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New York City struggles to accomodate influx of asylum seekers
Hundreds of asylum seekers are still coming to New York daily though authorities said the city has reached its limit on migrants.
Hundreds of asylum seekers were seen sleeping on the sidewalk outside the Roosevelt Hotel, the city's migrant intake center, since last week, before the area was cleared on Thursday.
NYC converts hotels to shelters as pressure mounts to accommodate asylum seekers
An average of about 500 asylum seekers are coming to the city per day, according to a report by documentedny.com on Friday, citing city officials.
"We continue to respond to the asylum seekers... even as our city is stretched to its breaking point," said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom at a briefing on Wednesday.
US readies second attempt at speedy border asylum screenings
More than 95,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York since last spring and the city has opened 194 sites, including 13 large-scale humanitarian relief centers, said Williams-Isom.
EU+ saw 1 million asylum applications, including record 34,000 from Bangladeshis, in 2022
Trump pleads not guilty to federal charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 election
Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday to trying to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss, answering for the first time to federal charges that accuse him of orchestrating a brazen and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to block the peaceful transfer of presidential power.
The former president appeared before a magistrate judge in Washington's federal courthouse two days after being indicted by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. Of the three criminal cases he's facing, the most recent charges are especially historic since they focus on Trump's efforts as president to subvert the will of voters and obstruct the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory. His refusal to accept defeat and his lies about widespread election fraud helped fuel the violent riot on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Also read: Trump indicted over attempts to overturn 2020 election
Trump, who is now the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, sat stern-faced with his hands folded, shaking his head at times as he conferred with an attorney and occasionally glancing around the courtroom as his court appearance began. He stood up to enter his "not guilty" plea, answered perfunctory questions from the judge and thanked her at the conclusion of the arraignment.
His appearance Thursday unfolded — as will the rest of the case — in a downtown courthouse between the Capitol and the White House and in a building where more than 1,000 of the Capitol rioters have been charged by the Justice Department, which last November appointed Smith to lead a probe into the role of Trump and his allies in the events of that day.
The indictment charges Trump with four felony counts related to his efforts to undo his presidential election loss, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The charges could lead to a lengthy prison sentence in the event of a conviction, with the most serious counts calling for up to 20 years.
Smith himself attended the arraignment, sitting in the courtroom's front row behind the prosecutors handling the case and about 20 feet away from Trump. He looked at times in Trump's direction, though neither appeared to gesture at or talk to each other.
Also read: Trump pleads not guilty to federal charges that he illegally kept classified documents
U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya set the next court date for Aug. 28, when a tentative trial date will be set, and directed Trump not to communicate directly about the facts of case with any individual known to be a witness.
Three police officers who defended the Capitol that day were also seen entering the courthouse. One of them, Aquilino Gonell, who retired from the Capitol Police after suffering injuries, took stock of the location's symbolism, noting that it was "the same court in which hundreds of rioters have been sentenced. It's the same court former President Trump is being arraigned in today for his alleged involvement before, during, and after the siege."
Trump has said he is innocent. His legal team has characterized the latest case as an attack on his right to free speech and his right to challenge an election that he believed had been stolen.
He addressed the proceedings in a brief statement on a drizzly tarmac at Washington's Reagan National Airport before he boarded his plane back to New Jersey.
"This is the persecution of the person that's leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot," he said. "So if you can't beat 'em, you persecute 'em or you prosecute 'em. We can't let this happen in America."
Also read: Trump indicted in classified documents case in a historic first for a former president
One early point of contention emerged Thursday when defense lawyers bristled at the idea that a trial could be rapidly scheduled. Prosecutors said they would move quickly to provide Trump's lawyers with the information they'd need to prepare a defense, but defense attorney John Lauro said it was "somewhat absurd" that the case could be ready for trial anytime soon.
"These are weighty issues. Obviously, the U.S. has had three years to investigate this matter," Lauro said.
The election theft case is part of escalating legal troubles for the ex-president, coming nearly two months after Trump pleaded not guilty to dozens of federal felony counts accusing him of hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate and thwarting government efforts to retrieve them. That case is set for trial next May.
He also was charged in New York with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actor during the 2016 presidential campaign, a case scheduled for trial next March. And prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, are expected in the coming weeks to announce charging decisions in an investigation into efforts to subvert election results in that state.
Thursday's arraignment was part of a now-familiar but nonetheless stunning ritual for Trump, requiring him to hit pause on his presidential campaign and play the role of criminal defendant. He was flown by private plane from New Jersey to Washington, where his motorcade with lights and sirens made its way through the nation's capital — a journey documented in wall-to-wall cable coverage once again.
His appearance represented a relatively rare return to Washington since he left the White House. After a trip that took him through a highway tunnel and District streets, Trump lamented what he called the "filth and the decay" of the city, which he claimed was worse than when he ended his term. But that overlooks the fact that when he left office, some businesses were boarded up and military presence in the city was ramped up in the aftermath of the insurrection sparked by his own election lies.
Federal and state election officials and Trump's own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the election was tainted. The former president's allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges Trump appointed.
The courtroom Thursday filled with spectators who included several federal judges, including Chief District Court Judge James Boasberg — presumably there to observe the momentous event.
The indictment chronicles how Trump and his Republican allies, in what Smith described as an attack on a "bedrock function of the U.S. government," repeatedly lied about the results in the two months after he lost the election and pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, and state election officials to take action to help him cling to power.
The former president was the only person charged in the case, though prosecutors referenced six unnamed co-conspirators, mostly lawyers, they say he plotted with, including in a scheme to enlist fake electors in seven battleground states won by Biden to submit false certificates to the federal government.
The indictment also relies on testimony from a broad cross-section of Trump's aides and state election officials, and cites contemporaneous notes that prosecutors say were taken by Pence.
The legal proceedings going forward will be presided over by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama who has stood out as one of the toughest punishers of rioters.
Woman killed, toddler son among 3 others shot standing on sidewalk on Chicago's South Side
A 23-year-old woman was killed and three other people — including her 2-year-old son — also were shot Wednesday on Chicago's South Side, police said.
The toddler was hospitalized in good condition after being shot in a foot, as were his 29-year-old father, who also was shot in a foot, and a 62-year-old man, who was shot in the back, Chicago Police Department Chief of Patrol Brian McDermott said in a news conference near the scene in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
The victims were standing on a sidewalk around 3 p.m. when assailants got out of a vehicle and opened fire before fleeing the scene, McDermott said.
U.S. records over 400 mass shootings so far in 2023
The woman was shot multiple times and died later at a hospital, authorities said.
3 soldiers, 2 insurgents killed in shootout in southwest Pakistan, officials say
The woman and the 29-year-old man were the parents of the toddler, McDermott said.
No one was in custody.
About 7 in 10 adult Americans believe in angels: AP-NORC poll shows
Compared with the devil, angels carry more credence in America.
Angels even get more credence than, well, hell. More than astrology, reincarnation, and the belief that physical things can have spiritual energies.
In fact, about 7 in 10 U.S. adults say they believe in angels, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
“People are yearning for something greater than themselves — beyond their own understanding,” said Jack Grogger, a chaplain for the Los Angeles Angels and a longtime Southern California fire captain who has aided many people in their gravest moments.
That search for something bigger, he said, can take on many forms, from following a religion to crafting a self-driven purpose to believing in, of course, angels.
“For a lot of people, angels are a lot safer to worship,” said Grogger, who also pastors a nondenominational church in Orange, California, and is a chaplain for the NHL's Anaheim Ducks.
People turn to angels for comfort, he said. They are familiar, regularly showing up in pop culture as well as in the Bible. Comparably, worshipping Jesus is far more involved; when Grogger preaches about angels it is with the context that they are part of God's kingdom.
American's belief in angels (69%) is about on par with belief in heaven and the power of prayer, but bested by belief in God or a higher power (79%). Fewer U.S. adults believe in the devil or Satan (56%), astrology (34%), reincarnation (34%), and that physical things can have spiritual energies, such as plants, rivers or crystals (42%).
The widespread acceptance of angels shown in the AP-NORC poll makes sense to Susan Garrett, an angel expert and New Testament professor at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Kentucky. It tracks with historical surveys, she said, adding that the U.S. remains a faith-filled country even as more Americans reject organized religion.
But if the devil is in the details, so are people’s understandings of angels.
“They’re very malleable,” Garrett said of angels. “You can have any one of a number of quite different worldviews in terms of your understanding of how the cosmos is arranged, whether there’s spirit beings, whether there’s life after death, whether there’s a God … and still find a place for angels in that worldview.”
Talk of angels, Garrett said, is often also about something else, like the ways God interacts with the world and other hard-to-articulate ideas.
The large number of U.S. adults who say they believe in angels includes 84% of those with a religious affiliation — 94% of evangelical Protestants, 81% of mainline Protestants and 82% of Catholics — and 33% of those without one. And of those angel-believing religiously unaffiliated, that includes 2% of atheists, 25% of agnostics and 50% of those identified as “nothing in particular.”
The broad acceptance is what fascinates San Francisco-based witch and author Devin Hunter: Angels show up independently in different religions and traditions, making them part of the fabric that unites humanity.
“We’re all getting to the same conclusion,” said Hunter, who spent 16 years as a professional medium, and started communicating as a child with what he believed were angels.
Hunter estimates that a belief in angels applies to about half of those practicing modern witchcraft today, and for some who don't believe, their rejection is often rooted in the religious trauma they experienced growing up.
“Angels become a very big deal" for long-time practitioners who've made occultism their primary focus, said Hunter, an angel-loving occultist. “We cannot escape them in any way, shape or form.”
Jennifer Goodwin of Oviedo, Florida, also is among the roughly seven in 10 U.S. adults who say they believe in angels. She isn’t sure if God exists and rejects the afterlife dichotomy of heaven and hell, but the recent deaths of her parents solidified her views on these celestial beings.
Goodwin believes her parents are still keeping an eye on the family — not in any physical way or as a supernatural apparition, but that they manifest in those moments when she feels a general sense of comfort.
“I think that they are around us, but it’s in a way that we can’t understand,” Goodwin said. “I don’t know what else to call it except an angel.”
Angels mean different things to different people, and the idea of loved ones becoming heavenly angels after death is neither an unusual belief nor a universally held one.
In his reading of Scripture as an evangelical Protestant, Grogger said he believes angels are something else entirely — they have never been human and are on another level in heaven's hierarchy. “We are higher than angels,” he said. “We do not become an angel.”
Angels do interact with humans though, said Grogger, but what "that looks like we’re not 100% sure.” They worship God who created this angelic legion of unknown numbers, he said, adding that evangelicals often attribute the demonic forces in the world to the angels who fell from heaven when the devil rebelled.
The Western ideas about angels can be traced through the Bible — and to the worldviews of its monotheistic authors, Garrett said. Those beliefs have changed and developed for millennia, influenced by cultures, theologians and even the ancient polytheistic beliefs that came before the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, she said.
“There are sort of lines of continuity from the Bible that you can trace all the way up to the New Age movement,” said Susan Garrett, who wrote “No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus.”
The angels in the Bible do God's bidding, and angelic violence is one part of their job description, said Esther Hamori, author of the upcoming book, “God's Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible.”
“The angels of the Bible are just as likely to assassinate individuals and slaughter entire populations as they are to offer help and protect and deliver,” said Hamori. She doesn't believe in these angels, but studies them as a Hebrew Bible professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York where she teaches a popular “Monster Heaven” class.
“They’re just God’s obedient soldiers doing the task at hand, and sometimes that task is in human beings' best interests, and sometimes it’s not," she said.
The perception that angels act angelic and look like the idyllic, winged figurines atop Christmas trees could be attributed to an early centuries belief that people are assigned one good angel and one bad — or have a good and bad spirit to guide them, Garrett said.
This idea shows up on the shoulders of cartoon characters and is likely what Abraham Lincoln was alluding to in his famous appeal for unity when he referenced “the better angels of our nature” in his first inaugural address, she said.
“It’s also tied in with ideas about guardian angels, which again, very ancient views that got developed over the centuries,” Garrett said.
For Sheila Avery of Chicago, angels are protectors, capable of keeping someone from harm. Avery, who belongs to a nondenominational church, credits them with those moments like when a person’s plans fall through, but ultimately it saves them from being in the thick of an unexpected disaster.
“They turn on the news and a terrible tragedy happened at that particular place,” Avery said, suggesting it was an “angel that was probably watching over them.”
UFO congressional hearing 'insulting' to US employees, top Pentagon official says
A top Pentagon official has attacked this week's widely watched congressional hearing on UFOs, calling the claims "insulting" to employees who are investigating sightings and accusing a key witness of not cooperating with the official U.S. government investigation.
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick's letter, published on his personal LinkedIn page and circulated Friday across social media, criticizes much of the testimony from a retired Air Force intelligence officer that energized believers in extraterrestrial life and produced headlines around the world.
Retired Air Force Maj. David Grusch testified Wednesday that the U.S. has concealed what he called a "multi-decade" program to collect and reverse-engineer "UAPs," or unidentified aerial phenomena, the official government term for UFOs.
Also read: No ET, no answers: Intel report is inconclusive about UFOs
Part of what the U.S. has recovered, Grusch testified, were non-human "biologics," which he said he had not seen but had learned about from "people with direct knowledge of the program."
A career intelligence officer, Kirkpatrick was named a year ago to lead the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, which was intended to centralize investigations into UAPs. The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have been pushed by Congress in recent years to better investigate reports of devices flying at unusual speeds or trajectories as a national security concern.
Kirkpatrick wrote the letter Thursday and the Defense Department confirmed Friday that he posted it in a personal capacity. Kirkpatrick declined to comment on the letter Friday.
Also read: There is stuff : Enduring mysteries trail US report on UFOs
He writes in part, "I cannot let yesterday's hearing pass without sharing how insulting it was to the officers of the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community who chose to join AARO, many with not unreasonable anxieties about the career risks this would entail."
"They are truth-seekers, as am I," Kirkpatrick said. "But you certainly would not get that impression from yesterday's hearing."
In a separate statement, Pentagon spokeswoman Sue Gough denied other allegations made by Grusch and other witnesses before a House Oversight subcommittee.
The Pentagon "has no information that any individual has been harmed or killed as a result of providing information" about UFO objects, Gough said. Nor has the Pentagon discovered "any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently."
Also read: US intel report on UFOs: No evidence of aliens, but ...
Kirkpatrick wrote, "AARO has yet to find any credible evidence to support the allegations of any reverse engineering program for non-human technology."
He had briefed reporters in December that the Pentagon was investigating "several hundreds" of new reports following a push to have pilots and others come forward with any sightings.
Kirkpatrick wrote in his letter that allegations of "retaliation, to include physical assault and hints of murder, are extraordinarily serious, which is why law enforcement is a critical member of the AARO team, specifically to address and take swift action should anyone come forward with such claims."
"Yet, contrary to assertions made in the hearing, the central source of those allegations has refused to speak with AARO," Kirkpatrick said. He did not explicitly name Grusch, who alleged he faced retaliation and declined to answer when a congressman asked him if anyone had been murdered to hide information about UFOs.
Messages left at a phone number and email address for Grusch were not returned Friday.
U.S. records over 400 mass shootings so far in 2023
Nine mass shootings occurred across the United States over the weekend, bringing the total to more than 400 this year, according to a national website that tracks firearm deaths and injuries.
The nine mass shootings led to at least four deaths and 35 injuries as of Sunday, according to the latest data from the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an event with at least four victims either injured or killed, not including the shooter.
Read: Texas gunman in Walmart shooting gets 90 consecutive life sentences and may still face death penalty
The website recorded 404 mass shootings as of Sunday since the start of 2023, which left at least 453 people dead, according to the data, which are collected or validated from 7,500 sources daily.
Among those killed were some 161 children under age 12, and another nearly 400 children had been injured in mass shootings so far this year, according to the anti-gun violence group.
The number of mass shootings was 9 percent up from a year earlier. As of July 23, 2022, there were 365 mass shootings, and that year saw a total of 647 mass shootings across the country.
Read: 5 dead in Philadelphia shooting in worst violence around US Independence Day
The increase confirmed a rising trend of mass shootings in the United States.
In 2016, the country reported 383 mass shootings. The last three years all surpassed 600, with 2021 registering the largest number -- 690 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Dive team deployed after helicopter crashes into Alaska lake; all 4 on board presumed dead
A rescue and recovery dive team was deployed Saturday after a helicopter with a pilot and three state workers crashed in a large lake on Alaska’s North Slope, officials said.
No survivors have been located.
“The official word is, they are missing, presumed fatal,” said Clint Johnson, the chief of the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska region.
An NTSB investigator was also en route to the accident scene Saturday as plans were being made to recover the wreckage from the water, he said. Challenges with the lake crash site and the availability of another helicopter in the area likely mean the aircraft won't be raised from the middle of the shallow, 1-mile-wide (1.6-kilometer-wide) lake until Monday or Tuesday, Johnson said.
The downed helicopter had been chartered by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, the department said in a statement Friday. It was carrying three employees from the Division of Geological and Geophysical Survey who had been conducting field work.
Read: 5 killed in Poland as plane crashes into hangar
“DNR is praying for our employees and the pilot, their families, and the DNR team,” the statement said. “We are continuing to await updates from the search and rescue effort.”
Natural Resources Commissioner John Boyle flew to the crash site Friday night with a North Slope Search and Rescue spotter ahead of the recovery operation, said Lorraine Henry, a spokesperson for the state agency.
The Bell 206 helicopter was reported overdue Thursday night. A North Slope Borough search and rescue team in a helicopter found debris matching the description of the missing helicopter, D.J. Fauske, the borough’s director of government and external affairs, said in a text to The Associated Press on Friday.
Fauske did not immediately respond to a list of questions sent to him by email Saturday.
The helicopter’s wreckage was found in the lake near Wainwright, which is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Utqiagvik, the northernmost city in the U.S., formerly known as Barrow.
Johnson said because of where the helicopter came to rest, in the middle of the lake, they will have to use another helicopter to pull it out.
“This is going to be a helicopter recovery, no ifs, no ands, no buts, out in the middle of no place," he said. That location, hundreds of miles north of Anchorage, also means helicopters are hard to come by.
Read: Six killed when small plane crashes, bursts into flames in field near Southern California airport
“The helicopters up here are at an absolute premium,” he said.
Also complicating matters is that from the photographs he's seen of the submerged helicopter, it's in fragments, Johnson said.
The North Slope Borough requested that the Alaska State Troopers activate the Alaska Dive Search, Rescue and Recovery Team, troopers spokesperson Austin McDaniel said in an email to The Associated Press.
The team was en route Saturday to Utqiagvik, located on the coast of the Arctic Ocean about 720 miles (1,159 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage. The borough is the primary agency coordinating efforts at the crash site, McDaniel said.
The helicopter flight originated in Utqiagvik and was supposed to return there, Johnson said, adding other details of the flight were not immediately available.
The helicopter was operated by Maritime Helicopters Inc., according to a statement on the company’s website. It confirmed the accident was fatal and said names of the pilot and passengers would be released pending notification of next of kin.
Read more: Philippine plane crash kills 2, another carrying 6 missing
California's Death Valley sizzles as brutal heat wave continues
Long the hottest place on Earth, Death Valley put a sizzling exclamation point Sunday on a record warm summer that is baking nearly the entire globe by flirting with some of the hottest temperatures ever recorded, meteorologists said.
Temperatures in Death Valley, which runs along part of central California's border with Nevada, reached 128 degrees Fahrenheit (53.33 degrees Celsius) on Sunday at the aptly named Furnace Creek, the National Weather Service said.
The hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 at Furnace Creek, said Randy Ceverny of the World Meteorological Organization, the body recognized as keeper of world records. Temperatures at or above 130 F (54.44 C) have only been recorded on Earth a handful of times, mostly in Death Valley.
“With global warming, such temperatures are becoming more and more likely to occur,” Ceverny, the World Meteorological Organization’s records coordinator, said in an email. “Long-term: Global warming is causing higher and more frequent temperature extremes. Short-term: This particular weekend is being driven by a very very strong upper-level ridge of high pressure over the Western U.S.”
Furnace Creek is an unincorporated community within Death Valley National Park. It's home to the park's visitor center, which includes a digital thermometer popular with tourists. On Sunday afternoon, dozens of people gathered at the thermometer — some wearing fur coats as a joke — hoping to snap a picture with a temperature reading that would shock their friends and family.
That digital thermometer hit 130 degrees at one point on Sunday, but it's not an official reading. The National Weather Service said the highest temperature recorded on Sunday was 128 F (53.3 C) — a high that was unlikely to be surpassed as the sun went down.
READ: 'Heat storm' hits Italy
A few miles away at Badwater Basin — the lowest point in North America at 282 feet (85.95 meters) below sea level — tourists took selfies and briefly walked along the white salt flats ringed by sandy-colored mountains as wisps of clouds crawled overhead. Meteorologists say that thin cloud cover most likely kept temperatures from reaching potential record highs.
William Cadwallader lives in Las Vegas, where temperatures reached 116 F (46.67 C) on Sunday, nearing the all-time high of 117 degrees. But Cadwallader said he's been visiting Death Valley during the summer for years just to say he's been to the hottest place on Earth.
“I just want to go to a place, sort of like Mount Everest, to say, you know, you did it,” he said.
The heat wave is just one part of the extreme weather hitting the U.S. over the weekend. Five people died in Pennsylvania on Saturday when heavy rains caused a sudden flash flood that swept away multiple cars. A 9-month-old boy and a 2-year-old girl remained missing. In Vermont, authorities were concerned about landslides as rain continued after days of flooding.
Death Valley’s brutal temperatures come amid a blistering stretch of hot weather that has put roughly one-third of Americans under some type of heat advisory, watch or warning. Heat waves are not as visually dramatic as other natural disasters, but experts say they are more deadly. A heat wave in parts of the South and Midwest killed more than a dozen people last month.
Residents in the western U.S. have long been accustomed to extreme temperatures, and the heat appeared to prompt minimal disruptions in California over the weekend. Local governments opened cooling centers for people without access to air conditioning to stay cool. The heat forced officials to cancel horse racing at the opening weekend of the California State Fair as officials urged fair-goers to stay hydrated and seek refute inside one of the seven air-conditioned buildings.
READ: US Southwest swelters under dangerous heat wave, with new records on track
Temperatures in Phoenix hit 114 F (45.56 C) on Sunday, the 17th consecutive day of 110 degrees or higher. The record is 18 days, set in June 1974. Phoenix is on track to break that record on Tuesday, said Gabriel Lojero, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Heat records are being shattered all over the U.S. South, from California to Florida. But it’s far more than that. It’s worldwide, with devastating heat hitting Europe along with dramatic floods in the U.S. Northeast, India, Japan and China.
For nearly all of July, the world has been in uncharted hot territory, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer.
June was also the hottest June on record, according to several weather agencies. Scientists say there is a decent chance that 2023 will go down as the hottest year on record, with measurements going back to the middle of the 19th century.
Death Valley dominates global heat records. In the valley, it’s not only hot, it stays brutally warm.
Some meteorologists have disputed how accurate Death Valley’s 110-year-old hot-temperature record is, with weather historian Christopher Burt disputing it for several reasons, which he laid out in a blog post a few years ago.
READ: No respite from heat, with 3rd wave bringing record temperature in Italy
The two hottest temperatures on record are the 134 F in 1913 in Death Valley and 131 F (55 C) in Tunisia in July 1931. Burt, a weather historian for The Weather Company, finds fault with both of those measurements and lists 130 F (54.4 C) in July 2021 in Death Valley as his hottest recorded temperature on Earth.
“130 degrees is very rare if not unique,” Burt said.
In July 2021 and August 2020, Death Valley recorded a reading of 130 F (54.4 C), but both are still awaiting confirmation. Scientists have found no problems so far, but they haven’t finished the analysis, NOAA climate analysis chief Russ Vose said.
There are other places similar to Death Valley that may be as hot, such as Iran’s Lut Desert, but like Death Valley are uninhabited so no one measures there, Burt said. The difference was someone decided to put an official weather station in Death Valley in 1911, he said.
A combination of long-term human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is making the world hotter by the decade, with ups and downs year by year. Many of those ups and downs are caused by the natural El Nino and La Nina cycle. An El Nino cycle, the warming of part of the Pacific that changes the world’s weather, adds even more heat to the already rising temperatures.
Scientists such as Vose say that most of the record warming the Earth is now seeing is from human-caused climate change, partly because this El Nino only started a few months ago and is still weak to moderate. It isn’t expected to peak until winter, so scientists predict next year will be even hotter than this year.
US Southwest swelters under dangerous heat wave, with new records on track
A dangerous heat wave threatened a wide swath of the Southwest with potentially deadly temperatures in the triple digits on Saturday as some cooling centers extended their hours and emergency rooms prepared to treat more people with heat-related illnesses.
“Near record temperatures are expected this weekend!” the National Weather Service in Phoenix warned in a tweet, advising people to follow its safety tips such as drinking plenty of water and checking on relatives and neighbors.
“Don’t be a statistic!” the weather service in Tucson advised, noting extreme heat can be deadly. “It CAN happen to YOU!”
Over 110 million people, or about a third of Americans, were under extreme heat advisories, watches and warnings Saturday as the blistering heat wave was forecast to get worse this weekend for Nevada, Arizona and California. Temperatures in some desert areas were predicted to soar past 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.8 degrees Celsius) during the day, and remain in the 90s F (above 32.2 C) overnight.
Around 200 hydration stations distributing bottles of water and cooling centers where potentially thousands of people can rest in air-conditioned spaces opened Saturday in public spaces like libraries, churches and businesses around the Phoenix area.
Charles Sanders spent Friday afternoon with his Chihuahua mix Babygirl at the air-conditioned Justa Center, which offers daytime services to older homeless people in downtown Phoenix. It’s also serving as a hydration station, distributing free bottles of water.
Because of funding and staffing limitations, the center can only stay open until 5:30 p.m., so Sanders, a 59-year-old who uses a wheelchair, has spent the sweltering nights with his pet in a tattered tent behind the building.
“I’ve been here for four summers now and it’s the worst so far,” said Sanders, a former welder originally from Denver.
David Hondula, chief heat officer for the City of Phoenix, said Friday that because of the health risks some centers were extending hours that are sometimes abbreviated because of limited volunteers and money.
“This weekend there will be some of the most serious and hot conditions we’ve ever seen,” said Hondula.
He said just one location, the Brian Garcia Welcome Center for homeless people in downtown Phoenix, planned to be open 24 hours and direct people to shelters and other air-conditioned spaces for the night. During especially hot spells in the past, the Phoenix Convention Center has opened some space as a nighttime cooling center, but Hondula said he had not heard of that possibility this year.
Stacy Champion, an advocate for homeless people in Phoenix, took to Twitter this week to criticize the lack of nighttime cooling spaces for unsheltered individuals, saying they are “out of luck” if they have no place to go.
In Las Vegas, casinos offered respite from the heat for many. Air-conditioned libraries, police station lobbies and other places from Texas to California planned to be open to the public to offer relief for at least part of the day.
Emergency room doctors in Las Vegas have been treating more people for heat illness as the heat wave threatened to break the city’s all-time record high of 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47.2 degrees Celsius) this weekend.
Dr. Ashkan Morim, who works in the ER at Dignity Health Siena Hospital in suburban Henderson, Nevada, spoke Friday of treating tourists this week who spent too long drinking by pools and became severely dehydrated, and a stranded hiker who needed liters of fluids to regain his strength.
In New Mexico’s largest city of Albuquerque, splash pads will be open for extended hours and many public pools were offering free admission. In Boise, Idaho, churches and other nonprofit groups were offering water, sunscreen and shelter.
In Southern California, temperatures soared into the triple digits in inland areas, and a ridge of high pressure was expected to keep its hold on the region for a couple of weeks.
By mid Saturday afternoon, it was 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) in Death Valley, California, where forecasters have said the temperature could hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 C) this weekend. The hottest temperature recorded at Death Valley was 134 F (56.6 C) in July 1913, according to the National Park Service.
In Lancaster and Palmdale, north of Los Angeles, temperatures hit 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42.2 degrees Celsius), said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford. In Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, the thermometer cleared triple digits in some areas.
“We are going to be pretty warm for a while,” Wofford said, adding that temperatures would be above normal for about two weeks. “There’s been a lot of triple digits” across the region.
In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass announced the city was opening cooling centers where residents can escape the heat. “The extreme heat that is forecasted this weekend can pose serious risks,” she warned.
The hot, dry conditions sparked a series of blazes in Southern California southeast of Los Angeles, where firefighters Saturday were battling three separate brush fires amid blistering heat and low humidity in sparsely populated, hilly areas. The fires were all within 40 miles (65 kilometers) of each other in Riverside County, where temperatures in some areas spiked into the triple digits.
“Heat is definitely a concern out there,” said April Newman of the Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department, adding that the blazes were burning through dense, dry brush in rugged terrain.
Phoenix on Saturday saw the city’s 16th consecutive day of 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) or higher temperatures, hitting that mark before noon and putting it on track to beat the longest measured stretch of such heat. The was record 18 days, in 1974.
By late afternoon, the temperature in Phoenix had hit 118 degrees Fahrenheit (47.8 degrees Celsius), breaking the daily record set on July 15, 1998, of 117 F (47.2 C), the National Weather Service in Phoenix tweeted. The normal high for the date is 107 F (41.6 C).
Emphasizing how dangerous the heat can be, police in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise said Saturday its officers on Friday found two older women sweltering at home in 114 degrees Fahrenheit (45.5 degrees Celsius) with just a tiny, overtaxed unit that failed to cool most of the house. After the women were taken to senior center to cool off, the department’s community services team bought and installed an adequate air conditioner and several fans in the home.
Extreme heat is especially dangerous for older people; medications they may take or chronic conditions like heart or kidney disease can make it harder for their bodies to cool down.
Regional health officials in Las Vegas launched a new database Thursday to report “heat-caused” and “heat-related” deaths in the city and surrounding Clark County from April to October.
The Southern Nevada Health District said seven people have died since April 11, and a total of 152 deaths last year were determined to be heat-related.
Arizona’s Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, reported this week that so far this year there have been 12 confirmed heat-associated deaths going back to April, half of them people who were homeless. Another 55 deaths are under investigation.
There were 425 confirmed heat-associated deaths in Maricopa County last year, with more than half of them occurring in July and 80% of them happening outdoors.
Closer to the Pacific coast, temperatures were less severe, but still have made for sweaty days on picket lines in the Los Angeles area, where actors joined screenwriters in strikes against producers.
In Sacramento, the California State Fair kicked off with organizers canceling planned horseracing events due to concerns for animal safety. Pet owners around the Southwest were urged to keep their animals mostly inside.
'Life threatening' flooding overwhelms New York roadways, killing 1 person
Heavy rain sparked extreme flooding in New York's Hudson Valley that killed at least one person, swamped roadways and forced road closures on Sunday night.
The National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings across parts of southeastern New York, describing it as “life threatening.”
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One person died due to the flooding, Steven M. Neuhaus, the Orange County executive, told The New York Times.
State Route 9W was flooded, and the Palisades Interstate Parkway became so drenched that parts of it was closed, the New York State Police said in a statement. The police asked the public to avoid the parkway.
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Cedar Pond Brook in Stony Point was flowing over the road and into private properties, according to WABC.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day instructed residents to “remain indoors in a safe location” until the heavy rainfall ended.