Life-threatening flooding continued across southeastern Texas Thursday morning as Tropical Rainstorm Imelda continued to dump prolific amounts of rain across the region, inundating homes and streets and prompting numerous requests for rescue.

As of early Thursday morning, Imelda, which became a short-lived tropical storm on Tuesday before making landfall in Freeport, Texas, had produced over 40 inches of rain near Hamshire, Texas, about 65 miles east of Houston. Over 25 inches of that rain fell in 12 hours.

AccuWeather meteorologists are predicting an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 55 inches of rain.

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Thursday unveiled his plan to reform the U.S. healthcare system by offering everyone coverage under the federal Medicare program, but not forcing people to give up private heath insurance plans.

“For years, Washington politicians have allowed the pharmaceutical industry, giant insurance companies, and powerful hospital systems to profit off of people when they are at their sickest and most vulnerable,” said Buttigieg, who is mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

“My ‘Medicare for All Who Want It’ plan will create a health care system that puts power in the hands of each American.”

President Trump appeared to distance himself from embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, declining to offer either encouragement or praise to his most enthusiastically loyal foreign ally now that he faces potential electoral defeat.

Speaking a day after Israeli elections that at best leave Netanyahu weakened, Trump seemed cool to the Israeli conservative who has touted his ideological lockstep with Trump as a chief reelection credential.

Trump said he had not spoken to Netanyahu, a man he has described as a close friend. He then noted that the election is close while playing down Netanyahu’s importance to the alliance between the United States and Israel.

Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, the last member of the Democratic dynasty serving in Washington, plans to formally announce Saturday that he is launching a primary challenge to Senator Edward J. Markey, an audacious political move that could open fissures within the Democratic Party and reshape the Massachusetts political landscape.

Kennedy will make his announcement at a breakfast with supporters and local community members at East Boston Social Centers, according to two people close to him. From there, Kennedy will tour the state through Monday, highlighting issues he plans to center his campaign on, including health care access, mental health and addiction issues, climate change, and civil rights, the people said.

Kennedy informed Markey of his decision Wednesday, one of the people added.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) quietly parted ways with his Iowa political director in recent weeks, his campaign confirmed Wednesday, part of a series of recent staff shake-ups in key early states.

The campaign announced in March that Jess Mazour would be political director in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, part of a first wave of early state hires. She is no longer on the team.

“We’ll continue to make moves that we feel best position this campaign to win,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a written statement after The Washington Post reached out to the campaign about the matter.

A campaign official who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the situation said Mazour was let go in late summer and will not be replaced. Mazour, who was a high-ranking campaign aide but not the director of the Iowa effort, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The campaign did not publicly announce her departure at the time.

The White House this week began circulating a much-anticipated gun background check proposal to Republicans on Capitol Hill, though it’s unclear if President Donald Trump supports it.

The White House’s plan would expand background checks to all commercial gun sales, including gun show sales, according to a document obtained by POLITICO and first reported by The Daily Caller. It’s similar to a proposal from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

Under the White House proposal, background checks would be conducted through federal firearm licensees, also known as FFLS, or a newly created group of licensed transfer agents. Sellers would choose voluntarily whether the federal firearm licensees or a transfer agent keeps records of the transactions.

Gun violence hits America’s youth and rural states the hardest and has reached the highest levels in decades, a report released Wednesday by Democrats on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee has found.

U.S. teens and young adults, ages 15-24, are 50 times more likely to die by gun violence than they are in other economically advanced countries, according to the 50-state breakdown.

In 2017 — the year of a mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 and injured hundreds — nearly 40,000 people died from gun-related injuries, including 2,500 school children, the report said, noting that six in 10 gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides.

That year marked the first time firearms killed more people than motor vehicle accidents, the report said.

President Donald Trump may still be thinking about supporting expanded background checks for gun sales after all.

Driving the news: A memo titled “Idea for New Unlicensed-Commercial-Sale Background Checks” was being circulated as Attorney General Bill Barr and the White House’s legislative affairs director Eric Ueland visited this week with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Why it matters: The president was expected to say this week what, if any, gun control legislation he is prepared to support. Advocates were doubtful he would support expanded background checks because polling suggested it could hurt his standing with core supporters.

East Texas was facing days of heavy rains and flash flooding Wednesday as Tropical Storm Imelda, downgraded to a tropical depression, still packed a dangerous punch for millions of residents.

Tropical Storm Imelda made landfall Tuesday afternoon near Freeport, 60 miles south of Houston. Imelda, crawling north at about 5 mph, was the first named storm to slam onto Texas shores since the staggering devastation of Hurricane Harvey two years ago.

Some areas could see up to 18 inches of rain before the storm rolls away at week’s end, the National Weather Service warned. By early Wednesday, more than 10 inches of rain already had been reported in St. Bernard and Chocolate Bayou.

India banned the production, import and sale of electronic cigarettes on Wednesday, a public health decision that will dash the expansion plans of companies such as Juul Labs and Philip Morris International in the country.

The ban will be imposed through an executive order and will include jail terms of up to three years for offenders. It was not clear whether the use of such products would be prohibited.

India’s health ministry, which proposed the ban, had said it was needed to ensure e-cigarettes don’t become an “epidemic” among children and young adults.

Abortion in the United States has decreased to record low levels, a decline that may be driven more by increased access to contraception and fewer women becoming pregnant than by the proliferation of laws restricting abortion in some states, according to new research.

“Abortion rates decreased in almost every state and there’s no clear pattern linking these declines to new restrictions,” said Elizabeth Nash, senior state policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, which issued the findings in a report and policy analysis on Wednesday.

The institute, which supports abortion rights, periodically compiles abortion data by surveying hospitals and abortion clinics, and by reviewing information from health departments and other sources.

The institute estimated that there were about 862,000 abortions in 2017, nearly 200,000 fewer than in 2011. The abortion rate — the number of abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age — dropped to 13.5 in 2017 from 16.9 in 2011, the lowest rate since abortion became legal nationwide in 1973.