News Information and Media Site: Nightly Rundown: Funeral plans for Jimmy Carter; Search for answers in South Korea plane crash; New Year’s storm threats

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By Dan Donahue

Monday, December 30, 2024

Good Monday afternoon. Plans have been announced for former President Jimmy Carter's state funeral, the U.S. is assisting the investigation into the plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, and we're tracking New Year's storm threats.

Here is what's in our Nightly Rundown.

Jimmy Carter's state funeral set for Jan. 9 at Washington National Cathedral

The state funeral for Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who was the elected the nation's 39th president, will be held on Jan. 9 at the Washington National Cathedral, organizers said today.

Carter, the first U.S. president to be born in a hospital and the first to reach the age of 100, died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, where he had been in hospice care since February 2023.

President Joe Biden has declared Jan. 9 a national day of mourning for Carter. Biden said last year that Carter had asked him to deliver his eulogy.

After leaving the White House as a one-term president, Carter dedicated himself to humanitarian causes and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Carter lived in Plains with his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, until her death in 2023.

U.S. investigators to assist in deadly South Korea plane crash probe

A team of U.S. investigators is expected to arrive in South Korea to help determine the cause of the country's worst aviation disaster in more than two decades, the NTSB said.

Jeju Air Flight 2216 belly-landed at Muan International Airport on Sunday, skidded into a wall and erupted in a massive fireball, killing 179 people on board.

Only two people, both flight crew members, survived the crash, authorities said. One of the survivors, identified by South Korea's Yonhap news agency as a 33-year-old flight attendant, is conscious and speaking, according to hospital officials.

The plane's two black boxes, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, have been retrieved and transferred to a test center, authorities said.

Investigators are looking into whether a bird strike was responsible for the plane's apparent loss of control. There are also questions about why the plane's landing gear did not appear to deploy.

New Year's storm to bring snow and rain across Midwest and Northeast

We're tracking a storm system that's threatening to bring snow and rain to the Midwest and Northeast just as millions are set to ring in 2025.

The system will bring some New Year's Eve snow into the eastern Great Lakes and rain into the Northeast, according to forecasters.

Showers are expected tomorrow night in Times Square, but the thousands of revelers gathering to watch the ball drop won't be allowed to bring their umbrellas.

In the South, conditions are clear and chilly today on the heels of violent storms over the weekend that produced a tornado outbreak and left at least four people dead.

Federal appeals court upholds $5 million E. Jean Carroll verdict against Trump

A federal appeals court has upheld writer E. Jean Carroll's $5 million civil judgment against President-elect Donald Trump.

A jury awarded Carroll the sum in 2023 after finding Trump liable for sexual abusing her in the 1990s and then defaming her after she went public with her allegations.

Trump has denied the allegations and appealed the verdict, charging it was "grossly excessive" and should be tossed because of what he claimed were unfair rulings from the judge who presided over the nine-day trial.

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, said in response to today's ruling that the case "will continue to be appealed."

What else we're watching:

President-elect Trump has given Mike Johnson his "Complete & Total Endorsement" to remain House speaker.

Five people, including a friend of Liam Payne and four hotel employees, now face charges in connection with the former One Direction star's fatal fall at a hotel in Buenos Aires on Oct. 16, officials said.

Madeline Gaudreau, the widow of NHL player Johnny Gaudreau's brother Matthew Gaudreau, gave birth to her first child just months after her husband and his brother were killed by an alleged drunk driver.

Cases of norovirus are on the rise across the county this winter, according to the CDC.

Linda Lavin, the Tony Award-winning actress who starred on the TV sitcom "Alice," has died at 87 after complications from recently discovered lung cancer, according to her representative.

Watch us this evening at 6:30 p.m. ET / 5:30 p.m. CT on NBC, or check your local NBC station listing. After the broadcast, access Nightly News video on NBCNightlyNews.com or the NBC News app.