The Twins appear to have a new veteran leader in their bullpen.

Longtime major league reliever Taylor Rogers is close to returning to the team that drafted him in the 11th round of the 2012 amateur draft, an MLB source said Thursday. The left-hander was an all-star for the Twins in 2021, his final season in Minnesota before being traded to the San Diego Padres along with Brent Rooker for pitchers Chris Paddack and Emilio Pagan and a player to be named later, which was minor league pitcher Brayan Medina.

Rogers amassed 30 saves in 2019 for the Central Division-winning Twins and has a 3.34 career ERA. He pitched in four postseason games for Minnesota, and had one playoff appearance for the Chicago Cubs last season.

The deal is pending a physical and, according to The Athletic, is one year for $2 million.

Rogers, 35, earned a career-high 31 saves in 2022 pitching in Milwaukee (3 saves) and San Diego (28) but has just two in three combined seasons pitching for San Francisco, Cincinnati and Chicago from 2023-25. He struck out 181 batters in 162 1/3 innings in those three seasons, with a 3.16 ERA.

But he struggled in 17 games for the Cubs last season, posting a career-high 5.09 ERA before becoming a free agent.

The team has not announced a deal, which would be its first for a bullpen decimated at the trade deadline last July. If Rogers passes his physical, he and Kody Funderburk are the early candidates to be the high-leverage lefties out of the pen this year.

They are hosting their annual TwinsFest this weekend at Target Field.

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By EMILIE MEGNIEN, SEAN MURPHY and JEFFREY COLLINS

ATLANTA (AP) — Bread was flying off the shelves, salt was being loaded into trucks and utility workers were nervously watching forecasts Thursday as a huge winter storm that could bring catastrophic damage, widespread power outages and bitterly cold weather was barreling toward the eastern two-thirds of the U.S.

The massive storm system is expected to bring a crippling ice storm from Texas through parts of the South, potentially around a foot of snow from Oklahoma through Washington, D.C.; New York and Boston and then a final punch of bitterly cold air that could drop wind chills to mius-50 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of Minnesota and North Dakota.

Forecasters are warning the damage, especially in areas that get a large amount of ice, could rival a hurricane. About 140 million people were under winter storm or cold weather watches or warnings — and in many places both.

When will it start?

The storm was expected to begin Friday in New Mexico and Texas and then the worst of the weather will move east into the Deep South before heading up the coast and thumping New England with snow.

Cold air streaming down from Canada caused Chicago Public Schools to cancel classes Friday. Wind chills predicted to be as low as minus-35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-37 Celsius) could cause frostbite within 10 minutes making it too dangerous to walk to school or wait for the bus.

The cold punch coming after means it will take a while to thaw out, an especially dangerous prospect in places where ice and snow weighs down tree branches and powerlines and cuts electricity, perhaps for days. Roads and sidewalks could remain icy well into next week.

Freezing temperatures are expected all the way to Florida and lows in the North and Midwest will get about as cold as possible, even down to minus 25 or 30 degrees Fahrenheit, forecasters said.

A severe cold snap five years ago took down much of the power grid in Texas, leaving millions without power for days and resulting in hundreds of deaths. Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday that won’t happen again.

The power system “has never been stronger, never been more prepared and is fully capable of handling this winter storm,” he said. “There is no expectation whatsoever that there is going to be any loss of power from the power grid.”

The difficulty of predicting winter storms

Winter storms can be notoriously tricky to forecast — one or two degrees can mean the difference between a catastrophe or a cold rain — and forecasters said the places with the worst weather can’t be pinned down until the event starts.

Georgia Gov Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency in his state like many other governors while acknowledging Thursday morning some forecasts have disastrous levels of wintery weather in Atlanta while others have the Deep South’s largest city mostly spared.

“That line could move north or south depending on what the temperatures do and what that could throw at us,” Kemp said.

All 275 of ice-melting salt sold out at Bates Ace Hardware in Atlanta in one morning, manager Lewis Pane said. He has made special trips to the warehouse to restock but it’s selling out everywhere.

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Wendy Chambers stopped by the store to pick up batteries and flashlights in case there is a power outage.

“We’re gonna be prepared, aren’t we? We’re going to be able to read, do things, play games,” she said before heading to church choir with her granddaughter.

Brine trucks were already treating roads from Oklahoma to Tennessee with more states expected to begin treating roads as the start of the storm gets closer.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger told her residents to prepare for days without power or the ability to get out of their neighborhoods. And in a nod to the politics of the time, the newly inaugurated Democrat said people should not be scared to call 911 in an emergency just because of the immigration crackdowns going on in places like Minnesota.

“If someone needs to call police, having a health emergency needs to call first responders, please do so and ensure the safety of your friends, neighbors and family. And, stay warm,” Spanberger said.

College sports teams moved up or postponed games, and the Texas Rangers canceled their annual Fan Fest event.

The city of Carmel, Indiana, canceled its Winter Games out of fear residents could get frostbite and hypothermia competing in ice trike relay and “human curling” in which people slide down a skating rink on inner tubes.

But in Charleston, West Virginia, organizers said the annual West Virginia Hunting and Fishing Show will go on after more than 150 exhibitors signed up for the sold-out event that is expected to draw about 12,000 people Friday through Sunday.

The forecast calls for rain, freezing rain and snow, but with outfitters coming from all over the U.S. as well as Canada and South Africa, the show must go on, said Glen Jarrell, a spokesperson for the West Virginia Trophy Hunters Association, the event’s promoter.

“We’re not thinking about stopping. We don’t care if it’s rain, snow or high water,” Jarrell said.

Murphy reported from Oklahoma City and Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writers around the country contributed to this report.

By SOPHIA TAREEN

CHICAGO (AP) — The fate of a Chicago man accused of using Snapchat to offer a $10,000 bounty on the life of a top Border Patrol commander rested in a federal jury’s hands Thursday.

Juan Espinoza Martinez, a 37-year-old carpenter, was charged with a single count of murder-for-hire in the first criminal trial out of the Chicago area immigration crackdown. Testimony lasted mere hours in the federal trial that’s the latest test of the Trump administration’s credibility on federal surges that have played out from Minnesota to Maine.

At the heart of the government’s case are Snapchat messages sent from Espinoza Martinez to his younger brother and a friend who turned out to be a government informant. One read in part “10k if u take him down,” along with a picture of Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official who has led aggressive crackdowns nationwide, including last year in the Chicago area.

“Those words do not indicate that this was a joke,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Yonan told jurors during closing arguments. “Those words have meaning. They are not innocent and harmless words.”

But defense attorneys said the government didn’t show any evidence against Espinoza Martinez who sent the messages as “neighborhood gossip” after coming home from work and unwinding with beers. He didn’t follow up on the exchanges and had only a few dollars in his bank account.

“Sending a message about gossip that you heard in the neighborhood, it’s not murder for hire,” his defense attorney Dena Singer told jurors. “It’s not a federal crime.”

If convicted, Espinoza Martinez faces up to 10 years in prison.

Prosecutors accused Espinoza Martinez of being “fixated and obsessed” with Bovino and cited other messages where he criticized the crackdown.

Espinoza Martinez was arrested in October as the Chicago area was in the federal spotlight. Protests, arrests and tense standoffs with immigration agents were common throughout the city of 2.7 million and surrounding suburbs, especially in the city’s heavily Mexican Little Village neighborhood where Espinoza Martinez lived.

He did not testify at his trial.

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But attorneys played clips of his interview with law enforcement where he said he was confused about the charges and that he sent the messages without much thought while scrolling social media after work.

“I didn’t threaten anyone,” he told investigators, interchanging English and Spanish at times in the interview. “I’m not saying that I was telling them to do it.”

Born in Mexico, he’s lived in Chicago for years but doesn’t have citizenship.

The Department of Homeland Security touted Espinoza Martinez’s arrest on social media with unredacted photos of his face, referring to him as a “depraved” gang member. Bovino has held the case up as an example of the increasing dangers faced by federal agents. Prosecutors included Yonan, the second-highest ranking federal prosecutor in the Chicago region.

But several federal lawsuits in Chicago have fueled skepticism about DHS’s narratives. Of the roughly 30 criminal cases stemming from Operation Midway Blitz, charges have been dismissed or dropped in about half. In a notable lawsuit that forced Bovino to sit for depositions, a federal judge found he lied under oath including about alleged gang threats.

Nationwide, dozens of criminal cases tied to immigration operations have also crumbled.

Bovino did not testify at the trial.

Federal prosecutors initially referred to Espinoza Martinez as a “ranking member” of the Latin Kings, but their lack of evidence led U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow to bar testimony on the Chicago street gang at trial. According to the criminal complaint, Espinoza Martinez allegedly sent messages on behalf of the gang to other gang members.

At trial, there were minor mentions of the gang, including Espinoza Martinez saying in his interview that he had nothing to do with the Latin Kings. His brother, Oscar, testified that he took the Snapchat messages as a joke and something he’d already seen on Facebook.

Singer pointed out holes in the government’s case, including in the testimony of their first witness Adrian Jimenez.

The 44-year-old owns a construction company and had been in touch with Espinoza Martinez over Snapchat about work. Unknown to Espinoza Martinez, he had also worked as a paid government informant over the years and shared the Snapchats with a federal investigator.

Jimenez, who suffers from back problems, walked slowly with a limp to the witness chair and needed help getting up.

“Would you solicit for hire an individual that was in that much pain and could barely walk?” Singer said to jurors. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump sued banking giant JPMorgan Chase and its CEO Jamie Dimon for $5 billion on Thursday over allegations that JPMorgan debanked him and his businesses for political reasons after he left office in January 2021.

The lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade County court in Florida, alleges that JPMorgan abruptly closed multiple accounts in February 2021 with just 60 days notice and no explanation. By doing so, Trump claims JPMorgan and Dimon cut the president and his businesses off from millions of dollars, disrupted their operations and forced Trump and the businesses to urgently open bank accounts elsewhere.

“JPMC debanked (Trump and his businesses) because it believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so,” the lawsuit alleges.

Debanking occurs when a bank closes the accounts of a customer or refuses to do business with a customer in the form of loans or other services. Once a relatively obscure issue in finance, debanking has become a politically charged issue in recent years, with conservative politicians arguing that banks have discriminated against them and their affiliated interests.

Debanking first became a national issue when conservatives accused the Obama administration of pressuring banks to stop extending services to gun stores and payday lenders under “Operation Choke Point.”

Trump and other conservative figures have alleged that banks cut them off from their accounts under the umbrella term of “reputational risk” after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Since Trump came back into office, the president’s banking regulators have moved to stop any banks from using “reputational risk” as a reason for denying service to customers.

“JPMC’s conduct … is a key indicator of a systemic, subversive industry practice that aims to coerce the public to shift and re-align their political views,” Trumps lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.

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Trump accuses the bank of trade libel and accuses Dimon himself of violating Florida’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

In a statement, JPMorgan said that it “regrets” that Trump sued the bank but insisted it did not close the accounts for political reasons.

“We believe the suit has no merit,” a bank spokesperson said. “JPMC does not close accounts for political or religious reasons. We do close accounts because they create legal or regulatory risk for the company.”