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  • Biden in Puerto Rico: ‘We’re going to make sure you get every single dollar promised’ | CNN Politics

    Biden in Puerto Rico: ‘We’re going to make sure you get every single dollar promised’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden, and Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Deanne Criswell are visiting Ponce, Puerto Rico, on Monday – weeks after Hurricane Fiona ravaged the US territory.

    In Puerto Rico, Biden received a briefing on the storm and met with individuals who have been impacted. He also announced $60 million in funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law to shore up levees and flood walls, and to create a new flood warning system to help residents better prepare for future storms.

    “We have to ensure that when the next hurricane strikes, Puerto Rico is ready,” Biden said during his remarks at the Port of Ponce.

    Biden hailed the people of Puerto Rico for their resilience and promised that as long as he’s president, the federal government is not leaving until “every single thing we can do is done.”

    Hurricane Fiona, Biden said, has been an “all too familiar nightmare” for Puerto Ricans who survived Hurricane Maria in 2017.

    “Through these disasters so many people have been displaced from their homes, lost their jobs and savings or suffered injuries – often unseen but many times seen – but somehow, the people of Puerto Rico keep getting back up with resilience and determination,” he remarked.

    “You deserve every bit of help your country can give you. That’s what I’m determined to do and that’s what I promise you,” the President continued. “After Maria, Congress approved billions of dollars to Puerto Rico, much of it not having gotten here initially. We’re going to make sure you get every single dollar promised.”

    The Ponce region experienced significant storm damage and power had been restored for 86% of residents there as of Sunday evening.

    Biden also participated in a pull-aside meeting with families and community leaders impacted by the storm.

    Biden’s trip to Puerto Rico comes five years to the day that then-President Donald Trump visited Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, where he was snapped tossing paper towels into a crowd gathered at a chapel where emergency supplies were being distributed. Trump repeatedly praised the federal response to the storm, but in the wake of a series of deadly hurricanes in 2017, FEMA issued a report saying it was underprepared and could have better anticipated the severity of the damage.

    Throughout his travels on Monday, Biden expressed how his administration was aiming to do better than previous federal response efforts on the island.

    On Monday morning, Biden suggested that the island has not been well taken care of following previous storms, telling reporters: “I’m heading to Puerto Rico because they haven’t been taken very good care of. We’ve been trying like hell to catch up from the last hurricane. I want to see the state of affairs today and make sure we push everything we can.”

    During his speech at the Port of Ponce, the President also told Puerto Ricans, “You have had to bear so much and more than need be and you haven’t gotten the help in a timely way.”

    And Criswell, who accompanied Biden on the trip, acknowledged the challenges the federal government has faced in gaining the trust of Puerto Ricans after the Trump administration’s response to Hurricane Maria in 2017. She said aboard Air Force One en route to Puerto Rico that “there may have been some issues in the previous administration” and that the people of Puerto Rico “finally feel like this administration cares for them.”

    Biden approved a major disaster declaration for Puerto Rico on September 21, a White House fact sheet said, and over 1,000 federal response workers were on the ground providing support with over 450 members of the Puerto Rico National Guard activated.

    The Biden administration also approved a Jones Act waiver last week, opening up the potential for additional diesel to be shipped to Puerto Rico, following intense pressure on the White House. The Jones Act requires all goods ferried between US ports to be carried on ships built, owned and operated by Americans, but the Department of Homeland Security may grant a waiver when those vessels are not available to meet national defense requirements.

    Biden has “been in regular contact” with Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, the White House has said.

    The President will also travel to Florida this Wednesday, where he will survey damage from Hurricane Ian.

    This story and headline have been updated with additional updates.

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  • Japan issues rare alert as North Korea fires missile without warning over main island | CNN

    Japan issues rare alert as North Korea fires missile without warning over main island | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    Japan urged residents to take shelter early Tuesday morning after North Korea fired a ballistic missile without warning over the country for the first time in five years, in a major and potentially dangerous escalation of recent weapons tests by the Kim Jong Un regime.

    The launch, which prompted immediate backlash from Tokyo and Seoul, comes amid a spate of missile tests, with five launches in the past 10 days, and follows renewed military drills between the United States and its regional allies.

    The intermediate-range missile was launched from Mupyong-ri near North Korea’s central border with China at around 7:23 a.m. local time, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). It flew about 4,600 kilometers (2,858 miles) for 20 minutes at an estimated maximum altitude of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) over Japan’s Tohoku region on the main island of Honshu before falling into the Pacific Ocean, some 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) from the country’s shore, Japanese officials said.

    Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida strongly condemned the launch and called North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches “outrageous” in comments to reporters at his official residence.

    Tuesday’s launch is the country’s 23rd such missile test this year, including both ballistic and cruise missiles.

    There were no reports of damage to aircraft or vessels near the missile trajectory, according to Japanese authorities, but the unannounced missile triggered a rare J-alert, a system designed to inform the public of emergencies and threats in Japan.

    In such emergencies, alerts are sent out via sirens, through community radio stations and to individual smartphone users. On Tuesday, alerts were sent out at around 7:30 a.m. local time to people in Aomori prefecture, Hokkaido and Tokyo’s Izu and Ogasawara islands, according to Japanese officials.

    A tweet posted by Japan’s Prime Minister’s office urged residents to take shelter in buildings and to “not approach anything suspicious that is found and to immediately contact the police or fire department.”

    Other governments were quick to decry the launch, with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol branding it a “reckless” provocation, adding that North Korea will face a decisive response from the South Korean military and its allies.

    The White House also “strongly condemned” the test, with National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson calling it a “destabilizing” action that shows North Korea’s “blatant disregard for United Nations Security Council resolutions and international safety norms.”

    Kim Seung-kyum, chief of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and Paul LaCamera, the United States Forces Korea commander, held a meeting after the launch and reaffirmed the combined defense posture will be further strengthened against any threats and provocations from North Korea, the JCS said.

    The US Indo-Pacific Command also released a statement saying American commitments to the defense of Japan and South Korea “remain ironclad.”

    Ankit Panda, a senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said regular missile testing was was part of North Korea’s plan to maintain its nuclear forces.

    “It is quite possible that the United States, South Korea and Japan will take away a message from this missile test that North Korea is continuing to assert itself to show that it has the ability to deliver nuclear weapons to targets including the US territory of Guam,” he said, adding that “risk reduction” to stop a crisis from escalating should be the current priority.

    “If such a crisis were to play out, it would play out under a significantly more advanced North Korean nuclear capability, which I think would significantly limit the options that the United States and South Korea would have, potentially to retaliate or manage escalation with North Korea,” he said.

    Tuesday’s launch could herald an intensification of provocations by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, experts told CNN.

    “Pyongyang is still in the middle of a provocation and testing cycle and is likely waiting until after China’s mid-October Communist Party Congress to conduct an even more significant test,” said Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

    “The Kim regime is developing weapons such as tactical nuclear warheads and submarine-launched ballistic missiles as part of a long-term strategy to outrun South Korea in an arms race and drive wedges among US allies.”

    Four previous missile launches occurred in the space of a week in late September and early October, around the same time US Vice President Kamala Harris made an official visit to Japan and South Korea, and as US, Japanese and South Korean navies held joint exercises.

    North Korea’s tests also come as international attention remains firmly focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and as both Moscow and Beijing appear reluctant to side with the West to further censure Pyongyang.

    In May, Russia and China vetoed a US-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution to strengthen sanctions on North Korea for its weapons testing, in a vote the US said was likely to fuel Pyongyang’s program to develop nuclear-capable missile systems.

    Washington and the International Atomic Energy Agency have both warned this year that North Korea may be preparing for a nuclear test, which would be its first since 2017.

    Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute, drew a connection between the missile tests and a potential nuclear test.

    “North Korea is going to keep conducting missile tests until the current round of modernization is done. I don’t think a nuclear (test) explosion is far behind,” he told CNN.

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  • Brazil prepares for another month of political battle as run-off looms | CNN

    Brazil prepares for another month of political battle as run-off looms | CNN

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    São Paulo, Brazil
    CNN
     — 

    Brazilians woke up to four more weeks of campaigning after a presidential vote on Sunday destined frontrunners Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro to a second round run-off later this month.

    Results released Monday by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) showed left-wing candidate and former president da Silva finished with a slight lead over right-wing incumbent Bolsonaro – 48.4% versus 43.2% – not enough to cross the threshold to victory. Either candidate would have needed to surpass 50% to be elected in the first round of voting.

    The two will face each other again on October 30, in what is widely seen as the most consequential ballot in the country for decades.

    Still, Bolsonaro was celebrating. Brazil’s president, a divisive figure often referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics,” defied expectations from pollsters and analysts, who had suggested for months that his candidacy was losing steam. Polls had predicted he could lose in the first round, ending his presidency after a single term in office.

    Bolsonaro’s result Sunday was eight points higher than the latest poll by Datafolha, a respected research group, while da Silva’s was two to three points lower than predicted.

    In a jubilant Twitter thread on Monday, Bolsonaro claimed that “against everything and everyone” he was able to get a “more expressive vote” than in the 2018 election.

    His conservative Liberal Party also saw a sweep of successful lower races, gaining representatives in Brazil’s House and Senate, as well as governors in several states.

    “There were almost 2 million more votes! We also elected the highest number of representatives in the House and Senate, which was our highest priority at the first moment,” the president tweeted, dubbing it: “the greatest victory of patriots in the history of Brazil.”

    More than 123 million Brazilians waited in long lines to vote in the world’s fourth largest democracy, while another 32 million abstained. According to TSE President Alexandre de Moraes, the extensive queues were caused by new biometric security checks and higher than expected voter turnout.

    People queue to vote just outside Rocinha favela in Rio de Janeiro.

    Trodden political flyers advertising different candidates still littered sidewalks around voting sites on Monday, as people tried to make sense of the results and contemplated the prospect of another month of anxiety about the country’s future.


    Sunday’s “democracy party” — a term in Brazil for elections — followed a bruising campaign season marked with violence and bitter language.

    In the months leading up to Sunday’s vote, Bolsonaro had frequently criticized the Brazilian electoral system and accuracy of the country’s electronic ballots system, drawing condemnation for eroding trust in the electoral process. There were several reports of violence breaking out between da Silva and Bolsonaro supporters during the campaign months, with some turning deadly.

    On Monday, da Silva supporters chattered on social media about how a potential victory would weigh against the country’s new conservative legislators. For some, excitement has soured into argument about what their candidate must do to maintain his lead over the next four weeks.

    During a speech on Monday in Sao Paulo, da Silva previewed a new strategy for the last stretch of his campaign. “Advice to our campaign command: from tomorrow there will be less talk between us and more talks with the voter. We don’t need to talk to people we already know, who have already voted for us or that we know will vote for us. We need to talk to those who don’t seem to like us, who don’t vote for us, who don’t like our parties,” he said.

    Bolsonaro on Monday meanwhile urged supporters to “stay focused” on a prospective victory, saying that “profound change” had already taken root.

    “Keep the focus! One of the main and most difficult goals was achieved yesterday,” he said.

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  • Federal judge rules against Abrams-founded voting rights group in Georgia | CNN Politics

    Federal judge rules against Abrams-founded voting rights group in Georgia | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge ruled against a voting rights group founded by Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams Friday in a challenge to the state’s voting laws.

    US District Judge Steve Jones ruled against “Fair Fight Action” on claims over Georgia’s “exact match” voter registration policy, absentee ballot cancellation practices and registration inaccuracies.

    “Although Georgia’s election system is not perfect, the challenged practices violate neither the constitution nor the VRA (Voting Rights Act). As the Eleventh Circuit notes, federal courts are not “the arbiter[s] of disputes’ which arise in elections; it [is] not the federal court’s role to ‘oversee the administrative details of a local election,’” Jones wrote in the ruling.

    Fair Fight filed the lawsuit just after the 2018 gubernatorial election and the case went to trial earlier this year. Fair Fight says this was the longest voting rights trial on the Eleventh Circuit.

    “Despite the numerous and significant pro-voter developments that have already resulted from this case, we are nonetheless disappointed by the Court’s decision. In this moment of frustration, we also are here to remind the nation: Litigation is only one tool to fight against voter suppression,” Fair Fight Action Executive Director Cianti Stewart-Reid said in a statement.

    “The Court’s ruling today is no doubt a significant loss for the voting rights community in Georgia and across the country. However, it does not undermine the tireless work that Fair Fight Action and our allies continue to undertake to support Georgia voters and mitigate the obstacles they face to make their voices heard at the ballot box.”

    Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is running for reelection, accused Abrams of trying to make money off the suit and cast doubt on the electoral process. Kemp defeated Abrams in the 2018 governor’s race.

    “Stacey Abrams and her organization lost in court – on all counts. From day one, Abrams has used this lawsuit to line her pockets, sow distrust in our democratic institutions, and build her own celebrity,” Kemp said in a statement.

    “Judge Jones’ ruling exposes this legal effort for what it really is: a tool wielded by a politician hoping to wrongfully weaponize the legal system to further her own political goals. In Georgia, it is easy to vote and hard to cheat – and I’m going to continue working to keep it that way.”

    Abrams said she will work to expand the right to vote if elected governor.

    “As governor, I will expand the right to vote. I will defend minority voters, not bemoan their increased power or grow ‘frustrated’ by their success. This case demonstrates that the 2022 election will be a referendum on how our state treats its most marginalized voices,” Abrams said in a tweet.

    The ruling follows President Joe Biden’s narrow margin of victory in Georgia in the 2020 presidential election. Biden won the state by fewer than 12,000 votes out of some 5 million cast.

    It also comes as Georgia prepares to vote in one of the marquee battles for the US Senate. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is running against former NFL star, Herschel Walker, a Republican, the outcome of which could determine which party controls the chamber next year.

    Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger called the ruling a win for elections officials, saying the state’s elections have always been “safe, secure, and accessible.”

    “Stolen election and voter suppression claims by Stacey Abrams were nothing but poll-tested rhetoric not supported by facts and evidence,” Raffensperger said in a statement.

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  • Ron DeSantis pivots from political battles in aftermath of Hurricane Ian | CNN Politics

    Ron DeSantis pivots from political battles in aftermath of Hurricane Ian | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had just delivered sobering details of Hurricane Ian’s destruction Friday evening at his third news conference of the day, this time in flood-ravaged St. Augustine.

    As he walked away from a stand of microphones, an onlooker shouted, “2028! 2028, Ron!”

    “2024!” another supporter called out to DeSantis, a potential future presidential contender.

    But as he manages Florida through the aftermath of one of the most powerful storms to ever hit his state, the Republican governor has moved his focus from his many political battles to the crisis at hand. DeSantis has filled the hours meeting with emergency management teams, surveying the damage from the Gulf to the Atlantic and calling Florida lawmakers and the CEOs of large corporations that operate in the state. In on-camera briefings – of which he has held 10 through Friday since the morning of Ian’s arrival – he shares matter-of-fact accounts of the devastation and loss, demonstrating painstaking command of rescue and recovery logistics.

    For DeSantis, the tonal shift has required a deliberate exodus from the political environment he helped create amid his ascent to GOP megastar with presidential ambitions. It has meant playing nice with the White House just days after threatening to ship migrants from the southern border to President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware while lobbying unapologetically for the kind of disaster aid that as a congressman he voted against as wasteful spending. DeSantis, whose reelection campaign hawks “Don’t Tread on Florida” gear, has also welcomed help from several blue-state governors he has often antagonized.

    “When people are fighting for their lives, when their whole livelihood is at stake, when they’ve lost everything – if you can’t put politics aside for that, then you’re just not going to be able to,” DeSantis told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night.

    Hours before the appearance, Hurricane Ian had barreled into Florida’s west coast as a 155 mph giant, thrashing the area with a storm surge that swallowed entire neighborhoods and left hundreds of thousands homeless and millions in the state without power. At least 45 fatalities have been attributed to the storm as of Friday night. Fort Myers Beach was obliterated. Sanibel Island, so much as it exists, is cut off from the rest of the peninsula. Orlando flooded. So did St. Augustine – a city 275 miles and on an entirely different coast from where Hurricane Ian’s calamitous eye first breached Florida’s Gulf side.

    DeSantis met privately with victims Friday, his office said. He has visited the damage, though he hasn’t allowed reporters or cameras to tag along to capture his reaction. In Punta Gorda on Thursday, DeSantis described the storm surge as “biblical.”

    “It washed away roads,” he said. “It washed away structures that were not new and couldn’t withstand that.”

    Later that evening, DeSantis told reporters, “We absolutely expect to have mortality from this hurricane,” but urged against speculation of how deadly the storm would be.

    DeSantis and his wife, first lady Casey DeSantis, have urged people to donate to the state’s recovery fund, which had raised more than $10 million for direct relief as of Thursday night.

    If there are questions about the government’s response to Ian, they have mostly focused on when residents in Southwest Florida were encouraged to evacuate. With early forecasts predicting a landfall further north, Lee County did not order evacuations until Tuesday, one day before the storm hit.

    Asked Friday about the state’s preparations for a storm to hit that part of the state, DeSantis defended his administration’s response and said communities “sprung into action” as predictions shifted the storm south.

    “Seventy-two hours before landfall, Fort Myers and Naples were not even in the cone,” DeSantis said during a news conference in Lee County, referring to the shape of the storm’s forecasted path.

    While the “cone” did not include Fort Myers or Naples three days before landfall, Ian made landfall in Cayo Costa in Lee County – a point inside the cone 72 hours before landfall and in all of the other dozens of cones issued for the storm.

    The cone, by definition, is not meant to encompass a storm’s impacts, but rather the likely location of the storm’s center. Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist tracking Atlantic storms at Colorado State University, said one-third of storms over the past five years have had made landfall outside the cone.

    The National Hurricane Center “emphasized throughout Ian’s approach to Florida that there was larger than normal uncertainty in its future track,” Klotzbach said. “I think it’s a common misperception with the cone that the forecast will always fall within that cone.”

    The initial forecast 120 hours out put most of the Florida peninsula in the storm’s path, including Fort Myers and Naples.

    On a Zoom call with reporters Friday, DeSantis’ Democratic opponent Charlie Crist, himself a former governor, said he “might have gotten started a little bit earlier” if he were still in charge.

    “Frankly, you know, putting warnings out that I think are appropriate,” Crist said, before saying he would hold off on further armchair quarterbacking this early in the recovery.

    DeSantis has praised the assistance the state has received from the Biden administration. Biden has said he has talked with DeSantis several times in recent days and promised the federal government’s help for as long as it is needed.

    DeSantis on Wednesday asked the administration for assistance for “all 67 counties, for all categories, and all types of assistance.” In a letter to Biden, DeSantis asked the President to provide the aid sight unseen because “damage assessments would be a clear waste of resources during a time of critical need.” DeSantis has appeared satisfied with the federal response.

    “We really appreciate FEMA’s responsiveness to this disaster,” DeSantis told a representative from Biden’s Federal Emergency Management Agency at a news conference on Friday. “So thank you very much and thank you for being here.”

    In a statement to CNN, Jaclyn Rothenberg, a spokeswoman for FEMA, said of DeSantis’ requests so far: “Everything the governor has asked for is consistent with how other states make requests for federal support.”

    But outside Florida, DeSantis’ asks for help have not gone unnoticed in light of his past opposition to similar aid. DeSantis, who was elected to the US House in 2012 amid the heyday of the tea party movement, stood against a $9.7 billion relief package for the New York and New Jersey victims of Hurricane Sandy in one of his first congressional votes. He described the bill’s price tag as an example of the country’s “‘put it on the credit card mentality.”

    “Just a reminder to New York … Ron DeSantis (who was in Congress at the time) voted against aid for Hurricane Sandy,” Yuh-Line Niou, a member of the New York State Assembly, said on Twitter. “But because we are New York, we care about everyone. Even when they don’t care about us.”

    The public often expects leaders to put politics aside during emergencies, said Tevi Troy, a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center and author of “Shall We Wake the President? Two Centuries of Disaster Management From the Oval Office.”

    “It’s a huge opportunity to show he’s a competent, hands-on manager, knows what he’s doing, can be compassionate,” said Troy, who was an aide to President George W. Bush when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. “It’s also a vulnerability. If he makes a verbal misstep, it gets elevated. If there’s a community that needs help and he is slow in responding, the media will focus on it. Florida is known for having one of the best disaster prep response teams, and he’s dealing with the best of the best. That makes your job easier, and it also means the expectations are high.”

    Steve Schale, a veteran Democratic strategist in Florida, said DeSantis appears to be passing the test so far.

    “He’s doing what he’s supposed to do which is focus on being governor,” Schale said. “And he’s saying and doing all the right things.”

    DeSantis has not completely shut down his political shop while he deals with the storm. His campaign, which enjoys a 10-to-1 fundraising advantage over Crist, continued to run television ads as Ian hit the state and in the days since. Crist pulled his ads down in most television markets.

    Two days before Ian made landfall, with Florida firmly in its path, DeSantis’ political committee recorded a $1 million check from the Seminole Tribe of Florida. During the early months of the pandemic, another crisis that commanded most of his attention, DeSantis did not accept campaign contributions.

    It’s not clear when DeSantis will return to the campaign trail. But the longer the storm recovery, the more difficult it also becomes for Democrats to change the conversation back to the issues they hoped to run on, Schale said.

    “Anything that stops the calendar probably benefits the incumbent that has the lead,” Schale said. “It’s fair to say DeSantis has both.”

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  • Start your week smart: Soccer stadium tragedy, Hurricane Ian, Brazil, Ukraine, Trump | CNN

    Start your week smart: Soccer stadium tragedy, Hurricane Ian, Brazil, Ukraine, Trump | CNN

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    More people are buying electric vehicles than ever before, with monthly sales nearly triple what they were four years ago. But finding a place to charge your EV when you’re away from home can be a problem depending on where you live. So, before you head out on any long road trips, take a look at these maps first.

    Here’s what else you need to know to Start Your Week Smart.

    • At least 131 people are dead after violence erupted during an Indonesian league soccer match, according to East Java’s Governor, in what is one of the world’s deadliest stadium disasters of all time.

    • At least 67 people were killed by Hurricane Ian in Florida as it swallowed homes in its furious rushing waters, obliterated roadways and ripped down power lines. Four people were also killed in storm-related incidents in North Carolina, officials say.

    •  Polls opened in Brazil earlier today in a presidential election marred by an unprecedented climate of tension and violence. Two household names – former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and current leader Jair Bolsonaro – are battling to become the country’s next president.

    • Russian forces retreated from Lyman, a strategic city for its operations in eastern Ukraine, the Russian defense ministry said Saturday – just one day after Moscow’s annexation of the region.

    • The National Archives has told the House Oversight Committee that certain presidential records from the Trump administration remain outstanding, citing information that some White House staff used non-official electronic systems to conduct official business.

    Monday

    It’s the first Monday in October, and that means the Supreme Court will begin its 2022-23 term following the formal investiture ceremony late last week for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the bench. Jackson has been on the job since June and has already cast votes on emergency applications, but she has yet to sit for oral arguments.

    Tuesday

    Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, begins at sundown. Yom Kippur is considered the most important and sacred of Jewish religious holidays and is a day of fasting, repentance and worship.

    October 4 is also National Taco Day, which – as luck would have it – falls on a Tuesday this year. And yes, Choco Tacos are acceptable if you happen to find one in the back of your freezer…

    Wednesday

    October 5 is World Teachers’ Day. It’s a day to celebrate how teachers are transforming education, but also to reflect on the support they need to fully deploy their talents, and rethink the way ahead for the profession globally.

    Friday

    The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2022 will be announced in Oslo, Norway. Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov won the prize in 2021 for their longstanding efforts to safeguard freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia.

    Hear more on how Hurricane Ian got so strong, so fast.

    In this week’s One Thing podcast, CNN’s chief climate correspondent Bill Weir joins us from Punta Gorda, Florida, after Hurricane Ian ripped through as a Category 4 storm – leaving multiple people dead and millions without power. We examine how residents are approaching rebuilding and why climate change is likely responsible for the storm’s rapid intensification. Listen here.

    Check out more moving, fascinating and thought-provoking images from the week that was, curated by CNN Photos.

    TV and streaming

    “Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire” premieres tonight at 10 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+. CNN’s Brian Lowry says the new series is a significant improvement upon the 1994 film – it ambitiously updates the story, introduces a racial component and serves up plenty of sex and gore.

    CBS is resurrecting a hit TV series from the ’70s and ‘80s as a reality dating show. “The Real Love Boat” is something of a reboot (re-boat?) of ABC’s “The Love Boat” that will chronicle the adventures of real-life singles brought together for a Mediterranean voyage – complete with its own captain, bartender and cruise director. The show sets sail Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.

    Season 19 of “Grey’s Anatomy” arrives Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on ABC. Star Ellen Pompeo is expected to be scaling back her role and will appear in only eight episodes while continuing as an executive producer on the long-running medical drama.

    In theaters

    Set in the 1930s, “Amsterdam” stars Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington as three friends who witness a murder, are framed for it, and uncover one of the most outrageous plots in American history. Other notable names in the cast include Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldana, Taylor Swift, Rami Malek and Robert De Niro. “Amsterdam” opens on Friday.

    Football

    If you are reading this edition of 5 Things early enough this Sunday, you’ll have time to watch the Minnesota Vikings play the New Orleans Saints in London (yes, you read that right…) at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The kickoff is set for 9:30 a.m. ET on the NFL Network and NFL+. It’s the first of two NFL matchups being played in London. The New York Giants will square off against the Green Bay Packers next Sunday.

    Baseball

    The 2022 MLB playoffs begin on Friday. Several teams have already punched their tickets to the postseason, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, the New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves – the reigning World Series champions.

    Take CNN’s weekly news quiz to see how much you remember from the week that was! So far, 30% of fellow quiz fans have gotten eight or more questions right. How will you fare?

    ‘Centerfield’

    Consider this your warmup music for the start of the baseball playoffs on Friday. (Click here to view)

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  • Brazilians vote in contentious election plagued by violence and fear | CNN

    Brazilians vote in contentious election plagued by violence and fear | CNN

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    São Paulo, Brazil
    CNN
     — 

    Polls opened in Brazil on Sunday in a presidential election marred by an unprecedented climate of tension and violence.

    While there are nearly a dozen candidates on the ballot, the race has been dominated by two frontrunners and polar opposites: right-wing incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, leader of the Workers’ Party.

    Both have been seen on the campaign trail flanked by security and police, even wearing bulletproof vests at times. Bolsonaro wore his as he kicked off his re-election bid last month in the city of Juiz de Fora, where he was stabbed in the stomach during his 2018 presidential campaign. Da Silva, who is commonly referred to as Lula, was seen also wearing a vest during an event in Rio de Janeiro, the same city where a homemade stink bomb was launched into a large crowd of his supporters back in July.

    After voting alongside his wife Rosangela da Silva at a Sao Paulo school on Sunday, Lula told reporters: “We don’t want more discord, we want a country that lives in peace. This is the most important election. I am really happy.”

    He also referenced the 2018 elections, where he had been unable to run – or vote – because of a corruption conviction, which was overturned last year.

    “Four years ago I couldn’t vote because I had been the victim of a lie in this country. And four years later, I’m here, voting with the recognition of my total freedom and with the possibility of being president of the republic of this country again, to try to make this country return to normality,” Lula said.

    Bolsonaro, who voted at a military facility in Rio de Janeiro told reporters that he had traveled to “practically every state in Brazil” over the 45 days of campaigning.

    “The expectation is of victory today,” he said, later adding: “Clean elections, no problem at all.”

    Voting began at 8 a.m. in Brasilia (7 a.m. ET) and concludes at 5 p.m. local (4 p.m. ET). More than 156 million Brazilians are eligible to vote.

    In the Brazilian electoral system, a winning candidate must gain more than 50% of the vote. If no candidate crosses that threshold, a second round of voting between the two frontrunners will take place on October 30.

    Voters are also electing new state governors, senators, federal and state deputies for the country’s 26 states and the federal district.

    Bolsonaro, 67, is running for re-election under the conservative Liberal Party. He has campaigned to increase mining, privatize public companies and generate more sustainable energy to bring down energy prices. He has vowed to continue paying a R$ 600 (roughly US$110) monthly benefit known as Auxilio Brasil.

    Often referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics,” Bolsonaro, who is supported by important evangelical leaders, is a highly polarizing figure. His government is known for its support for ruthless exploitation of land in the Amazon, leading to record deforestation figures. Environmentalists are warning that the future of the rainforest could be at stake in this election.

    Bolsonaro has also been widely criticized for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 686,000 people in Brazil have died from the virus.

    Lula, 76, who was president for two consecutive terms, from 2003 to 2011, has focused his campaign on getting Bolsonaro out of office and has highlighted his past achievements throughout his campaign.

    Voters line up during general elections in Brasilia on Sunday, October 2, 2022.

    He left office with a 90% approval rating in 2011, and is largely credited for lifting millions of Brazilians from extreme poverty through the “Bolsa Familia” welfare program.

    His campaign has promised a new tax regime that will allow for higher public spending. He has vowed to end hunger in the country, which has returned during the Bolsonaro government. Lula also promises to work to reduce carbon emissions and deforestation in the Amazon.

    Lula, however, is also no stranger to controversy. He was convicted for corruption and money laundering in 2017, on charges stemming from the wide-ranging “Operation Car Wash” investigation into the state-run oil company Petrobras. But after serving less than two years, a Supreme Court Justice annulled Lula’s conviction in March 2021, clearing the way for him to run for president for a sixth time.

    Vote counting begins right after ballots, which are mostly electronic, close on Sunday.

    Electoral authorities say they expect final results from the first round to be officially announced Sunday evening. In the last few elections, results were officially declared two to three hours after voting finished.

    Observers will be watching closely to see if all candidates publicly accept the result.

    Bolsonaro, who has been accused of firing up supporters with violent rhetoric, has sought to sow doubts about the result and said that the results should be considered suspicious if he doesn’t gain “at least 60%.”

    On Saturday, he repeated claims that he will win in the first round of presidential elections “with a margin higher than 60%,” despite being 14 points behind in the most recent poll that day.

    When asked on Sunday if he will accept the results of the election, Bolsonaro said, “If they are clean elections, no problem, may the best win.”

    Both Bolsonaro and his conservative Liberal Party have claimed that Brazil’s electronic ballot system is susceptible to fraud – an entirely unfounded allegation that has drawn comparisons to the false election claims of former US President Donald Trump.

    There have been no proven instances of voter fraud in the electronic ballot in Brazil.

    The Supreme Electoral Court has also rejected claims of flaws in the system, as “false and untruthful, with no base in reality.”

    Critics have warned that such talk could lead to outbreaks of violence or even refusal to accept the election result among some Brazilians – pointing to the January 6, 2021, riot incited by Trump after he lost the vote.

    There have already been several reports of political discourse turning violent from supporters across the political spectrum.

    Last weekend, police registered two fatal incidents in states on opposite ends of the country. In the northeastern state of Ceara, a man was stabbed to death in a bar after identifying himself as a Lula supporter, according to police. And authorities in southern Santa Catarina state say a man wearing a Bolsonaro T-shirt was also fatally stabbed during a violent discussion with a man whom witnesses identified as a Workers’ Party supporter.

    Police say they are investigating both incidents, and that arrests have been made.

    And in July, a member of Lula’s Worker’s Party, who was celebrating his 50th birthday with a politically-themed party was shot dead.

    Just one day before, two explosives were thrown into a crowd at a Lula rally.

    According to a Datafolha poll conducted in August, more than 67% of voters in Brazil are afraid of being “physically attacked” due to their political affiliations. And the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal has issued a ban on firearms within 100 meters (330 feet) of any polling station on election day.

    The fear factor among voters could lead to a number of abstentions on Sunday, however, recent polling shows that there are fewer undecided Brazilians this year than in previous elections.

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  • ‘Interview with the Vampire’ has an undying legacy. Look inside its TV rebirth | CNN

    ‘Interview with the Vampire’ has an undying legacy. Look inside its TV rebirth | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    It’s been nearly half a century since “Interview with the Vampire” was published, leaving its mark on popular culture. Penned by the late Anne Rice, the book became the first of the “Vampire Chronicles,” which include 12 follow-up novels. “Interview” itself was adapted into a 1994 feature film starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, while a loose “Queen of the Damned” adaptation hit theaters in 2002.

    Now TV audiences can revisit “Interview with the Vampire” in a new series on AMC Sunday night. Beloved characters like Louis, Lestat and Claudia are back – albeit with some updates to their stories.

    “We have these books that have literally been played in everybody’s head a million times, and then there’s this movie that has grafted that onto another generation of people,” said executive producer and writer Rolin Jones, who acknowledged feeling a “push and pull of how to be reverential and how to make sure that you’re not going to be boring for the people that already know these stories quite well.”

    Jones and production designer Mara LePere-Schloop spoke with CNN about reimagining “Interview with the Vampire” for television and keeping the adaptation supernatural, sensual and sumptuous, in line with the source material.

    Bringing “Interview with the Vampire” to TV involved building a “universe,” said Jones, who kept the other “Vampire Chronicles” in mind while planning everything from character details to the bigger picture. (Lestat, played by Sam Reid, saw some “rewriting” in the later books, as Jones observed – starting with a more fleshed out backstory in the second novel, 1985’s “The Vampire Lestat.”)

    The titular interview takes place in the present day; the 1994 film, its screenplay written by Rice, also placed the interview in then-modern times. Like the novel, the new “Interview with the Vampire” is centered on Louis, who shares how he became a vampire with Daniel Molloy, a character first introduced to readers as an unnamed young reporter.

    This Daniel, portrayed by Eric Bogosian, is an older seasoned journalist, but he’s essentially “the same guy,” Jones said. The show alludes to an earlier interview between Daniel and Louis from the ’70s – a callback to the novel.

    The vampire Louis de Point du Lac (Jacob Anderson) with his mortal sister Grace de Pointe du Lac (Kalyne Coleman) in

    Louis, played by Jacob Anderson, has some new origins. In previous iterations, he was the owner of a plantation near New Orleans in the late 1700s, which is when he met Lestat. The new Louis, still prone to periods of melancholy, guilt and self-loathing, is a Black brothel owner in early 20th century New Orleans when his story begins.

    The changes made were partially the result of wanting to focus on a “time period that was as exciting aesthetically as the 18th century was without digging into a plantation story that nobody really wanted to hear now,” said Jones. He noted that the character’s lineage can still be traced back to “plantation money” and that his original occupation did not particularly come up as a point of “self-reflection” in the novels.

    Another significant character update involves Claudia – just 5 years old when she was made into a vampire in the novel, though she was portrayed by an 11-year-old Kirsten Dunst in the film. AMC’s adaptation ages Claudia further by making her 14 at the time of her transformation. This doesn’t make her any more prepared for the internal turmoil that sets in.

    Bailey Bass plays a slightly aged-up Claudia, now a 14-year-old when she's turned into a vampire.

    As actor Bailey Bass said in a featurette shared on the show’s Twitter account, this Claudia has to “deal with the emotions of a 19-year-old, then a 30-year-old, then 40-year-old, while still being stuck in this 14-year-old young body.”

    The decision to age Claudia was made in part due to concerns about filming certain scenes, especially those with more “adult” connotations. Child labor laws were another factor.

    “If I wanted to make Claudia on this show, I need as many hours of shooting with the actor who plays that as possible,” Jones said. “And if I put anybody that was younger than 18 in there, I would have limited hours.”

    For LePere-Schloop, who read Rice’s novels as a teen and credits them somewhat with drawing her to New Orleans, her home of two decades, the changes in the TV series are not antithetical to the author’s work. After Rice died, her assets were donated to an archive at Tulane University in New Orleans, said LePere-Schloop, who met with the archivist while the series was filming.

    “Some of the things she was discovering was that Anne was writing short stories and other interpretations of the ‘Chronicles’ where Louis was a woman, or there are other fluidity things happening,” she said. “Even within Anne’s own writing, there’s a history of kind of playing with time, place and person.”

    The series was filmed in New Orleans, once Rice’s longtime home and an integral part of “Interview with the Vampire.” Immersing the viewer in the updated setting required a good amount of research.

    “We’re now talking about a period of New Orleans that has been talked about a lot, but isn’t very well documented in images or hasn’t been captured in film and television, and that’s the period of Storyville (the red-light district),” LePere-Schloop said. “Culturally, it’s had such an impact on the city.”

    As a New Orleans resident, she knew that “when a place is done wrong, you hear it in town.” So she relied on various resources, including the expertise of local historian Richard Campanella.

    “He worked with us to capture things that he knew from oral histories and anecdotal stories that he had documented through time of elements of Storyville,” LePere-Schloop said.

    The production filmed in New Orleans, using a mix of real-life locations and newly built sets to immerse viewers in the vampires' world.

    The production incorporated New Orleans’ very real history, as well as key locations within the city, in addition to building new sets – like the one for Storyville – to bring viewers into this version of Louis’ and Lestat’s world.

    “Anne used the city as research and reference,” LePere-Schloop said. “We were lucky enough to be able to film at the actual house that Anne wrote Lestat’s townhouse to be in the novels. Her inspiration for that house is a living museum and we got to use that as the exterior house.”

    Creating the inside of the house, albeit on a stage, was also great fun, she said, noting that the original source of inspiration has “really incredible design details” like a skylight (which was worked into the script) and crown molding.

    Different design aesthetics were used to show the passage of time while the vampires remain unchanged. The sets also served as a reflection of the characters, from the art Lestat brings over to New Orleans from Europe to the depressed state the vampires’ home falls into when things go awry.

    “It’s an emotional landscape as much as a physical one,” Jones said.

    Production designer Mara LePere-Schloop aimed to give AMC's adaptation of

    LePere-Schloop wanted to avoid depicting a cliché New Orleans onscreen – and similarly, she wanted to avoid vampire clichés, opting against painting everything “bordello red” or putting Gothic arches everywhere. But for all the historical details adopted by the behind-the-scenes team, there are touches (including added saturation during the final coloring process, Jones said) that feel less natural.

    While thinking up the palette for the show, LePere-Schloop turned to a book from her childhood – “The Rainbow Goblins” – which contained “beautiful, oversaturated” illustrations and helped her land on a more dynamic backdrop. The world Louis and Lestat occupy is “sexier” and “vivacious,” she said, compared to early depictions of vampires in film, which tended to be understated and “crumbling.”

    Even with some changes to the original storylines, the “Interview with the Vampire” team did not ignore the source material – rereading and “seeing what was in the crevices and the cracks” helped them make the show, Jones said.

    There are subtle references to characters from later novels and even a quick shoutout to Rice’s Mayfair witches (also the subject of an upcoming AMC series). Characters that did not appear in the film do appear here. And – perhaps the most important detail for the diehard fans – Lestat and Louis are lovers, in a move that takes the famed subtext of Rice’s earlier vampire novels and simply turns it into text.

    Lestat (Sam Reid) and Louis (Jacob Anderson) have a blatantly romantic, albeit toxic, relationship in this iteration of

    What “Interview with the Vampire” hinted at in the ’70s was progressive for its time, Jones said, adding that by the “later books, it’s as if there was this great romance that was never really written, but we all kind of agree it happened.”

    While Jones did not sugarcoat some of the more toxic “dish-throwing” aspects of the vampires’ relationship, he saw tremendous opportunity in how he could depict it in an updated adaptation.

    Between Rice’s writings and the 1994 film, which has its fans and critics alike, Jones acknowledged that the series’ main cast “had big ghosts behind them.” But he praised Anderson – who he pointed out is in nearly every scene – and Reid for their stamina, as well as the range of their performances.

    As far as the viewers are concerned?

    “I’d like them to be surprised. For those who know it really well and love it, I want them to stick with it for seven (episodes) and if they’re still angry, that’s cool,” Jones said. “But hopefully, I made something exciting and thrilling for them.”

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  • Death toll soars to 76 in Florida after Hurricane Ian demolished entire communities | CNN

    Death toll soars to 76 in Florida after Hurricane Ian demolished entire communities | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Newly homeless Floridians are struggling to restart their lives while rescuers scramble to find any remaining signs of life among the wreckage of Hurricane Ian.

    In some cases, emergency workers are juggling both unimaginable tasks.

    “Some of the guys on Pine Island, they lost everything, but they’re doing what they can,” said emergency physician Dr. Ben Abo, who was preparing to join first responders on a rescue mission Sunday near decimated Sanibel Island and Pine Island.

    “It brings tears to my eye to see how hard they’re working.”

    But because Hurricane Ian washed out Sanibel Island’s lone road to mainland Florida, “we’re helicoptering in and doing our grid search,” Abo said.

    More than 1,100 people have been rescued from inundated parts of southwest and central Florida since Ian crashed into the state last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office said. More than 800 were rescued in Lee County alone, Sheriff Carmine Marceno said Sunday.

    But as the search for survivors continues, rescuers are also finding more bodies. Officials say Ian killed at least 76 people in Florida and four more in North Carolina.

    Those lucky enough to survive face an arduous road to recovery. More than 689,000 homes, businesses and other customers in Florida still did not have power as of Sunday evening, according to PowerOutage.us. Many are without clean tap water, with well over 100 boil-water advisories in places around the state, according to Florida Health Department data.


    Hurricane Ian could be the most expensive storm in Florida’s history, devastating communities from the state’s western coast to inland cities like Orlando.

    While Florida has more flood insurance policies than any other state, only about 13% of homes there have flood insurance, and only 18% who live in the counties that had mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders in place ahead of Ian, according to an analysis by actuarial firm Milliman.

    On Sunday, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Americans don’t have to live in a flood zone to benefit from flood insurance.

    “I think anybody who lives near water should certainly purchase flood insurance because it’s your No. 1 tool to help protect your family and your home after the storm,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said.

    “If you live near water or where it rains, it can certainly flood, and we have seen that (with) multiple storms this year.”

    She said FEMA is in the process of updating its flood zone maps. “While in certain areas we require flood insurance, everybody has the ability to purchase flood insurance,” Criswell said

    “It is certainly in your best defense to help protect your property in the aftermath of any of these storms.”

    But the most severe lashing took place in southwestern coastal cities like Fort Myers and Naples, where some neighborhoods were annihilated.

    “We’re flying and we’re operating in areas that are unrecognizable,” US Coast Guard Rear Adm. Brendan McPherson said.

    “There’s no street signs. They don’t look like they used to look like. Buildings that were once benchmarks in the community are no longer there.”

    Many of the Ian-related deaths have been reported in southwestern Florida’s Lee County, which includes Fort Myers and Sanibel Island, where at least 42 people died.

    Local officials are facing criticism about whether mandatory evacuations in Lee County should have been issued sooner.

    Officials there did not order evacuations until less than 24 hours before the storm made landfall, and a day after several neighboring counties issued their orders.

    DeSantis defended the timing of Lee County’s orders, saying they were given as soon as the storm’s projected path shifted south, putting the area in Ian’s crosshairs.

    “As soon as we saw the model shift northeast, we did exactly what we could to encourage people to” evacuate, Lee County Commissioner Kevin Ruane said Sunday.

    “I’m just disappointed that so many people didn’t go to shelters, because they’re open.”

    Ruane called the reporting about a possible delay in issuing a mandatory evacuation “inaccurate.” He said the county did what it was supposed to do, without providing any evidence that the reporting was inaccurate.

    “I think the most important thing that most people need to understand is we opened up 15 shelters. During Irma there were 60,000 people in our shelters. There’s 4,000 people in the shelters right now,” Ruane said Sunday.

    “Unfortunately, people did get complacent … As far as I’m concerned, the shelters were open, they had the ability, they had all day Tuesday, they had a good part of Wednesday as the storm was coming down – they had the ability to (go to a shelter).”

    The US Coast Guard made plans to evacuate people from Lee County’s Pine Island on Sunday, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

    In addition to the 42 deaths in Lee County, Hurricane Ian also contributed to the deaths of 12 people in Charlotte County, eight in Collier County, five in Volusia County, three in Sarasota County, two in Manatee County, and one each in Polk, Lake, Hendry and Hillsborough counties, officials said.

    President Joe Biden continued to pledge federal support for Florida, saying Hurricane Ian is “likely to rank among the worst … in the nation’s history.”

    The President and first lady Jill Biden are set to travel to Puerto Rico Monday to survey damage from Hurricane Fiona, then head to Florida on Wednesday.

    After Hurricane Ian finished its devastating crawl over Florida, residents tried to venture back to their damaged or destroyed homes and sifted through debris.

    Residents from Sanibel and Captiva islands were cut off from mainland Florida after parts of a causeway were destroyed by the storm, leaving boats and helicopters as their only exit options.

    Civilian volunteers rushed to help residents on Sanibel, where some homes were obliterated.

    Andy Boyle was on Sanibel Island when the hurricane hit. He said he lost his home and two cars, but feels lucky to be alive.

    “A lot of people have very expensive, well-built homes on Sanibel, and they felt with their multi-million dollar homes built like fortresses, they would be fine,” he said.

    Boyle was riding out the storm at home when the dining room roof collapsed. “That’s when we started to get concerned,” he said.

    He described waving down National Guard aircraft the next day outside his house, and seeing the scenes of devastation around the island.

    “When you go to the east end of the island, there’s just a lot of destruction. The houses surrounding the lighthouse are all gone. When you go to the west end of the island, the old restaurants up there, they’re all gone. The street going to Captiva is now a beach,” Boyle said.

    In Naples, Hank DeWolf’s 4,000-pound boat dock was carried through a condo complex and is now in his neighbor’s yard. And the water brought someone’s car into his own backyard. He doesn’t know who it belongs to or how to remove it.

    Another neighbor, Joanne Fisher, told CNN she’s coping with some shock in the storm’s aftermath, but she is in clean-up and salvage mode. Her oven is filled with mud, and water still spills out of the kitchen cabinets.

    “I’m almost ready to cry right now talking to you,” Fisher said. “But it’s okay because we’re alive and we’re here. And that is the most important thing.”

    Residents were also evacuated from the Hidden River area of Sarasota County after a compromised levee threatened to flood homes, the sheriff’s office said Saturday.

    A man surveys his damaged trailer home Saturday in Matlacha, Florida.

    Further complicating recovery is the lack of electricity and spotty communication in impacted areas.

    It could take up to a week from Sunday before power is restored in storm-damaged counties, said Eric Silagy, president and CEO of Florida Power & Light Company.

    And some customers may not be back on the grid for “weeks or months” because some buildings with structural damage will need safety inspections.

    In Cape Coral, just southwest of Fort Myers, 98% of the city’s power structure was “obliterated” and will need complete reconstruction, Fire Department Chief & Emergency Management Director Ryan Lamb told CNN’s Jim Acosta.

    Around 65% of all power outages in Florida from the storm had been restored as of early Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us.

    Florida is also working with Elon Musk and Starlink satellite to help restore communication in the state, according to DeSantis.

    “They’re positioning those Starlink satellites to provide good coverage in Southwest Florida and other affected areas,” DeSantis said.

    Emergency responders in Lee County will be among those receiving Starlink devices.

    In Charlotte County, residents are “facing a tragedy” without homes, electricity or water supplies, sheriff’s office spokesperson Claudette Smith said.

    “We need everything. We need all hands on deck,” Smith told CNN Friday. “The people who have come to our assistance have been tremendously helpful, but we do need everything.”

    Hear why this expert believes Hurricane Ian damage could have been prevented

    Hurricane Ian may have caused as much as $47 billion in insured losses in Florida, according to an estimate from property analytics firm CoreLogic. That could make it the most expensive storm in the state’s history.

    After pummeling Florida, Ian made its second landfall in the US near Georgetown, South Carolina, Friday afternoon as a Category 1 hurricane.

    Workers and owners of a large shrimping boat prepare their vessel for towing back into the water Saturday after it was swept ashore in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

    In North Carolina, the four storm-related deaths include a man who drowned when his truck went into a flooded swamp; two people who died in separate crashes; and a man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning after running a generator in a closed garage, according to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.

    No deaths have been reported in South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said Saturday.

    The storm has flooded homes and submerged vehicles along South Carolina’s shoreline. Two piers – one in Pawleys Island and another in North Myrtle Beach – partially collapsed as high winds pushed water even higher.

    Edgar Stephens, who manages the Cherry Grove Pier in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, stood yards away as a 100-foot section from the pier’s middle crashed into the ocean.

    Stephens said the Cherry Grove Pier is a staple for community members and tourists alike.

    “We’re a destination,” he said, “not just a fishing pier.”

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  • How Buffalo is ensuring the Black community isn’t left behind after mass supermarket shooting | CNN

    How Buffalo is ensuring the Black community isn’t left behind after mass supermarket shooting | CNN

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    Buffalo, NY
    CNN
     — 

    The day after Buffalo experienced the largest mass shooting in its history, teams of emergency volunteers and mental health counselors arrived on the scene, offering emotional support and distributing food.

    The response was robust and swift, but there was one big problem.

    “The community didn’t feel comfortable coming up the stairs to the center because what they saw was a large group of White people,” said Kelly Wofford, Erie County’s director of health equity.

    A White gunman had deliberately opened fire at a predominantly Black neighborhood’s only grocery store, a Tops supermarket, on a busy Saturday in May. Eleven of the 13 people shot were Black, including the 10 killed. Authorities called the shooting racially motivated.

    “In any other kind of tragedy, like a hurricane or flood, anyone offering resources would be gladly welcomed, but this was different. This tragedy had a face and a hatred for a certain group of people,” said Thomas Beauford Jr., president and CEO of the Buffalo Urban League, which was one of the community organizations on site the day of the shooting.

    “They completely rejected it,” said Beauford, adding, “The immediate reaction to the counselors was, ‘We need to see counselors that look like us.’”

    By Monday, the problem was addressed. Wofford, who grew up down the street from the Tops, tapped her network to ensure there were more Black counselors on site, that Black people were the ones handing out flyers on the street about available services, and that Black people greeted folks at the help center.

    “We made sure the community affected felt comfortable seeking the services they need,” Wofford said.

    Her response efforts – and the spotlight the May 14 shooting put on the community’s existing disparities – exemplifies the role Erie County’s newly formed Office of Health Equity is meant to play in the community: ensuring that health services are equitably distributed across disadvantaged and marginalized populations.

    Within Erie County, there is a significant disparity between the health outcomes of White residents and residents of color, which became even clearer as Covid-19 disproportionately affected Black and brown communities there, as well as across the country.

    Even before the pandemic, the life expectancy of Black Buffalo residents was 12 years shorter than White residents, according to a report published by the Buffalo Center for Health Equity in 2015, the most recent data available.

    Erie County’s Office of Health Equity was launched to help address those disparities. It was established in January by county law, and the funding was made possible by a major federal pandemic relief package known as the American Rescue Plan that distributed money to states, counties and cities across the country.

    Kelly Wofford is the first director of the Erie County Office of Health Equity, which launched earlier this year.

    Erie County allocated roughly $1 million of the nearly $179 million it received from the American Rescue Plan for the creation of the Health Equity Office. It is using the remaining funds on a variety of needs, including economic assistance for small businesses, water treatment infrastructure and restoring jobs and spending that were initially cut due to the pandemic.

    While issues of health equity were addressed prior to the formation of the office, the law formalized the efforts and put funding behind them, ensuring it can work to address long-term solutions. With Wofford at the helm, the office has nine staff members, including two epidemiologists.

    “The Office of Health Equity – which did not exist and would not have existed without the funding we received from the American Rescue Plan – immediately became an integral partner in the response to the Tops shooting on May 14, by being in some ways the boots on the ground and the coordinator between third-party agencies and the county’s delivery of these services to the community,” said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

    “It was unlike any experience we’ve ever had,” Poloncarz added, “and I’m very grateful that we had the Office of Health Equity in place because it would have made our job a lot tougher without it.”

    Addressing health disparities is something communities across the country are grappling with, and while the pandemic caused illness and death for millions, it also has helped spur some momentum.

    State and local health equity offices are far from being as prevalent as water departments, for example, but they are having a moment – due in part to the influx of money from the federal government meant to help communities recover.

    “The pandemic really highlighted the gross differences in our ability to keep people healthy, related to race and ethnicity,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

    The group hasn’t tracked how many formal equity offices have opened, but the number is growing, Freeman said. Philadelphia hired its first chief racial equity officer earlier this year.

    In the past, some communities have not had the political will or the resources to formalize their health equity efforts, she added.

    A memorial waterfall was built inside the renovated Tops supermarket in Buffalo, which reopened in July, two months after the mass shooting.

    High-profile killings of Black people by police, notably the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, gave rise to a number of communities declaring racism as a public health crisis, laying the groundwork for some of the offices opening now. In April 2021, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also declared racism a serious public health threat.

    Resolving health inequities will take time and requires tackling the social determinants of health. These are the factors that contribute to someone’s health that they don’t have control over themselves, like access to clean water and healthy food and other conditions where they live, work and play that can affect their health.

    “You’re really trying to create the same opportunity for health for every single person in the community, no matter what their economic status is, where they live or whether they have a job,” Freeman said.

    In mid-July, the Tops grocery store reopened to mixed reactions from the community.

    Without the supermarket, those without a car may have lacked convenient access to nutritious food. For others, it was emotionally difficult to reenter the store.

    Migdalia Lozada, a crisis counselor with the Buffalo Urban League, spent one August morning offering support to shoppers. Lozada took one woman by the hand as she walked into the store for the first time since the tragedy, feeling the woman’s tears fall onto her arm.

    The Buffalo Urban League’s community resource center, located just two blocks from the Tops, continues to serve the traumatized neighborhood. People can walk right into the space and speak with a crisis counselor. Some people are regulars who come in nearly every day. Others may have been triggered by an event like a shooting elsewhere or movement in a court case against the shooting suspect.

    “We just try to give the person some space to open up in a safe, confidential place,” said Lozada.

    While the Buffalo Urban League’s crisis counselors had already been serving the community for months, its leaders wanted a physical space nearby the Tops store after the shooting. The group found an open space down the street that had once been a neighborhood bar known as Pixie’s and opened a resource center there within days after the tragedy. The building intentionally looks and feels much more like a local watering hole than a health institution.

    Buffalo Urban League's Yukea Wright (left), a crisis counselor team leader, and Migdalia Lozada, a crisis counselor, work at the resource center near the Tops.

    The center also serves as a place that connects people with other resources to address a wide range of social determinants of health, like employment, housing and education.

    The Buffalo Urban League plans to work closely with the county, especially with the new Office of Health Equity, to help drive long-term change going forward.

    The county office is first working on training people in the Mental Health First Aid national program, so that the county can deploy counselors throughout the community – like at Bible studies and community centers – to meet people where they already may be. A recent nationwide study found that while the share of US adults who received treatment for mental health grew throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, people of color are less able to access mental health services.

    The office is also working on a survey that, in part, will show what problems members of the community would like addressed – it could be the high prevalence of diabetes or high blood pressure, for example.

    “When you look at the social determinants of health, there are inequities across all of them, so you can pick whichever one you want,” Wofford said.

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  • A big week for Trump’s delay delay delay legal strategy | CNN Politics

    A big week for Trump’s delay delay delay legal strategy | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    While a lot of us have been diverted by weather events (Ian) and world events (Russia) there were multiple developments on multiple fronts where it concerns former President Donald Trump this week.

    Trump rode out the storm in Mar-a-Lago, which enabled him to delay testimony in a class action fraud lawsuit.

    The January 6 committee postponed its planned public hearing due to the storm, but it did interview Ginni Thomas, conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

    A judge Trump appointed in Florida shielded him from the special master he requested and she approved, which means he does not have to justify in court some of his wild claims about the FBI.

    I talked to Katelyn Polantz, CNN’s senior crime and justice reporter, who keeps track of all of this, to get read in on the developments. We conducted this conversation by direct message.

    WHAT MATTERS: What’s the thing this week that most caught your attention and why?

    POLANTZ: What all of these developments have in common is how timing really is everything.

    This week, there was a clear need to shift from the daily grind of investigations and legal battles to focus on the devastation of the hurricane in Florida. But things are really getting down to the wire on some political fronts.

    In the deposition situation, that lawsuit had a deadline of Friday to get Trump under oath, months after he had agreed to do the deposition. It was scheduled for the very last day it was possible, but the hurricane and his insistence on staying in Florida really threw a wrench in that. The new deadline for his deposition now is end of October, which further delays the work being done in that case, which is a class action against his promotions of scam businesses.

    The House too is not being helped by delay. The January 6 committee has an expiration date tied to the end of this Congress in January. As the congressional election draws near, there’s not much more time for public hearings before people vote. That said, the committee is obviously continuing its work and still promises to release a final report before the end of the year. It’s not clear if they will be able to muster the same political impact as their series of hearings over the summer.

    As for the Mar-a-Lago investigation – perhaps the most high-stakes legal situation Trump faces – Judge Aileen Cannon has given the Trump team an extra gift, in that prosecutors won’t be getting clarity on the issues Trump has with what was seized, or the ability to use the non-classified documents in their investigation until after the November election.

    The name of the game right now on every front for Trump is delay, delay, delay. Though there’s still a question of whether he can hold off all the investigations bearing down around him in a way that runs out the clock.

    WHAT MATTERS: You wrote an interesting story last week, along with Evan Perez and Zachary Cohen, about Trump’s “secret” court fight to block information from a federal grand jury. I feel like that is another theme of these inquiries. There is the publicly known information, the reported details, and then the secret things lurking below the water. What else can we assume we don’t know about?

    POLANTZ: There are always parts of investigations, or even entire investigative avenues, we don’t know about. That’s just the nature of how investigations, especially those being done by the Justice Department, work. We can’t assume much more than what we’ve reported, because this fight, like many others, didn’t bubble out of nowhere. It is another step in a painstaking effort from the federal grand jury in DC to gather information from top advisers to Trump in the White House and then-Vice President Mike Pence. We know it regards Trump’s assertions of privilege, and it could impact a very important set of witnesses, and whether they and others can be compelled to share interactions that have so far been kept secret from all investigations. We also know that, because of how Trump tends to push the courts into uncharted legal territory, we may be in for tracking rounds of appeals – even if the past precedent indicates that even sitting presidents lose these types of battles in criminal probes. But how the outcomes will settle, and when, remains a major question.

    WHAT MATTERS: The DOJ is not the only government entity with an investigation that could touch Trump. What’s going on with the Fulton County DA’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that state?

    POLANTZ: That grand jury is still at work! They’re bringing in witnesses like Boris Epshteyn this week. Like most grand jury investigations, their work could result in charges against one or many people – several allies of Trump have received target letters. But where the investigation is exactly, and how it is functioning at the local level is a question that may be answered better by others than me.

    POLANTZ: There is an intriguing situation with all these simultaneous investigation I want to mention –

    WHAT MATTERS: Go on…

    POLANTZ: At the end of the day, will the Big Kahuna of January 6 investigations, the one being done by the Justice Department out of Washington, get answers no other investigators have been able to get? With so many investigations simultaneously, this is a very complex game.

    Take for instance, Jeffrey Clark, the ex-DOJ official whose phone was seized by federal investigators as part of their investigation into conspiracy and obstructive acts. He has not been charged with any crime.

    He is facing an attorney discipline case in DC that resulted from months of investigation and was pursued by the House Select Committee. In both of those situations, he took the Fifth and didn’t answer questions. Will the DOJ, which has tools to immunize witnesses and force them to answer questions, be able to get someone like him to talk? Will they even want to try to get him to talk? Lots of people close to Trump are taking the Fifth, based on what we know of their non-answers to the House Select Committee.

    WHAT MATTERS: That’s an interesting side drama – Trump’s legal team. There was a report this week about one of his newer lawyers, Chris Kise, being sidelined. What, if anything, do we know about the size of his legal team, how they are being paid, and how they are dividing up these many, many, many different cases?

    POLANTZ: Zach, you are asking the most complex questions today! From what we know, there are many attorneys working with Trump, and no central person coordinating all his efforts and keeping tabs on all investigative subjects who are close to and aligned with him. Payments to various lawyers have popped up consistently on Trump’s political committee expenditure reports.

    The lawyer who was sidelined – who was brought in to take charge in Florida with the Mar-a-Lago situation and was on track to have a $3 million retainer fee – wasn’t even on the Trump team’s latest filing in the public court record. There are three lawyers still listed. One of whom, Evan Corcoran, is on a separate team of three lawyers who went to court on the January 6 privilege fight, alongside yet another two attorneys. Others that we know of are in the background, including Ephsteyn. I’m not even getting to the various legal teams Trump uses to respond to his myriad ongoing civil suits. That would be a tome. Of course, it’s not unusual for a person with a lot of legal entanglements to need a lot of lawyers.

    That said, lawyers don’t come cheap! On top of all these attorneys, Trump is on the hook for special master costs in the Mar-a-Lago document review. The special master selected, a working judge, isn’t taking payment, but a retired judge he’s brought on to help him will be billing $500 an hour. And in the legal world, that’s a bargain.

    WHAT MATTERS: I think that’s a good place to leave it today. Keep up the good work!

    POLANTZ: You as well!

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  • Instruction about race may be under siege across the US, but this course is empowering students at a Southern high school | CNN

    Instruction about race may be under siege across the US, but this course is empowering students at a Southern high school | CNN

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    In the early 2000s, when I was a student at Ridge View High School, in Columbia, South Carolina, I loved to parse the legacies of certain historical figures: W.E.B. Du Bois, in AP US History; Malcolm X, in AP English Language and Composition.

    At the same time, I wanted more. Too often, Advanced Placement curricula seemed to give attention to just a handful of Black heavyweights and, as a result, neglect the countless ways Black Americans have shaped US society. Only rarely were Black students like me reflected in lessons. (I remember learning about “A Raisin in the Sun,” Lorraine Hansberry’s jewel of a play about a Black family in south Chicago, from my mom and wondering, Why aren’t we studying this in school?)

    But things are beginning to change. Ridge View is one of about 60 high schools across the country piloting AP African American Studies in 2022. The interdisciplinary course will be the newest addition to the College Board’s panoply of AP offerings and delve into the history of the African continent and Black contributions to music, literature, science, politics and mathematics, among other fields. Mere weeks into the pilot course, students and faculty at Ridge View already see AP African American Studies as something of a salve. The course arrives at a moment when instruction about race is under siege: Educational gag orders abound, and “critical race theory” has become a lightning rod for the right.

    Given the meager representation I observed as a high school student, I was stunned – and thrilled – to learn that Ridge View, which is majority Black, is piloting AP African American Studies. It would’ve been so welcome, I thought, to see myself in this context, to probe questions of identity and inheritance.

    Plus, it’s no small thing to test out the course in South Carolina, which didn’t banish the Confederate battle flag from statehouse grounds until 2015, in the heartrending aftermath of a White supremacist massacre.

    The significance of the moment isn’t lost on Ridge View students.

    “It really makes me happy to be in this class – to know that I’m a part of history,” Nacala McDaniels, a senior, told CNN.

    In August, the Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the architects of the AP African American Studies curriculum, stressed the course’s educational value.

    “Nothing is more dramatic than having the College Board launch an AP course in a field – that signifies ultimate acceptance and ultimate academic legitimacy,” he told Time magazine. “It is a mainstream, rigorously vetted, academic approach to a vibrant field of study, one-half a century old in the American academy, and much older, of course, in historically Black colleges and universities.”

    Like so many in the Ridge View community, McDaniels wants AP African American Studies to help not only other Black students but all students become well-versed in under-told histories and cultures and incubate meaningful discussions about race.

    “I hope that the course will be offered to other people who look like me and to other people who just want to learn about history that’s been covered up and history that’s been ignored,” she said. “And I hope that the course makes room for more conversation. Lots of people are scared to talk about race, but with more conversation comes better understanding.”

    High schools had been hungry for an AP African American Studies course for years. However, when the College Board asked universities about a decade ago if they’d give credit for a corresponding exam, they said no.

    But the uprisings of 2020 caused a long-overdue shift.

    “The events surrounding George Floyd and the increased awareness and attention paid toward issues of inequity and unfairness and brutality directed toward African Americans caused me to wonder, ‘Would colleges be more receptive to an AP course in this discipline than they were 10 years ago?’” Trevor Packer, who heads the College Board’s AP program, told Time.

    Yes, was the answer.

    Maybe the most exciting thing about teaching AP African American Studies is the fact that educators get to talk about people, subjects and slices of history students don’t know much about, according to Daniel Soderstrom, who leads the course at Ridge View.

    “Over the past few decades, we, as a society, have done a better job of teaching Black history and African American Studies. But I’d argue that many teachers still fall short,” he told CNN. “What I mean is that our kids hear the same stories every year. And that’s not to diminish the contributions of Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr. But if those are the only people our students are learning about in school, they’re missing a lot of what’s really there.”

    The first part of the course examines early African kingdoms and some of their foundational figures, including Queen Nzinga of Ndongo, located in present-day Angola.

    “She was a very strong woman – a heroine – and fought on the front lines with her soldiers,” Soderstrom said of Nzinga, celebrated for pushing back against Portuguese colonization and the trade of enslaved people in Central Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries. “But we tend to skip the stories of people from Africa.”

    So far, the lessons appear to be resonating with the kids.

    “I didn’t even know that there were any queens in Africa in any time period. Like, at all,” Ashton Walker, a junior, told CNN. “We got to learn about Queen Nzinga and Idia. They’re both very interesting because they were powerful women leaders who did amazing things for their kingdoms.”

    Walker, who’s White, sees AP African American Studies as a means toward visibility for her Black peers, who get to be participants in their history.

    “It matters that we get to learn all these things as a society. We don’t ever really get to hear about any of these figures or what they went through,” she said. “And my (Black) classmates deserve to hear this history. It’s awesome that Ridge View is a majority-Black school and gets to help create this course.”

    Her mother, Nicole Walker, who was involved in bringing the pilot course to Ridge View and is the director of the school’s Scholars Academy Magnet for Business and Law (she also was my 9th grade English teacher), echoed some of these sentiments.

    “We know that what’s best for kids is for them to see themselves reflected in the curriculum, for them to celebrate their cultures, for them to feel valued,” she told CNN. “We know that a kid who feels safe and valued is going to do better in school.”

    Martin Luther King Jr. addresses crowds during the March On Washington, August 28, 1963.

    Jacynth Tucker, a senior, is intimately familiar with the power of inclusivity. She said that at a previous school, she and other Black students felt invisible.

    “I can’t even remember a time when we really explored Africa – talked about the history and the culture,” she told CNN. “Being in a class where that’s more of a focus is very special to me.”

    Further, the course gives Black Americans more dimension, per Clementine Jordan, a senior.

    “One activity I really liked was when our teacher showed us a collage and asked, ‘What do all these people have in common?’” she told CNN. “Their commonality was that they’re all Black. But the point of that discussion was that, yes, they’re all Black, but there’s so much diversity within the Black community, within my community: diverse religions, gender expressions, sexualities, things like that.”

    Crucially, Soderstrom noted that AP African American Studies isn’t a standard-issue history course, though it proceeds in a relatively chronological fashion and will eventually make its way to the US.

    “We’re studying Black excellence and African American success through art, through literature, through culture, through dance, through mathematics, through science, through lawyering,” he said. “It’s interesting that one day we’re looking at an art piece, the next day we’re listening to music, the next day we’re reading a poem and then the day after that we’re listening to a mathematician speak.”

    In other words, while the course charts struggles – including the mid-century civil rights movement – it also underscores Black excellence in a variety of disciplines.

    It’s pretty much impossible to separate the debut of the AP African American Studies pilot course from the Republican-led racial panic looming over many schools.

    According to an August analysis by PEN America, a literary and free expression organization, legislators in 36 states have introduced 137 laws this year restricting discussions about race, US history and gender in K-12 schools and higher education. This figure is a 250% increase over 2021.

    And last month, the American Library Association predicted that the number of attempts this year to censor books in K-12 schools, universities and public libraries grappling with race, gender and sexuality will exceed 2021’s record count. The ALA tallied 681 attempts between January 1 and August 31; the 2021 total was 729.

    These attacks seek to determine what content is and isn’t legitimate in an academic context; they’re part of a much broader counter-mobilization against efforts to topple racial and social hierarchies.

    “We’re not seeing different political conflicts. We’re seeing one big political conflict – one big reactionary political project,” as Thomas Zimmer, a visiting professor at Georgetown University, where his research focuses on the history of democracy and its discontents, told CNN in July.

    Yet Soderstrom minced no words: AP African American Studies is a vital course, regardless of anyone’s political affiliation.

    “Henry Louis Gates Jr. is one of the senior minds when we’re talking about American studies and African American history. He was quoted recently explaining that the course isn’t political,” Soderstrom said. “We’re teaching factual information, and everything is verifiable.”

    Lylou, a sophomore, shared this conviction.

    “I’m a White person, and I wanted to take this class because I don’t know that much about Black history,” she told CNN. “The course should be in the curriculum. Because why would we want to ignore this history?”

    (Lylou’s mother asked that her daughter’s last name not be included, given the intense political climate hovering over lessons about race in the US.)

    The pilot course is expected to expand to include additional high schools next year and then be available to all interested schools the following year, per the College Board.

    Ridge View kids, for their part, seem eager to see how the rest of the year unfolds.

    “The class is a learning opportunity for everybody. I take every interaction I have with anybody as a learning experience,” McDaniels said.

    Then, mirroring the same fundamental curiosity I had as a high school student nearly two decades ago, she added, “I’m just excited to see what’s next.”

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  • Chinese hacking group targeting US agencies and companies has surged its activity, analysis finds | CNN Politics

    Chinese hacking group targeting US agencies and companies has surged its activity, analysis finds | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    An elite Chinese hacking group with ties to operatives indicted by a US grand jury in 2020 has surged its activity this year, targeting sensitive data held by companies and government agencies in the US and dozens of other countries, according to an expert at consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers.

    The findings highlight the biggest cyber-espionage challenge facing the Biden administration: combating a Chinese hacking program that the FBI has called more prolific than that of all other governments in the world combined.

    The Justice Department has aggressively sought to expose the alleged data-stealing campaigns through indictments, and made the case that Chinese hackers have robbed American companies of intellectual property, causing huge losses. But China-based hackers have often developed new tools or otherwise altered their operations, according to analysts.

    One of the Chinese groups tracked by PwC has targeted dozens of US organizations in the last year, including government agencies and software or tech firms, said Kris McConkey, who leads PwC’s global cyber threat intelligence practice. The intruders often comb networks for data that could offer insights into foreign or trade policy, he said, but also dabble in cryptocurrency schemes for personal profit. He declined to detail what types of US government agencies, whether at the federal, state or local level, were targeted.

    “They are, by far, the most active and globally impactful [hacking group] that we track at the minute,” McConkey, who closely follows China-based hackers, told CNN. He believes the attackers have been successful in breaching at least some organizations because they operate on a vast scale, targeting organizations in at least 35 countries this year alone.

    McConkey traced part of the activity to an ostensibly legitimate cybersecurity company based in the Chinese city of Chengdu, but he stopped short of publicly connecting the hacking to the Chinese government. US officials have for years accused China of using front companies to conduct hacking that feeds the government’s sprawling intelligence collection efforts.

    China has repeatedly denied allegations of hacking and Beijing has in recent months stepped up its own accusations that Washington has conducted cyber operations against Chinese assets.

    Cybersecurity issues have been a repeated source of friction between the world’s two biggest economies; President Joe Biden raised the subject on a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping last year.

    McConkey was one of multiple private cyber specialists who exposed the operations, and sometimes the alleged locations, of hackers from China, Iran and elsewhere at a recent conference called LABScon, hosted by US security firm SentinelOne, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

    Adam Kozy, who tracked Chinese hackers at the FBI from 2011 to 2013, showed the audience a photo of a People’s Liberation Army building in the city of Fuzhou that allegedly houses officers who conduct information operations against Chinese adversaries. That unit has targeted Taiwan, Kozy said, and “is the main area for China’s disinformation operations.”

    In their investigations of foreign hackers, the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors have drawn on those types of revelations from private researchers.

    At least one FBI agent and officials from the National Security Agency and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency attended the conference, a reminder of how reliant government officials are on data held by tech firms to pursue spies and cybercriminals. Sometimes that work happens not in a classified facility but in the halls of a luxury hotel.

    Morgan Adamski, a senior NSA official, told conference attendees that the coronavirus pandemic changed how her agency worked with private firms to guard sensitive data targeted by hackers.

    “The pandemic actually helped because it no longer revolved around big government meetings in a room, in a SCIF [Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility], where you couldn’t use any of the information,” said Adamski, who heads the NSA’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, which works with defense contractors to blunt the impact of foreign hacking.

    After US defense contractors began working from home during the pandemic, she said, Chinese government hackers exploited the virtual private networking (VPN) software the contractors were using. One hacked contractor, which she didn’t name, shared data with federal agencies so they could build a clearer picture of what was going on.

    Asked by CNN whether the NSA and other federal agencies responding to the hacks were able to evict the Chinese hackers, Adamski said it’s an iterative process.

    “When you talk about nation-state actors, you kick them out, but they’re going to come back,” Adamski said, “especially if you’re a defense industrial base company that is producing critical military intelligence for the Department of Defense.”

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  • Hurricane Orlene strengthens into Category 3 storm as it heads toward western Mexico | CNN

    Hurricane Orlene strengthens into Category 3 storm as it heads toward western Mexico | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Rapidly intensifying Category 3 Hurricane Orlene is approaching western Mexico, where it’s expected to cause life-threatening flooding, according to the National Hurricane Center.

    The hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 115 mph, was churning north at 5 mph Sunday morning about 205 miles south of Las Islas Marias, Mexico, the center said.

    Orlene is projected to reach the coast of mainland Mexico Monday or Monday night, making landfall just south of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, where life-threatening flash flooding is a concern, according to Mexico’s CONAGUA Agency.

    Hurricane conditions are expected by Sunday night in Islas Marias, with tropical storm conditions beginning earlier in the day.

    Orlene’s wind speed increased by 35 mph within a 12-hour period, forecasters said.

    “Some additional strengthening is forecast through this morning, followed by weakening beginning later today and continuing until landfall,” the hurricane center said early Sunday.

    The storm is expected produce heavy downpours, which could lead to life-threatening flash flooding and landslides in western Mexico. Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit and Sinaloa could see nearly six inches of rain Sunday into Monday.

    Strong winds between 37 and 43 mph and wave heights of 2 to 4 meters are also a threat.

    03 hurricane orlene track map update 3 100222

    A hurricane warning is in effect for Las Islas Marias and the coast of mainland Mexico from San Blas to Mazatlán. A hurricane watch is in effect for the coast of mainland Mexico from Playa Perula to San Blas and from Mazatlán to Bahia Tempehuaya, including the city of Puerto Vallarta.

    A tropical storm warning is in effect for the coast of mainland Mexico from Playa Perula to San Blas. A tropical storm watch is in effect for the coast of mainland Mexico from Manzanillo to Playa Perula.

    Residents in the hurricane’s path are being advised to take extreme precautions due to the potential for life-threatening flooding, wind and dangerous rip currents.

    Orlene is barreling towards Mexico just weeks after Hurricane Kay made landfall in Mexico, along the west coast of the central Baja California Peninsula, as a Category 1 hurricane.

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  • This 100% solar community endured Hurricane Ian with no loss of power and minimal damage | CNN

    This 100% solar community endured Hurricane Ian with no loss of power and minimal damage | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Anthony Grande moved away from Fort Myers three years ago in large part because of the hurricane risk. He has lived in southwest Florida for nearly 19 years, had experienced Hurricanes Charley in 2004 and Irma in 2017 and saw what stronger storms could do to the coast.

    Grande told CNN he wanted to find a new home where developers prioritized climate resiliency in a state that is increasingly vulnerable to record-breaking storm surge, catastrophic wind and historic rainfall.

    What he found was Babcock Ranch — only 12 miles northeast of Fort Myers, yet seemingly light years away.

    Babcock Ranch calls itself “America’s first solar-powered town.” Its nearby solar array — made up of 700,000 individual panels — generates more electricity than the 2,000-home neighborhood uses, in a state where most electricity is generated by burning natural gas, a planet-warming fossil fuel.

    The streets in this meticulously planned neighborhood were designed to flood so houses don’t. Native landscaping along roads helps control storm water. Power and internet lines are buried to avoid wind damage. This is all in addition to being built to Florida’s robust building codes.

    Some residents, like Grande, installed more solar panels on their roofs and added battery systems as an extra layer of protection from power outages. Many drive electric vehicles, taking full advantage of solar energy in the Sunshine State.

    Climate resiliency was built into the fabric of the town with stronger storms in mind.

    So when Hurricane Ian came barreling toward southwest Florida this week, it was a true test for the community. The storm obliterated the nearby Fort Myers and Naples areas with record-breaking surge and winds over 100 mph. It knocked out power to more than 2.6 million customers in the state, including 90% of Charlotte County.

    But the lights stayed on in Babcock Ranch.

    “It certainly exceeded our expectations of a major hurricane,” Grande, 58, told CNN.

    An uprooted tree in Babcock Ranch after Hurricane Ian.

    Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Greener newsletter.

    The storm uprooted trees and tore shingles from roofs, but other than that Grande said there is no major damage. Its residents say Babcock Ranch is proof that an eco-conscious and solar-powered town can withstand the wrath of a near-Category 5 storm.

    “We have proof of the case now because [the hurricane] came right over us,” Nancy Chorpenning, a 68-year-old Babcock Ranch resident, told CNN. “We have water, electricity, internet — and we may be the only people in Southwest Florida who are that fortunate.”

    Grande said Hurricane Ian came through southwest Florida “like a freight train.” But he wasn’t afraid that he would lose everything in a storm, like he was when he lived in Fort Myers.

    “We’re very, very blessed and fortunate to not be experiencing what they’re experiencing now in Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach,” Grande said. “In the times that we’re living in right now with climate change, the beach is not the place to live or have a business.”

    Syd Kitson, a former professional football player for the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, is the mastermind behind Babcock Ranch. Kitson envisioned it to be an eco-conscious and innovative neighborhood that is safe and resilient from storms like Ian.

    The ranch broke ground in 2015 with the construction of the solar array — which was built and is run by Florida Power and Light — and its first residents moved into the town in 2018. Since then, the array has doubled in size and thousands of people have made Babcock their home.

    Around 700,000 solar panels power Babcock Ranch.

    “It’s a great case study to show that it can be done right, if you build in the right place and do it the right way,” said Lisa Hall, a spokesperson for Kitson, who also lives in Babcock Ranch.

    “Throughout all this, there’s just so many people saying, ‘it worked, that this was the vision, this is the reason we moved here,’” Hall told CNN.

    Perhaps the highest endorsement for the city is that it is now a refuge for some of Ian’s hardest-hit victims. The state opened Babcock Neighborhood School as an official shelter, even though it didn’t have the mandated generator. The solar array kept the lights on.

    Some of Chorpenning’s friends who live on Sanibel Island — which is now cut off from the mainland after Ian’s devastating storm surge severed the causeway — came to shelter at a friend’s house at Babcock Ranch. It will be a while before they can go back, she said.

    “They’re going to be renting a place over here for a while, while they figure out what’s going to happen out there,” she said. “I joked that we may be the only people in southwest Florida whose property value just increased.”

    Even Kitson chose to ride out the storm in Babcock to see how the community would fare in the hurricane. Kitson declined CNN’s request for an interview; Hall said he is focused on helping neighboring communities rebuild.

    “He was there during the storm; he said, ‘where else would I be?’” Hall said. “We built it to be resilient and as much as you plan and think you’ve done the right thing, you don’t know until you put it to the test.”

    Babcock Ranch has sold more than 2,000 homes, according to the neighborhood's website.

    As utilities scramble to restore power across the state, Babcock residents say September storms showed that America’s energy infrastructure is not well-equipped to handle worsening extreme weather events. Hurricane Fiona ravaged Puerto Rico’s power grid when it made landfall there on September 18. Now, Ian has left millions of people in the dark in Florida.

    Babcock residents say their neighborhood is a model for urban development in a climate change-ravaged future.

    “It’s not what it was 20 or 25 years ago; the storms are getting bigger and bigger, and it’s no surprise, because the warnings have all been there,” Grande said. “I think Babcock Ranch’s future has gotten even brighter.”

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  • Colorado’s state fish swims back from brink of extinction | CNN

    Colorado’s state fish swims back from brink of extinction | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado’s state fish, was declared extinct over 50 years ago. But last week officials found the first confirmation that the trout are once again reproducing in the wild.

    Colorado Parks and Wildlife discovered that the trout are naturally reproducing in Herman Gulch in Summit County, according to a news release.

    The discovery serves as evidence that the department’s intensive reintroduction program has succeeded in bringing the fish back from the brink of extinction.

    The species was thought to be extinct in 1937 due to pollution from mining, fishing and competition for resources with other trout, according to the news release. But in 2012, Colorado Parks and Wildlife discovered a small population of greenback cutthroat trout in Bear Creek, on the southwest edge of Colorado Springs, likely descendants of fish brought for tourists to fish.

    This triggered a multi-agency effort to protect the tiny stretch of water where the endangered fish were reproducing, according to the release.

    Besides protecting the trout habitat, officials also developed a captive population in a hatchery. Starting in 2016, they began releasing young greenback cutthroat trout from these captive-born populations into the wild – including in Herman Gulch.

    The Herman Gulch trout are the first to reach adulthood and start reproducing on their own, the release says. There are other captive-born fledgling populations in several other basin streams, but they aren’t old enough to reproduce.

    Colorado Governor Jared Polis lauded the discovery as a conservation win.

    “While we will continue to stock greenback trout from our hatcheries, the fact that they are now successfully reproducing in the wild is exciting for the future of this species,” he said in the release. “This is a huge wildlife conservation success story and a testament to the world-class wildlife agency Coloradans have in Colorado Parks and Wildlife.”

    The biologists who carried bags of fish up steep mountain trails in hopes of saving the rare fish also expressed their excitement about the discovery.

    “Our team of field technicians literally high-fived right there in the stream when we captured that first fry that was spawned this year,” Boyd Wright, an aquatic biologist who has led the reintroduction project, said in the release. The fry was proof that the captive-born fish were indeed breeding on their own. “When moments later we captured a one-year-old fish produced in 2021, we were truly beside ourselves.”

    “After many years of hard work and dedication, it is extremely satisfying to see our efforts paying off,” he said.

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  • Tudor Dixon seeks a culture war in campaign against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | CNN Politics

    Tudor Dixon seeks a culture war in campaign against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | CNN Politics

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    CNN
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    Tudor Dixon, the Republican taking on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November’s midterm election, is turning to tactics that have worked for other Republican winners in competitive governor’s races as she seeks to turn the race into a cultural battle over education, transgender athletes and more.

    But her clash with a well-funded Democratic incumbent governor – one taking place in a state where a referendum that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution has emerged as a dominant issue – is showcasing the limits of those efforts at cultural appeals to the moderate, suburban voters who could decide the race’s outcome.

    National Republicans have largely abandoned Dixon in the race’s closing weeks, leaving her outspent and floundering in one of the nation’s most important swing states.

    Dixon sought to change the race’s trajectory on Saturday when former President Donald Trump traveled to Michigan for a rally in Warren with Dixon and other GOP candidates, including Matthew DePerno, who is challenging Attorney General Dana Nessel, and Kristina Karamo, who is taking on Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Dixon, DePerno and Karamo have all parroted Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

    Trump called Whitmer “one of the most radical, most sinister governors in America,” criticizing her support for abortion rights and Michigan’s pandemic-related lockdowns.

    The former President, echoing Dixon’s focus on cultural issues and education, called Dixon “a national leader in the battle to protect our children by getting race and gender ideology out of the classroom.”

    Trump’s attack on Whitmer as “sinister” is the latest in a series of rhetorical escalations by the former President. On Friday, he said on his social media website Truth Social that the top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, had a “death wish” after Congress approved stopgap funding to avert a government shutdown.

    Dixon, meanwhile, spoke twice Saturday – once before Trump, and again when Trump invited her on stage. As she lambasted Whitmer, the crowd repeated a familiar Trump rally chant, this time directed at Whitmer rather than 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: “Lock her up.”

    “We’re not going to let our kids be radicalized. We’re not going to let our kids be sexualized. We’re not going to let our law enforcement be demonized. We’re not going to tell our businesses they can’t expand,” Dixon said.

    Dixon, a conservative commentator and first-time candidate, emerged from a crowded primary after receiving the financial support of former Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos’ family. The Michigan GOP megadonors funded a super PAC bolstering Dixon’s campaign. And Trump waded into the race in the closing days of the primary with a Dixon endorsement that came after a handwritten letter from DeVos urged him to back Dixon, as reported by The New York Times.

    “The Dixon campaign is seeking to get its name ID up and MAGA base fully engaged to close the polling gap and that is what they hope to gain from a Trump rally in Macomb County,” said John Sellek, a Republican public relations adviser and head of Harbor Strategic Public Affairs in Lansing.

    However, she has struggled to raise money and gain traction since her August primary victory.

    Democrats on Saturday said Dixon’s comments at the Trump rally were an effort to distract from issues on which her positions are unpopular – particularly abortion rights.

    “Tonight, Michiganders saw a schoolyard bully on stage – not a leader,” Michigan Democratic Party chairwoman Lavora Barnes said in a statement. “Tudor Dixon hurled insults and rattled off a litany of grievances because she knows that her dangerous agenda to ban abortion and throw nurses in jail, dismantle public education, and slash funding for law enforcement is out-of-step.

    “Michigan families deserve a real leader who will work with anyone to get things done, and Tudor Dixon has shown time and again she will continue to divide and pit people against each other if it means she and Betsy DeVos gain political power,” Barnes said.

    Whitmer’s campaign and her supporters have dwarfed Dixon in television advertising spending – and Dixon’s campaign is currently off the air in Michigan, underscoring the reality that major Republican donors have shifted their focus to other races they view as more winnable.

    Since the primary on August 2, Democrats have spent about $17.6 million on ads in the governor’s race, while Republicans have spent just $1.1 million, according to data from the firm AdImpact. And over the next month through election day, Democrats have $23.4 million booked while GOP has just $4.3 million booked.

    Early voting is already underway in Michigan. And in the governor’s race, Whitmer is widely viewed as the favorite by nonpartisan analysts. The race is rated as one that “tilts Democratic” by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. The Cook Political Report and University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball rate it as “likely Democratic.”

    “The battle has been fought on the Democrats’ terms with millions and millions of dollars, and there’s been essentially no effort to fight back,” Michigan-based Republican strategist John Yob said on the Michigan Information & Research Service Inc.’s “MIRS Monday” podcast this week. “On the Republican side, we’ve never faced this before. And, you know, it doesn’t look very good in terms of a way out unless some serious money gets on TV pretty quickly.”

    The most dominant issue in the governor’s race has been abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Michigan’s Republican-led legislature has refused to change a 1931 law that would prohibit abortion in nearly all instances. Whitmer and other pro-abortion rights groups sued to block that law. And a Democratic-backed referendum that would amend Michigan’s constitution to guarantee abortion rights is on November’s ballot in the state.

    Dixon, who opposes abortion except when necessary to protect the life of the mother, has struggled to redirect the race’s focus.

    “You can vote for Gretchen Whitmer’s position without having to vote for Gretchen Whitmer again,” she told reporters last week, explaining that voters could support the referendum but oppose the incumbent governor.

    In an effort to shift the contest’s focus, Dixon’s campaign has borrowed tactics from Republican governors who have won in battleground states in recent years.

    For months, she has focused on parental control of schools’ curriculum, as well as school choice. It’s a message built on that of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican whose 2021 victory was an early harbinger of a potentially favorable political landscape for the GOP in this year’s midterm elections.

    “That’s why Gov. Youngkin’s message resonated,” Dixon said in an August interview on Fox News alongside Youngkin, who was campaigning in Michigan.

    “He said, ‘I’m listening to you. I want parents involved. And I’m going to bring you back into the schools,’” Dixon said. “That’s what people want to hear right now.”

    In her latest move to redefine the race, Dixon this week proposed two policies aimed at the LGBTQ community and schools.

    In Lansing on Tuesday, Dixon proposed a policy modeled after the controversial measure Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this year that critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

    “This act will require school districts to ensure that their schools do not provide classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K through three, or in any manner that has not age- or developmentally appropriate,” Dixon told reporters, blasting what she called “radical sex and gender instruction.”

    Florida’s HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education bill, passed earlier this year effectively bans teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms for young students. LGBTQ advocates say the measure has led to further stigmatization of gay, lesbian and transgender children, causing more bullying and suicides within an already marginalized community.

    Then, on Wednesday in Grand Rapids, she unveiled her proposal for a “Women’s Sports Fairness Act,” which would ban transgender girls from competing in sports with the gender they identify with.

    “As a mother of four girls, nothing infuriates me more than the prospect of my daughters losing their friends and their teammates, losing opportunities in sports or otherwise, because some radically progressive politicians decided one day that they should have to compete against biological men,” she said. “Gretchen Whitmer has embraced the trans-supremacist ideology, which dictates that individuals who are born as men can be allowed to compete against our daughters.”

    Whitmer’s campaign has largely ignored Dixon’s proposals, and did not respond to a request for comment on them. Instead, Whitmer has in recent days emphasized her economic message and her support for abortion rights.

    Whitmer is leaning into policies enacted by Democrats in Washington in recent months, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in August.

    Whitmer in September signed an executive directive capping insulin costs at $35 per month and out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 a year for Medicare recipients.

    And last week, Whitmer announced that student loan borrowers will not be taxed on the debt relief that Biden had ordered.

    What has dominated media coverage of the race in recent days, though, are a series of jokes Dixon has made about the 2020 kidnapping plot against Whitmer.

    A federal jury in August convicted two men of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home in 2020. They were also convicted of one count of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction after prosecutors detailed their plans to blow up a bridge to prevent police from responding to the kidnapping of the governor. The men now face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

    “The sad thing is that Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you’re ready to talk,” Dixon said at an event last week in Troy alongside Kellyanne Conway, a former Trump White House aide. “For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.”

    After her comment drew backlash, Dixon joked again about the kidnapping plot at a second event Friday, this time with Donald Trump Jr., the son of the former President.

    She told a crowd that, at a stop with President Joe Biden at the Detroit Auto Show last week, Whitmer looked like she’d “rather be kidnapped by the FBI.”

    “Yeah, the media is like, ‘Oh my gosh, she did it again,’” Dixon said, anticipating the reaction to her second reference of the day to the 2020 kidnapping plot.

    As she told the crowd that her earlier remarks about the plot to kidnap Whitmer had been characterized as a joke, Dixon said: “I’m like, ‘No, that wasn’t a joke.’ If you were afraid of that, you should know what it is to have your life ripped away from you.”

    Whitmer’s campaign and Democratic groups condemned Dixon’s remarks Friday.

    “Threats of violence and dangerous rhetoric undermine our democracy and discourage good people on both sides of the aisle at every level from entering public service,” Whitmer campaign spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement.

    “Governor Whitmer has faced serious threats to her safety and her life, and she is grateful to the law enforcement and prosecutors for their tireless work,” Coyle said. “Threats of violence – whether to Governor Whitmer or to candidates and elected officials on the other side of the aisle – are no laughing matter, and the fact that Tudor Dixon thinks it’s a joke shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Biden announces return of seven American detainees from Venezuela | CNN Politics

    Biden announces return of seven American detainees from Venezuela | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden on Saturday announced the return of seven Americans he said were wrongfully detained in Venezuela for “years.”

    “Today, after years of being wrongfully detained in Venezuela, we are bringing home Jorge Toledo, Tomeu Vadell, Alirio Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano, Jose Pereira, Matthew Heath, and Osman Khan. These individuals will soon be reunited with their families and back in the arms of their loved ones where they belong,” the President said in a statement.

    The seven American detainees were released in exchange for the release of two Venezuelans imprisoned in the US, both nephews of Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores.

    Vadell, Toledo, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, and Pereira are five of the six American oil executives known as the “CITGO 6” arrested in Venezuela more than four years ago. Two Americans who had been detained there, including one of the CITGO 6, were released in March following the visit of two top US government officials to Caracas. Heath, a Marine veteran, was detained in September 2020. Khan has been detained since January 2022. All seven individuals were classified by the US government as wrongfully detained.

    Vadell, Toledo, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Pereira, Heath, and Khan, a senior administration official told reporters Saturday, are in “stable health” and have been offered medical care and a “range of support options.” They are currently in the air on the way back to the US, the official said. A second senior official told reporters that US officials met with each of the seven individuals upon their release and are expected to receive further evaluation Saturday.

    Biden spoke with each of the families to “share the good news of their release,” the first senior official said.

    The official described the prisoner exchange with Venezuela as a “tough” and “painful” decision for Biden and the US government.

    “Over the course of those negotiations, it became clear that one particular step was required to garner the only acceptable outcome: that of free Americans. The President made a tough decision, a painful decision, and offered something that the Venezuelans have actively sought. Specifically, it became clear in the course of negotiation that the release of two Venezuelans, Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, sometimes referred to as the ‘Narco nephews’ due to their relationship with Nicolas Maduro’s wife, was essential to securing the release of these Americans,” the official said.

    In 2016, Flores and Campo were convicted in US federal court of conspiring to smuggle more than 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States. They were sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2017.

    Biden, the first official said, “made the difficult decision to grant clemency” to both Flores and Campo.

    The President approved the swap a “number of weeks back,” and was followed by negotiation and logistical efforts that “took some time to work out,” the official said.

    The released Venezuelans and Americans were both flown to “a country in between Venezuela and the United States” for the exchange. Once both planes landed, there was both virtual and visual confirmation “that the right passengers were ready to travel” and “passengers departed on different planes than the ones they came in on,” the first official said.

    Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, is with the freed Americans, the official added. Carstens’ initial impressions, the official said, were that the freed Americans were “overjoyed” to be returning to their families, declining to elaborate further on their conditions.

    Their release comes months after a US government delegation quietly traveled to Venezuela in June “for discussions about the welfare and safety of US nationals in Venezuela,” a State Department spokesperson told CNN at the time.

    The Zambrano family is “thrilled” that they have been freed and can now “get the much needed medical care they need” in the US, the family said in a statement.

    “We could not have made it this far without the advocates and other hostage families that have so generously been a light in darkness to get us to this blessed day,” the family said.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed the latest development and congratulated State Department personnel for “their tireless efforts to achieve this outcome.”

    “Although we celebrate the release of these U.S. nationals from Venezuela, we still have more work to do. The safety and security of Americans worldwide is my highest priority as Secretary of State, and we will continue to press for the release of all U.S. nationals wrongfully detained abroad,” he said in a statement.

    A spokesperson for the Bring our Families Home Campaign celebrated the news of the detainees’ release “after a long and difficult captivity.”

    “We applaud President Biden for having the courage to make this deal and encourage him and the Administration to continue building upon the momentum that begun with (Trevor Reed’s) release,” spokesperson Jonathan Franks said, alluding to the former Marine who was detained in Russia in 2019 and was released in a prisoner swap earlier this year.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Steps of a Russian Orthodox cathedral in New York were splashed with red paint | CNN

    Steps of a Russian Orthodox cathedral in New York were splashed with red paint | CNN

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    CNN
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    A Russian Orthodox cathedral in New York appears to have been defaced with red paint, following a similar incident in which the Russian consulate was vandalized with red spray paint.

    The two vandalism incidents come after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the beginning stages of annexation of parts of Ukraine.

    An eyewitness told CNN that they saw a person in a face mask splash red paint on the steps of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral on New York’s Upper East Side late Friday night.

    The cathedral’s spokesperson, Abbot Nicodemus, also confirmed the vandalism to CNN.

    Remnants of the paint could be seen Saturday morning, after the eyewitness observed a woman working to scrub it away.

    “We sincerely do not understand those individuals that allow themselves acts of vandalism in relation to our cathedral. We pray for them,” Nicodemus said n a statement to CNN. “We want them to realize that the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA carries out important spiritual and peacemaking activities here, and we are open to all people, regardless of their nationality and political beliefs.”

    The New York Police Department said it was not aware of or investigating this incident.

    The NYPD previously told CNN it was investigating the red graffiti on the Russian consulate building as a “possible bias incident.” There were no updates in that investigation.

    The spokesperson told CNN that Friday’s incident is the third case of vandalism since the beginning of the year in which the cathedral has been marked with paint or written with “insulting” inscriptions.

    In addition, “insulting” calls and emails have been received by the cathedral, Nicodemus said, adding that some include direct threats against the clergy and parishioners.

    Saint Nicholas Cathedral said it is “compelled to turn such messages to the police,” said Nicodemus. “We are grateful to the law enforcement agencies of New York for their prompt response to our messages and their constant support.”

    The cathedral said that since February, its parishioners have been actively involved in collecting financial and humanitarian assistance for the victims of the armed conflict in Ukraine.

    Half of the parishioners of the cathedral are Ukrainian, Nicodemus said

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  • Californians will soon be able to turn their remains into soil with human composting | CNN

    Californians will soon be able to turn their remains into soil with human composting | CNN

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    CNN
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    California has become the latest state to provide its residents with an eco-friendly, if unorthodox, option for their remains after death: composting.

    Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law last Sunday, according to a news release from the bill’s author, state Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia.

    The process is officially called “natural organic reduction,” and involves “fostering gentle transformation into a nutrient-dense soil, which can then be returned to families or donated to conservation land,” the release explained.

    Natural organic reduction is less harmful to the environment than the other two legal options (cremation and burial), according to the release. Burial can allow chemicals to leek into the soil, and cremation requires the burning of fossil fuels and releases carbon dioxide.

    The law will not go into effect until January 2027, according to the text of the bill. The law stipulates the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau, a subdivision of the Department of Consumer Affairs, will develop regulations for facilities performing the process.

    In the release, Garcia called natural organic reduction “an alternative method of final disposition that won’t contribute emissions into our atmosphere and will actually capture CO2 in our soil and trees.”

    “If more people participate in organic reduction and tree-planting, we can help with California’s carbon footprint,” she said. “This bill has been in the works for the last three years, and I am very happy that it was signed into law. I look forward to continuing my legacy to fight for clean air by using my reduced remains to plant a tree.”

    Recompose, a company which has been offering natural organic reduction services since 2020, also lauded the law in the release.

    “Recompose is thrilled that the options for nature-based death care in California have expanded,” said the company’s CEO and founder Katrina Spade in the release. “Natural organic reduction is safe and sustainable, allowing our bodies to return to the land after we die.”

    According to Recompose’s website, natural organic reduction works much like composting your vegetable scraps does. The body is placed in a vessel along with wood chips, alfalfa, and straw. Over a month, microbes work to break the body down into a cubic yard of soil, which can then be used in a loved one’s garden, or anywhere else.

    Washington became the first state to legalize so-called “human composting” in 2019. Lawmakers similarly cited the ecological benefits of reduction over burial and cremation.

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