HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA: Eight elderly patients died after being left inside a stifling South Florida nursing home that lost power during Hurricane Irma, officials said on Wednesday, prompting a criminal probe and adding to the mounting loss of life from the storm.
The overall death toll from Irma climbed to 81 on Wednesday, with several hard-hit Caribbean islands accounting for more than half the fatalities, and officials continued to assess damage inflicted by the second major hurricane to strike the US mainland this year.
Irma killed at least 31 people in Florida, plus seven more in Georgia and South Carolina combined, authorities said.
One of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, Irma bore down on the Caribbean with devastating force as it raked the northern shore of Cuba last week before barreling into the Florida Keys island chain on Sunday, packing sustained winds of up to 130 miles per hour (215 km per hour).
It then plowed north up the Gulf Coast of the state before dissipating.
In addition to severe flooding across Florida and extensive property damage in the Keys, residents faced widespread power outages that initially plunged more than half the state into darkness.
Some 4.3 million homes and businesses were still without power on Wednesday in Florida and neighboring states, down from 7.4 million customers on Monday.
Three elderly residents were found dead on Wednesday inside a nursing home in Hollywood, Florida, north of Miami.
the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hill had been operating with little or no air conditioning, officials said.
Four more patients died at or en route to a nearby hospital and a fifth was later identified as having died the night before.
Governor Rick Scott called the tragedy “unfathomable,” and police said they had opened a criminal investigation, sealing off the building after the remaining patients were transferred to hospitals.
City officials described the interior as “excessively hot,” despite portable air coolers and fans that, according to state records, had been placed throughout the facility.
The eight who died ranged in age from 71 to 99, according to the Broward County medical examiner’s office. The cause of their deaths has yet to be determined.
But most of the survivors were treated for “respiratory distress, dehydration and heat-related issues,” Memorial Regional Hospital’s emergency medical director, Dr. Randy Katz, told reporters.
Representatives of the for-profit nursing home, which had received a “below average” grade from Medicare’s rating system for such facilities, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The physician listed in state records as its manager, Jack Michel, previously ran afoul of state and federal regulators over assisted-living facilities that he partially owned.
In 2006, he and three co-defendants paid $15.4 million to settle Medicare and Medicaid fraud claims against them, according to the US Justice Department.
Florida Power & Light provided electricity to parts of the nursing home but the facility was not on a county top-tier list for emergency power restoration, the utility said.
Total insured losses from the storm are expected to run about $25 billion, including $18 billion in the United States and $7 billion in the Caribbean, catastrophe modeler Karen Clark & Company estimated on Wednesday.
The Florida Keys were particularly hard hit, with federal officials saying 90 percent of its homes were destroyed or heavily damaged. The remote island chain stretches nearly 100 miles (160 km) into the Gulf of Mexico from Florida’s southern tip, connected by a single highway and series of bridges.
On Key West, at the end of the archipelago, hundreds of residents who had refused evacuation orders lined up on Wednesday outside the island’s Salvation Army outpost for water and military-style rations after enduring days of intense heat with little water, power or contact with the outside world.
The stench of dead fish and decaying seaweed permeated the air.
Elizabeth Martinez, 61, said the ordeal, including losing part of the roof of her home, had convinced her it was time to leave the island. “I’m saving my money up and moving out of here,” she said.
But David Sheidy, a 58-year-old painter, predicted Key West would bounce back quickly.
“That’s what we do,” he said. “This is a small community where everybody knows each other and takes care of each other.”
President Donald Trump was due to visit Florida on Thursday.
Irma wreaked utter devastation on several of the northern Leeward Islands of the Caribbean, where at least 43 people have died. Irma hit Florida about two weeks after Hurricane Harvey plowed into Houston, killing about 60 and causing some $180 billion in damage, mostly from flooding.
Criminal probe opens into 8 deaths at Florida nursing home after Irma
Criminal probe opens into 8 deaths at Florida nursing home after Irma
Drought has dried a major Amazon River tributary to its lowest level in over 122 years
- The level of the Negro River at the port of Manaus was at 12.66 meters on Friday, as compared with a normal level of about 21 meters
- It is the lowest since measurements started 122 years ago. The previous record low level was recorded last year, but toward the end of October
MANAUS, Brazil: One of the Amazon River’s main tributaries has dropped to its lowest level ever recorded, Brazil’s geological service said Friday, reflecting a severe drought that has devastated the Amazon rainforest and other parts of the country.
The level of the Negro River at the port of Manaus was at 12.66 meters on Friday, as compared with a normal level of about 21 meters. It is the lowest since measurements started 122 years ago. The previous record low level was recorded last year, but toward the end of October.
The Negro River’s water level might drop even more in coming weeks based on forecasts for low rainfall in upstream regions, according to the geological service’s predictions. Andre Martinelli, the agency’s hydrology manager in Manaus, was quoted as saying the river was expected to continue receding until the end of the month.
Water levels in Brazil’s Amazon always rise and fall with its rainy and dry seasons, but the dry portion of this year has been much worse than usual. All of the major rivers in the Amazon basin are at critical levels, including the Madeira River, the Amazon River’s longest tributary.
The Negro River drains about 10 percent of the Amazon basin and is the world’s sixth-largest by water volume. Manaus, the biggest city in the rainforest, is where the Negro joins the Amazon River.
For locals, the drought has made basic daily activities impossible. Gracita Barbosa, 28, works as a cashier on a floating shop on the Negro River. She’s out of work because boats that once stopped there can no longer navigate the river due to the low water levels. Barbosa can no longer bathe in the river and now has to travel longer distances to collect drinking water.
Biden warns Trump may not peacefully concede election if he loses
- "The things that Trump has said, and the things that he said last time out, when he didn’t like the outcome of the election, were very dangerous,” Biden said
- Trump was impeached in 2021 for inciting the insurrection after hundreds of his supporters battered police as they smashed windows at the Capitol and broke through doors
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Friday he is confident that the upcoming presidential election will be fairly conducted, but he warned that Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate could refuse to accept the outcome.
“I’m confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it will be peaceful. The things that Trump has said, and the things that he said last time out, when he didn’t like the outcome of the election, were very dangerous,” Biden said.
Biden said it was notable that Trump’s running mate, US Senator JD Vance, would not confirm during this week’s vice presidential debate that he would accept the outcome of the vote in the Nov. 5 election.
Trump is running against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for president, in a tight race that will come down to a handful of battleground states.
Biden’s warning came with lawmakers and analysts voicing concern over increasingly bellicose campaign language ahead of the vote.
Trump — who survived an assassination bid in July and another apparent plot in September — alleged widespread fraud after his defeat to Biden, and pro-Trump rioters riled up by his false claims ransacked the US Capitol.
Trump was impeached in 2021 for inciting the insurrection after hundreds of his supporters — exhorted by the defeated Republican to “fight like hell” — battered police as they smashed windows at the Capitol and broke through doors.
He has been indicted over what prosecutors allege was a “private criminal effort” to subvert the election that culminated in the violence.
Trump — who is due to return to the venue of his first assassination bid in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday — has long been assailed over his violent rhetoric.
Biden made his comments during what was the first appearance of his presidency in the White House briefing room, where he touted his administration’s achievements as his vice president, Kamala Harris, battles Trump.
Harris and Trump meanwhile were barnstorming the battleground states that are likely to decide who wins the White House.
Trump campaigned Friday in North Carolina, where he reprised his claims of 2020 voter fraud: “We should get elected, but remember this, they cheat like hell,” he said.
He also visited neighboring Georgia, a swing state narrowly claimed by Biden four years ago but won by Trump in 2016 — and one of the biggest prizes of the 2024 election map.
The Republican inserted himself aggressively into Georgia politics after his 2020 defeat, pushing for state officials to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory.
Trump, 78, was charged by state prosecutors with racketeering, in a case that is on pause and expected to start up again after the election. He denies wrongdoing.
Spreading misinformation
On Friday Trump joined Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp after receiving a briefing on the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Helene, the deadliest storm to hit the US mainland since Katrina in 2005.
Trump has repeatedly spread misinformation about the federal response to the disaster, falsely alleging that funding for relief has been misappropriated by Harris and redirected toward migrants.
Harris, who is neck-and-neck with Trump in all seven swing states, rallied Friday in Michigan — a union stronghold that epitomized the US manufacturing decline of the 1980s.
The Democratic contender accused Trump of jeopardizing Michigan auto jobs.
“This is a man who has only ever fought for himself. This is a man who has been a union buster his entire career,” she said at a stop in Detroit.
Later, in the city of Flint, she branded Trump “one of the biggest losers of manufacturing jobs in American history.”
Flint is a majority Black city where a 2010s scandal over lead-tainted water highlighted government mismanagement and the disproportionate damage to poor and non-white communities.
She reminded rallygoers that the election is just one month away, and early voting has already begun in several states.
“Folks, the election is here. And we need to energize, organize and mobilize,” Harris said.
Earlier her campaign announced the country’s first Black president, Barack Obama, would stump for her in Pennsylvania and other swing states from next week as she woos undecided voters in the US heartland.
Assassination attempts and new threats have reshaped how Donald Trump campaigns
- Beyond the two attempts on his life, the former president and GOP nominee faces ongoing death threats from Iran
- Trump speaks more often publicly of divine intervention, musing that God saved him in order to save the country
NEW YORK: Donald Trump was onstage at a rally on Long Island last month, talking about taxes, when he appeared momentarily spooked by something he’d spotted over his shoulder.
“I thought this was a wise guy coming up,” he explained, joking that he was getting his elbow ready to fight back.
“You know I got a little bit of a yip problem here, right?” he added to laughs, using a term familiar to golf aficionados to describe a phenomenon once blamed on performance anxiety where players suddenly lose the ability to make easy shots. “I was all ready to start duking it out.”
It was a fleeting moment passed off as a joke. But as he returns to Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday for a rally at the site where a gunman opened fire in July, grazing his ear with a bullet, the scare underscores the lasting fallout for the candidate and his campaign even as much of the national attention has shifted to other crises.
Beyond the two attempts on his life in as many months, the former president and GOP nominee faces ongoing death threats from Iran, which has also been blamed for hacking top campaign officials and allies, exacerbating anxieties already heightened by a stepped-up security apparatus and new restrictions on how he can campaign.
Trump’s allies insist he was not fundamentally changed by the gunman who fired from an unsecured roof at the rally in July or the would-be assailant in September who shoved a rifle barrel through the fence at his West Palm Beach golf course.
The picture of Trump standing, with blood streaked across his face, as he raised his fist and shouted “Fight!” has become the indelible image of the campaign.
“When you almost lose your life, it stays with you. It stays with him,” said Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a close Trump ally. “But that doesn’t change his resolve. His resolve is just as strong as it ever has been.”
Threats have reshaped how he campaigns
Trump staffers are on edge. There have been death threats directed at his aides, and his team isn’t as able to quickly organize the mass rallies that have always been the signature of his campaigns.
Armed security officers now stand guard at the campaign’s Florida headquarters, and staff have been told to remain vigilant and alert.
Events have been canceled and moved around because the US Secret Service lacked the resources to safely secure them. Even with the use of glass barricades to protect Trump onstage, there are concerns about holding additional rallies outdoors due to fears about drones.
Trump has accused President Joe Biden’s administration of intentionally denying security resources to help Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, by preventing him from addressing large crowds.
“They couldn’t give me any help. And I’m so angry about it because what they’re doing is interfering in the election,” he said in a recent Fox News interview.
US Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that Trump “is receiving heightened levels of US Secret Service protection” and that “our top priority is mitigating risks to ensure his continued safety at all times.” Biden expressed concern for Trump after both assassination attempts, saying in September, “Thank God the president is OK.”
Trump also now travels with a larger security footprint, with new traffic restrictions outside his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, and a line of dump trucks and big guns on display outside Trump Tower in New York when he’s staying there.
As reporters filed into his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for a press conference this summer, guests — including a little girl wearing a red, white and blue bathing suit — were forced to exit their cars and go through airport-style metal detectors as their vehicles were searched for bombs.
Trump’s campaign last week was briefed on continued threats from Iran in presumed retaliation for his administration’s killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge. In August, a Pakistani man alleged to have links to Iran was charged in a plot to carry out political assassinations on US soil. Law enforcement did not name the targets of the alleged plot, but legal filings suggest Trump was a potential target.
Iranian hackers have also been charged with stealing information from Trump’s campaign and trying to pass it along to news organizations. In May, prosecutors say, the men charged began trying to penetrate the Trump campaign, successfully breaking into the email accounts of campaign officials and other Trump allies. They then sought to “weaponize” the stolen campaign material by sending unsolicited emails to people associated with Biden’s campaign. None of the recipients who worked for Biden responded.
The cyberattacks have forced some staff to change their email addresses and others to be wary of communicating online.
Trump already faced unprecedented legal jeopardy for a presidential candidate, with four criminal indictments — one resulting in a felony conviction with sentencing delayed until after the election, one case dismissed, and two pending — along with civil lawsuits that carry hundreds of millions of dollars in potential penalties.
“I think that from our perspective, just from the campaign standpoint, operationally, if there’s one group of people that can handle something like this thrown in their lap, it’s the team that Donald Trump assembled to run this campaign, just based on everything we’ve had to deal with, whether it’s lawsuits to keep him off the ballot, to indictments, to assassination attempts,” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said.
Trump talks of divine intervention
As for Trump, he speaks more often publicly of divine intervention, musing that God saved him in order to save the country. He also often says that assailants only go after consequential presidents.
“Obviously, when you come within a half an inch of a very different outcome, that’s going to impact you,” said New York Rep. Elize Stefanik, another ally who said she spoke to Trump the morning after the Butler shooting.
“Of course, those moments really make you consider a higher power, why you are so committed to helping save this country,” she said. “I think it has further empowered and energized President Trump.”
Trump was recently asked by NewsNation if he’s concerned about his safety ahead of his return to Butler. “Well, I’m always worried,” he responded.
“I’m going back to Butler because I feel I have an obligation to go back to Butler. We never finished what we were supposed to do,” he said. “And I said that, when I was shot, I said, we’re coming back. We’re going to come back. And I’m fulfilling a promise; I’m fulfilling really an obligation.”
His most loyal supporters at his rallies, including the one on Long Island where he joked about the “yips,” haven’t been dissuaded from seeing him in person.
“I know some people are scared to come, but I’m not,” said Eileen Deighan, 63, a nurse from nearby Yonkers, New York, who said she was inspired by Trump’s decision to keep on campaigning given the threats.
“The fact that he didn’t give up, he’s willing to fight for our country, how could you not support that?’ she asked. “That will that he has — doesn’t give up. It’s very contagious.”
Trump told his supporters at a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday that he would continue fighting “no matter what obstacles and dangers are thrown on our path.” But he had another point to make.
“I tell you what, I had a good life before I did this,” he said. “Nobody was shooting at me. I had a hell of a life.”
While Biden warns Israel against escalation, Trump suggests striking Iran nuclear facilities
- “If I were in their (Israelis) shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields,” Biden said in response to a reporter's question
- Weighing in, Trump said Biden “got that one wrong,” adding, "... the answer should have been, hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later.”
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Friday advised Israel against striking Iran’s oil facilities, saying he was trying to rally the world to avoid the escalating prospect of all-out war in the Middle East.
But his predecessor Donald Trump, currently campaigning for another term in power, went so far as to suggest Israel should “hit” the Islamic republic’s nuclear sites.
Making a surprise first appearance in the White House briefing room, Biden said that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “should remember” US support for Israel when deciding on next steps.
“If I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields,” Biden told reporters, when asked about his comments a day earlier that Washington was discussing the possibility of such strikes with its ally.
Biden added that the Israelis “have not concluded how they’re, what they’re going to do” in retaliation for a huge ballistic missile attack by Iran on Israel on Tuesday.
The price of oil had jumped after Biden’s remarks Thursday.
Any long-term rise could be damaging for US Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrat confronts Republican Trump in a November 5 election where the cost of living is a major issue.
Meanwhile Trump, campaigning in North Carolina, offered a far more provocative view of what he thinks a response to Iran should be, referencing a question posed to Biden this week about the possibility of Israel targeting Iran’s nuclear program.
“They asked him, ‘what do you think about Iran, would you hit Iran?’ And he goes, ‘As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you want to hit, right?” Trump told a town hall style event in Fayetteville, near a major US military base.
Biden “got that one wrong,” Trump said.
“When they asked him that question, the answer should have been, hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later,” Trump added.
Trump has spoken little about the recent escalation in tensions in the Middle East. But he issued a scathing statement this week, holding Biden and Harris responsible for the crisis.
Biden’s appearance at the famed briefing room podium was not announced in advance, taking reporters by surprise.
It comes at a tense time as he prepares to leave office with the Mideast situation boiling over and political criticism at home over his handling of a recent hurricane that struck the US southeast.
Biden said he was doing his best to avoid a full-scale conflagration in the Middle East, where Israel is bombing Lebanon in a bid to wipe out the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah.
“The main thing we can do is try to rally the rest of the world and our allies into participating... to tamp this down,” he told reporters.
“But when you have (Iranian) proxies as irrational as Hezbollah and the Houthis (of Yemen)... it’s a hard thing to determine.”
Biden however had tough words for Netanyahu, with whom he has had rocky relations as he seeks to manage Israel’s response following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
The Israeli premier has repeatedly ignored Biden’s calls for restraint on Lebanon, and on Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians.
Biden deflected a question on whether he believed Netanyahu was hanging back on signing a Middle East peace deal in a bid to influence the US presidential election.
“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None, none, none. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden said.
“And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that.”
Biden said he had still not spoken to Netanyahu since the Iranian attack, which involved some 200 missiles, but added their teams were in “constant contact.”
“They’re not going to make a decision immediately, and so we’re going to wait to see when they want to talk,” the US leader added.
Iran said its attack was in retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah has been launching rockets at Israel since shortly after the October 7, 2023 attacks.
In Michigan, Harris meets Arab American leaders angry over Israel
- On Wednesday, Harris’ national security adviser, Phil Gordon, virtually met with leaders from the Arab and Muslim community and said the administration supports a ceasefire in Gaza, diplomacy in Lebanon and stability in the Israeli-occupied West Bank
WASHINGTON/REDFORD TOWNSHIP, Michigan: Vice President Kamala Harris met with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan, on Friday, as her presidential campaign seeks to win back voters angry at US support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, two sources said.
The meeting is one of several attempts in recent days to mend fences with Muslim and Arab voters, who resoundingly backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 but could withhold their votes from Harris in numbers that would cost her the key state of Michigan.
Harris met with Emgage Action, which recently endorsed her, the American Task Force on Lebanon, and a long-standing friend of Harris, Hala Hijazi, who has lost dozens of family members in Gaza, said the sources, who did not wish to be named.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Harris meets Arab American, Muslim groups
• Some declined invitation, ‘Uncommitted’ movement not invited
• Poll shows Harris and Trump at even levels of support among Arab Americans
Jim Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute and a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee, said he declined the invitation. Leaders from the Uncommitted National Movement protest campaign said they were not invited to the meeting.
A campaign official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Harris discussed the election and conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon during the meeting.
She expressed her concern on the scale of suffering in Gaza, civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon and discussed efforts to end the war, the official said. She also discussed efforts to prevent a regional war, the official added.
Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action, said he and other participants used the meeting to share their deep disappointment on the US handling of the crisis and called on her to do everything in her power to end the war and reset US policy in the region.
“Emgage Action asked Vice President Harris to impress upon President Biden the urgency of bringing an immediate end to the violence” in Gaza and Lebanon, Alzayat said.
On Wednesday, Harris’ national security adviser, Phil Gordon, virtually met with leaders from the Arab and Muslim community and said the administration supports a ceasefire in Gaza, diplomacy in Lebanon and stability in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the vice president’s office said.
On Thursday night, Harris’ vice presidential pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, promised on a Muslim voters Zoom call that Muslims would have an equal role in a Harris administration.
Harris, a Democrat, faces Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5 in what opinion polls show to be a tight presidential race.
Some Arab Americans believe Harris’ refusal to distance herself from President Biden’s policies in the Middle East, as Israel escalates its attacks, will cost her in November.
“Harris is going to lose Michigan,” said Ali Dagher, a Lebanese American attorney and community leader. “I will not be voting for Kamala Harris. No one I know will vote for her. I cannot find a single person in the community who supports her.”
A poll published this week by the Arab American Institute found Harris and Trump at roughly even levels of support among Arab Americans.
In Redford Township, Michigan, outside of Detroit, Harris celebrated the union deal that ended a major port strike. She spoke at a fire station whose workers are represented by the International Association of Fire Fighters, which on Thursday declined to make a presidential endorsement. The event was designed to show Harris has support among the union’s rank-and-file members, an aide said.
Later, in Flint, she appeared with United Auto Workers union President Shawn Fain and vowed support for Michigan’s auto industry.
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign said Harris is “putting a minimum of 37,000 auto jobs at risk by refusing to tell Michiganders if she still supports her proposed plan to ban all internal combustion engine cars by 2035.”
Critics say Biden and Harris have done too little to stop Israel’s military campaign in the Palestinian enclave, while continuing to supply Israel with weapons to carry it out.
The Israeli military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, Palestinian health authorities say.
Israel responded to an Oct. 7, 2023, incursion by Hamas gunmen, who Israel says killed around 1,200 people and abducted about 250 hostages. Gaza has suffered a humanitarian crisis with nearly all its over 2 million people displaced and widespread hunger in the enclave.
In Lebanon more than 1,900 people have been killed and 9,000 wounded during almost a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, with most of the deaths in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics.
Both Israeli and Hamas leaders are being investigated by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes committed in the Hamas attack and the subsequent Israeli response. Israel denies the accusations.
