Senegal votes in election that will decide if president can carry out the reforms he promised

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — Tropical Storm Sara on Sunday made landfall in Belize, where forecasters expect heavy rain to cause life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides.

The storm moved inland in Belize after drenching the northern coast of Honduras, where it stalled since Friday, swelling rivers and trapping some people at home.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center’s tropical storm warning as of Sunday included the Caribbean coast of Guatemala; the coast of Belize; and northward into the coast of Mexico’s state of Quintana Roo, from Chetumal to Puerto Costa Maya.

Those areas, along with portions of El Salvador and western Nicaragua, could see up to 5 inches (13 cm), with localized totals reaching 15 inches (38 cm). The conditions “will result in areas of flash flooding, perhaps significant, along with the potential of mudslides,” according to the Hurricane Center.

“A storm surge could raise water levels by as much as 1 to 3 feet above ground level near and to the north of where the center of Sara crosses the coast of Belize,” the center said Sunday. “Near the coast, the surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves.”

Meanwhile, northern Honduras is not in the clear yet. The center expects Sara to drop up to 3 inches (8 cm) of rain there, but some areas could see totals hit 40 inches (1 meter), with “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding” still possible.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

WEST MILFORD, N.J. (AP) — Windy conditions renewed a wildfire that escaped a containment line and prompted emergency officials to enact a voluntary evacuation plan for a small number of houses in a community near the New York-New Jersey border on Saturday.

The voluntary evacuation enacted out of “an abundance of caution” impacted about 165 houses in Warwick, New York, as firefighters continued working to tame the Jennings Creek blaze, New York Parks Department spokesman Jeff Wernick said in an email Saturday night.

A local school was being used as a shelter for residents in need of one, New York State Police Troop F said in a statement. The troop said the fire necessitated a response from several public safety agencies.

“Multiple surrounding fire departments are assisting with firefighting efforts. State Police Drone Unit is on scene providing aerial assessments,” the statement said.

On Friday, the wildfire was 90% contained on the Passaic County, New Jersey, side of the border, and about 70% contained in Orange County, New York, officials said.

The wildfire had burned 7 1/2 square miles (19.4 square kilometers) across the two states as of Friday, although New York officials said that number was likely to increase as stronger winds were forecast for the weekend.

On Saturday, Wernick said New York Army National Guard helicopters dropped 21,000 gallons (79,493 liters) of water and a New York State Police helicopter dropped nearly 900 gallons (3,406 liters).

The fire was burning primarily in Sterling Forest State Park, where the visitor center, the lakefront area at Greenwood Lake and historic furnace area remained open but woodland activities including hunting were halted, Wernick said, noting residences around the lake have not been impacted.

A National Weather Service forecast for Warwick did not call for rain until Wednesday night. Firefighters previously said they will remain on the scene until significant rainfall occurs.

The blaze claimed the life of an 18-year-old New York parks employee who died when a tree fell on him as he helped fight the fire in Sterling Forest on Nov. 9. The fire’s cause remains under investigation.

Fires also were a threat elsewhere in the Northeast, as New England states were under red flag alerts for wildfires this weekend. The National Interagency Fire Center said fires in California, North Carolina and West Virginia were also concerning.

Massachusetts, which typically has about 15 wildland fires every October, had about 200 this year. State officials said they were expected to continue because of weather conditions and dry surface fuels.

Southern New Hampshire was at particular risk for fires due to dry conditions and the fire danger risk was “very high,” state officials said.

The Maine Forest Service said the southern part of the state also faced high fire danger conditions. Most of the state was abnormally dry or facing moderate drought conditions.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Joe Biden on Sunday became the first sitting American president to set foot in the Amazon rainforest, as incoming Trump administration seems poised to scale back the U.S. commitment to combating climate change.

The massive Amazon, which is about the size of Australia, stores huge amounts of the world’s carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas driving climate change, even as the world’s largest tropical rainforest is rapidly deforested.

Biden is expected to be taken over a stretch of the rainforest where he would get a good view of the shallowing of waterways, fire damage and a wildlife refuge. He’s also expected to get a peek at where the Rio Negro and Amazon Rivers meet. He will then meet local and indigenous leaders and visit an Amazonian museum as he looks to highlight his commitment to the preservation of the region.

His administration announced plans last year for a $500 million contribution to the Amazon Fund, the most significant international cooperation effort to preserve the rainforest, primarily financed by Norway.

So far, the U.S. government said it has provided $50 million, and the White House announced Sunday an additional $50 million contribution to the fund.

“It’s significant for a sitting president to visit the Amazon. … This shows a personal commitment from the president,” said Suely Araújo, former head of the Brazilian environmental protection agency and public policy coordinator with the nonprofit Climate Observatory. “That said, we can’t expect concrete results from this visit.”

She doubts that a “single penny” will go to the Amazon Fund once Donald Trump is back in the White House.

The incoming Trump administration is highly unlikely to prioritize the Amazon or anything related to climate change. The Republican president-elect already said he would again pull out of the Paris agreement, a global pact forged to avert the threat of catastrophic climate change, after Biden recommitted to the agreement.

Trump has cast climate change as a “hoax” and said he will eliminate energy efficiency regulations by the Biden administration.

Still, the Biden White House on Sunday announced a series of new efforts aimed at bolstering the Amazon and stemming the impact of climate change.

Among the actions is the launch of a finance coalition that looks to spur at least $10 billion in public and private investment for land restoration and bioeconomy-related projects by 2030, and a $37.5 million loan to the organization Mombak Gestora de Recursos Ltda. to support the large-scale planting of native tree species on degraded grasslands in Brazil.

Biden is also set to sign a U.S. proclamation designating Nov. 17 as International Conservation Day, and will highlight in remarks during the visit that the U.S. is on track to reach $11 billion in spending on international climate financing in 2024, a six-fold increase from when he started his term.

The Amazon is home to Indigenous communities and 10% of Earth’s biodiversity. It also regulates moisture across South America. About two-thirds of the Amazon lies within Brazil, and scientists say its devastation poses a catastrophic threat to the planet.

The forest has been suffering two years of historic drought that have dried up waterways, isolated thousands of riverine communities and hindered riverine dwellers’ ability to fish. It’s also made way for wildfires that have burned an area larger than Switzerland and choked cities near and far with smoke.

When Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office last year, he signaled a shift in environmental policy from his predecessor, far-right Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro prioritized agribusiness expansion over forest protection and weakened environmental agencies, prompting deforestation to surge to a 15-year-high.

Lula has pledged “zero deforestation” by 2030, though his term runs through the end of 2026. Forest loss in Brazil’s Amazon dropped by 30.6% in the 12 months through July from a year earlier, bringing deforestation to its lowest level in nine years, according to official data released last week.

In that 12-month span, the Amazon lost 6,288 square kilometers (2,428 square miles), roughly the size of the U.S. state of Delaware. But that data fails to capture the surge of destruction this year, which will only be included in next year’s reading.

Despite the success in curbing Amazon deforestation, Lula’s government has been criticized by environmentalists for backing projects that could harm the region, such as paving a highway that cuts from an old-growth area and could encourage logging, oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River and building a railway to transport soy to Amazonian ports.

Biden is making the Amazon visit as part of a six-day trip to South America, the first to the continent of his presidency. He traveled from Lima, Peru, where he took part in the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

After his stop in Manaus, he was heading to Rio de Janeiro for this year’s Group of 20 leaders summit.

___

Sa Pessoa reported from Sao Paulo, and Long from Washington.