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Flooding in Pacific Northwest Intensifies as Water Levels Soar

admin - Latest News - December 12, 2025
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Across Washington state, rivers are at historic highs with water spilling over their banks and wreaking havoc on multiple communities. The flooding is driven by a powerful atmospheric river that has dumped as much as 16 inches of rain in parts of the state with the deluge submerging entire neighborhoods and destroying homes and businesses. NBC’s Camila Bernal reports and TODAY’s Al Roker tracks the forecast.



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Dec. 12, 2025, 6:01 AM ESTBy Andrew GreifOnce you have skied down mountains at speeds exceeding 80 mph, there are only so many ways to replace that feeling. Since injuries led Lindsey Vonn to retire in 2018 after one of the most decorated and highest-profile careers in the history of American skiing, she tried investing. Vonn, the 2010 Olympic gold medalist, wrote a best-selling memoir and got into rodeo roping. Red Bull, one of her longtime sponsors, recruited her to drive for its Formula 1 team, she said. Lewis Hamilton, her friend and a former Formula 1 champion, wasn’t sure whether such a transition from snow to racetrack was possible, “but he’s like, ‘If anyone could do it, it would be you,’” she said. The speed intrigued her. Less intriguing was a three-year commitment she said the offer to drive required. “There’s a lot of other things I’d like to do in my life,” she said. Like pursuing, one last time, a rush replicable only on the slopes.Lindsey Vonn in St. Moritz, Switzerland., on Wednesday.Alain Grosclaude / Agence Zoom / Getty ImagesAfter nearly six years in retirement, Vonn returned to competitive skiing last year with the aim of qualifying for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Italy, which would be her fifth and final Winter Games. She will be 41 and hopes to compete in the downhill, the super-G and a team combined race when the events kick off in February. Her qualifying enters a critical stretch this weekend at a key Olympic precursor, when the season’s first women’s World Cup speed races begin in Switzerland. Vonn, the only American woman ever to win an Olympic gold medal in downhill, retired because skiing with two knee braces, three fractures and no ligament in one of her knees had made her “a shell of a human being,” she said. Her desire for adrenaline and competition was unchanged. Undergoing partial knee-replacement surgery last year and subsequently feeling as pain-free as she had before her first major knee injury in 2013 freed her to contemplate a return to the activity that has animated her life since she was a 2-year-old in Burnsville, Minnesota — getting on skis and going as fast as possible.“Being a downhiller, you have to have a certain mentality, and to be a really good downhiller takes something different, and maybe that’s why I’m a little bit crazy, but I’m accepting of that,” Vonn said in October. “I’m willing to risk everything. That’s why I’ve won as many times as I have in downhill.“Board calls are nice, but they’re not really the same as downhill. And investing is great, but it’s also not the same. I built a great life outside of skiing, but there will never be anything like skiing, and I fully understand that, and I’m comfortable with that. But I’m definitely going to enjoy this last bit of adrenaline, because I won’t get it back.”Though Vonn said Alpine skiing’s technology, courses and strategy had changed little since she retired — “downhill is downhill; you go as fast as you can,” she said — the Vonn competing now is far different from the version of her when she left the sport. She cut out the pasta, wine and ice cream she permitted herself to eat during her prime and also dialed back the three-a-day workouts that were once a staple. She trains five hours six days a week. “I can’t win a medal skiing the way I did with a nonfunctioning body,” she said. “I have to be strong, and I am strong, and that’s why I’m so excited, because I haven’t been in this position where I feel 100% healthy in so, so long.”More from SportsThe medical professionals guiding your fantasy football teamsNASCAR settles federal antitrust case filed by 2 of its teams, one owned by NBA great Michael JordanNotre Dame calls relationship with ACC ‘strained’ after College Football Playoff snubSkiing is still a young person’s game. The oldest woman to win Olympic gold in either downhill and Super-G was 32; only four competitors 30 or older have ever won the downhill or the Super G. But tell those odds to Vonn, whose smile curls as she rattles off, unprompted, numerous instances when she says she was doubted but won.Along with renewed health and confidence, she believes her knowledge gives her an edge. Alpine skiing will be held in Cortina, on a course where Vonn has won 12 World Cup races. That experience factored heavily into her decision to come back. What was not a consideration, she made it clear, was potentially damaging her legacy if she skis poorly.“I don’t think anyone remembers Michael Jordan’s comeback. I don’t think that’s part of his legacy at all,” she said. “I’ve already succeeded. I’ve already won.”Her 83 World Cup wins, third all-time, and past Olympic success have left her secure and “skiing freely with no exterior expectation or pressure,” she said. And yet, of Vonn’s eight medals at world championships, only one came after 2017. Of her three Olympic medals, only one came after 2010. As her comeback got off the ground last year, getting back to medal contention got off to a bumpy start. Vonn made uncharacteristic mistakes on the slopes, realized she needed to add muscle in the weight room and worked out kinks with her equipment. Signs began to emerge last season, however, that her trips down the slopes were not born out of a need to fulfill a nostalgic ride off into the sunset. In March, she finished in the top three of a World Cup event — 2,565 days after her last World Cup podium — to become the oldest woman ever to place on the podium, at 40. A pathway to a medal could be improved by injuries that have already ruled Lauren Macuga of the U.S. and Federica Brignone of Italy out of Olympic contention. Another top contender, Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami, also could be sidelined in Cortina, and reigning Olympic downhill champion Corinne Suter of Switzerland recently crashed in training, leaving her unable to ski until about a month before the Olympics start.Meanwhile, Vonn, who missed the 2014 Olympics after she injured her right knee, says she feels at her physical best. To improve her chances, Vonn hired Aksel Lund Svindal, a 42-year-old four-time Olympic medalist from Norway, as her coach. The two had grown friendly during concurrent careers, and that trust factored into his hiring. Vonn is deeply technical about her equipment, saying she once felt a millimeter’s difference between two skis, and Svindal has also raced for years using the same brand, Head, that Vonn uses. As always, however, it comes down to speed.“He knows the line that men ski, and that’s the type of edge that I need to be able to push the limits in a way that the other women are not willing to,” Vonn said.Nothing Svindal tells Vonn will be more impactful than the advice she got when she was just a child, when her coach, Erich Sailer, told her she was fast just the way she was and not to change.“I took that as not just in skiing,” she said. “In life, always be me.” That instinct to trust herself has been taken, at times, to unusual lengths. Vonn used the same pair of ski boots for the last six years of her career until she retired; she does not make changes lightly. And what has never changed, through injury, retirement or her comeback, is the allure of going fast and placing high. Even at 41 — and especially at Cortina. “There is that appreciation of the journey, but don’t get it twisted,” Vonn said. “I’m a results-based driven person. I’m looking to do well.”Andrew GreifAndrew Greif is a sports reporter for NBC News Digital. 
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Oct. 26, 2025, 6:30 AM EDTBy Corky SiemaszkoThe Russian chess master accused by his peers of bullying Daniel Naroditsky, the U.S. grandmaster who was found dead last week, has himself been hit with unfounded cheating allegations in the past — a 2006 chess scandal that came to be known as “Toiletgate.”The manager of Vladimir Kramnik’s opponent in that title match, Veselin Topalov, claimed the Russian was using the bathroom up to 50 times per match to surreptitiously look up chess moves on a computer — a charge that Kramnik’s manager hotly denied.“It should also be mentioned that Mr. Kramnik has to drink a lot of water during the games” and likes to pace in the bathroom, Carsten Hansel added, according to news reports.Kramnik eventually won the match and became the undisputed World Champion of chess, but only after agreeing to World Chess Federation (FIDE) demands that he use the same bathroom as his opponent. It was a concession Kramnik initially protested with a sit-in near the bathroom, causing him to forfeit one of the games in the match.Later, Topalov and his manager were sanctioned by the FIDE Ethics Commission for “making unsubstantiated accusations of cheating.”Kramnik, responding to an NBC News request for comment on the renewed interest in “Toiletgate,” said in an email on Friday, “Since I always played fair throughout my career, this insinuation didn’t bother me much, I took it quite lightly.”Since Kramnik had repeatedly suggested Naroditsky had cheated, his own brush with what turned out to be apparently baseless allegations resurfaced this week in the wake of Naroditsky’s death. A cause of death for Naroditsky has not been announced. “It is a bit ironic for someone like Kramnik, who had been accused of cheating, to then turn around and accuse somebody else of cheating,” Erik Allebest, CEO of Chess.com, which is the largest chess platform in the world, said Friday.Young chess champ found deadNaroditsky, 29, was found dead Sunday at his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. Police on Thursday said they were investigating his death as a possible suicide or drug overdose.FIDE said it would investigate whether Kramnik should be disciplined for the disparaging public statements he made “before and after the tragic death” of Naroditsky.During his last livestream on Saturday, Naroditsky told his audience that the cheating claims by Kramnik, whom he once idolized, had taken a toll on him.Daniel Naroditsky.Kelly Centrelli / Charlotte Chess Center“Ever since the Kramnik stuff, I feel like if I start doing well, people assume the worst of intentions,” he said.Chess.com banned Kramnik in 2023 from taking part in prize tournaments after he accused multiple players of cheating, said Allebest.Kramnik has claimed to be the “subject of a bullying and slandering PR campaign,” as well as ongoing threats to him and his family since Monday. That was when the Charlotte Chess Center in North Carolina, where Naroditsky trained and worked as a coach, announced on social media that he had died.The Russian has also denied bullying Naroditsky and said in an email Friday that his lawyers were “preparing a major case against every media resource publishing this false information.”Do chess players cheat?Allebest acknowledged there is cheating in competitive chess.“It’s just a human thing and it’s the same with any sport,” he said. “For some the rewards of winning outweigh the cost to their consciences. For some it’s monetary, although it’s rare that the prize money is that big.”Among other things, Chess.com runs weekly online money matches where players can take home up to $3,000.“It’s not big money,” Allebest said. “More often, players will be cheating to gain notoriety, to boost their streaming audience, to rise in the rankings and get famous by taking on the best players. It’s a perception thing.”Those matches, he said, are also closely monitored.“For players competing in prize money matches, we have a monitoring program called Proctor that they download that keeps track of what’s going on on their computers,” Allebest said. “We have front and rear-facing cameras to monitor the players.”Now that so much chess is played online, the cheating methods have also gone digital.“They’ll use computer algorithms to determine the best move, they’ll have a second program running on their computer while the game is being played,” he said. “Sometimes they’ll have somebody sitting next to them with an iPad looking up the best moves.”So Chess.com looks for red flags.“We have statistical models that help us identify possible cheaters,” Allebest said. “For example, if a new player signs up and suddenly starts winning a lot of games in a row, or whose ranking starts climbing fast, or if we detect other factors that we cannot disclose, we will look into it.”In their most recent “Fair Play Update” from September, Chess.com reported that 125,000 accounts were “closed for cheating.”‘Painful’ allegationsStarting in October 2024, Kramnik publicly accused Naroditsky of cheating in online chess, suggesting his near-perfect play was “statistically impossible.”Allebest said statistics don’t always tell the whole story.Russian chess Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik in Paris in 2016.Joel Saget / AFP / Getty Images file“The thing that often gets forgotten is that in statistics, lightning does, sometimes, strike twice,” Allebest said. “When you have 20 million games being played every day, a one in a million chance thing happens every day. Some players, especially old guard players who didn’t grow up playing online chess, often find that hard to understand.”Allebest said he gets why Naroditsky, a child prodigy, might have felt despondent in the face of accusations leveled at him by a world-renowned player like Kramnik.“It is painful for players like Danya to be accused of cheating because since they were young they put in hours and hours and hours of work,” he said, referring to Naroditsky by his nickname. “For some, that all gets thrown into the garbage by an accusation. For players who view chess as sacred, it hurts them in the soul.”Corky SiemaszkoCorky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.
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Sept. 22, 2025, 8:04 AM EDT / Updated Sept. 22, 2025, 11:58 AM EDTBy Freddie ClaytonDrones over Poland. Fighter jets above Estonia. Surveillance planes over the Baltic Sea.To U.S. allies in Europe, the pattern is unmistakable: A deliberate campaign of escalation from the Kremlin, designed to probe NATO’s defenses and political resolve. The question hanging over an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday is how exactly the alliance will respond.As NATO struggles to turn alarm into action, officials and analysts urged a more forceful response and warned that hesitation risks emboldening Russian President Vladimir Putin. But questions about U.S. support, escalation risks and what this growing threat means for Ukraine remain unresolved. Estonia, which called for the Security Council meeting after three Russian MiG-31 fighter aircraft entered its airspace for 12 minutes without permission last week, pressed members to address what it described as a “blatant, reckless, and flagrant violation of NATO airspace” and Russia’s “repeated violations of international law.”Russia’s actions “undermine principles vital to the security of all U.N. member states,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said Sunday in a post on X. Claims that Russia violated Estonian airspace were “baseless” and “aimed at escalating tensions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, adding that Russia operated within international regulations. So far, NATO’s response has largely been limited to meeting rooms as Moscow’s probing exposes a contrast between European leaders’ urgent calls for action and President Donald Trump’s more muted response.A Russian MiG-31 fighter jet that took part in the violation of Estonian airspace, in a photo released by the Swedish armed forces.Swedish Armed Forces / via ReutersAsked by reporters Sunday whether Washington would come to the defense of Poland and the Baltic states if Russia attacks, Trump said: “Yeah I would.”And on Monday Mike Walz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations told the Security Council meeting that the events left “the impression either Russia wants to escalate or doesn’t have full control of its fighter planes and drones.” Either scenario, he said, was “very disconcerting.” The U.S. “will defend every inch of NATO territory,” he said, adding that he expected “Russia to seek ways to de escalate, not risk expansion.” At the same meeting, Britain’s Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper also warned that Russia’s incursions into NATO territory risked triggering an armed conflict. “Your reckless actions risk direct armed confrontation between NATO and Russia. Our alliance is defensive but be under no illusion we stand ready to defend NATO’s skies and NATO’s territory,” she said. “If we need to confront planes operating in NATO space without permission then we will do so,” she added. This drew an immediate rebuke from Moscow, which dismissed Europe’s concerns as groundless and hysterical.NATO’s response to this ratcheting Russian activity amounts to the launch of operation “Eastern Sentry” earlier this month to bolster the defense of Europe’s eastern flank in response to a series of Russian drone incursions over Poland. After Germany and Sweden scrambled fighter jets Sunday to intercept and track a Russian surveillance plane flying unidentified over the Baltic Sea, one regional leader said Russia was not just testing NATO’s response, but was also aiming to reduce support for Ukraine by compelling countries to redirect resources.Calibrating how to respond to Russia was not easy, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said on social media, adding that Russia was doing just enough not to cross a red line.European confidence about backing from Washington has been shaken by Ukraine, where Trump has so far stopped short of imposing his promised punishment of further sanctions on the Kremlin for refusing peace talks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he was preparing for an “intense week” at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where he hopes to build support for efforts to stop Russia’s invasion.Ukraine has also submitted a request to attend the Security Council meeting and present its position.The aftermath of a Russian missile attack Saturday, in Dnipro, Ukraine. Denys Poliakov / Global Images Ukraine via Getty ImagesBut Europe’s security will require decisive action, and that will not happen at a Security Council meeting, “for the very simple reason that Russia has a veto on the council,” said Keir Giles, a senior fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tankUnable to rely on Trump’s “shifting position” on Russia, Giles told NBC News, the “coalition of the willing” — European nations that say they are prepared to underwrite security guarantees for Ukraine — must become the “coalition of the able and actually doing something.”Poland will not hesitate to shoot down objects that violate its airspace and pose a threat, its prime minister said Monday. But, he said, his country would take a more cautious approach when dealing with situations that are less clear-cut, and would need to know it had its allies’ support.”You really need to think twice before deciding on actions that could trigger a very acute phase of conflict,” Donald Tusk told a news conference.Trump met with Putin in Alaska but his peace push in Ukraine has stalled.Kevin Lamarque / ReutersHesitation, analysts said, risks sending a dangerous signal.“Europe and NATO have to show the will to respond forcefully to Russia,” said Moritz Brake, a senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies.“Russia is trying to gauge whether it’s possible to single out individual elements of the alliance,” he said in a phone interview. A forceful approach, Brake argued, would involve not just intercepting Russian aircraft, but also sending “manned fighter jets” that could shoot Russian jets down “at any minute.” As an example, he pointed to 2015, when NATO member Turkey shot down a Russian warplane seconds after it violated the country’s airspace near the Syrian border. Moscow did not retaliate militarily. “Russia didn’t declare war on Turkey,” Brake said. “Wavering is much more dangerous than a forceful approach.”Freddie ClaytonFreddie Clayton is a freelance journalist based in London. Abigail Williams contributed.
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