'Catastrophic’ damage in Florida as storm heads to South Carolina | First Thing

Biden says storm could be deadliest in state's history as it regains strength and heads for South Carolina. Plus, meet Uganda's first female pro cyclist

Good morning.

As South Carolina braces for Hurricane Ian to make a second landfall today, the catastrophic" scale of the damage wreaked by Ian's 150mph deadly rampage across Florida has become clearer as authorities express fears of a growing death toll.

How many rescues have taken place? Florida governor Ron DeSantis gave a briefing on Thursday night where he said at least 700 rescues, mostly by air, had been conducted so far, involving the US Coast Guard, the National Guard and urban search-and-rescue teams. Meanwhile, Biden said Ian could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida's history".

Is climate change making things worse? In short, yes. Rainfall and storm surge - the latter thanks to rising sea levels - are both becoming more intense and destructive thanks to global heating, changing the pattern of hurricanes across the world.

What did Citizen Lab find? Using just a single website and publicly available material, Citizen Lab said it identified a network of 885 websites that it attributed with high confidence" as having been used by the CIA. It found that the websites purported to be concerned with news, weather, healthcare and other legitimate websites.

What have the CIA said in response? CIA spokesperson Tammy Kupperman Thorp said: CIA takes its obligations to protect the people who work with us extremely seriously and we know that many of them do so bravely, at great personal risk. The notion that CIA would not work as hard as possible to safeguard them is false."