Wednesday, June 15 top stories
It is Wednesday, June 15. Here are today’s top stories.
Odessa, Texas water crisis
In Odessa, Texas, there is a disaster declaration as a result of a main water line failure that has caused the city of about 165,000 people to lose access to potable water.
News images show crews working on a water pipe that is cracked under a street. It caused the road to become flooded despite there being no rain.
There is a boil water notice in which residents are advised to boil water before it is used for cooking or drinking.
Some residents will have little or no water for 48 hours. There is a heat wave in the Odessa area with temperatures reaching 100 degrees, so it’s a bad time to lose water.
Texas emergency authorities are delivering bottled water. Crews said they hope to fix the problem by today.
The pipe that cracked was made of ductile/cast-iron metal and it has a lifespan of about 40 years. The pipe was installed in the 1970’s. Crews are now replacing it with a PVC pipe, which can last hundreds of years.
Two cops shot and killed in Southern California
Two police officers were shot and killed in Southern California on Tuesday night. The two officers were responding to a call about a stabbing at a motel in El Monte, which is east of Los Angeles.
When the officers arrived on the scene, they were immediately fired upon. The suspect was shot and killed. The two officers were transported to a hospital but they died of their injuries.
El Monte officials said, “There are no words to describe our grief and devastation…”
Jennifer Hudson achieves “EGOT status”
Jennfier Hudson achieved “EGOT status,” which means she’s won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards.
She won her latest award, a Tony, in the best musical category as one of the producers of the Broadway show, “A Strange Loop.”
Hudson posted on Instagram a video of herself drinking a toast to celebrate her Tony award. She became famous when she was a finalist on “American Idol” in 2004.
Federal Reserves raises interest rate by 0.75 points
The Federal Reserve raised its target interest rate by 0.75 points, which is the highest increase since 1994. The Fed hopes to cool down inflation by making it more expensive to lend money.
An analyst with Axios said this is an emergency move on inflation but the “abrupt rate hikes risk sending the economy into recession and markets plunging further.”
If you have loans that have adjustable interest rates, such as credit cards, you can expect to see your rates increase.
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Biden calls on oil companies to increase production
President Biden is now reaching out to the CEOs of America’s largest oil companies to urge them to boost production so gas prices can come down.
Axios showed a copy of a letter that Biden wrote to the CEOs of ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP America, Shell USA, Phillips 66, Marathon, and Valero.
Biden said in the letter that he knows that oil refiners reduced their capacity during the pandemic and that Vladimir Putin’s war and the international sanctions against Russia has caused global oil prices to rise globally.
Biden asked the companies to take “immediate actions to increase the supply of gasoline, diesel, and other refined product(s).” Biden said it is unacceptable that “at a time of war, refinery profit margins well above normal (are) being passed directly onto American families.”
Biden said he is considering using his presidential powers to increase refinery capacity and output in the near term but invited ideas on how to address gas prices and supply.
The oil industry has said in the past that the Biden administration’s agenda that shuns oil and gas in favor of alternative energy is a part of the cause of rising prices and inflation.
Biden will go on a trip to Saudi Arabia in July and it is expected that he will ask the nation to pump more oil.
Highlights of primaries
On Tuesday there were primary elections in Nevada, South Carolina, Maine and North Dakota. Here are some highlights.
In Nevada, Republicans voted Jim Marchant to be the nominee for Nevada Secretary of State. Marchant is a controversial person because he openly believes there was actual election fraud that caused Donald Trump to lose in 2020. He has said in the past that he wants to completely change the ballots used in elections. Marchant will go up against the Democratic nominee Cisco Aguilar in November.
Also in Nevada, a Democratic race for a congressional seat had a progressive Democrat named Amy Vilela, who is backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and supports Medicare for All, lose to a longtime Democratic incumbent Dina Titus. Titus got 82% of the vote over Vilela’s 17%. It shows that progressive Democrats’s power and ideas are getting less popular.
In South Carolina, Republican voters chose to oust U.S. Rep. Tom Rice, which is notable because Rice was one of the only 10 Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment for inciting the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. 51% of Republican voters elected Russell Fry to eliminate Rice. Rice said in a statement, “I know I did the right thing (regarding the impeachment vote). I know I defended the Constitution.”
In Texas, Republican Mayra Flores won a special election for a congressional district in southern Texas that has been held by Democrats for over 10 years. She will be the first Mexican-born congresswoman in U.S. history. However the seat she won will go up for another election in November because her district is going to be redrawn. Elon Musk tweeted that he voted for Flores, that it is the first time he ever voted Republican, and that he is predicting a massive red wave in 2022.
In Maine, former Republican governor Paul LePage will go up against Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in November after both advanced from their primaries.
UK refugee resettlements to Rwanda halted
In England, there is a new and controversial program that aims to send refugees seeking asylum to Rwanda for resettlement.
That means, for example, those who make a dangerous journey in small, crowded boats and arrive on U.K. shores would then be put on planes to go to Rwanda to make a new life there.
The UK government said it has an agreement to pay the Rwandan government a large sum of money and that it would provide migrants with full support for room, board, healthcare, and other needs for five years.
The program was criticized by the United Nations, various international human rights organizations, and multiple U.K. politicians.
The program was set to begin on Tuesday with the first flight with migrants set to take off to Rwanda. But it was halted after the European Court of Human Rights ordered the British government to not deport certain migrants because they had not exhausted all legal proceedings.
The UK government said they are disappointed, would review the court’s decision, and wants to eventually move forward with the project.
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://twitter.com/JoshuaSkinnerTV/status/1536788431279374337
https://www.cbs7.com/2022/06/15/what-happened-cause-odessas-water-outage/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-officers-shot-killed-responding-call-california/story?id=85400216
https://www.axios.com/2022/06/15/inflation-rate-hike-federal-reserve
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/26/politics/nevada-secretaries-of-state-campaigns/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-results/nevada/2022-primaries/
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1536973965394157569
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/uk/rwanda-asylum-flight-uk-intl-gbr/index.html
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22060433-exxon-mobil_letter
https://www.axios.com/2022/06/15/biden-emergency-powers-oil-gas-prices