2 tropical storms a potential double threat to Gulf Coast
Two newly formed tropical storms could become almost simultaneous threats to the U.S. Gulf Coast early next week. They could get sucked into an odd dance around each other. Or they could fall apart as they soak the Caribbean and Mexico this weekend.
Tropical storms Laura and Marco have such bad and good environments ahead of them that their futures were not clear late Friday. Computer forecast models varied so much that some saw Laura becoming a major hurricane nearing the U.S., while others saw it dissipating.
If both storms survive the weekend, the National Hurricane Center forecast that Laura would as head a hurricane toward the central Gulf Coast around Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle, while Marco aimed at Texas, though most likely remaining a tropical storm.
“A lot of people are going to be impacted by rainfall and storm surge in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Joel Cline, the tropical program coordinator for the National Weather Service.
Two hurricanes have never appeared in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time, according to records going back to at least 1900, Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said. The last time two tropical storms were in the Gulf together was in 1959, he said.
Because the hurricane center slowed Laura’s entrance into the Gulf and moved its track westward, the two storms are forecast to be together in the Gulf on Tuesday, just before
Marco smacks Texas with Laura making landfall a bit less than a day later.
Tropical storm warnings were in effect Saturday for Puerto Rico, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and parts of the Dominican Republic.
Laura was forecast go over or near the Dominican Republic and Haiti late Saturday and Cuba on Sunday.
Belarus blocks news: Authorities in Belarus blocked more than 50 news media websites covering weeks of protests demanding that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko resign but protesters still turned out again Saturday, some forming a chain of solidarity in the capital.
The Belarusian Association of Journalists reported the shutdowns Saturday, which included sites for the U.S.-funded Radio Liberty and Belsat, a Polish-funded satellite TV channel focusing on neighboring Belarus.
The state publishing house has also stopped printing two top independent newspapers, the Narodnaya Volya and Komsomolskaya Pravda, citing an equipment malfunction.
Protests unprecedented in Belarus for their size and duration broke out after the Aug. 9 presidential election, in which election officials say Lukashenko, 65, won a sixth term in a landslide. Protesters allege the officials results are fraudulent and are calling for Lukashenko to resign after 26 years in power.
National Enquirer exec exits: David Pecker is stepping down as CEO of the National Enquirer’s parent,
Holy festival: ending a reign that saw the company entangled in a campaign-finance scandal that sent President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer to jail.
Pecker’s company, American Media Inc., is being taken over by Accelerate360, a logistics firm based in Smyrna, Georgia, whose recent efforts include the delivery of millions of face masks and units of hand sanitizer.
Accelerate did not disclose the terms of the deal Friday, but it said the combined entity would be headed by Accelerate CEO David Parry.
Mali meeting: Top West African officials were in Mali’s capital on Saturday to meet with junta leaders and the country’s deposed president to try to negotiate a return to civilian rule after a coup this week.
The mediation efforts came a day after thousands of Malians took to the streets of Bamako, the capital, to celebrate the coup that ousted elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
The West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS has strongly condemned the coup and said the high-level delegation will work “to ensure the immediate return of constitutional order.” ECOWAS also demanded the reinstatement of Keita.
ECOWAS had said it’s mobilizing a regional military force — an indication it’s preparing for a military intervention in Mali in case negotiations with the junta leaders fail.
French politicians react: French politicians of all political views roundly condemned Saturday graffiti denying the Holocaust that was scrawled on a wall in the village that was the site of the France’s biggest massacre of civilians by the Nazis during World War II.
The rare display of unity, from French President Emmanuel Macron to the farleft and the far-right, underscored the symbolism of Oradour-sur-Glane as a perpetual reminder of the horrors of Nazi occupation of France. The village has remained untouched since the massacre.
Macron, who visited the village after his 2017 election victory, vowed “all will be done” to catch those who defaced the wall at the entrance of the Center for Remembrance.
Officials in OradourSur-Glane, which is near Limoges in central France, threw up a tarp to cover the graffiti that was discovered Friday. The word “Lie” was scrawled on the wall, along with other graffiti, according to the regional paper Le Populaire du Centre. The inscription “Martyr Village” was crossed out.
Portland protests: Dueling demonstrations in Portland, Oregon by rightwing and left-wing protesters Saturday turned violent, with demonstrators hurling rocks and other items at each other and getting into fights.
Streets were blocked amid the mayhem between the groups that gathered near the Multnomah County Justice Center in Oregon’s biggest city, local media outlets reported.
Images showed what appeared to be hundreds of people involved, many wearing helmets and carrying makeshift shields.
The Justice Center in recent weeks has been the target of left-wing protesters mostly operating at night, when they frequently get into clashes with police.
Right-wing groups had announced a rally near the building Saturday that quickly drew counter demonstrators. The building houses a police precinct, police headquarters, a county jail and courtrooms and is next door to a federal courthouse that was targeted for weeks last month by protesters who clashed with federal agents dispatched to Portland to protect it.