IRELAND, U.K. BRACE FOR OPHELIA
LONDON» Irish authorities ordered all schools in the country to close Monday and warned cyclists and motorists to stay off roads as a storm with hurricane-force winds bore down on Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Once a hurricane, Ophelia was classified as a post-tropical cyclone late Sunday but was moving north with sustained winds of 85 mph.
It is forecast to be near western Ireland on Monday and near northern Scotland on Monday night. But U.K. Met Office forecaster Luke Miall said it could still pack “hurricane force” winds.
U.S.-allied forces begin final assault on Raqqa.
BEIRUT» U.S.-backed Syrian fighters launched an operation to retake the last Islamic State-held pocket of the northern city of Raqqa on Sunday after some 275 militants and their family members surrendered.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said the operation will continue “until all the city is cleansed from terrorists who refused to surrender.”
The SDF has been on the offensive in Raqqa since early June and now controls about 90 percent of the city that was once the extremist group’s selfstyled capital.
The operation was named after Adnan Abu Amjad, an Arab commander with the SDF who was killed in August while fighting against the Islamic State in central Raqqa.
The loss of Raqqa would hand another major blow to the Islamic State, which has lost most of the territory it once held in Syria and Iraq.
Oil rig explodes in Lake Pontchartrain.
KENNER,
An oil rig exploded Sunday night in Lake Pontchartrain in St. Charles Parish, a Kenner Police Department spokesman said.
Sgt. Brian McGregor said Sunday night that rescue boats were being sent and that officials with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office were assisting.
There were “a lot of injuries,” many of them serious, with at least seven confirmed and more expected, McGregor said.
Initial reports said six people were injured and one person was missing.
Corden catches flak for joking about Weinstein.
ANGELES» Television LOS talk-show host James Corden is facing a backlash over jokes he made about Harvey Weinstein.
Corden made a string of quips about Weinstein and the sexual misconduct allegations against him during a Hollywood charity event Friday.
Italian actress Asia Argento, one of Weinstein’s accusers, chided Corden on Sunday on Twitter, saying “shame on this pig.”
Rose McGowan, another Weinstein accuser, tweeted that Corden’s jokes show “EXACTLY what kind of HOLLYWOOD you really are.”
The host of “The Late Late Show” apologized on Twitter, saying he intended to shame Weinstein and called Weinstein’s behavior “inexcusable.”
Teen charged in fatal shooting of 2-year-old.
A 17-year-old has been charged in the fatal shooting of a 2-yearold Illinois boy.
The Herald & Review reports police found an injured child Saturday morning at a home in Decatur, 120 miles south of Chicago. The boy was pronounced dead later at a local hospital.
Macon County coroner Michel Day said Sunday that Justin Lee Murphy Jr. died from a gunshot wound to the torso.
Tillerson: N. Korea diplomacy continues until “first bomb drops.”
WASHINGTON» Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the North Korean crisis “will continue until the first bomb drops.”
But it was only recently that President Donald Trump tweeted that Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with the leader of the nuclear-armed nation.
Tillerson says in a television interview that Trump “has made clear to me that he wants this solved diplomatically. He is not seeking to go to war.”
Mixed messaging from Washington has raised concerns about the potential for miscalculation amid the increasingly bellicose exchange of words by Trump and Kim.
Richard Wilbur, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, dies at 96.
Richard Wilbur, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and translator who intrigued and delighted generations of readers and theatergoers through his rhyming editions of Moliere and his own verse on memory, writing and nature, has died. He was 96.
Wilbur’s friend, poet Dana Gioia, said he died Saturday night in Belmont, Mass., with his family by his side.
The U.S. poet laureate in 1987-88, Wilbur was often cited as an heir to Robert Frost and other New England writers.
Wilbur’s poems were often brief, subtle, temperate, reflecting upon childhood, family, nature and the creative process.