Author: PolitCens

miami, florida — Hurricane Oscar made landfall early Sunday in the southeastern Bahamas and was heading toward Cuba, an island recently beleaguered by a massive power outage.  

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm’s center arrived on Great Inagua island. It is expected to produce a dangerous storm surge that could produce significant coastal flooding there and in other areas of the southeastern Bahamas. Two to four inches of rainfall are expected, with isolated amounts of up to six inches.  

Forecasters said five to 10 inches of rain, and even isolated amounts of up to 15 inches, are expected across eastern Cuba through Tuesday.  

Oscar formed Saturday off the coast of the Bahamas and brushed past the Turks and Caicos islands to the south.  

The National Hurricane Center earlier characterized the storm as “tiny,” but hurricane warnings were in place Sunday for southeastern Bahamas and portions of Cuba.  

The storm’s maximum sustained winds were clocked at 80 mph (130 kph) with higher gusts. Its center was located about 150 miles (240 kilometers) east-northeast of Guantanamo, Cuba. The storm was heading west at 12 mph (19 kph) and was expected to reach Guantanamo or Holguin, Cuba, on Sunday afternoon at hurricane strength.  

The hurricane’s approach comes as Cuba tries to recover from its worst blackout in at least two years, which left millions without power for two days last week. Some electrical service was restored Saturday.  

Philippe Papin of the National Hurricane Center said it was somewhat unexpected that Oscar became a hurricane Saturday.  

“Unfortunately the system kind of snuck up a little bit on us,” Papin said.  

Hours earlier Tropical Storm Nadine formed off Mexico’s southern Caribbean coast. It degenerated into a tropical depression as it moved over land. 
…

MILWAUKEE — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.

The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.

Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.

Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.

“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.

But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.

That includes his own teenage daughter.

“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.

It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.

“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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Tens of thousands of students in the Southeast are dealing with school disruptions after Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc so severe — on homes, campuses and municipal power and water systems — that some districts have no idea when they will reopen.

While virtual learning helped during the COVID-19 school closures, that has not been an option for this crisis because internet and cellphone service has remained spotty since the storm struck in late September.

In hard-hit western North Carolina, some districts warn students will miss up to a month of school, and others say they can’t yet determine a timeline for returning to classrooms.

“I feel like a month is a lot, but it’s not something that can’t be overcome,” said Marissa Coleman, who has sent her four children to stay with grandparents in Texas because their home in North Carolina’s Buncombe County has no running water. “But if we get further into Thanksgiving and Christmas, it’s like, how are they actually going to make this up?”

In mountainous Buncombe County, Helene swept away homes, cut power and destroyed crucial parts of the water system for Asheville, a city of about 94,000 people. The storm decimated remote towns and killed at least 246 people throughout the Appalachians, where massive cleanup efforts have been complicated by washed-out bridges and roads. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005.

The Buncombe County School system, which serves over 22,000 students, told families Tuesday on the district’s Facebook page no decision has been made “with regards to start date or length of day” because of a need to repair buildings, restore phone and security systems and redraw bus routes.

Even when schools reopen, educators worry the disruption could have profound effects on students’ learning and emotional well-being.

Children who experience natural disasters are more prone to acute illness and symptoms of depression and anxiety, research shows. The physical and mental health impacts put them at greater risk of learning loss: Absences can undermine achievement, as can the effects of trauma on brain function.

The challenges come amid growing concerns about the impacts of climate change on students. Wildfires have swept through communities, displacing families. Many school systems with inadequate heating or air conditioning have closed during extreme weather or forced students and educators to endure sweltering or frigid temperatures. According to the World Bank, 400 million children lost school days because of “climate-related closures” in 2022.

Days after Helene made landfall, Hurricane Milton roared ashore last week farther south along the same Florida coast as a Category 3 storm. While about half the state’s districts were closed, all of them were planning to reopen by the end of this week.

Schools affected by Helene are trying to provide stability. The Buncombe district has suggested parents trade books with neighbors and friends for their kids. “Have them write, maybe about something they’re looking forward to when school starts again,” the district told parents on social media. “Turn everyday experiences into math problems.”

Cécile Wight, a mother of two in Asheville, said she has been grateful for concern shown by schools including surveys checking on families’ well-being and an elementary school bus driver who took his own car to visit each child on his route.

“That has been huge, just having the emotional support from the school system and from the people we know at the school,” she said.

But uncertainty remains. Wight said her family is able to stay at their home because they have well water, but many other families have yet to return since evacuating. Most of Buncombe’s 45 schools still lacked running water as of Tuesday, meaning they’re unable to meet basic safety and hygiene standards.

Schools have begun exploring whether it would be possible to open without running water, relying on portable bathroom trailers. In a letter to families, Asheville Superintendent Maggie Furman said the district is considering drilling wells at each school so they don’t have to rely on city water.

Coleman said her kids are eager for some kind of normalcy.

“I understand the schools are going to have to take some time to find a way to open safely, and I support that 100%. But I definitely am not in the camp of ‘We need to wait until we get water back, until everything’s normal again to open.’ I just think that’s going to be too long,” Coleman said.

The Tennessee Department of Education is still trying to determine how many schools remain closed since Hurricane Helene and how many took too much damage to reopen.

Echoing the COVID-19 pandemic, several schools in Tennessee have postponed traditions like homecoming games, parades and dances. Many colleges are also granting extensions on application deadlines, officials say, to reduce high school seniors’ stress.

In storm-drenched areas elsewhere, some early education providers may never reopen.

Private child care and preschool centers are particularly vulnerable in the aftermath of a natural disaster, said Militza Mezquita, senior adviser for education in emergencies at Save the Children. Many already operate on thin margins, meaning a temporary closure can easily turn permanent. As for-profit companies, they are also ineligible for many types of disaster aid. A natural disaster can wipe out 10% to 20% of providers, Mezquita said.

“Child care recovery is very critical to the whole recovery ecosystem,” Mezquita said, noting the people essential to recovery — road workers, cleanup crews, doctors and nurses — often have young children that need to be looked after. “If they are not able to adequately get their children in care, they can’t go to work.”

Despite the instability, educators like Heather Smith, who was named North Carolina’s Teacher of the Year in the spring, encourage families to see the lessons storms can provide. Smith brought along her two children, ages 8 and 4, to serve meals at her church.

“Our kids are learning so much every day, whether it’s about adversity, whether it’s about helping a community,” said Smith, who rode out the storm at her home in Waynesville.

Similarly, Wight has been taking her children to volunteer for relief efforts at a school. She said it has helped them feel active and involved in the community.

“If COVID taught us something, it’s that we can make things work. The kids are resilient,” Wight said. “They will eventually catch up on the academic side of things.”
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SAVANNAH, Georgia — At least seven people were killed Saturday after part of a ferry dock collapsed on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, authorities said.

Multiple people were taken to hospitals, and crews from the U.S. Coast Guard, the McIntosh County Fire Department, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and others were searching the water, according to spokesperson Tyler Jones of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which operates the dock.

Jones said a gangway at the dock collapsed and sent people plunging into the water. It happened as crowds gathered on the island for a celebration of its tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants.

“There have been seven fatalities confirmed,” Jones said. “There have been multiple people transported to area hospitals, and we are continuing to search the water for individuals.”

Jones said he did not know what caused the gangway to collapse, but officials believe there were at least 20 people on it at the time. The gangway connected an outer dock where people board the ferry to another dock onshore.

Among the dead was a chaplain for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Jones said.

Sapelo Island is about 97 kilometers south of Savannah and is reachable from the mainland by boat.

Cultural Day is an annual fall event spotlighting the island’s tiny community of Hogg Hummock, which is home to a few dozen Black residents. The community of dirt roads and modest homes was founded by former slaves from the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding.

Small communities descended from enslaved island populations in the South — known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia — are scattered along the coast from North Carolina to Florida. Scholars say their separation from the mainland caused residents to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net fishing and weaving baskets. 
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents that assess Israel’s plans to attack Iran, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press. A fourth U.S. official said the documents appear to be legitimate.

The documents are attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency and note that Israel continues to move military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on October 1. They were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” which are the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The documents, which are marked top secret, were posted online to Telegram and first reported by CNN and Axios news outlets. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The investigation is also examining how the documents were obtained — including whether it was an intentional leak by a member of the U.S. intelligence community or obtained by another method, such as a hack — and whether any other intelligence information was compromised, one of the officials said. As part of that investigation, officials are working to determine who had access to the documents before they were posted, the official said.

The documents emerged as the U.S. has urged Israel to take advantage of its elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and press for a cease-fire in Gaza, and has likewise urgently cautioned Israel not to further expand military operations in the north in Lebanon and risk a wider regional war. However, Israel’s leadership has repeatedly stressed it will not let Iran’s missile attack go unanswered.

Hamas and Hezbollah, in Lebanon, have been designated terrorist organizations by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and others.

In a statement, the Pentagon said it was aware of the reports of the documents but did not have further comment.

The Hamas attack on Israel a year ago killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages. Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,400 Palestinians, with more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters. 
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Some 200,000 mail carriers have reached a tentative contract deal with the U.S. Postal Service that includes backdated pay raises and a promise to provide workers with air-conditioned trucks. 

The new agreement, which still needs to be ratified by union members, runs through November 2026. Letter deliverers have been working without a contract since May 2023. 

Both the union and the Postal Service welcomed the agreement, which was announced Friday. 

“Both sides didn’t get everything they wanted. But by bargaining in good faith, we ended with an agreement that meets our goals and rewards our members,” Brian Renfroe, the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, told The Associated Press. “To make that happen, the Postal Service had to recognize the contributions of members to the Postal Service and the American people.” 

Among other improvements, the deal increases the top pay and reduces the amount of time it takes new workers to reach that level, Renfroe said. He credited Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and his deputy for bargaining in good faith throughout the arduous process. 

The Postal Service said the agreement supported its 10-year ‘Delivering for America’ mission to modernize operations and adapt to changing customer needs. 

“This is a fair and responsible agreement that serves the best interest of our employees, our customers and the future of the Postal Service,” said Doug Tulino, the deputy postmaster general and chief human resources officer. 

As part of the agreement, all city carriers will get three annual pay increases of 1.3% each by 2025, some of which will be paid retroactively from November 2023. Workers will also receive retroactive and future cost-of-living

There is also a commitment from the Postal Service to “make every effort” to provide mail trucks with air-conditioning. 

The Postal Service in summer began rolling out its new electric delivery vehicles, which come equipped with air-conditioning. While the trucks won’t win any beauty contests, they did get rave reviews from letter carriers accustomed to older vehicles that lack modern safety features and are prone to breaking down — and even catching fire. 

Within a few years, the new delivery fleet will have expanded to 60,000, most of them electric models, serving as the Postal Service’s primary delivery truck from Maine to Hawaii. 

Under the tentative contract agreement, the Postal Service must discuss with the union any plans to buy new mail trucks that don’t have air-conditioning. 

This is the second contract negotiated since DeJoy was appointed postmaster general in 2020. It is expected to take several weeks for union members to ratify the contract. Rural mail deliverers aren’t covered by the contract because they are represented by a different union. 
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miami, florida — Hurricane Oscar formed Saturday off the coast of the Bahamas, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida. It characterized the storm as “tiny.” 

The government of the Bahamas has issued a hurricane warning for the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas. The government of Cuba has issued a hurricane watch for the provinces of Guantanamo, Holguin, and Las Tunas. 

Locally heavy rainfall is expected across the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas later Saturday, according to the latest advisory. Heavy rain is expected to spread to eastern Cuba on Sunday. 

The storm’s maximum sustained winds were clocked at 80 miles per hour (130 kilometers per hour) with higher gusts. Its center was located about 165 miles (260 kilometers) east-southeast of the southeastern Bahamas and about 470 miles (755 kilometers) east of Camaguey, Cuba. 

Hours earlier, Tropical Storm Nadine formed off Mexico’s southern Caribbean coast and was moving inland across Belize. Heavy rain and tropical storm conditions were occurring over parts of Belize and the Yucatan peninsula. 

A tropical storm warning is in effect for Belize City and from Belize to Cancun, Mexico, including the popular tourist destination, Cozumel. 

The hurricane center said Nadine was located about 20 miles (35 kilometers) east of Belize City, with winds of 13 mph (20 kph). Its maximum sustained winds were at 50 mph (85 kph). 

Nadine was expected to move across Belize, northern Guatemala, and southern Mexico through Sunday, the center added. 
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ANCHORAGE, ALASKA — On a desolate slab of island tundra in western Alaska, a resident of Adak will again become the last American to cast an in-person ballot for president, continuing a 12-year tradition for the nation’s westernmost community.

The honor of having the last voter in the nation fell to Adak when they did away with absentee-only voting for the 2012 election and added in-person voting.

“People have a little bit of fun on that day because, I mean, realistically everybody knows the election’s decided way before we’re closed,” said city manager Layton Lockett. “But, you know, it’s still fun.”

When polls close in Adak, it will be 1 a.m. on the East Coast.

Adak Island, midway in the Aleutian Island chain and bordered by the Bering Sea to the north and the North Pacific Ocean to the south, is closer to Russia than mainland Alaska. The island best known as a former World War II military base and later naval station is 1,931 kilometers (1,200 miles) southwest of Anchorage and farther west than Hawaii, where polls close an hour earlier.

Mary Nelson said Republican Mitt Romney was likely conceding the 2012 race to President Barack Obama on election night when she became Adak’s first last voter in a presidential election, although she didn’t know Obama had been reelected until the next morning when she turned on her computer to read election results.

Nelson, who now lives in Washington state, recalled to The Associated Press by telephone that she was a poll worker in Adak at the time and had forgotten to vote until just before the 8 p.m. poll closing time.

“When I opened the [voting booth’s] curtain to come back out, the city manager took my picture and announced that I was the last person in Adak to vote,” she said.

That was also the end of the celebration since they still had work to do.

“We had votes to count, and they were waiting for us in Nome to call with our vote count,” she said.

There are U.S. territories farther west than Alaska, but there’s no process in the Electoral College to allow residents in Guam, the northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands to vote for president, according to the National Archives.

“I’ve been tickled pink and told people about it,” said Nelson, now 73. “I have the story I printed out about it and show some people who I think would think it’s a big deal, like my family,” she said.

Adak Island has historical significance for its role in World War II. The U.S. built facilities on the island after Japanese forces took islands farther west in the Aleutian chain.

Troops landed in August 1942, to begin building an Army base, and enemy planes dropped nine bombs on the island two months later, but in undeveloped areas, and riddled the landscape with machine gun fire. The Navy began building facilities in January 1943.

In May 1943, about 27,000 combat troops gathered on Adak as a staging point to retake nearby Attu Island from the Japanese.

Among famous Americans stationed at Adak were writers Dashiell Hammett and Gore Vidal. The island also played host to President Franklin Roosevelt, boxing champion Joe Lewis and several Hollywood stars, according to the Adak Historical Society.

In a lighter note, the Army attempted to start a forest on Adak Island between 1943 and 1945. A sign placed by residents in the 1960s outside the area of 33 trees noted: “You are now Entering and Leaving the Adak National Forest.”

After the war, the island was transferred to the Air Force and then the Navy in 1950. Nearly 32,000 hectares (80,000 acres) of the 73,000-hectare (180,000-acre) island were set aside for Navy use, and the rest of the island remained part of what eventually became the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.

The base closed in 1997. The Navy retains about 2,300 hectares (5,600 acres) with the remainder either owned by the Aleut Corporation, the Alaska Native regional corporation for the area; the city of Adak; or the refuge.

Lockett said the city is facing tough times with a dwindling population and lack of an economic driver. The town’s fish processing plant has closed numerous times over the years.

When the base was active, there were about 6,000 residents on Adak Island. The 2020 Census counted 171 residents. Lockett says that’s probably now down to below 50 full-time residents.

In Alaska, a school must have 10 students to remain open. Mike Hanley, the Aleutian Region School District superintendent, said in an email that the school closed in 2023 after it started the year with six students. That shrank to one by November, and then that student left.

Hanley said by the time he notified the state education department, “there were literally no children on the island, not even younger pre-K students.”

When it comes to politics, Lockett said it’s pretty easy in a small town to know where your neighbors fall politically, but there seems to be one goal that unites everyone.

Whoever is in office, are they going to try to “encourage the military to come back to Adak in some way, shape or form?” he said.

“We’re kind of in that great midst of, what’s next for Adak, because we’re struggling,” he said.

For now, with the presidential election coming up, the city can focus on its unique place in America.

“I’m not sure who the last voter will be this year,” said Adak City Clerk Jana Lekanoff. “Maybe it’ll be a bit of a competition?”
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WASHINGTON — Over the past four years, judges at Washington’s federal courthouse have punished hundreds of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an unprecedented assault on the nation’s democracy. On the cusp of the next presidential election, some of those judges fear another burst of political violence could be coming.

Before recently sentencing a rioter to prison, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said he prays Americans accept the outcome of next month’s election. But the veteran judge expressed concern that Donald Trump and his allies are spreading the same sort of conspiracy theories that fueled the mob’s January 6, 2021, riot.

“That sore loser is saying the same things he said before,” Walton said earlier this month without mentioning the Republican presidential nominee by name. “He’s riling up the troops again, so if he doesn’t get what he wants, it’s not inconceivable that we will experience that same situation again. And who knows? It could be worse.”

‘It scares me’

Walton, a nominee of President George W. Bush, is not alone. Other judges have said the political climate is ripe for another attack like the one that injured more than 100 police officers at the Capitol. As Election Day nears, judges are frequently stressing the need to send a message beyond their courtrooms that political violence can’t be tolerated.

“It scares me to think about what will happen if anyone on either side is not happy with the results of the election,” Judge Jia Cobb, a nominee of President Joe Biden, said during a sentencing hearing last month for four Capitol rioters.

Judge Rudolph Contreras lamented the potential for more politically motivated violence as he sentenced a Colorado man, Jeffrey Sabol, who helped other rioters drag a police officer into the mob. Sabol later told FBI agents that a “call to battle was announced” and that he had “answered the call because he was a patriot warrior.”

“It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine a similar call coming out in the coming months, and the court would be concerned that Mr. Sabol would answer that call in the same way,” Contreras, a President Barack Obama nominee, said in March before sentencing Sabol to more than five years in prison.

Trump’s distortion of the January 6 attack has been a cornerstone of his bid to reclaim the White House. The former president has denied any responsibility for the crimes of supporters who smashed windows, assaulted police officers and sent lawmakers running into hiding as they met to certify Biden’s 2020 victory.

‘Patriots’ and ‘hostages’

Trump has vowed to pardon rioters, whom he calls “patriots” and “hostages,” if he wins in November. And he said he would accept the results of the upcoming election only if it’s “free and fair,” casting doubts reminiscent of his baseless claims in 2020.

Judges have repeatedly used their platform on the bench to denounce those efforts to downplay the violence on January 6 and cast the rioters as political prisoners. And some have raised concerns about what such rhetoric means for the future of the country and its democracy.

“We’re in a real difficult time in our country, and I hope we can survive it,” Walton said this month while sentencing a Tennessee nurse who used a pair of medical scissors to smash a glass door at the Capitol.

“I’ve got a young daughter, I’ve got a young grandson, and I would like for America to be available to them and be as good to them as it has been to me,” he said. “But I don’t know if we survive with the mentality that took place that day.”

More than 1,500 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the January 6 siege, which disrupted the peaceful transfer of presidential power for the first time in the nation’s history. Over 1,000 rioters have been convicted and sentenced. Roughly 650 of them received prison time ranging from a few days to 22 years.

Justice Department prosecutors have argued in many cases that a prison sentence is necessary to deter convicted Capitol rioters from engaging in more politically motivated violence.

“With the 2024 presidential election approaching and many loud voices in the media and online continuing to sow discord and distrust, the potential for a repeat of January 6 looms ominously,” prosecutors have repeatedly warned in court filings.

‘I’d do it all over again’

Prosecutors argue that defendants who have shown little or no remorse for their actions on January 6 could break the law again. Some rioters even seem to be proud of their crimes.

The first rioter to enter the Capitol texted his mother, “I’ll go again given the opportunity.”

A man from Washington state who stormed the Capitol with fellow Proud Boys extremist group members told a judge, “You can give me 100 years, and I’d do it all over again.” A Kentucky nurse who joined the riot told a television interviewer that she would “do it again tomorrow.”

A Colorado woman known to her social media followers as the “J6 praying grandma” avoided a prison sentence in August when a magistrate judge sentenced her for disorderly conduct and trespassing on Capitol grounds. Rebecca Lavrenz told the judge that God, not Trump, led her to Washington on January 6.

“And she has all but promised to do it all over again,” said prosecutor Terence Parker.

Prosecutors had sought 10 months behind bars. After her April trial conviction, Lavrenz went on a “media blitz” to defend the mob, spread misinformation, undermine confidence in the courts and boost her celebrity in a community that believes January 6 “was a good day for this country,” Parker said.

Magistrate Zia Faruqui sentenced Lavrenz to six months of home confinement and fined her $103,000, stressing the need to “lower the volume” before the next election.

“These outside influences, the people that are tearing our country apart, they’re not going to help you,” Faruqui told her.
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BRADENTON BEACH, Florida — When a hurricane sets its sights on Florida, storm-weary residents may think of catastrophic wind, hammering rain and dangerous storm surge. Mounds of sand swallowing their homes? Not so much.

That’s the reality for some after Hurricanes Helene and Milton clobbered Florida’s Gulf Coast with back-to-back hits in less than two weeks. Storm surge as high as 3 meters swept mountains of sand into communities — in some areas, 1.5 meters high or higher.

The fine, white sand helps make Florida’s beaches among the best in the world. But the powerful storms have turned the precious commodity into a costly nuisance, with sand creating literal barriers to recovery as homeowners and municipalities dig their way out.

“I’ve never seen sand like this,” said Scott Bennett, a contractor who has worked in storm recovery since 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. “Wind, rain, water, but never sand.”

The morning after Hurricane Milton crashed ashore, the roads of Bradenton Beach, about an hour’s drive south of Tampa, were lined with sandbanks less than a meter high, surrounding some bungalows. The views of the Old Florida beach town were not unlike those after a blustery Midwestern blizzard.

“The best way to describe it, it’s like getting 4 to 6 feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters) of snow up north,” said Jeremi Roberts, a member of the State Emergency Response Team surveying the damage that day.

Another hour south, Ron and Jean Dyer said the storms blew about 0.9 meters of sand up against their condo building on Venice Island.

“The beach just moved over everything,” Ron Dyer said.

It had taken dozens of volunteers armed with shovels and wheelbarrows two days to dig all the sand out of the condo’s pool after Hurricane Helene, only to see Milton fill it back in, he said.

“They just kept digging and wheeling and digging and wheeling. … They were there for two days doing that,” he said. “We got to do it all over again.”

Storm recovery contractor Larry West estimates that his team will do about $300,000 worth of work just to clean up all the sand and debris left behind at one of the condo buildings he’s restoring in Manasota Key, about 56 kilometers south of Sarasota. He expects many property owners, especially those who don’t have flood insurance, will have to pay out of pocket for this kind of cleanup.

“The poor homeowner who’s going to have to spend $150,000 cleaning up, that’s going to hurt them hard,” West said.

West said he is not sure where to take the sand, after he heard that a local park that Charlotte County officials designated as a drop-off site was filling up with the stuff. According to the county, two sites remain open for dropping off sand.

“Right now I’m building mountains in their parking area,” West said of the condo complex he’s restoring. “We’re just kind of waiting to find out if they’re gonna have us transport it to a different location.”

Officials in hard-hit Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg, are still crunching the numbers on just how big of a bite Helene and Milton took out of the coastline there, but county Public Works director Kelli Hammer Levy puts the current estimate at 765,000 cubic meters of sand lost.

“A lot of volume has been lost, and that’s our main concern here right now,” she told the county’s Tourism Development Council. “It’s hard to kind of stay positive with some of this stuff. I know the pictures are not what we want to see.”

For perspective, a 2018 beach renourishment project to shore up the county’s coastline with 994,000 cubic meters of sand cost more than $50 million, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Levy is hopeful that much of the displaced sand can be repurposed. Pinellas officials are encouraging residents to cart their sand right back out onto the beach — as long as it’s clean.

“Again, we just need to remove debris. I’ve seen some piles out there with kitchen cabinets in it,” Levy said. “We’re going to have a problem if we have a lot of that stuff out there.”

The county has also opened a drop-off location where residents can leave sand for workers to screen and clean, or dispose of if it’s contaminated, under guidance from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

In the meantime, Florida residents are continuing to dig out of the storm-driven sand, many of them by hand.

“Every shovelful is heavy,” said West, the construction contractor. “This is horrendous, as far as the cleanup.”
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Asheville, north carolina — A rare copy of the U.S. Constitution printed 237 years ago and sent to the states to be ratified has been sold for $9 million at an auction in North Carolina. 

Brunk Auctions sold the document, the only copy of its type thought to be privately owned, at the private auction Thursday. The name of the buyer was not immediately released. 

Bidding took just over seven minutes, with bids coming in at $500,000 intervals, mostly over the phone. There was a pause at $8.5 million, then another after someone on the phone bid $9 million. 

“Just another second or two. Savor it a little bit, selling here at $9 million,” said auctioneer and auction house owner Andrew Brunk. 

Brunk was thankful. The auction was originally set for September 28 but was delayed after Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage throughout Asheville and western North Carolina. 

“It’s a privilege to have it here. It’s been quite a ride,” Brunk said. 

The copy was printed after the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the proposed framework of the nation’s government in 1787 and sent it to the Congress of the ineffective first American government under the Articles of Confederation, requesting it be sent to the states to be ratified by the people. 

It’s one of about 100 copies printed by the secretary of that Congress, Charles Thomson. Just eight are known to still exist and the other seven are publicly owned. 

Thomson likely signed two copies for each of the original 13 states, essentially certifying them. 

What happened to the document up for auction Thursday between Thomson’s signature and 2022 is not known. 

Two years ago, a property was being cleared out in Edenton in eastern North Carolina that was once owned by Samuel Johnston. He was the governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789 and oversaw the state convention during his last year in office that ratified the Constitution. 

The copy was found inside a squat, two-drawer metal filing cabinet with a can of stain on top, in a long-neglected room piled high with old chairs and a dusty book case, before the old Johnston house was preserved. The document was a broad sheet that could be folded one time like a book. 

Along with the Constitution on the broad sheet, printed front and back, is a letter from George Washington asking for ratification. He acknowledged there would have to be compromise and that certain rights the states enjoyed would have to be given up for the nation’s long-term health. 

The Constitution copy wasn’t the only seven-figure purchase Thursday. A watermarked 1776 first draft of the Articles of Confederation went for $1 million. 

Also sold was a 1788 Journal of the Convention of North Carolina at Hillsborough, where representatives spent two weeks debating whether ratifying the Constitution would put too much power with the federal government instead of the states. The document sold for $85,000.

Auction officials were not sure what the Constitution document would go for because there is so little to compare it to. The last time a copy of the Constitution that was sent to the states sold, it was for $400 in 1891. 

In 2021, Sotheby’s of New York sold one of only 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for the Continental Congress and delegates to the Constitutional Convention for $43.2 million, a record for a book or document.
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WASHINGTON — China-based DJI sued the U.S. Defense Department on Friday for adding the drone maker to a list of companies allegedly working with Beijing’s military, saying the designation is wrong and has caused the company significant financial harm.

DJI, the world’s largest drone manufacturer that sells more than half of all U.S. commercial drones, asked a U.S. District Judge in Washington to order its removal from the Pentagon list designating it as a “Chinese military company,” saying it “is neither owned nor controlled by the Chinese military.”

Being placed on the list represents a warning to U.S. entities and companies about the national security risks of conducting business with them.

DJI’s lawsuit says because of the Defense Department’s “unlawful and misguided decision” it has “lost business deals, been stigmatized as a national security threat, and been banned from contracting with multiple federal government agencies.”

The company added “U.S. and international customers have terminated existing contracts with DJI and refuse to enter into new ones.”

The Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

DJI said on Friday it filed the lawsuit after the Defense Department did not engage with the company over the designation for more than 16 months, saying it “had no alternative other than to seek relief in federal court.”

Amid strained ties between the world’s two biggest economies, the updated list is one of numerous actions Washington has taken in recent years to highlight and restrict Chinese companies that it says may strengthen Beijing’s military.

Many major Chinese firms are on the list, including aviation company AVIC, memory chip maker YMTC, China Mobile 0941.HK, and energy company CNOOC.

In May, lidar manufacturer Hesai Group ZN80y.F filed a suit challenging the Pentagon’s Chinese military designation for the company. On Wednesday, the Pentagon removed Hesai from the list but said it will immediately relist the China-based firm on national security grounds.

DJI is facing growing pressure in the United States.

Earlier this week DJI told Reuters that Customs and Border Protection is stopping imports of some DJI drones from entering the United States, citing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

DJI said no forced labor is involved at any stage of its manufacturing.

U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly raised concerns that DJI drones pose data transmission, surveillance and national security risks, something the company rejects.

Last month, the U.S. House voted to bar new drones from DJI from operating in the U.S. The bill awaits U.S. Senate action. The Commerce Department said last month it is seeking comments on whether to impose restrictions on Chinese drones that would effectively ban them in the U.S. — similar to proposed Chinese vehicle restrictions. 
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washington — A group of Republican lawmakers is demanding a federal investigation into the U.S. consulting firm McKinsey over its work with the Chinese government and state-owned enterprises, even as the company reportedly is revamping its China business to reduce risks. 

A letter — signed by Representative John Moolenaar of Michigan, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa — asks the Justice Department to investigate whether McKinsey’s $480 million contracts with the Defense Department comply with federal law when the consulting firm also advised China’s national and provincial governments and state-controlled businesses. The three accuse McKinsey of misrepresenting its relationship with the Chinese government. 

“McKinsey’s activities pose a serious risk to U.S. national security and may have failed to meet McKinsey’s obligations under federal law,” according to the letter dated Thursday. 

McKinsey declined to comment on the letter but has in the past defended its practices in China. It has said it follows the “most rigorous and comprehensive client service policy in our industry.” 

The consultancy also has said it does not work for the ruling Chinese Communist Party or the central government but mainly with multinationals and private Chinese businesses.   

The lawmakers’ scrutiny over McKinsey’s dealings with Beijing comes as the U.S. and China are becoming increasingly competitive, prompting American politicians to reexamine business ties to ensure Beijing and its military would not get stronger with U.S. help. Beijing also has grown wary of American companies.   

The Biden administration has imposed export controls to block China’s access to advanced computer chips and limited U.S. investments in China in areas such as microelectronics, quantum information technologies and artificial intelligence. Last month, a Republican congressional report raised red flags that partnerships between American and Chinese universities could aid Beijing in developing critical technology for military advances.   

U.S. companies, which have built experience in China over the past several decades, are readjusting to the new geopolitical reality. This week, The Wall Street Journal reported that McKinsey has cut back on government-linked clients in China and reduced the workforce there by nearly 500 people, or about a third. 

The letter by Republican lawmakers accused McKinsey of helping China “rapidly develop its military and economy” through its consulting services. It said McKinsey failed to disclose its work with the Chinese government while acquiring U.S. defense contracts, which amounted to more than $480 million since 2008 and granted McKinsey “access to classified or otherwise sensitive national security data.” 

Bob Sternfels, McKinsey’s global managing partner, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on investigations in February that “we’ve never worked for the Chinese Communist Party or the central government in China, to the best of my knowledge.” 

The letter asserted that McKinsey may have misrepresented its relationship with the Chinese government, citing public information and documents. 
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A Canadian surveillance plane over the East China Sea — Over the blue waters of the East China Sea, a Canadian air force patrol crew scans the horizon, searching for vessels suspected of making illicit transfers of oil to North Korea.

The 20-member crew aboard the Aurora CP-140 is on the front line of a U.S.-led multinational effort to enforce United Nations sanctions that cap North Korea’s oil imports.

On this clear day in mid-October, the Canadian plane is patrolling international waters off the coast of China — a hotspot, the crew says, for ships attempting to dodge sanctions.

When they locate a suspicious vessel, the crew swoops low, circling to snap pictures from multiple angles. The idea is to “make our presence known,” said Major Doug Publicover, the commander of the Canadian mission.

The Canadians pass the information to the Enforcement Coordination Cell, or ECC, a loose configuration of 11 nations that conduct surveillance and share intelligence on North Korea’s sanctions violations.

“It’s a small piece of the pie,” Publicover said of Canada’s contribution, “but each country does their bit, and hopefully that deterrence can be larger.”

Sanctions under strain

Since 2006, U.N. Security Council sanctions have restricted much of North Korea’s economic activity as punishment for its nuclear and missile programs. The sanctions limit North Korea’s annual imports to 4 million barrels of crude oil and 500,000 barrels of refined products.

U.S. officials, however, say North Korea regularly exceeds these limits, mainly because of a lack of enforcement by China and Russia — North Korea’s key allies. Both countries deny those claims but have taken steps to blunt the impact of the sanctions, which they say are no longer necessary.

Earlier this year, Russia vetoed the renewal of a U.N. panel that monitored sanctions violations. China abstained from the vote. As an alternative, the U.S. and its allies this week created the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, or MSMT, which aims to fill the intelligence gap left by the disbanded panel.

“We just collect information, we tabulate it, and we push it off,” says Royal Canadian Air Force Commander Larry Moraal, the ECC’s deputy director. “[But] they’ll have greater access to the international community than we do.”

China pushback

As the U.S. and its allies move ahead with sanctions enforcement, China has voiced growing frustration, particularly with patrols near its borders. Chinese military jets have frequently intercepted Canadian and Australian planes on these missions, at times creating tense encounters.

During this week’s flight, with VOA aboard, Chinese fighter jets shadowed the Canadian plane for hours as it patrolled the East China Sea. Unlike past incidents, though, the interactions were not dangerous, said Publicover.

“We’re in their backyard — we expect to have some company,” Publicover said.

China’s biggest concern is that some flights “have been seriously approaching or even entered China’s airspace,” said Hu Bo, director of the Beijing-based South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative.

In 2023, China accused a Canadian CP-140 of entering its airspace near the disputed Diaoyu Islands, known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan. The islands are administered by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan.

When asked by VOA, Canadian officials declined to comment on the incident, underscoring that all its operations occur in international waters.

Philip Shetler-Jones, a senior research fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said it’s easy to understand why China doesn’t like patrols so close to its borders.

“I don’t think many countries would like it. But that’s different from having an acceptable legal basis to say it’s not OK — or an acceptable legal basis on which to justify the kind of dangerous maneuvers and actions they’ve carried out,” he said.

Going it alone

With China and Russia increasingly disengaged from enforcing sanctions, U.S.-led mechanisms like the ECC and MSMT are among the few remaining options. Some experts, however, question how effective this approach can be.

“There’s no way the U.S. and its allies on their own could enforce U.N. sanctions” without help from China and Russia, says Peter Ward, a research fellow at the Seoul-based Sejong Institute.

Still, Ward said the newly created MSMT can serve as a useful tool for naming and shaming violators, applying pressure, and helping countries struggling to implement sanctions.

Maya Ungar, a U.N. analyst at the International Crisis Group, added that the body could boost its credibility by involving a wider range of countries. But, she said, its accusations will likely carry less weight than those from the now-dismantled U.N. panel of experts.

How to measure success

Despite enforcement efforts, North Korea continues to secure energy imports, often exceeding U.N.-imposed limits. Commander Moraal acknowledges this but said the ECC is raising the cost of sanctions evasion.

As an example, Moraal cites two North Korean-linked coal ships seized by South Korea earlier this year after ECC provided intelligence.

But if the ultimate goal is to curb North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, the results appear less encouraging. Recent estimates suggest North Korea now has enough fissile material to build up to 90 nuclear warheads, and it regularly unveils new advanced missile systems.

Ward believes a shift in strategy may eventually be necessary. “At some point, we may need to reckon with the fact that North Korea does have nuclear weapons and figure out how to deal with that,” he said.

Still, even if full enforcement is impossible, Ward argues there’s a case for maintaining sanctions. “The alternative could reward bad behavior,” he said.

“So long as North Korea sanctions remain relatively comprehensive, if very leaky, there are many countries that will see the case of North Korea as a cautionary lesson,” he said.
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HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS — The Texas Supreme Court halted Thursday night’s scheduled execution of a man who would have become the first person in the United States put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

The late-night ruling to spare for now the life of Robert Roberson, who was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002, capped a flurry of last-ditch legal challenges and weeks of public pressure from Republican and Democratic lawmakers who say he is innocent and was sent to death row based on flawed science.

In the hours leading up to the ruling, Roberson had been confined to a prison holding cell a few feet from America’s busiest death chamber at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, waiting for certainty over whether he would be taken to die by lethal injection.

“He was shocked, to say the least,” said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Amanda Hernandez, who spoke with Roberson after the court stayed his execution. “He praised God, and he thanked his supporters. And that’s pretty much what he had to say.”

She said Roberson would be returned to the Polunsky Unit, about 72 kilometers (45 miles) to the east, where the state’s male death row is located.

Roberson, 57, was convicted of killing of his daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. His lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia.

A night of last-minute maneuvers

It is rare for the Texas Supreme Court — the state’s highest civil court — to get involved in a criminal matter.

But how the all-Republican court wound up stopping Roberson’s execution in the final hours underlined the extraordinary maneuvers used by a bipartisan coalition of state House of Representatives lawmakers who have come to his defense.

Rejected by courts and Texas’ parole board in their efforts to spare Roberson’s life, legislators on Wednesday tried a different route: issuing a subpoena for Roberson to testify before a House committee next week, which would be days after he was scheduled to die. The unusual plan to buy time, some of them conceded, had never been tried before.

They argued that executing Roberson before he could offer subpoenaed testimony would violate the Legislature’s constitutional authority. Less than two hours before Roberson’s execution, a judge in Austin sided with lawmakers and paused the execution, but that was then reversed by an appeals panel. The Texas Supreme Court then weighed in with its order, ending a night of uncertainty.

Roberson is scheduled to testify before the committee Monday.

“This is an innocent man. And there’s too much shadow of a doubt in this case,” said Democratic state Representative John Bucy. “I agree this is a unique decision today. We know this is not a done deal. He has a unique experience to tell, and we need to hear that testimony in committee on Monday.”

Governor, US Supreme Court did not act

Texas Governor Greg Abbott had the authority to delay Roberson’s punishment for 30 days. Abbott has halted only one imminent execution in nearly a decade as governor and has not spoken publicly about the case.

Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt the execution, although Justice Sonia Sotomayor — in a 10-page statement about the case — urged Abbott to grant a 30-day delay.

Roberson’s lawyers had waited to see if Abbott would grant Roberson the one-time reprieve. It would have been the only action Abbott could take in the case, as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday denied Roberson’s clemency petition.

The board voted unanimously, 6-0, to not recommend that Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or that his execution be delayed. All board members are appointed by the governor. The parole board has recommended clemency in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982.

The one time Abbott halted an imminent execution was when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker in 2018.

Texas law on scientific evidence

The House committee on Wednesday held an all-day meeting on Roberson’s case. In a surprise move at the end of the hearing, the committee issued the subpoena for Roberson to testify next week.

During its meeting in Austin, the committee heard testimony about Roberson’s case and whether a 2013 law created to allow people in prison to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence was ignored in Roberson’s case.

Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, told the committee a court hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who rejected their claims.

“Based on the totality of the evidence, a murder took place here. Mr. Roberson took the life of his almost 3-year-old daughter,” Mitchell said.

Most of the members of the House committee are part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state lawmakers, including at least 30 Republicans, who asked the parole board and Abbott to stop the execution.

Spotlight on shaken baby syndrome

Roberson’s case has renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome, known in the medical community as abusive head trauma.

His lawyers, as well as the Texas lawmakers, medical experts, bestselling author John Grisham and others, say his conviction was based on faulty and now outdated scientific evidence. The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.

Roberson’s supporters don’t deny head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and that new evidence shows the girl died from complications related to severe pneumonia.

Roberson’s attorneys say his daughter fell out of bed in Roberson’s home after being seriously ill for a week.

Roberson’s lawyers also suggested his autism, then undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him as authorities became suspicious of him because of his lack of emotion over her death. Autism affects how people communicate and interact with others.
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A day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented a “victory plan” to European Union leaders and NATO defense ministers, the nation’s allies are giving it qualified support, with one leader saying it will be reconsidered after the U.S. election next month.

Zelenskyy’s plan, which he unveiled to Ukraine’s parliament Wednesday, calls first for an unconditional invitation to join NATO, along with the deployment of a nonnuclear deterrent to Russian aggression, among other points. He maintains the plan could end the war no later than next year.

While NATO allies and leadership insist Ukraine’s future is with NATO, a formal invitation to join the alliance has not been made. NATO allies have said the nation cannot become a member while it is at war, and the focus has been on providing Ukraine with the support it needs to win.

The NATO-Ukraine Council met late Thursday, following Zelenskyy’s presentation to the defense ministerial meeting. At a Friday news conference in Brussels, new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the focus of that meeting was “to get massive military aid into Ukraine” from Western allies.

“Obviously, we all know that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, so the question is exactly when and when the invitation will take place,” Rutte said. “But that was not the main issue of the debate last night.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was asked about Zelenskyy’s plan during a briefing in Brussels Friday. “The victory plan is President Zelenskyy’s plan, and we’re going to do everything that we can and provide security assistance to support the president as he tries to accomplish his objectives,” Austin said.

Austin added, “It is not my position to evaluate publicly his plan. We have been supporting him by providing security assistance in a major way for over two and a half years. We are going to continue to do that.”

U.S. President Joe Biden was in Berlin Friday for meetings with the leaders of Britain, Germany and France. Support for Ukraine was a focus of their talks.

On the sidelines of that meeting, U.S. national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the White House is still reviewing Zelenskyy’s plan.

He said while he did not want to go through every detail, the United States supports “President Zelenskyy’s plan for a just peace. It’s critical that whatever that peace looks like, it has to be acceptable to him and to the Ukrainian people.”

Ukrainian media reported that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk spoke to reporters Friday following European Union talks in Brussels and said there was “no consensus” on the plan among EU leaders. He said it was difficult to tell how realistic it is because “much depends on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.”

Tusk added that the plan would be reassessed after the U.S. elections next month. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has indicated he does not support continuing U.S. military aid for Ukraine, at least not at current levels.

Also Friday, Ukraine’s military said Russian forces Thursday suffered their second deadliest day since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

On its account on the Facebook social media platform, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces reported 1,530 Russian casualties since Thursday.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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When it comes to military equipment being sent to Ukraine, big-ticket items like Patriot missiles and F-16 fighter jets come to mind. But for many Ukrainian soldiers, the U.S.-made 60-millimeter M224 mortars, also used by the U.S. Marine Corps, have been highly effective against Russian forces. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. Video: Pavel Suhodolskiy
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