Important Takeaways:
- A second powerful bomb cyclone and atmospheric river system is battering the Pacific Coast states, bringing more severe weather to regions still reeling from Tuesday’s devastating storm that left hundreds of thousands without power and claimed one life in Washington state.
- As of Friday morning, approximately 180,000 Washington residents remained without electricity, while California reports over 15,000 customers experiencing outages, according to poweroutage.us.
- So severe is the issue in Washington that Puget Sound Energy (PSE), the state’s largest utility provider, issued a letter to customers on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday evening.
- “To our customers without power: we know you are frustrated,” the letter said. “The system was so strong that it was comparable to a hurricane and did unprecedented damage to our high-voltage transmission systems—the poles and wires that carry electricity from where it is produced to the communities we serve.”
- The company plans to have the majority of customers back online by Saturday at noon.
- The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued severe warnings about life-threatening flooding conditions, particularly in Northern California.
- The forecast includes between 3-5 inches of additional rainfall in coastal areas, with 4-10 inches possible in the northern Sierra Nevada.
- From Northern California to southwestern Oregon, cumulative rainfall is expected to reach 8-12 inches, with potential for up to 20 inches in some locations, according to AccuWeather.
- The consecutive storms are creating multiple hazards across the region, including a high risk of dangerous flash flooding, potential for mud slides and landslides, and significant erosion concerns.
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Important Takeaways:
- The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, over alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
- The ICC accused Netanyahu and Gallant of a string of human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip, where local health officials said the death toll from the Israeli military’s yearlong assault on the Palestinian enclave had now passed 44,000.
- Israel responded furiously to the warrants, with Netanyahu’s office branding the decision “antisemitic,” rejecting the charges as “absurd and false” and condemning the ICC as a “biased and discriminatory political body.”
- Hamas welcomed the warrants as an “important step towards justice”…
- Both Israel and the United States do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, which has no police to enforce its warrants. But the warrants do put the Israeli officials at risk of arrest in other countries, including much of Europe.
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Important Takeaways:
- Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia tested a new intermediate range missile in a strike on Ukraine.
- In a surprise address to the nation, the Russian president warned Moscow “had a right” to use the missile and other weapons against countries that have allowed Kyiv to use their missiles to strike Russia, such as the US and Britain.
- Ukraine used British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to strike inside Russia for the first time, a day after using US-made ATACMs to hit a military facility 110km from the Ukrainian border.
- Putin’s surprise address came after Ukraine accused Russia of firing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads, for the first time in the war.
- UN weapons experts had initially cast doubt on the claim by saying that under an international convention, the Kremlin would have to inform the US more than 24 hours ahead of firing an intercontinental ballistic missile.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia this morning threatened to strike US air bases in Poland with ‘advanced weapons’ hours after it reportedly launched an advanced missile as part of a brutal barrage of targets across Ukraine.
- Moscow said the opening of a new US ballistic missile defense base in Redzikowo near the Baltic coast will ‘increase the overall level of nuclear danger’, adding it had been added to a list of possible targets for Russia.
- The facility, opened on November 13, forms part of a broader NATO missile shield called ‘Aegis Ashore’ designed to intercept short- and intermediate-range ballistic weapons.
- ‘This is another frankly provocative step in a series of deeply destabilizing actions by the Americans and their allies,’ Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said of the airbase’s unveiling.
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Important Takeaways:
- A high-end atmospheric river is continuing to pummel northern California on Thursday as it slowly meanders through the region on the tail end of a historic bomb cyclone that developed off the Pacific Northwest.
- As soils fully saturate, river levels are rising.
- The Weather Prediction Center has placed portions of northern California under a rare Level 4 of 4 risk of flooding Thursday. The city of Eureka on the coast is included, as are counties such as Humboldt and Mendocino, in addition to several forested areas and state parks
- “Life-threatening flooding across coastal areas of northwest California is expected,” the center wrote. “Dangerous flooding and debris flows are likely which will include rock and landslide activity along with a threat for burn scar flash flooding.”
- Rain and snow are set to persist through the end of the week.
- …more than 300,000 people remained without power in Washington state early Thursday, down from a peak around 700,000 Wednesday morning…
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Important Takeaways:
- Humanity must begin preparations to no longer be in charge of Earth because of artificial intelligence, according to a new book from the late statesman Henry Kissinger and a pair of the country’s leading technologists.
- The “last book” from Kissinger “Genesis”
- Kissinger’s co-authors, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and longtime Microsoft senior executive Craig Mundie, finished the combined work after Kissinger’s death.
- The authors offer a bracing message, warning that AI tools have already started outpacing human capabilities so people might need to consider biologically engineering themselves to ensure they are not rendered inferior or wiped out by advanced machines.
- In a section titled “Coevolution: Artificial Humans,” the three authors encourage people to think now about “trying to navigate our role when we will no longer be the only or even the principal actors on our planet.”
- “Biological engineering efforts designed for tighter human fusion with machines are already underway,” they add.
- Current efforts to integrate humans with machine include brain-computer interfaces, a technology that the U.S. military identified last year as of the utmost importance. Such interfaces allow for a direct link between the brain’s electrical signals and a device that processes them to accomplish a given task, such as controlling a battleship.
- The authors also raise the prospect of a society that chooses to create a hereditary genetic line of people specifically designed to work better with forthcoming AI tools. The authors describe such redesigning as undesirable, with the potential to cause “the human race to split into multiple lines, some infinitely more powerful than others.”
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Important Takeaways:
- One person has died and over 600,000 Americans have been left without power after a ‘bomb cyclone’ swept across northwest U.S. Tuesday evening, with strong winds tearing through towns and downed trees striking homes and vehicles.
- A woman in Lynnwood, Washington died Tuesday night when a large tree fell on a homeless encampment, according to South County Fire department.
- ‘Trees are coming down all over the city & falling onto homes,’ the fire department in Bellevue, about 10 miles east of Seattle, posted on the social platform X.
- ‘If you can, go to the lowest floor and stay away from windows. Do not go outside if you can avoid it.’
- More than 15,000 had lost power in Oregon and nearly 19,000 in California.
- As of 8 p.m., the peak wind speed was in Canadian waters, where gusts of 101 mph were reported off the coast of Vancouver Island, according to the National Weather Service in Seattle.
- Along the Oregon coast, there were wind gusts as high at 79 mph Tuesday evening, according to the National Weather Service in Medford, Oregon, while wind speed of 77 mph was recorded at Mount Rainier in Washington.
- In northern California, flood and high wind watches were in effect, with up to 8 inches of rain predicted for parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, North Coast and Sacramento Valley.
- Dangerous flash flooding, rock slides and debris flows were expected, according to the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center.
- A winter storm watch was issued for the northern Sierra Nevada above 3,500 feet, where 15 inches of snow was possible over two days.
- A blizzard warning was issued for the majority of the Cascades in Washington, including Mount Rainier National Park, starting Tuesday afternoon, with up to a foot of snow and wind gusts up to 60 mph, according to the weather service in Seattle.
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Important Takeaways:
- The U.S. embassy in Ukraine cited “specific information of a potential significant air attack” on Wednesday morning, ordering its citizens in the country to shelter in place, as tensions between America and the Russian Federation rise ever higher.
- The American embassy compound in western Kyiv was closed on Wednesday morning, with a convoy of diplomatic vehicles apparently evacuating the buildings. A message posted by the embassy staff stated it had received “specific information of a potential significant air attack” that was thought to be planned for Wednesday. The closure was out of an “abundance of caution”, they said, but nevertheless embassy staff were told to shelter in place and American citizens in Ukraine told to be prepared to take shelter.
- Advice given by the embassy to Americans in Ukraine stated they should now: “Identify shelter locations in advance of any air alert… Immediately take shelter if an air alert is announced”.
- Spain and Greece have also closed their embassies this morning and the British government is considering whether to close theirs, too.
- The so-called “unusual” embassy closure comes just 24 hours after Ukraine launched what appears to be its first U.S.-made ATACMS ballistic missile into Russia, as opposed to Russian-occupied land in Ukraine, where such weapons have hitherto been targeted.
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Important Takeaways:
- Iran has defied international demands to rein in its nuclear program and has increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, according to the UN nuclear watchdog.
- The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said that as of Oct. 26, Iran has 182.3 kilograms (401.9 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60%
- Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
- The IAEA also estimated in its quarterly report that as of Oct. 26, Iran’s overall stockpile of enriched uranium stands at 6,604.4 kilograms (14,560 pounds), an increase of 852.6 kilograms (1,879.6 pounds) since August.
- Under the IAEA’s definition, around 42 kilograms (92.5 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60% purity is the amount at which creating one atomic weapon is theoretically possible — if the material is enriched further, to 90%.
- A senior western diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, confirmed to the AP that the United Kingdom, France and Germany, with the support from the U.S., are going ahead with a resolution at this week’s IAEA Board of Governors meeting, censuring Iran for its lack of cooperation, leading to potential confrontation with Iran ahead of Trump’s return to the White House.
- “The Iranian regime continues to amass a growing stockpile of highly enriched uranium for which there is no credible civilian purpose and they continue to not cooperate fully with the IAEA,” he added.
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Important Takeaways:
- The US has been given a chilling ‘WW3 by Christmas’ warning by pro-Putin spokesperson Sergey Markov.
- Western allies, also including Britain and France, have taken a “big jump” towards a nuclear conflict by giving Ukraine permission to fire Western long-range missiles into Kremlin territory, Markov claims.
- A regular Putin “mouthpiece”, Markov warned that the shock move by President Joe Biden could mean that Britons could be facing a Christmas in shelters.
- The threat, in an interview on the BBC Radio 4’s The World At One, was also echoed by President-Elect Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who suggested that those behind the move to approve Ukraine’s use of the missiles wanted to “make sure they got World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives”.
- President Biden’s move, however, has been welcomed by Ukraine, by senior UK defense sources and by many European leaders.
- The move will allow Ukraine to fire US ATACM missiles, UK Storm Shadow missiles and French Scalp missiles into Kremlin territory.
- Speaking to BBC Radio 4, he said: “My reaction [to the White House’s decision] was awful, I couldn’t sleep well because I am just afraid nuclear war is coming.
- “This decision of United States, Great Britain and France is not a step towards nuclear war it is a big jump to nuclear war, nuclear catastrophe.
- “It is a very dangerous decision. The point is these rocket-missiles cannot be fired by the Ukrainian army, technically.
- “Because, these rocket-missiles need to have very good map of the Russian territory and only the US has this map, even Great Britain and France does not have this map.”
- “So, we regard this as the start of a direct war by Britain, America and France against Russia, another nuclear power.
- “American rocket missiles against our territory. This is a clear escalation of the war.”
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