5 things to know for Sept. 12: SpaceX, Tropical Storm Francine, Debate reaction, Ukraine, Deli meat recall
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CNN’s 5 Things brings you the news you need to know every morning.
Good news for American consumers: Inflation is loosening its grip on some commonly purchased products and services. New data shows that grocery prices are rising at a pace of 0.9% annually, the lowest rate since the middle of 2021. Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day. A four-person crew on a private mission aboard a SpaceX capsule will soon attempt to carry out the world’s first commercial spacewalk. It could be the first extravehicular activity ever completed by non-government astronauts. All four Polaris crew members will be exposed to the vacuum of space, but only Jared Isaacman, billionaire tech CEO, and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis will exit the SpaceX capsule for about 20 minutes. Crewmates Scott “Kidd” Poteet and Anna Menon will stay inside the capsule. Two lines of oxygen are helping the crew stay safe but their spacesuits do not include a Primary Life Support System, or PLSS, which is essentially a backpack that allows NASA astronauts to float more freely through space to carry out complex tasks. Francine quickly weakened to a tropical storm Wednesday just hours after making landfall in Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane, pelting the state with flooding rain and leaving nearly 400,000 homes and businesses without power. A flash flood emergency — the highest flood threat — was briefly in place for New Orleans and the surrounding area, where up to 8 inches of rain has fallen. Though it will continue to lose strength as it pushes inland, the storm is still capable of inflicting dangerous storm surge, floods and tornadoes. Airlines canceled all flights out of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on Wednesday and some additional cancellations were made earlier today. Voters and lawmakers are reacting to the debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump as the countdown continues to Election Day on November 5. Registered voters who watched the debate broadly agreed Harris outperformed Trump, according to CNN’s flash poll, but the Harris campaign is emphatic that the debate did not change the trajectory of the tight contest. Trump has since launched an attack on ABC News, claiming the debate was “rigged” and faulting moderators who live fact-checked him on air. Some House Republicans defended Trump’s performance but multiple Trump allies described what happened Tuesday night as a “missed opportunity.” Trump is now weighing a rematch after Harris’ team called for a second face-off in October. A chorus of Democrats is urging President Joe Biden to loosen the restrictions on Ukraine’s use of US-provided weapons to strike deep inside Russia. Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen on Wednesday became the latest senior lawmaker to call for the restrictions to be lifted. Democratic Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin also released a statement calling for the restrictions to be eased in light of “Vladimir Putin’s relentless attacks on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure.” The Ukrainian government has repeatedly made the appeal but the Biden administration has expressed concern about the potential for escalation. A US official told CNN this week that US intelligence shows that Russia has moved a number of assets outside of the reach of long-range strikes.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced a state of catastrophe in two regions in the south of the country early on Sunday as raging wildfires forced at least 20,000 people to evacuate and left at least 16 people dead.
The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty soldiers to prepare for deployment to Minnesota, according to defense officials cited by The Washington Post and ABC News, as Minnesota officials have also mobilized the National Guard.
The Democratic Party has a deeply motivated base and a clear advantage on the generic congressional ballot ahead of this fall’s midterms despite dismal impressions of its current leaders in Congress, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
American Battleground: Demolition Man – How Trump’s first year back is changing the nation’s capital
On a breezy autumn morning beneath skittering clouds, the demolition crew strikes quicker than almost anyone expected. Working seemingly under the sole command of President Donald J. Trump, who has long fashioned himself the Builder-in-Chief, they take only days to reduce the 123-year-old East Wing of the White House to rubble. No drawn-out debate. No approval by independent preservationists.
What was once a place of worship filled with precious objects packed with meaning now sits in heavy layers of dark soot, burdened by the pungent smell of smoke after someone set fire to Mississippi’s largest and oldest synagogue.
Dos semanas después del derrocamiento de Nicolás Maduro, los ciudadanos venezolanos que viven en diferentes países de la región siguen con atención lo que ocurre en la tierra que los vio nacer. Jimena de la Quintana visitó Gamarra, el emporio comercial más grande de Perú y uno de los más importantes de Latinoamérica, que es fuente de empleo de muchos venezolanos. ¿En qué condiciones regresarían esos migrantes venezolanos a su país? ¿Para ellos es suficiente que Maduro ya no esté en el poder?
The US on Saturday announced it conducted a lethal strike in Syria on an al Qaeda affiliate leader it says had direct ties to an ISIS attacker who killed three Americans in early December.
President Donald Trump has leaned into his presidential clemency powers much more aggressively in his second term –in fact, he’s pardoned one woman twice.
The Pentagon has ordered the military command that oversees new recruits’ enlistment to hold off on initial training for people who are HIV-positive and recently enlisted in the military, CNN has learned, saying that a decision on reinstating a Defense Department ban on their joining the military was “expected in the next few weeks.”
Democrat Abigail Spanberger was sworn into office Saturday as Virginia’s first female governor, amid a cold drizzle outside the state Capitol after centuries of men holding the commonwealth’s top office.
The European Union and the Mercosur bloc of South American countries formally signed a long-sought landmark free trade agreement on Saturday, capping more than a quarter-century of torturous negotiations to strengthen commercial ties in the face of rising protectionism and trade tensions around the world.
Judge restricts federal response to Minnesota protests amid outrage over immigration agents’ tactics
Immigration agents carrying out a sweeping operation in Minnesota can’t deploy certain crowd-control measures against peaceful protesters or arrest them, a federal judge ruled Friday. The order follows widespread outrage over a fatal shooting, reports of US citizens getting detained and Minnesotans getting asked for documents for no clear reason.
Celebrities and laypeople are sharing fond memories from 2016, the era of face “baking” and #ImWithHer, when some of the biggest national dramas pitted Kim Kardashian against Taylor Swift.