TV News LIES

The floods that sent rivers of mud tearing through towns in Italy’s northeast are another drenching dose of climate change’s all-or-nothing weather extremes, something that has been happening around the globe, scientists say.

In a changing climate, more rain is coming, but it’s falling on fewer days in less useful and more dangerous downpours.

One person was killed and a curfew was imposed after a powerful tornado tore through a community near the southern tip of Texas before dawn Saturday, damaging dozens of residences and knocking down power lines, authorities said.

At least 10 others were hospitalized, including two people who were listed in critical condition, said Tom Hushen, the emergency management coordinator for Cameron County. Many residents also suffered cuts and bruises.

A nighttime curfew for those 17 and under was issued by Eddie Treviño Jr., the Cameron County judge, and is expected to end May 16 to “mitigate the effects of this public health and safety emergency.” The order also forbids non-residents of Laguna Heights from entering its residential areas.

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An unaccompanied 17-year-old migrant from Honduras died in a shelter in Florida on Wednesday, according to authorities.

Investigators on Friday were still trying to determine a cause for the teen’s death, which came as the US lifted immigration restrictions stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Honduran officials identified the dead child as Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza. The statement said the US government informed Honduras of Maradiaga’s death on Thursday.

Espinoza was admitted into the Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services shelter in Safe Harbor, Florida, on 5 May without being accompanied by a parent or guardian. Five days later, he was taken to a nearby hospital after being found unconscious and was declared dead after an hour of CPR attempts.

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The governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, said it was “embarrassing” that Republican voters from his state laughed and applauded when Donald Trump mocked E Jean Carroll during a CNN town hall this week.

Sununu may yet have to court such voters in a presidential run of his own.

Nonetheless, the governor said, the town hall audience’s behavior “doesn’t shine a positive light on New Hampshire”.

In New York on Tuesday, a jury in a civil case found Trump liable for sexual battery and defamation regarding a 1996 assault in a New York department store changing room which Carroll described in a book in 2019. The former president was ordered to pay about $5m in damages.

Regardless, at Wednesday’s CNN event in Manchester, New Hampshire, Trump said he had “no idea who the hell” Carroll was and called her a “whack job”.

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An FDA advisory panel on Wednesday recommended the agency allow a birth control pill to be available over the counter in the U.S. for the first time.

The panel came to the decision after a two-day public meeting.

The advisors' vote is not binding, and the FDA is expected to make a final decision this summer.

If the application is approved, Opill will be the first contraceptive pill to be sold over the counter in the United States. It would join emergency contraceptives like Plan B on pharmacy shelves.

"For a product that has been available for the last 50 years, that has been used safely by millions of women, we thought it was time to make it more available," Frederique Welgryn, chief strategy officer of HRA Pharma, a French drugmaker owned by the pharmaceutical company Perrigo, when the company announced the application for over-the-counter use.

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President Joe Biden announced on Friday that Neera Tanden will serve as the next head of his domestic policy council.

Tanden, a longtime prominent Democratic operative, will replace Susan Rice, who plans to leave the administration later this month. Tanden has spent the last year-and-a-half as senior adviser and staff secretary in the White House, after her initial nomination to run the Office of Management and Budget faltered in the face of Senate opposition.

“While growing up, Neera relied on some of the critical programs that she will oversee as Domestic Policy Advisor,” Biden said in a statement announcing the move. “I know those insights will serve my Administration and the American people well.”

In addition, the White House announced that Stef Feldman, a longtime Biden aide dating back to the Obama administration, will replace Tanden in the role of staff secretary.

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Dr. Rochelle Walensky is stepping down as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, President Joe Biden announced Friday.

Her departure comes as the federal government is winding down its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The public health emergency that was declared in January 2020 is ending May 11. The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency.

In announcing Walensky's departure, Biden said she led a complex organization that was on the frontlines of a once-in-a-generation pandemic — and she did it with honesty and integrity.

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