Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Wednesday, July 17, 2024. I’m Bill Thomas, and today, we’ll brief you on some very impactful stories making headlines both here and around the world.
Evacuation orders have been issued for a city near the St. Louis area, President Joe Biden will accept his party’s virtual nomination, and the FBI has gained access to the phone owned by the man who tried to assassinate the former president. Also, the Israeli military is disputing claims made by Hamas, and Wisconsin courts make another ruling pertaining to ballots ahead of November’s election.
Residents Told to ‘Evacuate Now’ Due to Imminent Dam Failure in Illinois City
The evacuation was ordered yesterday in Nashville, Illinois, in Washington County, which is located around 50 miles southeast of St. Louis. Residents in the city have been ordered to evacuate since the city’s dam is at risk of failure.The warning, which was posted on social media, said: “Attention … the Failure of the Nashville dam is imminent. Please evacuate your home at this time. If you are in the grey box, you need [to] evacuate now!” The grey box appears to be the area downstream from the Nashville City Reservoir Dam, which holds the Nashville City Reservoir.
By the way, more than 3,000 people live in the affected community.
Officials with the Washington County Emergency Management Agency went on to say that the dam “has been overtopped with flood waters” after several inches of rain drenched the area in a 24-hour period.
The rain, which was part of a series of storms across the state, was part of a larger system that led to tornadoes and tornado warnings in other areas, including Des Moines, Iowa, and the Chicago area. The storms also cut power to thousands in Ohio and Pennsylvania and caused damage to property, trees, and power lines.
Interesting to note that yesterday, the Washington County management agency told local media that a secondary dam on the reservoir had already failed.
Democratic Party Plans to Nominate President Biden Before End of July
Quentin Fulks, President Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager, has just confirmed that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will move forward with the plan to hold a virtual roll call before the end of July, just ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August.The plan to nominate the president ahead of the convention stems from an Ohio law that requires all candidates to be legally certified by Aug. 7 in order to qualify for ballot access. Since the convention doesn’t start until Aug. 19, under the law, President Biden would have been kept off the November ballot in the state.
However, Ohio’s Legislature did approve a measure that temporarily extended the certification deadline so that President Biden would be eligible for the November ballot. Despite that, the DNC said it would still hold the early virtual roll call.
It’s not the first time Democrats have approved their nominee virtually. In 2020, President Biden was nominated in that manner during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it took place at the same time as the convention, which was also virtual.
The exact date of the roll call has not yet been released, but the DNC has indicated that it will do it by the end of this month.
By the way, the 2024 Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago from Aug. 19 to Aug. 22.
FBI Gains Access to Suspected Trump Shooter’s Phone
FBI agents now say they have access to a phone that belonged to Thomas Crooks, the man who tried to kill the former president.Specialists continue to analyze the phone and other electronic devices that belonged to Mr. Crooks, who was killed by law enforcement outside a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last Saturday after he fired shots at the former president.
FBI officials say agents completed a search of Mr. Crooks’s home and vehicle, and interviewed nearly 100 law enforcement officers, rally attendees, and other witnesses. The bureau says it’s also reviewing tips that have come in since the shooting, including photographs and videos from the scene.
Mr. Crooks, who was 20 years old, used an AR-style rifle that was purchased legally to shoot at former President Trump. One of the bullets pierced the former president’s right ear, while other bullets hit three rally attendees. Corey Comperatore, a father and former fire chief, was killed while two other men, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, were wounded but are reportedly in stable condition.
The shots were fired from the top of a building located about 430 feet from where former President Trump was speaking. A local law enforcement officer told reporters that he believed the building was outside the event’s security perimeter.
You should know that the FBI said Mr. Crooks was not known to agents prior to former President Trump’s rally, and they have not determined a motive for the shooting at this time.
Hamas Commander’s Fate Unclear Amid Heavy Casualties Following Israeli Air Strikes
Hamas says its military chief, Mohammed Deif, is still alive after Israel targeted leaders of the terrorist group with airstrikes over the weekend. However, the group has not provided any proof that their claim is true.Israel’s military said that one of Mr. Deif’s top deputies, Rafa'a Salameh, commander of Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade, was killed in the attack last Saturday, although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they’re not completely confident that Mr. Deif is dead.
Officials with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that the Israeli Air Force carried out a strike where two senior Hamas terrorists and additional members of their group hid among civilians, explaining that it happened in an open area surrounded by trees and several buildings.
Palestinian health officials say this airstrike, which took place at a designated humanitarian zone near Khan Yunis, killed at least 90 Palestinians and wounded as many as 300. It’s important to note that Palestinian health authorities, who are controlled by Hamas, do not distinguish between civilian and military casualties.
The IDF said that Mr. Salameh “was one of the masterminds” of last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel that killed 1,200 people.
In another targeted strike, a drone destroyed a car near the Lebanon–Syria border, killing a prominent Syrian businessman, Mohammed Baraa Katerji, who had close ties to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Mr. Katerji was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in 2018 as the Syrian president’s middleman for trading oil with the ISIS terrorist group and for facilitating weapons shipments to Syria from Iraq.
It’s a story with global implications and one which we’ll be keeping a close watch on.
Appeals Court Makes It More Difficult to Disqualify Absentee Ballots in Wisconsin
In rejecting a challenge from state legislators, an appeals court in Wisconsin has ruled that witnesses for absentee voters do not need to provide their full addresses. However, prior to that ruling, Wisconsin law did require witnesses for each absentee vote to list their name and address.The law was first challenged in January, and a county judge back then said trivial errors in witness addresses such as missing ZIP codes shouldn’t cause those absentee ballots to be rejected.
Wisconsin legislators appealed, arguing that witness addresses should be required to contain street numbers, street names, and names of municipalities, pointing to a definition of address from the Oxford English Dictionary.
However, the Fourth District Court of Appeals said that legislators could have specified address components in the law, but because they did not, the address requirement outlined by the county judge is upheld.
The ruling came several weeks after a county judge said that some voters in the state can receive electronic ballots and a week after the Wisconsin Supreme Court narrowly reinstated the use of drop boxes for the upcoming presidential election in November.
Looks like our time is just about up for today, so we’re going to call it a wrap for the Wednesday edition of The Epoch Times News Brief.
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And finally, as we do each and every day on this program, we wrap everything up with a very “notable” quote.
It was Bruce Lee who said: “Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.”
Bruce Lee was a formidable martial artist and actor. He’s considered by some to be the most influential martial artist of all time and they say he was a pretty nice guy too.
For all of us here at The Epoch Times News Brief, I’m Bill Thomas.
Thank you for making us your one-stop source for a concise, accurate, and unbiased daily synopsis of many of the news stories you need to know about.
Enjoy the remainder of your Wednesday, and we’ll see you right back here tomorrow for the Thursday edition of The Epoch Times News Brief. Have a superb day today, and bye for now.
