PONCE, Puerto Rico: The fourth major Atlantic hurricane of the year, Maria, strengthened into a rare Category 5 storm, as it churned through the eastern Caribbean, bearing down on the tiny island nation of Dominica while on a likely collision course with the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
Maria was upgraded to the pinnacle of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale as its maximum sustained winds reached 160 miles per hour (215 km per hour), with higher gusts, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported.
The center of the storm, described by the NHC as “potentially catastrophic,” was located about 15 miles (72 km) east-southeast of Dominica as of 7:45 p.m. EDT (2345 GMT), on a track that would put it over Puerto Rico by Wednesday, according to the agency’s latest bulletins.
Dominica, a heavily forested former British colony home to 72,000 people, lies in the eastern Caribbean about halfway between the French islands of Guadeloupe, to the north, and Martinique, to the south.
Maria would be the most powerful hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in 85 years, since a Category 4 storm swept the US island territory in 1932, Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said. The last major hurricane to strike Puerto Rico directly was Georges, which made landfall there as a Category 3 storm, he said.
The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, urged island residents in a social media advisory to brace for the storm’s arrival, saying, “It is time to seek refuge with a family member, friend or head to a state shelter.”
Puerto Rico narrowly avoided a direct hit two weeks ago from Hurricane Irma, which reached a rare Category 5 status and ranked as the most powerful Atlantic storm on record before devastating several smaller islands, including the US Virgin Islands of St. Thomas and St. John.
Residents of some islands fled in advance of the storm.
US Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp said Maria was due to pass within 10 miles of the island of St. Croix, which escaped the brunt of Irma’s Category 5-force fury on Sept. 6 and is home to about 55,000 year-round residents, roughly half of the entire territory’s population.
The territory’s two other main islands, St. Thomas and St. John, which lie to the north of St. Croix, sustained widespread heavy damage from Irma.
Beth Tamplin Jones, 45, rode out Hurricane Irma earlier this month in the pantry of a friend’s house on St. John.
“It was so intense,” said Jones, who evacuated to Puerto Rico last week and then caught a flight to Atlanta, where she planned to remain until Maria passed.
“We’re in hurricane alley, so we’ve had other storms, but nothing like this,” Jones said, referring to Irma, which killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean and the US mainland. “I don’t think anybody’s ever been hit by a storm like that. To see another one coming is just so discouraging.”
Mapp warned residents not to underestimate the threat from Maria, saying, “Just remember this is a live animal.” He suggested that for residents who choose their homes over an emergency shelter during the storm, they might consider climbing into a bathtub and pulling a mattress over them to stay safe.
Maria was expected to whip up storm surges — seawater driven ashore by wind — of up to 9 feet (2.7 m) above normal tide levels, the NHC said. Parts of Puerto Rico could see up to 25 inches (64 cm) of rain, it said.
Puerto Rico, meanwhile, opened shelters and began to dismantle construction cranes that could be vulnerable to Maria’s high winds.
Forecasters also were tracking Category 1 Hurricane Jose, packing 75-mph (120-kph) winds and located about 250 miles (405 km) east of North Carolina, and stirring dangerous surf and rip currents to much of the US Eastern seaboard.
Maria marks the 13th named Atlantic storm of the year, the seventh hurricane so far this season and the fourth major hurricane — defined as Category 3 or higher — following Harvey, Irma and Jose, the NHC said. Those numbers are all slightly above average for a typical season, which is only about half over for 2017.
Maria intensifies to rare Category 5 hurricane in Caribbean
Maria intensifies to rare Category 5 hurricane in Caribbean
Tens of thousands protest in Minneapolis over fatal ICE shooting
- Federal-state tensions escalated further on Thursday when a US Border Patrol agent in Portland, Oregon, shot and wounded a man and woman in their car after an attempted vehicle stop
MINNEAPOLIS: Tens of thousands of people marched through Minneapolis on Saturday to decry the fatal shooting of a woman by a US immigration agent, part of more than 1,000 rallies planned nationwide this weekend against the federal government’s deportation drive. The massive turnout in Minneapolis despite a whipping, cold wind underscores how the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Wednesday has struck a chord, fueling protests in major cities and some towns. Minnesota’s Democratic leaders and the administration of President Donald Trump, a Republican, have offered starkly different accounts of the incident.
Led by a team of Indigenous Mexican dancers, demonstrators in Minneapolis, which has a metropolitan population of 3.8 million, marched toward the residential street where Good was shot in her car.
’HEARTBROKEN AND DEVASTATED’
The boisterous crowd, which the Minneapolis Police Department estimated in the tens of thousands, chanted Good’s name and slogans such as “Abolish ICE” and “No justice, no peace — get ICE off our streets.”
“I’m insanely angry, completely heartbroken and devastated, and then just like longing and hoping that things get better,” Ellison Montgomery, a 30-year-old protester, told Reuters.
Minnesota officials have called the shooting unjustified, pointing to bystander video they say showed Good’s vehicle turning away from the agent as he fired. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has maintained that the agent acted in self-defense because Good, a volunteer in a community network that monitors and records ICE operations in Minneapolis, drove forward in the direction of the agent who then shot her, after another agent had approached the driver’s side and told her to get out of the car.
The shooting on Wednesday came soon after some 2,000 federal officers were dispatched to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in what DHS has called its largest operation ever, deepening a rift between the administration and Democratic leaders in the state. Federal-state tensions escalated further on Thursday when a US Border Patrol agent in Portland, Oregon, shot and wounded a man and woman in their car after an attempted vehicle stop. Using language similar to its description of the Minneapolis incident, DHS said the driver had tried to “weaponize” his vehicle and run over agents.
The two DHS-related shootings prompted a coalition of progressive and civil rights groups, including Indivisible and the American Civil Liberties Union, to plan more than 1,000 events under the banner “ICE Out For Good” on Saturday and Sunday. The rallies have been scheduled to end before nightfall to minimize the potential for violence.
In Philadelphia, protesters chanted “ICE has got to go” and “No fascist USA,” as they marched from City Hall to a rally outside a federal detention facility, according to the local ABC affiliate. In Manhattan, several hundred people carried anti-ICE signs as they walked past an immigration court where agents have arrested migrants following their hearings.
“We demand justice for Renee, ICE out of our communities, and action from our elected leaders. Enough is enough,” said Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible.
DEMONSTRATIONS MOSTLY PEACEFUL
Minnesota became a major flashpoint in the administration’s efforts to deport millions of immigrants months before the Good shooting, with Trump criticizing its Democratic leaders amid a massive welfare fraud scandal involving some members of the large Somali-American community there.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat who has been critical of immigration agents and the shooting, told a press conference earlier on Saturday that the demonstrations have remained mostly peaceful and that anyone damaging property or engaging in unlawful activity would be arrested by police.
“We will not counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos,” Frey said. “He wants us to take the bait.”
More than 200 law enforcement officers were deployed Friday night to control protests that led to $6,000 in damage at the Depot Renaissance Hotel and failed attempts by some demonstrators to enter the Hilton Canopy Hotel, believed to house ICE agents, the City of Minneapolis said in a statement.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara said some in the crowd scrawled graffiti and damaged windows at the Depot Renaissance Hotel. He said the gathering at the Hilton Canopy Hotel began as a “noise protest” but escalated as more than 1,000 demonstrators converged on the site, leading to 29 arrests.
“We initiated a plan and took our time to de-escalate the situation, issued multiple warnings, declaring an unlawful assembly, and ultimately then began to move in and disperse the crowd,” O’Hara said.
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVES TURNED AWAY FROM ICE FACILITY
Three Minnesota congressional Democrats showed up at a regional ICE headquarters near Minneapolis on Saturday morning, where protesters have clashed with federal agents this week, but were denied access. Legislators called the denial illegal.
“We made it clear to ICE and DHS that they were violating federal law,” US Representative Angie Craig told reporters as she stood outside the Whipple Federal Building in St. Paul with Representatives Kelly Morrison and Ilhan Omar.
Federal law prohibits DHS from blocking members of Congress from entering ICE detention sites, but DHS has increasingly restricted such oversight visits, prompting confrontations with Democratic lawmakers.
“It is our job as members of Congress to make sure those detained are treated with humanity, because we are the damn United States of America,” Craig said.
Referencing the damage and protests at Minneapolis hotels overnight, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the congressional Democrats were denied entry to ensure “the safety of detainees and staff, and in compliance with the agency’s mandate.” She said DHS policies require members of Congress to notify ICE at least seven days in advance of facility visits.
