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Trump looks to quash criticism on natural disaster response during Texas visit

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CNN
 — 

President Donald Trump is traveling to central Texas on Friday to survey the aftermath of a catastrophic flood that has killed more than 100 people and put his administration on the sudden defensive over its emergency response efforts.

The flooding, which overwhelmed whole neighborhoods in a matter of minutes, has sparked mounting scrutiny of the government’s warning systems and rescue operations – including a fresh set of bureaucratic obstacles that slowed work by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the earliest phases of the response.

But Trump is expected to use the trip to tout the progress that search-and-rescue teams are making on the ground, in a show of solidarity aimed at quelling criticism and emphasizing the White House’s close coordination with Texas officials.

“It’s a no-brainer – you go out there and you let people know you care about them,” said one person close to the White House. “President Trump does not want to see things like this happen on his watch. And he views himself as a fixer.”

Trump, who will travel to Texas with first lady Melania Trump, is expected to meet with first responders in the area and receive a briefing from local elected officials, according to a White House official. The president is also planning to meet with some families who were affected by the flood, the official said. The trip has been designed, in part, to not interfere with ongoing search and rescue and recovery efforts.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz are among those expected to be on site with Trump as well. And Sen. John Cornyn, who is facing a bruising primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, is slated to travel aboard Air Force One with Trump, a Cornyn aide confirmed. The trip comes a day after Paxton’s wife filed for divorce, citing “biblical grounds” for ending their 38-year marriage. Trump has so far stayed neutral in the race.

The trip marks the White House’s latest show of support for Texas’ recovery effort, even as Trump officials continue to push for downsizing the government’s emergency preparedness operations – or even eliminating FEMA altogether.

And it represents a stark contrast with Trump’s attitude earlier this year toward California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom he targeted with harsh criticism amid the blue state’s battle against devastating wildfires.

Trump ultimately visited California in his first domestic trip after taking office, greeting Newsom on the tarmac upon his arrival. But the two have since continued to tussle over a request for billions of dollars in recovery aid for California that remains in limbo.

“Would he do that with Texas? Probably not,” said one Republican operative close to the administration. “There is a difference in terms of how he approaches these things, depending on whether it’s a red state or a blue state.”

In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson rejected the suggestion that Trump has taken different approaches to certain states based on their politics.

“President Trump has led historic disaster recovery efforts in both California and North Carolina – he’s doing the same in Texas,” Jackson said, citing federal efforts to help quickly remove debris in southern California and support the cleanup process in western North Carolina. “Any claim that the President is giving certain states preferential treatment is not only wrong, it’s idiotic and misinformed.”

Trump has targeted political opponents for their handling of natural disasters in the past, criticizing then-President Joe Biden following deadly wildfires in Hawaii in 2023 and fanning conspiracy theories about the Biden administration’s response in North Carolina to Hurricane Helene last year.

Trump even briefly suggested Biden might be culpable in some way for the flooding in Texas, initially telling reporters that his predecessor was responsible for the water “setup.” It was unclear what he was referring to, and Trump quickly clarified he wasn’t blaming Biden. Since then, Trump and his top aides have avoided casting blame, while accusing critics of the administration’s response of trying to politicize a tragedy. The White House has maintained that the disaster was largely inescapable, while commending the efforts of Abbott – a close political ally – and other state and local officials.

“There’s never been a wave like this, outside of the breaking of a dam,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “And this is the kind of thing that built up so fast, and it’s happened two or three times over the years, but not to this extent.”

The White House has pushed back hard on suggestions that its policies weakened the government’s defenses against such disaster threats. Some Democrats had publicly fretted that deep cuts to the federal bureaucracy would end up restricting the staffing and resources available in emergency situations.

After Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, raised questions over whether efforts to reduce staff at the National Weather Service hampered forecasting of the heavy rains that caused the flash floods, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it a “depraved lie.”

“Many Democrat elected officials are trying to turn this into a political game, and it is not,” she said earlier this week. “This is a national tragedy.”

Trump officials, in meantime, have doubled down on their vows to shrink FEMA and shift more responsibility for disaster management to individual states – even as advocates for the agency pointed to the Texas flooding as a timely example of why vast federal resources are necessary.

FEMA officials trying to pre-position search-and-rescue crews following the disaster ran into new spending approval requirements imposed by the Trump administration that slowed its work, CNN first reported on Wednesday. Those teams weren’t authorized for deployment until more than 72 hours after the flooding began.

“This would be an unmitigated, unforced disaster, and it would certainly exacerbate the toll of extreme weather events,” a group of House Democrats wrote in a letter Wednesday to FEMA and the agency in charge of the National Weather Service. The letter decried the planned dismantling of FEMA and called for congressional hearings on the flood response.

The Homeland Security Department, which oversees FEMA, has defended the federal response and insisted it will forge ahead on plans to overhaul the agency. The federal response, one Texas official said, has been “as good as anyone could ask for,” given the circumstances, describing Noem as responsive.

On Wednesday, Noem argued that FEMA needs to be “eliminated as it exists today and remade into a responsive agency.”

“Federal emergency management should be state and locally led, rather than how it has operated for decades,” she said.

One state official viewed Texas’ response to the flooding as “a model for what other states could do to start building out a framework for how to be better in control of their own disaster response.”

For Trump, though, allies said the visit represents a more immediate calculation ingrained in him during his first term and on the campaign trail: It pays to show up for those who he believes showed up for him at the ballot box, especially in deep-red states like Texas.

“This is totally on brand,” the person close to the White House said. “He wants to be on the ground.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

Betsy Klein contributed to this report.



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Walmart recalls 850,000 water bottles after two consumers suffer vision loss from ejecting caps

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NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart is recalling about 850,000 stainless steel water bottles because the lid can “forcefully eject” and unexpectedly strike consumers — resulting in permanent vision loss for two people to date.

The recall covers Walmart’s “Ozark Trail 64 oz Stainless Steel Insulated Water Bottles,” which have been sold at the chain’s stores across the country since 2017. According to a notice published by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday, these products pose “serious impact and laceration hazards.”

That’s because when a consumer attempts to open the bottles “after food, carbonated beverages or perishable beverages, such as juice or milk, are stored inside over time,” the lid can eject forcefully, the CPSC notes.

As of Thursday’s announcement, Walmart had received three reports of consumers who were injured after being struck in the face by these lids when opening their bottles. And two of those people “suffered permanent vision loss after being struck in the eye,” the CPSC added.

Consumers are urged to stop using the now-recalled Ozark Trail bottles — and contact Walmart for a full refund. Shoppers can also bring the products to their local Walmart store for that compensation.

The bottles being recalled can also be identified by their model number, 83-662 — which doesn’t appear on the product itself, but would show on packaging. The stainless-steel base is silver and the lid is a black, one-piece screw cap. There is also an Ozark Trail logo embedded on the side of the 64-ounce bottle.

The Associated Press reached out to Walmart for further comments on Friday.





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Justin Bieber’s surprise album gets lukewarm reviews

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Ian Youngs

Culture reporter

Getty Images Justin Bieber performs on day three of Sziget Festival 2022 on Óbudai-sziget Island on August 12, 2022 in Budapest, Hungary.Getty Images

Justin Bieber has surprised fans by releasing a new album titled Swag, his first in four years – but critics have not been bowled over by the comeback.

In a three-star review, the Guardian said it has “moments of brilliance”, but is “no long-awaited masterpiece”.

The Telegraph gave two stars, agreeing that it is “not the return of a pop titan”, and describing it as “an uncomfortable and unfiltered cry for help”.

The paper pointed to spoken-word interludes including the “self-pitying, super-short Therapy Session”, on which he addresses the toll of press speculation about his mental health; and another titled Standing On Business, which features a viral clip in which he confronted a photographer.

The video, filmed on Father’s Day, showed the exasperated singer saying: “I’m a dad. I’m a husband. You’re not getting it. It’s not clocking to you. I’m standing on business.”

The video was widely circulated and remixed online, and now features as part of the promotion of the new album as well as in the track listing.

“Standing on business” has gained currency as slang for standing up for yourself and taking care of your responsibilities and ambitions.

‘Saccharine cliche’

With a run time of just under an hour, the teen icon-turned-megastar collaborates with a host of rappers on Swag including Sexxy Red, Cash Cobain and Gunna.

Its title appears to hark back to the singer’s 2012 hit Boyfriend, featuring the line “swag, swag, swag, on you”.

Promotional pictures shared by the Canadian singer feature his wife, Hailey Bieber, and their son – at points being held over his head.

The Guardian’s Rachel Aroesti wrote that the album “opens extremely promisingly with All I Can Take, a hauntological twist on spotless, energetic 1980s R&B”.

Overall, it’s “very considered, cleverly nostalgic and subtly satisfying – there’s not a craven chart smash in earshot”, she wrote.

“Lyrically, however, Swag isn’t such a classy and thoughtful affair. Dadz Love is an inane celebration of Bieber’s nascent fatherhood that essentially just repeats the title into meaninglessness.

“The other love songs – which are addressed to his wife, Hailey, whose viral lip gloss-holding phone case gets a shout-out on Go Baby – rarely transcend superficial, saccharine cliche.

“But they are at least preferable to the eye-watering spoken-word segments.”

‘Wiping the slate clean’

The Independent’s Adam White awarded two stars, saying the album is “just further confirmation of the artistic lethargy that has plagued his most recent work, and an unfortunate insight into a man who seems awkwardly caught between sex, God, and self-pity”.

Billboard’s Andrew Unterberger said it was “Bieber as we’ve never really heard him before – stripped of most of his usual big pop trappings, with a much more organic-sounding, alt-R&B-focused sound”.

But fans hoping for an album full of songs like his 2015 smash hit Sorry may be disappointed, he added.

The album was awarded 7/10 by Clash magazine’s Robin Murray, who said its 21 tracks have lyrics “that move from an emotive depiction of fatherhood through to in-jokes”.

“Stylistically, it broadly sits on 90s-adjacent synth pop – sometimes fixed in its approach, sometimes vaporised. It’s always colourful, and – for all its breadth – it’s always entertaining.”

However, Murray added: “One of the core strengths of SWAG is also its weakness: there’s a lot of it. His first album in four years, this feels like an outpouring of ideas, a wiping clean of the slate.”

@lilbieber Justin Bieber stands with his back to the camera in a black and white image. Next to him is his wife Hailey Bieber holding a baby. The word "SWAG" is written on the right hand side of the image. Rolling hills are pictured in the distance.@lilbieber

The album drop also comes on the back of fans’ worries for Bieber’s state of mind. In recent months, the singer has shared multiple posts online about the intrusion of paparazzi in his personal life.

Bieber’s marriage has also been under the spotlight after another controversial social media post. The singer celebrated his wife featuring on the cover of Vogue with a social media post detailing an argument between them.

The lyrics of Daisies, the second song on Swag, appear to allude to the couple’s relationship with “falling petals do you love me or not” and “you said forever babe, did you mean it or not?”

Other song titles on the album seem to touch on religious themes including Devotion, Soulful and Forgiveness, in keeping with Bieber’s Christian faith.

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Trump lands in Texas after floods kill 120 and leave 160 missing – live updates

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Kerr County officials were told flooding began an hour before they sent first alertpublished at 15:31 British Summer Time

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Washington DC

A Texas firefighter located upstream of the deadly floods in Kerr County asked if emergency flood alerts could be sent to residents about an hour before the first warnings were received, audio reveals.

In the recording, obtained by US outlets, the firefighter asks at 04:22 on 4 July if a CodeRED alert can be issued. The dispatcher replies that a supervisor needs to approve the request.

Residents didn’t begin receiving the alert until an hour later – for some it took up to six hours, according to reports.

In the recording of the firefighter’s dispatch call, the emergency responder can be heard saying: “The Guadalupe Schumacher sign is underwater on State Highway 39.

“Is there any way we can send a CodeRED out to our Hunt residents, asking them to find higher ground or stay home?”

“Stand by, we have to get that approved with our supervisor,” the dispatcher replied.

Local officials are now facing mounting questions over when Kerrville’s residents were notified about deadly flash floods that killed 96 in Kerr County alone, with over 160 others still missing.

Asked about a possible police radio failure at a press conference on Thursday – almost a week after 4 July flooding – Kerrville Police community services officer Jonathan Lamb said, “I don’t have any information to that point.”

The questioning followed a tense exchange the day before when reporters asked officials repeatedly about a possible lag in emergency communications.

Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha earlier this week declined to offer specifics about timing, saying that officials were instead focused on rescue and recovery efforts.

Leitha said he was first notified around the “four to five area”, and told local media, “we’re in the process of trying to put a timeline” about what exactly happened in the pre-dawn hours.

“That’s going to take a little bit of time,” he told them. “That is not my priority this time.”



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