US weather: Millions of Americans face 'life-threatening floods' as 'bomb cyclone' storm rides 2,000-mile 'atmospheric river' A ‘bomb cyclone’ storm riding a 2,000-mile ‘atmospheric river’ threatens millions of Americans with power outages, toppling trees and ‘life-threatening floods’. Torrents of rain will drench swaths of ... 12/12/2024 - 12:15 am | View Link
Flash floods, high winds, batter Massachusetts overnight as drivers navigate O’Neill Tunnel flooding In Brockton, firefighters performed a water rescue after flash flooding overwhelmed a car on Westgate Drive, an area known to be prone to flooding, the department posted on social media Wednesday. 12/11/2024 - 11:42 pm | View Link
Photos show Dubai overwhelmed by torrential rain The UAE's flash floods turned roads into rivers and resulted in planes wading through water on the tarmac. Some blamed the UAE's cloud seeding operations. 12/5/2024 - 3:36 pm | View Link
Floods wreak havoc in Malaysia, southern Thailand with over 30 killed, tens of thousands displaced Severe floods caused by monsoon rains have killed more than 30 people and displaced tens of thousands in Malaysia and southern Thailand, with both countries preparing shelters and evacuation plans in ... 12/3/2024 - 2:26 pm | View Link
Devastating Monsoon Floods Leave Over 30 Dead, Thousands Displaced At least 30 people have died and tens of thousands have been displaced by severe flooding across Malaysia and southern Thailand. 12/3/2024 - 4:10 am | View Link
Brian Stelter: “Presidents don’t ordinarily pick the director of Voice of America, an international news broadcaster funded by the US government. But President-elect Donald Trump says he wants his ally Kari Lake to take over VOA.”
Voice of America says it has a “firewall” in place that “prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective, independent reporting of news.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) claimed she was “physically accosted” earlier this week, but witnesses have disputed Mace’s allegation, the Charleston Post & Courier reports.
They claim the only contact they saw between Mace and the person ultimately arrested by Capitol police was a handshake after a reception.
Authorities have not released full details about the incident, including whether security cameras captured the exchange on tape.
Simon Kuper: “Modern historians tend to be wary of ascribing change to individuals. They are more likely to identify ‘the fish that changed the world’ (to quote the subtitle of Mark Kurlansky’s book Cod) than a human who did. Most historians prefer impersonal structural forces: geography for the French Annales school, economics for Marxists, technology for others, while there’s been a recent surge of interest in climate change and pandemics.”
“But having said all that, here comes Donald Trump.
Jonathan Bernstein: “United States Senators are really, really, old. There’s nothing wrong with some aging Senators; there’s something very out of whack when the more than half of them have reached 65.”
Jonathan Chait: “Now Trump, preparing for his second term as president, has decided to replace the FBI director again. The figure he picked to replace Comey—the lifelong Republican Christopher Wray—proved unable to meet Trump’s expectations for the position, which are (1) to permit Trump and his allies to violate the law with impunity, and (2) to investigate anybody who interferes with (1).
“I have thought for a long time that there’s a race between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. And the question is: Does the Republican Party become more economically populist in a genuine way before the Democratic Party opens itself up to people who don’t agree with us on 100 percent of our social and cultural issues?”
— Sen.