Hurricane Ernesto, Harris, Trump, Israel, Gaza, Hamas, Jordan Chiles: Daily Briefing
Hurricane Ernesto boasted maximum sustained winds of 80 mph last night. New polling suggests Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in five of seven battleground states. USA TODAY investigates how PFAs made their way into your drinking water.
🙋🏼♀️ I’m Nicole Fallert, Daily Briefing author. Meet dinosaur skeleton “Gnatalie.”
Hurricane Ernesto lurks off the US coast
Swaths of Puerto Rico remain submerged Thursday after Hurricane Ernesto unleashed torrential rain and damaging winds that triggered flash flood warnings and cut power for thousands of residents.
Though Ernesto is expected to remain offshore from the U.S. East Coast, officials said swells are forecast to reach the region into the weekend — increasing the risk of life-threatening surf and rip currents.
Harris leads Trump in five battleground states
Kamala Harris is ahead of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona, while the candidates are tied in Georgia, according to a new survey released Wednesday. The findings suggest multiple paths to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election have opened for Harris. Read more
The news to know on Thursday
What’s the weather today? Check your local forecast here.
Hamas will skip Gaza truce talks
Hamas said would not take part in a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks slated for Thursday in Qatar, but an official briefed on the talks said mediators expected to consult with the militant group afterwards. The U.S. has said it expects indirect talks to go ahead as planned on Thursday, and that a cease-fire agreement was still possible − while warning that progress was needed urgently to avert a wider war. Read more
Now Parvovirus B19 is a thing
More people in the U.S. have become infected with Parvovirus B19, a highly transmissible seasonal respiratory virus that can pose serious risks to pregnant people and those with blood disorders, health officials say. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a broad warning on Tuesday to health care providers, health agencies and the public. For most, the highly-contagious infection is mild.
More stories we’re reading
Wondering who (or what) put forever chemicals in your drinking water? USA TODAY investigated.
How a gymnastics saga, not the gymnastics, became the story
Jordan Chiles and two Romanian gymnasts would all get bronze medals if an arbitration panel could award them, and said “a great deal of heartache” could have been avoided had there simply been a way to verify in the moment whether a scoring appeal was submitted on time. The International Gymnastics Federation needs to put a mechanism in place so a similar situation “never happens again,” the ad-hoc panel of the Court of Arbitration for Sport wrote this week. Read more
Photo of the Day: Nice to meet you, baby Toni
Baby pygmy hippopotamus Toni made a first public appearance Thursday at the Berlin Zoo in Germany. Toni’s mother, Debbie, has raised a few hippos already. The first of the highly endangered species came to Europe from Sierra Leone in 1873.
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