National Weather Forecast

With a system pushing out of the eastern United States Friday, we will continue to see showers and storms in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic (capable of heavy rain) with snow and mixed precipitation in the Great Lakes and Northeast. A system out in the Northwest will produce rain and higher-elevation snow.

The heaviest rain through Saturday evening will be across the Southeast, where some 3-5” rainfall totals will be possible with that system passing through the region. Heavier snowfall amounts can be expected across northern Maine and the Cascades.

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Documents show how a pipeline company paid Minnesota millions to police protests

More from Grist: “The morning of June 7, 2021, Sheriff’s Deputy Chuck Nelson of Beltrami County, Minnesota, bought water and refreshments, packed his gear, and prepared for what would be, in his own words, “a long day.” For over six months, Indigenous-led opponents of the Line 3 project had been participating in acts of civil disobedience to disrupt construction of the tar sands oil pipeline, arguing that it would pollute water, exacerbate the climate crisis, and violate treaties with the Anishinaabe people. Officers like Nelson were stuck in the middle of a conflict, sworn to protect the rights of both the pipeline company Enbridge and its opponents. Nelson drove 30 minutes to Hubbard County, where he and officers from 14 different police and sheriff’s departments confronted around 500 protesters, known as water protectors, occupying a pipeline pump station. The deputy spent his day detaching people who had locked themselves to equipment as fire departments and ambulances stood by. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter swooped low, kicking dust over the demonstrators, and officers deployed a sound cannon known as a Long Range Acoustic Device in attempts to disperse the crowd. By the end of the day, 186 people had been detained in the largest mass-arrest of the opposition movement. Some officers stuck around to process arrests, while others stopped for snacks at a gas station or ordered Chinese takeout before crashing at a nearby motel.

More from Axios: “The electric vehicle (EV) movement is growing nationwide, but people who live in apartments, low-income neighborhoods and rural areas without easy charging access could get left behind. Why it matters: If the benefits of cleaner transportation — better air quality, less noise, lower energy costs — don’t flow equitably to all Americans, EV adoption is likely to stall, limiting the country’s ability to achieve its climate goals. In a first of its kind study, University of Michigan researchers found that the lowest-income U.S. households would keep experiencing the highest transportation energy burdens even if all gas-powered cars were replaced with EVs. “We identified disparities that will require targeted policies to promote energy justice in lower-income communities,” lead author Jesse Vega-Perkins said in a release, pointing toward charging subsidies and better public transportation.

Meet the man fueling clean energy opposition in the Midwest

More from HEATED & Distilled: “Last year, Heather Hodge heard about a proposed clean energy project in her rural Michigan community. Not too long after, things started to get ugly. It started in October 2022, when Hodge—who works for a biotechnology lab in nearby Lansing—heard about a proposed utility-scale solar farm in the townships of Conway and Cohoctah. If built, the project would provide enough clean electricity to power about 30,000 homes. “I’m thinking, ‘Oh, solar is coming through, it’s gonna be a done deal,’” Hodge told HEATED and Distilled. After all, 90 percent of Michiganders support solar energy, and only three percent strongly oppose it. And her area had a history of approving local energy projects. But as she began expressing excitement about the project, Hodge found that some of her neighbors were fearful. At a local high school basketball game, someone told her the project could give her cancer. Shortly after that, Hodge saw a Facebook post from a local parent claiming it would dramatically reduce property values.

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– D.J. Kayser