5 vital stories to know this week
From over 220 people being killed by Hurricane Helene to journalists from mainstream media outlets accusing their news agencies of bias, here are five stories to know this week.
Over 227 are dead from Hurricane Helene, as FEMA runs out of funding to last during hurricane season
The death toll from Hurricane Helene has risen to 227 across seven states, including Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, becoming the second deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,833 people in 2005.
A massive rescue and relief effort is underway with officials trying to restore power, deliver meals, rebuild water and cell infrastructure, and get supplies to areas that were cut off after Helene tore up roads and bridges.
Although officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA]said they could meet the immediate needs of people affected in those seven states, including direct payments for temporary housing, personal property, and home repair costs, it does not have enough funding to make it through the hurricane season, which will be “above normal,” according to the NOAA
"We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane to hit. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season, "Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters Wednesday.
Here are some ways to donate to victims of Hurricane Helene
10 CNN and BBC journalists say their outlets have a “pro-Israel bias” and have frequently violated journalistic principles
Ten journalists who have covered the war on Gaza for CNN and the BBC told Al Jazeera in anonymity that since Oct. 7, there has been a “pro-Israel bias in coverage, systematic double standards, and frequent violations of journalistic principles.”
In several cases, the journalists accused senior newsroom figures of failing to hold Israeli officials to account and of interfering in reporting to downplay Israeli atrocities, which the International Court of Justice has called a plausible genocide.
“But after October 7, the ease with which I saw news lines that supported the Israeli narrative come out really shook me,” one journalist told Al Jazeera. “There were times where CNN was happy to push hard. But on balance, it’s very clear where we lie, regrettably. And it’s not entirely with the truth.”
Judge denies request from Black student punished over dreadlocks to return to Texas school
A US judge has denied a request from Darryl George, a 19-year-old Black student from Texas, who had asked for a court order to protect him from suspension over his dreadlocks, which violated his high school’s dress code.
George asked district Judge Jeffrey Brown to issue a temporary restraining order so he could return to Barbers Hill High School as a federal lawsuit he filed over the suspension proceeds. But in his ruling on Friday, Judge Brown denied the request, saying he had waited too long to ask for the order, according to the BBC.
Since the start of the school year, Geroge has been suspended and handed several disciplinary penalties for refusing to cut his hair. The school district referred to its dress code, which says hair cannot be "below the top of a T-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, or below the ear lobes when let down".
But George refused to cut his braided dreadlocks, with the family citing its cultural significance in the black community. Consequently, he was placed in-school suspension and later required to attend an off-campus program.
"He has to sit on a stool for eight hours in a cubicle," his mother told the Associated Press last year. "That's very uncomfortable. Every day he'd come home, he'd say his back hurts because he has to sit on a stool."
California bans legacy admissions at private colleges
On Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill prohibiting private colleges from giving admissions advantages or “legacy admissions” to students whose parents donated to or attended the same institution. The new law affects universities such as USC, Stanford, Claremont McKenna, and Harvey Mudd, which previously considered family connections in their admissions processes, according to the Los Angeles Times
“The California Dream shouldn’t be accessible to just a lucky few,” he said in a statement, underscoring the state’s commitment to equitable access to education,” Newsom said in a statement.
While the California State University and the University of California systems do not practice legacy admissions, the new law does not impose specific financial penalties on institutions that violate it. Instead, the California Department of Justice will name and shame non-compliant colleges by listing them publicly on its website in the following fiscal year.
Israel-Hamas war: one year later
October 7, 2024, marks the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 250 people, 97 of whom are still being held hostage, and displaced more than 60,000 Israelis’ from the country’s northern portion.
In response, the Israeli military launched a siege on Gaza, killing over 42,000 people, or 2% of the Palestinian population, with over 15,000 of them being children. The Lancet, a medical journal, says these numbers are a rough estimate and the actual death toll is above 200,000 or 10% of their population.
More than 10,000 of Gaza’s population is missing and more than 97,000 are injured. Over 4,000 children have lost at least one limb, according to the Human Rights Watch.
Over 2 million Palestinians are without protection, food, water, sanitation, shelter, health care, education, electricity, and fuel—the basic necessities to survive,” according to the UN
304 aid workers have been killed by Israeli airstrikes
128 journalists have been killed, including some in targeted strikes, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists
Israel has deliberately blocked aid from getting into Gaza and used “starvation as a weapon of war," according to Human Rights Watch and the USAID.
The International Court of Justice, the United Nations Report of the Special Rapporteur, various human rights organizations, and Palestinians on the ground have called on Israel’s actions on Gaza a genocide.