Newly installed river barriers held back record levels of flooding and prevented widespread damage in Alaska’s capital city on Wednesday, after an ice dam at the nearby Mendenhall Glacier released a huge surge of rainwater and snowmelt, officials said.
Water pooled on several streets and in some yards in Juneau after the Mendenhall River crested earlier in the day, and high water was expected to persist for hours. But many residents in the flood zone had evacuated before peak water levels, and there were no damage reports similar to the past two summers, when about 300 homes were flooded.
The temporary barriers “really have protected our community”, Juneau city manager Katie Koester told a news conference. “If it weren’t for them, we would have hundreds and hundreds of flooded homes.”
On Tuesday morning, authorities confirmed that water had started escaping the ice dam, with flooding expected into Wednesday. Some Juneau residents in the flood zone had already evacuated as officials intensified their warnings on Tuesday, saying: “Don’t wait, Evacuate TONIGHT.”
The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is experiencing “severe” staff shortages at all its hospitals, with the number of shortages increasing by 50% this fiscal year, according to a new report from the agency’s independent watchdog.
The White House confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday that EJ Antoni, the conservative economist Donald Trump has chosen to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was in the crowd of Trump supporters that surrounded the Capitol on January 6 2021.
Donald Trump has a simple solution when numbers are telling him something he does not want to hear: Make up new numbers.
An Illinois judge on Wednesday declined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) request to hold Texas Democrats who fled there in contempt. 
Danielle Spencer, who played the wisecracking and tattling little sister Dee Thomas on the 1970s sitcom What's Happening!! has died at 60.
The DC national guard will begin deploying on the city’s streets Tuesday night, the White House confirmed to the Guardian, a day after Donald Trump ordered their arrival and took control of the city’s police force, calling Washington DC a “lawless” city, despite official crime statistics saying otherwise. A White House official told the Washington Post that the national guard is expected to “begin being on the streets starting tonight”. Defense officials said a small number of the roughly 800 guard members planned for the mission had already been mobilized by Tuesday afternoon, with more expected to arrive in the coming days.
California governor Gavin Newsom says the state will draw new electoral maps after Donald Trump “missed” a deadline on Tuesday night in an ongoing redistricting battle between Democratic and Republican states.
