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New AMBER alert-like system would send alerts to people's phones when a shark is nearby

New AMBER alert-like system would send alerts to people's phones when a shark is nearby

Yahoo10-07-2025
A bipartisan bill to create an AMBER Alert-style shark warning system that alerts beachgoers of nearby predators is one step closer to reality.
The bill, which passed the Senate, known as Lulu's Law, would allow federal and local authorities to send cellphone alerts to notify beachgoers when a shark attack occurs or when conditions could lead to a heightened risk of incidents.
'If there's one shark feeding in that area, there could be others as well,' Dr. Greg Skomal with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, told Boston 25 News. 'We have seen a series of bites in a very small area in a short period of time in certain parts of the eastern seaboard of the U.S.'
Massachusetts has experienced notable attacks, including a 2018 incident at Longnook Beach in Truro where a 61‑year‑old man survived a great white shark bite, and a fatal attack at Wellfleet's Newcomb Hollow Beach the following month.
Sightings of great white sharks in the region, particularly near Cape Cod, have increased in recent years. Tracking studies from organizations such as the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy and UMass‑Dartmouth estimate that around 800 individual great whites passed through Cape Cod between 2015 and 2018.
Lulu's Law is named after 16‑year‑old Lulu Gribbin from Alabama, who lost a leg and a hand in a shark attack off the Florida Panhandle last year.
Sen. Katie Britt, who introduced the bill, told the Alabama Daily News that she spoke with Gribbin and her family after the bill passed, saying, 'It was just incredible. The joy in her voice, the excitement, you know how hard it is to get anything through this chamber, much less right now at such a divisive time, and the fact that we came together in a bipartisan way to move this forward is huge.'
Massachusetts state lawmaker Julian Cyr, who represents Cape and Islands, said he supports improving shark safety, but is worried that poor cell phone reception is limiting the alert system's effectiveness.
'The practicality of this law on Outer Cape beaches is limited,' Cyr told Boston 25 News. 'For our Atlantic-facing beaches on Cape Cod, we've had a real challenge around cell phone access.'
Supporters say the legislation would serve as an additional safety tool, not a replacement for apps like Sharktivity, which rely on sensors and GPS to track sharks, but instead would notify users only when a bite occurs.
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Flurry of trade deals offers relief for some Asian countries, while others wait
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Flurry of trade deals offers relief for some Asian countries, while others wait

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'Denying people's voices': Quintal files bill to change mail-in ballot rules after recount
'Denying people's voices': Quintal files bill to change mail-in ballot rules after recount

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'Denying people's voices': Quintal files bill to change mail-in ballot rules after recount

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How the dropping dollar could scramble Trump's agenda
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(Disclosure: Yahoo Finance is owned by Apollo Global Management.) It's also a narrative that the White House pushes hard against, with Trump taking an aggressive stance against BRICs, an intergovernmental organization comprising 10 countries that had floated a long-shot idea of a common currency. "They wanted to try and take over the dollar," the president said. Trump promised a 10% tariff in response and gloated last week that the group's influence is "fading out fast," likening the possible loss of the dollar's status as a reserve currency to "losing a world war." "Ten-year Treasury yields rallying down since Inauguration Day, four consecutive expectation-beating inflation reports, and the trillions in historic investment commitments that have poured into the United States since Election Day are all indicative of the confidence that investors and markets continue to have in our economy and currency," added White House spokesperson Kush Desai in a statement. 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He often casts the moves — as he did on CNBC earlier this month — as better understood as a strengthening of the euro instead of a weakening of the dollar. So far, at least, Trump's actions have focused on one side of Miran's thesis, the implementation of tariffs, but with much less focus on his corollary currency ideas beyond things like a mention of "currency practices" in his "Liberation Day" tariffs executive order. It has even led Miran to offer some distance from his own paper and, on possible currency actions, to suggest "could it be something that is entertained down the road? Sure." Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

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