Here is the news and weather briefing for Macon County.
GENERAL OUTLOOK
Dry high pressure will linger over the region through the weekend and maintain above normal temperatures. Rain chances increase Christmas Day into Tuesday as a highly moist frontal system crosses the area. After the cold front passes, expect cool and breezy weather for a couple of days.
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Local Weather
General Forecast Through Sunday Night
Franklin Area
Today
Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with highs near 60. Light and variable winds.
Tonight
Partly cloudy, with lows around 30. Calm winds.
Saturday
Mostly sunny, with highs near 60. Calm winds in the morning increasing to come out of the southwest around 5 mph in the afternoon.
Saturday Night
Partly cloudy, with lows in the mid 30s. Winds out of the south around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
Sunday
Mostly sunny, with highs near 60.
Sunday Night
A 30 percent chance of showers after 3am. Mostly cloudy, with lows around 40.
Christmas Day
Showers, mainly after 10am. Highs in the mid 50s. Chance of rain is 80%.
Monday Night
Showers. Lows in the mid-to-upper 40s. Chance of rain is 90%.
`Highlands Plateau
Today
Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with highs near 50. Calm winds in the morning increasing to come out of the southwest around 5 mph in the afternoon.
Tonight
Partly cloudy, with lows around freezing. Calm winds in the early evening increasing to come of the southwest around 5 mph after midnight.
Saturday
Sunny, with highs near 50. Winds out of the southwest 5 to 10 mph.
Saturday Night
Partly cloudy, with lows in the mid-to-upper 30s. Winds out of the north around 5 mph becoming light and variable after midnight.
Sunday
Mostly sunny, with highs in the lower 50s.
Sunday Night
A 30 percent chance of showers after 2am. Mostly cloudy, with lows around 40.
Christmas Day
Showers, mainly after 9am. Highs near 50. Chance of rain is 80%.
Monday Night
Showers. Lows in the mid 40s. Chance of rain is 90%.
Otto and South Central Macon County
Today
Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with highs in the upper 50s. Light and variable winds.
Tonight
Partly cloudy, with lows around freezing. Calm winds.
Saturday
Sunny, with highs in the upper 50s. Calm winds in the morning increasing to come out of the southwest 5 to 10 mph in the afternoon.
Saturday Night
Partly cloudy, with lows in the mid-to-upper 30s. Winds out of the south around 5 mph becoming calm before midnight.
Sunday
Mostly sunny, with highs near 60.
Sunday Night
A 30 percent chance of showers after 3am. Mostly cloudy, with lows around 40.
Christmas Day
Showers, mainly after 10am. Highs in the mid 50s. Chance of rain is 80%.
Monday Night
Showers. Lows around 50. Chance of rain is 90%.
Nantahala Area
Today
Partly sunny, with highs in the mid 50s. Light and variable winds.
Tonight
Mostly clear, with lows in the mid 30s. Calm winds.
Saturday
Mostly sunny, with highs in the mid 50s. Calm winds in the morning increasing to come out of the southwest around 5 mph in the afternoon.
Saturday Night
Partly cloudy, with lows around 40. Light winds out of the southeast.
Sunday
Mostly sunny, with highs in the mid-to-upper 50s.
Sunday Night
A 30 percent chance of showers after 3am. Mostly cloudy, with lows in the low-to-mid 40s.
Christmas Day
Showers, mainly after 11am. Highs in the low-to-mid 50s. Chance of rain is 80%.
Monday Night
Showers. Lows around 50. Chance of rain is 90%.
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Hazards
Hazardous weather is not expected today or tonight.
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News Briefing
---STATE AND LOCAL---
NC's flu, COVID cases rise ahead of holiday | WRAL-TV (Raleigh, NC)
• The Righteous Mind Seminar [Macon Media]
• State government knows: To lure jobs, workers, you must have quality child care [WRAL-TV (Raleigh, NC)]
• NC bans investing, contracting with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream over its stance on Israel [Raleigh News and Observer]
• State audit finds Robbinsville leaders overrode town policies, violated state law [WLOS-TV (Asheville, NC)]
• Cherokee police investigating teen suicide pact [Smoky Mountain News]
• NCDOT construction suspended for holiday travel [Mountain Xpress]
• Town of Franklin Receives $400,000 Grant From State to Finish Construction of Fire Department Substation on NP&L Loop [Macon Media]
• Angel Medical Center President's Column for December 2023 [xxx]
---RECENT LOCAL GOVERNMENT MEETINGS--
• Macon County Board of Commissioners (Dec 2023) [Macon Media]
• Macon County Board of Education December 2023 Meeting at Franklin High School [Macon Media]
• Franklin Town Council (Dec 2023) [Macon Media]
---NATIONAL---
Americans heading out amid expected record-breaking travel season | ABC News
Detroit News reporter describes Trump's tone on phone call pressuring canvassers on 2020 election | CNN
• Trump recorded pressuring Wayne County canvassers not to certify 2020 vote [The Detroit News]
• New Trump Cases Shadowed by Rocky Relationship With Supreme Court [New York Times]
• Judge threatens to force Musk testimony in SEC probe: Report [The Hill]
• Marjorie Taylor Greene Accuses Joe Biden of Treason [Newsweek]
• Container rates hit $10,000 as ocean freight inflation soars in Red Sea crisis [CNBC]
• As legal costs accrue, Giuliani files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in NY [Courthouse News Service]
International News Headlines
Sudan conflict: At least 4.9m at risk of extreme hunger | BBC News
Czech Republic: Worst ever shooting incident shocks the country | DW News | DW News
• Gunman opens fire in a Prague university, killing 14 people in Czech Republic’s worst mass shooting [AP News]
• Polish news anchor pulled off air as Tusk reforms take effect [BBC News]
During an interview for TVP World @marcin_przydacz told us about the recent events regarding the Polish public media. 🎥⤵️
During an interview for TVP World @marcin_przydacz told us about the recent events regarding the Polish public media. 🎥⤵️ pic.twitter.com/iCYpUYTiOH
— TVP World (@TVPWorld_com) December 21, 2023
• China-Taiwan Weekly Update, December 21, 2023 [Institute for the Study of War]
• Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 21, 2023 [Institute for the Study of War]
• Israel-Hamas War Day 77 | Two IDF Soldiers Killed in Fighting; U.S. 'Can Support' Delayed UN Vote on Gaza Aid [Haaretz]
• DR Congo: Opposition leader Fayulu denounces “a violation of the electoral law” [Africa News]
Washington Today (12-21-23): U.S. & Chinese top military leaders speak for first time in over a year | C-SPAN Radio
Global National: Dec. 21, 2023 | COVID test supplier gave incomplete data about accuracy
ABC World News Tonight with David Muir Full Broadcast - December 21, 2023
Nightly News Full Broadcast - Dec 21 | NBC News
PBS NewsHour full episode, (December 21, 2023)
---Science, Technology, Culture, and History News Roundup---
The Level1 Show December 22 2023: Taking the Human out of Humana | Level1 Techs
Why Brain-like Computers Are Hard | Asianometry
Reykjanes Volcano Update; Magma Pooling Again at Depth, Overflight of the Eruption's Aftermath | GeologyHub
• X (formerly Twitter) is a ghost town: User feeds have mysteriously disappeared (Updated: Back up) [Android Authority]
• (podcast) Matters Microbial #21: Microbes, mermaids and coral reefs with Chris Kellogg [Microbe TV]
• A chemical signal in human female tears lowers aggression in males [Public Library of Science: Biology]
• Hyperloop One to Shut Down After Failing to Reinvent Transit [Bloomberg]
• Humoral immune responses to the monovalent XBB.1.5-adapted BNT162b2 mRNA booster [bioRxiv]
• End of an era for electronics giant Toshiba [BBC News]
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On This Day
December 22nd is the 356th day of the year (357th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; nine days remain until the end of the year. Historical Events
Historical Events
(Please note that the Wikipedia articles often contain a bibliography and links to where you can learn more about a historical event)
AD 69 – Vespasian is proclaimed Emperor of Rome; his predecessor, Vitellius, attempts to abdicate but is captured and killed at the Gemonian stairs.
401 – Pope Innocent I is elected, the only pope to succeed his father in the office.
856 – Damghan earthquake: An earthquake near the Persian city of Damghan kills an estimated 200,000 people, the sixth deadliest earthquake in recorded history.
880 – Luoyang, eastern capital of the Tang dynasty, is captured by rebel leader Huang Chao during the reign of Emperor Xizong.
1135 – Three weeks after the death of King Henry I of England, Stephen of Blois claims the throne and is privately crowned King of England, beginning the English Anarchy.
1216 – Pope Honorius III approves the Dominican Order through the papal bull of confirmation Religiosam vitam.
1489 – The forces of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, take control of Almería from the Nasrid ruler of Granada, Muhammad XIII.
1769 – Sino-Burmese War: The war ends with the Qing dynasty withdrawing from Burma forever.
1788 – Nguyễn Huệ proclaims himself Emperor Quang Trung, in effect abolishing on his own the Lê dynasty.
1790 – The Turkish fortress of Izmail is stormed and captured by Alexander Suvorov and his Russian armies.
1807 – The Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries, is passed by the U.S. Congress at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson.
1808 – Ludwig van Beethoven conducts and performs in concert at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasy.
1851 – India's first freight train is operated in Roorkee, to transport material for the construction of the Ganges Canal.
1851 – The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., burns.
1864 – American Civil War: Savannah, Georgia, falls to the Union's Army of the Tennessee, and General Sherman tells President Abraham Lincoln: "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah".
1885 – Itō Hirobumi, a samurai, becomes the first Prime Minister of Japan.
1888 – The Christmas Meeting of 1888, considered to be the official start of the Faroese independence movement.
1890 – Cornwallis Valley Railway begins operation between Kentville and Kingsport, Nova Scotia.
1891 – Asteroid 323 Brucia becomes the first asteroid discovered using photography.
1894 – The Dreyfus affair begins in France, when Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of treason.
1906 – An Mw 7.9 earthquake strikes Xinjiang, China, killing at least 280.
1920 – The GOELRO economic development plan is adopted by the 8th Congress of Soviets of the Russian SFSR.
1921 – Opening of Visva-Bharati College, also known as Santiniketan College, now Visva Bharati University, India.
1937 – The Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic in New York City.
1939 – Indian Muslims observe a "Day of Deliverance" to celebrate the resignations of members of the Indian National Congress over their not having been consulted over the decision to enter World War II with the United Kingdom.
1940 – World War II: Himara is captured by the Greek army.
1942 – World War II: Adolf Hitler signs the order to develop the V-2 rocket as a weapon.
1944 – World War II: Battle of the Bulge: German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium, prompting the famous one word reply by General Anthony McAuliffe: "Nuts!"
1944 – World War II: The People's Army of Vietnam is formed to resist Japanese occupation of Indochina, now Vietnam.
1945 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman issues an executive order giving World War II refugees precedence in visa applications under U.S. immigration quotas.
1948 – Sjafruddin Prawiranegara established the Emergency Government of the Republic of Indonesia (Pemerintah Darurat Republik Indonesia, PDRI) in West Sumatra.
1963 – The cruise ship Lakonia burns 290 kilometres (180 mi) north of Madeira, Portugal with the loss of 128 lives.
1964 – The first test flight of the SR-71 (Blackbird) takes place at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, United States.
1965 – In the United Kingdom, a 70 miles per hour (110 km/h) speed limit is applied to all rural roads including motorways for the first time.
1968 – Cultural Revolution: People's Daily posted the instructions of Mao Zedong that "The intellectual youth must go to the country, and will be educated from living in rural poverty."
1971 – The international aid organization Doctors Without Borders is founded by Bernard Kouchner and a group of journalists in Paris, France.
1973 – A Royal Air Maroc Sud Aviation Caravelle crashes near Tanger-Boukhalef Airport (now Tangier Ibn Battouta Airport) in Tangier, Morocco, killing 106.
1974 – Grande Comore, Anjouan and Mohéli vote to become the independent nation of Comoros. Mayotte remains under French administration.
1974 – The house of former British Prime Minister Edward Heath is attacked by members of the Provisional IRA.
1975 – U.S. President Gerald Ford creates the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in response to the 1970s energy crisis.
1978 – The pivotal Third Plenum of the 11th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is held in Beijing, with Deng Xiaoping reversing Mao-era policies to pursue a program for Chinese economic reform.
1984 – "Subway vigilante" Bernhard Goetz shoots four would-be muggers on a 2 express train in Manhattan section of New York, United States.
1987 – In Zimbabwe, the political parties ZANU and ZAPU reach an agreement that ends the violence in the Matabeleland region known as the Gukurahundi.
1989 – Romanian Revolution: Communist President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu is overthrown by Ion Iliescu after days of bloody confrontations. The deposed dictator and his wife Elena flee Bucharest in a helicopter as protesters erupt in cheers.
1989 – German reunification: Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.
1990 – Lech Wałęsa is elected President of Poland.
1990 – Final independence of Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia after termination of trusteeship.
1992 – During approach to Tripoli International Airport, a Boeing 727 operating as Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 1103 collides in mid-air with a Libyan Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23, killing 157 people.
1996 – Airborne Express Flight 827 crashes near Narrows, Virginia, killing all six people on board.
1997 – Acteal massacre: Attendees at a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists for indigenous causes in the small village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas are massacred by paramilitary forces.
1997 – Somali Civil War: Hussein Farrah Aidid relinquishes the disputed title of President of Somalia by signing the Cairo Declaration, in Cairo, Egypt. It is the first major step towards reconciliation in Somalia since 1991.
1999 – Just after taking off from London Stansted Airport, Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 crashes into Hatfield Forest near Great Hallingbury, killing all four people on board.
2001 – Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Northern Alliance, hands over power in Islamic State of Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President Hamid Karzai.
2001 – Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.
2008 – An ash dike ruptured at a solid waste containment area for a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-fired power plant in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 4.2 million m3 (1.1 billion US gal) of coal fly ash slurry in the largest industrial spill in U.S. history.
2010 – The repeal of the Don't ask, don't tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, is signed into law by President Barack Obama.
2012 – Bashir Ahmad Bilour of Awami National Party and eight others are killed in a Pakistan Taliban bomber suicide attack in Dhaki Nalbandi area near Qissa Khwani Bazaar.
2016 – A study finds the VSV-EBOV vaccine against the Ebola virus between 70 and 100% effective, thus making it the first proven vaccine against the disease.
2017 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 2397 against North Korea is unanimously approved.
2017 – President Donald Trump signs the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
2018 – A tsunami caused by an eruption of Anak Krakatau in Indonesia kills at least 430 people and injures almost a thousand more.
2018 – The 2018–2019 United States federal government shutdown, the longest shutdown of the U.S. federal government in history, begins.
2022 "American life expectancy is now at its lowest in nearly two decades" - 76.4 years, according to new report by CDC, biggest factors in the fall among many, COVID-19 and drug overdoses.
2022 Major winter storm across the US causes widespread disruption, prompting states of emergency to be issued in Wisconsin and New York .
2022 US Drug Enforcement Administration says it seized enough fentanyl in 2022 to kill every American, more than 379 million doses.
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Published at 5:00am on Friday, December 22, 2023
Author: Bobby Coggins
Resources used to compile the information in this article include, but are not limited to rthe following websites or books: MaconMedia.com, youtube.com, weather.gov, airnow.gov, wikipedia.com, onthisday.com, ncdcr.gov, ncsu.edu, utah.edu, https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/, wolfram.com, biorxiv.org, aps.org, nejm.org, plos.org, cell.com, researchsquare.com, cureus.com, spc.noaa.gov, nhc.noaa.gov, ncdenr.org, medrxiv.org, archive.org, ncpedia.org, nasa.gov, https://ww2days.com, nih.gov, carolinapublicpress.org, microbe.tv, smokymountainnews.com, psypost.org, blogspot.com, pollen.com, franklinnc.com, maconnc.org, spaceweather.com, solarham.com, loc.gov, ncleg.net, senate.gov, house.gov, whitehouse.gov, drudgereport.com, politico.com, realclearpolitics.com, ushmm.org, This Day in North Carolina History, World War II Day By Day, The Holocaust Encyclopedia, The Timetables of History, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The World History and Book of Facts (multiple years), On This Day In History: Over 4,000 facts, The NASA Archives. 60 Years in Space, This Day in North Carolina History, The Smithsonian History of Space Exploration: From the Ancient World to the Extraterrestrial Future, Spaceflight, 2nd Edition: The Complete Story from Sputnik to Curiousity, The Story of Civilization (11 volumes), The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, American History, Volume 1: 1492-1877, American History, Volume 2: 1877 - Present, A Complete Chronolgy of the Second World War. Weather and Almanac data and information sources: Sources (except where otherwise credited): heavens-above.com, Ian Webster's Github, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, The National Weather Service, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, National Hurricane Center, Penn State University Electronic Wall Map, The State Climate Office of North Carolina, Storm Prediction Center, U.S. Naval Observatory, University of Utah Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and the Weather Prediction Center.
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