Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Hurricane Irma's strong winds and outer rain bands lashed the Florida Keys on Saturday as the Category 3 storm pushed toward the state amid dire warnings of devastating gales, heavy rain and a potentially deadly storm surge. With sustained winds at 125 mph, Irma slowly began turning from Cuba's northern coast up into the Florida Strait on Saturday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center said.
With the window closing fast for anyone wanting to escape, Irma hurtled toward Florida with 125 mph winds Saturday on a shifting course that took it away from Miami and instead threatened the first direct hit on the Tampa area from a major hurricane in nearly a century. That represented a significant turn in the forecast, which for days had made it look as if the Miami metropolitan area of 6 million people was going to get slammed head-on by the Big One.
In this geocolor image GOES-16 satellite image taken Friday, Sept. 8, 2017, at 11:45 UTC, sunlight, from the right, illuminates Hurricane Irma as the storm approaches Cuba and Florida.
The winds and sea are whipped up off of the Rickenbacker Causeway as two people cross the street in Miami as Hurricane Irma approaches on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017.
Georgia is bracing for potentially far-flung impacts from Hurricane Irma, which could swamp the coast with storm surge and topple trees and power lines in Atlanta. The National Hurricane Center placed the entire Georgia coast under a hurricane watch Saturday as residents packed their cars and trickled onto the highways in six counties under a mandatory evacuation.
The monster storm is so serious that the Pentagon is sending thousands who trained for urban and amphibious operations to Florida. Defense Secretary James Mattis on Wednesday authorized four U.S. Navy ships and Marines to redeploy from recovery efforts for Hurricane Harvey in Texas and sail to the Florida peninsula.
The Florida National Guard gets ready for Hurricane Irma, preparing high water vehicles and conducting hoist training with a UH-60 Black Hawk near Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Florida. The Florida National Guard gets ready for Hurricane Irma, preparing high water vehicles and conducting hoist training with a UH-60 Black Hawk near Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Florida.
Irma weakened slightly Friday but remained a dangerous and deadly hurricane taking direct aim at Florida, threatening to march along the peninsula's spine and deliver a blow the state hasn't seen in more than a decade.
Rep. Matt Gaetz was one of two Florida Republicans to vote against $15 billion in hurricane relief. He called the relief money, which was attached to a short-term limit of the nation's debt ceiling, as "generational theft."
Floridians began a mass exodus on Thursday as Hurricane Irma, the powerful Category 5 storm, plowed through the Caribbean toward the Sunshine State. Thousands of cars headed north, causing interstate backups and slowdowns.
After a catastrophic Hurricane Andrew revealed how lax building codes had become in the country's most storm-prone state, Florida began requiring sturdier construction. Now, experts say a monstrously strong Hurricane Irma could become the most serious test of Florida's storm-worthiness since the 1992 disaster.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Florida's attorney general slammed as "sickening" Wednesday evening more than 1,500 reported incidents of price gouging with Category 5 Hurricane Irma bearing down on the state, including delivery charges of $100 for a case of water.
As Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida, an Associated Press analysis shows a steep drop in flood insurance across the state, including the areas most endangered by what could be a devastating storm surge. In just five years, the state's total number of federal flood insurance policies has fallen by 15 percent, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency data.
4, 2017, satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Hurricane Irma nearing the eastern Caribbean. Hurricane Irma grew into a powerful Category 4 storm Monday.
The US military has ordered the evacuation of over five thousand personnel from a Naval Air Station in Florida in preparation for Hurricane Irma. Currently, it is threatening to slam into Caribbean islands including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands with "potentially catastrophic" force on Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said.
A former top Republican strategist says the GOP "deserve[s] the reckoning that will eventually come" if President Trump ends the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. , Sally Bradshaw, also a former top adviser to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush , said Trump is "anti-anything that would bring the country together.
If U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., gets her way, the names of three Confederate generals will be removed from street signs in Hollywood, Fla., and the statue of a Confederate general representing Florida will be removed from the National Statuary Hall in Washington. Wasserman Schultz, the former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee who resigned from the post in July 2016 amid allegations that she favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders for the party's 2016 presidential nomination, has asked local leaders in Hollywood to remove the names of Robert E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Bell Hood from city streets.
In the wake of Hurricane Harvey and historic flooding across southeast Texas, Commissioner Adam H. Putnam encourages Floridians to visit FloridaConsumerHelp.com to research charitable organizations before donating money to help those in need. "Our hearts go out to the people of Texas, and I hope that Floridians can respond with the same generosity that our state has received time and time again," Commissioner of Agriculture Adam H. Putnam said.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson today called on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services "to exercise its oversight and enforcement authority" to protect more than 13,000 Florida children with special needs who were improperly removed from the state's specialized care program, known as Children's Medical Services. Nelson's request comes on the heels of recent reports that despite a Florida judge's ruling two years ago that required the state to stop using a new screening tool that declared thousands of kids ineligible for the state's specialized care program, the state of Florida has still not yet notified all of the families who were improperly removed from the program to provide them an opportunity to reenroll.