David Schaper

Many seaports and airports along the southeastern U.S. coastline have been shut down, more than 1,000 flights have been canceled, and some highways and bridges in low-lying coastal areas could close soon, as Hurricane Florence gets closer to making landfall.

Authorities in coastal areas that lie in the path of the massive storm are urging residents one last time to evacuate.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster's message is pretty blunt: If you live in an evacuation zone, hit the road soon.

The U.S is on pace to record close to 40,000 roadway and highway deaths for the third consecutive year, according to preliminary figures released Wednesday by the National Safety Council. The silver lining in those dark numbers is that the number of people dying each year in traffic collisions nationwide appears to be leveling off after two years of sharp increases.

If there's one thing veteran Chicago taxicab driver Jay Khawas says he sees a lot of, it's cars with the familiar Uber and Lyft emblems.

"Oh my God. Like, many, many," says Khawas. "They're everywhere."

There certainly are more Uber and Lyft vehicles than taxicabs in Chicago and in most other big cities. Chicago, for example, limits the number of taxicab medallions, or vehicles licensed as taxis, to under 7,000.

The Trump administration's practice of separating children from their parents at the border is not just heartbreaking to other immigrants but also terrifying. Even immigrants who are in the country legally are beginning to worry that their families could be broken apart, too.

The anti-immigrant threats and actions have many Hispanic Americans in particular living on edge.

Tears immediately start streaming down the cheeks of Sarah, a Mexican immigrant, when she is asked about watching recent news stories on TV.

If you've already tried to get away for the long holiday weekend or are planning on leaving soon, you probably know this: the highways, airports and train stations are packed with like-minded folks trying to get out of town for the unofficial start of the summer vacation season.

Planes, trains and automobiles are overrun with Memorial Day weekend travelers and those who study traffic analytics say even people who slipped out on Thursday to beat the traffic were greeted by gridlock in many cities.

Updated at 11:59 p.m. ET

Federal investigators say a track switch locked in the wrong position appears to have led to Sunday's deadly Amtrak collision with an idle CSX freight train, and they are hesitant to say this latest wreck — the fourth fatal Amtrak incident in seven weeks — is part of a broader problem with what some have called a "lax safety culture" at Amtrak.

How much would you pay to avoid traffic jams on your daily commute? $10? $20? How about $40?

That's how much a tollway in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., charged for a short time last week. Outraged commuters call it highway robbery.

But transportation officials say the high-priced toll is less about money and more about changing commuter behavior and reducing congestion, and commuters all across the country might soon see more tolls in the future.

Updated on Dec. 4 at 6:29 p.m. ET

Some of the nation's 3.5 million truck drivers staged protests with their big rigs at truck stops and a few state capitols around the country on Monday, in hopes of derailing a new safety regulation that is set to take effect later this month.

As fire fighters in California's wine country worked frantically to contain and put out devastating wildfires that killed at least 42 people in recent weeks, and while his officers were still evacuating residents and searching through the burned ruins of homes for missing persons, Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano had another problem to address.

As some residents of South Texas begin to dry out their homes and belongings, significant challenges lie ahead as the city of Houston and others in the affected area look to recover and rebuild.

Congress is fast-tracking billions of dollars in recovery funding. But just because that down payment on Harvey recovery is on the way, that doesn't mean the rebuilding of Houston and other areas hammered by the storm's high winds and historic rains will go quickly or smoothly.

Here are five challenges ahead for the Harvey recovery:

There isn't a city in the United States, and there are probably very few anywhere in the world, that could have handled Hurricane Harvey's 50 inches of rain without significant flooding.

But Harvey was Houston's third flood in three years to surpass the "100 year flood" mark. Urban planners and civil engineers say a combination of natural and man-made factors has created a chronic drainage problem that left the city especially vulnerable to Harvey's torrential rains.

Modern technology has advanced the game of baseball in many ways. Teams use computer models to help strategize, data analytics to find the best players, and even tablets in the dugouts to instantly review plays. But the game itself can move at a leisurely pace — and some traditions may never change at all.

Ten years ago, the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis collapsed, sending cars, trucks and even a school bus that were crawling over it in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic plummeting into the river below and onto the rocky shore.

Thirteen people were killed, 145 more were injured, many of them seriously.

The bridge collapse sparked immediate calls in Minnesota and across the country invest big in repairing and replacing the nation's aging and crumbling infrastructure.

States are not doing enough to improve safety on the roads, in the workplace and in the home, according to a new report from the National Safety Council.

The group, which graded all 50 states on safety, awarded no state an "A" grade for overall safety, but 11 states received an "F."

Two juries deliberating in high profile criminal trials this week appeared to be unable to reach agreement on a verdict. The judges overseeing those trials sent the jurors in both cases back to continue deliberations.

In Pennsylvania, four days after getting the case, the jury considering sexual assault charges against Bill Cosby told the judge they couldn't reach a unanimous decision on any of the three counts against the 79-year-old actor and comedian. The judge directed them to keep talking and as Thursday evening fell, the panel of seven men and five women were still at it.

President Trump announced Monday a plan to privatize the nation's air traffic control system — a move that would remove the job of tracking and guiding airplanes from the purview of the Federal Aviation Administration.

"Today we're proposing to take American air travel into the future, finally," Trump said.

Another day and another conflict with airline employees goes viral.

In the wake of recent high profile incidents of customer mistreatment, most notably, the viral video of airport security officers dragging a passenger off a United Airlines plane last month, commercial airlines are scrambling to regain the trust of air travelers.

Updated at 11:20 a.m. ET

The CEO of United Airlines is in the hot seat on Capitol Hill this morning, answering pointed questions from members of Congress about last month's incident in which a United passenger was dragged off a plane.