Important Takeaways:
- The severe weather system swept through northern Illinois and Indiana, bringing the total count of tornadoes to 22.
- A 44-year-old woman from Cedar Lake, Ind., died following the storms, according to the Lake County Coroner’s Office.
- The storms also led to dozens of flight cancelations at O’Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport, thousands of power outages and several reports of storm damage.
- So far, the NWS has confirmed the following tornadoes:
- EF-0: Glen Ellyn to Lombard
- EF-0: Villa Park
- EF-1: Grant Park
- EF-1: Sugar Grove to Aurora EF-1
- EF-0: Crestwood to Blue Island
- EF-1 Flossmoor to Thornton
- EF-0: West Town (Chicago)
- EF-0: Shelby to Wheatfield Township
- EF-0: Peotone (track TBD)
- EF-0: Manteno (track TBD)
- EF-0: Southern Winnebago County EF-0 (exact track still TBD)
- EF-0: Byron
- EF-0: Davis Junction
- EF-0: Sugar Grove to North Aurora
- EF-1: Yorkville to Naperville
- EF-2: Channahon-Manhattan-Frankfort-Matteson
- EF-0: Crest Hill to Lockport
- EF-1 Justice
- EF-1: Chicago; Near West Side to west side of The Loop
- EF-1: Chicago; Chicago Lawn to West Englewood
- EF-1: Cedar Lake to Crown Point
- EF-1: Minooka-Shorewood-Joliet
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Important Takeaways:
- Well-connected Democratic Party insiders say that congressional leaders expect Vice President Harris will become their nominee for president if Biden drops his reelection bid.
- Congressional leaders are “lukewarm” on Harris as the nominee but recognize her favorable rating is higher than Biden’s and believe the president can help boost her numbers by campaigning for her, according to a person familiar with the leadership-level discussions.
- Alums of former President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 winning presidential campaigns are prepared to help Harris get her own presidential campaign operation up and running if Biden agrees to step aside, according to a source familiar with the transition plan.
- The talk among high-level Democratic strategists and donors has now turned to who is best positioned to serve has Harris’s running mate, and the short list has boiled down to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D).
- Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday after holding events in Las Vegas and returned to Delaware to “self-isolate,” which could postpone any announcement on his future until Monday.
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Important Takeaways:
- Senior Hezbollah Radwan force commander Ali Jaafar Maatuk was killed in a strike in southern Lebanon on Thursday, the military said.
- During the attack, other Radwan forces commanders were also killed who were responsible for launching attacks into Israel.
- The Radwan forces have been active during the exchanges of fire in the north between Israel and Hezbollah.
- Several high-ranking Radwan commanders have been targeted during the war, with the mastermind of the March 2023 Megiddo bombing being killed in February, he was also responsible for coordinating Hezbollah’s attacks in the immediate aftermath of October 7.
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Important Takeaways:
- The top U.N. court said Friday that Israel’s presence in the Palestinian occupied territories is “unlawful” and called on it to end and for settlement construction to stop immediately, issuing an unprecedented, sweeping condemnation of Israel’s rule over the lands it captured 57 years ago.
- In a non-binding opinion, the International Court of Justice pointed to a wide list of policies, including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, use of the area’s natural resources, the annexation and imposition of permanent control over lands and discriminatory policies against Palestinians, all of which it said violated international law.
- It said Israel must end settlement construction immediately and that existing settlements must be removed, according to the 83-page opinion read out by court President Nawaf Salam.
- “The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land — not in our eternal capital Jerusalem and not in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office, using the biblical terms for the West Bank. “No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth and likewise the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be contested.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Doug Schoen said in his Opinion for Fox News:
- I may be a Democrat, but I’m also a clear-eyed political analyst. Donald Trump clearly rose to the occasion with his RNC speech.
- Donald Trump may well have sealed the outcome of the 2024 election with a performance on Thursday night in Milwaukee that has largely been unmatched in recent American political history.
- Trump was able to hit on key messages when speaking about topics like inflation, and especially immigration, in ways that were compelling and arguably responsive to the fundamental concerns of Americans.
- I say this not to engage in hyperbole, as I have never been – and am not now – a Trump supporter. But as a political analyst, you have to acknowledge reality. And the reality of this speech was simple: Trump spoke of the American Dream, he spoke of bringing people together, he spoke of helping African-Americans, Hispanics and those who have been left behind.
- In short, Trump did something he has virtually never done before: speak to all the American people. As he said, he wanted to speak not to 50 percent but to 100 percent of the American people.
- Trump was able to compellingly crystallize the challenges the American people have with the current administration and offer a degree of reassurance that things would be different under his leadership.
- …the entire speech and its production made Trump much more likable and much more sympathetic than he’s ever been before.
- As an American, I’m pleased, indeed proud, that the Republicans explicitly – and, I think, for the first time – are seeking to unify the entire country and put aside the bitterness and resentment that has so frequently been evident.
Please read his full Fox News Opinion article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The CrowdStrike software bug that crashed Microsoft operating systems and caused the largest IT outage in history caused disruptions at U.S. and global ports, with highly complex air freight systems suffering the heaviest hit, according to logistics experts, as global airlines grounded flights.
- “This is a reminder of how vulnerable our ocean and air supply chains are to IT failure.”
- Thousands of flights were grounded or delayed at the world’s largest air freight hubs in Europe, Asia and North America.
- Emily Stausbøll, Xeneta senior shipping analyst, told CNBC that the IT outage has the potential to cause significant disruption at ports if ships are prevented from offloading and loading containers, and that can cascade through the supply chain.
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Important Takeaways:
- A heatwave in Colorado likely caused personal protective equipment not to work correctly for workers culling poultry infected with H5N1, a highly pathogenic bird flu.
- Four people have tested positive for H5N1 and a fifth is also expected to have their case confirmed as bird flu, officials said this week.
- It’s the first time a cluster of human cases of bird flu has been reported in the US.
- In Colorado, the workers were culling a flock of egg-laying chickens that had tested positive for H5N1.
- And it can be dangerous to work in such close and prolonged quarters with animals infected with bird flu, which has a mortality rate of about 50% among people.
- It was 104F (40C) outside, but in the chicken houses, it was even hotter.
- “Across all areas, governments need to actively and urgently incorporate climate considerations into all health and safety measures more than simply at the surface level.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Leaders from across Europe expressed support for Ukraine and concern about the direction of the United States on Thursday at a security-focused summit clouded by worries about whether the U.S. will remain a reliable ally if Donald Trump wins a second presidency
- Newly elected U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed around 45 heads of government to a grandiose English country mansion to discuss migration, energy security and the threat from Russia as he seeks to restore relations between the U.K. and its European Union neighbors four years after their acrimonious divorce.
- Starmer said that the U.K. plans to take a more active role on the world stage, especially when it comes to Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion and to people-smuggling gangs organizing irregular migration.
- Trump’s skepticism about NATO has long worried U.S. allies. Trump’s choice of Sen. JD Vance, an opponent of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, as vice presidential running mate has heightened concerns.
- Hungary’s pro-Russia Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said a Trump victory would be “the best news for everybody, because he’s a man of the people.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Only way to know strength would be through storm surveys by the National Weather Service offices in Binghamton and Albany
- NBC5 meteorologists were able to use long-established radar technology to identify where tornado debris signatures occurred.
- One tornado was in Rome, Oneida County, where significant damage was reported. Pictures show a church destroyed and a B-52 bomber literally moved from its position.
- After that, there was a brief tornado between Old Forge and Inlet, just south of New York Route 28.
- Then, another tornado hit Hamilton County in a remote area near Morehouse.
- Two more hit in the vicinity of Wells, in both Hamilton and Warren counties.
- There may have been a sixth tornado near Edinburg, but the radar data was not beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Separate from these five radar-confirmed tornadoes, the National Weather Service in Albany found evidence of two other tornadoes that did not produce debris on radar.
- Most tornadoes locally are not strong enough, or located near enough to a radar, to produce a debris signature, which makes the five listed above special cases.
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Important Takeaways:
- Repairing electricity infrastructure after storms usually costs customers. So could strengthening it before the next weather event.
- Many times, thousands of Texans sit in the dark for days — in either the blistering heat or frigid cold — waiting for utility crews to survey and fix the damage so electricity can start flowing again.
- Such power outages are likely to continue.
- Texas had 210 weather-related power outages — more than any other state — from 2000 to 2023, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Climate Central that used power outage data from the U.S. Department of Energy.
- Texas is the only state to have its own power grid.
- Last year, the Legislature made it possible for utility companies to create plans to strengthen their systems. In many cases, those costs would be charged to power providers that sell power, which would then likely pass the costs to customers.
- The costs to make the system more resilient will likely be passed on to Texans. But, so, too might the costs to repair damage to utility companies’ infrastructure in the immediate aftermath of an extreme weather event.
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