is expected to survive, authorities said.

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International

FBI Warns of Possible Iranian Drone Attack on U.S. West Coast

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned police departments in California about a possible Iranian plan to carry out a drone attack against the west coast of the United States, according to a report published Wednesday by ABC News.

The warning was issued through a memorandum sent to agencies participating in a Joint Terrorism Task Force, outlining the possibility of a surprise attack involving unmanned aerial vehicles launched from a vessel off the U.S. coastline.

According to the document, intelligence suggested that in early February 2026 Iran may have considered an attack against unspecified targets in California if the United States carried out airstrikes on Iranian territory.

However, the memo also noted that authorities lack additional details about the timing, method, specific targets, or individuals responsible for the alleged plan.

Reports cited by U.S. media indicate that the alert coincided with the start of a military offensive by the administration of Donald Trump against the Iran, a development that has heightened tensions across the Middle East.

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Law enforcement sources with counterterrorism experience told the Los Angeles Times that the warning is part of a routine precautionary advisory based on information from the U.S. Coast Guard.

The sources emphasized that there is no credible indication of an imminent attack and no evidence that Iran currently has the capability to successfully carry out such an operation.

California is home to the largest Iranian community in the United States. According to the Migration Policy Institute, more than half of Iranian immigrants in the country lived in the state in 2019, including around 140,000 people in Los Angeles County alone.

The city also hosts a neighborhood widely known as “Tehrangeles,” where a large Iranian community began settling in the 1960s and continued to grow following the Iranian Revolution.

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International

Trump Says Iran Is Welcome at 2026 World Cup but Warns of Security Concerns

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, said Thursday that the national football team of Iran is “welcome” to participate in the 2026 World Cup, although he suggested it might be safer for the team not to take part in the tournament.

“The Iranian national soccer team is welcome at the World Cup, but I really don’t think it’s appropriate for them to be there, for their own safety,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

His comments came a day after Iran’s sports minister, Ahman Donyamali, said that there are currently no conditions for the country to participate in the tournament following the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, during a military offensive launched on February 28 by Israel and the United States.

“After the corrupt government killed our leader, there are no conditions that allow us to take part in the World Cup,” the Iranian official said. He added that the country has faced two wars in the past eight or nine months, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths, making participation in the tournament unlikely.

On Tuesday, the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, met with Trump at the White House.

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Following the meeting, Infantino said that Trump reiterated that Iran’s national team would be allowed to compete in the FIFA World Cup 2026.

“We discussed the current situation in Iran and the fact that the Iranian team has qualified to participate in the FIFA World Cup 2026. During the conversation, President Trump reiterated that the Iranian team is, of course, welcome to compete in the tournament in the United States,” Infantino wrote on Instagram.

International

Iran issues threat to Trump as conflict escalates over Strait of Hormuz

The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, threatened U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, warning him to “beware of being eliminated.”

The Republican president had warned on Monday that he would strike Iran “very hard” if the Islamic Republic blocked oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively been closed since the war began eleven days ago.

“Iran is not afraid of your empty threats. Others more powerful than you tried to destroy the Iranian nation and failed. Beware that you are not eliminated,” Larijani wrote on X.

Earlier, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards — the ideological military force of the Islamic Republic — also said their forces would move to block oil exports from the Gulf.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military offensive against Iran is far from over.

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“Our aspiration is that the Iranian people free themselves from the yoke of tyranny; ultimately, that depends on them. But there is no doubt that with the measures taken so far we are breaking their bones, and we are not finished yet,” Netanyahu said in a statement.