The National Hurricane Center has upgraded Hurricane Harvey to a stronger-than-expected Category 4 storm.
Residents on the Texas coast who have not yet evacuated should find a safe place and shelter there.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has asked President Donald Trump for a presidential disaster declaration ahead of Harvey’s landfall Friday night.
As Hurricane Harvey trundled toward Texas on Friday it strengthened into a Category 4 storm, exceeding previous projections shortly before making landfall.
The National Hurricane Center upgraded the slow-moving, waterlogged storm to a Category 4 hurricane late Friday afternoon as its maximum sustained winds grew to 130 mph. The bulk of the storm is expected to make landfall Friday night.
The National Weather Service warned Category 4 storms can result in “catastrophic damage” to even well-built frame homes, while dwellings like mobile homes will almost certainly be destroyed. Given the intensity of the winds ― Category 4 tops out at 156 mph ― large trees will also likely be snapped or uprooted.
The last Category 4 storm in the U.S. was Hurricane Charley, which caused $13 billion in damages when it made landfall in Florida in 2004.
Blame President Trump for his tepid moral response. Call the neo-Nazis and white nationalists thugs. Fill your Facebook and Twitter accounts with moral outrage.
But the tragedy that took place in Charlottesville this month could not have occurred without the tacit acceptance of millions of ordinary, law-abiding Americans who helped create such a racially explosive climate, some activists, historians and victims of extremism say.
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It’s easy to focus on the angry white men in paramilitary gear who looked like they were mobilizing for a race war in the Virginia college town. But it’s the ordinary people — the voters who elected a reality TV star with a record of making racially insensitive comments, the people who move out of the neighborhood when people of color move in, the family members who ignore a relative’s anti-Semitism — who give these type of men room to operate, they say.
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That was the twisted formula that made the Holocaust and Rwanda possible and allowed Jim Crow segregation to survive: Nice people looked the other way while those with an appetite for violence did the dirty work, says Mark Naison, a political activist and history professor at Fordham University in New York City.
President Donald Trump on Friday pardoned a notorious former Arizona sheriff who willfully violated a federal judge’s order by unlawfully detaining individuals his officers claimed might be in the country illegally.
Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had previously proclaimed himself “America’s toughest sheriff,” was convicted of criminal contempt last month for violating a 2011 order that barred Arpaio and his office from detaining individuals solely based on suspicions about their legal status. Arpaio, 85, was scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 5.
“Throughout his time as Sheriff, Arpaio continued his life’s work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration,” the White House said in a statement late Friday. “Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now eighty-five years old, and after more than fifty years of admirable service to our Nation, he is a worthy candidate for a Presidential pardon.”
Harvey intensified into an extremely dangerous Category 3 hurricane as it closed in on the Texas coast Friday afternoon. The storm is set to become the first major hurricane, rated Category 3 or higher (on the 1-5 Saffir-Simpson intensity scale), to strike U.S. soil in 12 years when it comes ashore late Friday night or early Saturday.
The National Hurricane Center said it expects “catastrophic and life-threatening” flash flooding along the middle and upper Texas coast. An incredible amount of rain, 15 to 25 inches with isolated amounts of up to 35 inches, is predicted because the storm is expected to stall and unload torrents for four to six straight days. In just a few days, the storm may dispense the amount of rain that normally falls over an entire year, shattering records.
“Let’s set the expectations: Texas is about to have a very significant disaster,” said Brock Long, FEMA administrator.
Wanczyk, 53, landed the largest single lottery jackpot ever in the United States — the $758.7 million grand prize in Wednesday’s Power Ball.
The winning ticket (6, 7, 16, 23, 26, and Powerball number 4) was purchased at the Pride Station & Store in Chicopee, Massachusetts.
Wanczyk said she discovered Wednesday night while leaving work at the Mercy Medical Center that she had won. A co-worker looked at her ticket and told her she had won. He told her to immediately sign the back of the ticket. She couldn’t believe it.
“I couldn’t drive anywhere. I couldn’t do anything,” she told reporters. She said her co-worker followed her home to make sure she was OK.
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Mavis Wanczyk has won the biggest jackpot ever in North America.
Tiny versions of human organs smaller than a pea are making a big splash around the world — and for a good reason. Though the clusters of cells of brain, kidney, or liver aren’t much to look at, experts say these so-called “organoids” and “organs-on-a-chip” are poised to remake the way new drugs are brought to market.
Right now, drug development is notoriously slow and costly; bringing a new drug to market can take a dozen years and cost upward of $2 billion. Even after all that time and money have been spent, new drug candidates often prove to be ineffective — or to have dangerous side effects.
“A huge percentage of drugs fail even after hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of investment,” says Dr. Donald Ingber, director of Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and a leader in organ-on-a-chip technology. In fact, only about one in 10 drugs that make it to human tests (after testing in the lab and in animals) wind up getting FDA approval.
Hurricane Harvey intensified to a Category 2 hurricane by early Friday as it moved toward Texas, with meteorologists forecasting that the storm could be a Category 3 “major hurricane” when it makes landfall late Friday or early Saturday.
No storm that strong has hit Texas since 2008.
Harvey is expected to stall after it hits land, dumping torrential rain over the southeast Texas region through Tuesday and causing potentially historic flooding, NBC News meteorologist Bill Karins said.
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‘Be Nice Harvey’ adorns a boarded-up business Thursday in Port Aransas, Texas. Eric Gay / AP
Fox News viewers and other Trump supporters everywhere doubtlessly patted themselves on the back and exchanged high-fives when they saw a carefully situated African-American man conspicuously standing behind Donald Trump at his rally in Phoenix on Tuesday night. The man was shown shouting and guffawing with approval as Trump tried to justify his warm embrace of neo-Nazis and white supremacists ever since the Charlottesville murders.
This wasn’t the first time “Michael the Black Man” has appeared in Trump’s orbit. He’s been a fixture at Trump rallies from the get-go:
At a number of political rallies over the last two years, a character calling himself “Michael the Black Man” has appeared in the crowd directly behind Donald Trump, impossible to miss and possibly planted.
He holds signs that scream “BLACKS FOR TRUMP” and wears a T-shirt proclaiming with equal conviction that “TRUMP & Republicans Are Not Racist.”
Congressional investigators have unearthed an email from a top Trump aide that referenced a previously unreported effort to arrange a meeting last year between Trump campaign officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
The aide, Rick Dearborn, who is now President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, sent a brief email to campaign officials last year relaying information about an individual who was seeking to connect top Trump officials with Putin, the sources said.
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The person was only identified in the email as being from “WV,” which one source said was a reference to West Virginia. It’s unclear who the individual is, what he or she was seeking, or whether Dearborn even acted on the request. One source said that the individual was believed to have had political connections in West Virginia, but details about the request and who initiated it remain vague.
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Top White House official draws new scrutiny in Russia inquiry
In the world, human beings are facing various problems. People who are full of greed, anger, and ignorance are seen to be fighting with each other in words and deeds. As the fighting continues, various problems such as civil wars, wars of aggression, and wars of aggression are occurring. As world peace is being destroyed, humans are facing unbearable problems. Innocent children and women are not getting the rights they deserve and deserve. I can't think of one thing every time. What is it? The United Nations. If we look at the responsibilities and duties of the United Nations, I think it is not suitable for solving the problems that are happening in the world today. In fact, the United Nations and the World Security Council, such an organization must rule the world, must be able to give orders, and must have various ways to obey orders. There must be no organization that can influence more than that organization. There should be experts from each country. They can even dominate the superpowers like the US, China, and Britain. Only then will global peace be achieved quickly. Now, if a country with power develops more militarily, economically, or socially than its own country, then powerful countries will jealously seek out enemies and wage war. Or they will attack with fighter jets. In this, innocent people are losing their lives. No one understands the value of a life. You should think about how to achieve global peace by controlling these. If the US continues to be the permanent president of the UN, world peace will never be achieved. If you think carefully, no one sees that they are working for the common good, but for their own benefit, for the benefit of their own country. The permanent president of the UN and the Security Council has rejected this, As a young Rohingya, I have come to realize that only by electing the president and secretary from among the countries in the world through a secret ballot system and governing the world fairly can we achieve global peace. The United Nations and the Security Council are organizations in which any country must govern, give orders, and make them obey their orders. For example, only when a defendant is tried in court can we hold the leaders of the countries in check and control them, can we achieve global peace smoothly. Otherwise, it will not be easy for powerful countries to use various excuses to end this war every year, every year, for the benefit of themselves and their countries. No country's leaders pay any attention to the words of the United Nations and the Security Council. If we look at it in practice, look at the Rohingya issue. Myanmar is a small country. Even that country has been under siege for 8 years. What action can be taken? Why is the UN and the Security Council Powerless? Without such Power, how can the organization bring about global peace? Everyone should think about it. Whether there is a veto or a strong one, all countries in the world can only achieve global peace if they are subject to the UN and the Security Council. Seek peace in the quiet embrace of nature. Peace is an indispensable need of the human race. It is not as if one person can kill another person, and it is as if one country can attack another country, but instead of trying to build peace, we must try to destroy the peace now, and the world is getting hotter and is on the verge of collapse. I especially appeal to all the world experts to urgently try to bring about peace in all parts of the world. Mr, Noor Muhamed Arkhan Rohingya Youth Myanmar
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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