VP Pence: UK-Irish border should remain open after Brexit

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UPDATED 2:00 PM PST – Mon. September 2, 2019

Vice President Mike Pence said he hopes the UK-Irish border will remain open after Brexit.

Ireland’s Minister of foreign affairs Simon Coveney, right, shakes hands with with US Vice President Mike Pence during their meeting, after he arrived at Shannon airport for the start of an official visit to Ireland, Monday, Sept. 2, 2019. (Jacob King/PA via AP)

During his visit to Ireland Monday, Pence said, the U.S. would oppose a Brexit scenario that erodes the 1998 Belfast agreement. That accord is a peace deal, which ended a decades-long feud between Northern Irish unionists and Republicans.
Pence said Brexit should not threaten political stability on the Island of Ireland. “We understand these are complex issues. I’ll be in the UK meeting with Prime Minister Boris Johnson in just a few days, Pence said during his meeting with Ireland’s Minister of foreign affairs Simon Coveney. “But I think the opportunity to better understand Ireland’s perspective and unique needs, particularly with regard to your northern border, will make us even better equipped to hopefully play a constructive role.”
Coveney said, the UK could reinstate border checks in Northern Ireland, despite British officials having repeatedly dismissed such allegations.

White House, DOJ working to expedite death penalty for mass shooters

The White House said Monday it has drafted legislation with the Justice Department that would expedite the death penalty for people found guilty of committing mass shootings, following Saturday's attack in West Texas that left seven dead, according to a pool report.
Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, told reporters aboard Air Force Two that the initiative was part of a larger White House gun control package that will be sent to Congress after lawmakers return from their August recess on Sept. 9.
Attorney General Bill Barr is involved in active discussions with the vice president's office, Short said, as the plane made its way to Ireland.
The issue could be contentious among Democrats seeking to unseat President Trump in 2020. Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke has sought to revive his struggling candidacy by calling for a mandatory buyback of what he called "assault weapons" -- but he also has insisted, in a recent policy shift, that capital punishment is categorically wrong.
Still, there has been little hesitation from the Trump administration on the issue. In August, Trump said he was “directing the Department of Justice to propose legislation ensuring that those who commit hate crimes and mass murders face the death penalty," adding that he wanted "capital punishment be delivered quickly, decisively, and without years of needless delay.”
Earlier this summer, Barr said the federal government will resume capital punishment and will move forward with plans to execute five inmates on death row for the first time in more than 15 years.
Short's remarks came as the Chicago Sun-Times reported that 35 people were shot, 7 of them killed, in Chicago over Labor Day weekend.
It also emerged Monday that the gunman in the West Texas rampage over the weekend had been "on a long spiral down" and was fired from his oil services job the morning he killed seven people, calling 911 both before and after the shooting began.
Investigators have not said how the gunman obtained the gun used in the shooting, but he previously had failed a federal background check for a firearm, said John Wester, an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Officials did not elaborate on when the gunman failed the background check, or why.
Online court records showed the gunman was arrested in 2001 for a misdemeanor offense that would not have prevented him from legally purchasing firearms in Texas. Federal law defines nine categories that would legally prevent a person from owning a gun, which include being convicted of a felony, a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, being the subject of a restraining order or having an active warrant. Authorities have said Ator had no active warrants at the time of the shooting.
In a letter last month to President Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., specifically pushed for the House-passed Bipartisan Background Checks Act and the Enhanced Background Checks Act. Some of the House-sponsored legislation would extend the time period for the FBI to conduct background checks on firearm purchases from three days to 10 days and establish new background-check procedures for private gun transfers.
Many Republicans said they hoped to take action to curb gun violence. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said his party has been interested in “common sense solutions to prevent this from happening in the future while at the same time protecting due process for anyone who is a law-abiding citizen.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told Fox News’ "Sunday Morning Futures" that state officials including Gov. Greg Abbott got together as part of a domestic terrorism task force to address the issue.
Paxton said he would like Congress to do the same to try determining "what kind of practices would change this from happening or at least allow us to respond more quickly."
For his part, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said that so-called "red flag" warning legislation, as well as expanded background checks, would be "front and center" on the Senate floor when Congress comes back in session.
However, red flag laws might be unconstitutional, some conservatives have said, and states and local governments increasingly have sparred over the issue. More than a dozen states have enacted red flag laws. In March, Colorado's attorney general testified that county sheriffs vowing not to enforce the state's anti-gun "red flag" bill should "resign."
Red flag laws generally require friends or family to establish by a "preponderance of the evidence" -- a relatively lax legal standard essentially meaning that something is "more likely than not" -- that a person "poses a significant risk to self or others by having a firearm in his or her custody or control or by possessing, purchasing or receiving a firearm."
Meanwhile, President Trump tweeted Sunday morning, “Great job by Texas Law Enforcement and First Responders in handling the terrible shooting tragedy yesterday. Thank you also to the FBI, @GregAbbott_TX and all others. A very tough and sad situation!”
Late last month, the White House pushed back on claims by the National Rifle Association (NRA) that Trump had said privately that universal background checks were off the table. Trump has waffled publicly on whether new background checks were needed.
In the wake of two mass shootings last month, overwhelming and bipartisan majorities of voters said they favored background checks on gun buyers and taking guns from people who were a danger to themselves or others, according to a Fox News Poll.
Two-thirds also supported a ban on "assault weapons," although that majority was driven largely by Democrats, and the term remained poorly defined.
Still, asked to choose one or the other, voters said they would rather live in a country where gun ownership was legal than one where guns were banned.
The poll was conducted August 11-13, about a week after the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton.
Fox News' Ronn Blitzer, Mike Emanuel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

British Parliament, US Congress both set to return from ‘recess’

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson prorogued Parliament.
This is the term of art the British use when Parliament is suspended for a period.
The prorogue was a defensive move by Johnson to keep efforts at bay to derail his plan to yank the United Kingdom out of the European Union without a formal agreement. A “hard Brexit,” if you will.
So, Johnson essentially halted the session so Members of Parliament couldn’t offer legislative alternatives to his Brexit maneuver – or even call a vote of no-confidence against him. This upended the current parliamentary session which has run since June of 2017. It’s the longest such parliamentary convocation in 400 years.
But, Parliament wasn’t dissolved. It’s been on a kind of extended recess for a while.

Sound familiar?
The U.S. House and Senate have been gone for a while, too. No proroguing on Capitol Hill though – unless it’s willful. Congress is instead on the customary “August recess,” – even though it’s now September. The respite started in late July for the House. Early August for the Senate. Congress often reconvenes right after Labor Day. But not this year. Few lawmakers will surface in Washington until September 9.
The House and Senate resisted calls to reconvene in August and early September, despite mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton - followed by the melee in Odessa and Midland, TX. The House decided against returning to Washington. Democrats decided instead to ramp up attention on what many Democrats described as “inaction” by the Senate on gun measures. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declined to summon senators back to Washington to work on firearms issues. McConnell knew it would be a challenge to advance anything on guns.
Much has been made about Johnson’s proroguing gambit in the United Kingdom. When leaders prorogue Parliament, it’s often suspended for a just few days. Not weeks. But even though there is no “prorogue” phenomenon in Congress, there are some similarities on Capitol Hill.
Congress has taken an August vacation for decades now. In 1963, the Senate met year-round, only breaking for weekends. But jet travel became easier, connecting lawmakers with the far-flung districts and states they represent. Media bolstered the importance of lawmakers returning regularly to home turf to conduct events, meet with constituents and “be seen.”
A Congressional “reorganization” in the 1970s recommended the establishment of the contemporary August recess, stretching from the end of July until just after Labor Day. Congress has stuck to the “August recess” concept for the most part. But it’s not unheard of for lawmakers to toil in Washington through the dog days of August. Such was the case with the 1994 crime bill (which barred assault weapons). Congress returned to Washington with a skeleton crew to approve emergency aid after Hurricane Katrina in August, 2005. McConnell gamely declared he was “cancelling” the August recess last year. But it turned out that senators were only in Washington for a few days.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) control the House schedule. They could always summon the House back to session if necessary. But frankly, the leaders know it’s important to protect their majority and get vulnerable freshman Democrats back to their districts during this time. The House would not break the recess unless there was a big emergency. After the shootings, Democrats scheduled a House Judiciary Committee meeting for this week this to prepare gun legislation for later in the month. But the panel called off the session due to the threat of Hurricane Dorian in Florida and along the eastern seaboard.
Pelosi & company really didn’t want the House to meet over the past five weeks. The Speaker sent out a memo imploring Democrats to “own August” by discussing health care and economic issues.
Perhaps more importantly, the vacation helped Democrats ignore questions about impeachment and the investigations of President Trump. While more than half of all Democrats now support impeachment or some sort of an impeachment “inquiry,” they are a far cry from having the votes to impeach the President. This reflects the Democrats “both ways” strategy. Democrats continue to apply pressure on Mr. Trump and probe the possibility of impeachment. That helps Democrats with their leftist base. It simultaneously inoculates Democrats who oppose impeachment. Meantime, Democrats investigate a slate of other alleged misdeeds involving the Trump Administration. The House’s summer interlude probably aided Pelosi and many other Democrats by not having to address impeachment on a daily basis.
Mitch McConnell is probably glad the Senate was on hiatus, too. McConnell’s public statements about the shootings indicate he’s skeptical there’s anything on which the House, Senate and President Trump can agree when with guns. The Senate may have a slate of nominations McConnell still wants to tackle. But the Kentucky Republican doesn’t have a lot of other legislative traffic teed up. So, many senators are also content the Senate hasn’t been in session much lately. There’s nothing worse than having lawmakers in Washington with little to do. That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot to do on big issues. However, there’s a reason why the legislative docket is thin: the sides lack agreement. There isn’t going to be a magical solution to disputes about infrastructure or health care. So, why try? That’s why the Senate is more than happy to be on leave for weeks.
The circus will come back to town next week. The House will brawl over investigations and impeachment. The sides must forge a deal to fund the government past September 30. There will be discussions about guns. The House will likely even pass a bill or two related to firearms. It’s unclear if anything would happen in the Senate. And in the background, negotiations continue on the new trade pact between the United States, Canada and Mexico. That measure is nowhere close to passage yet.
So no proroguing of the legislature here. But, for all intents and purposes, Congress was “suspended” for the past few weeks, much like in the United Kingdom. However, there is one major difference. When lawmakers in Washington return to work, they’ll start again without a speech by the Queen.

London mayor Sadiq Khan rips Trump for managing Hurricane Dorian emergency response while 'out on the golf course'

The mayor of London renewed his public feud with President Trump over the weekend by mocking the president for canceling a trip to Poland to commemorate the start of World War II only to deal with emergency response to Hurricane Dorian from the golf course.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who traveled to Poland over the weekend for a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II, told Politico in an interview Sunday that Trump couldn’t attend because he was “clearly busy dealing with a hurricane out on the golf course.”
Khan, who is London’s first Muslim mayor, also slammed Trump for disseminating messages he perceives as racist on his Twitter page. Trump and Khan first butt heads in 2016 when Trump floated the idea of banning Muslims from certain countries from traveling to the U.S.

“These people have been inspired by mainstream politicians who subscribe to their point of view,” Khan told Politico. Trump “is a guy who amplifies racist tweets; amplifies the tweets of fascists; says things that are deeply objectionable. If I don’t stand up and call that out I think I’m doing a disservice to Londoners who chose me as their mayor.”
Trump announced Thursday in the White House rose garden that he was canceling his planned trip to Warsaw and instead would send Vice President Mike Pence so he could stay in the United States to monitor the strengthening Hurricane Dorian.
Trump on Saturday left the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland—where he and experts were monitoring the Category 4 hurricane. He traveled by helicopter to his private Virginia golf club for several hours. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Trump traveled with a FEMA official and that he was being briefed “every hour.”
Trump and Khan last traded jabs in June during the president’s visit to the United Kingdom. Trump labeled Khan a “stone cold loser” when he first arrived to London. Khan responded by telling BBC that the president's insults reminded him of "the sort of thing an 11-year-old would do."

At a London press conference with outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, Trump also accused Khan of doing a poor job as mayor by failing to address crime and “a lot of problems” within his city. He criticized Khan and other left-wing activists for protesting his visit to the country amid Brexit negotiations.
"I don't think he should be criticizing a representative of the United States that can do so much good for the United Kingdom," Trump told reporters of Khan. "He's a negative force, not a positive force."

Fox News' Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Labor Day 2019 Cartoons

Not so easy to prevent the spread of mass shooters’ names

When law enforcement authorities gathered to discuss details of a mass shooting in West Texas that left seven people dead, there was one bit of information they refused to provide on live television: the name of the gunman.
Instead, they decided to release the name through a Facebook post. Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke made it plain why he wouldn’t mention the name at the news conference: “I’m not going to give him any notoriety for what he did.”
Even with such restraint, it remained a challenge to curb the spread of the gunman’s name. The Odessa Police Department has fewer than 25,000 followers of its Facebook page, but the social media platform easily reaches millions of Facebook’s members around the globe and the post was shared hundreds of times. Within minutes, Twitter was lit up with posts mentioning his name. Journalists and advocates on both sides of the gun debate also began spreading the word, spewing a firehose of information about the suspect.
In this era of a saturation of social media and around-the-clock news, it’s next-to-impossible to keep a lid on such information.
“Ultimately, the police department can only directly control what they do, and that name, that information can be reposted and retweeted and republished hundreds of thousands of time,” said Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama, who has studied the influence of media coverage on future shooters. He and others appeal to the media to limit the volume of information about these perpetrators, saying it does little to understand the reasons for the violence or stop it in the future.
The “No Notoriety” movement first started to take hold after the 1999 Columbine school shooting outside Denver. The gunmen became household names and even in death appeared to motivate a whole new crop of mass shooters.
In recent years, it has gained momentum amid a seemingly steady stream of mass shootings. The idea is to urge news organizations to refrain from naming the shooters in mass slayings and to curb the volume of biographical information about them. In New Zealand, after a mass shooter there killed 51 people at two mosques, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refused to mention the perpetrator’s name at all.
FBI leaders, leery of inspiring copycat killers and hesitant to give them what they see as undue attention, have occasionally been reluctant in recent years to refer to them by name.
Former FBI Director James Comey expressed that concern in a briefing with reporters the day after a 2016 rampage at an Orlando nightclub, repeatedly referring to gunman not by his name but simply as “the killer.”
“You will notice that I am not using the killer’s name, and I will try not to do that,” Comey said. “Part of what motivates sick people to do this kind of thing is some twisted notion of fame or glory, and I don’t want to be part of that for the sake of the victims and their families.”
FBI special agent Christopher Combs, who previously worked at FBI headquarters leading the bureau’s efforts to respond to mass shootings, has held to that view. As the top FBI official in San Antonio, he has overseen the bureau’s response to multiple mass shootings in Texas, including a 2017 massacre at a church in Sutherland Springs that killed 26 people.
At a news conference after the shooting where officials refrained from naming the gunman, Combs said, “We don’t talk about the shooter.”
And in a television interview after the shooting, Combs said he understood that the media had to name a shooter “once,” but “after that, we certainly don’t want to draw any type of positive attention to the shooter. And we have found through studies that there are people out there that are troubled, and when they see that, they believe this is how I can show the wrongdoings that have been done to me.”
All these years later, the Columbine attack continues to motivate mass shooters, including the two men who earlier this year stormed their former school in Brazil, killing seven people. The gunman in New Zealand was said to have been inspired by the man who in 2015 killed nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
University of Alabama’s Lankford urges journalists to refrain from using shooters’ names or go into exhaustive detail about their crimes. These attackers are trying to outdo previous shooters with higher death tolls, he said, and media coverage serves only to encourage copycats. Experts call it the “contagion” effect.
Lankford lauded the approach in Texas to avoid mentioning the name on live television. That medium is especially problematic, he said.
“There’s the issue of B-roll where the sound bite can be played over and over and over again,” he said. “They’re trying to set a moral position and a lead they hope the media will follow.”
Tom Manger, senior associate director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, said there are a number of challenges. The name of the shooter is considered public information that must be disseminated, and there’s a general thirst for information about mass shooters. As Americans consider ways to prevent future shootings, knowing more about the gunman might help figure out effective solutions.
But there are practical issues at play too: How can the information be contained?
“It goes out in a hundred different ways,” Manger said. “Once it goes out on social media, it goes everywhere.”
For Caren Teves, the issue is personal. Her son, Alex, was among those killed in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in 2012. She and her husband, Tom, created the No Notoriety movement, encouraging media to stick to reporting relevant facts rather than the smallest of biographical details.
“It is a tough thing to navigate. But it’s a start,” Teves said. “We’ve never said it’s the only solution. It’s just one of them.”
___
Lisa Marie Pane reported from Boise, Idaho. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington, D.C., and Tim Talley in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

US envoy meets Afghanistan’s president over US-Taliban talks

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A U.S. envoy has met with the Afghan president in the capital, Kabul, to brief him on the latest round of talks with the Taliban as a deal nears on ending America’s longest war, an official said Monday.
President Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, confirmed Sunday night’s meeting at the presidential palace shortly after envoy Zalmay Khalilzad arrived from Qatar, where the ninth round of talks ended without a final agreement.
Khalilzad over the weekend said the U.S. and the insurgent group are “at the threshold of an agreement” — even as the Taliban attacked the capitals of Kunduz and Baghlan provinces in the north.
“We are on the verge of ending the invasion and reaching a peaceful solution for Afghanistan,” said the Taliban spokesman in Qatar, Suhail Shaheen.
Unrest continued Monday outside the Baghlan capital of Puli Khumri as the Taliban blocked the main road leading south to Kabul with fuel tanker trucks, opening fire on any security forces that tried to approach, provincial council member Mabobullah Ghafari told The Associated Press.
The Taliban also blocked the two main highways heading north from Puli Khumri as gun battles continued, he said. The situation inside the city was calm but residents remained fearful of attack, he added.
At least 47 wounded people had been taken to hospitals since the attack began on Sunday morning, said Jawed Basharat, spokesman for the provincial police chief. He said around 50 Taliban had been killed by security forces. He confirmed there were casualties among security forces but could not say how many as sporadic fighting continued.
Separately on Sunday night, six pro-government soldiers were killed and three were wounded when Taliban fighters ambushed their patrol in Qarabagh district of eastern Ghazni province, said Arif Noori, spokesman for the governor.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks in recent months to strengthen their negotiating position while the United Nations and others say civilians have suffered , often caught in the cross-fire as government forces, backed by the U.S., have pursued the militants with airstrikes and raids. Afghanistan was the world’s deadliest conflict in 2018.
A U.S.-Taliban agreement on ending nearly 18 years of fighting is expected to be followed by intra-Afghan talks that include the Afghan government, which so far has been sidelined from the negotiations. The Taliban have refused to talk with the Afghan government, calling it a U.S. puppet, but have expressed openness to speaking with Afghan officials in their personal capacity.
The insurgent group is at its strongest since the U.S.-led invasion to topple its government after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. The Taliban now control or hold sway over roughly half of Afghanistan.
The Taliban want all of the estimated 20,000 U.S. and NATO forces to leave the country and already portray their departure as the insurgents’ victory. For its part, the U.S. seeks Taliban assurances that Afghanistan will not be a safe haven for extremist groups to plan and launch global terror attacks. A cease-fire also has been discussed.
Few details have emerged from this latest round of U.S.-Taliban peace talks, adding to the uncertainty as violence increases.
The agreement with the Taliban “will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honorable & sustainable peace and a unified, sovereign Afghanistan that does not threaten the United States, its allies, or any other country,” the Afghan-born Khalilzad said on Twitter before his Kabul arrival.
A U.S. official with the negotiation team added that “any potential peace deal will not be based on blind trust, but will instead contain clear commitments that are subject to our monitoring and verification.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
The official added that “if and when we are able to announce an agreement, the process will pivot to intra-Afghan negotiations where the Taliban will sit with other Afghans and together they will commit to a permanent and comprehensive cease-fire.”
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Gannon in Guelph, Canada, contributed to this report.

Record-setting Hurricane Dorian keeps pounding north Bahamas

McLEAN’S TOWN CAY, Bahamas (AP) — In a slow, relentless advance, a catastrophic Hurricane Dorian kept pounding at the northern Bahamas early Monday, as one of the strongest Atlantic storms ever recorded left wrecked homes, shredded roofs, tumbled cars and toppled power poles in its wake.

Full Coverage: Hurricane Dorian

The storm’s top sustained winds decreased slightly to 165 mph (265 kph) as its westward movement slowed, crawling along Grand Bahama island early Monday at 1 mph (1.6 kph) in what forecasters said would be a daylong assault. Earlier, Dorian churned over Abaco island with battering winds and surf during Sunday.
There was little information from the affected islands, though officials expected many residents to be left homeless. Most people went to shelters as the storm approached, with tourist hotels shutting down and residents boarded up their homes.
“It’s devastating,” Joy Jibrilu, director general of the Bahamas’ Ministry of Tourism and Aviation, said Sunday afternoon. “There has been huge damage to property and infrastructure. Luckily, no loss of life reported.”
On Sunday, Dorian’s maximum sustained winds reached 185 mph (297 kph), with gusts up to 220 mph (354 kph), tying the record for the most powerful Atlantic hurricane to ever make landfall. That equaled the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, before storms were named. The only recorded storm that was more powerful was Hurricane Allen in 1980, with 190 mph (305 kph) winds, though it did not make landfall at that strength.

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Forecasters said Dorian was most likely to begin pulling away from the Bahamas early Tuesday and curving to the northeast parallel to the U.S. Southeast seaboard. Still, the potent storm was expected to stay close to shore and hammer the coast with dangerous winds and heavy surf, while authorities cautioned that it could still make landfall.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster issued an order Sunday for the mandatory evacuation of his state’s entire coast. The order, which covers about 830,000 people, was to take effect at noon Monday, at which point state troopers were to make all lanes on major coastal highways one-way heading inland.
“We can’t make everybody happy, but we believe we can keep everyone alive,” McMaster said.
A few hours later, Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, ordered mandatory evacuations for that state’s Atlantic coast, also starting at midday Monday.
Authorities in Florida ordered mandatory evacuations in some vulnerable coastal areas. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned his state that it could see heavy rain, winds and floods later in the week.
Dorian first came ashore Sunday at Elbow Cay in Abaco island at 12:40 p.m., then made a second landfall near Marsh Harbour at 2 p.m.
“Catastrophic conditions” were reported in Abaco, with a storm surge of 18 to 23 feet (5.5-7 meters).
Video that Jibrilu and government spokesman Kevin Harris said was sent by Abaco residents showed homes missing parts of roofs, electric lines on the ground and smashed and overturned cars. One showed floodwaters rushing through the streets of an unidentified town at nearly the height of a car roof.
In some parts of Abaco, “you cannot tell the difference as to the beginning of the street versus where the ocean begins,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said. According to the Nassau Guardian, he called it “probably the most sad and worst day of my life to address the Bahamian people.”

 

Bahamas radio station ZNS Bahamas reported that a mother and child on Grand Bahama had called to say they were sheltering in a closet and seeking help from police.

Silbert Mills, owner of the Bahamas Christian Network, said trees and power lines were torn down in Abaco.
“The winds are howling like we’ve never, ever experienced before,” said Mills, who was riding out the hurricane with his family in the concrete home he built 41 years ago on central Abaco.
Jack Pittard, a 76-year-old American who has visited the Bahamas for 40 years, also decided to stay put on Abaco for Dorian, which he said was his first hurricane. A short video from Pittard about 2:30 p.m. Sunday showed the wind shaking his home and ripping off the siding.
The Bahamas archipelago is no stranger to hurricanes. Homes are required to have metal reinforcements for roof beams to withstand winds into the upper limits of a Category 4 hurricane, and compliance is generally tight for those who can afford it. Risks are higher in poorer neighborhoods, with wooden homes in low-lying areas.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Dorian is forecast to be 40 to 50 miles (64 to 80 kilometers) off Florida, with hurricane-force wind speeds extending about 35 miles (56 kilometers) to the west.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for Florida’s East Coast from Deerfield Beach north to the Georgia state line. The same area was put under a storm surge watch. Lake Okeechobee was under a tropical storm watch.

 

Mandatory evacuation orders for low-lying and flood-prone areas and mobile homes were in effect starting either Sunday or Monday from Palm Beach County north to at least the Daytona Beach area, and some counties to the north issued voluntary evacuation notices. Weekend traffic was light in Florida despite those orders, unlike during the chaotic run-up to Hurricane Irma in 2017 when the unusually broad storm menaced the entire state.

Ken Graham, director of the hurricane center, urged people not to bet on safety just because the forecast track had the storm a bit offshore. With every new forecast, “we keep nudging (Dorian’s track) a little bit to the left” — that is, is closer to the Florida coast, Graham said.
President Donald Trump already declared a state of emergency and was briefed about what he called a “monstrous” storm.
“We don’t know where it’s going to hit but we have an idea, probably a little bit different than the original course,” Trump said. “But it can change its course again and it can go back more toward Florida.”
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For AP’s complete coverage of the hurricane: https://apnews.com/Hurricanes

Hong Kong students boycott classes after weekend of violence

A riot police holds his shield at a Mass Transit Railway (MTR) station in Hong Kong, China, September 2, 2019. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis

September 2, 2019
By Jessie Pang
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Thousands of Hong Kong university and school students swapped classes for democracy demonstrations on Monday, the latest act of defiance in an anti-government movement that has plunged the Chinese-ruled city into its biggest political crisis in decades.
The boycott follows a weekend marred by some of the worst violence since unrest escalated more than three months ago, with protesters burning barricades and throwing petrol bombs, and police retaliating with water cannon, tear gas and batons.
Riot police on Monday patrolled the subway, known as the MTR, where some of the most violent clashes have erupted.
Hundreds of students gathered outside the Chinese University of Hong Kong, one of the city’s largest, taking turns to make speeches from a stage with a black backdrop embossed with “Students in Unity Boycott for our City”.
“I come here just to tell others that even after summer holidays end we are not back to our normal life, we should continue to fight for Hong Kong,” said one 19-year old student who asked to be identified as just Chan.
“These protests awaken me to care more about the society and care for the voiceless.”
On the first day of the new school year, secondary students were seen singing, chanting and forming human chains, some wearing hard hats and masks. Many primary schools were closed because of a typhoon warning.
Matthew Cheung, Hong Kong government chief secretary, told reporters that schools were no place for protests.
Students have turned out in significant numbers at recent rallies and were also prominent during the 2014 pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement” that foreshadowed the current unrest.
“It’s very different from what happened back then. People are more mad now,” said Summer, a 20-year-old student who only gave his first name.
“I think this situation is a deadlock now. Both government and protesters won’t back down.”
Protesters had called for a general strike but most people appeared to return to their daily lives with shops open, trains operating and workers making their way to offices across the global financial hub.
Thousands of protesters blocked roads and public transport links to Hong Kong airport on Sunday in a bid to draw world attention to what they see as ever-tighter control by Beijing over the city, despite the promise of autonomy.
Airport authorities said 25 flights were canceled on Sunday but transport services were largely back to normal.
China denies meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs and accuses Western countries of egging on the protests. It says Hong Kong is an internal affair.
Several editorials in Chinese state media on Monday condemned the protesters.
One published by the state news agency Xinhua warned that “the end is coming” for protesters who should “never misjudge the determination and ability of the central government”.
ANGER AT CHINA
After leaving the airport on Sunday, some demonstrators targeted the MTR subway station in nearby Tung Chung district, ripping out turnstiles and smashing CCTV cameras and lamps with metal poles. Police moved in and made several arrests.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, a lightning rod for protesters’ anger at a city government they say is controlled by Beijing, said on her Facebook page on Monday that 10 subway stations were damaged by “violent offenders”.
Police and protesters had clashed on Saturday night in some of the most intense violence since unrest escalated in mid-June over concerns Beijing is eroding the freedoms granted to the territory under a “one country, two systems” agreement, including the right to protest and an independent judiciary.
John Lee, government secretary for security, told media that nearly 100 petrol bombs were thrown in various locations on Saturday with two found on a 13-year-old boy who was arrested inside an MTR station.
The unrest began over a now-suspended extradition bill that would have allowed people in the city to be sent to China for trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party.
The turmoil has evolved over 13 weeks to become a widespread demand for greater democracy. China is eager to quell the unrest before the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1.
With Hong Kong facing its first recession in a decade, China has also warned of the damage the protests are causing to the economy.
Shares of Hong Kong rail operator MTR Corp Ltd <0066 .hk=""> fell as much as 3.9% to HK$43.65, their lowest since Feb. 15.
With protesters and authorities locked in an impasse, speculation has grown that the city government may impose emergency law, giving it extra powers over detentions, censorship and curfews.
Lam has said the government would consider using all laws at its disposal to bring unrest to an end.
(Reporting by Jessie Pang, Joyce Zhou, Farah Master, Donny Kwok, Clare Jim and Twinnie Siu; Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

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