Friday, January 10, 2025
It is Friday, January 10, 2025. Here are today’s top stories.
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Trump sentenced in hush money case
This morning, soon-to-be President Donald Trump was sentenced in his hush-money case in New York. Trump appeared remotely on a television screen.
Trump was sentenced to conditional discharge, which means he will face no jail time or penalties. Trump is officially a felon. The lenient sentence is because Trump will be president. The judge, Juan Merchan, said he wanted Trump to be able to govern without any burdens from the case but at the same time respecting a jury verdict.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 charges for falsifying business records in connection to hush-money payments that went to an adult film actress, Stormy Daniels, to keep her quiet about an alleged affair before the 2016 election.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-hush-money-sentencing-01-10-25/index.html
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Supreme Court hears arguments on TikTok ban
Today the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether a law that would require TikTok to be divested from its Chinese parent company or face a ban on Jan. 19 can be enforced.
Analysts with the New York Times said a majority of justices seems poised to uphold the law, which means they’re likely to support the ban on TikTok.
The justices did express concerns about First Amendment rights, but most of them seemed satisfied that the law was aimed at TikTok’s ownership and national security concerns rather than infringing on Americans’ rights.
Justices said they were concerned that the Chinese government could use data from the app for spying or blackmail. They will likely make a ruling by next week.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/10/us/tiktok-ban-supreme-court
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L.A. sheriff says wildfire damage looks like an atomic bomb
Los Angeles County Sheriff Luna said the devastation from the wildfires in the Los Angeles region looks like an atomic bomb was dropped.
As of this morning, the death toll increased to 10 but that number is likely to rise.
One of the victims is a 66-year-old man who was found dead in the front of his home holding a garden hose. His name was Victor Shaw and he lived in the Altadena area, which is one of the worst-hit areas.
Satellite images showed that entire neighborhoods were destroyed in a matter of days. The region was torched by the Eaton Fire.
The other badly-impacted area is the Pacific Palisades area, which is a generally wealthy neighborhood in hills and mountains near Santa Monica. Most of its homes and businesses were destroyed.
Both fires, the Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire, are now in the top five most destructive fires in state history.
https://www.cnn.com/weather/live-news/los-angeles-wildfires-palisades-eaton-california-01-10-25-hnk
https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-died-garden-hose-hand-eaton-fire-raged/story?id=117525896
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[Sponsored video from Sorenson: www.sorenson.com]
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U.S. House sanctions International Criminal Court over Israeli warrants
Reuters reported that the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday on a law that would sanction the International Criminal Court in protest at its arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over the war in Gaza.
The vote was 243 to 140 — all Republicans and 45 Democrats voted in favor of it.
A top Republican said they made this move to sanction Israel because Israel is their great ally.
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Gaza war toll could be 40% higher
Reuters explained that researchers studying Palestinian casualties in the Israel-Hamas war said the toll could be 40% higher. The researchers estimated 64,260 deaths and that about 60% were women, children, and elderly people.
The researchers did not provide an estimate of the number of Palestinian fighters (Hamas fighters) that died.
The researchers were from a research university in London and from Yale University. The researchers said there are probably many people who were killed and buried under rubble and were not counted.
The death toll of 64,000, if it is accurate, is far higher than Palestinian officials’ reports of 46,000 killed.
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Spacecraft takes new pictures of Mercury’s north pole
The European Space Agency released new images of Mercury’s North Pole. Mercury is the “first” planet in the solar system and nearest to the sun.
The photos were taken by the BepiColombo, which is a joint European-Japanese spacecraft.
The images showed craters and volcanic plains.
https://apnews.com/article/mercury-flyby-space-planet-79d0a7439c3fcc8841c4fb6f513e54f0
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That is all the top stories for this week. I’ll see you on Monday. Stay with the light.