Given at the end is an article. Analyze it and output in the following JSON format.
{
"analysis": {
"bias": {
"score": "1-10, where 1-10 measures UNFAIR or UNHELPFUL bias.
As the AI analyst, you must judge:
1. Fairness of Bias:
- Is the tone/alarm proportional to events?
- Is criticism warranted by facts?
- Are similar actions judged equally?
2. Utility of Bias:
- Does the bias help readers understand real implications?
- Does it highlight genuine concerns that neutral language might minimize?
- Does it provide valuable context through its perspective?
Example: An article about climate change might use emotional language
and scary scenarios. While this is technically 'bias', it might be
USEFUL bias if it helps readers grasp real dangers that cold, neutral
language would understate.
A high bias score should only be given when bias is both unfair AND unhelpful.",
"description": "Explain both unfair and useful bias found. For each biased element:
1. Is it fair/warranted?
2. Does it serve a valuable purpose for readers?
3. Should it be removed or retained?"
},
"missing_context_misinformation": {
"score": "1-10",
"points": [
"", # DIRECTLY provide essential context the reader needs without ANY phrases like "the article lacks/doesn't/fails to mention/omits" etc. Simply state the relevant facts. Each point up to 5 sentences as needed. Up to 10 points. NEVER refer to the article itself or what it's missing - just supply the information directly. The missing context should try to compensate for the bias in the article, and not just add related information.
]
},
"disinformation_lies": {
"score": "1-10",
"points": [
"" # Provide corrections for verifiably false statement. These lines should be brief. Upto 10 points.
# Use Wikipedia (via the search tool) to verify events and dates up through 2025-07-06. Any event dated ≤ 2025-07-06 should not be marked as disinformation if it matches Wikipedia. Only flag statements you can not verify or that Wikipedia contradicts as of 2025-07-06.”
]
}
},
"summary": [], # A list of 2 to 5 paragraphs. Provide a version that: * Retains key facts and proportional concerns, * Removes unfair bias while keeping warranted criticism, * Adds critical missing context, * Corrects any inaccuracies. Remove author attribution. Maintain article's POV - no meta-references. You can decide the most appropriate length based on the article.summary can be longer than the article if needed.
"title": "Provide an Appropriate Title Based on the Article's Content.",
"changes_made": [
"List significant changes made in the summary",
"Include both removals and additions",
"Note bias adjustments"
],
"key_words": [
"3-10 relevant terms to help identify related articles",
"Focus on major themes and topics"
],
"keywords_update": {
"keyword-to-add-or-update": "new summary or updated to replace the previous"
}
}
KEYWORDS UPDATE INSTRUCTIONS:
- We want to save new information from beyond your knowledge cutoff of Mar 2024.
- Information can come from the provided article or Wikipedia.
- Pick up to 3 keywords of highest importance to update with new information.
- If a keyword lacks a summary, write one from scratch.
- For each keyword, list one line per new fact (up to 50 sentences per keyword).
- Each fact must:
1. Be one or two sentences long.
2. End with 1-3 references in brackets, e.g. [apnews], [nytimes,wikipedia].
3. Immediately after the reference(s), append a hyphen and the date of the event or when the fact was reported, in ISO format:
`Statement. [source] - [YYYY-MM-DD]`
- If you update an existing keyword's source (e.g. [foxnews] → [apnews]), ensure the replacement is supported by an article.
- Ensure each keyword is specific enough that its new facts warrant inclusion.
<example>
ARTICLE TOPIC
Raiding of 100+ immigrants allegedly illegal alients and alleged members from the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, MS-13, and the Hells Angels for deportation. Authorities also found drugs at the underground nightclub at a strip mall in Colorado Springs. President Donald Trump praised the raid, saying on TruthSocial it had targeted some of the worst people in the US, whom he alleged judges are reluctant to deport.
keywords worth updating:
tren-de-aragua (I am sure this gang has a big list of information, but this deportation will be worth a mention)
tren-de-aragua+deportation (a more specific keyword that can take more detail about this incident)
trump+illegal_deportation (add this to the list of illegal deportations conducted by trump administration)
colorado_springs (this is a unique event for this town. an update here will add some trivia.)
trump+immigration (a key fact worth mentioning about how trump is implementation his immigration policies)
keywords to not update:
trump (too broad. not one of top 50 facts related to trump.)
illegal_deportation (depending upon existing content, may be too crowded for this incident to be added)
colorado (too broad, unlikely to fit this event in top 50)
drug_raids (too broad, unlikely to fit this event in top 50)
</example>
<existing_keywords_summaries>
trump+noaa-budget-cuts :
national-weather-service+staffing-cuts :
guadalupe-river+flash-flooding :
kerr-county+flood-warning-system :
trump+weather-forecasting-technology :
texas-hill-country+flash-flood-risk :
warning-fatigue+emergency-alerts :
climate-change+extreme-rainfall :
kristi-noem+disaster-response :
camp-mystic+missing-children :
guadalupe-river+flash-flooding :
kerr-county+flood-warning-system :
trump+noaa-budget-cuts :
camp-mystic+missing-children :
texas-hill-country+flash-flood-risk :
guadalupe-river+flash-flooding :
kerr-county+flood-warning-system :
trump+noaa-budget-cuts :
camp-mystic+missing-children :
texas-hill-country+flash-flood-risk :
</existing_keywords_summaries>
<wikipedia_requested_titles>
TITLE 2021 Henan floods
From 17-31 July 2021, China's Henan province has been affected by flooding caused by a long period of heavy rainfall. There had been record-breaking maximum rainfall in an hour, 201.9 millimetres (7.95 in), was seen in Zhengzhou, the capital of the province. The floods and landslides have killed least 56 people with at least 5 went missing. 585,193 people were evacuated, 919,519 were relocated, and 7.579 million people were affected.
The floods were made more likely because of extreme weather caused by climate change in China.
== References ==
TITLE JD Vance
James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman; August 2, 1984) is an American politician and Marine Corps veteran serving as the 50th vice president of the United States under the second administration of President Donald Trump since 2025. He was the U.S. senator from Ohio from 2023 to 2025. Vance is the third-youngest vice president and the first Millennial vice president in U.S. history.
After high school, Vance joined the United States Marine Corps, where he served as a military journalist from 2003 to 2007 and was deployed to Iraq for six months in 2005. He graduated from Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree in 2009 and Yale Law School with a law degree in 2013. He practiced as a corporate lawyer working in the tech industry as a venture capitalist. His memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, was published in 2016 and became a movie in 2020.
Vance won the 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio, defeating Democratic nominee Tim Ryan. After initially opposing Donald Trump's candidacy in the 2016 election, Vance became a strong Trump supporter during Trump's first presidency. In July 2024, Trump picked Vance as his running mate during the Republican National Convention.
Vance has been characterized as a national conservative and right-wing populist. He opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, and gun control.
== Early life ==
Vance was born on August 2, 1984, in Middletown, Ohio, to Donald Bowman and Beverly (née Vance). Vance's mother and father divorced when Vance was a toddler. Shortly afterward, he was adopted by his mother's third husband.
Vance and his sister Lindsey were raised mainly by his grandparents, James and Bonnie (née Blanton) Vance. J. D. later went by the name James Hamel, his stepfather's surname, until adopting his grandparents' surname, Vance.
Vance went to Middletown High School. After graduating, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served as a combat correspondent (military journalist) in the Iraq War. Vance later attended the Ohio State University, graduating in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude in political science and philosophy.
After graduating from Ohio State, Vance went to Yale Law School. Vance graduated from Yale in 2013 with a Juris Doctor.
== Writing and business career ==
Vance moved to San Francisco to work in the tech industry as a venture capitalist. He was a principal at Peter Thiel's firm, Mithril Capital, between 2016 and 2017.
In 2016, Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, was published. It was on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2016 and 2017. It was a finalist for the 2017 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and winner of the 2017 Audie Award for Nonfiction. The New York Times called it "one of the six best books to help understand Trump's win". Vance was criticized from some Eastern Kentuckians who said he was "not a hillbilly", while others supported him.
During the 2016 presidential election, Vance was a well known critic of Republican nominee Donald Trump. In a February 2016 USA Today column, he wrote that "Trump's actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd." In the Atlantic and on the PBS show hosted by Charlie Rose, Vance called Trump "cultural heroin". In October 2016, he called himself a "never-Trump guy." In a private message on Facebook he called Trump "America's Hitler".
In December 2016, Vance said he wanted to move back to Ohio and would think about starting a nonprofit or running for office.
In January 2017, Vance became a CNN contributor. In April 2017, Ron Howard signed on to direct a movie version of Hillbilly Elegy, which Netflix released in 2020.
In 2019, Vance co-founded Narya Capital in Cincinnati. In 2020, he raised $93 million for the firm.
== U.S. Senate (2023–25) ==
In July 2021, Vance announced his candidacy for the United States Senate in the 2022 election to replace retiring U.S. Senator Rob Portman. In April 2022, former President Donald Trump announced his support for Vance. He won the Republican nomination in May 2022. In November 2022, he was elected U.S. Senator after defeating U.S. Representative Tim Ryan in the general election. Vance was the only candidate in the seven statewide general election races funded by former President Trump's PAC to win. He was sworn-in on January 3, 2023.
In the Senate, Vance has been seen as a supporter of economic populism. On social issues, Vance supported the overturning of Roe v. Wade and is against abortion rights even in cases of rape or incest, but supports exceptions when a mother's life is in danger. On foreign policy, Vance has been against U.S. military aid for Ukraine. Vance is a strong supporter of U.S. support for Israel amid the Israel–Hamas war.
On February 26, 2023, Vance wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post supporting parts of PPP style funds to those affected by the East Palestine train derailment, which some Republican senators criticized. On March 1, 2023, Vance, Brown, and Senators John Fetterman, Bob Casey, Josh Hawley, and Marco Rubio proposed bipartisan legislation to prevent derailments like the one in East Palestine, Ohio.
Vance was among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
In 2023, Vance introduced a bill that would make English the official language of the United States.
Vance was against the Respect for Marriage Act and has said, "I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, but I don't think the gay marriage issue is alive right now. I'm not one of these guys who's looking to try to take people's families and rip them apart."
Vance resigned from the Senate at midnight on January 10, 2025 before his inauguration as the 50th vice president of the United States on January 20, 2025.
== 2024 vice presidential campaign ==
In July 2024, former President Donald Trump picked Vance to be his running mate in the 2024 presidential election. He is the first millennial to be on a presidential ticket of a major party in the United States.
Vance is the first Ohioan to appear in a major party presidential ticket since John Bricker (who was Thomas Dewey's running mate in 1944), the first person to have facial hair since Dewey himself in his 1948 upset loss as presidential nominee, and the first combat veteran since John McCain in 2008, all of which were Republican politicians. If elected, he will be the first Ohio native to be elected to the vice presidency since Charles Dawes in 1924, the first to have facial hair since Charles Curtis in 1928 —both of which were also Republicans– and the first combat veteran since Democrat Al Gore in 1992.
Shortly after being named Trump's running mate, many people criticized Vance for saying in a 2021 Fox News interview, "we are effectively run in this country [by] the Democrats, [by] our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too." On July 26, 2024, Vance clarified his remarks on while being interviewed by Megyn Kelly, saying, "It's not a criticism of people who don't have children" and adding, "this is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child". More people criticized Vance for his response and his other comments from a 2020 podcast interview where he said "being childless makes people more sociopathic and ultimately our whole country a little bit less mentally stable". In a March 2021 interview on The Charlie Kirk Show, he said that people without children should be taxed at a higher rate than those with children.
The week after the Republican convention, opinion polls showed Vance with very low approval numbers, some of the worst since 1980. The week after the convention, some Republicans began to think that Vance was a bad choice to be Trump's running mate while others believed that Trump should quickly replace him.
In November 2024, the Trump-Vance ticket won the election, making Vance the Vice President-elect of the United States.
== Vice presidency (2025–present) ==
On January 20, 2025, Vance was sworn in as the 50th vice president of the United States.
Before his inauguration, Vance met with China's vice president Han Zheng in which they discussed China–United States relations. Vance is the third youngest person to serve as vice president and the first from the Millennial generation. He is also the first Marine Corps veteran to serve as vice president, becoming the highest-ranking Iraq War veteran in the U.S. government.
Vance's first acts as vice president was swearing in Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State on January 21. On January 24, he cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.
== Personal life ==
Vance married his former law school classmate, Usha Chilukuri, in 2014. They have three children. During the mid-2010s, Vance and his wife lived in San Francisco.
== Works ==
Vance, J. D. (June 2016). Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. Harper. ISBN 978-0-06230054-6.
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Other websites ==
Media related to JD Vance at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related to JD Vance at Wikiquote
JD Vance Archived 2024-08-11 at the Wayback Machine official U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Vote Smart
Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
Appearances on C-SPAN
TITLE Tornado outbreak of June 16–18, 2014
The June 16–18, 2014 tornado outbreak was an incident in which several strong tornadoes cut through Nebraska. Other tornadoes also affected Wisconsin, Montana, Ontario and South Dakota. A preliminary rating of the strongest tornadoes was EF4 (winds between 166 and just under 200 mph). There were two deaths from the tornado incident, both in Nebraska. 16 people were critically injured in the storms.
== References ==
TITLE 2021 California wildfires
The California Wildfires 2021 are a series of wildfires. They burned in wild parts of California in the United States. As of July 26, 2021, a total of 5,566 fires happened , with 458,429 acres (185,520 ha) burned in California. Brushfires destroyed at least 323 buildings, and at least 7 firefighters were hurt fighting the fires.
California's wildfire season started earlier in 2021 than it had in other years. There was a long drought and much less rainfall than usual. The reservoirs were also lower than usual. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said that, in January 2021 alone, 297 fires happened across 1,171 acres (4.74 km2) of non-federal land. This is almost three times the number of fires than the five-year average. It is more than 20 times the area of the five-year average. The January fires were worse because of strong Santa Ana winds. Some of the fires burned in the same areas as previous fires.
The long-term trend is that wildfires in the state are on the increase due to climate change. There were more fires in 2021 than in 2020 season, which in itself was the largest season in the state's recorded history. As of July 11, more than three times as many acres were burned than in 2020. Experts said drought, extreme heat, and less snow in the winter made the fires burn worse. The state also faces an increased risk of landslides after wildfires because the plants that hold the earth in place have burned and died.
== References ==
TITLE Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.. ( (listen) BY-dən; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. Before becoming president, he was the 47th vice president under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017. He was a U.S. senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009. Biden was a member of the Senate longer than any other president or vice president.
He tried to become the Democratic candidate for president in 1988 and 2008 but dropped out of the race. During the 2008 election, then-Senator Barack Obama picked him to be his running mate. Biden is a Roman Catholic. Biden has received several awards. He has five honorary doctorates, including one from his Alma mater and one from where he has taught law. He has also earned the "Best of Congress Award", an award from the Pakistani government, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction.
After finishing his second term as vice president, Biden began working at the University of Pennsylvania. In April 2019, Biden launched his presidential campaign for the 2020 election. On April 8, 2020, Biden became the likely nominee for the Democratic nomination after Bernie Sanders ended his campaign. On November 7, he defeated then-President Donald Trump and became the president-elect of the United States. He became president on January 20, 2021. He is the oldest person to serve as president and the first from the state of Delaware. He is also the second Catholic to hold the office, after John F. Kennedy.
As president, Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and recession. He signed bipartisan bills on infrastructure as well. Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. He worked with congressional Republicans to fix the 2023 debt-ceiling crisis by creating a deal to raise the debt ceiling. He also made America rejoin the Paris Agreement. He pulled out U.S. troops from Afghanistan that ended the war in Afghanistan, leading to the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban taking control. He responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by putting sanctions on Russia and giving civilian and military aid to Ukraine. During the Israel–Hamas war, Biden called the actions of Hamas terrorism, announced military support for Israel and sent a small amount of humanitarian help to the Gaza Strip.
In April 2023, Biden announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 2024 presidential election, and was the presumptive nominee. After performing badly in a June 2024 debate with Trump, age and health concerns increased. These concerns and low popularity lead Biden to end his candidacy and endorse Harris to replace him.
== Early life ==
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942 at St. Mary's Keller Memorial Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His family were Irish Catholics. His father, Joe Sr., was a businessman. When he was young, his family moved to Wilmington, Delaware. He also began to stutter at an early age. In high school, Biden played football and baseball, but he was not a very good student. Biden attended college at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University. He did not have to fight in the Vietnam War because he was going to college and had asthma as a child.
== U.S. Senate ==
For many years, Biden was a U.S. senator from Delaware. Biden was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 when he was 29 years old. His election was somewhat of a surprise. The other candidate, J. Caleb Boggs, had more experience and more money to spend on his campaign. He is one of the youngest people to become a U.S. Senator, because he was only two months older than the minimum age, 30, required to be one. (While he was 29 during the election, he turned 30 before he became a senator.)
Biden was re-elected to the Senate six times. He became a prominent defender of Israel as a senator, and said that if there was no country like Israel the U.S. would have to make one. Later in his time in the Senate, Biden served as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Foreign Relations committee deals with American issues in other countries. When Biden was chair, the committee dealt with the 1991 Gulf War, the 2003 War in Iraq, and several treaties. The Judiciary Committee dealt with the choice of Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and others for the Supreme Court (SCOTUS). Biden thought that Thomas and Bork should not be on the Court. Though U.S. senators work in Washington, DC, Biden took the train home to Delaware every night.
Before becoming vice president, Biden was ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he said was because he was young when elected to the Senate. In November 2009, Biden's net worth was $27,012.
== Presidential campaigns ==
Biden ran for president four times, in 1988, 2008, 2020 and 2024. The first time he was viewed as a good choice early on, but quit after it was discovered he gave a speech that was copied from Neil Kinnock, a British politician.
Biden tried again to get the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 presidential election. He ran mostly on foreign issues, especially getting U.S. troops out of Iraq. Many thought of him as a good choice for Secretary of State. He stopped his campaign on January 3, 2008 after he did not get many votes in the Iowa caucus. However, he later became Barack Obama's pick for vice president due to what he knew about Iraq and because the working class liked him.
When Biden was running for president, he criticized Obama, talking about his lack of experience, but later he supported Obama to become president. His opponent as vice president was Sarah Palin, who had less experience but was seen as more interesting by the media. Before the election, there were debates between the different candidates running for president or vice president. In the debate between Biden and Palin, many people believed that he knew more about running America than Palin did.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden defeated the McCain-Palin ticket in the general election, making him vice president-elect. They won the election by 365 electoral votes and 69 million votes, compared to incumbent McCain, who received 173 electoral votes and 59 million votes.
== Vice presidency (2009–2017) ==
Biden became the 47th vice president on January 20, 2009. He was vice president until January 20, 2017. He is the first person from Delaware and first Roman Catholic to be vice president. Biden said that his vice-presidency would not be like any other. He said he would do things differently from Dick Cheney, who had been vice president before him.
Biden's main role was as an advisor to Obama on issues of foreign policy and the economy. Obama asked for Biden's input on most major decisions, such as who to put in the Cabinet and how to fight the War in Afghanistan. Obama put Biden in charge of groups to deal with the problems of the working class, and to watch the money in his stimulus bill. Biden also traveled to the Middle East several times for Obama and the U.S. while Vice President. In 2011, Biden led talks on the budget and the debt. On November 6, 2012, Biden was re-elected for a second term as vice president along with President Barack Obama.
In August 2015, Biden said that he was thinking of running for president again in the 2016 U.S. election. Biden formed a PAC for his possible run. On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and President Obama by his side, Biden said he would not run for president in 2016.
Biden never had to break a tie vote in the United States Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president not to do this.
== Post-vice presidency (2017–2021) ==
=== 2020 presidential election ===
During a tour of the U.S. Senate with reporters before leaving office on December 5, 2016, Biden said that a presidential bid was possible in the 2020 presidential election, after leaving office as vice president. While on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on December 7, he stated "never say never" about running for president in 2020, while also saying he did not expect he would run for office again. On January 13, 2017, exactly one week before Donald Trump took office, he said he would not run. However, four days later, on January 17, he took the statement back, saying "I'll run if I can walk."
Biden was mentioned by many news outlets as a potential candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination. In March 2019, he said he may run.
He formally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019.
In April 2020, Biden became the only candidate in the primary making him the presumptive nominee for the nomination. At first, he lost the first three primary contests to Senator Bernie Sanders. After winning the South Carolina primary, he gained traction and won most of the Super Tuesday races.
Biden promised when elected he would protect Roe v. Wade decision, create a public option for health insurance, decriminalization of recreational cannabis, pass the Equality Act, create free community college, and a $1.7 trillion climate plan supporting the Green New Deal. He supports regulation instead of a complete ban on fracking.
In early 2020, Biden promised he would pick a woman as his running mate. He also promised that his first Supreme Court appointment would be a black woman. In August 2020, he picked California U.S. Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate.
On November 7, 2020, Biden defeated Trump in the general election, making him president-elect. He won the election by 306 electoral votes and 81 million votes, compared to incumbent Trump who received 232 electoral votes and 74 million votes.
== Presidency (2021–2025) ==
=== Transition ===
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020, defeating the incumbent Donald Trump, the first president to lose re-election since George H. W. Bush in 1992.
He became the second non-incumbent vice president to be elected president, and the first Democrat to do so. He became the oldest president at the time of inauguration. He is the first president from Delaware.
At first, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy did not say Biden had won the 2020 election. On November 23, however, she recognized Biden as the winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
=== First 100 days ===
Biden was inaugurated shortly before noon on January 20, 2021 as the 46th president of the United States. At 78, he was the oldest person to become president. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. Biden is the first president since George H.W. Bush to hold both offices as president and vice president and the first president since Richard Nixon to hold them non-consecutively.
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office. His first actions were rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, rejoining the World Health Organization, a 100-day mandatory face mask requirements on federal property and acts to stop hunger in the United States. His presidency has been focused around his Build Back Better Plan agenda.
On February 4, 2021, he announced that the United States will stop giving weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for use in the Yemeni Civil War.
On March 11, 2021, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden tried to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, but removed it from the stimulus package after criticism from both parties.
In March 2021, when there was an increase in migrants coming to the United States from Mexico, Biden told migrants: "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children and told the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help take care of children separated at the border.
On March 23, 2021, all of his cabinet members were confirmed by the United States Senate. Biden is the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to have all of his original Cabinet secretary nominees confirmed to their posts. Two days later, Biden announced that he would run for re-election in the 2024 election.
=== Rest of 2021 ===
On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the US would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.
On April 28, 2021, Biden addressed the United States Congress in his State of the Union Address. Presiding over this joint session was the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris as President of the Senate ― the first time two women preside over an address to Congress.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986.
In July 2021, when not many people were getting their COVID-19 vaccine and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven’t gotten the vaccination". He also criticized the increase of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people".
By early July 2021, most of the American troops in Afghanistan were leaving or had left. On August 15, during an offensive by the Taliban, the Afghan government collapsed. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to help the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He has been criticized for the way he handled the withdrawal. He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves", since the "Afghan military collapsed [against the Taliban], sometimes without trying to fight".
In August 2021, the Biden administration pushed for an infrastructure bill that can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of the United States by 45% by 2030. He would also support lowering taxes for people who invest in renewable energy and electric vehicles and would add a fee on methane emissions. The Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
=== 2022 ===
In the start of 2022, Biden's approval ratings were low. He started speaking more in public. Early in the year, Biden supported ending the U.S. Senate filibuster rule to pass a voting rights act.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said he would retire from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement gave Biden his first chance to nominate a justice to the Supreme Court. Biden had promised to nominate the court's first black female justice. On February 25, Biden nominated D.C. Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Breyer. She was confirmed on April 7.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In response, Biden announced economic sanctions on Russia and Putin.
During 2022, gasoline prices and other prices rose. Some people blamed Biden's American Rescue Plan for this inflation. Opponents of Biden used "I Did That!" stickers, showed Biden pointing to that phrase, to criticize Biden for high gas prices. In May 2022, there was a nationwide shortage of infant formula.
Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on July 21, 2022. Five days later, he left isolation after testing negative. However, on July 30, he tested positive again and went back to isolation.
On August 1, 2022, Biden announced the death of Al-Qaeda Emir Ayman al-Zawahiri in a U.S.-conducted airstrike that he approved.
On September 2, 2022, in a nationally televised Philadelphia speech, Biden said that Americans are in a "battle for the soul of the nation." He called active Trump supporters "semi-fascists," which Republican commentators criticized.
Republicans won a small majority in the U.S. House of Representatives with 222 seats in 2022. Democrats kept control of the U.S. Senate, with 51 seats.
It was the first midterm election since 1934 in which the president's party lost no state legislative chambers. Democrats thanked Biden for their unexpectedly good performance in elections, and he celebrated the results as a strong day for democracy.
=== 2023 ===
On November 2, 2022, while packing files at the Penn Biden Center, Biden's lawyers found classified documents in a "locked closet". These documents were from when he was Vice President. According to the White House, the documents were reported that day to the U.S. National Archives. On December 20, a second set of classified documents was discovered in the garage of Biden's Wilmington, Delaware home. In January 2023, these discoveries were announced publicly. On January 12, Attorney General Merrick Garland created a special counsel to investigate. On January 20, after a 13-hour search by FBI investigators, six more items marked classified were taken from Biden's Wilmington home.
On February 20, 2023, four days before the one-year anniversary of the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Biden visited Kyiv and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska. While there, Biden promised more military aid to Ukraine and criticized Vladimir Putin. The trip was unannounced and many people were surprised. Biden became the first sitting U.S. President to go to an active war zone not controlled by the American military since 1864. The last time was Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
On April 25, 2023, Biden announced his re-election campaign for the 2024 presidential election.
On September 12, 2023, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced an impeachment inquiry into Biden, alleging corruption and illegal business activities surrounding Hunter Biden.
In October 2023, Biden announced support for Israel in its war against Hamas.
On December 13, 2023, the House of Representatives voted 221–212 to formalize an impeachment inquiry against Biden related to the business dealings of his son, Hunter.
=== 2024 ===
Biden's third State of the Union was his fourth speech to a joint session of Congress. During the speech, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly interrupted Biden, particularly during his mentions of the Mexican border crisis.
In mid-June 2024, Biden issued an executive action giving amnesty to unauthorized immigrants married to American citizens. The program includes a way to U.S. residency and citizenship and was planned to initially affect about 500,000 people.
The first presidential debate was held on June 27, 2024, between Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump. Biden's performance was criticized by many, with commentators saying he often didn’t stay on topic or give good answers. Many newspaper columnists said that Trump won the debate. Polling showed that a majority of the public believed Trump won. After the debate had people questioning his health and concerned about his age, Biden faced calls to drop out from the race, including from fellow Democrats, campaign donors, and newspapers of several major news outlets. Biden said that he would remain a candidate.
Following the attempted assassination of Trump on July 13, 2024, Biden condemned the shooting and, in an Oval Office address the next day, spoke about the "need for to lower the temperature" of political rhetoric.
On July 21, 2024, Biden announced that he would not run for reelection, instead supporting his vice president, Kamala Harris, to run for the 2024 election as president. He wrote that this was "in the best interest of my party and the country". His announcement came 29 days before the beginning of the 2024 Democratic National Convention. A few days later, Harris had secured enough delegates to become the Democratic nominee. This is the first time an eligible incumbent has withdrawn from reelection since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 and the first to withdraw from an election after winning the primaries.
== Post-presidency (2025–present) ==
Biden's term ended on January 20, 2025, upon Donald Trump's second inauguration. Biden moved back to Wilmington, Delaware after his term ended. He later signed with talent agency CAA to represent him in public engagements, which had previously represented him from 2017 to 2020.
At the end of his presidency, Biden began to focus on raising funds for the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Presidential Library.
In May 2025, Biden's personal office announced that he had been diagnosed with an "aggressive form" of prostate cancer that spread to his bones. His medical team said that treatment options are being reviewed. It was also found that the cancer now spread from his prostate to other tissues in his body.
== Allegations of physical misconduct ==
There have been many photographs of Biden hugging, kissing, and touching women and/or children in what commentators said to be inappropriate. Biden has said that the behavior had got him in trouble in the past.
In March 2019, former Nevada assemblywoman Lucy Flores said that Biden kissed her without consent at a 2014 campaign rally in Las Vegas. Flores wrote that Biden walked up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, smelled her hair, and kissed the back of her head. In an interview with HuffPost, Flores stated she believed Biden's behavior should force him not to run in 2020. By early April 2019, a total of seven women had made such allegations regarding Biden.
In April 2019, former Biden staffer Tara Reade said that she had felt uncomfortable many times when Biden touched her on her shoulder and neck while working in his Senate office in 1993. In March 2020, Reade said Biden had pushed her against a wall and penetrated her while on Capitol Hill in 1993. Biden denied the allegations.
== Personal life ==
While in college, he married his first wife, Nelia Hunter. They had three children: two sons (Beau and Robert) and a daughter (Naomi). After college, he became a lawyer and served on a County council. In 1972, Biden's family got into a car accident. Nelia and Naomi were killed, and Beau and Robert were hurt very badly. Both survived the accident. Beau was the Attorney general in Delaware until January 2015 and served as a soldier in Iraq. Beau died from brain cancer on May 30, 2015 in Bethesda, Maryland at the age of 46. Biden thought of resigning as vice president because of his son's death.
Biden married his second wife, Jill Jacobs Biden, in 1977. She is a teacher and the former second lady of the United States. In 1981, they had a daughter, Ashley, who is now a social worker. In 1988, Biden suffered from bleeding in his brain and needed brain surgery twice. Because of what he saw in his family and neighborhood, Biden does not drink alcohol.
Biden lives just outside of Wilmington, Delaware and often goes there on the weekends since becoming president. By November 2020, the Bidens were worth $9 million, mainly because of Biden's book sales and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
=== Health ===
In February 1988, Biden had surgery to help heal a brain aneurysm. While recuperating, he had a pulmonary embolism and recovered a few months later. In November 2020, while playing with his two dogs Champ and Major, he suffered a stress fracture in his foot and was hospitalized. In July 2022, it was revealed that Biden had some "non-melanoma skin cancers" removed before he became president. That same month, he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
== Awards and honors ==
Biden has received honorary degrees from the University of Scranton (1976), Saint Joseph's University (1981), Widener University School of Law (2000), Emerson College (2003), his alma mater the University of Delaware (2004), Suffolk University Law School (2005), and his other alma mater Syracuse University (2009).
Biden got the Chancellor Medal from his alma mater, Syracuse University, in 1980. In 2005, he got the George Arents Pioneer Medal—Syracuse's highest alumni award—"for excellence in public affairs."
In 2008, Biden got the Best of Congress Award, for "improving the American quality of life through family-friendly work policies," from Working Mother magazine. Also in 2008, Biden shared with fellow Senator Richard Lugar the Hilal-i-Pakistan award from the Government of Pakistan, "in recognition of their consistent support for Pakistan." In 2009, Biden got The Golden Medal of Freedom award from Kosovo, that region's highest award, for his vocal support for their independence in the late 1990s.
Biden is an member of the Delaware Volunteer Firemen's Association Hall of Fame.
In 2017, during his final days as president, Barack Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction.
In 2020, Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris were named Time Person of the Year.
== Related pages ==
President of the United States
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Other websites ==
White House official biography Archived July 18, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
Joe Biden at the Open Directory Project
Senate campaign website (archived)
Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
Congressional profile at GovTrack.us
Issue positions and quotes at On The Issues
Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
Appearances on C-SPAN programs
Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
Works by or about Joe Biden in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
Joe Biden on IMDb
TITLE Warming center
A warming center is a place where people can go to stay warm and dry when it is rainy or wet outside. They are like homeless shelters, except that they are only open when the weather is bad.
Their main goal is to make sure that nobody is left out in the cold. Many people die from being wet and cold, every year.
== Dangerous weather ==
Sometimes when it is windy, trees fall on them. Sometimes people get frostbite if it is very cold. But the main thing that people worry about is called hypothermia - that's when the body temperature gets too low. It can be fatal. When it is cold and windy, the wind chill factor makes it worse.
== Old, sick, or homeless people ==
If people are old, drinking, or homeless, things can get very bad very fast if the weather goes bad. These things are all called risk factors. The level of risk goes way up making it more likely that they will become sick or maybe even die out in the cold. Scientists study these "risk factors" and put them all together with numbers. That kind of study is discussed below; it is called a "vulnerability index".
== Purpose ==
Warming Centers are mostly for people who are homeless who do not stay in homeless shelters. Sometimes they are also set up when blizzards occur or the power goes out. Sometimes they are set up when the roads are out due to landslides, avalanches, and blizzards.
In some cases, when cold snaps threaten wildlife, warming centers are created and operated to protect endangered wild animals. Cold-blooded animals such as turtles are particularly vulnerable, as are their hatchlings. Emergency shelters vary in policy on pet, companion, or domesticated animals.
== Location of warming centers ==
=== Existing shelters ===
Sometimes warming centers are set up in existing homeless shelters. However, some jurisdictions have laws says that only a certain number of people are allowed at any one time. This is because of things like fire codes. Sometimes an agreement with the neighbors prevents too many people because of parking and overcrowding of the neighborhood.
Therefore, they need to find different locations.
=== Alternative sites ===
These include churches and community organizations, but also may involve special real estate such as National Guard armories.
== Opening up the warming center ==
=== The decision to "green-light" warming centers ===
Warming centers are generally opened for only a few days at a time based on the conditions of the area, although some are open for a specific portion of the year when weather conditions are bad.
The City of Chicago opens its shelters from December 1 to March 1 each year, as well as any other times the temperature drops below freezing.
The City of Portland, Oregon, uses a more complicated formula to determine when to open centers; wet or dry conditions, the night's predicted lowest temperature, the three-day weather trend, wind, and whether snow may fall.
Opening a center depends on the weather conditions and the formula at that center. Each one is different because weather is different in each place. Lane County, Oregon utilizes an elaborate system of tiered readiness levels in collaboration with the American Red Cross. The Red Cross is involved with some warming centers. They use a system to tell the staff people to get ready. They refer to these levels as their "alert status". It goes all the way from normal good weather OUTLOOK status all the way up through different levels. Finally they reach "ACTIVATE", which means it is time to get to work.
== How warming centers are run ==
=== Outreach to people who need help ===
Once a center has been set up, it is always a problem to make sure people know about it.
A lot of people do not want to deal with the "authorities". Other people may be connected with the helping system. In the USA, some people came up with an idea to help fix that problem. The government agency in charge of these issues is called Housing and Urban Development. That agency requires a homeless count every two years. Organizations such as w:Common Ground are trying to reach out to more people with the homeless counts and use these counts to get a list of homeless people who need some help. Hopefully one of the good things to come from all of that work is there will be better ways to make sure people know about the warming centers.
Centers often coordinate with outside programs such as 211. Newspapers are generally published weekly or less frequently, which makes them useful only for general information such as contact numbers and locations.
For transportation to centers, some shelters offer free transportation. In some cases for persons being released from jail can get rides, if the weather is bad.
In blizzard conditions, snowmobilers have been mobilized.
=== Warming centers up and running ===
Once opened and populated, warming centers typically offer only the most bare-bones of service: a cot and perhaps a bowl of hot soup. They are generally operated with one or more experienced professional staff person. This is due to the difficulties which untrained volunteers might encounter in dealing with the clientele. Often, users of warming centers are persons who are not participating in routine homeless shelter services due. This may be due to disciplinary problems and issues with behavior, such as drinking and fighting. Sometimes it takes a professional to figure out who might be disruptive or even dangers as opposed to who is just a little bit eccentric or odd. That is why it is important to have experienced staff.
Some people who use warming centers do not have major issues: maybe they are just on the road and the weather takes a turn for the worse. Or they do not stay in shelters because they do not like the rules or have personality problems with a staff person.
== History and current role ==
Sometime warming centers are started because someone dies from the cold or many people are at risk.They seem to go back as far as 1945, at the end of World War II. In Berlin, Germany, clothing and blankets were allowed for under the air lift plan. Also, an extensive plan was developed for public "warming centers."
Nowadays, U.S. warming centers are springing up all over the place. They are seen as a means to help the homeless who usually stay outdoors. The main time is during temperature and rainfall "spikes".
However, there may not be room in the shelters for everyone who needs them. According to Detroit writer Naomi Spencer, they serve also as "a last resort for homeless people to find respite [relief] from the cold, especially those with drug addictions, mental illness, or criminal backgrounds, who may not meet requirements imposed by some homeless shelters or religious charity operations."
Others, including straight edge, DIY, or anarchist-identified persons may choose to live "off-the-grid", outside the regular system of housing. They are not there because of sobriety issues.
Others simply find shelters too regimented, too much like jail. Newspaperman Mike Hendricks quotes a former resident of an unauthorized homeless encampment named Crow, who said that "some guys would sooner do what they want and not be told what to do."
Tom Brown's Field Guide to City and Suburban Survival contains chapters on shelters and heating. He also outlines means of creating a personal warming center by using ATM access cards. His recommendations have been circulated by Chicago's urban community activist Chrisdian Wittenburg, including instructions on building a makeshift stove and a plethora of collaborative cultural projects.
== Controversy ==
Perception of the importance and priority of warming centers varies. At one extreme, their under-utilization or minimal level of service is said to be unfriendly. During the blizzard of February 2011, the City of Ottawa, Illinois did not have established warming centers. A temporary facility was set up. People had to bring their own food and blankets. There was criticism of that. According to a man calling himself "Poppy", the "have-nots...can all freeze to death...here in the friendly city." In Detroit, there was federal money for a warming center, but the money was not given to the proper officials in time, or at all. This failure to distribute Community Development Block Grants resulted in a situation where people slept in plastic chairs or "in cold hallways".
At the other end, critics have asked if churches are the right place for handling the kind of people who are likely to come in the door. Many people say that the warming centers tend to keep things the way they are, to maintain the status quo. That is because they do not get to the root of the problems.
Sue Murphy is the administrative director of Interfaith Action of Evanston, Illinois, which has a daytime center. It is used for a time slot when the overnight shelters are closed. She states that warmth and snacks "is not nearly enough...what we need is a place where they can go the whole winter."
Her concerns are seconded by Sue Loellebach of Connections for the Homeless, who laments the lack of warm refuge during daylight hours..
== Related pages ==
Tom Brown (naturalist), author of Tom Brown's Field Guide to City and Suburban Survival
Natural disaster
Refugee
Poverty
Discrimination
== References ==
== Other websites ==
American Red Cross Archived 2009-01-12 at the Wayback Machine - trainings which include Mass Shelter Overview and Shelter Operations, much of which is pertinent
"Homeless Families: Warming Center" Archived 2009-12-17 at the Wayback Machine, Human Solutions, Portland, Oregon, USA
</wikipedia_requested_titles>
Given below is the article you have to analyze. Generate the JSON as per schema with relevant keyword summaries as per instructions.
strictly response in json formate.
<article>
The forces that descended upon the Guadalupe River in Texas’ Hill Country on Thursday night were a worst-case scenario.
Four months’ worth of rain fell in just hours as water-laden thunderstorms stalled in place, giving rise to a wall of water that surged down the river in the blackness of night, limiting the number of people who could get the warnings and move to higher ground.
The National Weather Service warned of “life-threatening flooding” along the river in a series of alerts in the early morning hours. But questions remain about how many people they reached, whether critical vacancies at the forecast offices could have affected warning dissemination, and if so-called warning fatigue had been growing among residents in a region described as one of the most dangerous in the country for flash flooding.
Ad Feedback
The National Weather Service has been hard hit by personnel cuts under the Trump administration, but that may not have significantly affected the forecasts and warnings for this historic and deadly flooding.
The two Texas NWS offices most closely involved in forecasting and warning about the flooding on the Guadalupe River — Austin-San Antonio and San Angelo — are missing some key staff members, but still issued a slew of watches and warnings about the flood danger.
The question is whether the warnings reached who they needed to reach.
Men survey damage left by the flooded Guadalupe River in Kerrville.
Eric Gay/AP
A woman watches flood waters along the Guadalupe River in Kerrville on Friday.
Eric Vryn/Getty Images
A volunteer looks for missing people in Hunt, Texas, on Sunday, July 6.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
Fallen trees and high waters are seen in Comfort, Texas, on Saturday, July 5.
Marco Bello/Reuters
A truck is impaled onto a tree on the bank of the Guadalupe River.
Jim Vondruska/Getty Images
Items lie scattered inside a cabin at Camp Mystic after flash flooding hit Hunt, Texas.
Sergio Flores/Reuters
Ruby Zhu, right, looks at her mother Zhou Zhu, who inspects flash flooding damage in Kerrville, Texas.
Sergio Flores/Reuters
Campers embrace at a reunification area as girls from Camp Waldemar, near the north fork of the Guadalupe River, are reconnected with their families on Saturday.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle/AP
People look on as law enforcement and volunteers continue to search for missing people near Camp Mystic.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
A toy sits on the ground outside of a cabin at Camp Mystic on Saturday.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
Damaged trees lay on the bank Guadalupe River in Center Point, Texas, on Saturday.
Jim Vondruska/Getty Images
A sheriff's deputy pauses while combing through the banks of the Guadalupe River near Camp Mystic on Saturday.
Julio Cortez/AP
Overturned vehicles, broken trees and debris sit in floodwaters in Kerrville.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
A man vaccums water inside VFW Post 1480 in Kerville.
Sergio Flores/Reuters
A damaged building is seen at Camp Mystic.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
People climb over debris on a bridge atop the Guadalupe River in Ingram, Texas, on Saturday.
Julio Cortez/AP
A downed sign is seen after a flash flood swept through the area in Ingram.
Julio Cortez/AP
A person looks out at flooding in Kerrville.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
Flooded houses and streets are seen in San Angelo, Texas, on Friday, July 4.
Patrick Keely/Reuters
Families hug at a reunification center in Ingram, Texas, after flash flooding hit the area on Friday.
Eric Gay/AP
A family portrait seen among flood debris along the Guadalupe River in Kerrville.
Eric Gay/AP
People observe damage caused along the Guadalupe River in Kerrville.
Eric Gay/AP
Thomas Rux, a resident of Riverside RV Park in Ingram, looks through the wreckage of his RV that was swept away by floodwaters.
Christopher Lee/he San Antonio Express-News/AP
A flooding Guadalupe River, seen in Kerrville, Texas, leaves fallen trees and debris in its wake on Friday.
Eric Gay/AP
An overturned vehicle in Kerrville.
Eric Gay/AP
A Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter conducts an aerial search along the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, in the wake of destructive flooding on Friday.
Christopher Lee/The San Antonio Express-News/AP
Kerrville Fire Department first responders scan the banks of the Guadalupe River in Ingram.
Michel Fortier/The San Antonio Express-News/AP
First responders deliver people to a reunification center in Ingram.
Eric Gay/AP
Men survey damage left by the flooded Guadalupe River in Kerrville.
Eric Gay/AP
A woman watches flood waters along the Guadalupe River in Kerrville on Friday.
Eric Vryn/Getty Images
A volunteer looks for missing people in Hunt, Texas, on Sunday, July 6.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
Fallen trees and high waters are seen in Comfort, Texas, on Saturday, July 5.
Marco Bello/Reuters
In pictures: Deadly flooding in Texas
1 of 28
Prev
Next
Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the NWS employees’ union, told CNN that while he believes the offices had “adequate staffing and resources,” the Austin-San Antonio office is missing a warning coordination meteorologist — a role that serves as a crucial, direct link between forecasters and emergency managers.
This vacancy in the Austin-San Antonio office, along with other key roles, were the result of early retirement incentives offered by the Trump administration to shrink the size of the federal government, a NOAA official told CNN.
Months of rain in just hours
The National Weather Service began forecasting the threat of flooding in Kerr County as early as Thursday morning with a hazardous flood outlook.
A flood watch was issued at 1:18 p.m. CT, that highlighted Kerrville, among other locations, as being at risk of flash flooding — though notably, as local officials have raised, the forecast was for less rainfall than what fell: as much as 5 to 7 inches for an event that ultimately dropped as much as 15 inches on parts of central Texas.
A raging Guadalupe River leaves fallen trees and debris in its wake on Friday in Kerrville, Texas.
Eric Gay/AP
Several technical forecasts followed Thursday afternoon and evening with increasingly heightened language about the magnitude of the potential flooding. At 6:30 p.m., river forecasters were calling for locally intense rain rates that would “quickly overwhelm” the ground’s ability to absorb the water.
“Rapid runoff is expected, with locally considerable flash and urban flash flooding possible … the nocturnal timing will also enhance the hazard potential and impacts,” the forecasters predicted. They also noted the potential for a historic rainfall event, though it’s unclear if that messaging reached emergency managers.
The first warning for “life-threatening flash flooding” for Kerrville came at 1:14 a.m., and was marked specifically to trigger the Emergency Alert System. It would have sounded the alarm on cell phones in the warned area, assuming those phones had service, and their users hadn’t turned off EAS weather alerts.
Three hours later, the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office sent the first report of flooding at low-water crossings.
Several other critical alerts followed, warning of the imminent threat: A flash flood emergency warning was issued for Kerr County at 4:03 a.m., followed by one for Kerrville at 5:34 a.m.
The raging river burst from its banks around 5 a.m., sweeping homes, cars, campers and cabins downstream. It took about 90 minutes for the 20-foot flood wave to move down the Guadalupe River overnight Thursday, triggering the river’s second-highest crest on record.
Forecast offices stretched thin
Several NWS offices around the country are worse off than San Angelo or Austin-San Antionio, working with such thin staffing that they no longer operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Many NWS forecast offices have ceased launching their twice-a-day weather balloons, which provide critical data that can alert forecasters to the potential for flooding and other hazardous weather.
The NOAA official defended the National Weather Service forecasts, and said the disaster ultimately resulted from too much rain in too short of time in one of the most vulnerable spots in the country for flash flooding, and in the overnight hours — the worst time of day to get warnings to people in harm’s way.
This particular population is inundated with weather watches and warnings all times of day and night; in Texas Hill Country, where flash flooding is triggered frequently by summertime thunderstorms, warning fatigue can settle in.
Massive debris impale a bridge over the Guadalupe River on Saturday in Ingram, Texas.
Julio Cortez/AP
A helicopter flies over the Guadalupe River Friday in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Eric Gay/AP
The Kerr County tragedy also shines a spotlight on the limitations of current forecasting technology: It is simply not yet possible to predict that a cluster of thunderstorms dumping months’ worth of rain would stall out over a specific spot. Research efforts to find answers to these forecasting questions could soon slip backwards, experts warn, if the Trump administration’s 2026 budget proposal is enacted — just as the country needs to push the limits on what weather models are capable of.
The budget seeks to eliminate all of NOAA’s weather and climate research labs along with institutes jointly run with universities around the country. The entire research division of NOAA would be eliminated under the proposal, which is subject to congressional approval.
This would shut down research and development of new forecasting technologies, including computer modeling and severe weather warning scenarios, and hamper prediction of hazards including flash floods.
One of the NOAA labs slated to be shut down is the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, Oklahoma, which works to improve flash flood forecasting among other hazards from severe thunderstorms.
The NOAA research cuts would come just as human-caused climate change is resulting in more frequent and intense downpours like the ones that led to this tragedy in Texas.
A sheriff's deputy pauses while combing through the banks of the Guadalupe River near Camp Mystic on Saturday in Hunt, Texas.
Julio Cortez/AP
NOAA spokesperson Kim Doster told CNN the Weather Service provided ample lead time prior to the onset of flash flooding on the Guadalupe River.
“The National Weather Service is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life in Kerr County. On July 3, the NWS office in Austin/San Antonio, TX conducted forecast briefings for emergency management in the morning and issued a Flood Watch in the early afternoon,” Doster said in a statement.
“Flash Flood Warnings were also issued on the night of July 3 and in the early morning of July 4, giving preliminary lead times of more than three hours before flash flooding conditions occurred.”
A procedure to get people out
While the July 4 flooding was worst-case, the scenario is becoming more frequent as the world warms: More rainfall coming faster than it ever has before, with forecast models inherently biased toward what we used to consider “normal.”
For dozens of families, “normal” was shattered Thursday morning when they woke to torrential rain and catastrophic floodwaters that have since left at least 50 dead, including 15 children, according to local officials.
As an intensive search continues for more than 20 girls in Kerr County, Texas, who remain unaccounted for after the historic flood swept dozens from a summer camp, local officials are adamant they could not have done anything more to prevent the tragedy.
Gov. Greg Abbott praised federal and local officials in a long Saturday news conference and defended the response, calling it rapid in the face of a once-in-a-century flood.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs and holds up an disaster declaration proclamation as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, left, looks on during a news conference Saturday.
Rodolfo Gonzalez/AP
“Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming. We have floods all the time,” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said at a Friday news conference. “We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here. None whatsoever.”
Kerr County’s judge said the county does not have a warning system for flooding, while Kerrville City manager said they “could not anticipate” the severity of the flooding despite the warnings because the event happened so quickly.
“There’s going to be a lot of finger-pointing and a lot of second guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking,” said Texas Congressman Chip Roy. “There’s a lot of people saying why and how and I understand that. I understand why parents would be asking those questions, and all of the media.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the government response and the National Weather Service in a Saturday news conference.
“Everybody knows that the weather is extremely difficult to predict, but also that the National Weather Service, over the years, at times, has done well, and at times, we have all wanted more time and more warning and more alerts and more notification,” Noem said.
The DHS Secretary said President Donald Trump wants to fix and upgrade the technology that the National Weather Service uses.
“The National Weather Service has indicated that with that and NOAA, that we needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years, and that is the reforms that are ongoing,” Noem said.
A NOAA official said they did not know specifically what Noem was referring to, but that upgrades to agency computer networks, radars and modeling systems are underway.
Some of those upgrades have been taking place since before Trump took office for his second term.
</article>