Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah pelted Haifa with rockets on Tuesday in the heaviest attack yet on the northern Israeli port city, as the Lebanese terror group insisted its military capabilities “were fine” despites weeks of devastating IDF strikes.
- More than 100 rockets were fired at the city within half an hour around midday.
- Most of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, although some got through, exploding in the Haifa suburbs of Kiryat Yam and Kiryat Motzkin, security services said.
- The blue skies above the city were filled with white trails of the interceptor rockets rising to meet the incoming barrages, and explosions mushroomed above Haifa as sirens wailed and thousands of Israelis ran for bomb shelters.
- The salvos came as the IDF announced that it was carrying out strikes against Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
- The large-scale attack also came moments after Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem, one of the last surviving members of the group’s top leadership, insisted that Hezbollah’s military capabilities were intact, that it had increased its rocket fire on Israel, and that it was itching for “clashes” with Israeli troops in Lebanon.
- He said Hezbollah’s top leadership was directing the war and that the commanders killed by Israel had been replaced. “We have no vacant posts,” he added.
- Qassem also said that Hezbollah supports efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon, but for the first time omitted any mention of a Gaza truce deal as a precondition to halting his group’s fire on Israel.
- “In any case, after the issue of a ceasefire takes shape, and once diplomacy can achieve it, all of the other details can be discussed and decisions can be made,” he said. “If the enemy (Israel) continues its war, then the battlefield will decide.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a clash between a federal emergency care law and Texas’ near-total ban on abortion, declining to provide clarity over whether physicians in states with the most restrictive laws must provide abortion care in certain emergency circumstances.
- The court’s rejection of the Biden administration’s appeal leaves in place a lower court decision that blocked the federal government from enforcing guidance it issued to hospitals notifying them that they must provide emergency abortions if the health of the mother is at risk.
- The Department of Health and Human Services told health care providers in a July 2022 letter that when a state abortion law does not include an exception for the life and health of the mother, that measure is preempted by the federal emergency care law.
- The case began after Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told hospitals more than two years ago that federal law requires them to provide pregnant patients experiencing emergency medical conditions with stabilizing treatment, including abortions, regardless of state restrictions.
- In Texas, abortion is banned except when the life of the mother is at risk.
- Texas sued the Biden administration to block its mandate requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions, alleging that the secretary exceeded his authority when issuing the guidance.
- A federal district court sided with Texas and blocked the guidance, finding that hospitals cannot be forced to provide abortions in certain medical emergencies when it would violate the state’s ban.
- They urged the Supreme Court to leave the lower court’s decision in place, writing in a filing that in Texas, a health care provider can comply with both EMTALA and state law by offering stabilizing treatment without violating its ban. In limited circumstances, they said, that can include providing an abortion when it is necessary to prevent the “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The White House said there are additionally more than 6,100 National Guard members and more than 7,000 federal personnel aiding in the effort.
- “These Guardsmen have been spearheading the response effort across the impacted region in support of their governors and communities, providing critical life-saving and life-sustaining support to the victims of this historic natural disaster,” the Defense Department press release read.
- The announcement, according to the White House and Defense Department, comes in response to requests from North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) and from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for additional troops.
- “The Department of Defense will continue to stay fully engaged with FEMA and the whole-of-government relief efforts related to Hurricane Helene, providing capabilities that best support needs on the ground,” the Defense Department press release said.
- The Biden administration pointed to the $137 million in federal assistance that it has directed to help “survivors jumpstart their recoveries” and said there is “more to come.”
- The administration touted its on-the-ground efforts and collaboration with local officials, noting that in the past several days, the Biden administration “has contacted nearly 450 state, city, and county officials in impacted states to ensure they have the support and resources they need.”
- The administration is also encouraging local residents to apply for FEMA assistance, and it has set up a website to combat misinformation surrounding the federal government’s response efforts.
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Important Takeaways:
- Milton rapidly strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane Monday on a path toward Florida population centers including Tampa and Orlando, threatening a dangerous storm surge in Tampa Bay and setting the stage for potential mass evacuations less than two weeks after a catastrophic Hurricane Helene swamped the coastline.
- The storm is expected to stay at about its current strength for the next couple of days, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
- Helene was also a Category 4 at landfall in northern Florida.
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that it was imperative that messes from Helene be cleaned up ahead of Milton’s arrival so they don’t become dangerous flying projectiles.
- “We don’t have time for bureaucracy and red tape,” DeSantis said. “We have to get the job done.”
- DeSantis expanded his state of emergency declaration Sunday to 51 counties and said Floridians should prepare for more power outages and disruption, making sure they have a week’s worth of food and water and are ready to hit the road.
- It has been two decades since so many storms crisscrossed Florida in such a short period of time. In 2004, an unprecedented five storms struck Florida within six weeks, including three hurricanes that pummeled central Florida.
- Milton is a bit atypical since it formed so far west and is expected to cross the entire southern Gulf, according to Daniel Brown, a hurricane specialist at the center.
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Important Takeaways:
- In the largest planned pro-Palestinian action of the day, protesters are expected to march through Manhattan, from Wall Street to Columbus Circle
- A vigil to remember those killed and missing in last year’s Hamas attack on Oct. 7 will come within blocks of a pro-Palestinian march Monday night.
- NYPD officials are planning to keep both groups separate in what is expected to be the culmination of a tense day of protests and prayers.
- Smashed windows, red paint and graffiti including “divest now” was discovered spray-painted on the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center on the City College of New York campus in Hamilton Heights on Monday morning.
- At Columbia University, access is limited to ID holders in an effort to keep out outside agitators.
- More walkouts are expected in the afternoon, with both students and faculty from CUNY and city public schools gathering at Washington Square Park, to join the larger protest marching north.
- Blocks away in Central Park, a candle lighting ceremony with members of the Jewish community will remember those killed, with music and prayer
- Police officials say they are most concerned about the protest in Times Square, and the pro-Israeli prayer vigil in Central Park.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third largest city Haifa on Monday as Israeli forces looked poised to expand ground raids into south Lebanon on the first anniversary of the Gaza war, which has spread conflict across the Middle East.
- Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group fighting Israel in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
- Hezbollah said it targeted areas north of Haifa in a second salvo of missiles later in the day.
- The military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon, and that two Israeli soldiers were killed in border-area combat, taking the military death toll inside Lebanon so far to 11.
- It said it also carried out a targeted strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where a thick plume of smoke could be seen.
- The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States, Israel’s superpower ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing Middle East.
- The Gaza war has given rise to a multi-front Middle East conflict, drawing in Iran’s broader “Axis of Resistance” – Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, Iraqi militia groups – and sparking several rare, direct confrontations between Israel and Iran.
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Important Takeaways:
- ‘The pain will never leave’: Nova massacre survivors return to site one year on
- As mourners gathered at the site of the Nova music festival to commemorate the victims of Hamas’s attack one year ago, low sobs and murmured prayers were punctuated by the sound of artillery being fired by soldiers into nearby Gaza.
- Relatives gathered around the homemade memorials to the estimated 365 people killed at the festival on that day in 2023, while attack helicopters whirred overhead and occasionally let loose bursts of automatic gunfire toward Gaza, only three miles away from the festival site in Re’im, southern Israel.
- Police had before the ceremony warned attenders that if they heard a siren, they had just seconds to drop to the ground before a rocket from Hamas could hit.
- “Many relatives still come here to try to hug the ground and feel the warmth that remains from their relatives. It’s a pain that will never leave them.”
- Noa Tishby, an Israeli activist and actor, said the Nova site was “where the juxtaposition between good and evil is most apparent”. “That’s really close,” she said, as another artillery round was fired off toward Gaza.
- Many of the families said they strongly supported the Israeli response in Gaza. Few could predict how or when the war would end.
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Important Takeaways:
- In just over a month, U.S. voters will decide the nation’s 47th president
- Nov 5, 2024: Election Day
- Depending on the state, mail-in ballots must either be postmarked by Election Day or received on Election Day. But counting the votes and certifying the results can take days, or even weeks.
- Dec 11, 2024: Certificate of Ascertainment of Appointment of Electors
- Every state appoints a certain number of individuals, called electors, who will cast the state’s electoral votes for president and vice president.
- Electors pledge to vote according to the statewide or district popular vote.
- Dec 17, 2024: Meeting and vote of electors
- On the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December — this year, Dec. 17 — the appointed electors must meet in their respective states to cast their votes for president and vice president.
- They then transmit signed and endorsed certificates attesting to their votes to officials in Washington, D.C., and their state.
- Dec 25, 2024: Electoral votes received
- The president of the Senate or the Archivist of the United States should receive the certificates from the electors on the fourth Wednesday in December: this year, Dec. 25.
- Jan 3, 2025: 119th Congress convenes
- On Jan. 3, representatives-elect and senators-elect will be sworn into the new Congress. This process happens every two years on this date following federal elections.
- In the House of Representatives, this is also the day that the Speaker will be elected.
- Jan 6, 2025: Congress Counts Electoral Votes
- 6, 2025, is not just the four-year anniversary of the attack on the Capitol.
- It is the day when the House and Senate will count and tally the electoral certificates in a joint session, starting in the early afternoon. The U.S. Constitution names the vice president as the president of the Senate and formally presides over the receiving and counting of electoral ballots cast in presidential elections and announces the result of the count.
- Jan 20, 2025: Inauguration Day
- On Jan. 20, 2025, people will fill the National Mall in D.C. to watch the elected president and vice president be sworn in.
- They will take their respective oaths of office at the U.S. Capitol starting at 12 p.m. Eastern Time, and after they’ve been sworn in, the transfer of power from the former administration to the new administration is complete.
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Important Takeaways:
- California, the biggest U.S. milk-producing state, on Thursday confirmed two human cases of bird flu in people who had contact with dairy cattle infected by the virus.
- The cases bring total U.S. bird flu infections among people in contact with dairy cows and poultry to 15 this year.
- The virus’ jump to cattle in 14 states and infections of farm workers have concerned scientists and federal officials about the risks to humans from further spread.
- There is no known link or contact between the two human cases in California, suggesting only animal-to-human spread of the virus in the state, the California Department of Public Health said in a statement.
- It said neither person reported respiratory symptoms nor was hospitalized.
- Scientists are watching closely for signs that the virus has begun to spread more easily in people.
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said it would begin testing raw cow’s milk intended for pasteurization at dairy plants to better understand the prevalence of the bird flu virus in milk.
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Important Takeaways:
- In its lawsuit, Mexico alleged the manufacturers and distributors were aiding and abetting the purchase of their firearms by dealers known to supply drug cartels.
- They also claim that firearm makers have resisted making changes to their products – such as making gun serial numbers harder to tamper with or installing certain technological safeguards that would hinder a gun’s unauthorized use – that would make the guns less appealing to criminal gangs.
- And the complaint says manufacturers market their products in a “inflammatory” and “reckless” way that makes guns more attractive to cartels.
- The high court on Friday granted the request by Smith & Wesson and other gun manufacturers to review a federal appeals court ruling reviving the case, after a trial judge threw it out on the basis of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a law that generally bars civil liability for firearm manufacturers and distributors for the use of their products by third-party criminals.
- At the heart of the dispute before the Supreme Court is the 2005 federal law passed by a GOP-led Congress. The ruling in Mexico’s favor came after gunmakers had previous success in using the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to stop similar lawsuits from local and state governments.
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