NewsFloods hit Italy, ISS crew rotation, and Cuba blackout. Here is what happened overnight
Floods hit Italy, ISS crew rotation, and Cuba blackout. Here is what happened overnight
It happened while you were sleeping. Here's what global agencies reported on during the night from Friday to Saturday.
- Two Italian regions, Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, are dealing with local flooding due to rivers and streams overflowing after severe downpours. A third-highest level weather alert will also be in effect there on Saturday. Dozens of people have been evacuated from threatened areas. In Tuscany, flooding was noted in towns around Prato, Pistoia, Florence, Pisa, and Lucca. In many of these places, the decision was made to close schools on Saturday. In Emilia-Romagna, the weather alert was announced around Bologna, Ferrara, and Ravenna. There were also local floods. Residents of flood-threatened areas, including near Imola, have been evacuated.
- A Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On board the Dragon capsule is the new crew for the International Space Station. On the return trip, the capsule will bring back two members of the old crew and two astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who were stranded on the station due to a failure of their spacecraft. They were supposed to spend eight days on the ISS but have been there for nine months.
- Reuters reported that a failure in Cuba's national power grid caused power outages in Havana and throughout the country on Friday evening. The previous blackout in Cuba occurred in November, when about half of the country was powerless. Since October last year, the country has been in an energy crisis, which was exacerbated a month later by Hurricane Rafael, which passed over the island.
- The US Senate passed a six-month budget stopgap measure on Friday, hours before the existing budget expires. This means there will be no government shutdown, which would suspend the functioning of most federal agencies. Fifty-four out of 100 senators voted to continue the current budget until the end of the fiscal year, which is the end of September, including two Democrats.
