USA

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — After triggering tornadoes in South Carolina, Hurricane Dorian was closing in for a possible direct hit Friday on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, a string of low-lying islands, even as it weakened to a Category 1 storm.

On Ocracoke Island, near the southern end of the 200-mile-long (320-kilometer) string of barrier islands and spits, about 500 of the 1,000 residents have stuck around to face the storm, said Ann Warner, the owner of Howard’s Pub on the island.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Relentless, deadly attacks by the Taliban, including a car bombing Thursday that killed a U.S. service member, are testing President Donald Trump’s resolve to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and end what he has called America’s “endless” war.

The death of the American — the fourth U.S. service member killed in the past two weeks in Afghanistan — could be used to argue that it is long past time to bring U.S. troops home.

MEDFORD, Mass. (AP) — Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke says a mandatory government buyback program for AK-47 and AR-15 rifles is needed because other gun control measures don’t do enough to remove weapons already on the streets.

O’Rourke spoke Thursday at Tufts University in his first campaign stop in Massachusetts. He said that while universal background checks and red flag laws that allow guns to be removed from those deemed a danger to themselves or others will save lives, neither will address the millions of assault-style weapons already in private hands.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A jury on Thursday didn’t convict two men charged after flames tore through a party at a San Francisco Bay Area warehouse that had been converted into a mazelike artist space, stunning families of the 36 victims who had opposed a deal that would have put the pair behind bars.

Jurors acquitted Max Harris of involuntary manslaughter but said they could not agree on whether to convict or acquit Derick Almena after deliberating over a two-week period.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The owners of the dive boat where 34 people perished in a fire off Southern California filed a lawsuit Thursday to head off potentially costly litigation, a move condemned by some observers as disrespectful to the families of the dead.

Truth Aquatics Inc., which owned the Conception, filed the action in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles under a pre-Civil War provision of maritime law that allows it to limit its liability.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is moving forward with a proposal to revoke part of California’s authority to set its own automobile gas mileage standards, a government official said Thursday, confronting a state that has repeatedly challenged the administration’s environmental rollbacks.

Sep 05, 2019; Democracy Now: Noted sociologist and economic historian Immanuel Wallerstein died over the weekend at the age of 88.

Wallerstein was best known for his world systems analysis, in which he contends all political and social structures in the modern world operate under the capitalist order.

5 September 2019; AFP: Trouble is raining down on US President Donald Trump, who appears to have given Americans incorrect information on Hurricane Dorian's trajectory.

During an Oval Office press conference Wednesday, Trump displayed a map from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) showing the devastating storm's initial predicted path.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The captain and crew who leapt from a burning dive boat off Southern California saved themselves as 34 people perished below deck.

Whether their escape from the Conception before dawn Monday was the only viable option, an act of cowardice or even a crime has yet to be determined. While the old saw about the captain going down with his ship is more an antiquated notion, there are laws to punish a ship’s master who shirks his duty to safely evacuate passengers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Democratic presidential contenders talked tough Wednesday on cutting climate-damaging emissions from oil, gas and coal, turning their focus to global warming in a marathon evening of town halls that gave the candidates a chance to distinguish themselves on a topic of growing importance to their party’s liberal base.