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Death toll climbs as tropical storm Helene devastates south-east US

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Death toll climbs as tropical storm Helene devastates south-east US

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Rescuers are still searching for survivors after heavy rain and wind from tropical storm Helene devastated south-eastern US, leaving more than 60 people dead, destroying homes and causing power outages for millions.

Helene tore through Georgia and the Carolinas over the weekend after making landfall as a category 4 hurricane on Thursday, causing widespread flood damage.

The US government’s Federal Emergency Management Agency is co-ordinating a rescue and clean-up effort involving 3,200 personnel across six states where a state of emergency was declared.

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As of Sunday afternoon, at least 66 deaths had been recorded due to the storm across five states, according to the Associated Press. The storm, which has weakened from its peak strength of 140mph winds, is expected to dissipate by Monday.

The worst-hit state was South Carolina, where at least 25 people were killed — the highest death toll from a storm in the state since Hurricane Hugo in 1989 — following the worst flooding in a century. *

The storm caused significant damage in Asheville, North Carolina © Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images

US President Joe Biden has declared major disasters for North Carolina and Florida, unlocking federal assistance programmes for the affected areas. Biden also approved emergency disaster declarations in Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee, allowing federal resources to begin flowing to those states too.

North Carolina governor Roy Cooper posted on social media platform X on Sunday that the western part of the state “has been hit hard and we are working together rapidly to save lives, surge assistance and begin a difficult recovery”.

The US National Weather Service office in South Carolina said the storm was “the worst event in our office’s history”.

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“We are devastated by the horrific flooding and widespread wind damage that was caused by Hurricane Helene across our forecast area,” it added.

Many people were left stranded or without shelter across the region, according to officials. About 2.7mn households were without power throughout the south-east, down 40 per cent from a peak of 4.6mn on Friday, according to the energy department.

The storm could result in up to $34bn in losses from property damage and reduced economic output, according to Moody’s. Forecaster AccuWeather’s preliminary damage estimate was higher at between $95bn and $110bn, suggesting Helene might be one of the most destructive storms in US history.

“If you drew a line from Hilton Head [South Carolina] to Charlotte [North Carolina], everything west of it is pretty well wiped out”, US senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told CNN on Sunday.

There were record storm surge levels in the Big Bend area of Florida, with up to 15 feet of storm surge in one county, Fema administrator Deanne Criswell told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. There was flooding and landslides in North Carolina, with search and rescue missions still under way.

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This is “historic flooding up in North Carolina, especially [the] western part” of the state, Criswell said.

A “staggering amount of water” brought devastation, with almost 31 inches of rain falling in some parts of North Carolina, said National Weather Service director Ken Graham on Sunday.

Parts of the state were still under flash flood warnings with potential dam failures possible. More thunderstorms were expected in North Carolina, though not anticipated to bring heavy rainfall, Graham added, and the state could expect dry conditions after Tuesday. Flooding could also occur in West Virginia and West Virginia as the system moves north.

More than 2,000 people were in shelters in the south-east, according to Jennifer Pipa, vice-president of disaster response at the American Red Cross. 

Criswell said that climate change was leading to much more water damage from hurricanes than in the past, when damage was mainly from wind.

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“This storm took a while to develop, but once it did, it developed and intensified very rapidly, and that’s because of the warm waters in the Gulf and so [climate change] creating more storms that are reaching this major category level than we’ve seen in the past”, she said.

*This story has been amended to clarify that South Carolina, not North Carolina, was worst-affected

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Video: How Trump’s Tariffs Affected the Economy After One Year

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Video: How Trump’s Tariffs Affected the Economy After One Year

new video loaded: How Trump’s Tariffs Affected the Economy After One Year

One of Donald Trump’s central campaign promises was to raise tariffs on imports from multiple countries. Ana Swanson, a New York Times reporter, analyzes data from the past year to examine how those tariffs have affected the economy.

By Ana Swanson, Leila Medina and June Kim

February 2, 2026

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Kennedy Center will close for 2 years for renovations in July, Trump says, after performers backlash

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Kennedy Center will close for 2 years for renovations in July, Trump says, after performers backlash

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he will move to close Washington’s Kennedy Center performing arts venue for two years starting in July for construction.

Trump’s announcement on social media Sunday night follows a wave of cancellations since Trump ousted the previous leadership and added his name to the building.

Trump announced his plan days after the premiere of “Melania” a documentary of the first lady was shown at the storied venue. The proposal, he said, is subject to approval by the board of the Kennedy Center, which has been stocked with his hand-picked allies. Trump himself chairs the center’s board of trustees.

“This important decision, based on input from many Highly Respected Experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment,” Trump wrote in his post.

Leading performing arts groups have pulled out of appearances, most recently, composer Philip Glass, who announced his decision to withdraw his Symphony No. 15 “Lincoln” because he said the values of the center today are in “direct conflict” with the message of the piece.

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Earlier this month, the Washington National Opera announced that it will move performances away from the Kennedy Center in another high-profile departure following Trump’s takeover of the U.S. capital’s leading performing arts venue.

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Minnesota citizens detained by ICE are left rattled, even weeks later

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Minnesota citizens detained by ICE are left rattled, even weeks later

Aliya Rahman is detained by federal agents near the scene where Renee Macklin Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer on Jan. 13 in Minneapolis.

Adam Gray/AP


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Adam Gray/AP

It’s a video many saw on social media soon after it happened: Officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, dragging a woman out of her car and forcing her to the ground.

The woman in the video is Aliya Rahman, a Bangladeshi-American and a U.S. citizen. The day she was arrested, Rahman was on her way to the doctor, when she came across an ICE operation and a group of people protesting. She said the ICE officers told her to move her car, but the scene was chaotic and she received multiple instructions at once.

The Department of Homeland Security said in an earlier statement they arrested Rahman because she “ignored multiple commands.” But Rahman, who is autistic and also recovering from a traumatic brain injury, says it sometimes takes her a moment to understand auditory commands. Before she knew it, the officers were carrying her away by her limbs.

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“I thought I might well die,” Rahman said. She was placed in an SUV with three ICE officers.

“I heard the laughing driver radio in, ‘we’re bringing in a body,’” she recalled. It took her a second to realize they meant her.

In recent days, federal officials have signaled a willingness to reduce the large number of immigration agents in Minnesota, though they say any decrease will depend on state and local cooperation. Even if a draw-down occurs, they’ll leave behind a changed community, including many citizens questioned and detained by immigration officers in recent weeks.

Rahman was taken to the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, where immigration agents have brought detainees before releasing them or sending them out of state. While at Whipple, Rahman experienced a severe headache, and asked for medical care for more than an hour. Eventually, she passed out. She says she woke up in a downtown hospital, where doctors told her she had suffered a concussion.

Her arrest was more than two weeks ago, but she can’t shake the fear.

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“I do not feel safe being in my own home, driving these streets,” she said. “And even then, I am in a significantly better place than a lot of the other folks who have been detained.”

Rahman is far from the only U.S. citizen in Minnesota with such a story.

ChongLy Scott Thao, a Hmong man and U.S. citizen, was pulled from his home wearing only sandals, underwear and a blanket around his shoulders. Thao said the immigration agents drove him “to the middle of nowhere” and photographed him. He told reporters he feared they would beat him. They later brought him back to his house.

Mubashir Khalif Hussen, a Somali-American and U.S. citizen, also was detained by ICE.

“I wasn’t even outside for mere seconds before I seen a masked person running at me full speed,” Hussen said at a news conference last month. “He tackled me. I told him, ‘I’m a U.S. citizen.’ He didn’t seem to care. He dragged me outside to the snow while I was handcuffed, restrained, helpless and he pushed me to the ground.”

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Hussen is now suing the Trump administration as part of a class action lawsuit, accusing it of racial profiling. According to the lawsuit, ICE eventually released Hussen outside the Whipple building, telling him to walk the seven miles back to where they detained him.

In a statement to NPR, the Department of Homeland Security said “allegations that ICE engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE.”

But Walter Olson, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, says many legal experts are coming to a different conclusion.

“This is no longer just a series of accidents that could have been due to someone being badly trained or being a bad apple. This is a systematic assault on constitutional rights,” he said.

The Fourth Amendment protects people from being stopped without reasonable suspicion and arresting without probable cause, a higher standard. Courts in the U.S. have decided skin color alone does not meet either bar.

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Last fall, however, the Supreme court ruled that “apparent ethnicity” could be used to determine reasonable suspicion, as long as there were other factors too. Legal experts say the decision may give ICE more discretion.

Olson says even if the Minnesota immigration crackdown eases, these same concerns could arise elsewhere. He noted that judges ruled against the federal government during its crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland.

“And they were not led to call off or rethink the campaign. They just regrouped and came back to another state,” Olson said.

Even citizens who were not arrested but still questioned are rattled after run-ins with immigration officers. Luis Escoto, the owner of El Taquito Taco Shop in West St. Paul, said immigration agents surrounded his wife Irma’s car in their restaurant’s alley when she went out to get more lettuce before the dinner hour. Escoto ran outside.

Luis Escato poses for a portrait inside of his restaurant, El Taquito in West St. Paul, Minnesota.

Luis Escoto poses for a portrait inside of his restaurant, El Taquito in West St. Paul, Minnesota.

Jaida Grey Eagle for NPR

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“I said, ‘Hey, hold on. That’s just my wife,’” Escoto said. “They said, ‘We need proof of U.S. citizenship,’ and I said, ‘She’s a U.S. citizen.’”

Luis and Irma Escoto are both citizens. Escoto showed one of the officers their passport cards, which he still had in his wallet after a recent trip to Mexico.

“He said, ‘Well, next time she should carry that all the time, because if she doesn’t have proof of citizenship we’re going to arrest her,’” Escoto recalled.

The immigration agents left. But weeks later, Escoto is still shaken and angry. Some of his customers are now escorting him and his wife home each night when the restaurant closes.

When he became a citizen 35 years ago, Escoto said he was nervous because the government took away his green card. He asked the judge about it.

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Irma Escoto poses for a portrait inside of her restaurant, El Taquito in West St. Paul, Minnesota.

Irma Escoto poses for a portrait inside of her restaurant, El Taquito in West St. Paul, Minnesota.

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“I said, ‘Sir, what happens if the immigration officers stop me?’ And he said ‘Well, today you’re proud to be a United States citizen,’” Escoto said.

The judge told him you don’t need documentation when you’re a citizen. But now, Escoto said, that doesn’t seem so true anymore.

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