News chronological

Hours before the earthquake struck, Mount Ibu on the island of Halmahera erupted, sending an ash plume five kilometers into the sky.

Rescue efforts are being hindered by the country's rugged terrain and its status as an archipelago of over 17,000 islands, which makes reaching remote villages difficult. Specifically, many areas are being cut off by landslides and communication failures, such as in the Nagekeo region where communication signals were affected.

Authorities issued a tsunami warning for four provinces: East Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara, and Southeast Sulawesi. The alert was lifted roughly three hours later after no significant sea-level changes were detected.

At least 47 people were killed, with fatalities concentrated in Sikka, Manggarai, and East Manggarai; in the village of Reok in Manggarai regency, 16 bodies were recovered from a single landslide. Regarding property damage, 157 houses were flattened and nearly 200 more were damaged, forcing approximately 2,000 villagers into temporary shelters.

George Bush Intercontinental Airport already operates an ablution station with an adjoining prayer room. The facility is reported to be furnished with Qurans, prayer rugs, prayer beads, and a turbah, which is a small clay tablet used in Islamic prayer.

Governor Abbott directed a review of all state grants to both DFW Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport, warning that funding could be revoked and future grants denied. He also referred both airports to the U.S. Department of Transportation for a federal probe.

Governor Abbott argued that the facilities were unconstitutional because they appeared to single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion. He stated that because the airports are government-owned, the federal and state constitutions prohibit the government from facilitating such discrimination or favoring one religious view over others.

A regulatory filing from an outside design firm on July 31 estimated the cost at $300,000 with a target completion by year's end, though a DFW spokesperson later stated the actual cost would have been closer to $120,000. The stations were proposed for the pre-security side of Terminal D, which is the airport's international terminal.

El-Sayed's father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, has served on ISNA's founding committee since 2007 and has contributed $300,000 to a political action committee supporting El-Sayed's Senate bid. Additionally, El-Sayed has a mortgage through University Bank (University Islamic Financial), a convention sponsor, and owns between $150,000 and $425,000 in Amana Funds, another convention sponsor.

Other speakers include Siraj Wahhaj, a New York-based imam described as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Yasir Qadhi, a Texas-based imam who has called the Holocaust a "hoax"; and Hussam Ayloush, a CAIR official who stated after October 7 that "Israel should be attacked."

ISNA was founded as an American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-funding case, a designation that has not been lifted.

Tariq Masood, a Pakistani mufti and cleric, is scheduled to speak. He admitted in a 2021 sermon to arranging the marriage of his 13-year-old niece and has faced criticism for antisemitic rhetoric, including a 2024 sermon titled "The Final Humiliation of the Jews."

Senate Republicans on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress and referred the matter to the Department of Justice for criminal review.

The diary entries revealed behind-the-scenes relationships between Dr. Fauci and prominent media figures, including CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, NBC journalist Andrea Mitchell, and ABC's George Stephanopoulos, and suggested his private thoughts about COVID may have contradicted his public health statements.

Moran stated that his personal feeling at the time leaned slightly toward a natural origin, though he noted that if it had leaked from the lab, he did not believe it was a "Frankenvirus."

The team claimed to have broken news that the Wuhan lab had received funding from the Chinese military, despite denials from Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, often referred to as the "Bat Lady."

The Climate Prediction Center projects wetter-than-average conditions across the southern third of the country and enhanced chances of below-normal precipitation in the northern third.

El Niño winters are typically warmer across the continental United States, particularly from the Pacific Northwest to the Great Lakes, though warmth may also extend to the West Coast and Southeast with less certainty.

These regions are experiencing drier-than-average conditions, which Michelle L'Heureux of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center describes as consistent with textbook El Niño behavior.

Sea-surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean have climbed more than 3.6 degrees above average.