Residents dig out from tornado damage after storms kill 28 in Kentucky, Missouri and Virginia

LONDON, Ky. (AP) — Residents in Kentucky and Missouri sifted through damage in tornado-stricken neighborhoods, still on edge Sunday for more severe weather ahead after storms that killed more than two dozen people as they swept through parts of the Midwest and South.

Kentucky was hardest hit as a devastating tornado damaged hundreds of homes, tossed vehicles about and left many homeless. At least 19 people were killed, most of them in southeastern Laurel County.

Meteorologists predicted a fresh “multi-day” mix of dangerous weather conditions across the nation's midsection with heavy rains, thunderstorms and potential tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service.

The weather service confirmed a “large and extremely dangerous” tornado Sunday afternoon near Mingus, Texas, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) west of Fort Worth. Significant damage but no immediate casualties were reported in Palo Pinto County, which includes Mingus, a sheriff's office dispatcher said.

Forecasters warned of hail the size of tennis balls in that area, and damaging hail elsewhere in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Jeff Wyatt's home of 17 years was destroyed along with much of his neighborhood in London, Kentucky. Wyatt, his wife and two of their children scarcely made it to safety in a hallway while the roof and family room were ripped away. On Sunday, the family returned to the wrecked home to collect photos, baby blankets and other keepsakes.

“It happened so fast,” said Wyatt, 54. “If we would have been there 10 seconds longer, we would have been gone with the family room.”

Survivors and their supporters picked through the debris in London on Sunday, wary about new forecasts. Severe storms were possible for Kentucky on Monday and even more so on Tuesday, the weather service said.

Zach Wilson, whose parents' home was destroyed, said he was “terrified” another storm would ruin the remaining salvageable items scattered across their property — or even worse, destroy another community.

“If I had to tell anybody it would be to listen to every word that the National Weather Service kicks out and take every warning seriously,” Wilson said.

The Kentucky storms emerged from a weather system Friday that killed seven in Missouri and two in northern Virginia, authorities said. The system also spawned tornadoes in Wisconsin, brought punishing heat to Texas and temporarily enveloped parts of Illinois — including Chicago — in a pall of dust on an otherwise sunny day.

The weather service said parts of Missouri and Kansas could see severe thunderstorms, golf ball-sized hail and wind gusts up to 60 mph (97 kph) into Monday.

In London, Kentucky, Ryan VanNorstran huddled with his brother’s large dogs in a first-floor closet as the storm hit his brother’s home Friday in a neighborhood along Keavy Road where much of the destruction in the community of nearly 8,000 people was centered. VanNorstran was house-sitting.

He said he felt the house shake as he got into a closet. Then, a door from another house crashed through a window. All the windows blew out of the house and his car was destroyed. Chunks of wood had punched through several parts of the roof but the house avoided catastrophic damage. When he stepped outside, he heard screaming.

“I guess in the moment, I kind of realized there was nothing I could do. I’d never really felt that kind of power from just nature," he said.

Damage assessments were underway Sunday as the state readied its request for federal disaster assistance, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.

The governor announced a 19th storm victim, a woman from Russell County. Of 10 people hospitalized for weather-related injuries, three remained in critical condition.

“A lot of Kentuckians are hurting right now,” Beshear said on X, touting fundraising efforts to help with funerals and rebuilding. “If you’re able to help, please do.”

He said parts of two dozen state roads were closed, and some could take days to reopen.

About 1,200 tornadoes strike the U.S. annually, and they have been reported in all 50 states. Researchers found in 2018 that deadly tornadoes were occurring less frequently in the traditional “Tornado Alley” of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas and more frequently in parts of the more densely populated and tree-filled mid-South.

In St. Louis, Mayor Cara Spencer said five people died, 38 were injured and more than 5,000 homes were affected.

“The devastation is truly heartbreaking," she said.

A tornado struck in Scott County, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) south of St. Louis, killing two people, injuring several others and destroying several homes, Sheriff Derick Wheetley wrote on social media.

The storms hit after the Trump administration massively cut staffing of National Weather Service offices, with outside experts worrying about how it would affect warnings in disasters such as tornadoes.

The office in Jackson, Kentucky, which was responsible for the area around London, Kentucky, had a March 2025 vacancy rate of 25%; the Louisville, Kentucky, weather service staff was down 29%; and the St. Louis office was down 16%, according to calculations by weather service employees obtained by The Associated Press. The Louisville office also was without a permanent boss — the meteorologist in charge — as of March, according to the staffing data.

Experts said any vacancy rate above 20% is a critical problem.

See more photos from the severe storms in the South and Midwest here.

Associated Press writers Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to this report.

A resident holds her grandson's tory train as she looks for salvageable items of her daughter's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Edwina Wilson stands in what is left of her destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Macey Coffey carries salvageable items from what isleft of Edwina Wilson's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Edwina Wilson holds a photo she found in what is left of her destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

A piano rests atop what is left of the destroyed Sunshine Hill Baptist Church, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Family friend Melvin Brock, right, finds a photo as he sifts through what is left of Wilson's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

A path of destroyed homes is seen, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

An American Flag is posted near destroyed homes, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Dennis Clark goes through the remains of his house that was destroyed by severe weather in London, Ky., Saturday, May 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

A home is destroyed after a severe storm passed through the area, Saturday, May 17, 2025, in London, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Anthony Broughton digs through the debris of his destroyed home following a severe storm in the Sunshine Hill neighborhood of London, Ky., Saturday, May 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

Hailee Allen holds a family picture saved from Lynn and Don White's home, Saturday, May 17, 2025, in London, Ky (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Bea Johnson, left, looks to her sister Kristie Sexton, right, as she is embraced by family friend Keith Adams as they stand next to Sexton's destroyed home after a severe storm passed through the area, Saturday, May 17, 2025, in London, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)