Typhoon Yutu Strikes Gaum
Typhoon Yutu hit the Northern Mariana Islands on Oct. 24, destroying over 100 homes. The White House issued a state of emergency for the Northern Mariana Islands starting on Oct. 24. According to a White House press release, “The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the municipalities of Rota, Saipan, Tinian, and the Northern Islands.” FEMA was authorized to provide Federal assistance to the relief efforts, with the Federal government providing 75 percent of the funding for the relief efforts.
Ireland Votes to Overturn Blasphemy Law
The referendum is set to affect Article 40 of the Irish constitution, which states “The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with [the] law”. This law went into effect in 1937, since then no one has been prosecuted in accordance to it. This referendum is part of the Irish government’s attempt to modernize their constitution.
Protestors Cause Google to Drop Berlin Campus
Google’s plans to build a 3,000-square-meter facility in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin was halted by protestors against the gentrification of the area. Google then gave the land to two nonprofit organizations. Activist Konstantin Sergiou from the No Google Campus Alliance group told CNN, “We are happy to see that a small neighborhood which is organized and connected in the spirit of solidarity and equipped with a reasonable critique of tech-capitalism and its effects on local communities is able to successfully stand up to one of the biggest companies worldwide.”
