Ireland and U.K. brace for impact of hurricane Ophelia
LONDON — The remnants of hurricane Ophelia could bring 130 km/h wind gusts, disruption and damage to Ireland and Britain as the work week gets underway, weather services said Sunday.
Ophelia weakened from a Category 2 to a Category 1 hurricane Sunday as it moved northnortheast across the Atlantic, with sustained winds of 145 km/h.
It is expected to be downgraded to a post-tropical storm before hitting land in southern Ireland Monday morning, but U.K. Met Office forecaster Luke Miall said it could still pack “hurricane force” winds.
Ireland’s Met Eireann weather service said the country’s southern and western counties could get gusts of up to 130 km/h along with heavy rain and storm surges.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm could bring 50 mm to 75 mm of rain in western Ireland and Scotland, with coastal flooding and “large and destructive waves” where it makes landfall.
Emergency officials in Ireland said schools would be closed Monday in the eight counties expected to see the strongest winds and under a red weather alert, the highest level. Cyclists and motorists were warned to stay off the roads during the height of the storm.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar tweeted: “Defence forces being deployed in Red weather alert areas and on standby for further action tomorrow.”
Dublin and Shannon airports advised passengers to check flight information before travelling, while Cork airport in southwest Ireland said cancellations were likely.
Britain’s Met Office said 130 km/h gusts could hit Northern Ireland — part of the U.K. — and warned of potential power cuts, flying debris and disruption to transport and phone signals. Strong winds could also hit Scotland, Wales and England. The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday ducked, danced and sidestepped the question of whether he truly called U.S. President Donald Trump a “moron,” dismissing the brouhaha as the “petty stuff” of Washington. Though they keep coming, Tillerson insisted the persistent queries aren’t hindering his mission as the nation’s top diplomat.
Asked about a leading GOP senator’s comment — “You cannot publicly castrate your own secretary of state” — Tillerson would have none of it. ”I checked. I’m fully intact.“
Again and again, Tillerson declined in a news show interview to attest to the accuracy of the report about his use of the word “moron” to describe the commander in chief.
Tillerson said he was “not dignifying the question with an answer,” reprising his response from earlier this month, the morning the story broke, when he used an extraordinary televised statement to insist he had nothing but respect for Trump.
“I’m not making a game out of it,” Tillerson said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. Asked once more, he replied: “I’m not playing.”
Yet Tillerson has let others play it on his behalf. He previously dispatched State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to flatly deny he ever called the president a “moron.”
It was unclear why Tillerson was unwilling to repeat what his spokeswoman has said on his behalf. But the continuing questions have brought his strained relationship with the president into renewed focus.
Tillerson insisted the relationship is solid, and that the continuing public focus on whether he’s being undermined by the president has not impeded his ability to succeed in his role. As the drama has played out, Tillerson has brushed it off as meaningless Washingtoncentric noise that he says he doesn’t understand as an outsider. The Texan and former Exxon Mobil CEO never served in government or politics before becoming secretary of state.
“I know the appearance of it certainly looks like there’s sometimes disunity,” Tillerson said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “There’s no confusion among the people that matter.”
Questions about Trump’s tensions with his secretary of state come as the U.S. faces a series of international crises, including the threat posed by North Korea and fate of the Iran nuclear deal.
Tillerson’s critics, including a growing list of foreign policy experts, have questioned whether he can effectively lead American diplomacy if he’s perceived by foreign leaders as being at odds with the true decision-maker: Trump.
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican who has become a vocal critic of the president, made the castration analogy last week to The Washington Post.
“At the end of the day, he makes decisions,” Tillerson said of the president. “I go out and do the best I can to execute those decisions successfully.”
Despite Tillerson’s attempts to show he’s in lockstep with the president, the NBC News report of his “moron” comment infuriated Trump, who privately bashed his secretary of state to associates and publicly challenged Tillerson to an IQ test.
“And I can tell you who is going to win,” Trump told Forbes magazine. The White House later said he was joking.
The White House did not immediately respond to Tillerson’s CNN interview. Trump visited his Virginia golf course for the second consecutive day on Sunday.
People close to Trump say the president has grown increasingly dissatisfied with Tillerson, whom Trump views as holding a conventional view of America’s role in the world and lacking star power. Tillerson, meanwhile, is said to have grown weary of Trump contradicting his public pronouncements and of becoming increasingly isolated in a capital to which he has never warmed.
Tillerson has been painted by some “America First” forces as a publicity-shy, slow-moving “globalist” who did not grasp the nationalist platform of Trump’s campaign. Trump himself has been irked by Tillerson’s advocacy of staying in both the Paris climate deal and the Iran nuclear pact, and has complained to associates that he does not like how Tillerson candidly voices his disapproval to the president in meetings, according to White House officials and outside advisers.