The photo featured above is credited to NBC News.
1. AAA: Harvey Hikes National Gas Prices to Highest of Year for Holiday Weekend
Channel 5: Filling up at the pump is at its highest so far this year. AAA reports a high demand for gas during the popular Labor Day travel weekend and Harvey activity down in the Gulf region are causing the spike. Nationally, gas prices are averaging $2.45 per gallon Thursday. In Minnesota, however, the average gas price is cheaper than the national average, amounting to $2.36 per gallon for regular fuel.
Kare 11: The White House says President Donald Trump is pledging $1 million in personal funds to Harvey storm relief efforts. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the announcement at a briefing Thursday, and she says he's calling on reporters to help decide which specific organization he will give to.
Marketwatch: About 100,000 homes were damaged by Hurricane Harvey. Speaking at the White House, President Donald Trump's Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert said the administration would soon ask Congress for an initial round of emergency funding to aid relief efforts. He said a second request would be made after getting more information.
Swnewsmedia.com: A Chaska pillow manufacturing company is donating 60,000 pillows to victims of Hurricane Harvey. MyPillow, which is headquartered in Chaska and manufactures pillows in Shakopee, is bringing its open-cell, poly-foam pillows to sleep-deprived victims of the devastating hurricane that has flooded Houston and other Texas towns.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and his crew plan to pack up six trucks with pillows today, and take them to shelters and rescue organizations in the Houston area. Lindell said,"I’m all about helping people; that’s been my passion. I didn’t even hesitate. My passion’s always been to help people."
He also gave away pillows after Hurricane Sandy battered the East Coast and sent 4,000 pillows to Louisiana last year. He decided to launch the Lindell Foundation earlier than planned to help out with the disaster. He's been working on it for two years, with plans to create a foundation where 100 percent of the donations go toward needs, and he and MyPillow cover the overhead costs. He said he has $6 milllion into it and had planned to launch it in about a month-and-a-half.
2. Trump expected to announce end to Obama-era DACA, official says
Fox News: President Trump, as early as Friday, is expected to announce plans to end the Obama administration program that gave a deportation reprieve to hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants, a senior administration official told Fox News.
Trump promised to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, during the presidential campaign -- but since taking office had left the door open to preserving parts of it.
According to the official, Trump is expected to announce the program's end but will allow so-called “dreamers” currently in the program to stay in the U.S. until their work permits expire – which, for some, could be as long as two years. The program was formed through executive order by then-President Barack Obama in 2012 and allows for certain people who came to the U.S. illegally as minors to be protected from immediate deportation.
3. Philando Castile fund aims to wipe out lunch debts at St. Paul school
Star Tribune: A fundraiser to eliminate school lunch debts in the name of Philando Castile has been so successful that the organizer doubled the goal to $10,000. Castile, 32, was a nutrition supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori who was known affectionately by the kids as “Mr. Phil.”
He was fatally shot by a St. Anthony police officer while sitting behind the wheel during a traffic stop in July 2016 in Falcon Heights. Castile’s death became national news and a source of outrage in part because his girlfriend live-streamed the aftermath of the shooting on her cellphone. “Justice for Philando” remains a rallying cry for protesters against police violence.
Pam Fergus, a the psychology professor at Inver Grove Community College, is listed as the founder of the fundraising effort on youcaring.com. Her explanation is that the J.J. Hill School is “several thousand” dollars in debt. Some kids fall behind in their lunch payments. Lunches for an elementary school student cost about $400 for the school year.Castile supervised the J.J. Hill food program and saw the kids every day. “He knew their names and their diets,” Fergus wrote.
As of midday Thursday, the “Philando Feeds the Children” fund reported a balance of $5,423. Valerie Castile, Philando’s mother, pledged to match the final donation amount, Fergus wrote.
4. Death threat against mosquito gets guy's Twitter account permanently frozen
Foxnews: A Japanese man recently found his Twitter account permanently frozen after tweeting a violent message alongside a picture of a corpse: "Bastard! Where do you get off biting me all over while I'm just trying to relax and watch TV? Die! (Actually you're already dead)," wrote the user formerly known as @nemuismywife.
One thing to mention, though, that Twitter apparently did not realize: He was talking about a mosquito, which is also what his picture showed. As RocketNews24 reports, it appears an automated program flagged the account by searching for certain words and phrases.
The user, who is now tweeting as @DaydreamMatcha, received a notice from Twitter reading, "Thank you for using Twitter. Your account has been frozen because it was used to send messages containing threats. Tweets containing threats are not allowed under our terms of service. This account cannot be reactivated. Thank you for your understanding." "My account was permanently frozen after I said I killed mosquitoes ... this is a violation?" the user tweeted to Twitter Japan from his new account.
5. Largest asteroid in a century to whiz by Sept 1
phys.org: The asteroid was discovered in 1981, and is named Florence after the famed 19th century founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. A US space agency statement, "Florence is the largest asteroid to pass this close to our planet since the first near-Earth asteroid was discovered over a century ago.”
It is one of the biggest asteroids in the Earth's vicinity, and measures about 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) wide—or about the size of 30 Egyptian pyramids stuck together. Scientists plan to study the asteroid up close when it passes, using ground-based radar imaging in California and Puerto Rico.
Asteroids are small, natural rocky bodies that orbit the Sun. Large asteroid collisions with Earth are rare. A car-sized asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere about once a year and burns up before reaching the surface. NASA said, "about every 2,000 years or so, a meteoroid the size of a football field hits Earth and causes significant damage to the area.”
"Finally, only once every few million years, an object large enough to threaten Earth's civilization comes along."
Scientists are confident that Florence will not be one of them.