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For more than 30 years, meteorologist John Morales has broadcast weather forecasts to South Floridians, warning the hurricane-prone region about the storms headed toward its coast. But now, Moraless ability to give accurate, quality forecasts to those residents is being hampered because of the recent federal government cuts to science and climate research. The Trump administration has laid off thousands of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the agency responsible for the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center, among other resources. Already, National Weather Service offices across the country are short-staffed, and the department has curtailed its data collectionlike launching fewer weather balloons. With fewer staff and data, weather forecasts are becoming less accurate. This means residents wont have the weather information they need about approaching storms like hurricanes. Morales illustrated this point in a recent broadcast on NBC 6 South Florida by looking back at a forecast he did six years ago, concerning Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm that decimated the northwest Bahamas. In the clip, he acknowledged that viewers had anxiety because it looked as if the storm was heading straight toward South Florida. But Morales had assured them: Its going to turn [away from the coast]. The turn was never forecast to be on Sunday. … The turn will come Monday afternoon, Monday evening into Tuesday. Remember that? Morales said in the broadcast after the old clip played. He had been right and, thanks to proper data collection and forecasting, was able to ensure viewers were prepared. Confidently, I went on TV and told you its going to turn, you dont need to worry, he said. I’m here to tell you that Im not sure I can do that this year, because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general. National Weather Service offices across South and Central Florida are already 20% to 40% understaffed, Morales noted. There’s also been a 20% reduction in weather balloon launches, which collect atmospheric data like wind speed, humidity, pressure, and so on. And what were starting to see, Morales continued, is that the quality of the forecast is becoming degraded. Because of federal government cuts, it’s likely hurricane hunter aircrafts wont be able to fly this year, he added. Hurricane hunters fly directly into the eye of storms in order to make forecasts even more accurate, thanks to real-time data. With less reconnaissance missions, Morales said, we may be flying blind. Thats especially dire considering this years hurricane season is expected to come with an above-average number of storms. Last year was an intense hurricane season too, with $5 billion events and a total of more than $124 billion in damage. (The Trump administration has since cut NOAAs ability to track the cost of climate change-related weather disasters, so its not clear if well know just how damaging this years hurricane season ends up being.) For Morales’s South Florida viewers, all these federal cuts mean they may not know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline, he added, leaving them unprepared in the face of what could be a disastrous storm season. Morales has been forecasting the weather in South Florida for 34 years, and this isnt the first time hes spoken out about a dire reality. In October 2024, as Hurricane Milton was barreling toward Floridas west coast, Morales got emotional describing the storms intensity. “This is just horrific,” he had said then, while also making it clear to his viewers that record-hot seas, fueled by climate change, were driving that escalation. Scientists and meteorologists have been trying to translate the costs of the Trump administration’s federal cuts to everyday Americans. Moraless broadcast does so bluntly. When sharing the clip to his Buesky account, Morales captioned it with the quip: Cuts have consequences, illustrated. And Morales ended the television segment with a call to action, as many scientists have been during the Trump administration. I just want you to know that what you need to do is call your representatives, he told viewers, and make sure that these cuts are stopped.
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E-Commerce
Meta has signed a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy to keep open its Clinton Clean Energy Center nuclear facility in Illinois, a move that will help feed the tech giant’s enormous power needs in the artificial intelligence era. The deal takes effect June 2027, right as Illinoiss zero-emission credit (ZEC) program expires and the energy center loses its ratepayer-funded financial assistance for being a carbon-free facility. By keeping the plant in operation until at least 2047, the center will directly provide power to the local grid and support Metas clean energy goals of matching its energy use with solely renewable energy. This deal will expand Clintons clean energy output by 30 megawatts through plant uprates, preserve 1,100 high-paying local jobs, deliver $13.5 million in annual tax revenue, and add $1 million in charitable giving to local nonprofits over five years, Joseph Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation, said in a statement. Big tech’s power play Metas deal comes as a number of Big Tech companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, are seeking out nuclear energy alternatives to power AIs growing demand. Although the center will be using the power to support the regional grid in central and southern Illinois, the tech giant will purchase 1,121 megawatts of nuclear energy from the facility, nearly all the energy the center will have the capacity to produce. Urvi Parekh, head of global energy at Meta, said the partnership will secure the clean reliable energy that is necessary to advance Metas AI ambitions. We are proud to help keep the Clinton plant operating for years to come and demonstrate that this plant is an important piece to strengthening American leadership in energy, Parekh said. Following the announcement on Tuesday, Constellations stock price (Nasdaq: CEG) increased around 1%. However, the stock was largely flat by midafternoon. Shares in Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META), parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, were also flat on Tuesday.
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E-Commerce
President Donald Trump wants his big, beautiful bill of tax breaks and spending cuts on his desk to be signed into law by the Fourth of July, and he’s pushing the slow-rolling Senate to make it happen sooner rather than later. Trump met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House early this week and has been dialing senators for one-on-one chats, using both the carrot and stick to nudge, badger and encourage them to act. But it’s still a long road ahead for the 1,000-page-plus package. His question to me was, How do you think the bill’s going to go in the Senate? Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said about his call with Trump. Do you think there’s going to be problems? It’s a potentially tumultuous three-week sprint for senators preparing to put their own imprint on the massive Republican package that cleared the House late last month by a single vote. The senators have been meeting for weeks behind closed doors, including as they returned to Washington late Monday, to revise the package ahead of what is expected to be a similarly narrow vote in the Senate. Passing THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL is a Historic Opportunity to turn our Country around, Trump posted on social media. He urged them Monday to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY. Thune, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, has few votes to spare from the Senate’s slim, 53-seat GOP majority. Democrats are waging an all-out political assault on GOP proposals to cut Medicaid, food stamps and green energy investments to help pay for more than $4.5 trillion in tax cuts with many lawmakers being hammered at boisterous town halls back home. Itd be nice if we could have everybody on board to do it, but, you know, individual members are going to stake out their positions, Thune said Tuesday. But in the end, we have to succeed. Failures not an option. Weve got to get to 51. So well figure out the path forward to do that over the next couple of weeks. At its core, the package seeks to extend the tax cuts approved in 2017, during Trump’s first term at the White House, and add new ones the presidents campaigned on, including no taxes on tips and others. It also includes a massive build-up of $350 billion for border security, deportations and national security. To defray the lost tax revenue to the government and avoid piling onto the nation’s $36 trillion debt load, Republicans want reduce federal spending by imposing work requirements for some Americans who rely on government safety net services. Estimates are 8.6 million people would no longer have health care and nearly 4 million would lose Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, known as SNAP. The package also would raise the nation’s debt limit by $4 trillion to allow more borrowing to pay the bills. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s bill “is ugly to its very core. Schumer said Tuesday it’s a lie that the cuts won’t hurt Americans. Behind the smoke and mirrors lies a cruel and draconian truth: tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy paid for by gutting health care for millions of Americans,” said the New York senator. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to soon provide an overall analysis of the package’s impacts on the government balance sheets, particular its rising annual deficits. But Republicans are ready to blast those findings from the congressional scorekeeper as flawed. Trump Tuesday switched to tougher tactics, deriding the holdout Republican senators to get on board. The president laid into Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning deficit hawk who has made a career of arguing against government spending. Paul wants the package’s $4 trillion increase to the debt ceiling out of the bill. Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). Trump posted. The July 4th deadline is not only aspirational for the president, it’s all but mandatory for his Treasury Department. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned Congress that the nation will run out of money to pay its bills if the debt ceiling, now at $36 trillion, is not lifted by mid-July or early August to allow more borrowing. Bessent has also been meeting behind closed doors with senators and GOP leadership. Thune acknowledged Tuesday that lifting the debt ceiling is not up for debate. Its got to be done, the South Dakota senator said. The road ahead is also a test for Thune who, like Johnson, is a newer leader in Congress and among the many Republicans adjusting their own priorities with Trump’s return to the White House. While Johnson has warned against massive changes to the package, Thune faces demands from his senators for adjustments. To make most of the tax cuts permanent particularly the business tax breaks that are the Senate priorities senators may shave some of Trump’s proposed new tax breaks on automobile loans or overtime pay, which are policies less prized by some senators. There are also discussions about altering the $40,000 cap that the House proposed for state and local deductions, known as SALT, which are important to lawmakers in high-tax New York, California and other states, but less so among GOP senators. We’re having all those discussions, said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., another key voice in the debate. Hawley is a among a group of senators, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who have raisd concerns about the Medicaid changes that could boot people from health insurance. A potential copay of up to $35 for Medicaid services that was part of the House package, as well as a termination of a provider tax that many states rely on to help fund rural hospitals, have also raised concerns. The best way to not be accused of cutting Medicaid is to not cut Medicaid, Hawley said. Collins said she is reviewing the details. There’s also a House provision that would allow the auction of spectrum bandwidth that some senators oppose. Lisa Mascaro and Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press Associated Press writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.
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E-Commerce
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