News Wrap: Hurricane Milton rapidly intensifies to Category 5 storm

In our news wrap Monday, Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified to a Category 5 storm and is expected to hit Florida this week, Hurricane Helene’s death toll reached 230, the Supreme Court started a new term where justices will hear cases about ghost guns and transgender rights and Georgia’s Supreme Court temporarily put back in place a ban on nearly all abortions after about six weeks.
Geoff Bennett:
The day’s other headlines start with Hurricane Milton, which has rapidly intensified to a Category 5 storm. Milton is on track to make landfall in the Tampa Bay area this week, bringing a life-threatening storm surge of up to 12 feet, a torrent of rain and high winds. Authorities and residents there are racing to prepare.
For many today, that meant filling sandbags. Others have already heeded evacuation orders. All this comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene battered the same area.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL):
We had a lot of debris left from Hurricane Helene on Florida’s Gulf Coast. That creates a huge hazard if you have a major hurricane hit in that area this week.
Geoff Bennett:
Helene caused at least 230 deaths. About half of those fatalities were in North Carolina, where apocalyptic scenes still cover the western part of the state.
Today, the FEMA administrator once again responded to unsubstantiated claims that her agency isn’t doing enough to help the storm’s victims.
Deanne Criswell, FEMA Administrator:
Absolutely false. We have thousands of people on the ground, not just federal, but also our volunteers in the private sector. And, frankly, that type of rhetoric is demoralizing to our staff that have left their families to come here and help the people of North Carolina. And we will be here as long as they’re needed.
Geoff Bennett:
Shortly after that press conference, Criswell traveled to Florida, where she met with state and local officials ahead of Hurricane Milton.
The U.S. Supreme Court kicked off its new term today. In the months ahead, the justices will hear cases about ghost guns and transgender rights, among others. Today, the court declined to hear a Biden administration appeal over emergency abortions in Texas. In doing so, the justices left in place a lower court ruling saying hospitals can’t be required to perform abortions that go against Texas law.
The court also turned away an Alabama fertility clinic’s bid to avoid a wrongful death claim over the destruction of a couple’s frozen embryo. The case raised broader concerns about legal protections for in vitro fertilization nationwide. The justices also declined to hear appeals by singer R. Kelly on his child’s sex crime conviction and the social media platform X over a search warrant in an election interference case.
A Russian court sentenced a 72-year-old American man today to nearly seven years in prison charges of fighting for the Ukrainian military. Prosecutors say Stephen Hubbard signed a contract as a mercenary and fought for two months back in 2022 before being captured. He’s the first American to be convicted on such charges. Hubbard is originally from Michigan, but had reportedly been living in Ukraine since 2014.
Russian arrests of Americans have become increasingly common amid concerns that authorities are targeting U.S. citizens for future prisoner swaps.
Georgia’s Supreme Court has temporarily put back in place a ban on nearly all abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. The order is meant to give the justices time to consider an appeal of last week’s ruling by a lower court judge that found the ban violates the state’s constitution.
Georgia law was passed in 2019, but didn’t take effect until the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022. It prohibits most abortions once a detectable human heartbeat is present, usually around six weeks, which is before many women know they are pregnant.
And 2023 was the driest year for the world’s rivers in more than three decades. That’s according to a new report by the U.N.’s weather agency. Prolonged droughts have drained water levels in some areas to all-time lows, like here in the Amazon. The report also noted that glaciers, which feed many of the world’s rivers, suffered the largest loss of mass in half-a-century last year.
The agency’s director said that rising global temperatures are partly to blame and called the state of water — quote — “the canary in the coal mine of climate change.”
And a pair of Americans have won the Nobel Prize for Medicine. The Massachusetts-based duo of Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were recognized for the discovery of tiny bits of genetic material known as microRNA. A panel in Stockholm said their findings, initially studied in worms, are fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function, including humans.
After hearing the news, Ruvkun said a Nobel Prize amounts to a quantum leap in terms of recognition for their work. And Ambros explained the potential real-world health implications of microRNA.
Victor Ambros, 2024 Nobel Laureate: The deeper we understand living systems, the better equipped we are to figure out what’s wrong when these systems go awry in the context of disease.
Geoff Bennett:
Experts say learning how to manipulate microRNA could one day lead to powerful treatments for diseases like cancer. Tomorrow, the Nobel for Physics will be announced.
On Wall Street today, stocks struggled to start the week. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped about 400 points, or nearly 1 percent. The Nasdaq gave back more than 200 points. The S&P 500 also ended lower on the day.
And a passing of note. Cissy Houston, the mother of the late Whitney Houston and a successful singer in her own right, has died. The two-time Grammy winner performed alongside the likes of Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin. She saw early success as part of the vocal group The Sweet Inspirations, who sang backup for several soul acts and featured on Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.”
Branching out on her own, Houston was an in-demand session singer. Her vocals can be heard on tracks by Jimi Hendrix, Luther Vandross, and Beyonce, among others. Cissy Houston was 91 years old.