California
California May Face Major Flooding From Jan. 30: Weather Watch
The odds are rising that California and the West will be struck by a plume of moisture known as an atmospheric river from Jan. 30 to Feb. 3, the US Climate Prediction Center said in a social media post.
The agency said there is 60% to 80% chance of above normal rain and snow along the West Coast and across the Southwest. Atmospheric rivers rise out of the Pacific and can land as much water onshore as flows through the mouth of the Mississippi River. While weaker events are beneficial, more powerful systems are known to cause widespread destruction and even death from flooding and mudslides.
A year ago a series of atmospheric rivers killed at least 22 people across California and caused $4.6 billion in damage and losses, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
“Hazardous, onshore high winds are likely to impact the West Coast as well January 30th to February 2nd, particularly the Pacific Northeast southward through much of California, which could lead to coastal erosion from persistently high waves,” the climate center said.
In addition to the heavy rains and snow, temperatures are set to rise across much of the contiguous US, with the highest chance for milder air to center on the upper Midwest and Great Lakes.
The kind of atmospheric flow necessary to drive such an event would mean mild temperatures will prevail across most of the Northern Hemisphere, said David Roth, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center. Across the eastern US there are already signs winter’s grip is relaxing.
New York’s Central Park will reach a high of 56F (13.3 C) Friday with rain, the National Weather Service said. Washington will hit 65F, Boston 49F and Philadelphia 59F. The combination of mild air and rain will erase any snow left on the ground.
In other weather news:
UK: Another round of high winds and rain will sweep across the UK through the day as Jocelyn, a second large Atlantic storm, rushes by. Earlier this week the UK and Europe were battered by winter storm Isha. Amber wind warnings, meaning power outages are possible, trees could be toppled and roads blocked, are up around the Scottish coast. A less severe yellow warning for heavy rain is out for almost all of the UK with the exception of southeast England. In some exposed areas of northern Scotland, winds may gust to 80 miles per hour, said Alex Deakin, a meteorologist with the UK Met Office.
Australia: A tropical cyclone could strike Queensland’s coast near Ayr on Thursday into Friday bringing widespread flooding rain to the region. It will arrive as a Category 2 system on the five-step Australian scale. “And that could set the stage for a big flood event through inland parts of Queensland as we move into the weekend,” said Dean Narramore, a forecaster at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Tropical Cyclone warnings are up between Ayr and Mackay on Australia’s east coast as forecasters expect a storm to develop within the next day, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said.
To contact the author of this story:
Brian K Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net
Copyright 2024 Bloomberg.
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Midterm primaries 2026 live: results and reaction after six states including California and Iowa cast ballots
Lucy Campbell
Millions of voters across the country are heading to the polls today in crucial primaries in a slew of key gubernatorial, Senate and House races.
Here’s a quick rundown of what we’re watching:
California
Voters are casting ballots on who should lead the nation’s most populous state (and the world’s fourth largest economy), where there is no clear leader among candidates vying to advance in the race to succeed term-limited Democratic governor Gavin Newsom. The race for Los Angeles mayor is also on the ballot, along with a series of high-stakes US House contests in the state’s newly redrawn congressional districts – which are set to play an outsized and potentially decisive role in the battle for power in Washington in November’s midterm elections. My colleague Lauren Gambino has more:
Iowa
Per my colleague Chris Stein, with Trump’s approval ratings deep underwater, gas prices high and historical political trends favoring the party out of power, Democrats this year are considering a comeback in Iowa, putting the state at the center of their campaigns to win back control of both the US House and the Senate. That effort for a “once-in-a-generation” breakthrough in the GOP-dominated state is being led by pro-hunting Democrat Rob Sand, who is running for governor. Chris wrote about him below. Democrats also believe they have a shot at winning three of the state’s US House seats and a competitive chance at securing a US Senate seat, where the GOP frontrunner recently called Trump’s war on Iran a “political liability”.
New Jersey
One of this year’s most closely watched House midterms will take place in the battleground district currently represented by now-infamous Republican Tom Kean Jr, who has drawn public scrutiny and concern after missing more than 100 House votes due to an undisclosed illness. Voters are deciding which Democrat will run against him in November – and the seat is a must-win for the party. The frontrunner, veteran army trauma surgeon and political newcomer Adam Hamawy, has secured endorsements from the likes of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. My colleague Joseph Gedeon has more:
New Mexico
Contests in the state include primaries for congressional seats, a US Senate seat and a long list of statewide offices, but the governor’s race is the main event. Deb Haaland, who was Joe Biden’s interior secretary, is running for the Democratic nomination, which could put her on a historic path for Native American leaders.
Montana
In Montana, a five-way Democratic fight is under way for the retiring Republican senator’s seat. Independent Seth Bodnar, former president of the University of Montana, is outraising them all at the moment but they’re refusing to step aside, Politico reports this morning.
South Dakota
The race is on for state governor, Sioux Falls mayor, a US Senate and House seat, a Republican primary for local lawmakers. The incumbent GOP governor Larry Rhoden faces three primary challengers in his first run for a full term. He stepped up into the role from the lieutenant governorship when the former governor, the since-ousted Kristi Noem, left to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
Key events Joseph Gedeon
On the day Donald Trump endorsed him as a tireless advocate for New Jersey’s seventh district, the representative Tom Kean Jr was, as he has been since early March, nowhere to be found.
Kean, a New Jersey Republican, was last seen when he cast a House floor vote on 5 March, and he is running unopposed in Tuesday’s Republican primary. The Democratic race in his district, meanwhile, has attracted multiple candidates and ample fundraising.
In late April, his office said he was dealing with a “personal medical issue” and would be back “very soon”. He told the New Jersey Globe last month he expected to return within “the next couple of weeks”. In the meantime, Kean’s social media accounts have continued posting regularly, with staff attending ribbon-cuttings and graduation ceremonies on his behalf. In my home state of New Mexico, voters from both parties will nominate candidates to become the next governor, as Michelle Lujan Grisham is set to step down from the seat she’s filled since 2019. Increasingly recognized as a solidly blue state, the Democratic nominee is likely to win the general election.
Democratic voters will choose to nominate either Deb Haaland, who served as Joe Biden’s interior secretary, or Sam Bregman, the Bernalillo County district attorney. Haaland has polled safely in the lead in the run-up to the election. Her win would be a victory for Native American advocates across the country and a rebuke of the Trump administration.
A single, working mother, Haaland came on the national scene in 2018 when she was elected to Congress alongside a wave of freshman, female lawmakers known as “The Squad” who’d run in reaction to Donald Trump’s election in 2016. Haaland resigned from the House of Representatives in 2021 when Joe Biden chose her to lead his interior department, making her the first Native American to serve in the roll, which includes overseeing much of the nation’s public lands and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
During her time in congress, Haaland – who is from Laguna Pueblo – introduced legislation to stem the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, and as interior secretary she oversaw the formation of a new Missing & Murdered Unit (MMU) within the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Last year, New Mexico became the fourth state in the country to create its own law enforcement alert system for missing Indigenous people. Haaland also launched a historic effort to investigate the legacy of Native American boarding schools.
If elected in the November general election, Haaland would become the first Native American woman governor elected in the country. Haaland has campaigned as a fierce critic of Donald Trump, saying in campaign ads that, “Governors are the first line of defense against the horrific policies of the Trump administration.” Since Trump returned to office, New Mexico has been one of few Democratic strongholds in the south-west – with the state working to shore up protections for abortion patients, transgender people and SNAP and Medicaid recipients.
California’s primary elections, including its fiercely fought gubernatorial contest, will be at the mercy of a notoriously slow vote-counting system after the polls close on Tuesday, and it could be days or even weeks before the outcomes of the tightest races become clear.
Voting experts expect the state’s 58 county elections offices to be deluged with last-minute absentee ballots, as they have been in the last few election cycles, and spend weeks undertaking a painstaking ballot-by-ballot verification process. That presents a procedural problem whenever races are close, as they tend to be in the state’s most competitive congressional districts, and the whole country is left waiting – as it was in 2020, 2022 and 2024 – to find out which party controls the House of Representatives.
Knocking on strangers’ doors on a warm May afternoon in Trenton, New Jersey, Adam Hamawy did not seem fazed when more than a few went unanswered.
It’s his first time running for office, but this is an area where he has experience. After returning from a medical mission in Gaza in 2024, Hamawy went to Washington to describe the crisis – which he viewed as a US-funded genocide – to lawmakers, only to encounter “too many doors that were closed, that didn’t even want to listen”.
“I could only define it as a genocide, because I saw the bodies of the people that came in,” the veteran army trauma surgeon and political newcomer reflected, while walking between houses. “And it wasn’t an accident. You can’t have an accident, every single day for three years.
Rob Sand, the best known Democrat in Iowa, is running to lead a state that Republicans have come to dominate under Donald Trump, and Democrats believe his candidacy for governor could be the breakthrough needed to win key Iowa offices in the November midterm elections. With Trump’s approval ratings deep underwater, gas prices high and historical political trends favoring the party out of power, Democrats this year are considering a comeback in Iowa, putting the state at the center of their campaigns to win back control of both the US House of Representatives and the Senate. On Tuesday, voters will cast ballots in primary elections that set the stage for months of what is likely to be fevered campaigning by candidates of both parties.
“I think this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us to be able to win here in Iowa. I mean, this is a state that has completely hit the bottom,” said Josh Turek, a state representative who is one of two Democrats vying to represent Iowa in the US Senate.
Voters in six states have been casting their ballots in the US midterm election primaries. Here are some of the images from polling stations that have dropped on the news wires today:
Fabiola Cineas
A wave of Democratic doctors, scientists and public health professionals across the country are seeking office in the midterm elections in a rebuke to Donald Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr’s health policies. They share a diagnosis of what ails American governance – disinformation, funding cuts and the rollback of research, among other things – and the belief that their clinical and scientific training equips them to treat it.
They have watched the Trump administration’s health policies play out in their exam rooms, their labs and the communities they serve, and they want to stop the bleeding.
Uwa Ede-Osifo
In California, voters can select any candidate among the long list of gubernatorial hopefuls, regardless of which party they have registered with.
The system was put in place under former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supported the open primary, or “jungle primary”, as a way to create more competition in races that Democrats won year after year. Schwarzenegger, who left office in 2011, was the last Republican elected to statewide office in California. In a crowded race like this year’s gubernatorial primary, the system could cause some unexpected results – such as the possibility that emerged earlier this year of two Republicans advancing to the general election in deep blue California.
That situation now appears unlikely, but the possibility has prompted some Democrats to push to overhaul the way the state votes.
Lucy Campbell
Millions of voters across the country are heading to the polls today in crucial primaries in a slew of key gubernatorial, Senate and House races.
Here’s a quick rundown of what we’re watching: California Iowa New Jersey New Mexico Montana South Dakota The Associated Press contributed reporting
Explained: what is California’s ‘jungle primary’?
Voters are casting ballots on who should lead the nation’s most populous state (and the world’s fourth largest economy), where there is no clear leader among candidates vying to advance in the race to succeed term-limited Democratic governor Gavin Newsom. The race for Los Angeles mayor is also on the ballot, along with a series of high-stakes US House contests in the state’s newly redrawn congressional districts – which are set to play an outsized and potentially decisive role in the battle for power in Washington in November’s midterm elections. My colleague Lauren Gambino has more:
Per my colleague Chris Stein, with Trump’s approval ratings deep underwater, gas prices high and historical political trends favoring the party out of power, Democrats this year are considering a comeback in Iowa, putting the state at the center of their campaigns to win back control of both the US House and the Senate. That effort for a “once-in-a-generation” breakthrough in the GOP-dominated state is being led by pro-hunting Democrat Rob Sand, who is running for governor. Chris wrote about him below. Democrats also believe they have a shot at winning three of the state’s US House seats and a competitive chance at securing a US Senate seat, where the GOP frontrunner recently called Trump’s war on Iran a “political liability”.
One of this year’s most closely watched House midterms will take place in the battleground district currently represented by now-infamous Republican Tom Kean Jr, who has drawn public scrutiny and concern after missing more than 100 House votes due to an undisclosed illness. Voters are deciding which Democrat will run against him in November – and the seat is a must-win for the party. The frontrunner, veteran army trauma surgeon and political newcomer Adam Hamawy, has secured endorsements from the likes of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. My colleague Joseph Gedeon has more:
Contests in the state include primaries for congressional seats, a US Senate seat and a long list of statewide offices, but the governor’s race is the main event. Deb Haaland, who was Joe Biden’s interior secretary, is running for the Democratic nomination, which could put her on a historic path for Native American leaders.
In Montana, a five-way Democratic fight is under way for the retiring Republican senator’s seat. Independent Seth Bodnar, former president of the University of Montana, is outraising them all at the moment but they’re refusing to step aside, Politico reports this morning.
The race is on for state governor, Sioux Falls mayor, a US Senate and House seat, a Republican primary for local lawmakers. The incumbent GOP governor Larry Rhoden faces three primary challengers in his first run for a full term. He stepped up into the role from the lieutenant governorship when the former governor, the since-ousted Kristi Noem, left to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
California
California Democratic gubernatorial candidate criticized over meeting with trans athlete | Fox News Video
‘Fox News @ Night’ panelists Roxanne Hoge and Stella Escobedo discuss the debate over transgender athletes in California and the state’s closely watched mayoral and gubernatorial races.
Roxanne Hoge and Stella Escobedo delve into the latest Berkeley IGS poll, revealing the frontrunners in California’s heated gubernatorial race. The discussion extends to the Los Angeles mayoral race, where candidates Karen Bass and Spencer Pratt are locked in a tight contest. Panelists weigh in on candidate endorsements and the broader political landscape ahead of the upcoming elections.
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