August 30 top stories
It is August 30. Here are today’s top stories.
Hurricane Idalia hits Florida
Hurricane Idalia made landfall this morning near Keaton Beach on Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm with sustained wind speeds of 125 mph.
A video on X (Twitter) showed that in Cedar Key, not far from Keaton Beach, there was a dangerous storm surge of about six feet. This is water pushed on shore by a hurricane’s powerful winds.
Clearwater Beach reported a storm surge of over five feet.
Two men were killed in separate accidents on roadways during severe storms in Pasco County, Florida.
At the time of signing this news, Idalia is a Category 1 storm spinning above northern Florida and Georgia.
Over 260,000 people were without power in Florida and about 4,500 people are staying in shelters.
$100M settlement for victims of religious school in WV
WVNews.com in West Virginia reported that dozens of children who were victims of abuse at Miracle Meadows School, a religious boarding school, have reached a $100 million settlement.
Attorneys representing the victims said the school had a range of abusive policies in place, including handcuffing children, locking them in cells with no bathroom access, or making them work in the fields all day. Victims reported that they were sexually assaulted.
The school was in operation from 1987 until the state shut it down in 2014. The school enrolled students between the ages of 6 and 17.
The founder of the school, Gayle Clark, was previously convicted of child neglect and was sentenced to six months in jail.
Chicago news crew robbed while reporting on robberies
AP News said a Chicago television news crew reporting on a string of robberies around 5 a.m. Monday ended up being robbed themselves.
A reporter and a videographer with Univision were filming the report when three men with guns and wearing ski masks drove up and demanded they give their camera and personal items. This was in the West Town community.
The footage that the news crew filmed was in the stolen camera and the story never aired.
AP said this is the second robbery this month targeting a Chicago news crew. A union representing TV photographers in Chicago has issued a warning about safety for reporters and that some news crews plan to add security.
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11 hospitalized after Delta flight turbulence
A Delta Air Lines flight that was about to arrive in Atlanta after a departure from Italy experienced turbulence that was so severe that it caused eleven people to be hospitalized.
The plane landed safely at the airport. Delta said it was making it a priority to take care of their customers and crew who sustained injuries.
Saudi court sentences man to death over social media posts
AP News said a Saudi court has sentenced a man to death over his posts on X (Twitter) and YouTube.
The condemned man’s name is Mohammed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi. Apparently he made posts or shared others’ posts that criticized the Saudi government.
He was charged with “betraying his religion,” “disturbing the security of society,” and “conspiring against the government.”
AP said al-Ghamdi is the brother of a well-known critic of the Saudi government that lives in the UK. The brother said the sentence was to hurt him after the government failed to make him return to the country.
This case may be the first one in Saudi Arabia that involves a death penalty for online posts. AP said the sentence “appears part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s wider effort to stamp out any defiance in the kingdom.”
The Human Rights Watch organization said “Repression in Saudi Arabia has reached a terrifying new stage when a court can hand down the death penalty for nothing more than peaceful tweets.”
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
Hurricane Idalia: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/30/weather/florida-hurricane-idalia-wednesday/index.html
https://twitter.com/JimCantore/status/1696844467829973031
https://wvmetronews.com/2016/04/15/miracle-meadows-founder-sentenced-to-prison-and-probation/
Chicago: https://apnews.com/article/chicago-news-crew-robbed-while-reporting-6bac099937b2435254d558792ede9b7d
Saudi: https://apnews.com/article/saudi-arabia-death-sentence-twitter-a2b5549806605d1d21f332ac4c36e43f