TV News LIES

At least 37 people are dead after dozens of tornadoes, high winds, and dust storms pushed across the United States over the weekend, decimating homes and other structures in several states.

Deaths were reported in Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, and Missouri, where the storms killed a dozen, including three on Friday night when an EF-3 tornado with peak winds of 140 mph ripped through Bakersfield, the National Weather Service said Saturday. A Kansas highway pileup involving over 70 vehicles claimed at least eight lives, according to the state highway patrol.

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The National Weather Service has predicted extreme weather across a vast swath of the US encompassing more than 100 million people, with powerful winds gusts up to 80mph (130km/h) being forecast from the border with Canada to Texas.

A sprawling storm system crossing the US on Friday overturned semitrucks on highways and fanned wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma, where officials called for evacuations in at least one town. Tornado threats loomed for the Mississippi valley into the night and the deep south on Saturday.

A powerful atmospheric river storm was set to wallop California on Wednesday evening, drenching large swaths of the state with rain and bringing several feet of snow to the mountains – the latest in a wave of intense storms that new research shows are getting worse.

Much of northern California was under a winter storm warning because of the gusty winds and heavy snow in the forecast that the National Weather Service (NWS) said would lead to “difficult to impossible travel conditions”. Severe thunderstorms and high winds were predicted across the San Francisco Bay area, according to reports.

Quick-moving brush fires burned through a large swath of land on New York’s Long Island on Saturday, fanned by high winds that spewed thick grey smoke into the sky and prompted the evacuation of a military base and the closure of a major highway.

Kathy Hochul, the state governor, declared a state of emergency and said state agencies were responding to the fires around the Pine Barrens, a wooded area that is home to commuter towns east of New York City.

“This is still out of control at this moment,” Hochul told local TV station News 12. “We’re seeing people having to be evacuated from the Westhampton area,” she said, adding that more evacuations may be needed.

Hochul said homes, a chemical factory and an Amazon warehouse were at risk.

Videos posted to social media showed flames shooting into the air and columns of black smoke rising above roads.

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Saturday that looks to unleash forest management efforts following this year's devastating Los Angeles wildfires.

The order takes steps for quicker federal permitting approvals of forestry projects under the Endangered Species Act so that clearing brush, timber removals and other projects aren't delayed by environmental and other regulatory reviews, according to a White House summary of the order reviewed by USA TODAY.

Trump has long blamed California's environmental polices for forest mismanagement contributing to the state's wildfires including January's destructive wildfires in Los Angeles that killed at least 29 people. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has defended his state's forest and land management efforts, pointing to $2.5 billion in state investments on this front.

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