What to Know
- It has been a year since the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, which happened in Las Vegas and claimed the life of 58 people
- A landlocked surf resort in Central Texas closed after a man who visited died from what is commonly known to as a "brain-eating amoeba
- Brett Kavanaugh was the center of attention on 'Saturday Night Live's' season 44 premiere, with Matt Damon playing the Supreme Court nominee
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'Tragedy of Grand Scale': Events Mark Date of Vegas Shooting
It has been a year since the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, and a woman set to talk at a sunrise ceremony commemorating the lives lost says that although hearts are still healing, she hopes people can move forward from the enormous tragedy with "love and light." Among survivors, victims' family members, first-responders and elected officials offering prayers, songs and speeches, Mynda Smith will remember her sister. Nyesa Davis Tonks was killed by a gunman in a high-rise hotel raining gunfire into a crowd of 22,000 at an outdoor country music concert on the Las Vegas Strip. Nyesa pronounced her name "Neesha." She was a 46-year-old single mother originally from the Salt Lake City area who was raising three boys in Las Vegas. Smith said she was energetic, adventurous, a fan of all kinds of music. Many who were cheering Jason Aldean's headline set on the Las Vegas Strip late Oct. 1, 2017, said later they thought the rapid crack-crack-crack they heard was fireworks — until people fell dead, wounded, bleeding.
US and Canada Reach Free Trade Deal With Mexico
Canada was back in a revamped North American free trade deal with the United States and Mexico after weeks of bitter, high-pressure negotiations that brushed up against a midnight deadline. In a joint statement, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the agreement "will strengthen the middle class, and create good, well-paying jobs and new opportunities for the nearly half billion people who call North America home." The new deal, reached just before a midnight deadline imposed by the U.S., will be called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. It replaces the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, which President Trump had called a job-killing disaster. The agreement gives U.S. farmers greater access to the Canadian dairy market. But it keeps a NAFTA dispute-resolution process that the U.S. wanted to jettison and offers Canada protection if Trump goes ahead with plans to impose tariffs on cars, trucks and auto parts imported into the United States.
Evidence Doesn't Support Claim Against Kavanaugh, Prosecutor Says
Local
No reasonable prosecutor would bring sexual assault charges against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh based on the public evidence, the prosecutor whom Republicans hired to ask the questions during last week's Senate hearing said in a memo to senators, NBC News reported. In the memo, which was sent to all Republican senators and was obtained by NBC News, Rachel Mitchell, the deputy county attorney in charge of the Special Victims Division in Maricopa County, Arizona, said her "bottom line" was that "a 'he said, she said' case is incredibly difficult to prove." "But this case is even weaker than that," Mitchell wrote. "Dr. Ford identified other witnesses to the event, and those witnesses either refuted her allegations or failed to corroborate them." "I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the committee," she wrote. During her Senate testimony, Christine Blasey Ford said she was "100 percent" certain that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were in high school. Kavanaugh has strongly denied the allegation. The FBI is conducting a one-week supplementary investigation after the Judiciary Committee cleared Kavanaugh's nomination on a party-line vote last week.
NJ Man Dies From 'Brain-Eating Amoeba'; Surf Resort Closes
A landlocked surf resort in Central Texas closed after a man who visited died from what is commonly known to as a "brain-eating amoeba." The Waco Tribune-Herald reports Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is testing BSR Cable Park's Surf Resort for Naegleria fowleri, a rare but highly deadly ameba colloquially known as a "brain-eating amoeba." BSR Cable Park owner Stuart E. Parsons Jr. said it will continue to comply with requests related to the investigation of Fabrizio Stabile's death. The 29-year-old man died in New Jersey earlier this month after falling ill with Naegleria fowleri. Parsons said Stabile had been in the park's wave pool. Officials are investigating the source. The surf resort has closed pending the test results from the CDC.
'SNL' Taps Matt Damon for a Raging Kavanaugh
Judge Brett Kavanaugh was the center of attention on "Saturday Night Live's" season 44 premiere, with Matt Damon playing a sniffling and shouting Supreme Court nominee defending himself against sexual assault allegations. The show opened with a portrayal of Kavanaugh's fiery and emotional hearing, opting to skip an impression of Christine Blasey Ford's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ford said with "100 percent" certainty that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teens. Kavanaugh defiantly said he is "100 percent certain" he didn't do it, and the FBI is now conducting a background investigation into Ford's claims before the full Senate votes on his confirmation. A raging Damon played up the outbursts that littered Kavanaugh's testimony by yelling into the microphone, audibly sniffling between shouts, aggressively flipping pages of his script and choking up at the mention of his high school friends and now famous summer calendars. He stayed hydrated too, chugging glasses of water and spilling them down his suit.
