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South Rescuers Seek Survivors After Storms Kill 9

(CTN NEWS) – SELMA, Ala. – After a tornado-spawning storm system plowed through parts of South, Georgia and Alabama, killing at least nine people, and severely damaging Selma, a flashpoint of the civil rights movement, rescuers raced on Friday to find survivors.
Authorities detailed extensive damage that included thousands of homes without power, uprooted trees sent crashing through buildings, people trapped beneath fallen homes, a freight train that derailed amid strong winds, and more.
On Friday, those who had survived gave thanks as they combed through the rubble to see what might be saved.
As Tracey Wilhelm observed the wreckage of her mobile home in Autauga County, Alabama, she remarked, “God was surely with us.”

Taylor Jordan helps hang a tarp on his sister’s home following Thursday’s tornado damage on County Road 68 in Marbury, Ala., on Friday, Jan. 13, 2023.(Jake Crandall/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP)
Thursday’s storm took her mobile home off its foundation and dropped it several feet away in a pile of debris while she was at work. She claimed that her husband and their five dogs scurried into a shed that was still standing.
Later, rescue personnel discovered them inside unhurt.
According to Buster Barber, the coroner for Autauga County, about 100 rescuers, including volunteers and experts, combed through the debris in search of survivors.
“At least 14 counties in Alabama and five in Georgia have reported potential tornado damage,” according to the National Weather Service, which is investigating the twisters.

This image taken with a drone shows tornado damage Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, in Selma, Ala. (DroneBase via AP)
A tornado in rural Autauga County killed at least seven people, and the tornado’s devastation was consistent with an EF3 tornado, which is just two notches below the strongest category of tornadoes.
The meteorological service reported that the tornado had winds of at least 136 mph (218 kph).
Before the brunt of the weather moved across Georgia south of Atlanta, downtown Selma, which is located around 40 miles (64 kilometres) to the southwest, also suffered significant damage.
As workers combed through toppled trees for survivors, Ernie Baggett, the emergency management director for Autauga County, reported that at least 12 people had been evacuated to hospitals.

Workers remove a downed tree from a house in Selma, Ala., Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, after a tornado passed through the area. Rescuers raced Friday to find survivors after a tornado-spawning storm that barreled across parts of Georgia and Alabama. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)
According to him, 40 residences—including numerous mobile homes propelled into the air—were demolished or severely damaged.
They weren’t just blown away, he claimed. They were “swept far away.”
In Selma, the city council convened outdoors using cellphone lighting and proclaimed a state of emergency.
According to Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Director James Stallings, a falling tree in Butts County, in the centre of Georgia, killed a 5-year-old child in a moving vehicle. He claimed that a parent who was driving sustained serious wounds.
According to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a state Department of Transportation employee was killed elsewhere while reacting to storm damage. He said nothing more in-depth.

Cars carefully navigate downed trees and power lines on Chestnut Blvd. in Selma, Alab., Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, after a tornado passed through the area the day before. Rescuers raced Friday to find survivors after a tornado-spawning storm system that barreled across parts of Georgia and Alabama. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)
Kemp used a helicopter on Friday to inspect some of the worst storm damage. He claimed that rescue workers had to dig inside collapsed homes to liberate trapped occupants in certain locations.
Kemp told reporters, “We know folks buried under the basement of homes where the entire house fell.”
According to the governor, the storm caused damage across the state, with some of the worst damage occurring in Troup County, close to the Georgia-Alabama border, where more than 100 homes were affected, and at least 12 people received medical attention.
Before John Reed joined his wife in a closet where they sought refuge as a possible tornado descended on their Troup County home, she begged him again.
Strong gusts tore off the couple’s home’s roof and threw wooden planks into their SUV’s grill.
John Reed told The LaGrange Daily News that the time between opening the door and discovering there was no ceiling was “about five seconds.” “Everything had simply given way.”

Remnants of downed trees lie in front of a damaged house in Selma, Ala., Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, after a tornado passed through the area. Rescuers raced Friday to find survivors in the aftermath of a tornado-spawning storm system that barreled across parts of Georgia and Alabama. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)
The storm came as people gathered for a wake at Peterson’s Funeral Home in Griffin in Spalding County, south of Atlanta.
A tremendous boom signaled the impact of a massive tree on the structure, and about 20 people scurried for cover in a bathroom and an office.
The funeral home’s chief operational officer, Sha-Meeka Peterson-Smith, stated, “When we came out, we were in absolute disbelief. We were aware of everything but unaware of just how horrible everything was.”
She claimed that a viewing room, a lounge, and the front office were all destroyed when the uprooted tree fell through the front of the building. Nobody was harmed.
The Selma tornado left a broad path across the city center. Oak trees were uprooted, cars were flipped onto their sides, brick structures fell, and electrical lines were left hanging.
Selma Mayor James Perkins stated that despite several significant injuries, no fatalities were reported.

A house is damaged by an uprooted tree on Mabry St. in Selma, Ala., Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, after a tornado passed through the area. Rescuers raced Friday to find survivors after a tornado-spawning storm system that barreled across parts of Georgia and Alabama. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)
Kathy Bunch was inside when the Selma Salvation Army Service Center’s tornado sirens went off. While a roar reverberated throughout the brick structure, she ducked into a rear room and prayed.
“It removed the roof. It broke the windows, according to Bunch. And I’m just thankful to God that I’m still alive.”
On Friday, as utility poles swung at strange angles and electricity lines sagged in the roadway, Selma workers used heavy machinery to remove shattered wooden framing and damaged siding.
During her visit, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey vowed to encourage President Joe Biden to swiftly declare a major disaster in order to begin distributing help.

A damaged house is surrounded by debris in Selma, Ala., Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, after a tornado passed through the area. Rescuers raced Friday to find survivors in the aftermath of a tornado-spawning storm system that barreled across parts of Georgia and Alabama. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)
According to officials, federal aid will be essential for places like Selma, where over 30% of the 18,000 residents live in poverty.
Selma, which is roughly 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, was a flashpoint of the civil rights movement where, on March 7, 1965,
Black people marched peacefully for voting rights across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and were mercilessly beaten by state police.
According to Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University who specializes in tornado trends, three factors contributed to Thursday’s unusual tornado outbreak:
A natural La Nina weather cycle, warming of the Gulf of Mexico likely caused by climate change, and a decades-long eastward shift of tornado activity.
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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.
Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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