Important Takeaways:
- Threat level: The National Weather Service forecast office in Charleston, S.C., summarized the threat in a discussion Monday night: “Historic and catastrophic flooding through mid-week.”
- Forecasters are calling for this storm to meet or beat past four-day rainfall totals from the biggest events, which would mean upward of 17 inches in the Charleston area.
- Tropical Storm Debby moving at five miles per hour or less at times
- The storm’s center is forecast to move back over the ocean, allowing the system to re-intensify to some extent over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream Tuesday and Tuesday night.
- The center is forecast to then slingshot back over land in northeastern South Carolina on Thursday morning
- How it works: The storm is moving slowly in an area without much upper-level wind, so it’s not being pushed by anything. It’s spinning around like a top, waiting for something to move it again.
- What they’re saying: “[Storm] Impacts will be widespread and severe, likely including numerous flooded homes and structures, damage to roadways including washouts, and unprecedented flooding along creeks and streams,” forecasters at NWS Charleston stated Monday evening, continuing the drumbeat of similar wording from earlier in the day.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Middle East crisis looks set to explode into all out war as America threatens retaliation for rocket blast that hit soldiers in Iraq – as military scrambles destroyers and fighter jets to Israel
- American defense officials are planning for the crisis in the Middle East to become even worse following a rocket blast that injured several soldiers at a military base in Iraq Monday.
- The base in the west of the country was targeted by two Soviet-made Katyusha rockets amid soaring tensions in the Middle East – with Iran threatening to strike Israel as early as Monday night.
- Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced Monday night the US was deploying additional fighters, carrier strike groups, ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the region, as Israel awaits retaliation from Iran for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
- ‘These posture adjustments add to the broad range of capabilities the US military maintains in the region, including the USS Wasp amphibious ready group/Marine expeditionary unit operating in the eastern Mediterranean,’ a DOD spokesperson said.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Fears of a U.S. recession tanked global markets Monday, with Japanese stocks suffering their biggest single-day rout since 1987’s Black Monday.
- U.S. stock futures tumbled Monday, with NASDAQ’s futures falling as much as 4% pre-open.
- In Japan, the Nikkei average shed a staggering 12.4% — the index’s worst showing in percentage terms since the October 1987 crash, Reuters reports.
- The Nikkei’s 4,451-point loss was the biggest ever — eclipsing the 3,836 points it lost on Oct. 20, 1987, when the Black Monday crash hit Japan.
- Between the lines: The recent batch of economic data indicates that the Federal Reserve waited too long to cut interest rates. Given the delays with which Fed policy affects the economy, the new numbers suggest the Fed should have started adjusting policy several months earlier.
- What we’re watching: The big question now is whether this is the beginning of a global, risk-off movement that will spread deeper across markets.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with his national security team in the Situation Room later on Monday amid heightened tensions between Iran and Israel.
- The Islamic Republic could attack Israel in the next 24 to 48 hours following a major attack by Hezbollah that left two IDF soldiers injured, top western diplomats have warned.
- Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told the G7 yesterday that an attack in response to Israel killing Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Fuad Shukr in Beirut, was imminent, as reported by Axios.
- It would be the second time during the growing crisis in the Middle East that Iran has directly attacked Israel, the first being in April when it sent a salvo of missiles and drones overnight.
- But unlike the April attack, the US admitted in a private call with G7 members that it doesn’t know what the expected retaliatory strike will look like.
- Nevertheless, Iran has clearly signaled that it intends to attack its foe, claiming it has the ‘legal right’ to respond to Haniyeh’s assassination, with foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani telling a news conference: ‘No one has the right to doubt Iran’s legal right to punish the Zionist regime.’
- The threats from Iran comes just hours after Hezbollah, backed by the Iranian regime, launched a silo of 30 missiles from Lebanon towards upper Galilee.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Sources said Blinken indicated that while the U.S. does not know the exact time of the attacks, they could begin as early as the next 24-48 hours.
- Blinken coordinated the call with U.S. allies in an effort to put as much last-minute diplomatic pressure as possible on Iran and Hezbollah to temper any potential retaliation against Israel, according to Axios. Sources say Blinken emphasized the importance of preventing an all-out war.
- Blinken allegedly indicated that the United States is prepared for retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah in response to the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh and military commander Fuad Shukr. But, he said, it is unclear what form the relation will take.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a meeting late Sunday with heads of the military and intelligence services, said Israel is determined to stand up to Iran “on every front and in every arena — near and far.”
- “Iran and its minions are looking to surround us in a stranglehold of terrorism … Whoever seeks to harm us will pay a very heavy price,” Netanyahu said ahead of the meeting.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The Category 1 storm hit near Steinhatchee about 7 a.m. ET with winds estimated at 80 mph. After landfall, power outages skyrocketed to more than 300,000 utility customers in the Sunshine State, according to PowerOutage.us.
- By midweek, the storm is expected to dump extreme amounts of nearly 2 feet of rain on parts of Georgia and South Carolina.
- The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is forecasting “potentially historic rainfall” across southeastern Georgia and South Carolina through Friday, causing widespread flash flooding and life-threatening conditions.
- The governors of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina have declared a state of emergency and are urging residents to prepare for the multiple impacts the storm will bring.
- “I think what’s going to make this much different than what we had with Idalia is it is going to move very slowly once it enters Florida – it’s going to be southern Georgia, northern Florida – and it is just going to drop an inordinate amount of water on the north-central Florida region,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told FOX Weather on Sunday.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The Pacific Northwest faces a multitude of major fires, blanketing the region in smoke and evacuation notices.
- More than 1 million acres have burned in Oregon and in Washington, Governor Jay Inslee issued an emergency proclamation for the state Friday
- There are 32 major fires across Oregon and Washington that are less than 99% contained as of Sunday morning, according to a Northwest Interagency Coordination Center report.
- Over 9,000 people are under an evacuation notice in Oregon, with an estimated 1,251 people under a level three notice that advises residents to leave the area immediately, according to the Oregon Office of Emergency Management.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Israel is already in a “multifront war” with Iran and its proxies, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Cabinet meeting Sunday, as the United States and allies prepared to defend Israel from an expected counterstrike and prevent an even more destructive regional conflict.
- Tensions have soared following nearly 10 months of war in Gaza and the killing last week of a senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon and Hamas’ top political leader in Iran. Iran and its allies have blamed Israel and threatened retaliation. Hamas says it has begun discussions on choosing a new leader.
- Netanyahu said Israel was ready for any scenario. Jordan’s foreign minister was making a rare trip to Iran as part of diplomatic efforts — “We want the escalation to end,” Ayman Safadi said — while the Pentagon has moved significant assets to the region.
- In Israel, some prepared bomb shelters and recalled Iran’s unprecedented direct military assault in April following a suspected Israeli strike that killed two Iranian generals.
- Hezbollah says it’s aimed at relieving pressure on fellow Iran-backed ally Hamas. A growing number of countries, including the U.S., are encouraging citizens to leave Lebanon after last week’s killing of a senior commander.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- A small study in Texas suggests that human bird flu cases are being missed on dairy farms where the H5N1 virus has taken off in cows, sparking an unprecedented nationwide outbreak.
- Authors of the study, led by researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, went further, stating bluntly why the US is failing to fully surveil, let alone contain, a virus with pandemic potential.
- “Due to fears that research might damage dairy businesses, studies like this one have been few,” the authors write in the topline summary of their study, which was posted online as a pre-print and had not been peer-reviewed.
- The finding suggests human cases of H5N1 are going undetected. Moreover, managing to find evidence of two undetected infections in a sample of just 14 workers suggests it may not be hard to find more.
- To date, the virus has infected at least 175 dairy farms in 13 states. The official tally of human cases in the dairy outbreak is 14: four in dairy farm workers and 10 in workers on poultry farms with infections linked to the dairy outbreak.
- Experts are anxious that with each new infection, the wily H5N1 virus is getting new opportunities to adapt further to humans. If the virus evolves to cause more severe disease and spread from human to human, it could spark another pandemic.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- For the past year, the Fed has kept interest rates at their highest level in more than two decades, making it more expensive to get a mortgage, borrow money and pay off debt.
- “A rate cut could be on the table in the September meeting,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday, immediately jolting markets.
- But some of that luster faded later in his press conference as he repeatedly told reporters that a September cut is by no means a sure shot.
- And if you’re thinking the Fed surely won’t begin cutting in November because of the election, you might want to reconsider.
- The Fed, Powell said, will act in the best interest of the American economy regardless of the timing. “We don’t change anything in our approach to address other factors like the political calendar,” he said.
Read the original article by clicking here.
