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At least 100 dead and dozens still missing amid devastating floods in Brazil
The death toll from devastating floods that have ravaged southern Brazil for days reached 100 on Wednesday, authorities said, as the search continued for dozens of people still missing.
Nearly 400 municipalities have been affected by the worst natural calamity ever to hit the state of Rio Grande do Sul, with hundreds of people injured and 160,000 forced from their homes.
Many have no access to drinking water or electricity — or even the means to call for help with telephone and internet services down in many places.
On Tuesday, state governor Eduardo Leite had warned the human toll was likely to rise as “the emergency is continuing to develop” in the state capital of Porto Alegre and other cities and towns. Authorities urged people not to return to affected areas due to possible landslides and health hazards.
Andre Penner / AP
“Contaminated water can transmit diseases,” civil defense spokeswoman Sabrina Ribas warned on Wednesday.
Some 15,000 soldiers, firefighters, police and volunteers were at work across the state, many in boats, and even jet skis, to rescue those trapped and transport aid.
Many people are loath to leave their homes for the safety of shelters amid reports of abandoned properties being looted.
The National Confederation of Municipalities said nearly 100,000 homes had been damaged or destroyed by unprecedented rains and floods in the state, with losses estimated at more than $900 million.
Porto Alegre is home to about 1.4 million people and the larger metropolitan area has more than double that number.
The state’s Guaiba River, which runs through Porto Alegre, reached historic levels and five dams are at risk of rupturing.
Carlos Macedo / AP
There were queues at public taps and wells as officials warned that the most urgent need of people stranded by impassable roads, collapsed bridges and flooded homes was drinking water.
Only two of Porto Alegre’s six water treatment plants were functioning, the mayor’s office said Tuesday, and hospitals and shelters were being supplied by tankers.
Helicopters were delivering water and food to communities most in need, while work continued on restoring road access.
The Brazilian Navy was to send its “Atlantic” vessel — Latin America’s largest — to Rio Grande do Sul on Wednesday with two mobile water treatment stations.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has vowed there would be “no lack of resources to meet the needs of Rio Grande do Sul.”
In Gasometro, a part of Porto Alegre popular with tourists, the water continued to rise Wednesday, complicating rescue efforts.
Andre Penner / AP
“You can only cross on foot or by boat. There is no other way,” 30-year-old resident Luan Pas told AFP next to a street turned into a stagnant, smelly river.
Operations at the port of Porto Alegre have been suspended, and its international airport indefinitely closed.
The Air Force said the military base outside town will receive commercial flights transporting aid and passengers.
In a rare dry spot in Porto Alegre’s historic center, dozens of people gathered around a generator rented by a pharmacy to charge their cell phones.
“This is a parallel universe,” said one of them, university professor Daniela da Silva, 30.
The Inmet meteorological institute has warned of more storms with heavy rains and winds in the south of the state and downpours over the weekend in the Porto Alegre region.
Carlos Macedo / AP
The World Meteorological Organization in a report Wednesday, said Latin America and the Caribbean had recorded its warmest year on record in 2023 — “a year of record climatic hazards” for the region due to climate change and the El Nino weather phenomenon.
Many towns and cities in Brazil, it said, were hit by “exceptional rainfall” that caused displacement and massive upheavals.
Due to climate change, extreme or rare events “are becoming more frequent and more extreme,” Jose Marengo, research coordinator at Brazil’s National Center for Natural Disaster Monitoring (Cemaden) told AFP.
According to weather agency MetSul, the flooding has “changed the map of the metropolitan region” of Porto Alegre.
The mother of the embattled hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs released a statement Sunday defending her son against the criminal charges and multiple allegations of sexual misconduct he is currently facing while in federal custody in New York.
Combs, 54, has been detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since pleading not guilty on Sept. 17 to federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
In a statement released through her lawyers, Janice Smalls Combs says it has been “unbearable” to witness “what seems to be like a public lynching of my son before he has had the opportunity to prove his innocence.”
She then mentions that her son “has made mistakes in his past” and refers to an episode caught on security video that appeared to show Combs attacking singer Cassie, his former girlfriend, in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. In May, Combs apologized for the incident, saying his behavior was “inexcusable” and that he took “full responsibility” for his actions.
In November, Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit accusing Combs of rape and abuse during their relationship; he denied the accusations. They reached a settlement the following day.
The indictment against Combs refers to the incident caught by the hotel security cameras. According to the indictment, Combs attempted to bribe a hotel security staff member who intervened in the incident to keep them quiet.
“My son may not have been entirely truthful about certain things, such as denying he has ever gotten violent with an ex-girlfriend when the hotel’s surveillance showed otherwise,” Janice Smalls Combs says in the statement. “Sometimes, the truth and a lie become so closely intertwined that it becomes terrifying to admit one part of the story, especially when that truth is outside the norm or is too complicated to be believed. This is why I believe my son’s civil legal team opted to settle the ex-girlfriend’s lawsuit instead of contesting it until the end, resulting in a ricochet effect as the federal government used this decision against my son by interpreting it as an admission of guilt.”
She adds that it has been “agonizing” to see people joke about her son’s situation “over lies and misconceptions.”
At the end of the statement, she asks fans and the public “to not judge him before you’ve had the chance to hear his side.”
“My son is not the monster they have painted him to be,” she says. “I can only pray that I am alive to see him speak his truth and be vindicated.”
In the indictment, prosecutors allege that since 2008 Combs has been part of a criminal organization that engaged in or attempted to engage in sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, obstruction of justice and other offenses.
Prosecutors accused Combs of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women at events Combs referred to as “Freak Offs.”
“The ‘Freak Offs’ sometimes lasted days at a time, involved multiple commercial sex workers and often involved a variety of narcotics, such as ketamine, ecstasy and GHB, which Combs distributed to the victims to keep them obedient and compliant,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, of the Southern District of New York, told reporters when the indictment was unsealed.
On Oct. 1, Texas attorney Tony Buzbee said he was representing 120 accusers who have come forward with new sexual misconduct allegations against Combs. Buzbee said he expects lawsuits to be filed within the next month. Buzbee described the victims as 60 males and 60 females, and that 25 were minors at the time of the alleged misconduct.
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After days of uncertainty, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Sunday that SpaceX had been cleared to press ahead with the planned Monday launch of the European Space Agency’s $398 million Hera asteroid probe, stormy weather permitting.
With forecasters calling for an 85% chance of thick clouds and showers that would trigger a delay, Hera’s launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is targeted for 10:52 a.m. EDT Monday. The forecast is 75% “no-go” if launch is delayed to Tuesday.
“The last hurdle is the weather. So, please, please, I need you to do something about it!” Hera project manager Ian Carnelli joked with reporters Sunday. “It’s the only thing I really cannot control. … It looks like we have some opening around the time of launch, but it’s really impossible to say at the moment.”
ESA
Hurricane Milton, meanwhile, poses threats throughout the week as the cyclone is expected to cross the Florida peninsula Wednesday and move out over the Atlantic Ocean near Florida’s Space Coast.
Launch of NASA’s $5.2 billion Europa Clipper mission, which had been planned for Thursday from the Kennedy Space Center, has been put on hold pending passage of the storm.
“The safety of launch team personnel is our highest priority, and all precautions will be taken to protect the Europa Clipper spacecraft,” said Tim Dunn, a senior launch director with NASA’s Launch Services Program.
“Once we have the ‘all-clear’ followed by facility assessment and any recovery actions, we will determine the next launch opportunity.”
Likewise, the return to Earth of three astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon ferry ship has been delayed by predicted bad weather.
Crew 8 commander Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, launched to the International Space Station last March. They had planned to undock Monday, returning to Earth to close out a 217-day mission.
National Weather Service
But NASA announced Sunday their departure would be delayed to at least Thursday because of expected bad weather. Crew Dragon ferry ships require calm winds and seas in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean to permit a safe splashdown.
As for the Falcon 9, the FAA clearance only applied to the Hera launch while the agency continues overseeing an investigation into what caused a Falcon 9 second stage to malfunction Sept. 28 and miss its targeted re-entry point into Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.
SpaceX routinely sends spent second stages into the atmosphere for destructive breakups at the end of their missions to prevent possible collisions or other problems that might add to the space debris already in low-Earth orbit.
The FAA wants to make sure the problem is understood and corrected so future re-entries are carried out as planned, ensuring any debris that survives re-entry heating will splash down harmlessly in targeted ocean impact “footprints,” well away from shipping lanes and populated areas.
The second stage being used for the Hera mission will boost the space probe into deep space, using all of its propellant in the process. It will not return to Earth, so a malfunction, should one occur, would pose no safety threat.
“The FAA has determined that the absence of a second stage reentry for this mission adequately mitigates the primary risk to the public in the event of a reoccurrance of the mishap experienced with the Crew-9 mission,” the agency said in a statement, referring to the most recent Falcon 9 flight.
NASA
“Safety will drive the timeline for the FAA to complete its review of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mishap investigation report and when the agency will authorize Falcon 9 to return to regular operations,” the statement concluded.
The FAA did not address plans to launch the Europa Clipper atop a Falcon Heavy rocket Thursday for its long-awaited mission to Jupiter and its ice-covered moon Europa.
Like the Hera mission, the Clipper’s upper stage, the same one used for all Falcon-family rockets, will not return to Earth. Instead, it will burn all of its propellants to accelerate the probe to an Earth-escape velocity of 25,000 mph.
But FAA clearance to proceed, assuming it comes in time, likely will be a moot point, at least in the near term. It is unlikely the Clipper and its Falcon Heavy rocket will be moved to the Kennedy Space Center launch pad until after Milton has passed through the area.
