10 things you need to know today: August 30, 2023

Florida post office boarded up for Hurricane Idalia

(Image credit: Christian Monterrosa / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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1. Idalia expected to hit Florida as dangerous Category 4 hurricane
2. Prigozhin buried in low-key funeral
3. Grad student charged with 1st-degree murder in UNC shooting
4. Medicare drug negotiations begin
5. Meta says it stopped major Chinese influence campaign
6. Greece wildfire becomes largest recorded by EU
7. Raimondo warns Beijing it is making China 'uninvestable'
8. Miami mayor ends GOP presidential bid
9. Gabon soldiers seize power, cancel election result
10. August ends with rare super blue moon

published 30 August 2023

1. Idalia expected to hit Florida as dangerous Category 4 hurricane

Hurricane Idalia rapidly strengthened over the Gulf of Mexico early Wednesday, becoming an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm with top sustained winds of 130 miles per hour as it headed toward northwest Florida. Authorities warned of "catastrophic storm surge and destructive winds" as Idalia approached the Florida coast somewhere north of Tampa Bay in the Big Bend region. "One word: Leave," Cedar Key official Sue Colson warned residents of the small island in Idalia's path. The 88- to 89-degree Gulf waters, some of the world's hottest, are "effectively rocket fuel" for the storm, Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach told the Tampa Bay Times. Idalia is projected to churn into Georgia and coastal South Carolina after slamming Florida.

About 20 to 30 people attended Tuesday's funeral for Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia's Wagner mercenary group who was killed when his plane crashed a week ago between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Prigozhin was buried in St. Petersburg, and the funeral was closed to the public, enforced by armed police. Prigozhin was known for his profanity-filled rants against Russia's military leadership as he led his forces in Ukraine. Prigozhin, two of his top lieutenants, four bodyguards and the plane's crew were killed in a crash. The cause remains officially unknown, but Western observers presume that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Prigozhin and Wagner's other leadership killed in retaliation for a brief, humiliating mutiny two months ago.

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Prosecutors on Tuesday charged a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate student, Tailei Qi, with first-degree murder for the fatal shooting of his faculty advisor, associate professor Zijie Yan, in a science lab building on Monday. Qi, a 34-year-old applied physics student with an undergraduate degree from Wuhan University in China, also is accused of illegally having a 9mm handgun on campus. The shooting, which occurred after students returned to North Carolina's flagship public university for the fall semester, prompted administrators to impose a three-hour lockdown while police searched for the suspect.

The Biden administration on Tuesday released its first list of 10 prescription medicines subject to price negotiations by Medicare, as directed under last year's Inflation Reduction Act. The law allows Medicare, which covers health care for 66 million people, to negotiate lower prices for some of its most expensive medications. The list of covered medicines includes popular blood thinner Elequis from Bristol Myers Squibb and rheumatoid arthritis treatment Enbrel from Amgen. Up to nine million seniors paying as much as $6,497 per month are expected to benefit from price reductions. "Today is the start of a new deal for patients," Biden said.

Meta said in a report released Tuesday that it had taken down thousands of fake accounts used in a Chinese influence campaign that was the largest such covert operation it had ever seen. Meta said it removed 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 Facebook pages, 15 Facebook groups and 15 Instagram accounts linked to the campaign. The Chinese effort — which also used YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest and X, formerly Twitter — dated to 2019 and was known as "Spamouflage" because it involved the frequent posting of spam messages. Meta said the campaign had little success spreading pro-China messages. "We have not found evidence of this network getting any substantial engagement among authentic communities on our services," the company said.

A wildfire that continued to burn out of control in Greece on Tuesday is now the largest single blaze recorded since the European Union began keeping track in 2000. Ongoing fires have now burned 310 square miles in Greece. The E.U. has responded with the economic bloc's biggest aerial firefighting operation ever. Balazs Ujvari, a spokesperson for the E.U.'s executive branch, said Tuesday that the bloc was sending 11 firefighting planes, a helicopter and 400 firefighters to help Greece fight to contain the flames. The fires have been fueled by record-setting summer heat that also contributed to wildfires across other parts of Europe and North Africa.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Chinese officials Tuesday that the United States wants to maintain ties with China, but concerns about Beijing's policies are scaring international businesses away. Raimondo, who is in the middle of a four-day trip seeking to ease tense relations between Beijing and Washington, met Tuesday with Premier Li Qiang, China's No. 2 government official, and Vice Premier He Lifeng, who leads on economic matters. She said afterward that she had pressed her Chinese counterparts on American businesses' concerns about crucial matters, including intellectual property theft, capricious fines and raids on businesses. "Increasingly, I hear from businesses China is uninvestable because it has become too risky," Raimondo said.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced Tuesday that he was ending his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Suarez made the decision after failing to qualify for the first GOP primary debate last week. His campaign lasted just 76 days. "While I have decided to suspend my campaign for president, my commitment to making this a better nation for every American remains," Suarez, 45, posted on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. Suarez had polled around 0.2%, according to FiveThirtyEight's national polling average. He raised millions of dollars to fund his effort, but never caught on with Republican voters as he was overshadowed by two other candidates from Florida: former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Mutinous soldiers in Gabon said Wednesday they had removed President Ali Bongo Ondimba, whose family has been in power for 55 years, to overturn an election marred by fears of violence and allegations of fraud. Crowds celebrated in the streets of the capital, Libreville. Gabonese activist Scheena Donia, who lives in France, told BBC News the coup was "frightening" but better than continuing leadership by Bongo, who has held office since 2009. This is the latest in a series of coups and coup attempts against governments with ties to France, the region's former colonizer. Mutinous soldiers seized power from Niger's democratically elected government a month ago.

A rare super blue moon — the second full supermoon of August — will light up the sky Wednesday night. It will be one of the brightest and largest-appearing moons of the year. A blue moon is the second full moon of the calendar month. The Aug. 1 full moon was the second in a string of four supermoons, the last of which will be a harvest moon on Sept. 28. Supermoons are 16% brighter than a typical full moon, and appear bigger because they occur when the moon's orbit brings it closest to the Earth. NASA has compared the difference in the appearance from the ground to the size disparity between a quarter and a nickel.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.