A major storm moving through Northern California on Thursday toppled trees and dropped heavy snow and record amounts of rain after damaging homes, killing two people and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers in the Pacific Northwest. Forecasters warned the risk of flash flooding and rockslides would continue. Scores of flights in and out of San Francisco's airport were canceled.
Market superstar Nvidia also topped forecasts, but Wall Street’s ambivalence about whether the heavyweight's report was impressive enough is keeping indexes in check. The moves were part of a busy day for financial markets, as bitcoin briefly broke above $98,000 and crude oil prices continued to rise. Nvidia was a big reason for the stock market's meandering after yet again beating analysts’ estimates for profit and revenue.
Matt Hancock, who is no longer an MP, told the COVID public inquiry that some hospitals came "extremely close" to running out of stock in the first wave of the pandemic in spring 2020. Mr Hancock, who was health secretary between 2018 to 2021, was giving evidence at the latest session of the UK COVID-19 Inquiry, looking at the impact the pandemic had on healthcare systems, patients and health care workers.