Milton: Hurricane Milton has been fluctuating between Category 4 and Category 5 strength as it bears down on Florida’s West Coast. The storm was expected to bring peak winds to Tampa from late tomorrow afternoon into early Thursday morning. Winds gusting to 145 miles per hour are expected in Tampa along with more than 8-inches of rain and a storm surge of up to 15 feet. The mayor of Tampa today urged residents of the city to evacuate. Vice President Harris attempted to call Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to discuss federal storm response but DeSantis refused to take her call.
FEMA: Deanne Criswell, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, conducted a telephone news conference this morning in which she continued to push back on false claims from Donald Trump and J. D. Vance. Trump and Vance have claimed that FEMA has been diverting funds to illegal immigrants. Criswell says that is absolutely false. She said that FEMA has more than adequate funds to help storm victims. Trump and Vance have been falsely claiming that FEMA is only giving people $750. Criswell explained that the $750 is an immediate cash payment given out to help people pay for emergency supplies and that additional FEMA funding follows that initial emergency payment.
Supreme Court: The Republican conservative majority on the Supreme Court has ruled that women in Texas cannot receive emergency abortions even when their life depends upon it. On a vote of 6-3, the justices yesterday ruled that Texas law prevails and the Biden Administration cannot try to force Texas hospitals to provide emergency life-saving care by threatening to withhold federal funding if they don’t. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has threatened to prosecute health care professionals who provide life-saving abortion care to women who otherwise would die.
60 Minutes: Vice President Harris was interviewed on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” last night. Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz also was interviewed. Donald Trump, who had agreed to appear, cancelled his interview after becoming aware that CBS News would be fact-checking what was said. CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley explained to the viewing audience that “60 Minutes” always fact-checks stories to be sure that what is reported is accurate and that Donald Trump would have been no exception. Trump has a pattern of frequently lying during interviews and speeches.
Putin: Newsman Bob Woodward, in his new book titled “War,” reports that while Donald Trump was in the White House, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump secretly sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin a shipment of Covid-19 testing equipment. Woodward reports that the equipment was for Putin’s personal use. He reported that Putin asked Trump to keep the shipment of the machines, made by Abbott, secret and Trump agreed to Putin’s request.
Nobel Prize: Two scientists who have done advanced work in artificial intelligence have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. They are Canadian Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto and American John Hopfield of Princeton University. The Nobel Prize Committee said that they were the pioneers in making artificial intelligence practical. Their work is credited with directly leading to computers being able to solve problems such as facial recognition and language translation.
