There’s a monster of storm howling. The FBI busts an alleged Russian spy ring. And ISIS is dealt a crushing blow.
It’s Tuesday and here are the 5 things to know for your New Day
1. WEATHER
The weather outside is frightful: Manhattan is a ghost town. The Boston Common is buried in white. The New England coastline is being whipped by near hurricane-force winds and waves. Welcome to the blizzard of 2015. Up to 58 million people could be put into the deep freeze. More than 4,300 flights have been canceled today. And several states are asking motorists to stay off the road. New York’s mayor is calling it “one of the largest snowstorms in the history of the city.” Stay safe, northeasterners!
2. SPIES
Ain’t nobody spies like us: The men would sometimes say they needed to meet to exchange tickets, but they never seemed to end up actually attending or discussing a sporting event or a concert. The reason for the puzzling behavior, according to a federal complaint, is that the men were Russian spies exchanging intelligence information in New York City. But the FBI was watching. And yesterday, they arrested one of the men. (The other two got away).
3. ISIS
Never surrender: After 112 days of fighting, Kurdish fighters have taken the Syrian city of Kobani from ISIS’ grip. A day earlier, Iraq said that its Diyala Province had been “liberated” from ISIS. So, that’s two pieces of good news in a brutal militant campaign. In Kobani, the Kurds were going house to house in the newly liberated area to check for booby traps. Once the traps are removed or defused, the fighters will invite residents to return to their homes.
4. AIRASIA
A sad end: The Indonesian military said today it was stopping its efforts to try to find and recover the remains of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 almost a month after the commercial jet crashed into the sea. But there was no indication that Indonesia’s search and rescue agency was ending its mission to recover victims’ bodies. Flight QZ8501 went down on December 28 as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya toward Singapore with 162 people on board.
5.CUBA
Talks but no trust: A message reported to be from retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro late last nighty endorsed the fledgling talks to restore diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S., but added Castro still “didn’t trust” U.S. officials. Last month, Cuba and the United States exchanged prisoners and agreed to discuss normalizing relations that had been trapped in over five decades of Cold War animosity. Despite the major shift in policy, for over a month Castro made no public comment on the deal, until now.