Storm system could dump up to a foot of rain along Gulf Coast
NEW ORLEANS — High winds and heavy rains buffeted coastal Louisiana and Mississippi on Friday as a disorganized and unpredictable tropical weather system churned through the Gulf of Mexico, forcing cancellation of Juneteenth celebrations in Mississippi and Alabama and threatening Father’s Day tourism.
The system, moving north toward Louisiana through the Gulf of Mexico carried tropical stormforce sustained winds of 45 mph but forecasters said it couldn’t be classified as a tropical storm because it lacked a single, well-defined center.
“This one is just a sloppy mess,” said Benjamin Schott, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Slidell, Louisiana.
Forecasters said the storm was likely to dump anywhere from 4 inches to 8 inches of rain along parts of the Gulf Coast — even 12 inches in isolated areas.
The storm was expected to make landfall late Friday or early Saturday, imperiling Father’s Day weekend commerce in tourism areas already suffering economic losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
A tropical storm warning extended from Morgan City, Louisiana, to the Okaloosa-Walton County line in the Florida Panhandle. Coastal surge flooding was possible and flash flood watches extended along the coast from southeast Louisiana into the Florida Panhandle and well inland into Mississippi, Alabama and into parts of central and northern Georgia.
By Friday evening, storm clusters were dumping rain at rates as high as 4 inches an hour along parts of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, Schott said. Radar showed more heavy rain moving ashore over Alabama and the Florida panhandle.
Terrorism warning: A senior U.S. general warned Friday that the “wildfire of terrorism” is sweeping across a band of Africa and needs the world’s attention. He spoke at the close of largescale U.S.-led war games with American, African and European troops.
The African Lion war games stretched across Morocco, a key U.S, ally, with smaller parts held in Tunisia and Senegal. The annual drills were skipped last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Gen. Stephen Townsend, head of the U.S. Africa Command, praised the work accomplished in joint operations, and painted a dark picture of threats besetting parts of Africa.
“I am concerned about the security situation across a band of Africa,” from the Sahel region in the west to the Horn of Africa, Townsend told reporters. He noted deadly attacks by al-Qaida- and Islamic Statelinked jihadis and al-Shabab.
African neighbors are helping governments deal with the threat, but, he added, “all of that does not seem to be sufficient enough to stop what I call ... (the) wildfire of terrorism that’s sweeping that region.”
African Lion saw more than 7,000 troops from seven countries and NATO carry out air, land and sea exercises together.
Palestinians protest: Palestinians protested after Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem and briefly clashed with Israeli police, leaving
three demonstrators wounded.
A series of far more violent clashes at the site in April and May helped ignite last month’s 11-day Gaza war. The site is the third holiest in Islam and the holiest for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of the biblical temples.
It has frequently been the scene of Israeli-Palestinian violence. This time, the police refrained from entering the compound and appeared to act with more restraint, possibly on the orders of Israel’s newly sworn-in government. The Red Crescent emergency service said two Palestinians were wounded by rubber bullets and a third by a stone that was thrown.
Young Palestinians could be seen hurling stones at police stationed at an entrance to the compound, who fired stun grenades and rubber-coated bullets.
Hundreds demonstrated after Friday prayers in
response to a rally held by Jewish ultranationalists on Tuesday in which dozens had chanted “Death to Arabs” and “May your village burn.” The Palestinians protested against insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, after online video showed some of the participants in the Tuesday march denigrating him.
Tensions have remained high since an informal ceasefire halted the Gaza war on May 21.
UN condemns coup: The United Nations General Assembly sought to ostracize Myanmar’s ruling generals on Friday with an emphatic rebuke, demanding they end the five-month-old military takeover, stop killing opponents and free imprisoned civilian leaders.
The 193-member body also called for an arms embargo on Myanmar and requested unimpeded humanitarian access to stop the country’s slide into poverty, dysfunction and despair.
The adoption of a resolution
containing these demands by a vote of 119-1, with 36 abstentions and 37 members not voting, was not the overwhelming consensus its drafters had originally sought. But it represented the most widespread condemnation yet of the Myanmar military commanders who seized control in a Feb. 1 coup and have basically ignored all efforts to restore that country’s fragile democracy.
UN reelects leader: The U.N. General Assembly unanimously elected Antonio Guterres to a second term as secretary-general on Friday, giving him another five years at the helm of the organization at a time a deeply divided world faces numerous conflicts, the growing impact of climate change, and a pandemic still circling the globe.
Guterres, the only candidate for the U.N.’s top post, said he was “humbled and energized” by the support of the world’s nations and said the “driving theme” of his
second term will be “prevention in all its aspects — from conflicts, climate change, pandemics to poverty and inequality.”
Ambassadors in the assembly chamber burst into applause as Assembly President Volkan Bozkir announced Guterres’ reelection by “acclamation,” without a vote.
Mass child abduction:
Gunmen abducted scores of children from a school in northwest Nigeria, the second kidnapping from a school in the country’s north within a week, officials said.
A policeman was shot dead in the attack Thursday at the Federal Government College in Birnin Yauri in Kebbi State, according to police spokesman Nafiu Abubakar.
About 70 children were abducted from the school, according to the Lagosbased Guardian newspaper which quoted an eyewitness and a school staff member.