More than 100 confirmed dead in wake of Hurricane Helene – as Joe Biden promises support ‘until the job is done’
Joe Biden has said his government will support states affected by Hurricane Helene “until the job is done” after the devastating storm left more than 100 people dead in the southeast of the US.
The American president spoke on Monday as 600 people remain unaccounted for days after Helene left a trail of destruction across several states – with deaths reported in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina and Virginia.
Authorities are still struggling to get water and other supplies to isolated areas affected by floods while millions remain without power.
Mr Biden said he has spoken with the governors of Georgia and North Carolina and that he expects to visit areas affected by the hurricane later this week.
He added that he “may have to request” that Congress returns for a special session to pass a supplemental funding package to help those affected.
“We will be there with you as long as it takes,” the president said.
“The Biden-Harris administration will be there until the job is done.”
Mr Biden was speaking days after the Category 4 hurricane struck the coast of Florida with 140mph winds before battering several states.
The storm unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina where officials have pledged to get more water and supplies to affected areas – with 30 people having been killed in Buncombe County.
Debris lies where homes used to be before Hurricane Helene was unleashed upon Florida. Pic: Reuters
North Carolina governor Roy Cooper predicted the number of deaths in the state would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, broken infrastructure and widespread flooding.
More than 50 search teams have spread throughout the region looking for stranded people.
One rescue effort involved saving 41 people north of the isolated city of Asheville. Another mission focused on saving a single infant.
Mr Biden has told Mr Cooper he expects to visit North Carolina on either Wednesday or Thursday.
Read more:
Hurricane Helene seen from space
Weather reporter abandons live broadcast to rescue trapped woman
Vehicles were hurled off the roads, in Asheville, North Carolina. Pic: Reuters
It comes as supplies have been airlifted to the region around Asheville, with Buncombe County manager Avril Pinder pledging to have food and water in the city by Monday.
“We hear you,” Ms Pinder told reporters. “We need food and we need water.
“My staff has been making every request possible to the state for support and we’ve been working with every single organisation that has reached out. What I promise you is that we are very close.”
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Hurricane lashes cars on Florida bridge
It comes as vice president Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for this year’s US election, has returned early from a campaign visit to Las Vegas to attend briefings about the hurricane.
Meanwhile, Republican candidate Donald Trump heads to Georgia to see the storm’s impact.
Speaking in the city of Erie in Pennsylvania on Sunday, Mr Trump described Helene as “a big monster hurricane” that had “hit a lot harder than anyone even thought possible”.
Hurricane Helene roared ashore in Florida late on Thursday before it weakened and moved through Georgia, then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains that flooded creeks and rivers and strained dams.
A drone view shows the damage caused by Hurricane Helene in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Pic: Reuters
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Teenager rescued from flood
There have been hundreds of water rescues, including in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop on Friday.
More than two million homeowners and other utility customers were still without power on Sunday night. South Carolina had the most outages and governor Henry McMaster asked for patience as crews dealt with widespread snapped power poles.
“We want people to remain calm. Help is on the way, it is just going to take time,” Mr McMaster told reporters outside the airport in Aiken County.
Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against the BBC, alleging the corporation’s Panorama documentary portrayed him in a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious” manner.
The complaint relates to the broadcaster’s editing of a speech he made in 2021 on the day his supporters overran the Capitol building.
Clips were spliced together from sections of the US president‘s speech on January 6 2021 to make it appear he told supporters he was going to walk to the US Capitol with them to “fight like hell”.
It aired in the documentary Trump: A Second Chance?, which was broadcast by the BBC the week before last year’s US election.
The US president is seeking damages of no less than $5bn (£3.7bn).
He has also sued for $5bn for alleged violation of a trade practices law. Both lawsuits have been filed in Florida.
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BBC crisis: How did it happen?
‘They put words in my mouth’
Speaking in the Oval Office earlier on Monday, he said: “In a little while, you’ll be seeing I’m suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth.
“Literally, they put words in my mouth. They had me saying things that I never said coming out.”
The scandal erupted earlier this year after a leaked memo highlighted concerns over the way the clips were edited.
After the leak, BBC chair Samir Shah apologised on behalf of the broadcaster over an “error of judgement” and accepted the editing of the 2024 documentary gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action”.
The fallout from the saga led to the resignation of both the BBC director-general Tim Davie and the head of news Deborah Turness.
Earlier, BBC News reported the broadcaster had set out five main arguments in a letter to Mr Trump’s legal team as to why it did not believe there was a basis for a defamation claim.
In November, the BBC officially apologised to the president, adding that it was an “error of judgement” and saying the programme will “not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms”.
A spokesperson said “the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited,” but they also added that “we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim”.
Four people have been charged with plotting New Year’s Eve bomb attacks in California.
Federal authorities in the US said the four are allegedly part of an extremist group which is suspected of planning the attacks in southern California.
The plot consisted of planting explosive devices at five locations targeting two US companies at midnight on New Year’s Eve in the Los Angeles area.
The suspects were arrested last week in Lucerne Valley, a desert city east of Los Angeles.
Photos of suspects of the terror plot are shown on a screen during a press conference. Pic: AP
They are said to be members of an offshoot of a pro-Palestinian, anti-government and anti-capitalist group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front, the complaint said.
As well as the alleged plan against the two companies, the group also planned to target Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and vehicles, attorney general Pam Bondi said.
The four defendants named in the complaint are Audrey Illeene Carroll, Zachary Aaron Page, Dante Gaffield, and Tina Lai.
All four are from the Los Angeles area, according to first assistant US attorney Bill Essayli.
The alleged plot
According to a sworn statement by the complaint, Carroll showed an eight-page handwritten document to a paid confidential source in November, which described a bomb plot.
The document was titled “Operation Midnight”.
Essayli said one of the suspects created a detailed plan that “included step-by-step instructions to build IEDs (improvised explosive device)… and listed multiple targets across Orange County and Los Angeles.”
FBI assistant director in charge Akil Davis speaks at a press briefing on the incident. Pic: AP
Carroll and Page are then alleged to have recruited the other two defendants to help them carry out the plan which included acquiring bomb-making materials before constructing and performing test detonations.
Under the plan, the defendants would supposedly have travelled to a remote location in the Mojave Desert on the 12 December to construct and detonate their test explosive devices, the sworn statement alleges.
Evidence photos included in the court documents show a desert campsite with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.
The FBI said agents intervened before the defendants could complete their work to assemble a functional explosive device.
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The shock of a shooting will cut deeply – but if anywhere can find hope in the face of despair, Providence can
“Most of us live off hope” – the text of a colourful mural, painted on a wall on Hope Street, Providence.
On most days, the neighbourhood around Brown University feels like a place of quiet optimism, swimming against the negative tide.
Hope Street’s mural
The shock of a shooting, that has claimed two lives and left eight others critically wounded, will cut deeply here.
Violence feels not just intrusive but incompatible with the spirit of a place that is governed by thought, not threat.
When the university president said “this is a day we hoped would never come”, she spoke for the whole town.
Two students were killed in the attack
Providence, Rhode Island, is a place I know well. My daughter, her husband and their two little girls live there.
It is a college town with a college vibe, the compact campus priding itself on openness – architecturally, intellectually and emotionally.
They rehearse “shelter-in-place” scenarios, as every university does, but they are not experienced at living behind locked doors.
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‘Stay inside,’ mayor warns as suspect still at large
Rhode Island, the smallest state, has one of the lowest gun-death rates in America, zero mass shooting events in 2024.
Earlier this year, the state banned the sale and manufacture of assault weapons, but it didn’t include those already owned.
Even in a Democratic, liberal state like Rhode Island, they are struggling to find a solution to America’s gun problem.
People hug each other outside Brown University in Providence after the shooting. Pic: Reuters
The age-old constitutional right to bear arms continues to trump the most human of all rights – the right to life.
This is a community that assumes safety, not because it is naïve, but because it has grown accustomed to trust.
College Hill rises in gentle brick and ivy, its narrow streets winding past houses with verandas designed for long conversations.
They take place in hushed tones right now, but if anywhere can find its way out of despair, Providence can.
On the historic street along its east side and in the college on the corner, most people live off hope.
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