Important Takeaways:
- Hurricane Ernesto has intensified again after briefly dropping down to a tropical storm, whipping up dangerous currents along the East Coast on its journey northwards.
- The hurricane, which originated as a small depression in the central Atlantic and strengthened to a hurricane by the time it slammed into Bermuda, briefly weakened back to a tropical storm after making landfall. However, it has now inched its way back up into a Category 1 hurricane.
- While the storm will pass hundreds of miles offshore of the U.S., its powerful winds are currently whipping up intense waves along the East Coast, and will continue to do so for several days.
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Important Takeaways:
- One of Russia’s most active volcanoes spewed plumes of ash 3 miles into the sky
- The Shiveluch volcano began sputtering shortly after a powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck off Kamchatka’s east coast early Sunday, according to volcanologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences. They warned that another, even more potent earthquake may be on the way.
- The academy’s Institute of Volcanology and Seismology released a video showing the ash cloud over Shiveluch. It stretched over 490 kilometers (304 miles) east and southeast of the volcano.
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Important Takeaways:
- Protest organizers in Chicago expect between 30,000 and 40,000 people to join Monday’s march on the Democratic National Convention, and are asking the city for a permit that would get them closer to the event itself.
- “We’re going to march regardless, but we’re fighting for the best route possible,” said Faayani Aboma Mijana, a spokesperson for the March on the DNC coalition.
- The coalition, composed of more than 150 pro-Palestinian, anti-war, and left-wing organizations, has been planning its direct actions for months.
- Protesters’ focus had always been on Chicago, pressuring the Biden administration for a ceasefire and end to military aid to Israel.
- The Behind Enemy Lines coalition’s promotional material has told participants to prepare for clashes with law enforcement: “Make bruises from Chicago police batons the 2024 back to school Fall fashion!”
- Next week’s protests could fall a mile short of the baton-swinging nightmare Democrats are worried about, or that Behind Enemy Lines describe in their literature. It doesn’t need to be that bad to create problems, though: A few protesters finding a delegate hang-out could do it.
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Important Takeaways:
- Trump has held nearly a dozen election campaign events since the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July, but all of them have been indoors. At a recent indoor rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trump lamented the location and said: “We’re not giving up the outdoor rallies.”
- A Secret Service official told the Washington Post that ballistic glass would be used at events by Kamala Harris if warranted.
- The glass is usually used exclusively for serving presidents and their vice-presidents.
- A House task force was set up in July to investigate the Trump shooting, and is required to issue its findings by 13 December.
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Important Takeaways:
- Along with a surge of combat aircraft and warships, President Biden dispatched three of his top Mideast advisers, including CIA Director Bill Burns, to the region this week to try to delay Iranian and Hezbollah military retaliation against Israel, and to use that borrowed time to craft an offramp from the collision course that ultimately risks a regional war that could draw in U.S. forces.
- But it is unclear how long Iran and its proxies may hold off. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Thursday that an Iranian attack could come with “little or no warning, and certainly could come in the coming days.”
- But multiple sources in the region told CBS News that Iran’s government continues to internally debate whether to use military force as it did on April 13, when it launched hundreds of drones and missiles towards Israel, or whether to conduct a covert intelligence operation.
- The U.S. assesses that Hezbollah could launch an attack with little to no warning.
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Important Takeaways:
- Vladimir Putin fumed Monday during a televised meeting that his troops need to secure the Russian border after a shock Ukraine incursion. Days later, 100 of them surrendered.
- The latest victory is part of a surprise incursion launched by Ukraine into Russian territory earlier this month.
- Officials confirmed to the Ukrainian newspaper and Bloomberg News that the men, 102 total, were captured at a large underground facility in Kursk Oblast, the Russian region where Ukraine launched its surprise incursion on August 6.
- They were said to be heavily stocked with ammunition and supplies, while the bunker was outfitted with a dining hall, armory, and bathhouse.
- On top of capturing hundreds of soldiers and seizing territory, Ukraine’s surprise incursion has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians and represents the most significant attack on Russia since World War II.
- Analysts generally agree that Ukraine’s incursion is designed to pull Russian troops away from the front lines in eastern Ukraine, where the country has slowly lost ground in recent weeks, and to capture troops and territory that can act as bargaining chips in potential negotiations.
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Important Takeaways:
- Major insurance companies drop churches from coverage as natural disasters become more frequent: ‘This does not make sense’
- Due to a perfect storm of climate-related factors, stress has arrived at some ministry doors, leaving people concerned about the financial future of those churches.
- The Baptist Paper reported that an “ongoing wave of disasters,” including hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, are combining with ballooning construction costs to send insurance companies into a panic.
- As a result, church insurers have begun dropping “high-risk” churches — or charging exorbitant price increases — to recoup their losses.
- Insurers are feeling the pressure in places like Texas, California, and Louisiana, all of which have seen an increase in extreme climate-related weather. Now, churches in those areas are scrambling to assess whether they can afford to continue paying insurance — or operating at all.
- Without insurance, churches may not be able to function as community resources, serving vulnerable people from all walks of life.
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Important Takeaways:
- Tensions over the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses aren’t going away. Neither are the protests.
- The sudden resignation of Columbia University’s president is quickly resurfacing tensions over the Israel-Hamas war that roiled college campuses this spring — a movement primed to escalate as students return to class.
- Organizers at a string of campuses have started planning demonstrations. And some schools are responding with changes to free speech rules that concern academic freedom advocates. The friction sets up a fraught return to school in a matter of days.
- “We are committed to continuing our activism because we understand that it is not just one individual but the entire institution that is complicit in the ongoing genocide,” said Cam Jones, a lead organizer of the protests at Columbia, in a statement to POLITICO. “We will not rest until Columbia divests and Palestine is free.”
- Schools are adjusting how they will regulate protests, prompting some concerns from First Amendment and academic freedom groups.
- The American Association of University Professors this week condemned what it described as “overly restrictive policies dealing with the rights to assemble and protest on campus.”
- “The mood at both Yale and Columbia and colleges around the country is that what happened at the end of last semester isn’t really over,” said Craig Morton, an organizer with Yalies4Palestine who is facing three charges, including two misdemeanors for trespassing and a charge of disorderly conduct.
- “People are aware of the threat,” he said in an interview. “But people are still pretty intent on getting out there in the fall and continuing to protest.”
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Important Takeaways:
- “In this case, a person was infected during a stay in the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of (the more infectious mpox formerly known as monkeypox),” the Public Health Agency of Sweden announced on Thursday.
- Magnus Gisslen, a state epidemiologist with the Swedish health agency, said the person had been treated and given “rules of conduct.”
- The U.N. health agency said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths this year, which already exceed last year’s figures.
- So far, more than 96% of all cases and deaths are in Congo.
- Earlier this year, scientists identified a highly contagious form of mpox, which can kill up to 10% of people.
- Scientists in Europe have maintained that although mpox is transmittable and highly contagious, advanced health care in Sweden and other rich countries can stop the transmission before it becomes an epidemic.
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Important Takeaways:
- The World Health Organization declared Wednesday that the increasing spread of mpox in Africa is a global health emergency, warning the virus might ultimately spill across international borders.
- WHO said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in Africa this year, which already exceed last year’s figures.
- WHO’s emergency declaration is meant to spur donor agencies and countries into action. But the global response to previous declarations has been mixed.
- Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in a Congolese mining town that can kill up to 10% of people and may spread more easily.
- Like any infectious disease, the new form of mpox seen in Congo could cross borders — cases have already been identified in four other East African countries.
- Unlike COVID-19 or measles, mpox is not airborne and typically requires close, skin-to-skin contact to spread.
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