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The suspect accused of critically wounding two National Guard members in a shooting near the White House on Wednesday entered the United States in 2021 through a refugee program for people fleeing Afghanistan, officials said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed on social media that the suspect had entered from Afghanistan in September 2021 under a Biden-era program called Operation Allies Welcome, which provided entry to Afghan nationals fleeing the Taliban takeover of their country after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The Trump administration pauses immigration from Afghanistan.

The Trump administration said on Wednesday that it had stopped processing immigration applications from Afghanistan, hours after officials in Washington detained an Afghan man they said had shot two National Guard troops near the White House.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees U.S. immigration, made the announcement on social media late Wednesday. The two Guard members from West Virginia were in critical condition after a 29-year-old man from Afghanistan shot them, officials said. The man, who was also injured, entered the United States in 2021 under a Biden-era immigration program for Afghans leaving their country after the government fell to the Taliban.

The pause on immigration applications from Afghan nationals will affect a number of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government or NATO forces during the 20-year war in Afghanistan. They are eligible to apply for what’s known as a Special Immigrant Visa, but the Trump administration’s recent curbs on immigration have left many of them in limbo – either stranded in third countries or forced into hiding in Afghanistan.Representatives for the Taliban administration in Afghanistan did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the shooting or the suspension of immigration applications from Afghan nationals. In recent months, Afghan officials have said they were ready to discuss the repatriation of Afghan nationals with the United States and other countries.

Before the shooting, some troops and officials worried about the Guard’s safety.

The shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., shocked Americans on Wednesday, but not everyone was surprised.

“I knew this would happen,” a member of the California National Guard texted The New York Times as news spread, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not have authority to comment publicly.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on social media that it had paused immigration applications from Afghan nationals. “Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols,” the agency said on X.Shawn VanDiver, the president of #AfghanEvac, a coalition of groups helping Afghans immigrate, said in a statement that the organization supports the shooter “facing full accountability and prosecution under the law.” But he urged that the shooting “not be used as an excuse to define or diminish an entire community,” pointing out that Afghans seeking to settle in the United States “undergo some of the most extensive security vetting of any population entering the country.”

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China is set to launch the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft to its orbital space station on November 25, providing a vital lifeboat for its three stranded astronauts after they spent days with no guaranteed trip back to Earth in an emergency.

The spacecraft will launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, the China Manned Space Agency said in a statement. After the crew of the damaged spacecraft Shenzhou-20 used Shenzhou-21 to return home, the three Shenzhou-21 astronauts were left with only a damaged spacecraft should they have had to return to Earth. And while they are apparently going about their work on the space station as usual, experts say scenarios like this one are dangerous and need to be better addressed.

Technically, the damaged spacecraft that remains docked at China’s space station could have been used in an emergency, but that poses risks, especially because it remains unclear how much damage the craft suffered, says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.

“I’m not sure NASA would have done that,” McDowell says, but “everything in space flight is a balancing of risks.”

“There’s no not risky option,” he adds. And as the amount of space debris in orbit around Earth grows, space agencies must prepare for more scenarios like this. International cooperation will be critical to protecting astronauts of different nationalities in orbit, McDowell says. And as crewed launches into space increase, having better contingency plans for human rescue will become increasingly necessary, says RAND think-tank analyst Jan Osburg. Government space agencies could delegate these operations to private companies or NGOs who have the capacity and infrastructure to respond quickly, he says.

Already, the U.S. and Russia use the same docking system at the ISS, allowing them to mitigate risks to both groups of astronauts. A partnership like that between the U.S. and China “would demonstrate a capability that each country could rescue the other astronauts in an emergency,” McDowell says.

If Shenzhou-22’s launch is successful tomorrow, China will have demonstrated its ability to respond to such scenarios on short notice, Osburg says. “That’s a pretty good achievement,” he says. China’s astronaut woes are reminiscent of last year’s saga at the ISS, when two NASA astronauts became stuck there for months longer than intended after their capsule—Boeing’s Starliner—encountered problems during the docking process. China’s human exploration program is a top priority for the country, with plans to send two astronauts to the moon by 2030.

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Historic Thanksgiving storms

The busy holiday period, combined with the changing seasons, often threatens chaos on the roads and at airports. And over the years, Thanksgiving has seen some memorable storms. 

Several cities in the Northeast saw near record-breaking cold temperatures on Thanksgiving Day in 2018, with temperatures dropping to 19°F that morning in New York City—making it the second-coldest Thanksgiving in the city’s history. Thousands, though, wrapped themselves in metallic foil blankets and sleeping bags on the sidewalk to watch the parade pass through the streets to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

The next year, a bomb cyclone—a large storm that rapidly strengthens over a 24 hour period—brought rain, snow, and hail to the West Coast, disrupting travel in Los Angeles as water flooded the roads.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which has not been cancelled since 1944 for any reason, has even been impacted by harsh winter weather. In 1997, 43 mph winds wreaked havoc on the parade, and two people were injured after a Cat-in-the-Hat balloon broke the metal arm off a lamppost. The debacle led New York City officials to declare that it will ground the balloons if winds reach 23 mph—but that has yet to happen since. 

Natural disasters have also made headlines on the holiday. In 1950, an extratropical cyclone impacted 22 states around the holiday week, as significant winds, heavy rain, and blizzard conditions killed 353 and injured 160. On Thanksgiving week in 1992, one of the largest November tornado outbreaks in U.S. history occurred over the course of three days, when severe weather spawned around 100 tornadoes everywhere from Texas to Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.

How climate change is impacting Thanksgiving weather

Though it might not feel like it, erratic and intense November storms are being made more likely by rising global temperatures, according to Climate Central. Over 225 cities in the U.S. have seen November temperatures rise since 1970—by 2.4°F on average. It could impact Thanksgiving weather trends—increasing the amount of winter precipitation as the warmer atmosphere is able to carry more moisture.

This increases the likelihood for significant snowfall from lake effect snow, which occurs when warmer temperatures prevent the lakes from freezing over, causing the warmer water to evaporate into passing cold fronts and fall down as snow. Parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes region are expected to see lake effect snow this week. 

“With warmer temperatures from climate change, you’re going to have a warmer November or warmer fall altogether,” says Finch. “And as we get into the later kind of time period in November, if you have warmer lake temperatures, and then you get this burst of intense cold air, that’s going to make the lake effect events a lot more significant when they happen.”

Early research shows that the warmer temperatures are also impacting the polar vortex, a large area of low pressure and cold air that surrounds both of the Earth’s poles. That could make severe winter weather events in some areas more likely—and cause temperatures to fluctuate.

“The research is hinting that as climate change continues, it’s leading to more frequent disruptions, which could lead to more cold air intrusion,” says Finch. “So if you have a disruption in the polar vortex that sends that cold polar air further south into the United States, places like Texas get a really cold freeze, or Florida, where people go to stay warm, they all of a sudden are really cold.”

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A pair of storms packing heavy snow and hurricane-force winds left tens of thousands without power in the United States on Nov. 27, 2019, and wreaked havoc for Americans traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday. Jason Connolly—AFP

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Mr. Trump has hung a photo of an autopen in a space where Mr. Biden’s portrait would otherwise be, and disparages his predecessor’s physicality often.

“He sleeps all the time — during the day, during the night, on the beach,” Mr. Trump said about Mr. Biden last week, adding: “I’m not a sleeper.”

Mr. Trump remains almost omnipresent in American life. He appears before the news media and takes questions far more often than Mr. Biden did. Foreign leaders, chief executives, donors, and others have regular access to Mr. Trump and see him in action.

Still, nearly a year into his second term, Americans see Mr. Trump less than they used to, according to a New York Times analysis of his schedule. Mr. Trump has fewer public events on his schedule and is traveling domestically much less than he did by this point during his first year in office, in 2017, although he is taking more foreign trips.

He also keeps a shorter public schedule than he used to. Most of his public appearances fall between noon and 5 p.m., on average.

And when he is in public, occasionally, his battery shows signs of wear. During an Oval Office event that began around noon on Nov. 6, Mr. Trump sat behind his desk for about 20 minutes as executives standing around him talked about weight-loss drugs.

At one point, Mr. Trump’s eyelids drooped until his eyes were almost closed, and he appeared to doze on and off for several seconds. At another point, he opened his eyes and looked toward a line of journalists watching him. He stood up only after a guest who was standing near him fainted and collapsed.

Mr. Trump has prompted additional questions about his health by sharing news about medical procedures he has had, but not details about them. While in Asia, Mr. Trump revealed that he had undergone magnetic resonance imaging at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in early October.

“I gave you the full results,” Mr. Trump told reporters, mischaracterizing the summary that was released by his physician, which did not say that Mr. Trump had an M.R.I. scan and contained few other details.

“I have no idea what they analyzed,” Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One recently after he was again asked about his M.R.I. “But whatever they analyzed, they analyzed it well, and they said that I had as good a result as they’ve ever seen.”

Mr. Trump also applies makeup to a bruise on the back of his right hand, adding speculation about a medical condition that his physician and aides say is caused by taking aspirin and shaking so many hands. In September, the bruising on his hand, coupled with swollen ankles, caused observers on the internet to speculate wildly about his health.

In response to a list of questions about Mr. Trump’s health, including about the results of his M.R.I. and whether or not he was falling asleep in the Oval Office, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, praised the president’s energy and pointed to Mr. Biden.

“Unlike the Biden White House, who covered up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and hid him from the press, President Trump and his entire team have been open and transparent about the president’s health, which remains exceptional,” Ms. Leavitt said in a statement.

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