deconstruct

Record-breaking rainfall paralyzed much of Hong Kong on Friday, with flash flooding submerging metro stations and trapping drivers on roads, as authorities suspended schools and urged the public to seek safe shelter.

Photos and videos showed residents wading through murky brown floodwaters as heavy rain continued to fall. In some low-lying areas, streets were transformed into surging torrents, with authorities forced to rescue motorists stuck in their vehicles.

The deluge began late Thursday night, with the Hong Kong Observatory recording more than 158 millimeters (6.2 inches) in rain between 11 p.m. and midnight, the highest hourly rainfall since records began in 1884, the government said in a news release.

Some parts of the densely populated city of 7.5 million saw almost 500 mm (19.7 inches) of rainfall in 24 hours, according to online weather data site OGimet.

Paqui, the maker of extremely spicy tortilla chips marketed as the “One Chip Challenge,” is voluntarily pulling the product from shelves after a woman said her teenage son died of complications from consuming a single chip.

The chips were sold individually, and their seasoning included two of the hottest peppers in the world: the Carolina Reaper and the Naga Viper.

Each chip was packaged in a coffin-shaped container with a skull on the front.

Lois Wolobah told NBC Boston that her 14-year-old son, Harris Wolobah, ate the chip Friday, then went to the school nurse with a stomachache. Wolobah said Harris — a sophomore at Doherty Memorial High School in Worcester, Massachusetts — passed out at home that afternoon. He was pronounced dead at the hospital later that day, she said.

Until sales of the product were suspended, Paqui's marketing dared people to participate in the challenge by eating a chip, posting pictures of their tongues on social media after the chip turned it blue and then waiting as long as possible to relieve the burn with water or other food.

The challenge has existed in some form since 2016.

Republican strategists are exploring a shift away from “pro-life” messaging on abortion after consistent Election Day losses for the GOP when reproductive rights were on the ballot.

At a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans this week, the head of a super PAC closely aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., presented poll results that suggested voters are reacting differently to commonly used terms like “pro-life” and “pro-choice” in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, said several senators who were in the room.

The polling, which NBC News has not independently reviewed, was made available to senators Wednesday by former McConnell aide Steven Law and showed that “pro-life” no longer resonated with voters.

“What intrigued me the most about the results was that ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ means something different now, that people see being pro-life as being against all abortions ... at all levels,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in an interview Thursday.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said the polling made it clear to him that more specificity is needed in talking about abortion.

“Many voters think [‘pro-life’] means you’re for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever, ever, and ‘pro-choice’ now can mean any number of things. So the conversation was mostly oriented around how voters think of those labels, that they’ve shifted. So if you’re going to talk about the issue, you need to be specific,” Hawley said Thursday.

Hundreds of people have protested in southern Syria to urge President Bashar al-Assad to step down, capping nearly two weeks of demonstrations that had erupted over poor living conditions but have spiralled into renewed calls for political change.

“Bashar out! Syria free!” shouted a large crowd on Friday in the city of Sweida, according to the Reuters news agency.

Syria is in a deep economic crisis that has seen its currency plunge to a record low of 15,500 Syrian pounds to the dollar last month in a rapidly accelerating free fall. It had traded at 47 pounds to the dollar at the start of Syria’s war 12 years ago.

The protests were initially driven by surging inflation and the war-torn country’s worsening economy but have quickly shifted focus with marchers calling for the fall of al-Assad’s government.

Centred in the government-controlled province of Sweida, the heartland of Syria’s Druze, a religious minority that had largely stayed neutral in the conflict between al-Assad and the Syrian opposition, the protests are unusual.

Open criticism of the government had remained rare in government-controlled areas, but as the economic situation has grown worse, the discontent has gone public.

On Friday, an international Delta flight bound for sunny Barcelona was forced to U-turn back to its starting point, Atlanta, for an exceedingly rare air travel horror: a passenger had suffered diarrhea throughout the plane's aisle so extensively that completing the flight was deemed untenable.

News of the incident first hit Reddit's r/ATC subreddit, to which a user shared alarming FAA flight information marking the ill-fated flight's decision to turn around.

"DIVERT TO ATL — PASSENGER DIARRHEA ALL OVER A/C," the flight strip read. "BIOHAZARD."

We tracked one of the plane's unlucky passengers down — and they confirmed that the diarrhea was, in fact, "ALL OVER" the cabin aisles, just as that flight strip read.

"I woke up and there was a bit of a strange smell," the passenger, who chose to remain anonymous while speaking of his Diarrhea Plane experience, told Futurism, adding that the flight attendants were forced to perform some DIY ingenuity to deal with the excrement.

"They found everything they could use," said the passenger, explaining that the airline staff used aprons to craft "makeshift biohazard suits" to wear while dealing with the defecatory disaster. Blankets and napkins, meanwhile, were utilized to cover the feces.

You might be imagining that Delta obviously just got these travelers a new plane, right? After all, this one was covered in human feces. But alas, there seemingly weren't enough jets to go around, and according to the passenger, the airline ultimately settled the issue by simply ripping out the Airbus' soiled carpets and giving the passenger plane an extra-thorough clean before reboarding it.

"They actually took out all the carpets for one section of it," the passenger said. "We were waiting three hours at the airport while they were trying to clean it, but they couldn't clean it, so they had to rip off the carpet and change it."

"Then we were back on," they added. "No problem."

The passenger also noted that the plane's staff fully switched over for the second flight attempt, which we're glad to hear. Anyone who's forced to make a biohazard suit out of aprons and proceeds to manage an in-flight diarrhea crisis for the next several hours deserves some time off, not to mention a raise.

An 11-year-old Wisconsin boy accused of murdering his mother has been ordered to stand trial.

The boy is charged with first-degree intentional homicide. The district attorney's office is seeking to try him as an adult. The court has ordered that the boy's name not be revealed because he may still be tried as a child.

In July, the court found the boy competent, according to court records.

Milwaukee Detective Timothy Keller testified in court on Tuesday about speaking with the boy about his mother's death.

The detective said he questioned the boy the next day and the then 10-year-old boy admitted shooting her but called it an accident, according to WISN.

"[The boy] stated that he took up a shooting stance and was pointing the gun at her as she was walking towards him and asking him to put it down. And that's when he indicated that he fired the gun with his intent to scare her by shooting the wall behind her," Keller testified.

"He had made a purchase on his mother's Amazon account for some virtual reality goggles the morning after this homicide occurred. And [family] were concerned because he had had an argument with her about whether he could have these prior to the homicide," Keller said.

Sen. John Fetterman offered a message Wednesday to House Republicans considering impeaching President Joe Biden: “Go ahead, do it. I dare you.”

Speaking to reporters in his Senate office, the Pennsylvania Democrat suggested that the impeachment push by Republicans on the other side of the Capitol was meant to deflect from the mountain of legal problems facing former President Donald Trump.

"Your man has what, three or four indictments now?" Fetterman said. “Trump has a mug shot and he’s been impeached twice.”

"Sometimes you just gotta call their bullshit," he said.

The first-term senator went on to say that a Biden impeachment "would just be like a big circle jerk on the fringe right,” and "would diminish what impeachment really means."

Note: As pointed out by reddig33 in comments, this is an old photo. Here's a couple examples of his new look.

In December 2020, an adviser to Rudy Giuliani circulated a draft email addressed to the White House seeking “provisional” security clearances for the former mayor and members of his team as part of their work to keep Donald Trump in power.

The adviser, Katherine Friess, also helped Giuliani woo potential donors to finance Trump’s effort to reverse the results of the election. She helped draft a “strategic communications plan” for a final push to keep Trump in office, a document that became a focus for Jan. 6 investigators and that called for placing paid ads on radio and TV alleging widespread voter fraud. At the same time, Friess warned other Trump aides that their claims about dead people voting in Georgia were weak — but Trump continued to trumpet those claims anyway.

Friess, a national security consultant with deep roots in Washington, kept a low profile, but in November and December 2020, she was Giuliani’s jack-of-all-trades. A host of emails and documents exchanged by Friess and other Giuliani aides have been turned over to special counsel Jack Smith, according to a person familiar with the investigation granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive material.

Dozens of those documents, which have been reviewed by POLITICO, add new detail to the public understanding of how Trump’s allies operated after Election Day — and how they grappled with obstacles both immense and quotidian.

Friess, who did not respond to inquiries, has not been accused of any wrongdoing — by prosecutors or by Congress. And she has not been mentioned in either of the criminal cases charging Trump with conspiring to subvert the election. Two Georgia election workers who are suing Giuliani for defamation tried unsuccessfully to subpoena and depose her. But after searching for her for months, they gave up, saying Friess “vanished.”

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a “parental rights” group that has sought to take over school boards in multiple states, to the Florida Commission on Ethics on Wednesday.

Tina Descovich was named to the nine-member, Tallahassee-based commission, which investigates alleged breaches of public trust by elected and appointed officials, as well as state employees.

The group’s support for school choice and the “fundamental rights of parents” to direct their children’s education has also drawn allies such as the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Moms for Liberty has been labeled an “extremist” organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center for allegedly harassing community members, advancing anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation and fighting to scrub diverse and inclusive material from lesson plans.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) on Wednesday said 2024 will be the last election “decided by ballots rather than bullets” if former President Trump doesn’t win the presidential race because of his various legal battles.

In the latest episode of his show on TBN, Huckabee argued the legal woes now facing Trump are part of a politically motivated scheme from the Biden administration, an argument touted by many in the former president’s orbit.

“If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets,” Huckabee warned in his opening monologue.

Huckabee accused President Biden and his team of trying “to make sure that Donald Trump is not his opponent in 2024″ and “to destroy Trump in the courthouse rather than at the ballot box.” He also alleged the Justice Department, the IRS and the FBI are “conspiring to hide the Biden family crimes, while all the time being obsessed with charging Donald Trump with crimes.”

A key witness in the case accusing former U.S. President Donald Trump of mishandling classified documents after leaving office has entered into a deal with prosecutors to provide testimony, his former attorney said in a Wednesday court filing.

The deal was reached after U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office threatened to prosecute the witness, who is the head of information technology at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Florida resort, for lying to a grand jury, the attorney, Stanley Woodward, said in the filing.

Woodward currently represents Walt Nauta, one of the two Trump employees also charged in the documents case, in addition to having previously represented the IT head, who is not named in Wednesday's filing.

Prosecutors have said the employee is likely to testify at trial, posing a potential conflict of interest for Woodward, who will face the prospect of a former client testifying against a current client.

Four preliminary laboratory studies released over the weekend found that antibodies from previous infections and vaccinations appear capable of neutralizing the variant, known as BA.2.86.

"It is reassuring," says Dr. Dan Barouch, who conducted one of the studies at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

When it was first spotted, BA.2.86 set off alarm bells. It contains more than 30 mutations on the spike protein the virus uses to infect cells. That's a level of mutation on par with the original Omicron variant, which caused a massive surge.

The concern was BA.2.86, while still rare, could sneak around the immunity people had built up and cause another huge, deadly wave.