hello, and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m john vause, at the cnn center in atlanta. as we head into the midnight hour on the u.s. east coast, almost the entire state of florida is bracing for the impact of hurricane ian, a monster storm stressing 500 miles across. which earlier made landfall on cuba, blocking out the eyelids electricity grid and causing a nationwide blackout. 11 million people right now are in the dark, waiting for morning to assess the damage. as of, now there are no reports of fatalities. since leaving cuba, ian has grown in strength, fueled by the warm waters of the gulf of mexico, as it heads towards florida, now category 3, with sustained winds of 135 miles per hour. along with life-threatening storm surge, florida is facing catastrophic flooding and strong powerful winds. all they, long tuesday, residents across the state braced for the hurricane to make landfall. now expected the first forecast, and further south.
four partially occupied regions of ukraine say fall referendums have resulted in an overall favoring joining. russia the references have been denounced by western governments as a sham or farce or both. the referendums were held over five days in the regions of donetsk, luhansk, kherson, and zaporizhzhia, which almost makes up 20% of ukraine sovereignty territories. russian state media says early results of 90% of the vote are in favor of joining russia. there are reports of officials going house to house collecting votes, often accompanied by soldiers with guns. the u.s. has introduced a resolution at the un security council calling on member states not to recognize any change to ukraine s borders. here is the u.s. secretary of state. we, and many other countries
that the wind field continues to expand. and let me tell you why that s important. because what a larger hurricane, that means we have the potential to push up more of the ocean water, right? the gulf of mexico very shallow. and it does not take much wind to start piling that up along the western shoreline. that s exactly what s happening here. the manatee river, directly behind me, gulf of mexico, just over my right. there s a lot of water there. a lot of warm water. that s also going to fuel the development of the storm right up to landfall. the trajectory, the way that the storm is moving in is so crucial as well. because yesterday, 24 hours ago, we had a storm that was projected to basically parallel and crawl along the coastline of florida. that would also maximize the impacts. but would also allow for a slow-moving storm and weakening storm upon arrival. but it s changed now. we have more of a perpendicular approach to the coastline. and why this matters is because
With The Bay grand opening set for Oct. 14-23, the Bay Park Improvement Board recommends approval of TIF financing for phase two of the $150 million, 53-acre project.