Month: July 2020

Hurricane Dorian is heading towards the coast of Georgia after leaving seven dead in the Bahamas, where the prime minister said terrified residents had endured “days of horror” at the hands of the monster storm.

Aerial footage showed scenes of catastrophic damage with hundreds of homes missing roofs, cars submerged or overturned, widespread flooding and boats reduced to matchwood.

Harrowing accounts emerged, with one survivor describing how he had watched his wife drown.

Prime Minister Hubert Minnis warned the death toll would rise as he called Dorian “one of the greatest national crises in our country’s history.”

“Parts of Abaco are decimated. There’s severe flooding, there’s severe damage to homes, businesses, other buildings and infrastructure,” he said.

Hurricane Dorian stalls over the Bahamas, in pictures

Bahamas residents “endured hours and days of horror, fearing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones,” Mr Minnis said.

As the storm moved away from the islands, more accounts of the suffering it inflicted emerged.

Crab fisherman Howard Armstrong described how the water flooded his home, coming up to his roof.

“I would imagine 21 feet at least. We were doing all right until the water kept coming up and all the appliances were going around the house like a washing machine,” he told CNN.

“My poor little wife got hypothermia and she was standing on top of the kitchen cabinets until they disintegrated… I kept with her and she just drowned on me,” said Mr Armstrong, who eventually made it to his boat.

The online Bahamas Press published video of flooding in the Rand Memorial Hospital in Freeport and said patients had been forced to evacuate the facility.

The US Coast Guard sent helicopters to Andros Island in the southern Bahamas to help with search and rescue operations as residents trapped in their homes by floodwaters issued distress calls.

But the runways at Grand Bahama International Airport in the island’s largest city Freeport were under water, complicating rescue efforts.

The Miami-based US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the core of the storm “will move dangerously close to the Florida east coast and the Georgia coast through Wednesday night.”

Dorian would move “near or over” the South and North Carolina coasts Thursday through Friday morning.

President Donald Trump warned people against complacency.

“The U.S. may be getting a little bit lucky with respect to Hurricane Dorian, but please don’t let down your guard. As it heads up the coast, lots of very bad and unpredictable things can happen!” he tweeted.

“On the other hand, the Bahamas have been devastated,” he wrote.

Dorian, which has dumped as much as 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain on the Bahamas, was downgraded Tuesday morning to a Category 2 hurricane on the five-level wind scale.

But it has expanded in size and is “expected to remain a powerful hurricane during the next few of days,” the NHC said.

A state of emergency has been declared in parts of the east coast for millions of US residents potentially in its path.

Late Tuesday, Mr Trump tweeted: “I am getting the North Carolina Emergency Declaration completed and signed tonight. Hope you won’t need it!”

The Pentagon said 5,000 members of the National Guard and 2,700 active-duty troops were ready to help out if needed.

Some mandatory evacuations were lifted Tuesday afternoon for parts of southern Florida, while further north, a large swathe of the state’s coast – as well as that from mid-Georgia to southern North Carolina – remained under a hurricane warning.

“The images coming in from the Bahamas are gut-wrenching, but show exactly how fortunate Florida has been with this storm,” said Jared Moskowitz, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, warning the state would still be impacted by Dorian.

“Throughout tonight and tomorrow, our state will still experience storm surge, high winds and other impacts along the coast, and I urge every Floridian to take these threats seriously,” he said.

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At 11pm (3am UK), Dorian was packing maximum sustained winds of 110 miles per hour, the NHC said, as it moved towards the north-northwest at 8 mph.

Meanwhile, Freeport resident Yasmin Rigby told AFP that “most of the island is still flooded” and it was “still raining with gusty winds.”

“I am still getting calls from people calling for help,” Ms Rigby said. “I cannot move from my apartment. Thankfully we have sufficient supplies.”

Pope Francis said he does not fear a schism within the Roman Catholic Church, as criticism grows among conservatives of his liberal views on migrants, the protection of the environment and giving communion to divorcees.

Speaking on board the papal plane on his return from a trip to Madagascar, Mauritius and Mozambique, the Pope said he had been unfairly labelled “a Communist” by his critics, with the most vocal being conservative Catholics in the United States.

In his strongest remarks yet on the risk of a schism, he said there had been many doctrinal splits during the 2,000-year history of the Church, although he prayed there would not be another.

“I am not afraid of schisms. I pray that there will be none, because what is at stake is people’s spiritual health,” he told journalists on board the plane.

The Pope’s impassioned defence of migrants and refugees, his opposition to Donald Trump’s wall on the US-Mexico border, his sympathy towards homosexuals and his openness to remarried divorcees being allowed to take communion have earned him the ire of conservatives, particularly in the US.

He said he was open to discussing differences of opinion with his critics, some of whom have accused him of heresy and have called for his resignation.

“Let there be dialogue, let there be correction if there is an error, but the schismatic path is not Christian,” he said.

His critics were putting ideology over Catholic doctrine and deserved sympathy, not hostility.

“We need to be gentle with those who are tempted by these attacks, they are going through a tough time, we must accompany them gently,” he said.

The Catholic Church last suffered a schism in 1988, when Marcel Lefebvre, an ultra-traditionalist French archbishop, ordained bishops without papal permission and started his own movement. 

Francis insisted that many of his views were similar to those of Pope John Paul II, who is regarded as an icon by conservatives, in part for his role in standing up to the USSR and bringing about the fall of Communism.

“The social things that I say are the same things that John Paul II said, the same things. I copy him. But they say: ‘the Pope is a communist.’”

He said he was happy for critics to address him openly, but condemned those who launched attacks in an underhand way.

"At least those who say something have the advantage of honesty in saying so. And I like that," he said. "I don’t like criticism when it’s under the table, when they smile at you and then then they try to stab you in the back.”

Echoing remarks that he has made throughout his papacy, he condemned populism and xenophobia, likening populist politicians to Adolf Hitler.

“Sometimes, in some places, I hear speeches being given that sound similar to those made by Hitler in 1934. It’s as if they want to return to the past in Europe.”

Xenophobia is “a human disease, like measles,” he said.

In an apparent reference to President Trump’s plans for a wall along the US border with Mexico, and European countries’ efforts to keep out refugees and migrants with razor wire fences, he said: “Xenophobia is a disease that enters a country, enters a continent, and we build walls. But walls leave only those who built them. Yes, they leave out many people, but those who remain inside the walls will be left alone. Xenophobia rides the waves of political populism.”

Francis criticised Mr Trump’s proposals for a border wall three years ago, saying that anyone who wants to build walls rather than bridges is “not Christian”.

The remark incensed the then Republican candidate, who said it was “disgraceful” that the pontiff should question his faith. 

To the discomfort of some conservative Catholics, Francis has repeatedly warned that the excesses of capitalism are leaving millions of people behind, fueling social tensions and harming the planet.

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Three million Syrians could return to their country to a planned "safe zone", Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.  A US-Turkey safe-zone deal was agreed in August, and now forces from both countries are setting up the area in northeast Syria, which Mr Erdogan says needs to be enlarged in order to accommodate three million people. 

He is pushing for the busy exclusion zone to extend from Turkey’s border to Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, deep into territory held by Kurdish forces. 

Mr Erdogan said he aims to settle "at least one million of our Syrian brothers," and wants to extend the safe zone following talks with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president. 

It is believed to be unlikely that US-backed Kurdish fighters will accept Mr Erdogan’s offer.  Labelled terrorists by Ankara, Kurdish groups say Turkey is planning to use the safe zone to drive out the Kurds already living there. 

Turkey has repeatedly threatened to launch an offensive against the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, which have been key to the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

Speaking after the meeting with his Russian and Iranian counterparts on Monday, Mr Erdogan said it was unacceptable to support militant groups "under the pretence" of battling Isil. 

Since the introduction of the safe zone deal, tens of thousands of civilians have fled from the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib to the Turkish border, with many more expected to join them as Russian and Syrian regime forces attempt to re-take the area. 

Turkey has borne much of the brunt of the exodus of Syrians fleeing fighting, and has hosted 3.7 million Syrian refugees since the outbreak of civil war in 2011. 

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It was recently announced that RAW Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey will be on NBC’s Today Show this coming Thursday, April 4th. Rousey will be promoting The “Winner Takes All” WrestleMania 35 Main Event against Becky Lynch & SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair.
Below is a promo for The WWE Hall Of Fame Class Of 2019 Induction Ceremony, which is set to take place this coming Saturday at 7PM ET from The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The Red Carpet Special, which is a one hour Pre-Show before The WWE Hall Of Fame Class Of 2019 Induction Ceremony takes place, will begin at 6PM ET.
The induction ceremony is set to feature D-Generation X, Harlem Heat, The Hart Foundation, Torrie Wilson, The Honky Tonk Man, Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake & Warrior Award Recipient Longtime WWE Employee Sue Aitchison.

The 2019 #WWEHOF Induction Ceremony streams LIVE this Saturday at 7e/4p, only on the award-winning @WWENetwork! pic.twitter.com/WVAhruVj7H
— WWE (@WWE) April 2, 2019