Wednesday, September 15 top stories
It is Wednesday, September 15. Here are today’s top stories.
California’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom defeated the Republican effort to recall him in an election yesterday.
Voters in California were asked two questions. The first was, “Shall Gavin Newsom be recalled (removed) from the office of the Governor?” 63% said “no” while 36% said “yes.”
The second question, for those who wanted Newsom to be removed, was, “If the majority of California voters decide to recall Gavin Newsom, who should replace him?” Republican candidate Larry Elder was the most popular choice with 46% of the vote. The next closest person received less than 10%. But this question was meaningless because Newsom remained in office.
Newsom said in a victory speech that “We said yes to science. We said yes to vaccines. We said yes to ending this pandemic.”
Elder gave a concession speech in which he said, “We may have lost the battle, but we are going to win the war.”
California officials said the recall election may have cost taxpayers about $300 million.
The South Korean military said North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea today. That’s on top of two cruise missile tests from North Korea over the weekend.
The U.S. military said it is aware of the launches and is consulting closely with their allies and partners.
AP News reported that South Korea is developing a submarine-launched ballistic missile and recently had a successful test, which means both North and South Korea are launching missiles at the same time, but not at each other. Obviously, there are a lot of tensions in the Korean peninsula at this time.
Norm Macdonald, a popular comedian and a former member of the “Saturday Night Live” cast, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 61 after a long battle with cancer. It took many by surprise because he never made his cancer diagnosis public. A close friend of his said in a statement that (Norm) never wanted the diagnosis to affect the way the audience or any of his loved ones saw him. He was born in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada and died in Los Angeles.
One of his most well-known jokes is “the Moth joke.” In short, Norm told a story about a moth that went into a podiatrist's office and proceeds to share deep feelings of stress and frustration with his life, work, and family. The podiatrist then said to the moth that it should see a psychiatrist and asked why it came into his office. The moth said it was because the light was on.
Another funny joke from Norm that many are remembering is when he talked about cancer -- he said, “I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure if you die, the cancer dies at the same time. That’s not a loss. That’s a draw.”
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Here are two updates from Afghanistan.
CNN reported that there were hundreds of Afghans who protested against the Taliban for ordering 3,500 people to leave a government-owned residential area. It is not known the reason for the orders. The report said there were several female protesters who waved the red, black, and green Afghan national flag and that they were harassed by the Taliban.
The second update: CNN did an investigation on the U.S. airstrike that purportedly killed a suspected ISIS-K member in a car. This airstrike took place three days after the deadly suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport that killed 13 U.S. service members.
The investigation said it is possible that an innocent man and aid worker, Zamarai Ahmadi, was mistakenly targeted in the airstrike that hit just outside of a home while children were on the street. Ten people in total were killed: three Afghan citizens who could have qualified for a visa to the U.S. and seven children aged 15 and under. A family member of one of the victims is calling on the United Nations to investigate the airstrike as a potential U.S. war crime.
The book, “Peril” reports that U.S. General Mark Milley was so concerned about former president Donald Trump’s behavior after his election loss that Milley reached out to China to reassure them that the American government would be stable and that if there was any imminent attack against China, Milley would let them know.
Former President Donald Trump said in an interview with Newsmax on Tuesday that he doubts this actually happened, but if it was true, it was a treasonous act.
A spokesperson for Milley confirmed that he did contact China to let them know that there wouldn’t be a surprise attack. The spokesperson said it was to maintain strategic stability during Trump’s final days as president.
News reports say that there is a debate on whether Milley overstepped his authority in going behind Trump’s back. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) said President Joe Biden should fire Milley. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) said Milley should be investigated and possibly court-martialed.
Today the White House said they have complete confidence in Milley and his leadership and commitment to our constitution.
Today four U.S. Olympic gymnasts testified about how the FBI mishandled the sexual misconduct investigation into former doctor Larry Nassar, who is serving up to 175 years in prison for sex crimes.
The four gymnasts, McKayla Maroney, Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, and Maggie Nichols said the FBI did not take their side when they reported sexual abuse, instead acting to protect Nassar.
The FBI Director Christopher Wray issued an apology, saying he is “especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed.” Wray said the FBI has fired an agent for failing to properly investigate the allegations.
On Wednesday night, four civilians are scheduled to launch on a SpaceX rocket and orbit the Earth for three days. The leader of the group is Jared Isaacman, who is the billionaire CEO of Shift4 Payments. The other three people are a physician assistant, an aerospace data engineer, and a pilot/geoscientist. Isaacman has a goal to raise $200 million to help cure children’s cancer. The launch will be mostly automatic and doesn’t need much human input. News reports say it will be a historic flight because this is the first full crew of non-professional astronauts to fly to space.
That is all the top stories for today. Check out our other videos. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2021-recall-elections/california-governor-results
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/california-recall-election-results-newsom-n1279205
https://apnews.com/article/seoul-south-korea-north-korea-pyongyang-1bf74218556e36697983cf6669ec9166
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/14/entertainment/norm-macdonald-death/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/14/asia/kandahar-protest-evictions-afghanistan-intl-hnk/index.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-milley-treason-secret-call-to-china-to-stop-war-2021-9
https://www.axios.com/mark-milley-woodward-trump-crisis-bb8a80b1-3e3a-492b-934a-99825cc6ef7f.html
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/15/1037015900/the-1st-all-civilian-crew-is-about-to-orbit-the-earth