Hurricane Ian: An entire seafront levelled – no one expected this storm to be so vicious and so damaging
It is the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico that bring people to Fort Myers Beach – but on Wednesday afternoon, they unleashed the fury of Hurricane Ian.
A tsunami-like storm surge, three metres (10ft) high in places, washed away homes and businesses.
Early reports of ‘substantial loss of life’ – Hurricane Ian updates
The seafront has been levelled – now littered with the remnants of the shops and restaurants that made it a bustling tourist resort.
T-shirts and baseball caps from a souvenir store, pots, and pans from a seafood cafe and glasses from a bar are partly obscured by brown sludge, a reminder of what once was.
A little further down the road, a staircase is all that remains of the orange house on the beach front.
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Residents describe escaping the eye of the storm
Dramatic before and after images show scale of destruction
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Widespread destruction in Florida
‘They were washed away’
The story of its occupants is told by their neighbour, Ron Shepherd, who watched as the house was lifted from its foundations by a torrent of water.
“I was on the balcony and could see it floating by,” he says.
“There were three people and a dog inside, and we were shouting to them to get out and grab hold of another house that they were passing that was unoccupied. They got out, but they were washed away.
“One guy held onto a palm tree for two minutes, but then he was gone, the water was moving so fast.”
‘I’ve never seen anything like this’
Nobody who remained in Fort Myers Beach as Hurricane Ian made landfall expected it to be so vicious or to do such extensive damage.
Wyatt and Brooke Jordan stayed in a building just back from the seafront with their four children.
“The water came up pretty fast,” Wyatt said.
“I’ve lived in Florida my whole life, and I’ve never seen anything like this. We went to bed on Tuesday night and thought it was heading for Tampa, and then we woke up, and it was coming for us.”
So many people seem to have been surprised by the path this storm took – but also the vast area it covered and how slowly it moved.
It is this that will result in the highest cost for Florida, both in lives lost and the recovery.
It is certainly big – 940 pages long – but on the question of beauty, Congress is divided.
Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” has sparked ugly debate – both for its ambitious scope and for the political manoeuvring that’s gone on around it.
Elon Musk branded it “political suicide” for Republicans and threatened to fund challenges against those who back it in next year’s midterm elections.
But the president hit back, suggesting he would consider cutting Musk’s lucrative government contracts or even deporting him back to South Africa.
The “big, beautiful bill”, or HR 1 to give the proposed legislation its proper title, is Mr Trump’s signature spending and tax policy.
It extends tax cuts he secured in 2017 and bankrolls his second-term agenda in the White House.
File pic: Reuters
Here is a summary of the key points:
• Permanent tax cuts: Extending relief from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
• Small business support: Doubling the small business expensing limit to $2.5m (£1.8m) to help businesses expand and hire staff
• Child tax credit: Expanding the child tax credit and making it permanent, benefiting 40 million families
• Making housing affordable: Expanding the low-income housing tax credit to kickstart construction of affordable homes
• Defence and border security: Allocating $170bn (£123bn) for border security alone, including $46bn (£33bn) for completing the border wall
• Made-in-America incentives: Providing tax breaks and incentives for domestic manufacturing to promote US industry
• Healthcare and social welfare: Implementing restrictions on Medicaid, which provides healthcare for millions of Americans, and reducing funding for certain healthcare and nutrition programmes.
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Clash over ‘monster’ debt bill
Musk, Mr Trump’s former ally and the man who established the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), claimed the bill “raises the debt ceiling by $5trn, the biggest increase in history.”
“DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon,” was President Trump’s response.
The national debt currently stands at $37trn (£27trn) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the bill could add $2.4trn (£1.7trn) to that over the next decade.
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Trump threatens to ‘put DOGE’ on Musk
Bill splits Republican ranks
Republican Senator Thom Tillis voted against the bill and, following criticism from the president, announced he would not seek re-election in North Carolina.
He said he couldn’t support it due to his concerns about the impact cuts to Medicaid would have on people in his state.
Democrats in the Senate forced a full reading of all 940 pages and then a vote-a-rama, a series of marathon voting sessions.
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In the House of Representatives, it passed by a single vote, 215-214. In the Senate, Vice President JD Vance, had to cast the deciding vote to break a tie (50-50).
Legislatively, the progress of the bill has been a case study in the complexities of American law-making.
Strategically, it represents a mammoth effort to consolidate the president’s policy agenda and secure his legacy.
In the long Gaza war, this is a significant moment.
For the people of Gaza, for the Israeli hostages and their families – this could be the moment it ends. But we have been here before, so many times.
The key question – will Hamas accept what Israel has agreed to: a 60-day ceasefire?
At the weekend, a source at the heart of the negotiations told me: “Both Hamas and Israel are refusing to budge from their position – Hamas wants the ceasefire to last until a permanent agreement is reached.
“Israel is opposed to this. At this point, only President Trump can break this deadlock.”
The source added: “Unless Trump pushes, we are in a stalemate.”
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Will Trump achieve a Gaza ceasefire?
The problem is that the announcement made now by Donald Trump – which is his social-media-summarised version of whatever Israel has actually agreed to – may just amount to Israel’s already-established position.
We don’t know the details and conditions attached to Israel’s proposals.
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Would Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza? Totally? Or partially? How many Palestinian prisoners would they agree to release from Israel’s jails? And why only 60 days? Why not a total ceasefire? What are they asking of Hamas in return?
We just don’t know the answers to any of these questions, except one.
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Dozens killed at beachfront cafe in Gaza
We do know why Israel wants a 60-day ceasefire, not a permanent one. It’s all about domestic politics.
If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were to agree now to a permanent ceasefire, the extreme right-wingers in his coalition would collapse his government.
Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have both been clear about their desire for the war to continue. They hold the balance of power in Mr Netanyahu’s coalition.
Read more:
British-Israeli soldier killed in Gaza
‘Almost 60 killed in Israeli strikes’
If Mr Netanyahu instead agrees to just 60 days – which domestically he can sell as just a pause – then that may placate the extreme right-wingers for a few weeks until the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, is adjourned for the summer.
It is also no coincidence that the US president has called for Mr Netanyahu’s corruption trial to be scrapped.
Without the prospect of jail, Mr Netanyahu might be more willing to quit the war, safe in the knowledge that focus will not shift immediately to his own political and legal vulnerability.
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