Storm dumps record rain and heavy snow on Northern California

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FORESTVILLE, CALIFORNIA — A major storm moving through Northern California on Thursday dropped heavy snow and record rain, flooding some areas, after killing two people and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands in the Pacific Northwest.

Forecasters warned that the risk of flash flooding and rockslides would continue, and scores of flights were canceled at San Francisco’s airport.

In Washington, nearly 223,000 people — mostly in the Seattle area — remained without power as crews worked to clear streets of electrical lines, fallen branches and debris. Utility officials said the outages, which began Tuesday, could last into Saturday.

Meanwhile on the East Coast, where rare wildfires have raged, New York and New Jersey welcomed much-needed rain that could ease the fire danger for the rest of the year.

The National Weather Service extended a flood watch into Saturday for areas north of San Francisco as the region was inundated by this season’s strongest atmospheric river — a long plume of moisture that forms over an ocean and flows through the sky over land.

The system roared ashore Tuesday as a ” bomb cyclone,” which occurs when a cyclone intensifies rapidly. It unleashed fierce winds that toppled trees onto roads, vehicles and homes, killing at least two people in the Washington cities of Lynnwood and Bellevue.

Communities in Washington opened warming centers offering free internet and device charging. Some medical clinics closed because of power outages.

“I’ve been here since the mid-’80s. I haven’t seen anything like this,” said Trish Bloor, who serves on the city of Issaquah’s Human Resources Commission, as she surveyed damaged homes.

Up to 41 centimeters of rain was forecast in southwestern Oregon and California’s northern counties through Friday.

Santa Rosa saw 16.5 centimeters of rain in the last 24 hours, marking the wettest day on record since 1998, according to Joe Wegman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The Sonoma County Airport, in the wine country north of San Francisco, got more than 28 centimeters within the last 48 hours. The Ukiah Municipal Airport recorded about 7.6 centimeters Wednesday, and the unincorporated town of Venado had about 32.3 centimeters in 48 hours.

In nearby Forestville, one person was hurt when a tree fell on a house. Small landslides were reported across the North Bay, including one on State Route 281 on Wednesday that caused a car crash, according to Marc Chenard, a weather service meteorologist.

Daniela Alvarado said calls to her and her father’s Sonoma County-based tree business have nearly tripled in the last few days, with people reaching out about trimming or removing trees.

“We feel sad, scared, but also ready for action,” Alvarado said.

Rain slowed somewhat, but “persistent heavy rain will enter the picture again by Friday morning,” the weather service’s San Francisco office said on the social platform X. “We are not done!”

Dangerous flash flooding, rockslides and debris flows were possible, especially where hillsides were loosened by recent wildfires, officials warned. Scott Rowe, a hydrologist with the weather service in Sacramento, said that so far the ground has been able to absorb the rain in Butte and Tehama counties, where the Park Fire burned this summer.

“It’s not necessarily how much rain falls; it’s how fast the rain falls,” Rowe said.

Santa Rosa Division Chief Fire Marshal Paul Lowenthal said 100 vehicles were stuck for hours in the parking lot of a hotel and medical center after being swamped by thigh-high waters from a flooded creek.

A winter storm watch was in place for the northern Sierra Nevada above 1,070 meters, with 38 centimeters of snow possible over two days. Wind gusts could top 121 kph in mountain areas, forecasters said.

Sugar Bowl Resort, north of Lake Tahoe near Donner Summit, picked up 30 centimeters of snow overnight, marketing manager Maggie Eshbaugh said Thursday. She said the resort will welcome skiers and boarders on Friday, the earliest opening date in 20 years, “and then we’re going to get another whopping of another foot or so on Saturday, so this is fantastic.”

Another popular resort, Palisades Tahoe, said it is also opening Friday, five days ahead of schedule.

The storm already dumped more than 30 centimeters of snow along the Cascades in Oregon by Wednesday night, according to the weather service.

More than a dozen schools closed in the Seattle area Wednesday, and some opted to extend the closures through Thursday.

Covington Medical Center southeast of Seattle postponed elective surgeries and diverted ambulances after losing power and having to rely on generators Tuesday night into Wednesday, according to Scott Thompson, spokesperson for MultiCare Health System. Nearby, MultiCare clinics closed Wednesday and Thursday after losing power.

In Enumclaw, also southeast of Seattle, residents were cleaning up after their town clocked the highest winds in the state Tuesday night: 119 kph.

Ben Gibbard, lead singer of the indie rock bands Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service, drove from his Seattle neighborhood Thursday morning to the woods of Tiger Mountain for his regular weekday run, but trees were blocking the trail.

“We didn’t get hit that hard in the city,” he said. “I just didn’t assume it would be this kind of situation out here. Obviously you feel the most for people who had their homes partially destroyed by this.”

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee thanked utility crews for toiling around the clock. It could take weeks to assess the scope of the damage and put a dollar figure on it, he said in a statement, and after that “we’ll know whether we will be able to seek federal assistance.”

In California, there were reports of nearly 13,000 power outages.

Authorities limited vehicle traffic on part of northbound Interstate 5 between Redding and Yreka due to snow, according to California’s Department of Transportation. Officials also shut down a 3.2-kilometer stretch of the scenic Avenue of the Giants, named for its towering coast redwoods, due to flooding.

About 550 flights were delayed and dozens were canceled Thursday at San Francisco International Airport, according to tracking service FlightAware.

Parched areas of the Northeast got a much-needed shot of precipitation, providing a bit of respite in a region plagued by wildfires and dwindling water supplies. More than 5 centimeters was expected by Saturday morning north of New York City, with snow mixed in at higher elevations.

Weather service meteorologist Brian Ciemnecki in New York City, which this week saw its first drought warning in 22 years, said “any rainfall is going to be significant” but the storm will not be enough to end the drought.
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US agency votes to launch review, update undersea telecommunications cable rules

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WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to propose new rules governing undersea internet cables in the face of growing security concerns, as part of a review of regulations on the links that handle nearly all the world’s online traffic.

The FCC voted 5-0 on proposed updates to address the national security concerns over the global network of more than 400 subsea cables that handle more than 98% of international internet traffic.

“With the expansion of data centers, rise of cloud computing, and increasing bandwidth demands of new large language models, these facilities are poised to grow even more critical,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said.

Baltic nations said this week they are investigating whether the cutting of two fiber-optic undersea telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea was sabotage.

Rosenworcel noted that in 2023 Taiwan accused two Chinese vessels of cutting the only two cables that support internet access on the Matsu Islands and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea may have been responsible for the cutting of three cables providing internet service to Europe and Asia.

“While the details of these incidents remain in dispute, what is clear is that these facilities — with locations that are openly published to prevent damage — are becoming a target,” Rosenworcel said.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said “turning undersea cables into a political and security issue severely disrupts international market rules, threatens global digital connectivity and cybersecurity, and denies other countries, especially developing countries, the right to develop their undersea cable industry.”

The FCC is conducting its first major review since 2001 and proposing to bar foreign companies that have been denied telecommunications licenses on national security grounds from obtaining submarine cable landing licenses.

It also proposes to bar the use of equipment or services in those undersea cable facilities from companies on an FCC list of companies deemed to pose threats to U.S national security including Huawei, ZTE 000063.SZ 601728.SS, China Telecom 0728.HK and China Mobile 600941.SS.

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said the commission is considering whether to bar companies from getting undersea cable licenses that are on other lists like the Commerce Department’s Consolidated Screening List. “China has made no secret of its goal to control the market, and therefore the data that flows throughout the world,” Starks said.

Last month, a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators called on President Joe Biden to undertake “a review of existing vulnerabilities to global undersea cable infrastructure, including the threat of sabotage by Russia and China.”

The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and potential for espionage.

Since 2020, U.S. regulators have been instrumental in the cancellation of four cables whose backers had wanted to link the United States with Hong Kong.

In June, the FCC advanced a proposal to boost the security of information transmitted across the internet after government agencies said a Chinese carrier misrouted traffic.
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Feds outline ‘necessary steps’ for Colorado River agreement by 2026

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LAS VEGAS — Federal water officials made public on Wednesday what they called “necessary steps” for seven states and multiple tribes that use Colorado River water and hydropower to meet an August 2026 deadline for deciding how to manage the waterway in the future.

“Today, we show our collective work,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said as she outlined four proposals for action and one “no action” alternative that she and Biden’s government will leave for the incoming Trump Administration — with formal environmental assessments still to come and just 20 months to act.

The announcement offered no recommendation or decision about how to divvy up water from the river, which provides electricity to millions of homes and businesses, irrigates vast stretches of desert farmland and reaches kitchen faucets in cities including Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

Instead it provided a bullet-point sample of elements from competing proposals submitted last March by three key river stakeholders: Upper Basin states Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming, where most of the water originates; Lower Basin states California, Arizona and Nevada, which rely most on water captured by dams at lakes Powell and Mead; and more than two dozen Native American tribes with rights to river water.

“They’re not going to take the any of the proposals,” said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “The federal government put the components together in a different way … and modeled them to provide near-maximum flexibility for negotiations to continue.”

One alternative would have the government act to “protect critical infrastructure” including dams and oversee how much river water is delivered, relying on existing agreements during periods when demand outstrips supply. “But there would be no new delivery and storage mechanisms,” the announcement said.

A second option would add delivery and storage for Lake Powell and Lake Mead, along with “federal and non-federal storage” to boost system sustainability and flexibility “through a new approach to distributing” water during shortages.

The third, dubbed “cooperative conservation,” cited a proposal from advocates aimed at managing and gauging water releases from Lake Powell amid “shared contributions to sustain system integrity.”

And a fourth, hybrid proposal includes parts of Upper and Lower Basin and Tribal Nations plans, the announcement said. It would add delivery and storage for Powell and Mead, encourage conservation and agreements for water use among customers and “afford the Tribal and non-Tribal entities the same ability to use these mechanisms.”

The “no action” option does not meet the purpose of study but was included because it is required under the National Environmental Policy Act, the announcement said.

In 2026, legal agreements that apportion the river will expire. That means that amid the effects of climate change and more than 20 years of drought, river stakeholders and the federal government have just months to agree what to do.

“We still have a pretty wide gap between us,” Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s main negotiator on the Colorado River, said in a conference call with reporters. He referred to positions of Upper Basin and Lower Basin states. Tribes including the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona have also been flexing their long-held water rights.

Buschatzke said he saw “some really positive elements” in the alternatives but needed time to review them in detail. “I think anything that could be done to move things forward on a faster track is a good thing,” he said.

Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado said in a statement the alternatives “underscore how serious a situation we’re facing on the Colorado River.”

“The only path forward is a collaborative, seven-state plan to solve the Colorado River crisis without taking this to court,” he said. “Otherwise, we’ll watch the river run dry while we sue each other.”

Wednesday’s announcement came two weeks after Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election to Republican former President Donald Trump, and two weeks ahead of a key meeting of the involved parties at Colorado River Water Users Association meetings in Las Vegas.

Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network advocacy group, said “snapshots” offered in the announcement “underscore the uncertainty that is swirling around future river management as a new administration prepares to take office.”

“The river needs basin-wide curtailments, agreements to make tribes whole, a moratorium on new dams and diversions, commitments for endangered species and new thinking about outdated infrastructure,” he said.

Buschatzke declined to speculate about whether Trump administration officials will pick up where Biden’s leaves off. But Porter, at the Kyl Center, said the announcement “shows an expectation of continuity.”

“The leadership is going to change, but there are a lot of people who have been working on this for a long time who will still be involved in the negotiations and modeling,” she said. 
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Democrat Casey concedes to Republican McCormick in Pennsylvania Senate contest

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HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA — Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania conceded his reelection bid to Republican David McCormick on Thursday, as a statewide recount showed no signs of closing the gap, and his campaign suffered repeated blows in court in its effort to get potentially favorable ballots counted.

Casey’s concession comes more than two weeks after Election Day, as a grindingly slow ballot-counting process became a spectacle of hourslong election board meetings, social media outrage, lawsuits and accusations that some county officials were openly flouting the law.

Republicans had been claiming that Democrats were trying to steal McCormick’s seat by counting “illegal votes.” Casey’s campaign had accused Republicans of trying to block enough votes to prevent him from pulling ahead and winning.

In a statement, Casey said he had just called McCormick to congratulate him.

“As the first count of ballots is completed, Pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge that their voices were heard, whether their vote was the first to be counted or the last,” Casey said.

The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on November 7, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.

As of Thursday, McCormick led by about 16,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted.

That was well within the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law. 

But no election official expected a recount to change more than a couple hundred votes or so, and Pennsylvania’s highest court dealt Casey a blow when it refused entreaties to allow counties to count mail-in ballots that lacked a correct handwritten date on the return envelope.

Republicans will have a 53-47 majority next year in the U.S. Senate. 
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Emboldened North Korea awaits second Trump administration

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WASHINGTON — In his first message aimed at Washington since the U.S. presidential election, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has expressed his unwavering determination to hold onto nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say.

At a conference with army officials last Friday, Kim vowed to bolster his country’s nuclear capabilities “without limit,” while condemning Washington for its nuclear deterrence strategies with Seoul.

“The U.S., Japan and South Korea will never get away from the responsibility as the culprits of destroying the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and the region,” Kim said, according to the Korean Central News Agency. “The most important and critical task for our armed forces is preparations for a war.”

Nuclear rhetoric

Evans Revere, former acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, interpreted Kim’s remarks, which were made 10 days after the election, as a message directed to President-elect Donald Trump, whom he met with face-to-face three times from 2018 to 2019.

“Kim Jong Un is making clear to President-elect Trump that everything has changed since their previous meetings,” Revere told VOA Korean via email Tuesday. “Pyongyang has become a de facto nuclear weapons state and will not give up its treasured sword, as it once called its nuclear deterrent.”

Nuclear talks between then-President Trump and North Korea’s supreme leader collapsed during their Hanoi summit in February 2019, after Trump rejected the lifting of sanctions in exchange for Kim’s offer to dismantle one major nuclear facility. Since then, Pyongyang has not slowed the ramp-up of its nuclear capabilities.

In one of its latest moves, just five days before the U.S. election, the regime tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile called Hwasong-19 that could potentially reach most of the United States mainland.

“Having already developed a credible deterrent, complete with sophisticated medium- and long-range delivery systems, North Korea wants to be accepted, or at least acknowledged, as a nuclear power,” Revere said.

Kim is trying to remind the incoming U.S. president that “the door to denuclearization has now been firmly closed and he will be dealing with a DPRK that intends to keep its nuclear arsenal,” said Revere.

DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea.

Joseph DeTrani, former U.S. special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea, said Kim would still want to meet with Trump, but the terms this time would be drastically different.

“I think Kim Jong Un is open to a dialogue with President-elect Trump’s administration, once it is in place,” DeTrani told VOA Korean via email Tuesday.

DeTrani said Kim would come to another potential summit with Trump “from a position of strength,” given his alliance and defense treaty with Russia. Russia and North Korea have committed to coming to the aid of the other if attacked.

Other experts cautioned, however, against reading too deeply into what Kim said.

New alliance

Sydney Seiler, former national intelligence officer for North Korea on the U.S. National Intelligence Council, said that Kim’s latest remarks provide little insight into how Kim may handle the incoming Trump administration.

“Kim Jong Un is exploring the benefits available in being an active member of the axis of upheaval: states such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran who seek to overturn the existing rules-based order and justify using force to achieve their objectives,” Seiler told VOA Korean via email Tuesday.

Seiler said that Kim has begun to enjoy benefits in his cooperation with Russia — cash, food and fuel aid, assistance with weapons of mass destruction, and conventional capabilities, and diplomatic recognition and acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear status.

“Why would he reach out to Donald Trump when he has friends like Vladimir Putin?” he asked.

In June, Kim and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, which calls for Russia and North Korea to immediately assist each other militarily if either of them is attacked by a third country. Russia and North Korea respectively ratified the treaty into law earlier this month.

Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, told VOA Korean via email Tuesday that Kim does not need Trump for assistance and sanctions relief as he used to because of his new alliance with Putin.

Samore said another Trump-Kim meeting won’t be very high on Trump’s agenda.

“Trump’s top foreign policy issues will be ending the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and imposing tariffs on China,” he said. “In contrast, the Korean situation is pretty stable and quiet, and nobody thinks another Trump-Kim summit will produce big results.”

VOA Korean Service asked the U.S. State Department about Kim’s latest message toward the U.S. but did not receive a reply by the time this article was published.

In a response to an inquiry made by VOA Korean earlier this month, the State Department spokesperson reiterated the U.S. commitment to protect South Korea from any North Korean nuclear attack.

“President Biden reaffirmed the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to the ROK using the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities, and that any nuclear attack by the DPRK against the ROK will be met with a swift, overwhelming and decisive response,” the spokesperson said.
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Gaetz withdraws name as Trump’s attorney general nominee

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Former Republican Representative Matt Gaetz is withdrawing his name from consideration as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general.

“I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback – and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz wrote on social media platform X.

The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee failed Wednesday to reach agreement on whether to release findings from its nearly finished investigative report on Gaetz.

The panel’s chair, Republican Representative Michael Guest, emerged from a lengthy committee meeting, saying, “There was no agreement by the committee to release the report.” He declined further comment.

Gaetz was accused of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use before he was picked by Trump to become the country’s top law enforcement official in the administration that takes office on January 20.

ABC News and The Washington Post reported that the committee had obtained documents that showed Gaetz paid two women who appeared before the committee as witnesses a total of more than $10,000 between July 2017 and late January 2019. The women, who were over the age of 18 at the time of the payments, told the panel that some of the money was for sex.

A Trump transition spokesperson defended Gaetz in a statement.

“The Justice Department received access to roughly every financial transaction Matt Gaetz ever undertook and came to the conclusion that he committed no crime. These leaks are meant to undermine the mandate from the people to reform the Justice Department,” with Gaetz at the head of the agency, the spokesperson said.

Several U.S. senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, were demanding that the report be released so they could consider the scope of Gaetz’s background as they undertook their constitutionally mandated role of confirming or rejecting a new president’s Cabinet nominees.

Hours after Trump named him as a nominee, Gaetz, 42, resigned from Congress, even though he had just been reelected to a fifth term. His resignation ended the House Ethics Committee’s investigation, which had been nearing a conclusion.

Gaetz was in the Capitol on Wednesday to meet with some of the senators who would have voted on his nomination.

The Senate has not voted to reject a presidential nominee for a Cabinet position since 1989, with members of both political parties giving wide deference to new presidents to fill top-level jobs with appointees of their choosing.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he met with Gaetz and Vice President-elect JD Vance, still a sitting senator, and told them there would be “no rubber stamps, no lynch mobs” in the confirmation process.

“These allegations will be dealt with in committee, but [Gaetz] deserves a chance to confront his accusers,” Graham told reporters.

The Justice Department investigated the allegations against him but last year declined to bring any charges.

Gaetz, like other Trump nominees for top government jobs, has been a vocal supporter of the president and his Make America Great Again agenda.

Gaetz, however, angered some fellow Republican lawmakers in the House in 2023 by spearheading the effort to oust then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
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US imposes new sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank

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The U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday a new set of sanctions targeting Russia’s financial sector and its ability to fund its war with Ukraine, hitting Gazprombank as well as many other internationally connected financial institutions, entities and individuals.

In a statement posted to its website, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the sanctions designate Gazprombank — Russia’s largest remaining unsanctioned bank — plus more than 50 other Russian banks, more than 40 Russian securities registrars and 15 Russian finance officials.

The Treasury department said Gazprombank is a conduit for Russia to purchase military equipment for its war against Ukraine and the Russian government also uses the bank to pay its soldiers.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain have previously sanctioned Gazprombank.

The sanctions mean that all property and interests of the institutions, entities or individuals targeted by the sanctions are blocked.

In the statement, U.S. Treasury Secretary said the sanctions “will further diminish and degrade Russia’s war machine. This sweeping action will make it harder for the Kremlin to evade U.S. sanctions and fund and equip its military.”

In a statement posted to the White House website, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the new sanctions are part of a pledge made by President Joe Biden in September to provide additional assistance and actions to “help Ukraine as it continues to resist Russia’s aggression.”

The Biden administration is expected to step up assistance to Ukraine before the president leaves office. President-elect Donald Trump and leading Republicans have suggested they will reduce funding for Ukraine once Trump takes office on January 20.
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