Tangle - Hurricane Helene and the disaster relief efforts.

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

On Thursday, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida's Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane before moving inland and hitting the southeastern United States. The hurricane was the third to hit the Big Bend region in Florida in 13 months and broke storm surge records across the Gulf Coast. At least 130 deaths in six states have been attributed to the storm, and the death toll continues to climb. On Monday afternoon, two million homes and businesses were still without power, and floods continued to devastate counties from Florida to Virginia.You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.Check out Episode 6 of our podcast series, The Undecideds. You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Help share Tangle.I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it. Email Tangle to a friend here, share Tangle on X/Twitter here, or share Tangle on Facebook here.Take the survey: What do you think of the government response to Hurricane Helene? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are you sure you parked over here? Do you see it anywhere? I think it's back this way. Come on. Hey, you're going the wrong way. Feeling distracted? You're not alone. Whether renting, considering buying a home, or renewing a mortgage, many Canadians are finding it hard to focus with housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances and clear your head,

visit Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the

buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural

who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history,

and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tango Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be discussing Hurricane Helene and the tragedies unfolding in North

Carolina and across the southeastern region. Man, there's a lot to talk about here. Warning you now, I've got a long my take and yeah, a lot of strong feelings about some of what I'm seeing as this tragedy unfolds. So I'm just going to pass it to John for today's main story, and I'll be back for my take. Thank you, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, longshoremen at ports along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico went on strike after the United States Maritime Alliance and the International Longshoremen's Association failed to agree to a new contract. The strike is the first by the Port Workers Union since 1977.

Number two, Senator J.D. Vance and Governor Tim Walz will take part in the vice presidential debate tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on CBS News. debate tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on CBS News. Number three, Israel began ground operations in southern Lebanon, and the military is saying it aims to destroy Hezbollah military infrastructure in villages close to the Israel-Lebanon border. Number four, the Biden administration announced it will toughen its asylum restrictions for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. The new rule shuts down most asylum cases unless apprehensions of migrants crossing the border illegally drops below a daily average of 1,500 over 28 days, an increase from seven days under the initial version of the order. At number five, a judge in Fulton County, Georgia overturned a state law that made it illegal to terminate a pregnancy after six weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest, and the health of the mother and the fetus. The order restores Georgia's previous abortion regulations, allowing the procedure until 22 weeks of pregnancy.

North Carolina is cleaning up from the worst flooding ever on record for the state. More than 100 people are dead from Helene, a number that's still expected to rise. Hundreds more are missing, and roughly 2.1 million customers are without power across the region. These are desperate hours in the storm zone tonight. Now, four days after making landfall in Florida, the aftermath of Hurricane Helene still inflicting maximum pain on communities in North Carolina and Tennessee. Officials in North Carolina say they were blinded by Helene's sheer intensity. Homes swept away, restaurants and shops torn to pieces. Communities cut off from clean water and electricity, leaving residents nowhere to go.

Shelters are at capacity. Those shelters only provide overnight lodging, food and water. FEMA is not at these locations. This is basic necessities only. On Thursday, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida's Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane before moving inland and hitting the southeastern United States. The hurricane was the third to hit the Big Bend region in Florida in 13 months and broke storm surge records across the Gulf Coast. At least 130 deaths in six states have been attributed to the storm, and the death toll continues to climb. On Monday afternoon, two million homes and businesses were still without power, and floods

continued to devastate counties from Florida to Virginia. The western region of North Carolina was among the hardest hit, with 40 known deaths in Buncombe County, which encompasses Asheville. Rainfall in some areas was measured at over 2 feet, causing the worst flooding in over a century. Residents across western North Carolina were left lining up outside shelters or stores for fresh water, food, and access to phones in order to contact relatives and loved ones. Meanwhile, government officials said aid groups were struggling to get basic supplies into the area via airlift, truck, and mule due to washed-out highways, collapsed bridges, and unusable airports. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said government officials expect the death toll to rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reach more isolated areas. On Saturday, President Joe Biden issued a major disaster declaration for Florida and North Carolina, which allows survivors

to immediately access funds through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, otherwise known as FEMA. The U.S. Coast Guard and FEMA officials have been deployed across the region. Ten federal search and rescue teams were on the ground in North Carolina, and another were on their way Monday, according to FEMA. Trucks and cargo planes have been arriving with food and water. The storm also ravaged other parts of the southeast. Flooding in Florida's Gulf Coast wiped out small coastal towns. Some 120,000 people are still without power in Augusta, Georgia, a city near the border of South Carolina. 30 people were killed in South Carolina, making it the state's deadliest storm since 1989. Today, we're going to break down some of the commentary about the storm and the federal response from the left and the right, and then Isaac's take.

We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old

tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. All right, first up, let's start with what the right is saying. The right argues that the Biden administration has failed to rise to the occasion in its response to the hurricane. Some praise former President Trump for his presence on the ground in impacted areas. Others say federal programs that subsidize flood insurance in at-risk areas should be eliminated.

In The Federalist, Sean Fleetwood said Hurricane Helene fallout shows why America can't afford another Potemkin presidency. Despite such widespread suffering among the people they were elected to serve, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the latter of whom is running to be our next president, seem to have bigger things to worry about. Biden spent most of his weekend lounging around on Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. Meanwhile, Harris reportedly attended a campaign event in San Francisco on Saturday and a fundraiser in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon, Fleetwood wrote. Those of us who have closely watched this dumpster fire of an administration for the past three and a half years know better than to believe that Biden and Harris are actively

managing the federal government's haleen response. Under this administration, the U.S. presidency has become a Potemkin village. Biden and Harris are trotted out to give big speeches and attend formal events with world leaders. But nobody with a lick of common sense genuinely believes either one is really running the show, Fleetwood said. America can't afford another four years of a Potemkin president who cares more about shipping endless amounts of taxpayer money to Ukraine than the suffering of her own citizens. Whether enough Americans believe that to be true will be learned soon enough. In Hot Air, Ed Morrissey wrote about Trump's understanding of presence after disasters. The White House and FEMA appear to have been caught flat-footed on emergency response overall, not just in targeted areas. The impacted region tends

to be more Republican than Democrat, as most rural areas do, so the impact of incompetence would be felt along those lines. But it doesn't mean that the federal and North Carolina governments are specifically withholding aid based on politics, Morrissey said. Nevertheless, it provides a large opening for a presidential contender who likes to show up personally to offer support in disasters. For all of his common man conceits, Biden never learned the wisdom of presence. Kamala Harris doesn't appear to have a clue about it either, Morrissey wrote. Trump, on the other hand, understands presence as a political value. He didn't show up in East Palestine by mistake, and the lack of response from Biden and Harris gives him a great

opportunity to provide a contrast in leadership. Flying aid into the area will give those on the ground a real boost in morale, not to mention address the real needs of those in the devastated region, incrementally at least. In reason, Jack Nicastro suggested Washington worsened Hurricane Helene's destruction. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency is busy helping survivors in flood-stricken regions, its national flood insurance program perversely incentivizes Americans to reside in these high-risk areas, Nicastro said. People choose to remain in flood-prone areas for many reasons, including proximity to family, work, and school. Uprooting oneself and one's family can be a painful thing to do,

and choosing to take on risk to stay where you've established your home is understandable. But choosing to stay in these areas genuinely does involve considerable risk. Without NFIP-subsidized insurance, rates would increase, becoming unaffordable for some homeowners. Unaffordability is a feature of insurance markets, not a bug. High insurance rates discourage risky behavior that is likely to be even more painful than having to pull up roots, Nicastro wrote. FEMA's affordability framework argues good public policy consists of balancing increased flood insurance take-up with increased program costs due to policyholders paying less than full risk rates. The balancing act is simple. The federal government must stop subsidizing NFIP and allow its more than 50 partnered

insurance companies to set rates that fully reflect the risk of extreme weather events like Hurricane Helene. Alright, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left says the disaster highlights the necessity of government in moments of crisis. Some note the connection between the scale of devastation and the impacts of climate change. Others suggest a new federal program to manage disaster response at the local level. The Charlotte Observer editorial board wrote, Helene's devastation in western North Carolina reminds us why government is so important. In the wake of Hurricane Helene, western North Carolina is

facing what officials are calling biblical devastation. Entire communities washed away, a whole region physically and digitally isolated from the rest of the state, with most roads completely impassable, the board said. What we do know is devastating, and what we don't know yet is terrifying. It's worse than most anyone could have imagined, and it's times like these that we recognize the value of good government as local, state, and federal agencies work tirelessly to provide a lifeline to flood victims. Republicans have repeatedly engaged in brinksmanship when it comes to funding the government, and too many seem to be willing to force a shutdown in order to extract the spending cuts they desire. Congress still has

yet to pass a long-term spending bill for the federal government, instead keeping the lights on through temporary funding measures that fail to address the needs of agencies like FEMA, the board wrote. Let's be clear. Western North Carolina cannot rebuild from this disaster on its own. Many of the worst affected areas are rural, low-income communities that were struggling before this disaster hit and will struggle even more now. Our so-called big government is what is saving lives right now. In the New Republic, Kate Aronoff

argued Hurricane Helene proves that there are no climate havens. Asheville, recently dubbed a climate haven for its historically mild climate and perch within the Blue Ridge Mountains, is among the area's worst hit so far. 30 people have been reported dead there, Aronoff said. The idea of a climate haven is a seductive one, that some places will be relatively insulated from extreme heat, strong hurricanes, and a number of other threats posed by rising temperatures. That's all the more enticing if you've got the means to move to one of those places. As Western North Carolina can attest, though, the climate crisis isn't especially good at respecting either municipalities' marketing pitches or borders. The nature of global warming is that it is, well, global. Nowhere will be spared.

The reality makes a mockery of our geographical boundaries, but it shows how arbitrary other boundaries are as well. Specifically, the bounds of what counts as climate policy are an off-road. Climate change isn't a discrete issue so much as the foundation on which all politics happens. All policy, in other words, from housing to trade and financial regulation, is climate policy. In The Atlantic, Zoe Schlanger said America needs a disaster core. The Rural Women's Health Project, or the RWHP, is one of a handful of nonprofits in Florida and beyond filling gaps in government disaster relief with systems to check on people, distribute food, and help navigate FEMA applications. Given the number of billion-dollar-plus disasters that are on the rise, the U.S. is going to have

to confront these same problems over and over again. And instead of continuing to fail in the same ways, the country could start to rethink its relationship to disaster resilience and more directly shore up the work being done through nonprofits, such as the RWHP, by giving them funding commensurate with their role in reducing harm. That is, it could create a national disaster core of groups already providing community support and of workers trained to serve the more and more constant needs of disaster preparedness and recovery, Schlanger said. Creating a more official network of neighbors helping neighbors could better equip communities to make it through. The climate crisis presents an opportunity for a jobs program on the scale that the U.S. hasn't seen since the New Deal. The work would be meaningful, fulfilling even,

and it could save a country quickly falling into several climate disaster traps as expensive and destructive disasters mount. All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for with the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. A horrific tragedy is unfolding in North Carolina and across the southeastern United States. But liars and hacks have decided to capitalize on it for social media clout. Over 100 people are dead, and some estimates project that hundreds more will be discovered in the days or weeks to come. Roads are not just washed out, but completely gone. Houses are floating down the streets. Entire areas, like those around Asheville, are underwater,

and they will take years to rebuild. The damage is hard to describe in words, but the images come close to doing it justice. It is shaping up to be one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. Amidst this horror, many North Carolinians on the ground are desperate for help. They need to be rescued from rooftops, or they need water, or they need food, or they need help finding missing relatives. Internet and power are down in many places, as is cell phone service. One man hiked 11 miles just to get to his family. as is cell phone service. One man hiked 11 miles just to get to his family. It is complete chaos, something akin to a post-apocalyptic world. In situations like this, helping people in disaster areas requires a tremendous amount of planning, coordination, and, perhaps most of all,

reliable information. Federal, state, and local governments need to coordinate. Citizens need to receive information from rescue services, and they need to trust that information so they can act on it. Saving people in these situations is incredibly challenging, harrowing, and complicated. Unfortunately, it's also election season, which means that some online influencers and pundits, many on the right but some on the left too, decided that a healthy information system is less useful to them than an opportunity to score political points. Thus, they started inundating social media and partisan news outlets with utter nonsense. One of the worst purveyors of these lies is Sean Davis, the CEO and co-founder of The Federalist, a conservative news organization whose writers we've quoted many times entangle, including today.

He employs some of the most biting conservative writers on the right. Unfortunately, he's been discrediting the organization for days. Davis has been tweeting things like, quote, Americans just watch torrential rain and flooding kill their loved ones and destroy their homes and businesses. Many are still stranded without food or water. And Joe Biden is tweeting about Ukraine. Or, quote, if you're wondering why Biden and Harris aren't lifting a finger to help the people in Tennessee and North Carolina, it's because they hate rural is tweeting about Ukraine. Or, quote, if you're wondering why Biden and Harris aren't lifting a finger to help the people in Tennessee and North Carolina, it's because they hate rural Americans and everything rural America represents and preserves and are happy to see them replaced

by illegal immigrants. End quote. Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to President Trump, tweeted at Kamala Harris that, quote, Americans are dying and they are drowning. You failed to warn them. You failed to evacuate them. You failed to rescue them, just like you failed in Afghanistan, except this is on your own soil, end quote. Random accounts with major followings and anonymous hosts are tweeting things like, quote, entire roads in North Carolina are washed out and people are without a way to get out of their driveways, no power, little across social media platforms and now moving into the real world, with some news organizations publishing opinion pieces echoing these claims that are then boosted by high-profile politicians. The implication, if not the overt claim, is that Harris and Biden care

more about Ukrainians than Americans, or similarly, that they don't care about dying Americans in Appalachia because they are conservative. Not for nothing, but Asheville is a liberal hub, and claiming otherwise makes it clear you have no idea what you are talking about. Anyway, there is an even bigger problem with this narrative. It's all nonsense. It's all a lie. Before I explain how I know this, let me do some throat clearing. I hate doing podcasts like this. It is not my job to defend the federal government from lies, and it's hard to write a piece like this without it reading like I'm openly shilling for Harris or Biden. I am not. I do not give a damn about Harris-Biden or the Democratic Party. I'm not

here to do their PR or protect their reputations. However, I do care about our information ecosystem. I care about reliable, accurate information being shared widely. I also care about the North Carolinians in danger right now, not just because they are Americans and it is a state I love, but also because my mom, my aunt, my brother, and his family, my sister-in-law, and my niece all live in North Carolina. So the horrors we're all witnessing on the news hits close to home. Here's the truth, though. Biden and Harris have actually pulled every lever the federal government can in a situation like this. None of the critics that I posted above can say exactly what they want them to do that they aren't already doing. And if you're planning on writing in to tell me that I am shilling for Harris or being a left-wing hack by calling out lies online, you better be prepared to tell me exactly what I've gotten

wrong here. The administration declared a national emergency for impacted counties across North Carolina. That happened on Friday, the first full day after Helene made landfall. On Saturday, Biden declared a major disaster declaration, which means survivors on the ground can immediately begin applying for funds through the federal government. Contrary to what Sean Davis is tweeting, Biden has actually said more about North Carolina than Ukraine on his ex-account over the last few days. Predictably, these lies eventually made their way to former President Donald Trump, who used them on the campaign trail to claim that Biden and Harris are doing nothing for North Carolina. Trump also claimed that Georgia's Republican Governor Brian Kemp couldn't contact President Biden. Yet Kemp said at a news conference the day before that he had spoken to

Biden and gotten everything he'd asked for. By the way, that is usually how it goes. State and local groups drive the initial recovery effort, which the federal government then supports and funds. The media is also all over this story. They're not ignoring it. It was on the homepage of every major news organization I checked on Monday, and every major network has been devoting segments to it nonstop throughout the weekend. That includes Fox News, where Jessica Tarlow gracefully debunked some of these lies her co-hosts were spreading live on the air. I'm not sure what else Biden and Harris could do. Helene created a once-in-a-century storm in North Carolina. Every resource the federal government has can't beat Mother Nature in 48 hours. They sent in FEMA. Hundreds of first

responders from the U.S. Health and Human Services are on the ground. The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are responding across the region. National Guard troops were deployed in North Carolina before Helene got there, and many have been sent in since. Over 5,000 are now in North Carolina, and some are performing helicopter airlifts in eastern Tennessee, which has also been rocked by the storms. These groups are airlifting and trucking in food, water, and supplies. Some are even getting there via mule. Chef Jose Andres, the celebrity chef and frequent Biden critic who's famous for delivering aid across the world, said, aid was flowing quicker than any mission I've ever seen. Quicker than any mission he'd ever seen.

Andres also challenged critics to stop spreading misinformation and get to work. Once the storm has passed, literally and figuratively, Biden, Harris, and politicians from every faction in Congress will work together to deliver a federal aid package to the region. Something like that takes weeks, if not months, to execute, but it will come. Some have asked why Biden or Harris haven't gone to North Carolina. The answer is simple. That would be a colossal waste of resources. They would get in the way. They would create a circus. Currently, it also looks like it'd be damn near impossible. Roads, airports, and bridges are washed out across the western portion of the state. Both Biden and Harris, as well as Trump and J.D. Vance, have said they're going to visit the impacted areas soon, but are rightly hanging back and

staying out of the way of literal rescue missions. Trump is campaigning in Georgia areas soon, but are rightly hanging back and staying out of the way of literal rescue missions. Trump is campaigning in Georgia right now, but he's also staying out of disaster stricken areas. Political visits should come when things are calm to boost morale, raise donations, and keep the focus on the area. Campaigning politicians staying out of North Carolina now isn't a sign that they don't care. It's a sign that they're following reason. Of course, Biden and Harris are creating some very bad optics here, which are worth criticizing. Harris was on the West Coast for a fundraising trip as the storm passed through the Southeast. She cut that trip short to go to FEMA headquarters, but you could easily make the case she should have hung back

and avoided the trip altogether as the hurricane's path took shape. Biden, who seems to be having more and more trouble answering questions from the press recently, said there was nothing more the federal government could do when asked about additional resources. He's right that the government has been pulling every lever it has, but the optics of the statement weren't great. We can take away other, more legitimate policy lessons from the federal response. For instance, some people have pointed out that FEMA aid relief funds are running dry while our tax dollars get poured into Israel or Ukraine. I think that is a perfectly reasonable criticism. Others have made the point that gas stoves are currently helping

to keep storm victims who are without power fed, while they would have been screwed if such appliances were banned as some Democrats want to do. Fair enough. Again, the point of all this is not to defend Harris or Biden or Democrats. I'm also not here to defend FEMA or the federal government more broadly. In fact, I once reported on all the mistakes FEMA made in Puerto Rico and actually got FEMA representatives to admit, on the record, errors they had previously not disclosed. If they screw up in North Carolina, I'll promptly say so and will report on it. What infuriates me, though, is that FEMA and other federal government agencies are so busy responding to the fiscal crisis that they don't have a chance to respond to online misinformation.

Soldiers, like those who serve in the National Guard, are risking their lives while pundits pretend they're sitting on their hands. Before the storm had passed, these same pundits and influencers saw an opportunity to use a very real tragedy to mislead people into hating their own government and leaders, all to score some election year points. And in the process, they've put people more at risk. Imagine being a North Carolinian conservative who's getting told to evacuate by a Democratic politician, but when you go on social media, all the people you follow and trust are saying that the Democrats don't care if you die and can't be trusted. What do you do? Or even worse, imagine you're a survivor being told there is no federal help and there are no federal funds, so you don't know that you can actually go to FEMA's website and apply for relief funds right now.

Some people, like North Carolina-based pastor Ben Marsh, have speculated that this government apathy narrative, which is spreading like wildfire, is some kind of bot operation or Russian influence, something designed specifically to hurt Biden and Harris on social media. I have not seen any evidence for that, and I chalk the claim up to the left's own conspiratorial brain worms of blaming everything on Russia. I actually think it's much simpler. A bunch of opportunistic grifters want to make the president and vice president look bad, so they will say whatever they want in order to do so. They'll spin the information black hole created by downed cell towers, no internet service,

and clogged or unusable roadways into mainstream apathy, tying that same information black hole to apathy from the federal government. Somewhere in there, they'll point people to their own websites writing or subscriber-only content to cash in on their lies. I'm praying and hoping and wishing for a robust response to the horrors in North Carolina and the Southeast. If you want to do something to help, a Western North Carolina radio station has listed all the ways people can support the area. I've left the link in today's episode description. We should all keep our attention and focus there and hold our federal government to the highest standards possible in their response. But while we do, let's not make the situation actively worse by spreading lies. We can support our fellow Americans and hold our leaders accountable while also remaining faithful

to the truth. Not only can we, but it is the only way to help. Otherwise, we put those same people we claim to care for in more danger. We'll be right back after this quick break. Got a mortgage? Chances are you're thinking about your payments right now. Need help? Ask your bank about relief measures that may be available to you. Learn more at Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin.

A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim

from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. All right, that is it for my take today. There's no reader question because that take was very long, so we're skipping that. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod. I'll be back

same time tomorrow. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your under the radar story for today, folks. On Friday, the Justice Department indicted three members of Iran's military for hacking a former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, charging them with 18 criminal counts for hacking sensitive campaign materials and providing support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The indictment states that the hackers attempted to contact representatives for President Joe Biden's campaign to share the documents, but did not receive a response. However, at least one hacked document containing vetting materials on Senator J.D. Vance has been made public after journalist Ken Klippenstein published it on his Substack last week.

The Justice Department says the hacker's operation was intended to support Iran's ongoing efforts to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian general killed by a U.S. drone strike in January 2020. Politico has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The approximate length in miles of Hurricane Helene's northward path from where it made landfall in Florida's Big Bend region is 800. The number of customers without power in Florida as of 11 a.m. Eastern time is 69,720,

according to poweroutage.us. The number of customers without power in Virginia as of 11 a.m. Eastern time is 72,953. The number of customers without power in North Carolina as of 11 a.m. Eastern time is 369,855. The number of customers without power in Georgia as of 11 a.m. Eastern time is 458,552. The number of customers without power in South Carolina as of 11 a.m. Eastern Time is 609,782. The number of landfalling storms in the U.S. since 2017, including Helene, that intensified by at least 35 miles per hour in 24 hours before landfall, is 8. The number of landfalling storms in the U.S. between 1982 and 2016 that met this rapid

intensification threshold was six. The estimated total damage and economic loss from Hurricane Helene is $160 billion, according to AccuWeather. And the number of hurricanes in recorded U.S. history with estimated financial impacts exceeding $160 billion, adjusted for inflation, is four. And last but not least, our have a nice day story. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, around 25,000 people sought shelter in the Superdome Stadium in New Orleans. However, the venue wasn't equipped for an emergency, leaving those seeking shelter with inadequate water, food, and supplies. A new partnership between the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and the NFL aims to turn stadiums into safe havens in climate and health emergencies. Thus far, four venues have been designated as shelters with more expected to become so in the near future.

as shelters with more expected to become so in the near future. Stadiums are valuable community assets that are often used in times of disasters, the NFL's chief security officer Kathy Lanier said. This designation reflects the role that many stadiums play, not only on Sundays, but especially in times of need. Good Good Good has this story and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work,

please go to readtangle.com and sign up for a membership. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Wall signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul saul and edited and engineered by john wall the script is edited by our managing editor ari weitzman will kdak bailey saul and sean brady the logo for our podcast was designed by magdalena bakova who is also our social media manager

music for the podcast was produced by diet 75 and if you're looking for more from tangle please go to readtangle.com and check out our website.