need2know-afternoon-edition-082823

Are the headlines. You need to know. Let's start with politics. Former President Donald Trump's arraignment has been set for September 6 in Atlanta for his alleged alleged involvement to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The scheduling order was released this morning by a state court next Wednesday. The former president is expected to enter a plea in the 13 felony charges against him including racketeering. His former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani will be arraigned in that same case. That's according to court documents. The other 17 co defendants, they include Trump's former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows are also scheduled to be arraigned next week in Fulton County. Separately, a federal judge who is overseeing the criminal election interference case has rejected Trump's bid to move the trial to 2026. Judge Tanya Chuk has also rejected special counsel, Jack Smith's push for the trial to begin on January 2nd two weeks before the Iowa caucus had scheduled a trial to begin on March 4th of 2024 and said this morning quote, these proposals are obviously very far apart and for reasons I will discuss shortly. Neither of them is acceptable. A federal judge heard arguments today on whether to move former Chief of staff, Mark Meadows case from Fulton County, Georgia to Federal Court. As we mentioned, Meadows is one of the 19 co defendants including former President Trump charged with racketeering in the 2020 Georgia election probe. Trump and the other co defendants in the case were booked at the Fulton County jail in Georgia last week for their alleged involvement in overturning the 2020 Georgia election. Meadows took the stand in Fulton County this morning saying the actions he took after the 2020 election were made within his White House duties at the time. If Meadows request to move his case to federal court is approved, it would be open to try under a more GOP leaning jury than that. In Fulton County, tropical storm Idalia could make landfall in Florida as a category three hurricane as soon as tomorrow evening. Currently, the storm is south of Cuba but is expected to rapidly intensify as it heads north towards Florida's west coast. Both Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis and President Biden have issued a state of emergency for Florida. Mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders are in place for three counties and the Tampa Airport confirmed it will and all flights starting Tuesday. Further east Franklin became the first major Atlantic hurricane of the season. Two people died in the Dominican Republic when Franklin made landfall in the country as a tropical storm last week. This week, Franklin is expected to cause rough surf on the east coast and gusty winds as it passes. Bermuda vigils were held yesterday for the three people killed Saturday in a racist shooting in Jacksonville, Florida. The gunman initially attempted to enter the campus of Historically Black Edward Waters University but was turned away by campus security. He then drove to a nearby dollar tree where he fatally shot three people and then himself, the Jacksonville Sheriff said this quote, the shooting was racially motivated and he hated black people. The sheriff's office then released images of the gunman's weapons including swastikas drawn on the side of one of them. Authorities believe the guns were purchased legally. President Joe Biden responded to the shooting saying we must refuse to live in a country where black families live in fear of being gunned down. Hawaiian Electric says Maui County's lawsuit against them is legally and factually irresponsible. The company claims that its power lines could not have started the deadly wildfire that claimed the lives of at least 115 people. Hawaiian Electric says its power lines started a fire the same morning but that it was extinguished by local fire departments. The Electric Utility company also says its records show all of its lines were de energized six hours before the fast spreading Leena fire on Saturday. Hawaiian Electric denied a report from the Washington Post claiming they've removed evidence from the scene where the fires began. At least three US. Marines are dead after an aircraft crashed during a training exercise in Australia. Yesterday, eight marines are currently hospitalized five in serious condition. Now the Australian Defense Force, the US Department of Defense and the Marines are working together on recovery efforts. According to the marines, the crash happened yesterday around 9:30 a.m. local time near the northern city of Darwin. 23 personnel were aboard the Bell Boeing V 22 Osprey aircraft in a tweet us. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote these marines served our country with courage and pride and my thoughts and prayers are with their families today, with the other troops who were injured in the crash and with the entire US MC family, the cause of the crash remains under investigation. Flights in the UK are experiencing delays and cancellations today after some technical issues, UK based Logan Airport wrote there was a network wide failure of UK, air traffic control computer systems according to flight where nearly a third of flights heading in or out of London's two airports have been delayed today and across the UK, over 300 flights have been canceled in a statement from NATS that's the local air traffic control provider. They said quote, we have identified and remedied the technical issue affecting our flight planning system. This morning. We are now working closely with airlines and airports to manage the flights affected as efficiently as possible. Our engineers will be carefully monitoring the system's performance as we return to normal operations. China will no longer require a negative COVID-19 test resulting for those traveling into the country. The announcement was made today by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, a spokesperson, I should say Wang Wen Bin during a press briefing the country has been ending some of the strict pandemic policies they've had in place as we near four years since the emergence of COVID-19. According to new information from the American Library Association, 2022 saw a record number of requests to ban books at us. Public schools data shows there were 1050 requests to censor library books at 70% increase over the previous year. The director of the Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom said, what we are seeing now is organized political advocacy groups, go to school boards with an agenda with a long list of books they want banned because those books don't fit their political, moral or religious agenda.