Important Takeaways:
- Sears has closed its final store in Washington, leaving it operating in only four states across the US.
- The department store, which was once the largest in the country, closed an outlet in the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila, Washington, on December 15.
- In the weeks leading up to its closure, the store, which had been there for three decades, hosted discount sales for shoppers.
- Its closure means that Sears only has eight stores remaining across California, Florida, Massachusetts and Texas.
- The department store was founded in 1892, and as recently as 2012 boasted over 4,000 stores across the US.
- But the vast majority have now shuttered since the company filed for bankruptcy in October 2018.
- The company also closed its final location in the New York area at the beginning of this year.
- Plans for the company going forward are unclear, and it is not known whether further closures are planned in 2025.
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Important Takeaways:
- Mysterious drones have been reported near military bases in Hawaii and by installations in Utah, California, Maine and Florida — among other facilities scattered throughout the country.
- It comes as residents in New York and New Jersey have reported thousands of sightings of unexplained mystery drones in the night skies.
- House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Tuesday he believes some of the unidentified drones are “spy drones” from China.
- “We need to identify who is behind these drones,” he said. “My judgment based on my experience is that those that are over our military sites are adversarial and most likely are coming from the People’s Republic of China.”
- Sources have previously raised their concerns to The Post over Chinese landowners, who are usually linked to, or working on behalf of, the country’s communist government.
- Morgan Lerette, a former contractor for private military contractor Blackwater, previously told The Post: “The Chinese are, or will, use this farmland to learn more about US military capabilities, movements, and technology.
- “This will allow them to better understand how to transition their military from a defensive strategy to an expeditionary one.”
- Chinese holdings total under one percent of foreign-owned agricultural land in the US, per NBC, but it’s the proximity to critical military installations which raises concerns, critics have charged.
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Important Takeaways:
- Meteorologists predicted a tropical storm could form in an area of high pressure that would push it on the same path as Helene and Milton that struck Florida earlier this month.
- The pressure system could also create a funnel, allowing it to travel up the Eastern Seaboard.
- Meteorologist Michael Lowry told USA Today: ‘Named storms affecting us here in the states in November only happen about once every 15 years on average.
- ‘They’re an uncommon occurrence but when they do strike, they almost invariably strike Florida.’
- While rare, the Sunshine State has seen three hurricanes in November since 2005, with the most recent in 2022
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Important Takeaways:
- Across the state, the storm has been tied to at least 16 deaths.
- As of Friday morning, 2.2 million utility customers remained without power
- Some communities remained inundated with floodwater on Friday as residents salvaged belongings from damaged homes.
- Throughout east central Florida, 42 warnings were issued and weather service officials have yet to determine the exact number of twisters that formed across the region.
- Milton spawned a deadly tornado outbreak that killed at least six in St. Lucie County on Florida’s east coast.
- In portions of St. Petersburg, the storm dumped over 18 inches of rain, and at one point, 8.50 inches fell in just 3 hours, according to the weather service.
- In Milton’s wake, gasoline remains scarce in some areas
- First responders in Hillsborough County conducted water rescues Friday morning as the Alafia River rose above its flood stage and houses were submerged in several feet of water.
- Tampa International Airport resumed flights beginning at 8 a.m. Friday following a three-day suspension.
- IRS has extended that deadline for many impacted by hurricanes and other natural disasters
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Important Takeaways:
- With residents preparing for whatever Milton brings, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor sat down with CNN on Monday to discuss what’s at risk for residents who don’t heed evacuation orders.
- As the Gulf Coast prepares for yet another strong hurricane, Tampa Bay officials are urging residents to take evacuation orders seriously, especially if they live anywhere near the coast.
- Hurricane Milton poses a threat to the region that likely no one in the region has ever seen in their lifetimes, as the last time the Tampa area was hit by the eye of a major hurricane was on Oct. 25, 1921. The hurricane had no official name but is known locally as the Tarpon Springs storm, for the seaside town where it came ashore.
- “The number one message, as it has been for several days now, is that you need to prepare. Do whatever you need to do and then get out of the evacuation zones which now are evacuation zones A and B, and as we all have heard so many times now, you hide from the wind and run from the water and we are talking about, right now, the possibility of a direct hit with 10 to 12-foot tidal surge — put that in perspective, Hurricane Helene, which just left the Tampa Bay area a week ago, there was 6-foot storm surge and that literally devastating to so many in our coastal areas,”
- “Helene was a wake-up call, this is literally catastrophic and I can say without any dramatization whatsoever: If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die,” Castor warned.
- She went on to explain that she’s never given that warning before but given the unprecedented circumstances of Milton and the threat of a direct hit to the Tampa Bay area, the warning could save residents’ lives who are on the fence about staying or leaving.
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Important Takeaways:
- Milton rapidly strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane Monday on a path toward Florida population centers including Tampa and Orlando, threatening a dangerous storm surge in Tampa Bay and setting the stage for potential mass evacuations less than two weeks after a catastrophic Hurricane Helene swamped the coastline.
- The storm is expected to stay at about its current strength for the next couple of days, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
- Helene was also a Category 4 at landfall in northern Florida.
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that it was imperative that messes from Helene be cleaned up ahead of Milton’s arrival so they don’t become dangerous flying projectiles.
- “We don’t have time for bureaucracy and red tape,” DeSantis said. “We have to get the job done.”
- DeSantis expanded his state of emergency declaration Sunday to 51 counties and said Floridians should prepare for more power outages and disruption, making sure they have a week’s worth of food and water and are ready to hit the road.
- It has been two decades since so many storms crisscrossed Florida in such a short period of time. In 2004, an unprecedented five storms struck Florida within six weeks, including three hurricanes that pummeled central Florida.
- Milton is a bit atypical since it formed so far west and is expected to cross the entire southern Gulf, according to Daniel Brown, a hurricane specialist at the center.
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Important Takeaways:
- Communities are stranded, over 200 people have died with more expected, and more than 700,000 are without power
- Rescue crews in parts of the south-eastern US were still searching on Friday for those missing as they entered the eighth day since Hurricane Helene roared ashore in Florida and became the deadliest mainland hurricane in the US since Katrina in 2005.
- The death toll could grow higher, having surpassed 200 on Thursday, while the sheer scale of the devastation from wind and floods has slowed efforts to find many people’s loved ones and also get supplies to stranded communities and restore power to more than 700,000 people.
- Officials have reported at least 215 deaths across six states as a result of Helene and warned that more will be found dead in the coming days and weeks
- In hardest-hit North Carolina, thousands of residents were issued boil water advisories and said that 27 water plants were closed and not producing water.
- On Friday, the number of power outages in the south-eastern region fell below a million for the first time since the storm. Still, more than 250,000 people in South Carolina had no power as of Friday morning, according to poweroutage.us, as well as over 230,000 people in North Carolina, just over 200,000 in Georgia, 13,000 in Virginia and 10,000 in Florida.
- Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, has warned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) does not have enough funding to make it through the rest of this hurricane season, which typically runs until late November.
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Important Takeaways:
- Helene’s path of destruction stretched more than 500 miles, from coastal Florida to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
- Short on supplies, power and patience, storm victims who saw the brutal force of Helene upend their lives have emerged to a new week, facing the daunting challenge of rebuilding.
- Some of the roads and bridges they need to do the job aren’t there anymore.
- Electricity could be a week away or longer.
- Emergency services are stretched.
- Communications infrastructure is in shreds.
- North Carolina suffered the highest death toll, at least 42 so far
- At least 25 storm victims also perished in South Carolina, 17 in Georgia, 11 in Florida, four in Tennessee and two in Virginia.
- More than 2 million customers remain without power
- Officials in Buncombe County, North Carolina – where at least 30 people have died – have received about 600 missing persons reports through an online form
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Important Takeaways:
- These two characteristics are making it a unique threat to millions of Floridians and people in surrounding states as it moves north-northeastward today and Thursday.
- The storm’s large size, with tropical storm winds (sustained at 39mph to 73mph with higher gusts) extending at least 250 miles east of the storm center, ensures that nearly every Florida city outside the western Panhandle will see strong winds.
- Power outages are also likely to be widespread in Georgia and parts of South Carolina, as the storm may still be a hurricane when it moves into southern and south-central Georgia on Friday.
- Storms that have large wind fields can push more water close to the coast and produce a larger, more damaging storm surge.
- The Hurricane Center’s forecast intensification rate on Monday morning was the highest it had issued to date when going from a pre-named system to a major hurricane.
- The storm’s size and intensification rate will require most, if not all, storm preparations to be made across Florida today, with residents of Georgia having slightly more time.
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Important Takeaways:
- The suspect behind the second Trump assassination attempt in Florida appears to have stalked Mar-a-Lago and the former president’s golf course in West Palm Beach for weeks and may have been planning a getaway to Mexico, a judge and federal prosecutors have revealed.
- A document released by the Justice Department before Routh appeared in court yesterday said one of the cell phones found in his vehicle during his arrest on Sept. 15 “contained a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.”
- Magistrate Judge Ryon McCabe, who ultimately granted the government’s request to detain Routh pending the resolution of the charges against him, said during Monday’s hearing that it appeared Routh was stalking Trump for 30 days.
- Federal prosecutors told the judge that the government intends to ask a grand jury to indict Routh on the much more serious charge of the attempted assassination of Trump, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
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