August 10 top stories
It is August 10. Here are today’s top stories.
At least 36 killed in Maui wildfires
The officials of Maui County, Hawaii said at least thirty-six people have died from wildfires that ravaged the island on Wednesday morning.
The mayor, Richard Bissen Jr., said there are several missing people and that search and rescue crews are working.
The wildfires took many people by surprise because they started around 4 a.m. There were very strong winds at the time from a hurricane that was around 800 miles away.
A Hawaiian official said people in Maui have lost everything from the fires, including their homes and their animals. One of the hardest-hit areas is the town of Lahaina. Many buildings in its historic Front Street area have been severely damaged.
Wildfires have also impacted Hawaii’s Big Island, but it doesn’t seem to be on the same level of devastation that Maui is experiencing.
Officials in Maui are asking tourists to leave Lahaina and Maui as soon as possible and have provided buses to take tourists to the airport. Officials have also said they would work with those who own short-term rental homes (Airbnb homes) to provide housing for residents who are displaced by the fire.
FBI agents kill Utah man who threatened Biden on social media
FBI agents shot and killed a Utah man in his 70s during a raid on Wednesday morning. Fox News reported that the man had a weapon.
An FBI official told ABC News that they have been investigating the man, Craig Robertson, since April after he made numerous social media posts threatening to kill President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and at least two people leading prosecutions against Donald Trump.
President Biden was scheduled to visit Utah on Wednesday and it was known to the public. On Monday, Robertson posted on social media that he heard Biden was coming to Utah. He posted that he would dig out his old camouflage clothing and clean the dust off his sniper rifle to welcome him.
FBI agents went to a home in Provo, Utah to serve a search and arrest warrant on a charge of threatening the president.
There is a video posted by the Salt Lake Tribune that shows a SWAT team with at least five heavily armed officers moving around an armored truck outside a house in the early morning before dawn. There is a small explosion, apparently from a stun grenade, and the video cuts off. Robertson was killed around 6:15 a.m.
President Biden landed in the state at 4:25 p.m. He visited a Veterans Affairs hospital and attended a fundraiser.
Georgia doctor decapitated baby during delivery
Local news reported that according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday, attorneys said a doctor used too much force and decapitated a woman’s baby during delivery in Georgia.
The baby’s mother and father, Jessica Ross and Treveon Taylor Sr., both 21, attended a news conference where their attorneys announced the lawsuit against Dr. Tracey St. Julian and Southern Regional Medical Center. The hospital is in Riverdale and about 13 miles south of Atlanta.
What happened? According to the suit, the baby got stuck during delivery, but Dr. St. Julian delayed a surgical procedure and failed to seek help quickly. Instead, she applied “ridiculously excessive force” on the baby’s head and neck to try to deliver it. Roughly three hours passed before the doctor took Ross for a cesarean section. Then, a fetal monitor stopped registering a heartbeat. During the operation, the baby’s legs and body were removed but the head was delivered vaginally.
Their attorneys also accused the hospital staff of trying to cover up the decapitation by discouraging the couple from getting an autopsy, encouraging them to have their son cremated and wrapping and propping his body to make it appear the head was still attached.
The suit alleges gross negligence, fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It seeks unspecified punitive damages.
———
[Sponsored Video from Sorenson: www.sorenson.com]
———
[Do you or someone you know face communication barriers and struggles to communicate with hearing people? If so, the Bridg'd app may be just what you need. By combining speech-to-text and text-to-speech technology, Bridg'd is designed to break down communication barriers and enable people to communicate directly with each other or with groups of people. By capturing the conversation, identifying different speakers through voice recognition, and responding back and forth, you can now follow the discussion around the table and know what everyone is saying. Whether you're at a doctor's appointment, business meeting, or a family dinner at a restaurant, Bridg'd has the potential to be life-changing for millions of Deaf and hard-of-hearing people worldwide. With the app currently under development and planned to launch this summer, we invite you to visit our website to learn more about Bridg'd and how you can support its development process.
Visit our website if you would like to learn more: https://bridgdcom.com/
Come support our efforts by backing our Indiegogo Campaign:
https://igg.me/at/Bridgd/x/33078506#/ ]
———
Virgin Galactic’s first space tourism flight launches
Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, was finally prepared to launch its first space tourists to the edge of the cosmos or universe. It aced its second-ever commercial mission, setting a number of spaceflight records in the process.
The space plane, VSS Unity, doesn’t reach orbit, but its trajectory does create several minutes of weightlessness for the passengers, at an altitude high enough for them to see the curvature of Earth against the blackness of space.
VSS Unity took off from a New Mexico spaceport and a livestream of the event began Thursday at 11am ET on Virgin Galactic’s website and Space.com. The flight carried three customers – its first mother-daughter team and first Olympian to space.
VSS Unity reached supersonic speeds as it hurled upward, and spent a few minutes in weightlessness as it entered free fall before gliding back to the spaceport for a runaway landing. The journey lasted about an hour and a half.
Ecuador presidential candidate assassinated during rally
A candidate in Ecuador’s upcoming presidential election, Fernando Villavicencio, was assassinated at a campaign rally in the country’s capital – Quito. Villavicencio was shot and killed while he got into a car leaving a campaign rally at a school.
Villavicencio was a legislator in the National Assembly and had been outspoken about corruption, cartels and the violence caused by drug trafficking in the country.
The suspected gunman died in police custody following an exchange of fire with security personnel, officials said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso vowed the killing would not go unpunished, saying that “organized crime has come a long way, but the full weight of the law will fall on them.” Lasso announced a state of emergency for 60 days, immediate mobilization of the armed forces across the country and three days of national mourning.
The officials added, the election, scheduled for August 20, will go ahead as planned.
Ohio abortion vote
The local news reported abortion rights advocates on Tuesday won a critical victory in Ohio’s special election. Abortion wasn’t technically on the ballot in Ohio’s special election. But the overwhelming defeat of a measure that would have made it tougher to change abortion rights in the state constitution this fall.
Ohio Issue 1, the 60% Vote Requirement to Approve Constitutional Amendments measure, is being defeated meaning a simple majority (50%+1) is needed for voters to pass new constitutional amendments.
The text of Issue 1 doesn’t specifically mention abortion or reproductive rights, but the outcome of Tuesday’s special election would directly affect the percentage of votes required to pass a separate ballot measure that would establish a fundamental right to reproductive freedom in the state constitution.
Ohio will be the only state this year to have reproductive rights on the November ballot. The November ballot question will ask voters whether individuals should have the right to make their own reproductive health care decisions, including contraception, abortion, fertility treatment and miscarriage care.
That is all the news stories for today. Stay with the light!
Hawaii:
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/maui-wildfires-08-09-23/index.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-did-maui-fire-start-cause-lahaina-hawaii-wildfire/
FBI:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/man-killed-fbi-raid-connection-threats-biden-officials/story
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2023/08/09/president-joe-biden-lands-utah/
Georgia doctor:
Space:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/virgin-galactic-finally-sending-first-tourists-space-rcna99229
Ecuador:
Ohio:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/us/ohio-voters-issue-1-constitution.html