“Southern California Mudslides Turn Deadly”

Heavy rain drenched fire-ravaged Santa Barbara County in Southern California on Tuesday. Thirteen people have died (and this number is expected to increase as rescue missions continue) and thousands are evacuating from their homes because the rain is raising the risk of mudslides on hills stripped by recent wildfires. The storm hit hard around 3 a.m. and until 6 a.m., sheriff's office dispatchers handled more than 600 phone calls for assistance. That area has seen heavy mudflows that have prompted dramatic rescue operations. "Heavy rains have triggered massive runoff," Mike Eliason, a public information officer said on Twitter. "Access is difficult/delayed to due to — at some locations — waist deep mudflow, trees, and wires down.” The storm uprooted trees and wiped homes right off their foundations, and left mangled cars and abandoned surfboards on the streets. By Tuesday, more than 5.5 inches of rain had fallen in over two days, and in some spots nearly 1 inch fell in just 15 minutes.

In Other News Ahead of the 2018 midterms, a record number of House Republicans are heading for the exits — perhaps seeing the writing on the wall of a possible wave election. There are now 30 Republicans who will not seek re-election in November: 18 who are retiring outright and another 12 who are running for higher office. And that list is expected to grow in the coming weeks. The last time a party had nearly that many members retire during a midterm year was in 1994 when 28 Democrats left, and the GOP subsequently took back control of Congress in the Republican Revolution. At the winter Olympics, which get underway next month in Pyeongchang, South Korea, some of the most blistering speeds will come in the three high-adrenaline sliding sports, where top athletes zip on the ice at about 90 miles an hour. There's bobsled, kind of like a downhill race car on steel runners. In the luge, athletes lie back on a sled, going down the track feet first and face up. And then there's skeleton, where racers go head-first, face-down, in a blink-and-you-miss-it blur of speed.