 |
| |
 | | | Elsa turns streets into rivers | | Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall in Florida. And search efforts shifted from rescue to recovery at Miami condo collapse site. It's Wednesday's news. | | |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| Elsa, now a tropical storm, made landfall in Florida. Search of a collapsed Florida condo shifts from rescue to recovery. And Donald Trump says he's suing top officials at Facebook and Twitter. |
| 👋 It's Laura. And here's Wednesday's news, powered by the bowl of cereal I just ate in the middle of the day. |
| But first, you subscribin'? 📰 I'm just a journalist, sitting in front of a computer screen, asking you to support USA TODAY. Our reporters work across the country to provide the breaking news and investigations I get to tell you about in The Short List. Starting today, some of that coverage will only be available to subscribers. Many of you already subscribe (thank you!!) but if you're not yet signed up, please consider showing your support for quality journalism. I'd be so thrilled for you to try it out! You can subscribe here. Got questions? Check out our FAQ here. |
| 👉 Pssst... Here's the type of news you'll get access to with a subscription: |
| Without the FBI's assistance, Princess Latifa might never have been found. She was running away from her father, the authoritarian ruler of Dubai in 2018, when her escape was thwarted after a dramatic raid of her yacht on the Indian Ocean. How Sheikh Mohammed located his daughter was a mystery for three years – until now. A USA TODAY investigation has found the FBI played a key role. For details, check out the full story here. |
| The Short List is a snappy USA TODAY news roundup. Subscribe to the newsletter here or text messages here. |
Tropical Storm Elsa makes landfall |
| After a slog up the west coast of Florida, Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall around 11 a.m. Wednesday morning in lightly populated Taylor County along the state's northern Gulf Coast. Forecasters say Elsa's path will now cut across north Florida with heavy rains and wind and move across the Southeast and mid-Atlantic U.S. before heading out in the Atlantic Ocean by Friday. Earlier, Tampa was blasted by high winds and heavy rains as the storm, weakening slightly but still powerful, rolled up Florida's west coast. Off the coast of Key West, the Coast Guard and a good Samaritan boat rescued 13 people who were part of a group of 22 that left Cuba on a boat that capsized in waters churned by the storm. Nine people were still missing. |
| |
Search efforts shift from rescue to recovery at site of condo collapse |
| Emergency workers who have been pulling apart the rubble of a collapsed condo building near Miami said Wednesday they were switching from rescue to recovery mode, signaling the effort to find survivors was all but over. The devastating announcement followed increasingly somber reports from emergency officials, who indicated they had been preparing families for the worst outcome. Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told families that after searching all areas of debris, they have concluded it will now be next to impossible to find people alive. Crews searched through the rubble of Champlain Towers South in Surfside for 14 days, hoping to rescue any survivors of the catastrophic collapse. The only recovered survivor was found hours after rescuers arrived at the scene. |
| Earlier Wednesday: The death toll in the tragedy climbed to 46 as 10 bodies were pulled out of the rubble. About 90 people remain unaccounted for. Crews will continue searching for their remains, and detectives are working to determine if all the missing were actually in the building when it fell. Read up on the latest here. |
| |
 | | Search and rescue crews were scouring the rubble at what was the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside, Fla. July 7, 2021. As of Wednesday, forty-six bodies have been recovered with ninety-four residents of the condo still missing. | | Seth Harrison, USA TODAY Network | |
What everyone's talking about |
| |
President of Haiti assassinated |
| Amid gang violence, anti-government protests and a surge in coronavirus infections, unidentified gunmen assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and wounded his wife in their home early Wednesday. President Joe Biden said, "We need a lot more information, but it's very worrisome about the state of Haiti." In Congress, lawmakers in both parties called for a full investigation and said the perpetrators must be held accountable. Moïse, 53, had been ruling by decree for more than a year after Haiti failed to hold elections and the opposition demanded he step down. His wife, Martine Moïse, 47, was shot and in a hospital. Interim prime minister Claude Joseph said in a statement the attackers spoke Spanish or English and were highly trained and heavily armed. And it isn't clear whether the killers were still in Haiti or had fled the country, but Haiti's ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, said they are "on the loose." |
 | | In this Aug. 28, 2019, file photo, Haiti's President Jovenel Moise speaks during an interview in his office in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Moïse was assassinated after a group of unidentified people attacked his private residence, the country's interim prime minister said in a statement Wednesday, July 7, 2021. Moïse's wife, First Lady Martine Moïse, is hospitalized, interim Premier Claude Joseph said. | | Dieu Nalio Chery, AP | |
Air Force mostly at fault in deadly attack on Texas church, judge rules |
| Because the U.S. Air Force didn't subject a former serviceman's criminal history into a database, a federal judge has ruled that the Air Force is mostly responsible for an attack that remains the worst mass shooting in Texas history. U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in San Antonio wrote in a ruling signed Wednesday that the Air Force was "60% responsible" for the deaths and injuries at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs when Devin Kelley opened fire during a Sunday service in 2017. Authorities put the official death toll at 26 because one of the 25 people killed was pregnant. Kelley died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after he was shot and chased by two men who heard the gunfire at the church. Kelley had been discharged from the Air Force after he assaulted a former wife and stepson, cracking the child's skull. The Air Force has acknowledged the conviction, had it been put into the FBI database, could have prevented him from buying guns used in the attack. |
| |
 | | Investigators work at the scene of a deadly shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2017. | | Jay Janner, AP | |
Real quick |
| |
Trump sues, alleging 'censorship' |
| In an attempt to "hold Big Tech very accountable," Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he was suing the top officials of Facebook and Twitter for keeping him off social media. Trump's chances of success in court are slim at best, legal analysts said; Facebook and Twitter are private companies with the right to moderate their platforms. Trump said his "class-action" lawsuit filed in South Florida targets CEOs Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, and Sundar Pichai of Google and Alphabet. "We are going to hold Big Tech very accountable," Trump said, accusing the companies of violating First Amendment free speech rights through "censorship" against him and others, "blacklisting" and "canceling" people for political reasons. However, the First Amendment, which states that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech," applies to government entities, not private domains. |
| |
 | | Facebook has suspended former President Donald Trump for two years. His accounts were frozen after he praised supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. | | Getty | |
A break from the news |
| |
| This is a compilation of stories from across the USA TODAY Network. Want this news roundup in your inbox every night? Sign up for The Short List newsletter here. |
| |
| MORE ARTICLES |
| |
| |
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment