Milton: Hurricane Milton strengthened into a Category 5 storm today and is forecast to make landfall on Florida’s West Coast by Thursday. The storm was expected to hit in the Tampa Bay area and then move across the state to the Atlantic Ocean. Florida residents in the projected path of the storm were urged to evacuate. Florida officials predicted the evacuation will be the largest since 2017 when about 7 million people were evacuated from the path of Hurricane Irma.
FEMA: The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, says that false claims spread by Donald Trump and others about the response to Hurricane Helene are dangerous, plainly false and do not help people recover from the storm. Deanne Criswell says that Trump’s claims that FEMA doesn’t have money for storm recovery are false and that the agency recently received an additional $20 billion from Congress. Criswell says that Trump’s claims that FEMA is giving storm recovery money to illegal immigrants outside of areas that were hit by Helene also are false. She called Trump’s narrative truly dangerous and said local officials have confirmed that Trump is lying about FEMA.
Oct. 7: The first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 hostages were taken by Hamas is being commemorated around the world today. The Israeli military issued orders for civilians to evacuate parts of southern and northern Gaza in advance of planned new attacks. Lebanese officials said today that 10 firefighters in a town in southern Lebanon were killed when the Israeli’s attacked a fire station.
U.S. citizen: The Russian news agency TASS reports that a 72-year-old U.S. citizen from Michigan, Stephen Hubbard, has been sentenced to six years in prison for fighting for Ukraine. The Russians said that Hubbard was captured in Ukraine and had been a mercenary who was paid more than $1,000 a month to fight for Ukraine. His sister said the Russians are lying and that Hubbard was a teacher in the U.S. and had been teaching English overseas.
Nobel Prize: The 2024 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to two U.S. scientists, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun. They discovered microRNA, which helps determine how cells develop. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function, according to the Nobel Prize committee. Ambros is with Harvard University and Ruvkun is with Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Twitter case: The U.S. Supreme Court began its new term today. The justices decided not to hear an appeal from the company X, formerly known as Twitter, that is owned by Elon Musk. Musk has been a supporter of Donald Trump for president. Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant requiring Twitter to turn over messages that had been posted to its site by Donald Trump. Smith also obtained a gag order against Twitter, blocking them from disclosing what was going on. Twitter went to court to challenge the gag order and now has lost its case.
