Important Takeaways:
- Thomas Pressly, R-Shreveport, submitted the legislation after his sister, a Texas resident, unknowingly consumed an abortion pill after her husband put it in her drink.
- A person caught with the drugs without a prescription could face up to five years in prison and have to pay a fine of up to $5,000.
- But the law couldn’t be used to prosecute a pregnant person who holds the drugs for their own use, even without a prescription
- The bill began as an effort to criminalize giving someone abortion drugs without their knowledge, and the reclassification was later added as an amendment.
- The new law creates the crime of “coerced criminal abortion.”
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Important Takeaways:
- On Monday, the North Carolina State Climate Office provided a picture of how the “monster storm” was nearly a “worst-case scenario for western North Carolina.”
- “Torrential rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Helene capped off three days of extreme, unrelenting precipitation, which left catastrophic flooding and unimaginable damage in our Mountains and southern Foothills,” a post from the office says. “… the full extent of this event will take years to document – not to mention, to recover from.”
- Water was already beginning to inundate cities, “all while the heaviest rain from Helene was just beginning to fall,” the climate office said. The more than 300 miles of tropical storm-force winds Helene produced only amplified the situation, pushing more moisture up mountains.
- From the start of the precursor frontal showers on Wednesday evening to the heart of Helene moving through on Friday morning, it was one of the most incredible and impactful weather events our state has ever seen
- In Buncombe County, home to Asheville, Emergency Services Assistant Director Ryan Cole told the Citizen-Times that “catastrophic devastation” didn’t accurately describe the impact the deluge had.
- “It would go a little bit further and say we have biblical devastation through the county,” Cole said. “We’ve had biblical flooding here and it has been extremely significant.”
- The day after Helene made landfall, at least six tornadoes were confirmed, including an EF3 in Rocky Mount that destroyed several buildings.
- Officials often retire hurricane names when they are particularly devastating, and while such action has yet to be announced, the climatologists suggest it may only be a matter of time.
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Important Takeaways:
- The White House on Tuesday said the US believes Iran is preparing an imminent ballistic missile attack against Israel.
- “The United States has indications that Iran is preparing to imminently launch a ballistic missile attack against Israel. We are actively supporting defensive preparations to defend Israel against this attack. A direct military attack from Iran against Israel will carry severe consequences for Iran,” a senior White House official said in a statement.
- “As of this moment, Israel does not perceive imminent threat from Iran,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.
- During a short video message, Hagari said Israeli military planes are currently “scanning the sky” for any imminent threat from Iran.
- “We are on peak alert both on the offensive and the defensive,” Hagari added, warning Iran that any attack on Israel would “have consequences.” Tensions between Israel and Iran have ratcheted up significantly in recent weeks as Israel has stepped up its efforts against Hezbollah in Lebanon, an Iran-backed militant group.
- Israel on Monday launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah.
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Important Takeaways:
- Announcing the incursion in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the IDF said that “limited, localized, and targeted ground raids” had begun several hours earlier.
- It said they were focused on “Hezbollah targets and infrastructure” in a number of Lebanese villages along the border that posed an immediate threat to Israeli towns on the other side of the Blue Line.
- Ground troops operating inside southern Lebanon were being assisted by air and artillery forces
- The start of the IDF’s ground offensive came some two weeks into intensified fighting with Hezbollah, and after Operation Northern Arrows was launched earlier in September to meet the recently declared war goal of bringing residents of the north back to their homes following their evacuation last October under heavy rocket fire from the Lebanese terror group.
- In its statement on Tuesday morning, the military stressed that it was “continuing to operate to achieve the goals of the war and is doing everything necessary to defend the citizens of Israel and return the citizens of northern Israel to their homes.”
- In the hours leading up to the limited raids, several European countries began pulling their diplomats and citizens out of Lebanon.
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Important Takeaways:
- Newsom said “the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions — so long as a large system deploys it. I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology.”
- Google in an emailed statement Sunday thanked Newsom “for helping California continue to lead in building responsible AI tools” and said it looked forward to “working with the Governor’s responsible AI initiative and the federal government on creating appropriate safeguards and developing tools that help everyone.”
- OpenAI said in an emailed statement Sunday that the company appreciated Newsom’s “commitment to maintaining California’s role as a global leader in AI innovation, and look forward to working with him and state lawmakers in well-defined areas of public interest such as deepfakes, child safety, and AI literacy.”
- Scott Wiener, a state senator from San Francisco who authored the bill in California’s Senate, said in a statement Sunday the veto represented a “missed opportunity for California to once again lead on innovative tech regulation — just as we did around data privacy and net neutrality — and we are all less safe as a result.”
- Nonprofit Accountable Tech in an emailed statement said “This veto will not ’empower innovation’ — it only further entrenches the status quo where Big Tech monopolies are allowed to rake in profits without regard for our safety, even as their AI tools are already threatening democracy, civil rights, and the environment with unknown potential for other catastrophic harms,” it added.
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Important Takeaways:
- The system is not expected to directly impact the United States.
- The storm, previously known as Tropical Depression 12, is projected to develop into a “large and powerful hurricane” later this week, the NHC said.
- The NHC also observed that the storm had reformed slightly south of its previously estimated position.
- The storm is forecast to continue strengthening and is expected to become a hurricane by Tuesday night or Wednesday.
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Important Takeaways:
- Rwanda, a landlocked country in central Africa, declared an outbreak on Friday and a day later the first six deaths were reported.
- Rwanda says eight people have died so far from the Ebola-like and highly contagious Marburg virus, the deadly hemorrhagic fever that has no authorized vaccine or treatment.
- The public has been urged to avoid physical contact to help curb the spread. Some 300 people who came into contact with those confirmed to have the virus have also been identified, and an unspecified number of them have been put in isolation facilities.
- Most of the affected are healthcare workers across six out of 30 districts in the country.
- “Marburg is a rare disease,” Nsanzimana told journalists. “We are intensifying contact tracing and testing to help stop the spread.”
- A person infected with the virus can take between three days and three weeks to show symptoms, he added.
- Separately, Rwanda has so far reported six cases of mpox, a disease caused by a virus related to smallpox but that typically causes milder symptoms.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Islamic Republic will collapse sooner than people think, and the Iranian people will be free, paving the way for relations between these two ancient cultures, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.
- “When Iran is finally free and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think – everything will be different,” he said.
- “When that day comes, the terror network that the regime built in five continents will be bankrupt, dismantled,” Netanyahu explained, adding that Iran will thrive as never before.”
- “There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” Netanyahu said on Monday. “There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.”
- On Monday he released a statement in English aimed at the Iranian people, explaining that “at this pivotal moment, I want to address you – the people of Iran. I want to do so directly, without filters, without middlemen.
- “Every day, you see a regime that subjugates you, make fiery speeches about defending Lebanon, defending Gaza.
- “Yet every day, that regime plunges our region deeper into darkness and deeper into war,” he said.
- “With every passing moment, the regime is bringing you — the noble Persian people — closer to the abyss,” he stated.
- “The vast majority of Iranians know their regime doesn’t care a whit about them,” Netanyahu said.
- “There are tens of millions of good and decent people with thousands of years of history behind them and a bright future ahead of them,” he said.
- When that day comes, he said, “Our two ancient peoples, the Jewish people and the Persian people, will finally be at peace.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The haze and chemical smell had spread to Atlanta by Monday morning, prompting firefighters to use detectors to check the quality of air in various parts of the city, Mayor Andre Dickens said.
- Closer to the source of the fire, officials said chlorine, a harmful irritant, had been detected in the air from the fire at the BioLab plant in Conyers, Georgia
- In Atlanta, officials said they believe the hazy conditions and chemical smell is “related to the BioLab fire, but why we are seeing the change in conditions is what we are attempting to figure out.”
- People in the northern part of Rockdale County, north of Interstate 20, were ordered to evacuate on Sunday, and others were told to shelter in place.
- The fire ignited when a sprinkler head malfunctioned around 5 a.m. Sunday at the BioLab plant in Conyers, Rockdale County Fire Chief Marian McDaniel told reporters. The malfunction caused water to mix with a water-reactive chemical, producing a plume of chemicals.
- The company also said that no injuries were reported.
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Important Takeaways:
- Helene’s path of destruction stretched more than 500 miles, from coastal Florida to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
- Short on supplies, power and patience, storm victims who saw the brutal force of Helene upend their lives have emerged to a new week, facing the daunting challenge of rebuilding.
- Some of the roads and bridges they need to do the job aren’t there anymore.
- Electricity could be a week away or longer.
- Emergency services are stretched.
- Communications infrastructure is in shreds.
- North Carolina suffered the highest death toll, at least 42 so far
- At least 25 storm victims also perished in South Carolina, 17 in Georgia, 11 in Florida, four in Tennessee and two in Virginia.
- More than 2 million customers remain without power
- Officials in Buncombe County, North Carolina – where at least 30 people have died – have received about 600 missing persons reports through an online form
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