The Evening Blues - 10-7-24

Submitted by joe shikspack on Mon, 10/07/2024 - 3:21pm

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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Howlin' Wolf

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues singer, harmonica player and guitarist Howlin' Wolf. Enjoy!

^{Howlin' Wolf - Killing Floor}

"Democrats spent the Trump administration yelling about the threat of Nazis and fascism, and then spent the Biden administration arguing that it’s fine and good to commit genocide in Gaza and arm Nazis in Ukraine."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Never Let Your Government Tell You Who Your Enemies Are

Never let your government tell you who your enemies are.

It’s not the fault of middle eastern people that they live on top of a bunch of oil near crucial trade routes in a region which bridges three continents. And that’s all this has ever been about. Not fighting “terrorism”. Not spreading freedom and democracy. Not even protecting Israel. It’s ultimately about controlling what happens in a geostrategically crucial and resource-rich stretch of land.

The people who live in that part of the world never did you any harm. They pose no threat to you. You’re only being told to hate them because the world’s most powerful people need to dominate west Asia in order to dominate the planet, and they need to inflict immense amounts of violence in order to do so. That’s all this is.

Our rulers use all kinds of narratives from all around the world and across the political spectrum to justify their actions. They’ll use Zionism, Christian fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism, Hindu fundamentalism, liberalism, conservatism, nationalism or woke identity politics to manufacture consent for their agendas wherever needed. They’ll feed you whatever lines you need to hear in order to dupe you into thinking that disobedient populations in the middle east need military explosives dropped on them. That’s all they care about.

Our rulers use their propagandists in the mainstream news media and their narrative managers in Silicon Valley to manipulate public perception toward these murderous agendas using half-truths, lies by omission, distortions, misleading headlines, reversing the victim and the aggressor, starting the timeline of events at convenient points, and uncritically repeating unproven allegations from untrustworthy sources. These manipulators are as critical to the operation of the imperial war machine as the actual people who drop the bombs.

What kind of groveling, slobbering bootlicker would play along with this? What kind of power-worshipping empire simp would consent to murder and abuse at mass scale against people who pose no threat to them whatsoever, just because the people in charge told them to feel that way? What a pathetic, profoundly undignified way to exist.

They work so hard to manufacture our consent for these atrocities because they absolutely require our consent. So don’t give it to them. When all is said and done our rulers are at all times acutely aware of the fact that there are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and that we could very easily turn around and eat them all if we got it into our heads that that would be a good thing to do. Hold fast to your power, refuse to be taken in by their manipulations, and help wake everyone up to the fact that we are being continuously deceived into compliance, confusion and powerlessness by murderous psychopaths who want to rule the world.

Our real enemies are not in Iran.

Our real enemies are not in Lebanon.

Our real enemies are not in Gaza or the West Bank.

Our real enemies are not in Yemen, Syria, or Iraq.

Our real enemies are in Washington and London and Tel Aviv. In Berlin and Paris and Canberra. In secretive government agencies in the state of Virginia, and in imperial propaganda institutions in New York and Hollywood.

Our real enemies are not the Arabs and the Iranians, they’re the managers of empire who are ruining our world, destroying our biosphere, siphoning our wealth and our resources, threatening us with nuclear brinkmanship, and making sure we stay too poor, sick, busy and brainwashed to figure out what’s going on and take a stand against them.

Don’t let them dupe you into believing otherwise. Fight against their manipulations, and oppose their abuses. We healthy human beings can absolutely win this thing, but even if we don’t, at the very least we can prevent them from stealing our dignity and manipulating us into cheering for their depravity.

Alastair Crooke : The Middle East One year after October 7th 2023

Israel “in discussion” with Washington on attacking Iran’s oilfields amid intensified bombardment of Lebanon

With the full backing of American imperialism, Israel is continuing to terrorise the Lebanese population with a savage air bombardment and intensifying ground operations in the south. The Zionist regime’s impending attack on Iran, which is presented in the Western media and political establishments as “retaliation” for Iran’s missile attack on Israeli military installations Tuesday, will represent a further escalation of the region-wide war that has already begun. US President Joe Biden told reporters Thursday that Washington is “in discussion” with Israel about striking Iran’s oilfields.

An attack on Iran’s oilfields risks plunging the entire region into a bloodbath. It would not only make the eruption of an all-out war between Israel, supported by the US, and Iran all but inevitable, it would also heighten the risk that other major powers—like Russia, which has troops and naval vessels positioned in neighboring Syria, and China, which is Iran’s most important trading partner and is heavily reliant on Iranian oil supplies—would feel compelled either to intervene in the war or retaliate against the US and its allies in another part of the world.

The fact of the matter is that Israel is not an independent actor in the escalating region-wide conflict. Every action it takes, including its terrorist attacks on and indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon and assassinations of political leaders like Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, is coordinated closely with the White House and the Pentagon. Washington wants war with Iran to secure US imperialist domination over the energy-rich Middle East so that it can serve as a staging ground for military operations against China and Russia. This reckless re-division of the world is seen as necessary to offset US imperialism’s precipitous economic decline.

A statement by the G7 imperialist countries Wednesday turned reality on its head by portraying Iran as the chief aggressor throughout the region. Close to a year after Israel launched its genocide against the Palestinians, killing at least 186,000 people, and after two weeks of terrorist attacks and constant bombardments that have claimed the lives of thousands of Lebanese, the G7 wrote:

We, the Leaders of the G7, express deep concern over the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and condemn in the strongest terms Iran’s direct military attack against Israel, which constitutes a serious threat to regional stability.

We unequivocally reiterate our commitment to the security of Israel. Iran’s seriously destabilizing actions throughout the Middle East through terrorist proxies and armed groups—including the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas—as well as Iran-aligned militia groups in Iraq, must stop.

In other words, the world’s leading “democracies,” a group including Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States, fully endorse the far-right Zionist regime’s “war on seven fronts.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who are the subject of war crimes charges by the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, speak of the fronts in their war as stretching from Gaza and the West Bank to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran, just like the G7. ... [T]he G7 statement did not utter a word about the illegal assassination by Israel of Nasrallah in a strike that flattened multiple residential buildings and claimed at least 300 lives. Nor did it mention the thousands of Lebanese, including children, with mangled hands and limbs or who have lost their eyesight, due to the Israel Defense Forces’ terrorist attack that saw thousands of pagers and other devices explode across the country.

These attacks were only possible due to the logistical and political support Israel enjoys from Washington and the European powers, including a virtually unlimited supply of bunker-busting bombs from the US that the IDF has used to turn Gaza into a wasteland and which it is using to devastate densely populated areas of Beirut. This silence can only be understood as approval of Israel’s barbaric methods.

Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha: One Year After Oct. 7, U.S. Still Arming Israel's Slaughter in Gaza

Israel on high alert for 7 October as it escalates Gaza and Lebanon conflicts

Israel will hold memorials for the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks on Monday as the war it launched in response escalates on two fronts, with heavy bombing raids and mass evacuation orders issued in Lebanon and Gaza amid the growing possibility of a retaliatory airstrike against Iran.

As Israelis across the country prepared to mark one year since Hamas launched its devastating attack, a region that has spiralled into unprecedented crisis was on high alert. In Israel, authorities said they were on the lookout for attacks timed to coincide with the anniversary after a gunman opened fire on pedestrians in a central bus station in a city in the Negev desert, killing one and wounding 10 in the second attack in the last week.

In Iran, airports announced on Sunday afternoon that they would cancel all flights in a potential indication that Tehran expected Israeli jets could strike in a raid that could be targeted against Iranian military, oil, or even nuclear production. However, flight restrictions were lifted after “ensuring safe conditions”, Iranian media said.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to retaliate against Iran for a recent ballistic missile strike on Israel but said he would choose the time and place. Washington has pleaded with him not to cross red lines that could send the region further into an all-out war.

Senior White House and Pentagon officials have been in consultations with Israel over its expected retaliatory strike. Joe Biden has urged Netanyahu not to target Iranian nuclear or oil production, potentially prompting retaliatory attacks from Iran against vulnerable Israeli infrastructure.

Biden BRIBES Israel To Limit Iran Attacks

Israel’s lack of vision in multi-fronted war may be fatally exposed

As Israelis approached the beginning of the high holy days last week on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the news began to circulate. Several IDF units fighting on the border with Lebanon had taken casualties in at least two different locations. Soldiers had died in combat, and many were wounded.

The confirmation of the wounded and dead, if not the circumstances served as a stark reminder for Israelis of the blows that come in war, even as Israel’s punishing air offensive has killed hundreds of Lebanese and wounded more. The soldiers’ deaths came after two weeks in which Israel struck a series of blows against Hezbollah, including the assassination of the group’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and most of the top leadership.

Underlining that sense of hazard was another story that revealed itself slowly last week: how the wave of Iranian missiles launched against Israel had not been as inconsequential as initially claimed by Israel’s leadership, and instead shown that a large-scale strike could not only overwhelm Israel’s anti-missile defences but that Tehran could accurately explode warheads on the targets it was aiming for, in this case several military bases. All of which raises serious questions as Israel prepares for a “significant” military response to Iran for the its missile attack.

A year into Israel’s fast metastasising multi-front war that now includes Iran, Lebanon and Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, Israel’s undoubted military and intelligence superiority is faltering on several fronts. ... With Israel now so deeply immersed in a widening conflict, it is unclear whether it can escape what Anthony Pfaff, the director of the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, in August called the “escalatory trap”.

“If Israel escalates,” wrote Pfaff, “it fuels the escalatory spiral that could, at some point, exceed its military capability to manage. “If it chooses the status quo, where Hamas remains capable of terrorist operations, then it has done little to improve its security situation. Neither outcome achieves Israel’s security objectives … Forcing the choice between escalation and the status quo gives Iran, and, by extension, Hezbollah, an advantage and is a key feature of its proxy strategy.”

Japan has sumo wrestling.
Scotland has caber tossing.
Israel has bombing hospitals. https://t.co/lDg2eZdly6

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 4, 2024

Scott Ritter : The Middle East One year after October 7th 2023.

Netanyahu hits out at Macron over call for halt to arms exports to Israel

A call by Emmanuel Macron for a halt in arms supplies to Israel for use in Gaza has been met with an angry rebuttal from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The French president’s comments were directed mainly at the US and were part of continuing French efforts to revive its call for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

France provides few arms to Israel but is keen to strengthen its longstanding influence in Lebanon by showing it wants the US to put some genuine pressure on Israel to accept a ceasefire. Washington appeared to mount little diplomatic resistance when Israel – after sending mixed signals – rejected a US-French plan for a 21 day ceasefire in Lebanon announced at the UN in New York nearly a fortnight ago.

In an interview recorded on Monday, but broadcast on Saturday, Macron told France Inter radio: “I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop supplying weapons to lead the fighting in Gaza.”

“France is not supplying them,” he immediately clarified, indirectly turning the spotlight on the US, Israel’s main arms supplier. He also warned about “a resentment that is being born, a hatred that is being fuelled by this” . Lebanon could not be turned into another Gaza, he added. ...

His comments brought a swift response from Netanyahu. “As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilised countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side,” he said in a statement. “Yet, President Macron and other western leaders are now calling for arms embargoes against Israel. Shame on them.”

Israel Steps Up Attacks in Gaza and Lebanon

Israeli forces stepped up attacks in both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon overnight and into Sunday.

Israeli forces bombed a mosque and a school-turned-shelter in Gaza, killing 26 and injuring dozens more, according to the Palestinian health ministry; the Israeli military described the two sites as Hamas "command and control centers" but provided no evidence.

The Israeli military also on Sunday announced a "new phase" of the war in Gaza, issuing new evacuation orders that cover most of the northern part of the enclave, The New York Times reported. The military said it would send more soldiers and weapons to Gaza to "destroy terrorist infrastructures and undermine Hamas' capabilities until all the war's goals are achieved."

Al Jazeera's Moath al-Kahlout reported that "the situation here in northern Gaza is deteriorating as the Israeli army intensifies its bombing." He said that children, women, and journalists were among the victims.

"An entire family was killed by the Israeli army in the overnight attacks," he added.

Meanwhile, Israel conducted the "most severe" airstrikes so far on Beirut, "pounding" the city overnight, according toThe Guardian. The strikes were in southern Beirut and its suburban outskirts, which are seen as a Hezbollah stronghold and have been heavily targeted by Israeli forces for the past two weeks.

Al Jazeera journalist Ali Hashem, reporting from Beirut, described a "massive air strike" on Sunday near the city's international airport—an area that Israel has been bombarding for days. He said that daytime strikes are particularly harrowing.

"During the nights there are warnings," Hashem reported. "During the days there are no warnings."

Hashem said that emergency services have been prevented from getting into the suburban area where many of the strikes are taking place.

The Lebanese health ministry said Sunday that 23 people were killed and 93 injured in Israeli strikes on Saturday.

The Israeli military continues to advance its ground incursion in southern Lebanon. On Sunday, it ordered people in 25 villages to evacuate immediately, "signaling it's expanding its ground offensive," Al Jazeera reported.

Filippo Grandi, the United Nations' high commissioner for refugees, visited Beirut on Sunday and called for a cease-fire—saying it was "desperately needed"—and international humanitarian aid.

New Israeli Assault on North Gaza Signals Start of Ethnic Cleansing Plan

The Israeli military has launched a fresh assault on northern Gaza and ordered all Palestinian civilians living in the north to head south, signaling Israel may be enacting an ethnic cleansing plan that has been reviewed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Known as the “general’s plan” since it was drawn up by retired IDF generals, the plan would result in the complete ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from areas in Gaza north of the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land controlled by the Israeli military that separates Gaza City and other parts of the north from the south.

Itsik Zuaret, a reporter for Israel’s public broadcaster Kan, said the general’s plan was underway. “In the future, the entire northern area of the Gaza Strip will be cleansed according to the general’s plan,” he wrote on X. ...

Under the general’s plan, once Israel kills and starves the remaining Palestinians in northern Gaza, it can use the same tactics in other areas of the Strip. Israel’s assault on Lebanon and the looming Israeli attack on Iran has taken much of the world’s attention away from the genocidal war in Gaza, giving Netanyahu an opportunity to enact the ethnic cleansing plan with less global scrutiny.

Hezbollah Chief Nasrallah’s Successor Likely Killed in Friday Israeli Strike

Israel’s assassination last weekend of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has put the group in a thorny position, fighting ongoing Israeli invasions in southern Lebanon while scrambling to keep its leadership organized.

The assumption has been that Nasrallah would be succeeded by Hashem Safieddine. Safieddine is Nasrallah’s cousin and, reportedly, is Hezbollah’s head of intelligence. He is also the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council. Friday’s Israeli strike on Hezbollah’s compound in southern Beirut is thought to have targeted Safieddine.

However, Safieddine’s fate is unclear following that attack. Hezbollah reports rescue attempts at the site have been prevented by multiple, subsequent Israeli attacks. Israeli media, indeed, speculates that Safieddine has been killed, but there is no confirmation yet.

Nasrallah agreed to ceasefire before Israel killed him

House Democrats Say 'Impunity' for Israel Violates US Human Rights Law

As the death tolls from the U.S.-backed Israeli assaults on Gaza and Lebanon neared 42,000 and 2,000 respectively, a group of House Democrats this week urged the Biden administration to hold Israel accountable to human rights standards established under existing domestic law.

In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin dated September 30 but first published Friday by HuffPost, the Democratic lawmakers—Reps. Jim McGovern (Mass.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Betty McCollum (Minn.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), and Joaquin Castro (Texas)—expressed their "deep alarm regarding the lack of U.S. enforcement of the Leahy Law as it pertains to U.S. assistance to Israel."

Named after its author, former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the Leahy Laws were approved in two rounds in the late 1990s. The legislation built on the Foreign Assitance Act of 1961, which prohibits U.S. military aid to foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations.

"We strongly urge you to apply the law as written and act swiftly to bar any Israeli military unit that faces credible accusations of committing a gross violation of human rights from receiving U.S. assistance or training," the lawmakers wrote in their letter.

"As longtime friends and allies of Israel, we have supported, and continue to support, security assistance to Israel for the purposes of legitimate self-defense," the letter states. "Israel continues to face serious threats from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups. As it defends against these threats, Israel must ensure it is using U.S. security assistance and funding in compliance with U.S. law—whether in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, or elsewhere."

According to the letter:

Numerous credible reports of gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces have rightly placed U.S. enforcement of the Leahy Law in sharp focus. Israeli and international human rights organizations have released credible reports of Israeli security units subjecting Palestinians in Israeli detention facilities to torture, ill-treatment, prolonged detetion without charges or trial, and rape under color of law. Extensive investigations by reputable media outlets have also documented multiple instances of civilians carrying white flags being shot and killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza.

The letter comes ahead of the anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel and that country's retaliation, which has left more than 148,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead, maimed, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, and sickened.

Why Israel Will Face the Same Fate as Apartheid South Africa

Hundreds of Migrant Minors Are Wrongly Sent to Adult Detention Each Year Due to Scam X-Rays, Rights Groups Say

Hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children are incorrectly placed each year in adult immigration detention centers in the U.S. due to the illegal use of dental X-rays to determine their age, according to immigration lawyers and rights groups. Widely discredited by the scientific community, these age determinations severely affect a minor’s chances of obtaining immigration relief and remaining in the country.

Despite its impacts and scope, little is known about the practice of using dental X-rays to determine age. Federal agencies have refused to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests that seek to learn under what circumstances and how often dental and bone X-rays determine the age of unaccompanied minors. Civil rights organizations filed a complaint in a federal court in New York on Sept. 5 to obtain that information.

“The practice is illegal,” said Laura Belous, the legal director at the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, one of the plaintiffs along with the Center for Constitutional Rights and an affected individual. To make an age determination, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) requires multiple forms of evidence, including documentation and statements.

However, advocates claim that bone and dental X-rays or radiographs have been the sole basis to determine a minor’s age despite only producing estimates of plus or minus three years. Since 2018, Belous has represented at least 50 children in Arizona sent to immigration jails solely based on radiographs. This is a fraction of the unaccompanied migrants affected by the practice nationwide—a figure likely to be in the hundreds per year, she said.

Between 2014 and 2023, 6,203 unaccompanied minors under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)—part of the Administration for Children and Families, and the Department of Health and Human Services—were deemed to be adults after undergoing age-determination processes, according to federal data obtained by Brigham Young University researchers.

Kamala, Walz & AOC Agree On Mass Censorship!

Assange Was A Political Prisoner, Council Of Europe Parliamentarians Declare In Vote

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, or PACE, approved a resolution that states WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was prosecuted and detained in the United Kingdom as a political prisoner.

Þórhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir, the general rapporteur for political prisoners and an Icelandic parliamentarian who serves on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, drafted the resolution, which passed by a vote of 88-13.

The resolution urged the United States to reform the Espionage Act and “make its application conditional to the presence of a malicious intent to harm the national security of the United States or to aid a foreign power” and “exclude the application of the Espionage Act to publishers, journalists and whistleblowers,” especially those who try to inform the public about war crimes, torture, and illegal surveillance.

Assange, his wife Stella Assange, and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson were present for the debate and vote on the resolution. They cheered, clapped, and thanked the assembly.

Arab Americans Could COST Kamala Harris The Presidency: Michigan SPOTLIGHT

the evening greens

Antarctica is ‘greening’ at dramatic rate as climate heats

Plant cover across the Antarctic peninsula has soared more than tenfold over the last few decades, as the climate crisis heats up the icy continent. Analysis of satellite data found there was less than one sq kilometre of vegetation in 1986 but there was almost 12km2 of green cover by 2021. The spread of the plants, mostly mosses, has accelerated since 2016, the researchers found.

The growth of vegetation on a continent dominated by ice and bare rock is a sign of the reach of global heating into the Antarctic, which is warming faster than the global average. The scientists warned that this spread could provide a foothold for alien invasive species into the pristine Antarctic ecosystem.

Greening has also been reported in the Arctic, and in 2021 rain, not snow, fell on the summit of Greenland’s huge ice cap for the first time on record.

“The Antarctic landscape is still almost entirely dominated by snow, ice and rock, with only a tiny fraction colonised by plant life,” said Dr Thomas Roland, at the University of Exeter, UK, and who co-led the study. “But that tiny fraction has grown dramatically – showing that even this vast and isolated wilderness is being affected by human-caused climate change.” The peninsula is about 500,000km2 in total.

Roland warned that future heating, which will continue until carbon emissions are halted, could bring “fundamental changes to the biology and landscape of this iconic and vulnerable region”. The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience and based on analysis of Landsat images.

Canada’s carbon tax is popular, innovative and helps save the planet – but now it faces the axe

Mass hunger and malnutrition. A looming nuclear winter. An existential threat to the Canadian way of life. For months, the country’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has issued dire and increasingly apocalyptic warnings about the future. The culprit? A federal carbon levy meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

In the House of Commons this month, the Tory leader said there was only one way to avoid the devastating crisis: embattled prime minister Justin Trudeau must “call a ‘carbon tax’ election”.

Hailed as a global model of progressive environmental policy, Canada’s carbon tax has reduced emissions and put money in the pockets of Canadians. The levy, endorsed by conservative and progressive economists, has survived multiple federal elections and a supreme court challenge. But this time, a persistent cost-of-living crisis and a pugnacious Conservative leader running on a populist message have thrust the country’s carbon tax once more into the spotlight, calling into question whether it will survive another national vote.

In 2018, Trudeau announced plans for the “pan-Canadian climate framework”, modelled after British Columbia’s pioneering carbon tax. Notably, the levy is revenue neutral: the government doesn’t keep any money. Instead, it remits all of it back to taxpayers in the form a quarterly rebate. Any increase in costs from a tax on fuel is offset by a rebate of roughly equal value. According to the federal government, a family of four in Ontario will receive C$1,120 (£630) this year in rebates. Those living in a rural community receive C$1,344. A rural family of four in the province of Alberta receives C$2,160.

Anyone willing and able to change their behaviour would end up in the black. Economists, political scientists – and the parliamentary budget officer – have found low-income households receive more from the rebate than they pay in additional costs. But the Conservatives, with a significant lead in the polls, are keen to capture mounting frustration with the incumbent government and transform a federal vote into a referendum on Trudeau’s marquee climate policy. Their campaign message, on billboards and T-shirts, has been simple: “axe the tax”. They argue that levy burdens Canadians at a time when rents, groceries and transportation costs have all surged.

Still reeling from Helene, Florida braces for Hurricane Milton as it gains strength

Florida has expanded its state of emergency as it braces for a major storm expect to pummel the state’s western peninsula by midweek, after Tropical Storm Milton gathered strength and was declared a category 1 hurricane on Sunday.

The impending landfall of Milton comes days after Hurricane Helene caused devastation and destruction through large swaths of Florida and other parts of the south-east of the US including North Carolina. The death toll stands at 230 people, and is expected to rise.

Forecasters expect Milton to continue to build, and could approach a category 3 hurricane or higher as it hits the Florida peninsula on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.