Helene’s survivors shoulder catastrophic loss and destruction after storm leaves at least 213 dead
CNN
More than a week has passed since Helene rammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast as a hurricane and began slicing what would become a deep scar of loss and destruction from there to Virginia, killing at least 213 people and obliterating countless homes, businesses and lifetimes worth of precious belongings.
More than a week has passed since Helene rammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast as a hurricane and began slicing what would become a deep scar of loss and destruction from there to Virginia, killing at least 213 people and obliterating countless homes, businesses and lifetimes worth of precious belongings. Searches for missing loved ones grow more desperate each day as officials say hundreds are unaccounted for and rescue crews are hindered by cell service outages and ruined roads and bridges. People have reported hiking hours to check on trapped loved ones and spending agonizing moments scouring soaked river banks for those swept away with their homes. In North Carolina’s Buncombe County, where Asheville is situated, more than 200 people were unaccounted for as of Thursday and 72 people had been found dead so far, the county sheriff said. The scope of destruction is becoming clearer as people slowly regain access to their neighborhoods, only to find their homes in tatters or washed away completely by floodwaters. A couple in Swannanoa, North Carolina, say they barely escaped last week as floodwaters gushed into their home and transformed the neighborhood into a river, pulling their truck down the street. They returned to find the inside of their house had been overturned and caked in mud, nearly everything destroyed. “We lost just about everything we owned, and that included vehicles,” Joe Dancy told CNN’s Laura Coates on Thursday night. “But we have the most important thing: our lives. And we are forever and always going to be thankful for that.”
One month until voters head to the polls, the Justice Department is caught in a thorny intersection of election-year politics and continuing the work of the nation’s top law enforcement agency – trying to maintain its reputation for impartiality while also continuing to pursue the prosecution of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate.
Georgia prosecutors urge Supreme Court to keep Mark Meadows’ election subversion case in state court
State prosecutors in Georgia who are pursuing election subversion charges against former President Donald Trump urged the US Supreme Court on Thursday to allow their case against his former chief of staff Mark Meadows to continue in state court.
Former House GOP conference chair Liz Cheney and former Trump White House aides Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson and Sarah Matthews will make the case against the reelection of former President Donald Trump in a fireside chat in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 9, CNN has exclusively learned.
Former first lady Melania Trump said in a new video posted Thursday that she believed there was “no room for compromise” when it comes to a woman’s “individual freedom,” after The Guardian reported excerpts from her forthcoming book in which she says she supports abortion rights “free from any intervention or pressure from the government.”