The latest in a damaging succession of storm systems blew into California on Saturday, bringing heavy flooding to already waterlogged regions and threatening snowfalls of up to six feet (two meters) in areas.
The latest system was expected to bring "heavy lower-elevation rain, significant mountain snow, and strong winds," with "another surge of Pacific moisture" expected Monday, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.
It predicted "disastrous flooding" across the lower Salinas River valley, an important agricultural region south of San Francisco Bay.
An AFP journalist saw the Salinas River overtopping its banks in many spots, at times covering farm fields for hundreds of yards (meters), even as the rain continued under leaden skies.
In Spreckels, a community a few hundred yards from the river, most residents had opted not to evacuate despite warnings from authorities.
A few miles away, 30-year-old farm worker Erick Diaz watched the flooded fields from his modest home located near the river. Despite evacuation orders, he too had remained.
"I have nowhere to go and for the moment everything is fine," he said.
Governor Gavin Newsom, however, warned Californians that they were not in the clear yet.
"We're not done," he said Saturday after visiting residents impacted by the storms.
Urging residents to remain vigilant, he said Californians should continue to exercise "common sense over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours."
Nearly 26,000 Californians remained under a flood watch Saturday evening, according to the NWS, with tens of thousands ordered to evacuate.
The storms of recent weeks were originally welcomed -- coming after years of drought -- but by now have brought "disastrous" flooding, officials say.
Around 2330 GMT, there were approximately 20,000 homes without power, according to poweroutage.us.
At least 19 people are known to have died from storm-related causes.
"This place was hit hard by the drought over the past years," 58-year-old farm worker Manuel Paris told AFP near Salinas, adding, "We're not used to this much rain anymore."
The NWS said an additional two to three inches of rain (5.0 to 7.5 centimeters) could cause new flooding and mudslides, with parts of the Sierra Nevada seeing three to six feet of snow, and heavy winds buffeting central and coastal California at up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) per hour......more below
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/01/15/696346/New-storms-California-disastrous-floods
China has suspended several 2025 export controls on strategic materials — including rare earths, superhard materials, and lithium batteries – for a year. Is this a concession to the US, or a move in a far more complex game?
"The first aim of China’s export controls was to consolidate its leverage in negotiations. The second was to establish a long-term framework for managing such controls," says Yana Leksyutina, deputy director at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).
Сhina could activate this mechanism at any moment, and now everyone knows it’s a lever it holds, she explains to Sputnik.
Balancing the Mineral Market
"The moratorium on export bans to the US essentially resets the rare earth market to where it was previously," Jeff J. Brown, author of 'The China Trilogy' and founder of Seek Truth From Facts Foundation, tells Sputnik.
In the meantime, there will be a global rush by the US and its NATO allies to acquire as many rare earth ...
The Israeli regime has reportedly signed contracts worth millions of dollars in recent months to sway American public opinion as part of attempts to launder the occupying entity’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that the multimillion-dollar campaign aimed to reshape US public opinion, both online and offline, through coordinated influence operations combining digital marketing, AI, geotagging, and religious messaging.
The contracts, signed between the Israeli regime and firms linked to US President Donald Trump, reveal a “hasbara [propaganda] campaign” and schemes to target millions of US churchgoers, deploy bots, hire influencers, and try to make ChatGPT more pro-Israel.
The largest contract, worth $6 million, was signed with Clock Tower X, owned by Trump’s former digital campaign chief Brad Parscale, to produce and distribute roughly 100 core pieces of pro-Israel content per month and thousands......
