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Hurricane Michael Batters Florida Panhandle With 155mph Winds

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Extremely powerful Hurricane Michael crashed into the Florida’s northwestern Panhandle coast on Wednesday, flooding towns and ripping up trees with 155 mile per hour(249 kph) winds and the potential for a devastating storm surge.

Michael, which had caught many by surprise with its rapid intensification as it churned north over the Gulf of Mexico, was the most powerful storm ever recorded to hit the Panhandle, and it strengthened even as it approached land.

It made landfall northwest of the town of Mexico Beach early on Wednesday afternoon as a Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, just shy of an extremely rare Category 5.

The storm, which caused a major disruption for oil and gas production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, had the potential to drive sea water levels as high as 14 feet (4.3 meters) above normal in some areas, the National Hurricane Center said.

“My God it’s scary. I didn’t expect all this,” said Bill Manning, 63, a grocery clerk who left his camper van in Panama City, Florida, to move into a hotel where the power was already out.

“Panama City, I don’t know if there will be much left.”

People in coastal parts of 20 Florida counties had been told to leave their homes but by Wednesday morning were told it was too late to flee. Much of the affected area is rural and known for small tourist cities, beaches and wildlife reserves, as well as the state capital, Tallahassee.

Even before Michael made full landfall, it was whipping trees with its winds and had caused flooding in the town of Apalachicola, where more than five feet (1.5 meters) of water was reported, and in Port St. Joe.

“It feels like you don’t know when the next tree is going to fall on top of you because its blowing so ferociously,” said Port St. Joe Mayor Bo Patterson. “You just don’t know when the next one is going down. It’s very, very scary. We have trees being uprooted, heavy, heavy rain.”

Patterson said about 2,500 of the town’s 3,500 people were still there, including about 100 in a beachside area who did not follow a mandatory evacuation order. The two bridges leading out of Port St. Joe were closed, meaning no one could get out now.

“This happened so quickly, we weren’t exactly prepared,” he said.

Brock Long, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said early evacuation efforts in the area were slow.

Michael grew from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane in about 40 hours.

“Satellite images of Michael’s evolution on Tuesday night were, in a word, jaw-dropping,” wrote Bob Henson, a meteorologist with weather site Weather Underground.

Hurricane center Director Ken Graham said on Facebook that Michael would be the worst storm in recorded history to hit the Panhandle.

“Going back through records to 1851 we can’t find another Cat 4 in this area, so this is unfortunately a historical and incredibly dangerous and life-threatening situation,” he said.

About 43,000 homes and businesses customers were already without power around midday.

At 2 p.m. ETD (1800 GMT), the center of the storm was a few miles northwest of Mexico Beach and about 20 miles (30 km) southeast of Panama City. Michael was heading north-northeast at 14 mph (22 kph) with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (250 kph), the hurricane center said.

More than 40 percent of daily crude oil production and more than one-third of natural gas output was lost from offshore U.S. Gulf of Mexico wells on Wednesday because of platform evacuations and shut-ins caused by Michael.

President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency for the entire state of Florida, freeing up federal assistance to supplement state and local disaster responses. He was briefed by Long in the Oval Office on preparations.

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Biden pardons son Hunter in final weeks of US presidency

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US President Joe Biden on Sunday issued an official pardon for his son Hunter, who was facing sentencing for two criminal cases, despite assurances that he would not intervene in his legal troubles.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” the president said in a statement.

The move is sure to bring about fresh scrutiny over the independence of the US judicial system — especially at a time when incoming president Donald Trump has moved to appoint loyalists to the FBI and Justice Department himself.

The younger Biden was convicted earlier this year of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun — a felony — and has also pleaded guilty in a separate tax evasion trial, but had not faced sentencing.


Joe Biden, who is in the final weeks of his presidency before Trump takes office on January 20, had repeatedly said he wouldn’t pardon his son.

“I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” President Biden said in Sunday’s statement.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” he added.

“I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”

The pardon comes as criminal cases against President-elect Trump have stalled after a sweeping ruling on presidential immunity by the Supreme Court — all but ensuring Biden’s Republican rival will likely never see a jail cell, even after his landmark conviction for falsifying business records in May.

– Plea deal gone awry –

US presidents have previously used pardons to help family members and other political allies.

Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother for old cocaine charges and Trump pardoned the father of his son-in-law for tax evasion, though in both cases those men had already served their prison terms.

Trump has vowed to pardon supporters who stormed the US Capitol in a deadly riot on January 6, 2021, in a bid to reverse his 2020 election loss.

He referenced them in a social media post late Sunday, writing, “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty in a tax evasion trial in September, facing up to 17 years in prison. For the separate gun charge, he was facing 25 years in prison.

His lawyers have said he was only being brought before the court because he is the son of the president.

Hunter has paid the back taxes, as well as penalties levied by authorities, and previously reached a plea deal that would have kept him out of jail — but that agreement fell apart at the last minute.

His case has long been a thorn in the Biden family’s side, particularly during this election year when Republicans have charged that Hunter was being treated too leniently.

President Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris took much of the zeal out of the Republican drive to make an example out of his son.

Still, prosecutors appeared unwilling to cut him any slack, rejecting a so-called “Alford plea,” whereby Hunter Biden would admit guilt because of the high probability of conviction, but would maintain his innocence.

In a statement to US media, Hunter Biden, who has grappled with drug addiction, said he would “devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering.

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Pope Urges Lebanon To Elect New President Immediately

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Pope Francis called on Lebanese politicians on Sunday to urgently elect a new president, to get the country’s governing institutions functioning again.

“I address an urgent invitation to all Lebanese politicians to elect the president of the republic immediately,” the pontiff said at Saint Peter’s Square at the end of Sunday Angelus prayer.

Lebanon’s institutions need to “start functioning normally again to undertake the necessary reforms and sustain the country’s role as an example of peaceful cohabitation between different religions”, Francis said.


Lebanese parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri has called a presidential election for January 9 in a bid to end a two-year leadership vacuum.

Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022.

Neither of the two main blocs in parliament — the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its opponents — have the majority required to elect a head of state and they have been unable to agree on a consensus candidate.

AFP

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Trump Threatens BRICS Countries With 100% Tariff If They Replace Dollar

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President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on the BRICS group nations if they undercut the US dollar.

“We require a commitment… that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty US Dollar or, they will face 100 percent Tariffs,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website, referring to the grouping that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and others.

The statement comes after a BRICS summit held last month in Kazan, Russia, where the countries discussed boosting non-dollar transactions and strengthening local currencies.

The BRICS group has expanded significantly since its inception in 2009, and now includes countries such as Iran, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Altogether the BRICS coalition accounts for a significant minority of the world’s economic output.

At the Kazan summit in October, Moscow secured a joint declaration encouraging the “strengthening of correspondent banking networks within BRICS and enabling settlements in local currencies in line with BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative.”

But at the end of the summit Putin indicated that little progress had been made on launching a possible competitor to the Belgium-based SWIFT financial messaging system.

“As for SWIFT and any alternatives, we have not created and are not creating any alternatives,” Putin told reporters at the end of the summit.

He added: “As for a unified BRICS currency, we are not considering that question at the moment.”

Trump has vowed to pursue a protectionist agenda, threatening hefty tariffs on neighbors and rivals.

If BRICS countries continue with their plans, Trump warned, they “should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US Economy,” he wrote.

“They can go find another ‘sucker!’ There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the US Dollar in International Trade, and any Country that tries should wave goodbye to America.”

AFP

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