Flooding, debris flow possible as rain slams Los Angeles; evacuation orders issued
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Dangerous, heavy rain is pounding the Los Angeles area, bringing a threat of flooding and debris flow to spots impacted by the recent devastating wildfires.
The rain will fluctuate from heavy to moderate to light throughout the morning, and rates may approach 1 inch per hour on steeper terrain.
One to 2 inches of rain is expected in the LA area, with more rain possible at higher elevations.
The rain will reach San Diego on Thursday morning and will end across Southern California in the afternoon.
Over 20 million people from the Los Angeles area to the San Diego area are under a flood watch.
The greatest risk for flooding and debris flow is in burn scar areas left by wildfires.
The burn scars and mountains around San Diego — where 1 to 3 inches of rain is expected — are the greatest risk for debris flows and rockslides.
In LA County, evacuation orders and warnings were issued for some burn scar areas impacted by January’s devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, according to the sheriff’s department and the mayor’s office.
“Wireless Emergency Alerts have been sent to targeted areas in and around where the Evacuation Warnings and Orders will be in effect,” the mayor’s office said.
The two nuclear reactors at FPL Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, in Homestead, Florida. (D.A. Varela/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Like a radioactive hot potato, a solution to America’s growing stockpile of nuclear waste keeps getting passed around.
The issue lands before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in a dispute from Texas over the federal government’s authority to allow temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel at privately owned facilities far from reactors.
The justices are being asked to reject the arrangement, even though it’s far from clear where the highly toxic waste would go.
Congress remains at an impasse over plans first approved more than 40 years ago to hold all of the country’s nuclear waste at a single permanent, underground federal facility, which has never been completed.
There are more than 91,000 metric tons of radioactive waste from U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, according to the Energy Department. The waste remains dangerous for thousands of years and must be carefully managed.
Plaintiffs in the high court case, including the state of Texas and a group of landowners, are seeking to block Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval of a private nuclear waste storage facility in the Permian Basin, an area rich with oil deposits and limited sources of safe drinking water near the New Mexico border.
Congress in 1954 gave the commission near exclusive control over the possession and transfer of nuclear material in the U.S., including the ability to issue licenses to private entities to store it in its various forms.
In 1982, lawmakers authorized creation of a federal nuclear waste site, later designated as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and encouraged interim waste storage by private energy companies at power plants while construction moved forward.
Texas argues that because neither law makes explicit mention of storing nuclear waste at private facilities, far from the reactors where it was generated, the commission lacks the authority to issue a license.
A federal appeals court agreed, blocking construction.
“What to do with the nation’s spent nuclear fuel implicates a host of difficult technological, environmental, and political considerations. Thankfully, that policy debate is not this Court’s concern,” Texas argues in its brief to the high court. “Because Congress has decided how to handle spent nuclear fuel, all that matters is that Yucca Mountain is not in Texas and [a private storage company] is not the federal government.”
The commission insists its broad power includes a clear right to authorize temporary, privately run nuclear storage sites and that they are an imperative for the nation.
Roughly 20% of the energy consumed in the U.S. is nuclear powered, resulting in more than 2,000 metric tons of radioactive waste every year. It all has to go somewhere.
“Such storage is essential to continued operations because no currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades,” the government argues in court documents.
The contested site in Texas, which would be run by Interim Storage Partners, had been approved by the commission to accept up to 5,000 metric tons of nuclear waste per year for 40 years.
The company told the justices in its legal brief that invalidating government authority to send nuclear waste to privately owned sites would be “destabilizing and potentially devastating to a critical industry at a critical time.”
“Utilities are forced to deal with spent nuclear fuel storage issues on a larger scale than anyone would have liked or anticipated,” the company wrote.
A ruling in favor of the government would allow the Texas storage facility to move forward. A decision in favor of the state could scuttle the plan and upend previously approved licenses for at least a dozen other privately owned nuclear waste storage locations.
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision by the end of June.
Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Department of Transportation said the Federal Highway Administration has “terminated approval” of New York City’s congestion pricing plan, the first of its kind in the nation, which went into effect earlier this year.
The DOT shared a letter from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, in which he said a review found that the “scope of this pilot project as approved exceeds the authority authorized by Congress” under the Federal Highway Administration’s Value Pricing Pilot Program.
“New York State’s congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners,” Duffy said in a statement on Wednesday. “Commuters using the highway system to enter New York City have already financed the construction and improvement of these highways through the payment of gas taxes and other taxes. But now the toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways. It’s backwards and unfair.”
In response to the letter, a New York state official said that whatever the Trump administration intends, the state will fight in court to preserve congestion pricing.
The congestion pricing plan, which launched on Jan. 5, newly charged passenger vehicles $9 to access Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours as part of an effort to ease congestion and raise funds for the city’s public transit system. During peak hours, small trucks and charter buses were charged $14.40 and large trucks and tour buses $21.60.
On Donald Trump’s first day in office, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy asked the president and his administration to “reexamine” the highly debated congestion pricing plan and its impact on the Garden State.
In a letter to Trump, Murphy requested that “New York’s congestion pricing scheme receive the close look it deserved but did not receive from the federal government last year.”
In his letter to Hochul, Duffy noted that Trump asked him to review the Federal Highway Administration’s approval of the congestion pricing program upon assuming his position as secretary last month.
“In particular, the President expressed his concerns about the extent of the tolling that was approved by the Department of Transportation on highways that have been constructed with funds under the Federal-aid Highway Program and the significant burdens on the New York City residents, businesses, and area commuters (including those from New Jersey and Connecticut) who regularly use the highway network in the CBD tolling area,” Duffy said.
Duffy also mentioned Murphy’s letter to Trump, in which the governor “expressed significant concerns about the impacts that the imposition of tolls” on New Jersey commuters and residents.
The secretary also said there are pending legal challenges over the plan “which question whether the scope of the project exceeds the authority of VPPP.”
Duffy said the Federal Highway Administration will contact the New York State Department of Transportation “to discuss the orderly cessation of toll operations under this terminated pilot project.”
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which manages the city’s subways as well as bridges and commuter rails, has said the toll would enable it to issue $15 billion in bonds to help fund capital projects.
In response to Murphy’s letter to Trump, Hochul told reporters that if the congestion pricing plan is ultimately killed, “that comes with $15 billion more” the federal government will need to give to New York.
(CAPE CANAVERAL, FL) — The two NASA astronauts whose return to Earth was delayed for months have just splashed down to Earth.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission, carrying astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, successfully landed off the coast of Florida after undocking from the International Space Station and traveling approximately 17 hours on its return mission to Earth, according to SpaceX.
The splashdown occurred at approximately 5:57 p.m. ET off the Tallahassee, Florida, coast.
When the spacecraft entered the atmosphere, its heat shield generated temperatures that reached more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to SpaceX.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were also onboard the craft as it undocked at about 1:05 a.m. ET.
Williams and Wilmore had in June 2024 performed the first astronaut-crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. What was expected to be a weeklong trip to the ISS instead turned into a nine-month stay. The Boeing Starliner that was expected to carry them home after about 10 days experienced issues, leaving the pair at the station for months.
Their return spacecraft early on Tuesday maneuvered in space, moving above and behind the station, before firing a series of departure burns that sent it back toward Earth.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Matthew Glasser and Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
