Year: 2022

Landslides of rock and mud closed roadways Friday across California as heavy rains kicked off what will be a series of storms poised to usher in the new year with downpours and potential flooding across much of the state and several feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada.

The atmospheric river storm, a long and wide plume of moisture pulled in from the Pacific Ocean, began sweeping across the northern part of the state Friday and was expected to bring more rain through Saturday, according to the National Weather Service in Sacramento.

A winter storm warning was in effect into Sunday for the upper elevations of the Sierra Nevada mountains from south of Yosemite National Park to north of Lake Tahoe, where as much as 5 feet (1.5 meters) of snow is possible atop the mountains, the National Weather Service said in Reno, Nevada.

A flood watch was in effect across much of Northern California through New Year’s Eve. Officials warned that rivers and streams could overflow and urged residents to get sandbags ready.

Landslides already had closed routes in the San Francisco Bay Area, between Fremont and Sunol, as well as in Mendocino County near the unincorporated community of Piercy and in the Mendocino National Forest, where crews cleared debris into Friday night.

Humboldt County, where a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Dec. 20, also saw roadways begin to flood, according to the National Weather Service’s Eureka office. A bridge that was temporarily closed last week due to earthquake damage may be closed again if the Eel River, which it crosses, gets too high, officials said.

More rain ahead

It was the first of several storms expected to roll across California over the next week. The current system is expected to be warmer and wetter, while next week’s storms will be colder, lowering snow levels in the mountains, said Hannah Chandler-Cooley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sacramento.

The Sacramento region could receive a total of 4 to 5 inches (10 to 13 centimeters) of rain over the span of the week, Chandler-Cooley said.

The California Highway Patrol reported some local roads in eastern Sacramento were under water and impassable Friday. By nightfall, nearly 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) of rain had fallen over the past 24 hours in the Sierra foothills at Blue Canyon about 70 miles (112 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento, the weather service said.

Sacramento’s fire officials planned to broadcast evacuation announcements from a helicopter and a boat along the American River — a spot where many unhoused people live in encampments — to warn of flooding.

Warnings of deep snow, avalanches

A winter storm warning was in effect through 4 a.m. Sunday for much of the Sierra, including the highest elevations around Lake Tahoe where more than a foot of snow was expected near the shores at an elevation of about 6,200 feet (1,889 meters) and up to 5 feet (1.5 meters) above 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) with winds gusting up to 100 mph (160 kph) over ridgetops.

“Strong winds could cause tree damage and lead to power outages and high waves on Lake Tahoe may capsize small vessels,” the weather service in Reno said.

Avalanche warnings were issued in the backcountry around Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Lakes south of Yosemite.

On the Sierra’s eastern front, flood watches and warnings continue into the weekend north and south of Reno, Nevada, where minor to moderate flooding was forecast along some rivers and streams into the weekend.

At Susanville, California — about 85 miles (137 kilometers) north of Reno — the Susan River was forecast to rise from about 5 feet (1.5 meters) Friday to a foot (30 centimeters) above the flood stage of 12 feet (3.6 meters) by Saturday morning, causing moderate flooding that could affect some homes, roads and bridges, the National Weather Service said.

In Southern California, moderate-to-heavy rain was forecast for Saturday. The region will begin drying out on New Year’s Day and the January 2 Rose Parade in Pasadena should avoid rainfall.

Heavy showers are forecast for Tuesday or Wednesday, the National Weather Service in Oxnard said.

The rain was welcomed in drought-parched California, but much more precipitation is needed to make a significant difference. The past three years have been California’s driest on record.

Source: Voice Of America

Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Saturday for more effort and unity as the country enters a “new phase” in its approach to combating the pandemic, in his first comments to the public on COVID-19 since his government changed course three weeks ago and relaxed its rigorous policy of lockdowns and mass testing.

China’s abrupt switch earlier this month from the zero-COVID policy it had maintained for nearly three years has led to infections sweeping across the country unchecked. It has also caused a further drop in economic activity and international concern, with Britain and France becoming the latest countries to impose curbs on travelers from China.

The switch by China followed unprecedented protests over the policy championed by Xi, marking the strongest show of public defiance in his decade-old presidency and coinciding with grim growth figures for the country’s $17 trillion economy.

In a televised speech to mark the new year, Xi said China had overcome unprecedented difficulties and challenges in the battle against COVID, and that its policies were “optimized” when the situation and time so required.

“Since the outbreak of the epidemic … the majority of cadres and masses, especially medical personnel, grassroots workers braved hardships and courageously persevered,” Xi said.

“At present, the epidemic prevention and control is entering a new phase, it is still a time of struggle, everyone is persevering and working hard, and the dawn is ahead. Let’s work harder, persistence means victory, and unity means victory.”

New Year’s Eve prompted reflection online and by residents of Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID outbreak nearly three years ago, about the zero-COVID policy and the impact of its reversal.

Video disappears

People in the central city of Wuhan expressed hope that normal life would return in 2023 despite a surge in cases since pandemic curbs were lifted.

Wuhan resident Chen Mei, 45, said she hoped her teenage daughter would see no further disruptions to her schooling.

“When she can’t go to the school and can only have classes online it’s definitely not an effective way of learning,” she said.

Across the country, many people voiced similar hopes on social media, while others were critical.

Thousands of users on China’s Twitter-like Weibo criticized the removal of a video made by local outlet NetEase News that collated real-life stories from 2022 that had captivated the Chinese public.

Many of the stories included in the video, which by Saturday could not be seen or shared on domestic social media platforms, highlighted the difficulties ordinary Chinese faced as a result of the previously strict COVID policy.

Weibo and NetEase did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

One Weibo hashtag about the video garnered almost 4 million hits before it disappeared from platforms about noon on Saturday. Social media users created new hashtags to keep the comments pouring in.

“What a perverse world, you can only sing the praises of the fake but you cannot show real life,” one user wrote, attaching a screenshot of a blank page that is displayed when searching for the hashtags.

The disappearance of the videos and hashtags, seen by many as an act of censorship, suggests the Chinese government still sees the narrative surrounding its handling of the disease as a politically sensitive issue.

Overwhelmed hospitals, funeral homes

The wave of new infections has overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes across the country, with lines of hearses outside crematoriums fueling public concern.

China, a country of 1.4 billion people, reported one new COVID death for Friday, the same as the day before, numbers that do not match the experience of other countries after they reopened.

U.K.-based health data firm Airfinity said on Thursday that about 9,000 people in China were probably dying each day from COVID-19. Cumulative deaths in China since December 1 have likely reached 100,000, with infections totaling 18.6 million, it said.

Zhang Wenhong, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, told the People’s Daily in an interview published on Saturday that Shanghai had reached a peak of infections on December 22, saying there were currently about 10 million cases.

He said those numbers indicated that some 50,000 people in the city of 25 million would need to be hospitalized in the next few weeks.

At the central hospital of Wuhan, where former COVID whistleblower Li Wenliang worked and later died of the virus in early 2020, patient numbers were down on Saturday compared with the rush of the past few weeks, a worker outside the hospital’s fever clinic told Reuters.

“This wave is almost over,” said the worker, who was wearing a hazmat suit.

A pharmacist whose store is next to the hospital said most people in the city had now been infected and recovered.

“It is mainly old people who are getting sick with it now,” he said.

In the first indication of the toll on China’s giant manufacturing sector from the change in COVID policy, data on Saturday showed factory activity shrank for the third straight month in December and at the sharpest pace in nearly three years.

Source: Voice Of America

If Google searches are a window into what Americans are really thinking about, then millions of us were focused on a daily online word game developed by a New York-based software engineer.

The impact of the term, Wordle, the most-searched term in 2022, is what surprised Simon Rogers, trends data team lead at Google, the most about this year’s data.

“All the top trending definitions are related to Wordles and the effect it had on our data can not be overstated,” Rogers told VOA in an email.

The top five most popular Google searches in 2022 — Wordle, Election results, Betty White, Queen Elizabeth and Bob Saget — also focused on politics and famous people who died this year.

With 92% of the search engine market share globally, Google is the dominant way Americans seek information about the world.

“Google searches are reflective of what we really care about,” Rogers says. “It tends to reflect what we really care about with an honesty you don’t find in any other data set.”

The top news searches in 2022 were: Election results, Queen Elizabeth passing and Ukraine. People also wanted to know how to pronounce Qatar and Kyiv; and about things like gas prices, COVID tests and voting that were nearest to them. They also sought information on how to help Ukraine, Ukrainian refugees, abortion rights and Uvalde (the scene of a mass U.S. school shooting in Texas).

“While we may expect the worst or be cynical about human motives, that’s not what the data shows,” Rogers says. “We want to help the people of Ukraine or host refugees. We want to help our friends if they have depression and we want to donate to good causes. That’s all reflected in the data.”

Rogers says there were other themes that struck him about the 2022 search data.

“It was an incredibly intense year with really big events that were all reflected in the way we searched,” he says. “The midterms [elections], for example, were actually the top searched midterms of all time. But there were also searches that really spoke to the theme of change or improvement. People searched for ‘jobs that help’ more than ‘jobs that travel’, for instance.”

In 2021, there was some focus on COVID-19 vaccines, stimulus checks and people like Gabby Petito, Kyle Rittenhouse and Brian Laundrie – all of whom were associated with violence and death.

“Last year, it was really about coming through the pandemic and learning how to venture out again. This year is about the next stage of that journey,” Rogers says. “While [Google] Trends doesn’t predict the future, given this year’s theme around change, next year we might start to see the ways that people have changed.”

Source: Voice of America