August, 2022 | últimas notícias

Shelling Kills One in Ukrainian Town Near Nuclear Site Amid Accelerating Exodus – The New York Times

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — Shelling near a nuclear power complex in southern Ukraine killed a foreman from the facility at his home in a neighboring town, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.

The Ukrainian company that oversees the nation’s nuclear power plants, Energoatom, said that Russia had directed at least six shells at the town of Enerhodar, where most of the workers at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant live.

The town is under Russian occupation, and the Russians have blamed the Ukrainians for the shelling of the giant nuclear complex — Europe’s largest — and nearby residential areas, which has raised alarm around the world. However, the Ukrainians have said that it is the Russians who are firing on civilians, suggesting the intent is to discredit the Ukrainian Army.

A statement Energoatom posted on Telegram identified the employee of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant who was killed as Marko Maksym Petrovych and said that two other workers were injured and were receiving medical care.

The shelling in and around the plant in recent days has set off a flight of civilians from the area.

The Zaporizhzhia plant is the first active nuclear power complex to be caught up in a combat zone. Forty-two countries called for Russia to “immediately withdraw” its forces from the plant, in a statement that was dated from Friday and released by the European Union on Sunday.

The United States and European Union have called for the establishment of a demilitarized zone, as the fighting in and around the plant and its active reactors and stored nuclear waste has sparked grave concern that an errant strike and resulting fire could cause a meltdown or release radiation.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said in his nightly address on Saturday that Russia had resorted to “nuclear blackmail” at the complex, reiterating a Ukrainian analysis that Moscow was using it to slow a Ukrainian counteroffensive toward the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, where Russian conventional military defenses appear increasingly wobbly.

Contrary to the fears of some analysts when Moscow launched its invasion in February, the more urgent nuclear threat in the Ukraine war now appears to be Russia damaging the civilian plant, rather than deploying its own nuclear weapons.

Engineers say that yard-thick reinforced concrete containment structures protect the reactors from even direct hits. International concern, however, has grown that shelling could spark a fire or cause other damage that would lead to a nuclear accident.

The six pressurized water reactors at the complex retain most sources of radiation, reducing risks. After pressurized water reactors failed at the Fukushima nuclear complex in Japan in 2011, Ukraine upgraded the Zaporizhzhia site to enable a shutdown even after the loss of cooling water from outside the containment structures, Dmytro Gortenko, a former plant engineer, said in an interview.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that on Saturday, Russian artillery fire hit a pump, damaged a fire station and sparked fires near the plant that could not be immediately extinguished because of the damage to the fire station.

In fields near Enerhodar, long lines of cars carrying fleeing civilians formed on Saturday, according to social media posts and another former engineer at the plant who has remained in touch with local residents.

“Locals are abandoning the town,” said the former engineer, who asked to be identified by only his first name, Oleksiy, because of security concerns. Residents had been leaving for weeks, but the pace picked up after Saturday’s barrages and fires, he said.

Since Russia captured the plant in March, its army has controlled the facility, while Ukrainian engineers have continued to operate it.

Ukrainian employees are not fleeing but sending their families away, said Oleksiy, who left in June. Enerhodar was built for plant employees in the Soviet period and had a prewar population of about 50,000.

Ukraine has accused Russia of staging artillery attacks targeting Ukrainian towns across the Dnipro River from the plant starting in July, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south ramped up.

Overnight into Sunday morning, Russian howitzers fired on the Ukrainian town of Nikopol, which lies across a reservoir from the power plant, Yevheny Yetushenko, the Ukrainian military governor of the town, said in a post on Telegram.

The Ukrainian military has said it has few options for firing back. In July, it used a self-destructing drone to strike a Russian rocket artillery launcher that sat about 150 yards from one of the plant’s reactors.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/14/world/ukraine-russia-news-war

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Salman Rushdie’s ‘road to recovery has begun,’ author’s agent says, as stabbing suspect pleads not guilty – CNN

(CNN)The renowned author Salman Rushdie has been taken off a ventilator and continues to recover after being repeatedly stabbed during an on-stage attack in western New York on Friday that left him hospitalized.

CNN’s Kiely Westhoff, Andy Rose, Paul P. Murphy, Aya Elamroussi, Ray Sanchez, Christina Maxouris, Artemis Moshtaghian, Sara Smart and Samantha Beech contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/14/us/salman-rushdie-attack-sunday/index.html

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FBI warns of heightened threats as Hill Republicans demand more from Garland on Mar-a-Lago search – POLITICO

Days after Trump’s home was searched on Aug. 8, a man who posted regularly on his social media site tried to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati field office in Ohio, armed with an AR-15 style rifle and a nail gun. He fled the scene before being killed in a standoff. The episode was referenced in the bulletin.

Pro-Trump internet forums have erupted with violent threats in the days after the FBI search. Meanwhile, conservative media published the names of the two agents who signed the paperwork authorizing a search warrant of Trump’s estate. And the biographical information of the federal magistrate judge who signed the search warrant had to be wiped from a Florida court’s website because of threats.

Some members of the Republican Party raised concerns about the incendiary rhetoric coming from others in the GOP and its potential to lead to violence. Reps. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) are among those who spoke of destroying or defunding the FBI.

“It’s outrageous rhetoric,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

“It’s absurd and it’s dangerous. There are threats all over the place, and losing faith in our federal law enforcement officers and our justice system is a really serious problem for the country,” said Hogan, whose father was an FBI agent, as were other members of his family.

Hogan’s comments were echoed by Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican.

“The GOP is gonna be the party of supporting law enforcement — law enforcement includes the FBI,” Hutchinson said on CNN. “We need to pull back on casting judgment on them.”

Other elected Republicans on Sunday put the onus on Attorney General Merrick Garland to justify the necessity of the search of Trump’s residence last week.

“He has a lot of questions to answer,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The attorney general has been under intense scrutiny after he “personally approved” use of a search warrant for government documents located at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. The former president claims he had declassified all the records prior to leaving office.

Many Republican leaders immediately attacked the search when it occurred last Monday, but some have since softened their criticism, particularly those like Turner, who have expressed concern over the possible presence of classified documents.

The first bipartisan request for information surrounding the FBI search came on Sunday from the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose leaders, Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) and ranking member Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), sent a private letter to Garland and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Warner and Rubio asked the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to give the committee access to the classified documents that were seized during the Mar-a-Lago search, according to a spokesperson. The committee also asked for “an assessment of potential risks to national security as a result of their mishandling,” the spokesperson added.

GOP moderates, meanwhile, have offered criticism of their fellow Republicans over harsh rhetoric directed against the FBI and other law enforcement officials.

“I’m not one of the individuals out there that says that, you know, ‘Immediately attack the FBI or the Justice Department,’” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said on Sunday on “Meet the Press.” “I think this is very important that you provide them with the opportunity to lay out their case. But I think it’s very important long-term for the Justice Department — now that they’ve done this — that they show that this was not just a fishing expedition.”

For his part, on Sunday morning Trump claimed on Truth Social that some of the information seized by authorities contained documents covered by attorney-client privilege and executive privilege.

“By copy of this TRUTH, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken,” he posted.

Some congressional Republicans quickly closed ranks around Trump — who has raised money off the developments — in the days after the search became public, with some alleging that Garland and the Biden administration were trying to damage a political rival.

“No one is above the law. Donald Trump is not above the law and Attorney General Garland is not above the law, either,” Turner said.

The White House and senior Biden administration officials have adamantly said that Garland and the Justice Department acted independently in their decision to investigate Trump’s property.

“We’ve learned about this the same way the American people have learned about this,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” She added that President Joe Biden had not been briefed on the FBI’s investigation.

The Justice Department released portions of the materials related to the search in the days after the warrant was executed, revealing that investigators are exploring whether the former president violated the Espionage Act or possibly obstructed justice in his handling of sensitive documents — including those marked with the highest level of government classification.

However, a growing chorus of Republicans have called on the Justice Department to release more information, in particular the affidavit filed in support of the search warrant request approved by a federal magistrate judge.

“It was an unprecedented action that needs to be supported by unprecedented justification,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said on Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “That’s an open question, and we know where to look: the affidavit of probable cause.”

Top House Democrats have called for a review of whether the storage of those records outside the government’s auspices endangered national security. Turner and other Republicans have demanded that they be provided more information about the records to assess whether the search itself was warranted.

“These are materials that are two years old,” Turner said. “We don’t know what they are. We don’t know if they rise to the level of being a national security threat.”

Andrew Desiderio contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/14/trump-garland-mar-a-lago-search-00051597

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These photos show who is (and isn’t) included in the Taliban’s Afghanistan – NPR

One year ago this August, the Taliban raised their white flag over Afghanistan’s capital for the second time, pulling down the tricolor flag of the republic that had endured for the two decades between.

Their victory gave the radical religious movement supreme power over a country with a median age of 18 — which means most citizens weren’t alive for the Taliban’s violent years in power from 1996-2001. The young people on the left of this photo above had never seen such a change of power. On the right, 62-year-old carpet seller Ahmed Shah Kashefi says he’s lived through many upheavals and it’s always hard.

The self-proclaimed Islamic emirate now controls government compounds, universities and other institutions surrounded by blast walls — concrete structures once built to keep out the Taliban, along with bombers from other extremist groups.

The Taliban also control rural villages, like this one in Wardak Province. Its few remaining residents say the old government bulldozed mud-walled homes as part of their ongoing battle with the Taliban for control of nearby Highway One.

Their single biggest prize is Kabul, a growing city in a mountain valley, where neighborhoods climb up the slopes on all sides.

At this used furniture store, Wahid Kashafi (left) and Abdul Kahar give a snapshot of life in the capital. Few people have money to buy furniture, but many are selling — as they prepare to leave the country, or to buy food.

Kabul’s population is 4.5 million, about twice its population when the Taliban last ruled. In their previous reign there were almost no phones — and no television, except what residents watched on smuggled DVD’s. Now the city is in instant communication with the world.

Kabul’s economy is less connected. Taliban leaders face global economic sanctions. The U.S. froze the assets of the central bank, and other Afghan banks were unable to do business with the world.

Credit cards ceased to function; it even became hard for Afghans abroad to send money home.

At the airport, at taxi stands, and at bread shops it’s not hard to find children seeking a handout.

Shop owners we met said business was bad, though some were philosophical and said it’s always like this when the government changes.

So who is included in the Taliban’s Afghanistan? The free media are still allowed to function. Some, such as TOLOnews, have endured the hard times, the loss of staff, and periodic Taliban demands to leave out inconvenient facts.

The role of women and girls is ambiguous at best. Younger girls are in school while those of junior high and high school age are not.

Some women are still working, while others are not. Muzhda Noor says that one year ago she was a university dean overseeing 19 male professors. After the takeover, a new chancellor ordered new restrictions on women, and told Noor she should no longer attend faculty meetings with men. She sought a transfer but eventually was dismissed from the university.

The political opposition has no formal space of its own. Gulalai Mohammadi was a member of the Afghan parliament that the Taliban declared defunct. She says she’s now at home, with no way to support a cause that she advanced in the assembly—women’s rights.

A former president, Hamid Karzai, remains in Kabul and is able to speak freely, as in a recent NPR interview, but has not been allowed to leave Afghanistan.

Many of the men who brought the Taliban to power have returned to their homes. They include these men in the Tangi Valley in rural Wardak Province. The fighters we met said they were pleased to live under their version of Islamic rule, but as we left the valley we also heard that residents wished their girls could return to school.

And it doesn’t take long for a visitor to begin seeing the vast number of people in society who are obliged under the new rules to go unseen.

How do the Taliban mean to answer the uncertainties of their rule? Analyst Abdul Jabar Baheer was present this summer when Taliban leaders held a mass meeting, but reached no decisions on major policies or a permanent form of government. Hibatullah Akhundzada, described as the emir of Afghanistan, said he would not obey the West, but said little about what he intended to do.

We sought clarity at a famous compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It’s the compound of Mullah Omar, who led the Taliban during their first rule. The U.S. and its Afghan allies later turned it into a base, and it’s strewn with military equipment.

The compound is now home to Mullah Omar’s son, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid, who has become defense minister in the Taliban’s interim government.

Yaqoob said the Taliban take “seriously” the question of girls in school, and that he hopes for further announcements. He also said it’s a “necessity” to adopt a formal constitution.

The Taliban said there will be no room in their system for democracy — and they have for the moment eliminated elections, elected offices and a formal opposition.

Yet they’ve inherited a complex society that now faces an economic crisis. Through the media, the few remaining independent political figures, and the demands of the people, they face democratic calls to govern effectively and inclusively.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/08/14/1116948404/afghanistan-taliban-women-economy-kabul-karzai

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GOP governors rebuke party members’ ‘outrageous rhetoric’ over Trump search – The Guardian US

A handful of Republican governors have criticized the “outrageous rhetoric” of their party colleagues in the US Congress, who have accused federal law enforcement officers of a politicized attack on former president Donald Trump after executing a court-approved search warrant on his Florida home this week.

Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a Republican moderate, described attacks by party members as both “absurd” and “dangerous”, after a week in which certain Republicans have compared the FBI to the Gestapo and fundraised off the slogan: “Defund the FBI”.

Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Hogan described the comparisons of the FBI to Nazi Germany’s secret police, made by Florida senator Rick Scott, as “very concerning to me, it’s outrageous rhetoric”.

He added: “It’s absurd and, you know, it’s dangerous,” especially after an armed man enraged by the raid was killed in Ohio when he tried to invade an FBI office. “There are threats all over the place and losing faith in our federal law enforcement officers and our justice system is a really serious problem for the country.”

On Monday, FBI agents executed a search warrant at the former president’s private members club and residence in south Florida with an unsealed warrant later revealing Trump is under investigation for potential violation of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

The episode inflamed conservative commentators and politicians still deeply loyal to the former president, and was followed by the attack on the FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Thursday, which led to a six-hour armed standoff that left the lone gunman shot dead.

Hogan, who is rumored to be considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, argued that many of his colleagues in Washington had been “jumping to conclusions without any information, which I think was wrong”.

He added that revelations in the unsealed warrant were a “serious concern” but argued investigators should provide further details on the contents of the seized documents.

Hogan’s comments were followed by remarks from Arkansas’s Republican governor Asa Hutchinson, who appeared on CNN on Sunday and partially mirrored his Maryland counterpart.

“If the GOP is going to be the party of supporting law enforcement, law enforcement includes the FBI,” Hutchinson, a former US prosecutor and private practice attorney, said.

He added: “We need to pull back on casting judgment on them. … No doubt that higher ups in the FBI have made mistakes, they do it, I’ve defended cases as well, and I’ve seen wrong actions. But we cannot say that whenever they [FBI officers] went in and did that search that they were not doing their job as law enforcement officers.”

The comments marked a growing split on the extremist rhetoric from certain Republican party members following the execution of the search warrant. Many senior senate Republicans have remained largely quiet in the wake of the unprecedented law enforcement action, while others have appeared on conservative news channels supporting baseless accusations that the FBI planted evidence during the search.

The Republican congresswoman from Wyoming Liz Cheney, a ranking member on the House committee investigating the January 6th attack on the US capitol, has condemned her colleagues’ rhetoric as “sickening”.

“I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search,” Cheney wrote on Thursday. “These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.”

Her stance is slowly being mirrored by other House Republicans after the warrant was made public on Friday.

Dan Crenshaw, a Republican congressman from Texas told Axios on Saturday that sloganeering against the FBI “makes you look unserious”. And ranking homeland security committee member John Katko told the website: “This is not something you rush to judgment on. … It’s incumbent upon everybody to take a deep breath.”

Meanwhile on Sunday, the White House continued refraining from commenting on the search warrant. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly declined to answer questions on the matter during an interview with ABC News, citing the US justice department’s independence on law enforcement matters.

When shown video of comments made by House Republican Elise Stefanik, a staunch Trump loyalist, who described the search as “complete abuse and overreach” by the FBI, Jean-Pierre broadly fired back.

She said: “The Department of Justice, when it comes to law enforcement, is independent. This is what we believe, and this is what the president has said. This is not about politicizing anything. That is not true at all.”

Jean-Pierre added a reminder that US attorney general Merrick Garland was confirmed by the US Senate in bipartisan vote, and that Trump nominated FBI director Christopher Wray to his position in 2017.

Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/14/fbi-trump-search-gop-outrageous-rhetoric

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Police name the man they say crashed his car and killed himself near the U.S. Capitol – NPR

Police are seen at the barricade where a man crashed his car early Sunday morning. Authorities say the man then exited the car and fired a gun several times into the air before killing himself.

Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images

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Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images

Police are seen at the barricade where a man crashed his car early Sunday morning. Authorities say the man then exited the car and fired a gun several times into the air before killing himself.

Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images

Police are investigating an early Sunday morning incident in which a man crashed his car near the U.S. Capitol and fired multiple gunshots before killing himself.

Authorities identified the man as Richard A. York III, a 29-year-old from Delaware.

The reasons why he chose to drive to the Capitol were unclear, though he did not appear to be targeting any members of Congress, the U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement. No one else was injured.

A worker looks over the area where a man, identified by officials as Richard A. York III of Delaware, crashed into a barricade at the U.S. Capitol on Sunday.

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A worker looks over the area where a man, identified by officials as Richard A. York III of Delaware, crashed into a barricade at the U.S. Capitol on Sunday.

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The incident began around 4:00 a.m. as York drove his car into a barricade about one block east of the Capitol.

As he exited the car, the vehicle “became engulfed in flames,” the police statement said. York then fired several gunshots, apparently into the air.

“When our officers heard the sound of gunfire, they immediately responded and were approaching the man when he shot himself,” Capitol Police said. The agency said it did “not appear” that any officers fired their weapons.

Congress is currently on recess until after Labor Day.

This is a breaking news story. Some things reported by the media will later turn out to be wrong. We will focus on reports from officials and other authorities, credible news outlets and reporters who are at the scene. We will update as the situation develops.

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/08/14/1117432659/capitol-police-barricade-car-crash-gunfire

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More U.S. lawmakers visiting Taiwan 12 days after Pelosi trip – POLITICO

A Taiwanese broadcaster showed video of a U.S. government plane landing about 7 p.m. Sunday at Songshan Airport in Taipei, the Taiwanese capital. Four members of the delegation were on the plane.

Markey met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol earlier Sunday in South Korea before arriving in Taiwan on a separate flight at Taoyuan International Airport, which also serves Taipei. Markey, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations East Asia, Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Subcommittee, and members of the delegation will reaffirm the United States’ support for Taiwan.

The other members of the delegation are Republican Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, a delegate from American Samoa, and Democratic House members John Garamendi and Alan Lowenthal from California and Don Beyer from Virginia.

Chinese warplanes have continued crossing the midpoint of the Taiwan Strait on a daily basis even after the conclusion of the military exercises last Wednesday, with at least 10 doing so on Sunday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said.

The 10 fighter jets were among 22 Chinese military aircraft and six naval ships detected in the area around Taiwan by 5 p.m. on Sunday, the ministry said on its Twitter account.

A senior White House official on Asia policy said late last week that China had used Pelosi’s visit as a pretext to launch an intensified pressure campaign against Taiwan, jeopardizing peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region.

“China has overreacted, and its actions continue to be provocative, destabilizing, and unprecedented,” Kurt Campbell, a deputy assistant to President Joe Biden, said on a call with reporters.

“It has sought to disregard the centerline between the P.R.C. and Taiwan, which has been respected by both sides for more than 60 years as a stabilizing feature,” he said, using the acronym for the country’s full name, the People’s Republic of China.

China accuses the U.S. of encouraging independence forces in Taiwan through its sale of military equipment to the island and engaging with its officials. The U.S. says it does not support independence for Taiwan but that its differences with China should be resolved by peaceful means.

China’s ruling Communist Party has long said that it favors Taiwan joining China peacefully but that it will not rule out force if necessary. The two split in 1949 during a civil war in which the Communists took control of China and the losing Nationalists retreated to the island of Taiwan.

Campbell, speaking on Friday, said the U.S. would send warships and planes through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks and is developing a roadmap for trade talks with Taiwan that he said the U.S. intends to announce in the coming days.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/14/congress-taiwan-china-markey-pelosi-00051589

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Salman Rushdie’s ‘road to recovery has begun,’ author’s agent says, as stabbing suspect pleads not guilty – CNN

(CNN)The renowned author Salman Rushdie has been taken off a ventilator and continues to recover after being repeatedly stabbed during an on-stage attack in western New York on Friday that left him hospitalized.

CNN’s Kiely Westhoff, Andy Rose, Paul P. Murphy, Aya Elamroussi, Ray Sanchez, Christina Maxouris, Artemis Moshtaghian, Sara Smart and Samantha Beech contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/14/us/salman-rushdie-attack-sunday/index.html

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A disastrous megaflood is coming to California, experts say, and it could be the most expensive natural disaster in history – KCRA Sacramento

Many Californians fear the “Big One,” but it might not be what you think.

It’s not an earthquake. And it isn’t the mega drought. It’s actually the exact opposite.

A megaflood.

A new study by Science Advances shows climate change has already doubled the chances of a disastrous flood happening in California in the next four decades. And experts say it would be unlike anything anyone alive today has ever experienced.

Video player above: Sea level rise is a threat to all Californians, whether they live near the coast or not

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA and a researcher involved in the study, describes a megaflood as, “a very severe flood event across a broad region that has the potential to bring catastrophic impacts to society in the areas affected.” He said a megaflood is similar to the 1,000-year flash flood events seen this summer in the St. Louis area and Kentucky, but across a much wider area, such as the entire state of California.

These massive floods, which experts say would turn California’s lowlands into a “vast inland sea,” might have previously happened once in a lifetime in the state. But experts say climate change is increasing the likelihood of these catastrophic disasters, causing them to occur more like every 25 to 50 years.

Climate change supercharges heavy rain events, making flash floods occur more regularly, as has been noted several times this summer in Eastern Kentucky, St. Louis, and even in California’s Death Valley National Park.

California is prone to these floods from atmospheric rivers naturally, and major floods from them have happened before — but climate change is upping the ante, and millions of people could be impacted.

The study said atmospheric rivers could become consecutive for weeks on end, like seen in this animation. Xingying Huang, one of the authors of the study, made this loop, which illustrates the water vapor transportation and potential precipitation accumulation at selected time slices during the 30-day scenario.

The area with the most destruction would be the Central Valley of California, including Sacramento, Fresno and Bakersfield, the study’s authors project. The Central Valley, roughly the size of Vermont and Massachusetts combined, produces a quarter of the nation’s food supply, according to the US Geological Survey.

A flood with the size to fill this valley has the potential to be the most expensive geophysical disaster to date, costing upwards of $1 trillion in losses and devastating the state’s lowland areas, including Los Angeles and Orange counties, according to the study.

That would be more 5 times the cost of Hurricane Katrina, the current costliest disaster in US history.

“Such a flood event in modern California would likely exceed the damages from a large magnitude earthquake by a considerable margin,” the study showed.

This study is the first phase of a three-part series studying the effects of a future megaflood event in California. The next two phases are expected to be released in two to three years.

“Ultimately, one of our goals is not just to understand these events scientifically, but it’s also to help California prepare for them,” Swain said. “It’s a question of when rather than if (the megaflood) occurs.”

It’s happened before. It will happen again, but worse, warns scientists

Over 150 years ago, a strong series of atmospheric rivers drenched the Golden State, causing one of the most exceptional floods in history following a dry spell that had left the West parched for decades.

Communities were demolished in minutes.

It was the winter of 1861-1862 and a historic megaflood transformed the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys into a “temporary but vast inland sea,” according to the study. Some areas had up to 30 feet of water for weeks, obliterating infrastructure, farmland, and towns.

Sacramento, the new state capital at the time, was under ten feet of debris-filled water for months.

The catastrophe began in December 1861, when nearly 15 feet of snow fell in the Sierra Nevada. Repetitive atmospheric rivers dropped warm rain for 43 days thereafter, dumping water down the mountainous slopes and into the valleys.

Four thousand people lost their lives, one-third of the state’s property was destroyed, a quarter of California’s cattle population drowned or starved, and one in eight homes were a complete loss by floodwaters.

In addition, one-fourth of California’s economy was obliterated, resulting in a state-wide bankruptcy.

Swain warns a megaflood like this will happen again, but worse and more frequent.

“We find that climate change has already increased the risk of a (1862) megaflood scenario in California, but that future climate warming will likely bring about even sharper risk increases,” the study warns.

Many of today’s major cities with millions of residents are built directly on top of the ancient flood deposits, Swain added, putting far more people in harm’s way.

About 500,000 people lived in California in 1862. Now, the state’s population is over 39 million.

“When this (flood) occurs again, the consequences would be wildly different than they were back in the 1860s,” Swain said.

Climate change increases the amount of rain the atmosphere can hold and causes more water in the air to fall as rain, which can lead to immediate flooding. Both are and will continue to occur in California.

The new study shows a rapid increase in the likelihood of week-long, recurring strong-to-extreme atmospheric rivers during the cool season. An atmospheric river is a long, narrow region of heavy moisture in the atmosphere that can transport moisture thousands of miles, like a fire hose in the sky. They usually bring beneficial rainfall to drought-prone regions like California but could quickly become hazardous with a warming climate.

Historically these winter atmospheric rivers dump feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada, but as climate warms, more of the snow will fall as rain. Instead of melting slowly over time, it all runs off, piles up, and floods immediately.

With a neighbor like the Pacific Ocean, California has “an infinite reservoir of water vapor offshore,” Swain added.

California’s mountainous terrain and wildfire risk make it especially vulnerable to flooding. Lingering burn scars from wildfires can create a steep, slick surface for water and debris to flow off. With wildfires becoming larger and burning more area thanks to climate change, more areas are susceptible to these debris flows.

Although models show this megaflood is inevitable, experts say there are ways to mitigate excessive loss.

“I think the extent of (megaflood) losses can be significantly reduced by doing certain sorts of things to revamp our flood management and our water management systems and our disaster preparedness,” Swain said.

Huang, a project scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a researcher involved in the study, said everyone can make a small effort in combating climate change.

“If we work together to decrease future emissions, we can also reduce the risk of extreme events,” Huang said.

| DATA BELOW | Sea level rise is a threat to all Californians, whether they live near the coast or not

Source Article from https://www.kcra.com/article/megaflood-california-most-expensive-natural-disaster/40888657

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Fire at Cairo Coptic church kills 41, including 10 children – The Associated Press – en Español

CAIRO (AP) — A fire ripped through a packed Coptic Orthodox church during morning services in Egypt’s capital on Sunday, quickly filling it with thick black smoke and killing 41 worshippers, including at least 10 children.

Several trapped congregants jumped from upper floors of the Martyr Abu Sefein church to try to escape the intense flames, witnesses said. “Suffocation, suffocation, all of them dead,” said a distraught witness, who only gave a partial name, Abu Bishoy.

Sixteen people were injured, including four policemen involved in the rescue effort.

The cause of the blaze at the church in the working-class neighborhood of Imbaba was not immediately known. An initial investigation pointed to an electrical short-circuit, according to a police statement.

Weeping families waited outside for word about relatives still inside the church and at nearby hospitals where the victims were taken. Footage from the scene circulated online showed burned furniture, including wooden tables and chairs. Firefighters were seen putting out the blaze while others carried victims to ambulances.

Witnesses said there were many children inside the four-story building, which had two day care facilities, when the fire broke out.

“There are children, we didn’t know how to get to them,” said Abu Bishoy. “And we don’t know whose son this is, or whose daughter that is. Is this possible?”

A hospital document obtained by The Associated Press said 20 bodies, including 10 children, were taken to the Imbaba public hospital. Three were siblings, twins aged 5 and a 3-year-old, it said. The church bishop, Abdul Masih Bakhit, was also among the dead at the hospital morgue.

Twenty-one bodies were taken to other hospitals. It was not immediately known if children were among them.

Mousa Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Church, told the AP that 5-year-old triplets, their mother, grandmother and an aunt were among those killed.

Witness Emad Hanna said a church worker managed to get some children out of the church day care facilities.

“We went upstairs and found people dead. And we started to see from outside that the smoke was getting bigger, and people want to jump from the upper floor,” Hanna said.

“We found the children,” some dead, some alive, he added.

The country’s health minister blamed the smoke and a stampede as people attempted to flee the fire for causing the fatalities. It was one of the worst fire tragedies in Egypt in recent years.

The church is located in a narrow street in one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Cairo. Sunday is the first working day of the week, and traffic jams clog the streets in Imbama and surrounding areas in the morning.

Some relatives criticized what they said were delays in the arrival of ambulances and firefighters. “They came after people died. … They came after the church burned down,” shouted one woman standing outside the smoldering church.

Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghafar countered that the first ambulance arrived at the site two minutes after the fire was reported.

Fifteen firefighting vehicles were dispatched to the scene to put out the flames while ambulances ferried casualties to nearby hospitals, officials said.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi spoke by phone with Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II to offer his condolences, the president’s office said. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Al-Azhar’s Grand Imam, also offered condolences to the head of the Coptic church.

“I am closely following the developments of the tragic accident,” el-Sissi wrote on Facebook. “I directed all concerned state agencies and institutions to take all necessary measures, and immediately to deal with this accident and its effects.”

Abdel-Ghafar, the health minister, said in a statement that two of the injured were discharged from a hospital while the others were still being treated.

The Interior Ministry said it received a report of the fire at 9 a.m. local time, and first responders found that the blaze had broken out in an air conditioner on the building’s second floor.

The ministry, which oversees police and firefighters, blamed an electrical short-circuit for the fire, which produced huge amounts of smoke. Meanwhile, the country’s chief prosecutor, Hamada el-Sawy, ordered an investigation and a team of prosecutors were dispatched to the church. He said most victims died of smoke inhalation.

By Sunday afternoon, emergency services said they managed to put out the blaze and the prime minister and other senior government officials arrived to inspect the site. Premier Mustafa Madbouly said surviving victims and families of the dead would receive payments as compensation and that the government would rebuild the church.

By late afternoon, caskets carrying the dead were transferred in ambulances for pre-burial prayers at two churches in the nearby Waraq neighborhood, as weeping women lined their path.

Egypt’s Christians account for some 10% of the nation’s more than 103 million people and have long complained of discrimination by the nation’s Muslim majority.

Sunday’s blaze was one of the worst fire tragedies in recent years in Egypt, where safety standards and fire regulations are poorly enforced. In March last year, a fire at a garment factory near Cairo killed at least 20 people and injured 24.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-africa-religion-fires-egypt-edb5996566c71ccc5dc632bfbe513aea

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Joe Biden got the vibe shift he needed. Now he’s looking to make it count. – CNN

By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN

Updated 11:55 AM ET, Sun August 14, 2022

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/14/politics/joe-biden-vibe-shift/index.html

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Salman Rushdie’s ‘road to recovery has begun,’ author’s agent says, as stabbing suspect pleads not guilty – CNN

(CNN)The renowned author Salman Rushdie has been taken off a ventilator and continues to recover after being repeatedly stabbed during an on-stage attack in western New York on Friday that left him hospitalized.

CNN’s Kiely Westhoff, Andy Rose, Paul P. Murphy, Aya Elamroussi, Ray Sanchez, Christina Maxouris, Artemis Moshtaghian, Sara Smart, Samantha Beech and Liam Reilly contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/14/us/salman-rushdie-attack-sunday/index.html

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Hogan says DOJ will need to prove importance of Trump search but calls out GOP response – ABC News

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Sunday the Department of Justice will need to be transparent in proving the importance of the unprecedented search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago last week but also criticized the response from other Republicans who he said inflamed animus against law enforcement.

“I still believe that transparency was and is critically important. I was not one of the people that was just reacting, just defending Donald Trump,” Hogan told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl of the FBI operation at the former president’s residence in Florida. “But I understood that, without anyone understanding what this was about, that it was going to and could lead to even further division and angry rhetoric from both sides.”

“And so, I was happy that they did come out and unseal the documents on the search,” Hogan said. “I think it was a step in the right direction. But I think we still have a lot of unanswered questions and we’re gonna continue until people understand more.”

Hogan told Karl that he was concerned after classified and other highly sensitive materials were retrieved at Mar-a-Lago, according to a redacted copy of the warrant and related papers that the court released Friday.

Sources previously told ABC News that the search was in connection to documents that Trump took with him when he departed Washington, including some records the National Archives said were marked classified.

Through a spokesperson, Trump claimed the files were declassified. He has said the investigation is politically motivated.

“I think that’s what we have to find out more information about: What really are the documents and what are the implications from a national security standpoint?” Hogan said Sunday. “One side, you can say, ‘well, the Justice Department, the FBI and the federal judge believed that they should do it, then it must be pretty serious.’ On the other hand, with the absence of more transparency, people are going to continue to jump to conclusions.”

Hogan, a loud intraparty critic of Trump, also warned against other Republicans exacerbating tensions over the ongoing investigation after some lawmakers like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene issued calls to “defund the FBI, dismantle the DOJ, and gut the agencies of political biases and persecutions.”

Those comments continued after authorities said an armed man tried to break into an FBI office in Ohio following the search.

“It’s outrageous rhetoric,” said Hogan. “My father, my uncle, two of my cousins were FBI agents and I work with [agents] on an ongoing basis, state police work with them every single day. These are dedicated law enforcement officers.”

Karl cited a photo of some House Republicans who visited Trump after last week’s search, rallying around him.

“I’m not sure history’s going to remember all of them fondly,” Hogan said.

“Look, I think no man is above the law, but everybody’s innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “So we just have to see where this investigation leads.”

Hogan was coy about his own presidential ambitions, rumors of which have been sparked by his repeated calls for an anti-Trump future for the GOP and his recent travels to key primary states, including on Thursday at the Iowa State Fair, a must-visit for conservative presidential hopefuls.

“I’m out helping people in this November election all around the country. I’ve been to 10 or 12 states in the past few weeks. And it’s really great to be out there talking to people,” Hogan said. “I definitely am going to be a voice and I’m going to try to do what I can to get my party back on track, because I want to win elections instead of lose elections.”

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hogan-doj-prove-importance-trump-search-calls-gop/story?id=88339835

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Man fatally shoots himself after driving car into barricade near US Capitol – The Guardian US

A man drove into a barricade near the US Capitol in Washington DC on early Sunday morning, fired several shots into the air after his vehicle ignited, and shot himself to death, according to police.

Officials were quick to note they had not determined a motive for the man’s actions, though they did say there was no indication he was targeting any Congress members, who were in recess at the time.

The man – whose identity has not been released – crashed his car into the barricades at East Capitol and Second streets, a press statement from the Capitol police announced.

As he exited his car, the vehicle became engulfed in flames. The man proceeded to fire a gun multiple times in the air, prompting police officers to approach him.

The man shot himself as officers approached, according to Capitol police. No one else was hurt.

“At this time, it does not appear the man was targeting any members of Congress, who are on recess, and it does not appear officers fired their weapons,” the police said.

Investigators on Sunday were looking into the man’s background and didn’t immediately disclose any preliminary findings.

The Guardian reached out to the DC medical examiner’s office asking for the name of the driver in Sunday’s case but was unable to get an immediate response.

Sunday’s events for some brought to mind the April 2021 death of Capitol police officer Billy Evans, who was killed when a Virginia man drove his car into a facility barricade.

Furthermore, in 2013, Capitol police shot and killed a Connecticut woman near a facility checkpoint after she smashed her car into a White House barricade and fled down Pennsylvania.

The drivers in each of those cases had mental illness, Politico reported in its Sunday newsletter.

Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/14/man-drives-car-into-barricade-capitol-fatally-shoots-himself

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More US lawmakers visit Taiwan 12 days after Pelosi trip – The Associated Press – en Español

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A delegation of American lawmakers arrived in Taiwan on Sunday, just 12 days after a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that prompted China to launch days of threatening military drills around the self-governing island that Beijing says must come under its control.

The five-member delegation, led by Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, will meet President Tsai Ing-wen and other officials, as well as members of the private sector, to discuss shared interests including reducing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and investments in semiconductors.

China responded to Pelosi’s Aug. 2 visit by sending missiles, warships and warplanes into the seas and skies around Taiwan for several days afterward. The Chinese government objects to Taiwan having any official contact with foreign governments, particularly with a high-ranking congressional leader like Pelosi.