Geoff Bennett:
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on today’s violence, but in past incidents, it claims troops have fired warning shots at people they described as suspects.
This week’s dangerous summer heat is finally easing across much of the Eastern U.S. Some 72 million Americans from the Ohio Valley to the Deep South and the mid-Atlantic remained under heat alerts today, but that’s less than half the number from just a few days ago. In the Northeast, the cool down has been dramatic. In places like Boston and New York, temperatures have fallen from the triple digits down to the 60s and 70s in some places.
Meantime, a series of severe storms are hitting the Southeast, leading to scenes like this west of Tampa, Florida, yesterday. The elderly woman who was inside this home at the time survived the storm.
In France, violent thunderstorms overnight killed at least two people and injured 17 more. On the streets of Paris, the torrential storms flooded streets and sent residents ducking for cover. French media is reporting that toppled trees were to blame for the two fatalities, one each in Southwest and Northwest France.
The storm also damaged this 11th century church in Normandy. Its roof and bell tower crashed down into the nave and the downpours even leaked onto the floors of Parliament, with lawmakers pausing their debate to look up at the water dripping down.
And on Wall Street today, stocks posted solid gains. The Dow Jones industrial average added 400 points on the day. The Nasdaq rose nearly 200 points. The S&P 500 closed just a touch below its all-time high.
And former Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy has died. As a Democrat from New York’s Fourth Congressional District, she was known as the doyen of anti-gun advocates in the House. McCarthy’s activism on the issue began after her husband was shot and killed in a mass shooting back in 1993. That led to a congressional run in 1996, which she won. She served in the House for 18 years.
In 2013, McCarthy announced that she was being treated for lung cancer after she retired from Congress soon after. Carolyn McCarthy was 81 years old.
