Month: December 2024

The storm system that has produced multiple tornadoes and hazardous conditions in the South has caused the death of at least four people through the weekend.

Two deaths were reported with several more injured as multiple tornadoes touches down in Natchez and Lowndes County, Mississippi, while one death was reported in Brazoria County, Texas. A fourth death was reported in Iredell County, North Carolina, after a tree fell on a vehicle, killing a man on Landis Highway on Sunday morning. Madison Polston, spokesperson for the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office, said there were “multiple touchdown points” in the county between Liverpool and Hillcrest Village and Alvin. She said that so far officials knew of around 10 damaged homes but were still working to determine the extent of the damage.

Saturday’s storms produced 36 preliminary tornadoes across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, with the National Weather Service’s severe storm tracker indicated the system was moving east through Alabama into Georgia shortly before 4 a.m. The agency issued severe thunderstorm warnings with the possibility of tornadoes in western Georgia and the northwestern tip of Florida directly above the Gulf of Mexico.

As of Sunday, the storm system pushed its way east, leaving over 20 million people from the eastern Gulf Coast to the Carolinas at risk of extreme weather. Tornado watches are in effect from North Carolina to north Florida, including in the cities of Jacksonville; Savannah, Georgia; and Charleston, South Carolina. Storms that form through Sunday afternoon will be capable of producing 70 mph wind gusts as well as small hai; severe risk will diminish by Sunday evening.

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Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, has died at the age of 100. Carter had been in hospice care at his home in Plains, Ga., since February 2023; his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, passed away on Nov. 19 at age 96.

The former president’s death was confirmed in a brief statement from the Carter Center, which read: “our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia.”

Carter, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, was a member of a Georgia farming family and served as a state senator and governor before defeating incumbent Gerald Ford in a close 1976 presidential election. He served one term, from January 1977 to January 1981, before losing his bid for re-election in 1980 in a landslide to Republican Ronald Reagan, gaining just 49 electoral votes to Reagan’s 489.

Carte wonton to redefine his life after the White House as a global humanitarian. Carter returned to Georgia and win 1982 founded The Carter Center, an Atlanta-based nongovernmental organization dedicated to peace and human rights. Carter’s work through The Carter Center was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Carter became the nation’s longest-lived president on March 22, 2019, surpassing George H.W. Bush’s lifespan. Bush died in November 2018, having lived 94 years and 171 days. Carter celebrated his 99th birthday on Oct. 1.

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Marianne Williamson, a self-help author and former two-time Democratic presidential candidate, announced Thursday that she is running to become the next chair of the Democratic National Committee. DNC members will elect the party’s new chair and other officers at its winter meeting Feb. 1. There will also be a series of four forums to allow those running for DNC chair to speak with party members and lay out their vision for the Democratic Party.

Williamson, 72, said in a video announcing her candidacy: “I am announcing I’m running for DNC chair, because I feel that I can bring a level of expertise to the process of lifting up this possibility of victory over the next two and four years in a way that will not occur if we are only looking traditional means of politicking in order to make that happen.”  She added that she’s been talking to Democratic voters about what they’d like to see from their party: “I’ve traveled extensively throughout this country, and I’ve seen how much pain there is out there. I’ve been up close and personal with people who didn’t have health care, who couldn’t survive on just one job, who were so depressed about so many of the conditions in their lives that were, in fact, at least indirectly due to bad public policy, and too many of them didn’t feel like the Democratic Party had their back.”

Williamson is first female candidate to enter the race to succeed outgoing DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, joining  a wide field of candidates who previously announced their bids for chair, including: former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Minnesota Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, New York state Sen. James Skoufis and former Maryland Senate candidate Robert Houton.

Williamson said in her video: “We need to know what it was that made people feel that their wallets were more important than their pain. We need to understand what it is that has made people emotionally and psychologically disconnect from a sense that the Democratic Party was part of a great legacy in American history ..I want to help people connect with the political issues that are going on in their lives in a very real and personal way. And I want to help people understand that by connecting to the Democratic Party, they can truly make a difference.”

Additionally, in an open letter to DNC members, Williamson laid out her plan for the party and urged Democrats to sign a petition to allow her to participate in candidate forums that will be held in January:  “As chairwoman, I will work to reinvent the party from the inside out. For if we want a new president in four years, and a new Congress in two, then we must immediately get about the task of creating a new party.”

Williamson said under her leadership, the Democratic Party will be one that “listens more, and makes people feel that their thoughts and feelings are as important as their wallets, and advocates unequivocally for the working people of the United States … We won’t just fight; we will inspire. We will create a surge of patriotic fervor, and a connectedness of the American heart to the great historical legacy of this country. Our ultimate success will be creating in people’s minds a sense that in order to further that legacy, your smartest move is to vote for Democrats.”

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