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Vance says Israel trip not about monitoring ceasefire like ‘a toddler’

admin - Latest News - October 22, 2025
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During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Vice President Vance said his trip to the region was not about monitoring the Gaza ceasefire like you would “a toddler,” but instead about strengthening Israel’s leadership in the Middle East.



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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 22, 2025, 10:00 AM EDTBy Evan BushThe first half of this year was the costliest ever recorded for weather and climate disasters in the United States, according to an analysis published Wednesday by the nonprofit organization Climate Central.It is information that the public might never have learned: This spring, the Trump administration cut the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration program that had tracked weather events that caused at least $1 billion in damage. The researcher who led that work, Adam Smith, left NOAA over the decision. Climate Central, a research group focused on the effects of climate change, hired Smith to redevelop the database, which includes records back to 1980. According to the organization’s new analysis, 14 weather events exceeded $1 billion in damages in the first six months of 2025. The January wildfires in Los Angeles were, by far, the most expensive natural disaster so far this year — they caused more than $61 billion in damage. That also makes them the most expensive wildfire event on record.Suspect arrested in connection with deadly Palisades Fire02:09The findings show how the costs of weather and climate disasters continue to escalate as extreme weather grows more frequent and intense, and as populations spread into areas prone to costly destruction from wildfires and flooding. The report itself is also an example of the way nonprofit groups are increasingly taking over federal projects that once tracked and quantified the effects of climate change as the Trump administration makes cuts to climate science. President Donald Trump has called climate change a “con job.” His administration has cut funding for clean energy projects and is trying to remove the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate the greenhouse gas pollution that is causing global warming. Jennifer Brady, a senior data analyst and research manager at Climate Central who worked on the project, said the shuttering of NOAA’s billion-dollar disasters database upset staff at the nonprofit, who decided to take matters into their own hands. “This has always been one of our favorite datasets. It’s told so many different stories. It tells the climate change story. It tells the story of where people are living, how they’re living at risk,” Brady said. “We’re happy to bring it back.”Kim Doster, a NOAA spokesperson, said the agency “appreciates that the Billion Dollar Disaster Product has found a funding mechanism other than the taxpayer dime.”“NOAA will continue to refocus its resources on products that adhere to the President’s Executive Order restoring gold standard science, prioritizing sound, unbiased research,” Doster said in an email. The database was a politically polarizing project. House Republicans complained to NOAA’s administrator in 2024 about the program, voicing concerns about what they described as “deceptive data.” Last month, Senate Democrats introduced legislation that would require NOAA to publish the dataset and update it twice a year, saying that lawmakers used the reports to inform disaster funding decisions. But the bill remains in committee and stands little chance of passing in the Republican-controlled Senate.Last month, a Trump administration official told NBC News that NOAA had ended the database project because of uncertainties in how it estimated the costs of disasters. The official said that the project cost about $300,000 annually, that it required substantial staff hours and that the data “serves no decisional purpose and remains purely informational at best.”“This data is often used to advance the narrative that climate change is making disasters more frequent, more extreme, and more costly, without taking into account other factors such as increased development on flood plains or other weather-impacted spots or the cyclical nature of the climate in various regions,” the official said at the time.Brady, however, said the database has always acknowledged changes in population and climate variability as important factors in the cost of disasters. Climate Central’s work uses the same methodology and data sources that NOAA’s database did, she said. Those sources include National Flood Insurance Program claims, NOAA storm events data and private property insurance data, among others. The analysis captures the “direct costs” of disasters, such as damage to buildings, infrastructure and crops. It doesn’t factor other considerations, including loss of life, health-related costs of disasters or the economic losses to “natural capital” such as forests or wetlands. The data is adjusted to account for inflation. The new analysis of the first half of 2025 indicates that this year is on pace to be one of the costliest on record, even though no hurricanes have made landfall in the continental U.S.Last year, NOAA counted 27 billion-dollar disasters, with costs that totaled about $182.7 billion. That was the second highest number of billion-dollar disasters in the report’s history, after 2023. Climate Central is not the only group stepping in to re-create work the federal government used to do as the Trump administration makes cuts to climate science.A group of staffers laid off from NOAA has launched climate.us, a nonprofit successor to climate.gov, a federal website that once provided data and analysis to explain climate issues to the broader public. The site went dark this summer. Rebecca Lindsey, who edited climate.gov before she was laid off in February, said she and the other NOAA employees who co-founded the nonprofit have raised about $160,000. They plan to host the climate.gov archives on the new site and start publishing new articles about climate change in the next few weeks. “We’re rescuing this information and making sure when people need answers about what’s happening with the climate, they’ll be able to find them,” Lindsey said.The American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society also announced that they plan to publish a special collection of research focused on climate change, after the Trump administration told scientists volunteering to work on the National Climate Assessment — a comprehensive synthesis of research about climate change and its effects in the U.S. — that they were no longer needed. The administration laid off staffers in the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which organized the National Climate Assessment and coordinated climate research programs across different federal agencies. Walter Robinson, publications commissioner for the American Meteorological Society, said the National Climate Assessment had been “effectively canceled” by the administration’s decisions, which he viewed as an “abrogation” of the federal government’s responsibility. The new collection can’t replace the assessment, he added, but it aims to organize the latest science on the effects of climate change in the U.S. in one place. The research will be released across several scientific journals on a rolling basis. “People are stepping in,” Robinson said of his group’s efforts. “As scientists, we do what we can.” Evan BushEvan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News.
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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 10, 2025, 4:45 PM EDTBy Tim Stelloh and David KetterlingThe legal saga surrounding the killing of a California art dealer nearly 17 years ago finally came to a close this year, when two men convicted in an elaborate grift and murder plot were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.The case was derailed for years by allegations of bias — allegations that emerged after a judge was secretly recorded making derogatory comments about two defendants described by prosecutors as the con artists who orchestrated the plot to take Cliff Lambert’s money, identity and life.All six people charged in Lambert’s 2008 killing in Palm Springs, the desert city in California’s Coachella Valley, were either convicted or pleaded guilty more than a decade ago. But the secret recordings — which were made illegally by one of the defendants during his 2012 trial — prompted a series of overturned convictions and new trials for four of the accused. For more on the case, tune in to “The Prince, The Whiz Kid & The Millionaire” on “Dateline” at 9 ET/8 ET tonight. DATELINE SNEAK PEEK: The Prince, The Whiz Kid & The Millionaire01:59One of those defendants was fatally assaulted awaiting retrial. The three others were convicted again after a new round of trials that ended two years ago. All are appealing their convictions.Even after those verdicts, sentencing for two of the defendants stalled for months — and in one case, more than two years — amid claims of ineffective lawyering and health problems. In April and July, Daniel Garcia, 43, and David Replogle, 76, finally received their punishment.“I should be happier than I am, but I am just so frustrated,” the prosecutor who handled the first set of trials said after Garcia’s sentencing. “I am so angry that it took this long.”The murderLambert, 74, was killed at his home on Dec. 5, 2008, during what he believed was a meeting with a lawyer acting on behalf of a deceased art collector, an appeals decision in the case shows.Cliff Lambert.Courtesy Tom FitzmauriceAccording to former Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Rob Hightower, the man posing as a lawyer was actually Kaushal Niroula — a San Francisco grifter who previously claimed to be an exiled prince from Nepal who was one of the architects of the plan to defraud and murder Lambert.During one of the trials, Hightower said the other architect was Daniel Garcia, described by a onetime close friend as knowledgeable, charming and well-traveled — someone who could enamor everyone he met.Garcia had also captured media attention in San Francisco a few years earlier when he sued a prominent local financier, Thomas White, over allegations of sexual abuse. White, who died in 2013, settled with Garcia and a second plaintiff for roughly $500,000 but said the claims were false, court filings show.DATELINE EXCLUSIVE: Tyson Wrensch says detectives dismissed his fraud allegations before Cliff Lambert’s murder01:23According to the former friend, Tyson Wrensch, Garcia and Niroula would show up at bars in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood and shower patrons with free drinks.“Everyone knew that the prince was at the bar,” he said. “Everything was over the top.”Hightower described Garcia as the link to Lambert, who met Garcia through an online dating site in the spring of 2008 and flew him to Palm Springs.Daniel Garcia at his second trial.DatelineDuring the meeting with Lambert, Niroula secretly let in two accomplices who fatally stabbed the art dealer and buried him in a shallow grave north of Los Angeles, Hightower said. Two other accomplices, including Replogle, a San Francisco lawyer who’d represented Garcia in the sex abuse suit, also participated in the plot, Hightower said.After the killing, the group fabricated powers of attorney in Lambert’s name, drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from his bank account and tried to sell his home, Hightower said.Within months, all six had been arrested in connection with the killing. Four of them, including Garcia, Niroula and Replogle, were charged with murder, conspiracy, grand theft and other crimes. The four pleaded not guilty and were convicted of murder at separate trials in 2011 and 2012. They were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.A fifth suspect confessed, cooperated with authorities and pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. A sixth suspect pleaded guilty to fraud.Convictions overturnedIn 2016, Niroula filed a petition seeking a new trial that accused the judge who oversaw the case of bias. The petition included a series of bombshell claims: In off-the-record comments, Riverside County Superior Court Judge David Downing was recorded on Garcia’s courtroom laptop talking with his clerk about Niroula’s HIV-positive status.Kaushal Niroula.Courtesy Mark EvansAccording to the petition, when the clerk said the defendant “likes licking envelopes,” Downing responded: “Ewww lord knows where his tongue has been and for that very reason I don’t like to touch or read anything he gives me and I deny everything as I don’t read it. It’s a tough world folks.”The petition notes another comment in which Downing used an expletive to describe the defendants and said they “can file anything they want, but I won’t grant any important motions.”During a private meeting, Garcia confronted Downing about the recordings, according to the appeals decision. Downing responded that he was protected by the First Amendment and treated everyone in the case appropriately, the decision shows.Downing, whose law license has been listed as inactive since 2013, hasn’t commented publicly on the case or responded to messages left at a phone number listed under his name.DATELINE EXCLUSIVE: Prosecutor Lisa DiMaria says investigation into murder of Cliff Lambert was ‘like Alice in Wonderland, falling into a rabbit hole01:20In 2020, after the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said it didn’t oppose new trials for the four defendants who denied the murder charges, a judge overturned the convictions and ordered the cases to be retried.“I felt probably the way Lambert did when he had the knife shoved into his back,” Lisa DiMaria, the Riverside County prosecutor who tried the case, told “Dateline.” “All of those years that I dedicated to getting justice for Lambert out the window. One of the most upsetting days of my life, the absolute most upsetting day of my career.”A jailhouse death and more convictionsOn Aug. 11, 2022, the first of the defendants to be retried — Replogle — was convicted of all charges. Weeks later, while awaiting retrial, another inmate killed Niroula at the Riverside County jail, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Niroula’s family. Defendant and former San Francisco Bay Area lawyer David Replogle.DatelineThe suit, filed in federal court, accuses the county sheriff’s office of failing to protect Niroula, 41, from harm.According to the suit, Niroula identified as a transgender woman at the time and was beaten and strangled to death by a person described in the complaint as a violent predator who “posed an immediate threat of violence and harm to all other inmates in his immediate vicinity and especially inmates like Kaushal Niroula.”The sheriff’s office has denied the allegations, which are set for trial in February.In 2023, two more convictions followed. But only one of the defendants — a former San Francisco bartender whom prosecutors said Niroula let into Lambert’s house — was sentenced. That November, he was ordered to serve life without the possibility of parole. Sentencing for Replogle and Garcia was delayed for months, however. In a court filing, Garcia said he hadn’t been provided with accommodations compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Garcia has a rare genetic disorder that causes extreme sensitivity to sunlight, the filing says.Garcia and Replogle also raised issues about their legal representation. At one point last October, as Replogle sought to have a newly appointed attorney thrown off the case, the judge denied the request and said, “There’s going to be no more playing games.”Finally sentenced — againSix months later, on April 25, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Anthony Villalobos denied a motion from Garcia seeking a new trial and sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole. In July, Villalobos denied a request from Replogle for a new trial and sentenced him to the same punishment.After Garcia’s hearing, DiMaria, the prosecutor, acknowledged the frustration that she felt after having watched the case drag on for years. She described Downing’s comments as “flippant” and said the reversal had nothing to do with the quality of the evidence prosecutors assembled.“There was never a question about innocence,” she said. “There was never a question about whether or not he did it.”“The most aggravating part is that he conned and manipulated the system, just like he did with his victims,” DiMaria said of Garcia. “The criminal justice system was played just like all of the victims were.”Garcia continues to maintain his innocence. In an interview with “Dateline,” he denied playing a role in the killing and blamed Niroula and the other defendants for the murder.Tim StellohTim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.David KetterlingDavid Ketterling is a producer for “Dateline.” 
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