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The entire community of Montecito and surrounding canyons have been ordered to evacuate after California was hits by severe storms.

The evacuation order, affecting about 10,000 people, came on the fifth anniversary of a mudslide that killed 23 and destroyed more than 100 homes in the coastal enclave.

Montecito is home to a host of celebrities, including the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said the decision to evacuate came “based on the continuing high rate of rainfall with no indication that that is going to change before nightfall”.

Evacuation orders were also issued for around 32,000 residents of Santa Cruz County living near rapidly rising rivers and creeks, according to the deputy county administrative officer, Melodye Serino.

It comes as California continues to be hit by a series of powerful storms that have forced schools to close, toppled trees and left thousands without power.

The San Lorenzo River was declared at flood stage, and video on social media showed a neighbourhood flooded with muddy water surging up to a stop sign.

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Mudslides in mountainous areas have blocked roads, and officials are urging residents to stay at home.

In northern California, several districts closed schools because of the storms.

A tree collapsed and ripped up the sidewalk damaging a home in Sacramento. Pic: AP
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A tree collapsed and ripped up the sidewalk damaging a home in Sacramento. Pic: AP

More than 35,000 people remained without power in Sacramento, down from more than 350,000 a day earlier after gusts of 60mph knocked trees into power lines, according to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

The National Weather Service warned of a “relentless parade of atmospheric rivers” – long plumes of moisture stretching out into the Pacific Ocean which are capable of deluging vast quantities of rain.

The rain and snow expected over the next couple of days comes after the Golden State was walloped by storms that only last week knocked out power to thousands, flooded streets, and battered the coastline.

President Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration Monday for California to support storm response and relief efforts in more than a dozen counties including Sacramento, Santa Cruz and Los Angeles.

Governor Gavin Newsom said 12 people had died as a result the extreme weather during the past 10 days and warned that this week’s storms could be even more dangerous.

 Heavy winds from an overnight storm downed trees and power lines
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Heavy winds from an overnight storm downed trees and power lines
A bicyclist rides near mud and debris on a closed road near Fort Point in San Francisco. Pic: AP
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A cyclist rides near mud and debris on a closed road near Fort Point in San Francisco. Pic: AP

The warning came on the fifth anniversary of a mudslide that killed 23 people and destroyed more than 100 homes in the coastal community of Montecito following a powerful storm.

The first of the newest, heavier storms prompted the weather service to issue a flood watch for a large portion of Northern and Central California, with six to 12 inches of rain expected on Wednesday.

Read more:
What is a bomb cyclone?

 Heavy winds from an overnight storm downed trees and power lines
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Heavy winds from an overnight storm downed trees and power lines

About 70 miles south of San Francisco in the coastal community of Aptos, crews put down sandbags ahead of high tide after the area flooded last week.

In the Los Angeles area, stormy conditions were expected late on Monday and Tuesday, with the potential for as much as eight inches of rain.

Since Boxing Day, San Francisco has had more than 10 inches of rain, while Mammoth Mountain, a popular ski area in the Eastern Sierra, got nearly 10ft of snow, according to the National Weather Service.

Big waves have brought out the Golden State's surfers despite the danger
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Big waves have brought out the Golden State’s surfers despite the danger

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Californians can expect to see a break in the rain after 18 January.

“That is my best guess right now, which is good because it will give the rivers in Northern California, and now in Central California, a chance to come down,” he said.

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Trump and Putin’s first meeting in years does not necessarily mean a ceasefire in Ukraine

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Trump and Putin's first meeting in years does not necessarily mean a ceasefire in Ukraine

It could be diplomatic dynamite.

The first meeting between a sitting US and Russian president in more than four years, following one of the bleakest periods in the history of their countries’ bilateral relations.

But a PutinTrump summit does not necessarily mean there will be a ceasefire.

Ukraine war latest: Kremlin aide’s full statement on Trump-Putin talks

On the one hand, it could signal that a point of agreement has been reached and a face-to-face meeting is needed to seal the deal.

That has always been Russia’s stance. It’s consistently said it would only meet at a presidential level if there’s something to agree on.

On the other hand, there might not be anything substantive. It might just be for show.

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‘Good chance’ Trump will meet Putin soon

It might just be the latest attempt by the Kremlin to diffuse Donald Trump’s anger and dodge his deadline to end the war by Friday or face sanctions.

It would give Trump something that can be presented as progress, but in reality, it delivers anything but.

After all, there has certainly not been any sign that Moscow is willing to soften its negotiating position or step back from its goals on the battlefield.

Tellingly, perhaps, it’s this latter view which has been taken by some of the Russian press on Thursday.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have not met face to face since the US president returned to the White House. File pic: Reuters
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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have not met face to face since the US president returned to the White House. File pic: Reuters

“Putin won” is the headline in Moskovsky Komsomolets regarding the Kremlin leader’s meeting with Witkoff.

The state-run tabloid quotes a political scientist, Marat Bashirov, who claims Putin “bought time” ahead of Friday’s deadline.

“It is noteworthy that in his rhetoric [on sanctions] Trump did not mention Russia at all,” the paper notes.

Komsomolskaya Pravda is similarly dismissive.

“Donald Trump has two simple interests in connection with Ukraine: to earn money for America, and political whistles and the Nobel Peace Prize for himself,” it says.

“Russia has its own interests,” it adds, “securing them is what Vladimir Putin will seek at a meeting with Trump.”

At this stage, the most likely location is the United Arab Emirates. Putin met the country’s president in the Kremlin today, and afterwards said it would be a “suitable location”. It felt like a strong hint.

And the UAE certainly makes sense.

It’s played mediator for a number of the prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine; it has good relations with the US (and was one of Trump’s stops on his recent Middle East tour); and most importantly for Moscow, it’s not a member of the International Criminal Court. So Putin doesn’t have to worry about being arrested.

But if NBC’s reports are correct, that a Putin-Trump summit is conditional on the Russian president meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then the summit may not happen at all.

Read more on Russia and Ukraine:
Trump went from frustration to a possible Putin meeting in hours
What could a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine involve?
India hints it will keep buying Russian oil – despite Trump threats

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Until now, Putin has refused to meet Zelenskyy, despite numerous demands from Kyiv, because he views him as illegitimate.

The Kremlin said the prospect of a trilateral meeting between the leaders was mentioned by Witkoff on Wednesday, but the proposal was left “completely without comment” by Russia.

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OpenAI releases long-awaited GPT-5 AI chatbot upgrade

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OpenAI releases long-awaited GPT-5 AI chatbot upgrade

GPT-5, the long-awaited upgrade to the ChatGPT AI chatbot, has been released by its maker OpenAI.

It has been one of the most highly anticipated launches in Silicon Valley after OpenAI’s first offering ChatGPT – powered by its GPT-3 model – kick-started the current AI boom in late 2022.

“GPT-3 sort of felt like talking to a high school student,” said Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive.

“GPT-4, maybe it was like talking to a college student. But with GPT-5, now it’s like talking to an expert, a PhD-level expert in anything, any area you need, on demand.”

At the launch event, OpenAI claimed the new chatbot, which will be released to all ChatGPT users on Thursday, was more than a simple upgrade to its previous offerings.

According to OpenAI, the new model exceeds the chatbot competition from the likes of Google, X and Antropic on “benchmarks” – standardised tests used to rank models.

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OpenAI claims it has been designed to be easier and more natural to communicate with, better at writing prose and advanced computer code, solving academic questions from mathematics to law, assisting with healthcare-related questions, as well as being safer than its predecessors.

“It’s an incredible superpower on demand,” claimed Mr Altman.

GPT-5. Pic: OpenAI
Image:
GPT-5. Pic: OpenAI

The model is also more intelligent in how it uses its own brain power – and therefore an expensive computing resource – according to OpenAI.

It is a hybrid of previous chatbots and slower, more computing-intensive “reasoning” models like OpenAI’s Deep Research.

Based on a user’s request, the model will decide how much “thinking” is required before answering, rather than requiring the user to switch between different models.

GPT-5. Pic: OpenAI
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GPT-5. Pic: OpenAI

Although AI enthusiasts who had been expecting GPT-5 to represent “artificial general intelligence [AGI]” will be disappointed.

Despite this being OpenAI’s stated goal, Mr Altman billed GPT-5 as a “major upgrade” to GPT-4 and a “significant step along the path to AGI”.

But they’re clearly not there yet.

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July: ‘ChatGPT is the partner I always wanted’

A real test of GPT-5 will be whether it sells.

OpenAI is projected to spend $8bn (£6bn) this year, on top of $5bn (£3.7bn) last year, and while it is expected to make a profit this year, the business case for increasingly powerful AI models is still not clear to many investors.

Given a single training run for GPT-5 is rumoured to have cost $500m (£373m), there will be an expectation the new model is significantly more useful to business users.

Despite a very slick demonstration of its coding skills at the launch presentation, where it built an online language learning game in seconds, GPT-5 will have to prove its worth for professional coding.

Many in the tech industry prefer Anthropic AI’s Claude model to write code. OpenAI and its investors will be hoping GPT-5 changes that.

AI experts will also be testing GPT-5’s tendency to “hallucinate”, an issue OpenAI claims to have improved with GPT-5.

But erroneous or bizarre answers are a problem that dogs all large generative AI models.

“Shiny things are always fun to play with, and I fully expect GPT-5 to be the shiniest so far,” said Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist at New York University and AI commentator.

“But that doesn’t mean that it is a critical step on the optimal path to AI that we can trust,” Mr Marcus added in a post.

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Ex-Superman Dean Cain to join ICE ‘ASAP’ to ‘save America’

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Ex-Superman Dean Cain to join ICE 'ASAP' to 'save America'

Dean Cain has been branded the “worst superman ever” as he announced he will join the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “ASAP”.

The 59-year-old, who was cast as Superman in the TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, announced he had joined the team amid the federal agency’s unprecedented immigration raids.

He told Fox News on Wednesday his recruitment video on Instagram had gone viral and since then, “I have spoken with some of the officials over at ICE and I will be sworn in as an ICE agent ASAP”.

“You can defend your homeland and get great benefits,” he said in the Instagram post where he appealed for his followers to join ICE.

Speaking with the Superman theme song in the background, he said “hundreds of thousands of criminals” had been arrested since US President Donald Trump took office.

He then told his followers they would get a series of benefits if they joined ICE, including a $50,000 (£37,407) signing bonus and student loan repayment.

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Who is being targeted in Trump’s immigration raids?

Read more:
Farmer becomes first person to die during Trump’s ICE raids
Meet the volunteers leading the fight against Trump’s immigration raids

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“If you want to help save America ICE is arresting the worst of the worst and removing them from America’s streets,” he said, before adding: “I voted for that.”

ICE agents are under pressure from the White House to boost their deportation numbers in line with Mr Trump’s campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration.

Cain’s post on Instagram received some backlash, with one user commenting: “Worst superman ever”.

Another said: “Shame on you Dean – that’s the most un-Superman thing you could possibly advocate.”

One fan turned against him and said: “Until I saw this I was such a fan. What a sad human being you must be.”

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