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Monday, October 3, 2022

Wake-Up Call: Sanibel Island, Fort Myers Severely Damaged



President Joe Biden will visit Florida on Wednesday to survey the damage left behind by Hurricane Ian, with the official death toll set to rise as search operations continue.

Ahead of his trip to the state, the president will go to Puerto Rico on Monday, which was hit earlier in September by Hurricane Fiona, the White House said. Biden, who has pledged to commit the full strength of the federal government to recovery efforts, said on Saturday that Florida’s hurricane damage is “likely to rank among the worst” in US history. Power and communications operators reported a significant return of services on Sunday.

The death toll in Florida, unofficially 58, was uncertain and shifting. In hard-hit Lee County, home to Fort Myers, Sheriff Carmine Marceno said on Sunday there were 42 confirmed deaths in his county alone. On Saturday night, the Florida Medical Examiners Commission reported 30 deaths in Lee County and 44 statewide.   The majority of Florida’s victims died by drowning, according to the state’s Medical Examiners Commission.  Four deaths have been reported in North Carolina and three in Cuba.

Ian, which had weakened to a post-tropical cyclone, “fully dissipated overnight” Saturday, the National Weather Service reported. “Widespread showers and storms” will continue in the mid-Atlantic and central Appalachians, reaching southern New Jersey.


More than 640,000 customers in Florida are still without power, according to PowerOutage.us. Electricity has been restored to more than 1.8 million user accounts across the state, figures from the Florida Division of Emergency Management showed on Sunday.

Governor Ron DeSantis visited the cities of North Port and Arcadia over the weekend, where flooding hasn’t subsided, according to local media reports.

In Lee County, on the state’s southwest coast, Sheriff Carmine Marceno said on Sunday that 42 people had died there. “We have buildings, multiple-floor buildings that have been washed out, OK? It is incomprehensible what we’re looking at,” Marceno said. “Those numbers could go up. I don’t know. I pray and hope that they don’t.”


Emergency officials in Lee County, Florida, only issued a mandatory evacuation order for the areas likely to be hit the most by Hurricane Ian on Tuesday, giving residents less time to evacuate, the New York Times reported.  While much of the areas set to be affected had told their residents to flee on Monday, Lee County officials opted to wait to see how forecasts for the hurricane evolved overnight.

On Friday, the FCC reported that five TV stations, 6 AM radio stations and 15 FM stations were still off-air in Florida.



Cell-service has been restored across most of Florida, though the hardest-hit counties are still experiencing significant zones without signal, according to a report from the Federal Communications Commission Sunday.   The report listed the top counties by percentage with cell sites still not operational: DeSoto 38.5%; Hardee 33.3%; Charlotte 20.2%; and Lee 19.5%.

Governor Ron DeSantis announced Saturday that Elon Musks’s SpaceX will deploy 120 units of its Starlink satellites to southwest Florida to provide Internet service for those affected.

➤GOV. NEWSOM SIGNS CALIFORNIA BILL LIMITING USE OF RAP LYRICS IN COURT: Gov. Gavin Newsom signed The Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act, which restricts the use of rap lyrics as evidence in court in California. The state Senate and Assembly unanimously approved the bill in August. A variety of major hip-hop artists attended the signing ceremony, including Killer Mike, Meek Mill, Too $hort, Ty Dolla $ign, YG, E-40 and Tyga, as well as Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr., leaders from the Black Music Action Coalition, and reps from Songwriters of North America. In a press release, the Black Music Action Coalition called the bill a “crucial step in the right direction” of not injecting racial bias into court proceedings, especially given the recent indictment of Young Thug and Gunna, whose lyrics have already been directly quoted and used against them in an ongoing RICO trial in Atlanta. Legal expert Jack Lerner also pointed out the judicial system’s hypocritical focus on hip-hop as a genre, and added that this new legislation “could really affect the way people make music.”

➤ELECTION GETS HEATED IN BRAZIL: The presidential race in Brazil will go to a second round run-off after no candidate achieved a majority of more than 50% of the ballot in an election where millions turned out to vote. More than 99% of the vote count was done Sunday evening, former President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva had 48.4% support while President Jair Bolsonaro had 43.2% support. This tight of a race came as a surprise since pre election polls had found da Silva had a commanding leading 50% to 36%.

➤COVID PATIENTS OVER 65 MORE LIKELY TO GET ALZHEIMERS: A new study shows over 65 year-olds who have had Covid are 80% more likely to develop Alzheimer's within a year of being infected. The study states those that fall within that age bracket and had the virus were found to be 50% to 80% more at risk of developing Alzheimer's than those who have not had the virus.
 
➤WHITE COLLAR JOBS AT RISK IN NEXT RECESSION: Tech and financial jobs saw uncommon growth during the pandemic but economists now fear companies in these sectors may be some of the hardest hit during what experts predict a much anticipated potential recession in 2023. The remote worker (working from home) or "laptop class" has already seen it's share of layoffs in recent weeks. Netflix had 480 layoffs, Patreon laid off 17% of it's employees and Twilio laid off 800. All these layoffs occurred in September alone.

🎥‘SMILE’ TAKES THE TOP SPOT AT THE DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE:  It’s officially spooky season, and people are certainly in the mood to see a horror film—as Smile topped the chart at the domestic box office this weekend. The film left Don’t Worry Darling and Bros in the dust, pulling in $22 million. In comparison, Bros made its debut with $4.8 million, and Don’t Worry Darling brought in $7.3 million during its second weekend.

Bros actor Billy Eichner blames the turnout on homophobia. “That’s just the world we live in, unfortunately. Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A CinemaScore etc, straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for Bros. And that’s disappointing but it is what it is,” he tweeted on Sunday (October 2nd).  Box Office Numbers from Weekend:

1. Smile, $22 million
2. Don’t Worry Darling, $7.3 million
3. The Woman King, $7 million
4. Bros, $4.8 million
5. Avatar (re), $4.696 million
6. Ponniyin Selvan: Part One, $4.1 million
7. Barbarian, $2.8 million
8. Bullet Train, $1.4 million
9. DC League of Super-Pets, $1.3 million
10. Top Gun: Maverick, $1.23 million



Monday Night Football: Los Angeles Rams at San Francisco 49ers

🏈DOCTOR WHO EXAMINED MIAMI QB FIRED: The neurotrauma consultant involved in clearing Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa a week ago was fired over the weekend. If you recall, the Miami QB sustained a hard hit to the head Vs the Bills, was cleared back to play and then 4 days later was carted off the field when the Dolphins faced the Bengals. The doctor was removed due to concussion protocol violations that resulted in an initial diagnosis that the Miami QB did not have a concussion which also made him available to play 4 days later. The NFL Players Association and the NFL announced they are working to modify the league's concussion protocol and a change may come within days.

⚽STAMPEDE DURING SOCCER MATCH LEAVES 125 DEAD: Tragedy struck during a soccer match in Indonesia over the weekend that left 125 dead. The violence broke out after Arema FC of East Java’s Malang city lost 3-2 to Persebaya of Surabaya snapping a 23 year win streak. Thousands of Arema supporters reacted to the loss by throwing bottles and other objects at players and soccer officials, the incident escalated to police firing tear gas creating a chaotic scene with fans panicking towards to exits leaving 125 dead, most of whom were trampled upon or suffocated in the melee.

➤ANTONIO BROWN EXPOSES HIMSELF TO GUESTS WHILE IN DUBAI: NFL unsigned bad boy Antonio Brown is back making headlines for the wrong reasons, this time the All-Pro receiver was caught on video shoving his bare buttocks into the face of a woman in a swimming pool in a hotel in Dubai. In a second video, Brown- who was apparently nude aside from wearing gold chains around his neck, tries to tie a head scarf he apparently snatched from another swimmer then lifts the woman and tosses her headfirst into the water. After the story was out, Antonio Brown went on a Twitter rant Saturday in response to the report saying “It’s crazy to me that even after I retire there is disinformation coming out about me.




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