Tip News Daily Brief

Your Daily Brief

August 14th, 2023

Good morning, and happy Monday! The peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower happened over the weekend, lighting up the sky to those who were watching’s delight. The astrological event saw the appearance of 100 meteors an hour. Check out the stunning photos captured by stargazers across the globe and let us know if you were able to see some meteors yourself!

In Today’s Brief

Iran: Attack on the Shah Cheragh shrine
South Carolina: Senator John Scott dies
Women’s Open: Lilia Vu secures the title
FTX: Co-founder in jail for witness tampering

...and more

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Top Tips

Hawaii fires aftermath

Fires on Hawaii's Maui Island have killed at least 93 people, marking the deadliest American wildfire in over 100 years.

Authorities have warned that the effort to find and identify the deceased is still in its early stages. Crews with cadaver dogs have covered 3% of the search area, according to Maui Police Chief John Pelletier. At least 2.2K buildings have been damaged or destroyed in West Maui, reported Governor Josh Green, with 86% of them being residences. The Pacific Disaster Center and FEMA estimated that 2.17K acres of Maui have burned, per a news release from Maui officials. An estimated 4.5K residents are seeking shelter.

The recent fires are Hawaii’s deadliest natural disaster in decades, surpassing a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people. The blaze spread rapidly on August 9th as a result of a mix of conditions, including dry vegetation and a combination of strong winds and low humidity from Hurricane Dora, which was passing to the south of the island.

Kansas news outlet police raid

Local police in Marion, Kansas, conducted a raid on the offices of a local newspaper, the Marion County Record, as well as the homes of the publication’s publishers and reporters.

Marion Police removed the Record's computer file server, other computers, personal cell phones, and other equipment, according to the outlet. A search warrant signed by Judge Laura Viar claimed probable cause over alleged violations related to identity theft and unlawful acts concerning computers. Eric Meyer, the owner of the Record, criticized the raid, arguing that it violated the federal Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits law enforcement from most searches of journalists and newsrooms. The Marion Police Department responded that the law does not apply to instances when journalists are suspected of criminal wrongdoing.

In a joint statement, National Press Club president Eileen O’Reilly and Gil Klein, president of the organization’s Journalism Institute, said they were “shocked and outraged by this brazen violation of press freedom.” The Record said it planned to file a lawsuit against Marion PD.

A fifth force of nature

Scientists working at a particle accelerator near Chicago announced that they may be getting closer to discovering the existence of a new force of nature.

The researchers have found more evidence that sub-atomic particles, called muons, are not behaving in the way predicted by the current theory of sub-atomic physics. In their experiment, the researchers accelerated sub-atomic particles around a 15m-diameter ring, where they circulated about 1K times at nearly the speed of light. The results showed that the muons wobbled faster than the standard model, the best theory to describe the sub-atomic world, said they should. Scientists have suggested that an unknown force may be acting on the muons.

According to current understanding, all of the forces we experience every day can be reduced to four categories: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. These four fundamental forces govern how all the objects and particles in the universe interact with each other.

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Quick Tips

Around the Globe

Seven people were killed after Russian shelling in Ukraine’s Kherson region, according to the country’s Internal Affairs Ministry; Kherson was one of four regions in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed last year (More)
Ecuadorian authorities deployed nearly 4K soldiers and police to transfer gang leader Jose Adolfo Macias, alias "Fito," to a maximum security prison; Macias is accused of sending death threats to Ecuador's murdered presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio (More)
An attack on Iran’s Shah Cheragh shrine left one dead and eight wounded after a man open fired on visitors, per reports from Iranian state media; this is the second deadly attack in less than a year at the shrine in Iran’s southern city of Shiraz (More)

On the Homefront

An explosion in a suburb outside Pittsburgh left five people dead and three injured, according to county officials; the initial explosion destroyed three houses and damaged at least a dozen more (More)
U.S. Attorney David Weiss was appointed special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe by Attorney General Merrick Garland; Weiss will be responsible for the “ongoing investigation" of President Joe Biden's son "as well as for any other matters that arose or may arise from that investigation” (More)
South Carolina State Senator John Scott passed away yesterday after a stint in the hospital, according to lawmakers across the state; Scott served for more than three decades and was 69 at the time of his passing (More)

Glitz & Games

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Tom Jones, the lyricist, director, and writer of The Fantasticks, died at the age of 95 of cancer; the musical, co-created by Jones and composer Harvey Schmidt, is the longest-running musical in history, running for over 42 years (More)
American tennis player Lilia Vu took home her second major championship of the year, securing the AIG Women’s Open title over the weekend; she is the first American female player to win two majors in the same year since Juli Inkster in 1999 (More)
Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ has earned $1.18B at the worldwide box office and now ranks as the second-highest-grossing release in the history of Warner Bros.; meanwhile, Oppenheimer has earned $649M worldwide and ranks as the highest-grossing World War II film in history (More)

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Business & Markets

Major indexes in the stock market closed mixed on Friday, with the Dow gaining while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 lost (Dow +0.30%, Nasdaq -0.68%, S&P 500 -0.11%)
$14B in revenue has gone to over 625 Black-owned companies and brands since May 2020 through an initiative to support Black entrepreneurs; Nordstrom, Macy’s, Sephora, Gap, and Ulta Beauty are among the 29 retailers partnered with the nonprofit organization Fifteen Percent Pledge (More)
A federal judge revoked bail for FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, citing probable cause that the accused attempted to tamper with witnesses; Bankman-Fried, 31 years old, has pleaded not guilty to multiple conspiracy and fraud charges (More)

Tips & Tricks

Feel Good: Meet Guoliang Liu, a researcher a Virginia Tech who discovered a way for plastic waste to be turned into soap thanks to a eureka moment he had while sitting by a fireplace; Liu’s findings were published in the journal Science and are making their way into the world as you read this
Sneak Peek: Check out the terrifying official trailer for the upcoming movie Elevator Game, which brings a nail-biting urban legend to life
Bump This: English troubadour James Bay brings the 70s back to life in his poignant, huge new single “Goodbye Never Felt So Bad” - listen on Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube
Chow Down: It’s time to soak up the final weeks of summer, and there’s no better way to do that than by giving in to your sweet tooth - try out this recipe for homemade blackberry crisp that features juicy summer berries with a toasty oat and brown sugar topping (bonus points if you serve it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream)
Go Deep: History has seen many empires and civilizations last a few decades at most, while others stretch on for centuries - read up on which civilization holds the title for the longest-lasting empire in the history of the world and how they were able to stick around for so long
Hot Goss: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was “time to move on” from the potential fight between him and Elon Musk, claiming that the former “isn’t serious” about the event; the two CEOs agreed in June to have the cage match
Life Hack: Our minds are more powerful than we realize, and can often shape whether situations end up turning out for the better or worse - here are five proven ways to quiet down negative thoughts when they pop up, according to a clinical psychologist

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From baking to writing, see the best time for everything.

Looking Back…

On August 14th: An international force seizes Beijing to crush the Boxer Rebellion (1900); British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issue the Atlantic Charter (1941); Pakistan becomes a sovereign state, bringing an end to British rule there (1947); actress Halle Berry is born (1966).

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