High winds batter water-logged Northwest, killing Idaho man and cutting power to half a million

SEATTLE (AP) — High winds toppled trees and power lines across parts of Washington state and Idaho, killing one adult and critically injuring two children, knocking out power to thousands and compounding the damage already wrought by more than a week of heavy rains and flooding.

Wind gusts reaching up to 85 miles per hour battered Pullman, Washington and the Idaho cities of Moscow and Lewiston on Wednesday morning. More than half a million power customers were without power in Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon, according to the website Poweroutage.us. Colorado's largest utility cut power to about 50,000 homes and businesses Wednesday to prevent downed power lines from starting wildfires.

A 55-year-old man died after a tree fell on his home in the northern Idaho town of Fernan, the Kootenai County Sheriff's office said. The tree hit the bed where the man was sleeping, according to a press release, and other people inside the home escaped without serious injury.

In southern Idaho, the Twin Falls County Sheriff's office said high winds caused several old, internally rotten trees to fall, knocking down power lines and critically injuring two children. Both children were under age 10, and were waiting for the school bus when the tree landed on them, the sheriff's office wrote in a press release. An older sibling was also at the bus stop, but was uninjured. An air ambulance was able to land at the scene despite the increasing wind, the sheriff's office said, and one child was flown to a nearby hospital while the other one was transported by ground ambulance.

Western Washington residents — many in communities already deluged by flooding — reported blown transformers, downed trees and power lines and damaged roofs in social media posts early Wednesday morning. Winds were expected to gust up to 90 mph (145 kph) along Colorado’s warm and dry Front Range, the region just east of the mountains where most of the state’s population lives. Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy cut power to the region to reduce the risk of wildfires, and said it would work as quickly as possible to restore power after winds are expected to die down in the evening.

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said Tuesday the extent of damage is profound but unclear, and more high water, mudslides and power outages were in the forecast.

A barrage of storms from weather systems stretching across the Pacific has dumped close to 2 feet (0.6 meters) of rain in parts of the Cascade Mountains, swelling rivers far beyond their banks and prompting more than 600 rescues across 10 counties.

As of Tuesday, there had been only one flood-related death — of a man who drove past warning signs into a flooded area — but key highways were buried or washed out, entire communities had been inundated, and saturated levees had given way. It could be months before State Route 2, which connects cities in western Washington with the Stevens Pass ski area and the faux Bavarian tourist town of Leavenworth across the mountains, can be reopened, Ferguson said.

“We’re in for the long haul,” Ferguson said at a news conference. “If you get an evacuation order, for God’s sakes, follow it.”

It won’t be until after waters recede and landslide risk subsides that crews will be able to fully assess the damage, he said. The state and some counties are making several million dollars available to help people pay for hotels, groceries and other necessities, pending more extensive federal assistance that Ferguson and Washington’s congressional delegation expect to see approved.

According to the governor’s office, first responders had conducted at least 629 rescues and 572 assisted evacuations. As many as 100,000 people had been under evacuation orders at times, many of them in the flood plain of the Skagit River north of Seattle.

Elevated rivers and flood risk could persist until at least late this month, according to the National Weather Service.

Residents near a breached levee in Pacific, south of Seattle, were told to leave their homes well before dawn Tuesday, just hours after an evacuation alert was lifted for residents near another broken levee.

Associated Press writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, Colleen Slevin in Denver, and Martha Bellisle in Seattle contributed to this report.

This image made from a video provided by the Pacific Police Department shows homes underwater, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Pacific, Wash. (Pacific Police Department via AP)

This image made from a video provided by the Pacific Police Department shows homes and buildings underwater, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Pacific, Wash. (Pacific Police Department via AP)

This image made from a video provided by the Pacific Police Department shows a road blocked off as it remains underwater, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Pacific, Wash. (Pacific Police Department via AP)

This image made from a video provided by the Pacific Police Department shows homes underwater, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Pacific, Wash. (Pacific Police Department via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — More drops for AI stocks are dragging the U.S. market lower Wednesday, and Wall Street is heading toward a fourth straight loss.

The S&P 500 fell 0.9% in afternoon trading, though it's still not far from its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 171 points, or 0.4%, as of 2:22 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.5% lower.

The majority of stocks within the S&P 500 were rising, but they're getting drowned out by drops from the artificial-intelligence industry.

Questions continue to dog the former superstars about whether their yearslong dominance of Wall Street meant their prices shot too high, as well as whether all the investment in AI will produce enough profit and productivity to prove worth the cost. Worries are also rising about the debt that some companies are taking on to pay for it all.

Broadcom dropped 5.1%, Oracle fell 5.2% and CoreWeave sank 5.8%. Nvidia, the chip company that’s become Wall Street’s most influential stock because of its tremendous size, fell 3.7% and was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500.

Only 17% of respondents in a survey of relatively big businesses by UBS said they're in production at scale with their AI projects. That could be “a reminder for tech investors to remain sober about the likely 2026 revenue growth uplift from AI products,” according to UBS analysts, though the rate continues to rise.

Also on the losing end of Wall Street was Lennar, which sank 4.4% following a mixed profit report. The homebuilder delivered a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its revenue topped expectations.

Executive Chairman Stuart Miller said that conditions remain challenging, with customers feeling less confident while looking for discounts and more affordable options. As a result, the company gave limited forecasts for its upcoming financial performance.

Progressive, meanwhile, fell 2.1% after the insurer based in Mayfield Village, Ohio, said that its net income for November fell 5% from its year-ago level.

On the winning side of Wall Street were oil companies, after President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela. It’s Trump’s latest escalation in pressure on Venezuela, which may be sitting on more oil than any other country.

That sent the price of a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude higher by 1.5% to $55.94, just a day after it sank to its lowest level since 2021. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.7% to $59.90 per barrel.

That in turn helped ConocoPhillips rise 3.9% and cut into its loss for the year so far, which came into the day at 8.5%. Devon Energy rallied 3.9.1%, and Halliburton added 1%. Oil prices had dropped through most of this year on expectations that companies are pumping more than enough crude to meet the world’s demand.

Netflix climbed 0.8% after Warner Bros. Discovery’s board said it still recommends shareholders approve a buyout offer for its Warner Bros. business from the streaming giant, rather than a competing hostile bid from Paramount Skydance for the entire company.

Warner Bros. Discovery slipped 1.9%, while Paramount Skydance fell 3.9%.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady ahead of a report coming on Thursday that will show how bad inflation has been for U.S. consumers.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.15%, where it was late Tuesday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi leaped 1.4% for one of the world’s bigger gains and shaved its loss for the week so far down to 2.7%.

AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

Dilip Patel, right, and Bobby Charmak, left, work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters, in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters, in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader stands near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters, in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)