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CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A cyberattack continues to affect the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States, renewing a focus on the importance of protecting critical infrastructure sites. New Jersey-based American Water paused billing to customers as it announced the cyberattack on Monday. It said it became aware of the unauthorized activity on Thursday and immediately took protective steps, including shutting down certain systems. Water services have been unaffected as protections remained in place Wednesday. The company — which provides drinking water and sewer services to more than 14 million people in 14 states and on 18 military installations — said it does not believe its facilities or operations were impacted by the attack, although staffers were working “around the clock” to investigate its nature and scope. The attack against American Water appears to be an “IT focused attack” more than an operational one, according to Jack Danahy, vice president of strategy and innovation at Colchester, Vt.-based NuHarbor Security in Vermont. “People haven’t traditionally thought of pieces of infrastructure, such as water and wastewater service as being prone to threats, but incidents like this shows how quickly problems could occur,” Danahy said. “As billing and other services have become more accessible to customers in recent years, they’re now exposed to more types of risks and concerns that were not previously there.” The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency urged water systems to take immediate actions this year to protect the nation’s drinking water. About 70% of utilities inspected by federal officials recently violated standards meant to prevent breaches or other intrusions, the EPA said. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is set to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday as Israel expands its ground incursion into Lebanon and considers how to respond to Iran’s recent ballistic missile attack. The leaders’ call, previewed by a person familiar with the matter, is coming two days after the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel that led to the war in Gaza that has spread into a wider regional conflict. It will be the first conversation between Biden and Netanyahu since Aug. 21. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Israel has been discussing how to respond to the Iranian missile barrage from Oct. 1, which the United States helped to fend off. Biden last week said he would not support a retaliatory Israeli strike on sites related to Tehran’s nuclear program. Israel’s other choices range from a largely symbolic strike — similar to how Israel responded after Iran launched missiles and attack drones in April — to hitting oil facilities and other infrastructure. Since the leaders’ last call seven weeks ago, Israel has carried out a brazen sabotage and assassination campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, where the militant group has continued to fire missiles, rockets and drones at Israel. Israel is now undertaking what it has described as limited ground operations across its northern border with Lebanon to dig out Hezbollah. Airstrikes killed the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and decimated its leadership. Last month, thousands of explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated, killing dozens of people and maiming thousands, including many civilians. Israel is widely believed to be behind the attack The U.S. has maintained a stepped-up troop presence in the region, to defend Israel and American interests in the Middle East. Washington has grown increasingly vocal with Israeli officials about the need to be kept in the loop on their decision-making to ensure the protection of U.S. forces. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

PHOENIX (AP) — Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake meet Wednesday for the only debate of the Arizona Senate race, a matchup that comes as voters begin casting ballots in a contest that will help determine control of the U.S. Senate. Lake, a well-known former television news anchor and a darling of the populist right, has tried but struggled to redefine herself since losing the 2022 race for governor. Gallego, a Democratic congressman representing largely Latino areas of Phoenix, has used his financial advantage over Lake to run ads playing up his military service and up-by-the-bootstraps personal story rather than his progressive record in Congress. The debate, which will air live on most television stations across the state at 9 p.m. EDT, presents Lake with a chance to reset a race where polls and observers suggest she’s modestly trailing. For Gallego, it’s an opportunity to introduce himself to voters who still don’t know him. Both candidates are working to win over a small share of Republicans and conservative independents who are open to splitting their vote between the parties. This group has been instrumental in the rise of Democrats in Arizona, which has transitioned from a Republican stronghold to a battleground state over the past decade. They’ve fought to focus voters on the territory most favorable to them. For Gallego, that’s abortion rights after a state Supreme Court ruling outlawed virtually all abortions until the Legislature rolled it back to 15 weeks. Lake has spoken favorably of stricter limits. Lake prefers to talk about the U.S.-Mexico border. She paints a dire picture of drug and human trafficking, and she links Gallego to record border crossings and scenes of disorder during President Joe Biden’s administration. She highlights his prior comments critical of a border wall. Lake is an unflinching supporter of former President Donald Trump and his lie that he lost the 2020 election because of fraud. She has never conceded she lost her own 2022 race for governor, and continued to fight the outcome in court even after launching her Senate campaign. Separately, she’s tried and failed to convince courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, to outlaw the use of electronic voting machines. She’s also highlighted Ruben Gallego’s 2016 divorce from Kate Gallego, who is now the mayor of Phoenix. Noting the marriage ended weeks before the couple’s son was born, Lake says Gallego abandoned his wife while she was pregnant. Kate Gallego has endorsed her ex-husband and campaigned with him as recently as last week. Gallego is a military veteran who has served in Congress for a decade. The son of immigrants from Mexico and Colombia, he was raised in Chicago by a single mother and eventually accepted to Harvard University. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve while he was on a break from Harvard. He fought in Iraq in 2005 in a unit that sustained heavy casualties, including the death of his best friend. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump is holding rallies on Wednesday in pivotal Pennsylvania while Vice President Kamala Harris prepares for another visit to the West — even as Hurricane Milton menaces Florida and threatens to overshadow presidential campaigning. Trump, the former president and current Republican nominee, has events scheduled in Scranton — birthplace of President Joe Biden — and in Reading, where he is expected to talk about the economy and immigration in a city that is two-thirds Hispanic. The hurricane caused Trump to put off a virtual event Tuesday night focused on health care and postpone a Univision town hall in Miami. Harris plans her own Univision town hall Thursday in Las Vegas before returning to Arizona in what will be her second visit to both states in less than two weeks. Before flying to Nevada, she will virtually attend a briefing on the storm and the federal response that Biden is receiving Wednesday at the White House. Biden already postponed a trip scheduled this week to Germany and Angola, saying, “I just don’t’ think I can be out of the country at this time.” Milton is approaching just days after Hurricane Helene killed more than 220 people in six Southeastern states and left behind a swath of destruction that federal, state and local authorities are trying to alleviate even as they now brace for the next storm. Harris spent Tuesday in New York taping interviews on ABC’s “The View,” with radio personality Howard Stern and on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” During her interview on “The View” and later amid her taping with Colbert, Harris failed to name major ways her future administration would be substantially different from Biden’s. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris said on “The View.” Trump reacted on his social media platform, posting that Harris said “she would have done nothing different” than Biden whom he called “the WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.” Harris had her own sharp words for her opponent. Reacting to reports in Bob Woodward ’s new book, “War” that Trump, while president, secretly sent COVID-19 test kits to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2020, when they were hard to find in the United States, she said incuriously, “You remember what those days were like?” “You remember how many people did not have tests and were trying to scramble to get them?,” Harris asked during the taping with Colbert. “Remember how rare it was to have them?” She said of Trump, “And this man is giving COVID test kits to Vladimir Putin. Think about what this means,” before adding, “He thinks Vladimir Putin is his friend. What about the American people? They should be your first friends.” Trump denied the reporting. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the U.S. sent test kits. which he referred to as “testers,” but denied that the exchange occurred in secret. “There were no secret shipments. The pandemic was starting back then,” Peskov said in a message on Wednesday. “Many countries were exchanging equipment. We sent ventilators. Testers came from America.” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

Hurricane Milton dropped to a Category 4 early Wednesday as it churns toward Florida’s west coast. The National Hurricane Center had predicted it would likely weaken, but remain a major hurricane when it makes landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday. The Tampa Bay area, home to more than 3.3 million people, faced the possibility of widespread destruction after avoiding direct hits from major hurricanes for more than a century. Follow AP’s coverage of tropical weather at https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes. Here’s the latest: In the Port Charlotte area, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Tampa, officials said water pressure would be lowered Wednesday morning. Utility operations for Charlotte County also would be suspended at noon. Officials said on the county’s webpage that storm surge and heavy rainfall will inundate the sewer system, making it difficult for wastewater to flow properly. Milton is expected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast late Wednesday or early Thursday. “We must be prepared for a major, major impact to the west coast of Florida,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday. As of Wednesday morning, the storm was about 210 miles (340 kilometers) southwest of Tampa and moving northeast at 16 mph (26 kph). But there were no immediate strong winds. Most businesses were closed as people finished storm preparations and got to the location where they’ll ride out the storm. They’re also providing other key information, such as shelter locations. On Wednesday morning, Pinellas County sent people text messages, emails and direct cellphone calls to warn of the dangers. Similar methods are used in neighboring Hillsborough County and other locations. “This is it, folks,” Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins said at a Wednesday morning news conference. “Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out and you need to get out now.” Perkins said 13 public shelters are open for people with no other option to escape the storm and that major bridges around Tampa Bay would begin closing in the afternoon. Perkins also said people should not feel a sense of relief because of indications Milton might come ashore south of Tampa. “Everybody in Tampa Bay should assume we are going to be ground zero.,” she said. Human-caused climate change boosted a devastating Hurricane Helene ’s rainfall by about 10% and intensified its winds by about 11%, scientists said in a new flash study released just as a strengthening Hurricane Milton threatens the Florida coast less than two weeks later. The warming climate boosted Helene’s wind speeds by about 13 mph (21 kph), and made the high sea temperatures that fueled the storm 200 to 500 times more likely, World Weather Attribution calculated Wednesday from Europe. Ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above average, WWA said. “Hurricane Helene and the storms that were happening in the region anyway have all been amplified by the fact that the air is warmer and can hold more moisture, which meant that the rainfall totals — which, even without climate change, would have been incredibly high given the circumstances — were even higher,” Ben Clarke, a study co-author and a climate researcher at Imperial College London, said in an interview. Milton will likely be similarly juiced, the authors said. The scientists warned that continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to more hurricanes like Helene, with “unimaginable” floods well inland, not just on coasts. Many of those who died in Helene fell victim to massive inland flooding, rather than high winds. ▶ Read more about the effects of climate change on hurricanes. In Charlotte Harbor, about two blocks from the water, Josh Parks spent Wednesday morning packing his Kia sedan with his clothes and other belongings from his small triplex apartment. The clouds were swirling and the winds had begun to gust. Two weeks ago, Helene’s surge brought about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water to the neighborhood, its streets still filled with waterlogged furniture, torn out drywall and other debris. “It’s a ghost town around here,” said Parks, an auto technician. His roommate had already fled and Parks wasn’t sure when he would be back. “I told her to pack like you aren’t coming back,” said Parks, who was fleeing to his daughter’s inland home. Law enforcement vehicles blocked the bridge from the mainland to the barrier island of St. Pete Beach on Wednesday morning, where as of Tuesday evening, officials had closed down access to this string of low-lying barrier islands that jut out into the Gulf. All residents in these low-lying communities west of the city of St. Petersburg are under mandatory evacuation orders, as another storm bears down less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene killed 12 people in the Tampa Bay area, including residents who didn’t leave – and then drowned in their homes. At a park bench on the side of the road that cuts through the small island of Deadman Key, plastic bags stuffed with clothes and a shopping cart full of someone’s personal belongings sat in the blowing rain, seemingly abandoned by its owner ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected impact. Three boats were already dashed against a low-lying seawall and under a bridge, apparently casualties from Helene, which sent deadly storm surge into scores of homes in Pinellas County, even as the eye of that storm stayed 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore from this stretch of the coast. Officials are warning that a direct hit from Hurricane Milton would bring far greater risks to this part of the state. The National Weather Service on Wednesday morning issued the watch, which includes a vast part of Florida, including the Tampa area, the Florida Keys and Miami-Dade County. “We’ve seen a lot of questions about, ‘well I live on a creek,’ or ‘I live on a river, is it really going to get 10 to 15 feet where I live?,’” Sarasota County Emergency Management Chief Sandra Tapfumaneyi said in a briefing early Wednesday. “That storm surge is going to start at 10 or 15 feet near the coastline and then it’s going to travel,” she said. “And storm surge likes to go on the path of least resistance. So those of you that live near a river, that live near a creek, those river banks, their water will come up.” “We do not want you staying in your home if you’re anywhere near a body of water,” Tapfumaneyi said. “This is going to be an intense disaster for Sarasota County,” she added. “Evacuate now if you have not done so already.” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com