10 things you need to know today: August 14, 2022

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1. Rushdie's condition improves as suspect pleads not guilty
2. Trump lashes out at FBI over Mar-a-Lago raid
3. Russia can no longer resupply forces defending Kherson, Ukraine claims
4. Nearly 1 million Michiganders, including Flint residents, placed under boil water advisory
5. Shooting near Jerusalem's Western Wall injures 8, including a pregnant woman
6. Zelensky: Russian troops shooting at or from nuclear plant are a 'special target' for Ukrainian forces
7. Democratic rep. says 'off the record' that Biden is 'not running again'
8. Saudi Aramco quarterly profits up 90 percent over last year
9. Lt. Gov. Josh Green wins Hawaii Democratic gubernatorial primary
10. Suspect in custody after car ploughs through crowd at fundraiser, killing 1 and injuring 17

published 14 August 2022

1. Rushdie's condition improves as suspect pleads not guilty

Author Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed Friday in New York, was "off the ventilator and talking (and joking)" by Saturday evening, writer Aatish Taseer tweeted. The suspect in the stabbing, 24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, was charged on Saturday with assault and attempted murder. He pleaded not guilty. Matar's social media accounts reportedly revealed sympathies with Shiite Islamist extremism. Rushdie has faced Islamist death threats for decades following the publication of his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.

Former President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Sunday to blast the FBI over Monday's raid on Mar-a-Lago. "The FBI has a long and unrelenting history of being corrupt ... In the modern era, nothing has changed except that it has gotten far worse," Trump truthed. "The whole World was watching as the FBI rummaged through the house, including the former First Lady's closets (and clothing!), alone and unchecked," he continued. Trump also claimed that "there was no way of knowing" if the classified material federal agents took from Mar-a-Lago had been planted there. The FBI reportedly recovered 11 sets of classified documents during the raid,

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A Ukrainian strike has damaged the last usable bridge spanning the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast, a local Ukrainian official said Saturday. Serhiy Khlan, a deputy to the Kherson Regional Council, wrote on Facebook that without the bridges, Russian forces occupying Kherson "no longer have any capability to fully turn over their equipment." The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War assessed that the loss of those bridges would likely leave the Russians unable "to defend themselves against even limited Ukrainian counterattacks." The strikes on the bridges were conducted as part of a Ukrainian counteroffensive aimed at retaking Kherson.

A water main break in southeastern Michigan prompted the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) to advise some 935,000 people in the affected region to boil their drinking water. The advisory was issued Saturday and includes the city of Flint. That afternoon, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer activated the State Emergency Operations Center, which is "working to fulfill" incoming "requests for bottled water," Whitmer's office said. The GLWA explained that "[a] loss of pressure can lead to bacterial contamination in the water system" and that "[b]oiling water before using it will kill bacteria and other organisms that may be in the water."

A gunman opened fire on a bus near Jerusalem's Western Wall on Saturday, wounding eight people. Two people are in critical condition, including a pregnant woman, who underwent an emergency C-section. The baby is reportedly in serious condition but stable. The suspect surrendered to Israeli authorities on Sunday morning. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said anyone involved in the shooting would "pay a price for any harm to our civilians."

Russian troops firing at or from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant will become a "special target" for Ukraine forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday. "Every Russian soldier who either shoots at the plant, or shoots using the plant as cover, must understand that he becomes a special target for our intelligence agents, for our special services, for our army," he warned in his nightly address. Russia captured the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe's largest, early in the war and has blamed Ukrainian forces for shelling the plant.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who has represented parts of New York City since 1993, said in a New York Times interview published Saturday that President Biden is "not running again" in 2024. The exchange began when journalist Eleanor Randolph asked Maloney whether Biden should run for a second term. "Off the record, he's not running again," Maloney responded. According to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, journalistic ethics stipulate that a source cannot unilaterally go off the record. The reporter must agree. Maloney later said "on the record" that Biden "should not run again."

Saudi Arabian state-owned oil giant Aramco reported profits of $48.4 billion in the second quarter of 2022, up 90 percent from the $25.5 billion in quarterly profits the company brought in a year earlier. This windfall, driven partly by the disruption to global supply caused by the war in Ukraine, left the Saudi Arabian government with a budget surplus of $21 billion in the second quarter. "While global market volatility and economic uncertainty remain, events during the first half of this year support our view that ongoing investment in our industry is essential — both to help ensure markets remain well supplied and to facilitate an orderly energy transition," said Aramco President and CEO Amin Nasser.

Hawaii Lt. Gov. Josh Green (D) won his state's Democratic gubernatorial primary Saturday, soundly defeating former Hawaii first lady Vicky Cayetano and Rep. Kaiali'i Kahele (D-Hawaii). Green, who continued to work as an emergency room doctor while serving alongside term-limited Gov. David Ige (D), received 63.6 percent of the vote. Cayetano and Kahele received 21.3 and 13.9 percent, respectively. Green is heavily favored to win the general election in the deep-blue Aloha State, but first he'll have to defeat former Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona (R), who defeated mixed martial artist B.J. Penn in Saturday's primary.

A suspect is in custody after allegedly ploughing his car into a crowd of people at a fundraiser for families affected by a deadly fire, killing a woman and injuring 17 people. The incident took place Saturday near the Intoxicology Department bar in Berwick, Pennsylvania. Nearby Geisinger Hospital reported that four victims are in critical condition. The suspect, 24-year-old Adrian Oswaldo Sura Reyes, was arrested at the scene of a separate assault that left a second woman dead in neighboring Luzerne County. Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Anthony Petroski said police were still working to determine whether the suspect intentionally drove his car into the crowd.

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Grayson Quay was the weekend editor at TheWeek.com. His writing has also been published in National Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Modern Age, The American Conservative, The Spectator World, and other outlets. Grayson earned his M.A. from Georgetown University in 2019.