Bernie Crouse wades through water outside his home after the nearby South Fork Stillaguamish River crested early in the morning flooding several houses in this neighborhood, Dec. 5, 2023, in the Arlington area of Seattle, Washington.

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Ken Lambert/AP

Bernie Crouse wades through water outside his home after the nearby South Fork Stillaguamish River crested early in the morning flooding several houses in this neighborhood, Dec. 5, 2023, in the Arlington area of Seattle, Washington.

Ken Lambert/AP

PORTLAND, Ore. — The U.S. Coast Guard rescued five people from flooded areas on Tuesday as an atmospheric river brought heavy rain, flooding and unseasonably warm temperatures to the Pacific Northwest.

The conditions also closed rail links, schools and roads in some areas and shattered daily rainfall and temperature records in Washington state.

In southwest Washington, a Coast Guard helicopter plucked a man from the roof of his truck in floodwaters near the hamlet of Rosburg and also rescued four people who were trapped in a house surrounded by 4 feet (1.2 meters) of water, a Coast Guard statement said.

Amtrak said that no passenger trains will be running between Seattle and Portland, Oregon, until Thursday because of a landslide. The National Weather Service issued flood warnings in parts of western Washington, including in areas north and east of Seattle and across a large swath of the Olympic Peninsula.

The wet conditions also brought warm temperatures to the region. At 64 degrees Fahrenheit (17.8 Celsius) in Walla Walla in southwestern Washington, it was as warm as parts of Florida and Mexico, according to the NWS. Seattle reported 59 F (15 C) at 1 a.m. Tuesday morning, breaking its previous daily record high, the weather service said.

Atmospheric rivers, sometimes known as a “Pineapple Express” because the long and narrow bands of water vapor convey warm subtropical moisture across the Pacific from near Hawaii, delivered enormous amounts of rain and snow to California last winter.

On the Olympic Peninsula, the small town of Forks — whose claim to fame is being the rainiest town in the contiguous U.S. — saw its rainfall record for Dec. 4 more than double after it received about 3.8 inches (9.65 centimeters) of rain, the NWS said. By early Tuesday morning, it had recorded 4.7 inches (11.94 centimeters) of rain over 24 hours — more rainfall than Las Vegas has received in all of 2023, according to the agency.

Heavy rain causes flooding outside Blue Heron French Cheese Company along Highway 101 in Tillamook, Ore., Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023.

Dave Killen/AP

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Heavy rain causes flooding outside Blue Heron French Cheese Company along Highway 101 in Tillamook, Ore., Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023.

Dave Killen/AP

About 100 miles (160 kilometers) farther south, the daily rainfall record for Dec. 4 was broken in Hoquiam, which received about 2.6 inches (6.6 centimeters) of rain on Monday, the NWS said. Seattle also set a new rainfall record for that date with 1.5 inches (3.81 centimeters), said Kirby Cook, science and operations officer at the NWS office in Seattle.

“We’ll continue to see significant impacts, especially with river crests and rises on area rivers” through Wednesday morning, he said.

A section of Washington State Route 106 was closed as rising water levels in the Skokomish River overflowed onto the roadway, state transportation officials said.

In Granite Falls, Washington, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Seattle, video posted on social media by Kira Mascorella showed water surrounding homes and flooding driveways and yards. Mascorella, who lives in nearby Arlington, said it was “pouring down rain” when she woke up Tuesday and was still raining hard late in the afternoon. She said she called out of work because of water on the roadways and wasn’t sure if they would be passable Wednesday.

In Monroe, Washington, fire and rescue crews reported bringing to safety four people and a dog who had been trapped in a park by swollen waters.

A landslide closed parts of a Seattle trail popular with walkers, joggers and cyclists, the city’s parks department said. Crews were assessing the damage to the Burke-Gilman Trail and working on setting up detour routes.

Heavy rains also battered Oregon. Parts of coastal U.S. Highway 101 were closed because of flooding, including in areas around Seaside and at the junctions with U.S. Route 26 and Oregon Route 6, the state’s transportation department said.

At least three school districts along the Oregon coast shuttered for the day because of flooding and road closures.

Officials have urged drivers to use caution, avoid deep water on roadways and expect delays.

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up xAI is looking to raise $1bn in equity, according to a filing with the US securities regulator, as the billionaire races to challenge rivals such as OpenAI in the fast-growing field of generative AI.

The company had already raised $135mn from investors, the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said. It is asking investors to put in a minimum of $2mn.

Generative AI companies — whose technology can automatically generate humanlike text and imagery — have raised billions of dollars this year after Microsoft-backed OpenAI released its consumer chatbot, ChatGPT, to fanfare in November 2022.

Read more about Musk’s AI plans here.

Steve Bannon and Kash Patel claimed that former President Trump is “dead serious” about exacting revenge on his political enemies if he wins a second term as president, and they warned members of the media to take the threats seriously, saying Tuesday, “We’re going to come after you.”

In an episode of Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Bannon and Patel, two of Trump’s close allies, pledged to prosecute members of the media who “lied’ about the 2020 presidential election results — falsely suggesting Trump truly won.

“We will go out and find the conspirators — not just in government, but in the media,” Patel told Bannon. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”

“We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice, and Steve, this is why they hate us. This is why we’re tyrannical. This is why we’re dictators,” Patel said, suggesting those were terms used sometimes to describe them. “Because we’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have.”

Bannon, in setting up the question to Patel, underscored the same point, mentioning MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show producers, as well as all media.

“And I want the Morning Joe producers that watch us and all the producers that watch us — this is just not rhetoric. We’re absolutely dead serious,” Bannon said. “You cannot have a constitutional republic and allow what these deep-staters have done to the country.

“The deep state — the administrative state, the fourth branch of government, never mentioned in the Constitution — is going to be taken apart, brick by brick, and the people that did these evil deeds will be held accountable and prosecuted, criminal prosecutions,” Bannon said, before asking Patel whether he thinks he can deliver the goods for the former president.

The comments underscore recent reporting about Trump’s plans for a second term in the White House. Since leaving office, The New York Times reported Trump and his allies have made plans to expand executive power, prosecute his enemies and increase presidential power over bureaucratic agencies. Trump has also made clear he would get rid of career government officials and replace them with loyalists.

Patel echoed these plans in his comments Tuesday.

“The one thing we learned in the Trump administration the first go-around, is we got to put in all American patriots, top to bottom, and we got them for law enforcement. We got them for intel collection, we got them for offensive operations. We got them for [Department of Defense], CIA, everywhere,” he said.

Trump is the leading candidate in the 2024 GOP presidential race, leading his closest competitor by at least 30 points in most national polls. In a recent poll, Trump led President Biden in a hypothetical general election match-up between the two candidates.