Important Takeaways:
- On Tuesday, voters in Missouri narrowly passed an amendment writing abortion into the Missouri Constitution. On Wednesday, Planned Parenthood filed a sweeping lawsuit challenging virtually all of Missouri’s good, pro-life laws.
- Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, and the organization consistently opposes policies that protect women and unborn children from abortion.
- Wednesday’s lawsuit challenges Missouri’s many pro-life measures, including the state’s good laws that:
- Prohibit abortion except to save the life of the mother
- Require abortionists to give women information about abortion’s risks, consequences, and alternatives
- Require abortionists to give women 72 hours to consider all options before an abortion
- Protect unborn children from being aborted due to their race or sex or due to being at risk for Down Syndrome
- Require abortion facilities to be licensed and inspected by the state
- Require abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges in case the woman experiences complications from abortion
- Outline how abortion data is recorded and reported to the state for statistical purposes
- Prohibit telemed abortions in Missouri
- Prevent healthcare professionals other than doctors from performing abortions
- Require abortionists to maintain various plans and agreements for handling abortion complications
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Important Takeaways:
- At least five people were killed after torrential rainfall led to flash flooding in central and eastern Missouri, impacting transportation and making it challenging for some voters to reach their polling place on Tuesday.
- The relentless rain, which shattered November rainfall records, turned streets into rivers, inundated homes and forced widespread closures.
- According to the St. Louis County Police Department, preliminary investigations revealed that one of the victims, identified as an adult female, drove her car into floodwaters in the area of Interstate 55 and Bayless Avenue in St. Louis Tuesday morning as the worst of the flash flooding was ongoing.
- The unprecedented rainfall event has also set a new record for the highest 24-hour rainfall total for the month of November. With over 6.4 inches of rain falling since Monday, the airport has shattered the previous record of 3.56 inches set on Nov. 18, 1921.
- The nearly 7 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period caused Deer Creek to overflow its banks, submerging major streets in Maplewood, Brentwood and Webster Groves, FOX 2 in St. Louis reported.
- Drone footage captured the force of the flash floods, showing rapid water surges surrounding homes and businesses in Park Hills.
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Important Takeaways:
- U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp snatched the win from the Biden administration in response to a request from six Republican state attorneys general who have challenged the White House’s effort.
- The Republican-led states assert the Department of Education has overstepped its authority by proposing a regulation to cancel student loan debt without an act of Congress.
- The White House counters that the president has used his authority under existing law to ensure borrowers who meet certain qualifications can experience relief from debt accrued in pursuit of higher education.
- Two previous efforts by Biden to fulfill a campaign promise to assist student loan borrowers were defeated in court. His third proposal would hand out $73 billion in student loan debt held by an estimated 27.6 million borrowers.
- In addition to Georgia and Missouri, Republican attorneys general in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota and Ohio are party to the lawsuit challenging the policy.
- Missouri state Attorney General Andrew Bailey celebrated Schelp’s decision on X, calling it a “huge win for transparency, the rule of law, and for every American who won’t have to foot the bill for someone else’s Ivy League debt.”
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Important Takeaways:
- More health-care workers in contact with Missouri bird flu patient report respiratory symptoms
- One health-care worker who had symptoms had what investigators consider high-risk contact with the patient, meaning they provided care before the hospital advised taking precautions such as wearing a mask when tending to the patient.
- Three additional workers reportedly had low-risk contact with the patient after the hospital required precautions.
- None of these workers was tested at the time they experienced symptoms, the CDC reported Friday.
- It has been three weeks since the CDC and Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services announced that a person who had no contact with animals had tested positive for H5N1, the 14th human infection in the United States since April.
- None of the people in the US with a confirmed H5N1 infection is known to have infected other people. That would raise alarm because it would suggest that the virus was changing in ways that could allow it to more easily infect humans.
- The agency says the immediate risk to the public from H5N1 bird flu continues to be low.
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Important Takeaways:
- The state is not one of the 14 others that have reported outbreaks in dairy cattle
- Disease investigators have not been able to determine how a person in Missouri with no known exposures to animals or poultry became infected with an H5 bird flu virus, the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
- But Nirav Shah said the ongoing investigation has turned up no evidence of onward spread of the virus, suggesting this case may turn out to be a one-off infection that defies explanation.
- “Here’s the bottom line: Our influenza surveillance system is designed to find needles in haystacks,” Shah said at a news briefing. “Here in this case, we found such a needle, but we don’t know how it got there. Our investigation continues, and we will keep everyone updated as we learn more.”
- It isn’t unheard of to have cases in which investigators fail to be able to trace a human infection with novel flu viruses back to a source of infection, Shah said, noting that of the more than 500 swine flu infections that have been detected in the U.S. since 2010, about 8% have been in people with no traceable contact with pigs or other infected people.
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Important Takeaways:
- Over 140,000 Farms Lost in 5 Years
- Between 2017 and 2022, the number of farms in the U.S. declined by 141,733 or 7%, according to USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture, released on Feb. 13. Acres operated by farm operations during the same timeframe declined by 20.1 million (2.2%), a loss equivalent to an area about the size of Maine. Only 1.88% of acres operated and 1% of farm operations were classified under a non-family corporate farm structure.
- While the number of farm operations and acres operated declined, the value of agricultural production increased, rising from $389 billion in 2017 to $533 billion in 2022 (40% nominally and 17% adjusted for inflation).
- Between 2017 and 2022 all states but five (Alaska, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey and Rhode Island) lost farms. Texas had the largest numerical loss – nearly 18,000 farm operations – followed by Oklahoma (-8,153) and Missouri (-7,433).
- The challenges faced by farms of all sizes has raised calls for a robust and comprehensive farm bill that could provide support to the operations most at risk and to those providing the lion’s share of the American food supply, helping both to navigate economic uncertainties and regulatory complexities, to undertake innovative and sustainable practices, and to promote the long-term viability of a diverse agricultural landscape across the nation. The Census of Agriculture paints the picture of what we have lost, and of what more could be lost without firm support.
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Important Takeaways:
- Teen girl is left in critical condition after high school mob beat down in Missouri – as shocking footage shows her head being repeatedly slammed against concrete until she blacks out
- A teenage girl is in critical condition after another teen repeatedly smashed her head into the ground during a brawl near a Missouri high school.
- The fight broke out at about 2:30 pm Friday near Hazelwood High School.
- Video of the incident circulated on social media showing another girl bashing the teen’s head into the concrete after throwing multiple punches and sending her careening to the ground.
- The victim appeared to begin to have a seizure as groups of other teen’s brawled just feet away.
- Police found the girl suffering from a serious head injury…
- The teen, whose name has not been released, was taken to the hospital and remains in critical condition.
- A 15-year-old girl was arrested Saturday and charged with assault. She was taken to the St. Louis County Family Court and remained in custody as of Sunday afternoon.
- The St. Louis County Police Department is investigating the incident.
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Important Takeaways:
- Sudden Swarm of Quakes near Missouri’s New Madrid Fault
- After a period of relative quiet, there’s a sudden swarm of quakes that have been recorded along the New Madrid Fault on Missouri’s border.
- If you pay attention to earthquakes, you likely saw that there were almost no measurable quakes along the New Madrid Fault for days. Now, the USGS is reporting a sudden mini-swarm of a half dozen quakes in the past day alone.
- I want to be clear that there is no reason for alarm as all of the quakes so far have been relatively tiny with the largest only measuring 2.5 on the Richter Scale.
- Earthquakes happen along the New Madrid Fault all the time. As we shared recently, there have been more than 175 New Madrid area quakes halfway through 2023 alone. But, we pay attention especially to swarms as experts now estimate a major quake could cause more than a billion dollars in damage which is double what was previously thought. The concern is that a swarm could signal a bigger quake about to happen, but earthquake science is still a field where there’s no way to accurately anticipate or predict a big event. Perhaps someday there will be.
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Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
Important Takeaways:
- A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions that results in water-related problems and other issues. When little or no rain falls, soils can dry out, plants can die and livestock can suffer. When dry weather persists, stream and river flows can decline, water levels in lakes and reservoirs can fall and water in wells and aquifers can decline. Drought can have a serious impact on health, agriculture, economies, energy and the environment.
- Droughts can develop quickly or gradually over several weeks, months or even years, and worsened with extreme heat or wind. A drought can end just as quickly or gradually as it began, but more commonly persist for months. A single rainstorm may provide temporary relief, but its impact is short term. Thunderstorms often produce large amounts of rain in a very short time, causing the rain to run off into streams rather than soak into the ground. Several soaking rains may be required to recharge groundwater and break a drought.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Missouri AG To Investigate ‘Possible CCP Outpost’ Linked To Chinese Intel Service
- Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey will investigate a so-called “service center” in his state operated by a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence service, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
- Last week, Wagner notified Bailey’s office about the OCSC branch in St. Louis, telling the DCNF at that time that the U.S. “must put a stop” to any CCP efforts to “gain a foothold in America.”
- The United Front Work Department (UFWD), a CCP “intelligence service” that specializes in “coordinating [foreign and domestic] influence operations,” operates Overseas Chinese Service Centers (OCSCs) in at least seven U.S. cities, a DCNF investigation found. Launched between 2014 and 2017, the seven U.S. OCSC branches are located in San Francisco, California; St. Paul, Minnesota; St. Louis, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah, according to Chinese state media reports.
- The OCSC in Missouri is hosted by the Chinese Education and Culture Center in St. Louis and was established in 2017, according to Chinese state-run media. A Chinese consulate official from Chicago attended the opening ceremony of the St. Louis OCSC, according to the consulate’s website.
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