December 7 top stories
It is December 7. Here are today’s top stories.
Mass shooting at UNLV
On Wednesday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), a gunman killed three people and wounded a fourth person. AP News said the gunman was a 67-year-old professor who had applied for a job at UNLV but did not get the job. His name was Anthony Polito and he previously worked at East Carolina University.
The shooting started at about 11:45 a.m. The gunman opened fire on the fourth floor of a business school and then went to several other floors. He was killed in a shootout with two university police detectives.
UNLV’s police chief said there were many students outside of the business school and that if police hadn’t killed the gunman, there could have been many more deaths.
News outlets haven’t published information, at the time of signing this news, on who the three victims were.
The shooting was the deadliest in Las Vegas since the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in which 60 people were killed by a gunman who opened fire from a hotel room several stories high.
Texas judge sides with pregnant woman seeking abortion
CNN reported that a Texas judge ruled that a pregnant woman who sued the state seeking a court-ordered abortion can legally terminate her pregnancy.
Texas currently has a strict ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. There is an exception after six weeks only for medical emergencies.
The woman’s name is Kate Cox. She is 20 weeks pregnant and is seeking an abortion because her baby was diagnosed with trisomy 18 and is not expected to live more than a few days outside the womb.
Cox said she has had serious health problems that required her to go to three different emergency rooms in the last month. She wanted to get an abortion but was concerned that she would violate Texas law so she filed a lawsuit asking the court to temporarily block the state’s abortion ban.
The judge granted a temporary restraining order against the state that would allow Cox to immediately have an abortion. The judge said Cox does want to be a parent and that if she is barred from having an abortion, she could lose her ability to be a parent (to a new baby) in the future.
House censures Rep. Bowman for falsely pulling fire alarm
The House voted 214-191 to censure Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) for falsely pulling a fire alarm at a Capitol Hill office building in September.
Bowman pleaded guilty in October to a misdemeanor charge for activating the fire alarm. He said at the time, he was rushing to the Capitol to vote and prevent a Republican shutdown and due to a door not opening, he pulled a fire alarm.
A Democratic colleague said it was stupid for Republicans to bring a measure to censure Bowman because he has already been held accountable by the legal process.
A Republican said Bowman pulled the fire alarm to disrupt a vote on a bill. Another Republican said it is like someone pulling a fire alarm like they’re in high school.
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Israel-Hamas war at two-month mark
ABC News said the Israel-Hamas war is now at the two-month mark. In Gaza, at least 17,000 people have been killed by Israeli military action since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed at least 1,200 in southern Israel.
Gazan officials said 350 people were killed in the past 24 hours. The Doctors Without Borders organization said they’re seeing more dead people arriving at the Al-Aqsa hospital than the injured and called on the Israeli military to stop the “indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip and protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.”
The World Food Programme organization said over 80% of people in Gaza have inadequate food consumption due to food shortages.
The Israeli military said it is fighting Hamas all over Gaza and have struck many terror targets today, including tunnels and weapons storage facilities. The Israeli military said it has encircled a house belonging to the leader of Hamas in Gaza and they will catch him soon.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said he wants to demilitarize Gaza through sheer force and he wants for Israel to ensure that Gaza remains demilitarized post-war. He said he will not accept an arrangement where an international force is responsible for Gaza post-war. Netanyahu said he believes the only way to bring the remaining hostages — at least 130 — is through massive military force.
President Biden said it is Hamas’ fault that a temporary cease-fire ended because they refused to release civilian female hostages. He also said he’s seen reports that Israeli women and girls were sexually assaulted by Hamas members and said it is appalling and that we all must condemn the sexual violence.
The U.S. government said it believes there are 8 American hostages still in Gaza. There are over 1,000 Americans and family members who are in Gaza and trying to depart.
Google launches AI model “Gemini”
Google announced that it has launched an AI model called Gemini. Google said they built it to be multimodal, which means it can understand, operate across and combine different types of information including text, code, audio, image and video. Google said Gemini has three sizes, Ultra, Pro, and Nano and that Ultra has a score of 90% in correctly answering questions in 57 subjects including math, physics, history, law, medicine and ethics. Google said they’ve trained Gemini to “think more carefully before answering difficult questions.” Google said Gemini was built to be safe and inclusive and be without bias and toxicity. Google said its Gemini Pro capabilities will be integrated in its Bard AI product and its Ultra product will be available to select customers, developers and partners for more checks and fine-tuning before it rolls out next year.
Axios said Google is eager to show it can keep up with rivals, especially OpenAI and Microsoft.
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://apnews.com/article/campus-shooting-las-vegas-unlv-0b12656a801e227d6aa2b9ccee56d9f6
https://abcnews.go.com/International/live-updates/israel-gaza-hamas/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jamaal-bowman-censure-house-vote-fire-alarm/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07/us/texas-abortion-ruling/index.html
https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-gemini-ai/#availability