By Lex Harvey, CNN

(CNN) — Ace Aguirre was just two bites into his oatmeal on the morning of November 4 when he noticed something strange: mud had seeped onto the living room floor of his bungalow in Cotcot, a village in the Philippines’ Cebu province.

The moments that followed will be forever seared into Aguirre’s memory. His living room furniture floating; the terrifying few minutes when he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pry the front door open; his son praying to God as the water rose to their chests; his daughter, who can’t swim, perched high on a pillar as water and cars gushed by, inches from her feet.

“I don’t know how we were able to survive. One detail that didn’t go our way and many of us could have died,” Aguirre told CNN.

That morning Typhoon Kalmaegi dumped over a month’s worth of rain, causing rivers and waterways in Cebu to swell and unleashing catastrophic flash flooding that killed more than 230 people nationwide.

One of the dead was Aguirre’s neighbor, a mother of two, who drowned when she became trapped in her kitchen. He had tried to save her but couldn’t get her out in time.

Torrential downpours and deadly flooding in the tropical, disaster-prone Philippines are not new. But revelations in recent months that politicians, officials and contractors had looted billions of dollars from the nationwide program supposed to mitigate their effects have roiled the country.

Prior to the deadly flooding, a citizens’ group in Cebu had called for an audit of flood control projects along the Cotcot River, upstream from where Aguirre lives, according to local media.

The scandal has embroiled dozens of high-ranking lawmakers and officials who allegedly received kickbacks to award contracts. Those revelations have sparked huge youth-led anti-government protests against corruption and wealthy elites, similar to those seen this year in Indonesia and Nepal.

Aguirre had been watching the political drama unfold far away in Manila, the capital, for months, but he didn’t expect it to come to his doorstep.

“All of a sudden you become a direct victim,” he said. “It hits different.”

The flooding in November prompted Cebu’s governor Pamela Baricuatro to demand an investigation into the 26 billion pesos ($443 million) in flood-control projects in the province which officials in Manila admitted “should have been working” by the time disaster struck.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. later visited the region and promised to clear and clean the waterways, and de-clog drainage systems, in time for rainy season next year.

The previous July he had revealed a government flood control program worth more than 545 billion pesos ($9.2 billion) had been plagued by corruption.

He said an internal audit found many of the 10,000 projects his government had overseen since he came to power in 2022 had been built using substandard materials or not at all, he said, referring to the projects as “ghost projects.”

CNN has reached out to the Philippine government for comment.

When Marcos Jr exposed the fraud, he “opened a can of worms” that has since spun out of his control, said Sol Iglesias, associate professor of Political Science at the University of the Philippines.

Testimonies in the House and Senate have revealed “an entire system of plunder and corruption that has been facilitated by the very agencies that were responsible for budgeting, planning, implementing, monitoring and checking on the financial soundness of these infrastructures,” Iglesias said.

In September, Finance Secretary Raph Recto told a Senate hearing up to 118.5 billion pesos ($2 billion) in funding for flood control may have been lost to corruption in the past two years, Read more

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. - Saturday will be dry and mild in the 60s and 70s before light northern Central Coast rain chances pick up Sunday into Monday.

Clouds will begin to fill our skies over the weekend with very light showers possible to bring under 1/10th of an inch.

An atmospheric river arrives Tuesday night through Christmas Eve. It is likely to bring 1 to 3 inches of rain near the coast, and 5 inches for mountain areas.

Another pulse of the storm will bring more rain on Christmas Day. An additional 1 to 2.5 inches near the coast and additional 4 inches in the mountain possible with showers lingering through Friday the 26th. Flooding, debris flow and mudslides are possible.

The post Slight weekend rain chances, multi-day storm through Christmas appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Duarte Mendonca, Allison Gordon, Tim Elfrink, CNN

(CNN) — As investigators work to find a motive behind the mass shooting at Brown University and the slaying of an acclaimed MIT professor, former classmates of the accused killer described him as a brilliant but exceptionally difficult student.

Claudio Neves Valente, the 48-year-old suspect who police say was found dead Thursday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was a top student but a disruptive personality in his native Portugal, recalled classmates on Friday.

Neves Valente studied at Instituto Superior Técnico along with Nuno Loureiro, the MIT professor he is now accused of shooting to death. The school confirmed to CNN that both men were students there between 1995 and 2000, and that Neves Valente studied for a degree in Technological Physics Engineering.

That engineering course was full of gifted students, recalled classmate Felipe Moura – but Neves Valente stood out, for good and bad reasons.

“Claudio was obviously one of the best, but in class he had a great need to stand out and show that he was better than the rest,” Moura wrote in Portuguese in a Facebook post.

“Claudio’s attitude was unpleasant,” he continued, often arguing with “colleagues he didn’t consider as brilliant as him (and who probably weren’t),” he wrote. “They were totally unnecessary quarrels, which did not help the class at all.”

Moura, who now teaches at a Lisbon university, did not respond to messages from CNN. A former classmate, who asked not to be quoted by name, confirmed that Moura’s Facebook account was authentic.

In an interview with Público, a newspaper in Portugal, Moura echoed his impressions of Neves Valente as an aggressive classmate.

“He had a confrontational personality in class. In other words, the other good students would intervene, ask questions, [but] Claudio liked to say that he was the one who knew,” Moura told the paper.

Nuno Morais, another classmate, told Público that Neves Valente and Loureiro were among the top students at the school – but their personalities were starkly different.

“Claudio was one of the students with the best grades in the course. He was much more theoretical,” Morais told the paper. “Nuno was also a good student, he stood out less in terms of grades, but he was a more relaxed person—and seemed to have a knack for slightly more applied subjects.”

After graduating in Portugal, Neves Valente enrolled at Brown University in 2000 as a graduate student in physics but did not finish the program. Moura said he stayed in touch with Neves Valente at the time and found that he was once again clashing with other students.

“I exchanged many emails with him at the time and saw that he maintained the same attitude — as he told me —of maintaining unnecessary conflicts with PhD colleagues in class, which he again considered far less capable than he was,” Moura wrote on Facebook. “I could tell that he wasn’t enjoying being at Brown University.”

Scott Watson, a classmate at Brown, said Valente was “socially awkward” and that he became his only friend at the university. He struggled in the US, complaining bitterly that classes weren’t challenging and that the food was poor, Watson recalled.

“He would say the classes were too easy—honestly, for him they were. He already knew most of the material and was genuinely impressive,” Watson, who is now a professor at Syracuse University, said in a statement shared with CNN.

Watson said Valente could be “kind and gentle” but that he was also volatile as well.

“He often became frustrated—sometimes angry—about courses, professors, and l

Lucigerma // Shutterstock.

Longevity has become a growing priority for Americans: According to a new Hims study, more Americans would prefer to live a long life than a luxurious one. It seems that these days, living longer better communicates a vibe of “I’ve made it” than big-ticket items like a Birkin or a Bentley could.

For many, living longer is literally a life goal. More study participants indicated their top goal of the year was “prioritizing longevity” than paying off debt, having better sex, spending time intentionally, and other goals.

Generationally speaking, older respondents are unsurprisingly laser-focused on living longer, but Gen Zers are also getting on board. Nearly as many Gen Zers say they prioritize longevity as millennials (16% versus 18%, respectively).

Identifying Life Goals

We asked Americans to identify their top goals for the year. Longevity came in eighth place, right after creating a financial plan for the future.

Q: Which goals would you most like to achieve this year?

• 34% Save more
• 30% Focus on my mental health
• 27% Sleep more
• 25% Eat more nutrient-dense foods
• 25% Lose weight
• 23% Improve my hair or skin
• 23% Create a financial plan for my future
• 20% Prioritize longevity
• 19% Spend my time more intentionally
• 17% Learn more about my physical health
• 17% Reduce or pay off my debt
• 16% Spend my money more intentionally
• 14% Have better sex
• 14% Take measures to brace for the uncertain economy
• 13% See my doctors—get checkups I’ve been putting off
• 13% Change careers
• 9% Commit to a “No Buy 2025”
• 8% Splurge on myself more
• 7% Refinance my loans
• 2% Other
• 2% None of the above

The New Importance of Biological Age

The luxury of longevity isn’t just about living longer — it’s also a matter of looking and feeling markedly younger than your chronological age. Prioritizing your biological age (which is a metric of how you are aging in comparison to your date-based chronological age) is becoming increasingly possible, thanks to scientific advances like peptide injections, cellular revitalization, and metabolic medications. New technology is also helpful for preserving biological age: A growing selection of wearable devices, such as Whoop, Garmin, and GeroSense, analyze users’ health and lifestyle metrics to determine their “fitness age,” which, similar to biological age, estimates how old their body is based on their health.

With this growing focus on drinking from the fountain of youth and scientifically slowing or reversing aging, it follows that folks aren’t necessarily interested in accepting all aspects of natural aging. The majority of Americans say they’d rather fight aging (53%) than ease into it (47%). This sentiment is particularly true among women. Unlike men, 61% of whom still say they plan to grow old gracefully, 68% of women say they plan to

CNN

By Zachary Cohen, Haley Britzky, CNN

(CNN) — The US struck multiple targets in Syria on Friday that the US military tied to ISIS as retaliation for the recent attack against American troops there that killed two service members, according to two US officials.

Dubbed “Operation Hawkeye,” a reference to the fact that the two US soldiers killed were from the “Hawkeye State” of Iowa, the strikes hit dozens of targets the military connected to ISIS — including infrastructure and weapons storage sites across Syria, one of the officials said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the strikes a “declaration of vengeance,” in a post on X late Friday afternoon.

“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” he wrote. “The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people.”

After the attack on December 13 that killed the two soldiers and a civilian interpreter, US and partner forces conducted 10 operations resulting in the death or detention of around 23 people, that official added. Those operations also yielded intelligence from electronics gathered during the operations that provided information contributing to targeting for the strikes, according to the same US official.

Hundreds of American troops continue to be deployed to Syria as part of the US’ longstanding mission to combat ISIS, a mission that began when ISIS rapidly took control of a large chunk of Syria and Iraq in the mid 2010s. Subsequently, US and partner operations, paired with a change in regime in Syria, largely eliminated that territorial control.

The goal of Operation Hawkeye is to deliver a big blow to ISIS remnants in Syria and their ability to pose a threat to US forces in the region, the same official told CNN.

Partner nations, including Jordan, joined the US in the strikes, the official said.

While the Trump administration vowed retaliation against ISIS in the wake of the December 13 attack, CNN has reported that Syria’s Ministry of Interior Affairs said the attacker had been a part of Syria’s Internal Security service. US and Syrian officials acknowledged to CNN that the gunman’s ties to ISIS are not entirely clear-cut; ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

The two US service members killed in Syria were identified this week as Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa. They were killed while engaging hostile forces in Palmyra, Syria, the US Army said. Both soldiers were assigned to the Iowa National Guard’s 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division.

Three additional Iowa National Guard members were wounded in the attack and evacuated for further medical treatment.

“Our priority right now is supporting the families of our fallen and wounded soldiers,” Maj. Gen. Stephen Osborne, adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard, previously said in a statement. “The entire Iowa National Guard grieves for this terrible loss, and we stand together to support the soldiers and their families.”

Roughly 1,800 Iowa National Guard soldiers began deploying to the Middle East earlier this year as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, a release from Gov. Kim Reynold’s office said.

This is a developing story and will be upda