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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Lois Beckett, Joan E Greve in Washington, Tom McCarthy and Martin Belam

Kamala Harris delivers scorching rebuke of Trump's Covid response ahead of his RNC speech – as it happened

Kamala Harris speaks in Washington on 27 August.
Kamala Harris speaks in Washington on 27 August. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

Evening summary

We’re wrapping up our daily live politics coverage for this evening, but you can continue to follow our live highlights from tonight’s Republican National convention speeches.

A summary of key news from this afternoon and early evening:

  • At least four people have died from Hurricane Laura, according to the Louisiana governor’s office. The four fatalities, which included a 14-year-old girl in Vernon parish. all resulted from falling trees. A spokesperson for the governor warned the death toll was likely to rise.
  • The New York Mets and Miami Marlins walked off the field together tonight, choosing not to play in a coordinated protest in support of Black Lives Matter. They left a Black Lives Matter t-shirt draped over home plate.
  • Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Illinois, faces homicide charges in the shooting deaths of both Anthony Huber, 26, and Joseph “Jojo” Rosenbaum, 36, at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday. Both victims were Kenosha area locals. Rittenhouse also faces a charge for being too young to legally possess the rifle he allegedly used in the killings.
  • Despite Facebook’s ban on content supporting mass murderers, fundraisers and posts praising Rittenhouse for killing two people have spread widely on the social media website, with some calling his victims “commies” and other posters openly defying Facebook’s rules and urging their followers to share the posts before they are deleted.
  • Jacob Blake’s uncle told a journalist that his family is furious that Blake, shot seven times and reportedly paralyzed, has been handcuffed to his hospital bed.

Jacob Blake has been handcuffed to his hospital bed, family members say

Wesley Lowery interviewed the uncle of Jacob Blake today. One of the things he emphasized in the interview, Lowery reports:

Blake’s father has also been speaking out:

Updated

More images of lack of social distancing or masks at Trump’s RNC speech tonight

White House correspondent highlights Trump’s attacks on trans rights

As the Trump campaign debuts an LGBTQ coalition, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, one of the most influential journalists covering the White House, is highlighting Trump’s record of attacks on trans rights:

Despite ban, praise for alleged Kenosha shooter is being shared widely on Facebook

Fundraisers, messages of support and celebratory memes for the alleged Kenosha, Wisconsin, mass shooter are being shared widely on Facebook and Instagram, despite the company’s assurance on Wednesday that it was working to enforce its policy banning content that “praises, supports, or represents” mass shooters.

Hundreds of Facebook posts and memes featuring the phrase “Free Kyle” or “Free Kyle Rittenhouse” had garnered more than 70,000 interactions as of Thursday morning. Many of the posts include stills captured from videos of Rittenhouse carrying his assault rifle before, during and after the shooting.

On Thursday morning, Joshua Feuerstein, an Evangelical Christian social media influencer best known for a viral video in which he complained about Starbucks’ red holiday cups, shared a meme showing a photo of Rittenhouse during the shooting with the slogan, “I stand with Kyle Rittenhouse”. “SHARE THIS BEFORE THEY TAKE IT DOWN AGAIN!” Feuerstein wrote to his 2.6 million fans. His fans responded, sharing the image more than 3,700 times over about two hours before the image was removed.

Read the full story:

Mets, Marlins walk off field in Black Lives Matter protest

The New York Mets and Miami Marlins, two major league baseball teams, jointly walked off the field after a moment of silence, draping a Black Lives Matter T-shirt across home plate as they chose not to start their scheduled game Thursday night, the Associated Press reported.

https://twitter.com/SNYtv/status/1299124375225073669

Mets outfielder Dominic Smith — a Black man who wept Wednesday night while discussing the shooting by police of a Black man in Wisconsin over the weekend — then led New York onto the field. Players took their positions, then reserves and coaches filed out of both dugouts and stood silently for 42 seconds.

Both teams then left the field, leaving only the black T-shirt at home plate.

It was not immediately clear if the Mets and Marlins planned to resume their game.

Kenosha shooter used Smith & Wesson AR-15-style rifle, according to complaint

Among the details in the criminal complaint filed against 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse in the shooting deaths of two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, is information on the gun he allegedly used, which was later recovered by law enforcement: a Smith & Wesson AR-15 style .223 rifle, with a magazine that holds 30 rounds of ammunition.

This is a popular style of rifle with many American gun owners. It’s also been the gun of choice for young male perpetrators of some of America’s most infamous mass murders, including the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Teenager charged with homicide in both Kenosha shooting deaths

Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who was arrested in connection with shootings in Wisconsin that led to the death of two people and injury of another, has been charged with six criminal counts, according to the criminal complaint disclosed on Thursday, Reuters reports.

The charges against Rittenhouse in Kenosha County include first degree reckless homicide in the death of Joseph Rosenbaum and first degree intentional homicide in the death of Anthony Huber, according to the complaint.

ABC7 Chicago is highlighting some key details of the criminal complaint:

Read more about the victims of the shooting here:

Hurricane topples Confederate monument in Louisiana that officials had voted to keep

Hurricane Laura brought severe damage to Louisiana, with at least four people killed by falling trees across the state. Residents are now facing the serious destruction the storm has left. But for some locals, there is at least one “small blessing” amid the wreckage: a Confederate monument has been toppled by the storm.

“It is a blessing, a small blessing, in a very devastating situation,” Davante Lewis, a Lake Charles local who supported the monument’s removal, told The New York Times.

The memorial, called the the “South’s Defenders Memorial Monument,” was a tribute to the Confederate soldiers who fought to uphold white supremacy.

Members of the public who submitted comment earlier this year had been overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the statue on the grounds of a courthouse in Lake Charles, Louisiana, with 878 people writing in against relocating the monument and just 67 writing in support relocating the monument, the Lafayette Daily Advertiser reported.

No social distancing for Trump’s speech audience tonight

Taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000, records show

New from the Washington Post: an in-depth look at what Trump’s trips to Mar-a-Lago have cost American taxpayers, with a focus on the Secret Service’s spending.

Federal spending records show that taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president’s travel, according to a Post analysis.

[The Secret Service] paid Mar-a-Lago to book rooms for two weeks at a time — locking them up before the club could rent them to others, according to newly released records and emails.

....The agency was paying for rooms on nights when Trump wasn’t even visiting — to be ready just in case Trump decided to go, one former Trump administration official said.

Read the full story here.

Virginia’s governor announces new high school African-American history course

This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live politics coverage from our West Coast bureau.

Virginia’s Democratic governor Ralph Northam has announced that the state will launch a new African-American history elective for secondary school students.

Efforts to reckon with the history of African Americans in Virginia, including campaigns to remove racist monuments to white supremacist military leaders, have prompted fierce and sometimes violent backlash from white Americans in recent years, including a deadly attack in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Northam, of course, has his own personal racist history to reckon with: he apologized after a photograph of him in blackface in a medical school yearbook prompted anger and criticism, but ignored calls for him to resign.

NBC News reporter Geoff Bennett has more details:

Today so far

That’s it from me for now. I’ll be back later today for the final night of the Republican convention.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • At least four people have died from Hurricane Laura, according to the Louisiana governor’s office. The four fatalities, which included a 14-year-old girl in Vernon parish. all resulted from falling trees. A spokesperson for the governor warned the death toll was likely to rise.
  • Kamala Harris delivered a searing rebuke of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in a prebuttal to the president’s convention speech. The Democratic vice presidential nominee said in a speech today that Trump had “failed at the most basic and important job of president of the United States.” “He failed to protect the American people,” Harris said. “Instead of rising to meet the most difficult moment of his presidency, Donald Trump froze.”
  • Excerpts from Trump’s speech tonight indicate he will unleash a blistering attack on Joe Biden’s record. “At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies, or two agendas,” Trump is expected to say. “We have spent the last four years reversing the damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years.”
  • Biden said Trump is “rooting” for violence to break out in American cities, as protests continue over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. In a CNN interview, the Democratic nominee referenced White House adviser Kellyanne Conway saying earlier today, “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better news for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.” Biden said, “These guys are rooting for violence.”
  • It appeared the NBA would continue its playoff season after players refused to take the court yesterday to protest Blake’s shooting. The NBA and the WNBA both announced its games scheduled for tonight would be postponed, but the NBA said it hoped to continue its playoffs either tomorrow or Saturday.

My west coast colleague, Lois Beckett, will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Biden: 'The violence we’re witnessing is happening under Donald Trump'

After Vice President Mike Pence delivered a dark speech in which he warned people would “not be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” the Democratic nominee has now responded with a question: “Did Mike Pence forget Donald Trump is president?”

In a new statement, Biden reminded Pence that the violence and turmoil he described in his convention speech last night is unfolding with Trump as president.

“These are not images from some imagined ‘Joe Biden’s America’ in the future,” Biden said in the statement. “These are images from Donald Trump’s America today.

“The violence we’re witnessing is happening under Donald Trump. Not me. It’s getting worse, and we know why. Donald Trump refuses to even acknowledge there is a racial justice problem in America. To solve this problem, first we have to honestly admit the problem. But he won’t do it.”

Biden went on to condemn violence, including the two murders allegedly carried out by 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

“I have made it clear. There is no place for violence, looting, or burning. None. Zero,” Biden said. “[W]hile I have condemned all forms of violence – police violence, lawless violence and violence perpetrated by extreme, right-wing militia groups – like the groups the 17-year-old just arrested in Illinois for murdering two people in Wisconsin is reputed to have been aligned with[,] Trump doesn’t speak out against these extreme right-wing groups. Instead – as he did about Charlottesville – he embraces them.”

Roads near the National Mall will be closed tonight, as the president accepts the Republican presidential nomination in a speech at the White House.

The National Park Service said in a statement, “Roads in the immediate vicinity of the Washington Monument will close at 6:30 p.m. tonight to create a safety zone for the fireworks display sponsored by the Republican National Committee.”

Multiple protests are also expected in Washington tonight as Trump accepts the nomination.

A senior adviser to the Trump campaign responded to Kamala Harris’ speech today by asking why nominee Joe Biden was not delivering the pre-buttal to the president’s convention remarks.

“Did I miss something? Is ⁦@KamalaHarris⁩ the New Democrat presidential nominee? #WheresJoe,” campaign adviser Mercedes Schlapp said in a tweet.

Biden was interviewed by CNN earlier today, and he said Trump was “rooting for violence” to help his reelection prospects.

“These guys are rooting for violence,” Biden said. “That is what it is all about.”

Over on Capitol Hill, Democratic congressional leadership and the White House are still at odds over the next coronavirus relief package.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had a 25-minute phone call today with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about restarting negotiations.

But according to Pelosi, Meadows rejected Democrats’ compromise offer of a $2.2 trillion top line cost for the next relief package.

“This is not about dollars, this is about values. These investments will not only help crush the virus, they will also help bolster the economy,” Pelosi said in a statement.

“The Administration’s continued failure to acknowledge the funding levels that experts, scientists and the American people know is needed leaves our nation at a tragic impasse.”

Updated

The NBA and the WNBA have both announced tonight’s games are postponed, after players refused to take the court yesterday to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

“NBA playoff games for today will not be played as scheduled. We are hopeful to resume games either Friday or Saturday,” the league’s executive vice president said in a statement.

Earlier reports indicated NBA players had decided to resume their playoff season, and the league said a meeting would be held this afternoon to discuss next steps.

Harris delivers searing rebuke of Trump's coronavirus response

Hours before the president is set to address the Republican convention, Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris delivered a scorching, detailed rebuke of Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Instead of rising to meet the most difficult moment of his presidency, Donald Trump froze,” Harris said.

Harris noted that many of America’s foreign allies have not suffered as severely from coronavirus as the US has. “It didn’t have to be this bad,” Harris said. “All we needed was a competent president.”

As Harris delivered her searing criticism, MSNBC, CNN and Fox News all carried her remarks live.

Updated

Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris criticized the focus of the Republican convention this week.

“The Republican convention is designed for one purpose: to soothe Donald Trump’s ego, to make him feel good,” Harris said. “But here’s the thing: he’s the president of the United States, and it’s not supposed to be about him.”

She went on to denounce Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Echoing Joe Biden’s convention speech last week, Harris said, “Donald Trump has failed at the most basic and important job of president of the United States. He failed to protect the American people.”

Harris says the Blake shooting is 'sickening to watch'

Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris is delivering a speech in Washington, DC, to preemptively rebut Donald Trump’s convention speech tonight.

Harris opened her remarks by addressing the police shooting of Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back multiple times by officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

“It’s sickening to watch,” Harris said of the video of Blake’s shooting. “It’s all too familiar. And it must end.”

Blake’s name has been only rarely mentioned during this week’s Republican convention, with speakers instead focusing on denouncing “violent mobs” overrunning American cities, even though the recent anti-racism protests have been mostly peaceful.

“It’s no wonder people are taking to the streets, and I support them,” Harris said. “We should not confuse them with those looting and committing acts of violence.”

She added, “We will not let these vigilantes and extremists derail the path to justice.”

Updated

Four dead in Hurricane Laura's wake, warning that death toll could rise

The Louisiana governor’s office recorded four fatalities as of Thursday lunchtime, including a 14-year-old girl in Vernon parish who died after a tree fell on her home. The three other fatalities also resulted from falling trees. A spokesman for the governor, John Bel Edwards, said the death toll was likely to rise.

The storm slammed into western Louisiana overnight with gusts of up to 150mph.

The northern eye wall of the storm moved over Cameron parish, on the Louisiana coast, at 1am ET, before slamming into the city of Lake Charles.

It is the strongest, fastest hurricane to hit Louisiana in more than a century.

Authorities had ordered coastal residents to get out, but not everyone did in an area which was devastated by Hurricane Rita in 2005. More than 450,000 homes were without power in Texas and Louisiana on Thursday morning.

So far, it looks as though easter Texas has dodged a bullet in terms of a direct hit from the hurricane, which had been on a path possibly to hit Houston.

Read more here.

This post has been updated, as a fourth known hurricane-related death was reported by the governor at 3.20pm ET.

Cameron, on the Louisiana coast, where the hurricane made landfall last night.
Cameron, on the Louisiana coast, where the hurricane made landfall last night. Photograph: David J Phillip/AP

Updated

Michigan residents get racist vote-by-mail call

Some Michigan residents received a racist robocall with false information about mail-in voting, the state’s attorney general and top election official said Thursday.

Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, said Thursday that voters in Detroit had received the message, which appears to be an obvious attempt to scare Black voters away from casting a mail-in ballot. It was not immediately clear how many people received the call in Michigan, a battleground state in the presidential election.

“Mail in voting sounds great, but did you know that if you vote by mail, your information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants? And will be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debt? The CDC is even pushing to give preference to mail in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines,” the call says. All of that information is false.

“This is an unconscionable, indefensible, blatant attempt to lie to citizens about their right to vote,” Benson said in a statement saying she was investigating the call with Dana Nessel, the Michigan attorney general. “The call preys on voters’ fear and mistrust of the criminal justice system – at a moment of historic reckoning and confrontation of systemic racism and the generational trauma that results – and twists it into a fabricated threat in order to discourage people from voting.”

The person on the robocall says they are calling from the 1599 Project, a group started by Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, two conservative operatives that have a history of profound lying and failing to push smear campaigns. In an interview Thursday, Wohl denied either he or Burke were linked to the call.

“We don’t know anything about it. We don’t know who put it out there with our information on it. But, we’re doing our best to find out,” he said.

Benson and Nessel said the source of the call was still unknown.

“This is an unfortunate but perfect example of just how low people will go to undermine this election,” Nessel said in a statement encouraging residents who receive the call to report it to a state website. “This robocall is fraught with scare tactics designed to intimidate Black voters – and we are already working hard to find the bad actors behind this effort.”

Trump speech to go ahead at RNC tonight, president to tour hurricane damage zone at weekend

From the White House this hour, Donald Trump is at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters, hearing about efforts by the government to assist in Louisiana as Hurricane Laura continues to roar north.

The president said he expects to visit the area this weekend.

“We’ll be going Saturday or Sunday,” he said. It’s not clear if this is the royal we, the family we, the White House we or Potus and Veep, as Mike Pence was sitting to the president’s left at the FEMA briefing.

Meanwhile, there had not been huge doubt that he would deliver his big speech at the Republican National Convention tonight, despite the hurricane damage and deaths, but Trump just reiterated that although he had considered postponing, the speech will go ahead as scheduled.

Trump and Pence visit FEMA headquarters for a briefing on Hurricane Laura.
Trump and Pence visit FEMA headquarters for a briefing on Hurricane Laura. Photograph: Erin Scott/EPA

Here’s more from Philip Kiefer for the Guardian in Lake Charles:

The Trump administration has sharply increased its use of hotels to detain immigrant children as young as one before expelling them from the United States during the coronavirus pandemic despite facing outcry from lawmakers and human-rights advocates.

Federal authorities said they detained 577 unaccompanied children in hotels through the end of July, up from 240 in April, May and June, according to a report published late Wednesday from a court-appointed monitor for detained immigrant youth, the AP writes.

The Associated Press reported on the practice last month, with the Trump administration citing the threat of the virus in rapidly expelling those children and other migrants under an emergency declaration that denies them a chance to seek asylum.

Keeping children in hotels circumvents federal anti-trafficking laws and a two-decade-old court settlement, and advocates have warned of potential mistreatment.
Meanwhile, new allegations have emerged of efforts at the hotels to skirt health precautions.

An immigrant from Haiti says government contractors at a hotel where he was detained gave his family, including his 1-year-old daughter, cups of ice to eat to pass temperature checks before their deportation flight, though they had tested negative for Covid-19.

“We were given them with only one instruction, to eat them to lower our temperature,” Verty told the AP last week. He’s being identified only by his last name because he fears retribution if he tries to come to the U.S. again.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement guidelines say no detainee with a temperature above 99 degrees (37 degrees Celsius) can board a deportation flight.

The Trump administration has defended expelling more than 100,000 adults and children, saying the practice is necessary to protect border agents and stop the virus from spreading.

It has effectively shut down the asylum system during the pandemic, which opponents of President Donald Trump say is being used as a pretext to implement long-sought restrictions on immigration.

Here’s the Trump campaign as the Republican national convention prepares to go big in its final night:

This aerial view shows Highway 27 flooded by storm surge from Hurricane Laura August 27, 2020, in Creole, Louisiana.
This aerial view shows Highway 27 flooded by storm surge from Hurricane Laura August 27, 2020, in Creole, Louisiana. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
A damaged travel trailer sits among flood water after Hurricane Laura passed through the area August 27, 2020 in Holly Beach, Louisiana.
A damaged travel trailer sits among flood water after Hurricane Laura passed through the area August 27, 2020 in Holly Beach, Louisiana. Photograph: Eric Thayer/Getty Images
A family takes a break after getting off a National Guard truck when they were evacuated from their home, following the passing of Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
A family takes a break after getting off a National Guard truck when they were evacuated from their home, following the passing of Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
High winds toppled a large store sign on Devereux Drive in Natchez, Miss.
High winds toppled a large store sign on Devereux Drive in Natchez, Miss. Photograph: Ben Hillyer/AP

Journalist Philip Kiefer has been making his way into Lake Charles for the Guardian. He sends these dispatches:

A Confederate general has fallen victim to Hurricane Laura.

The Associated Press reports:

The South’s Defenders monument has stood since 1915 outside a courthouse in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where local authorities voted 10-4 this month to keep it in place.

Critics call it a symbol of racism that glorifies slavery. But a Calcasieu Parish official said they asked for public comments, and got 878 written responses against relocating the monument, and only 67 in favor of moving it.

Now the pedestal is empty, and the Confederate statue is in pieces on the ground, victim to a Category 4 hurricane that struck the city early Thursday.

Summary

Here’s a summary of where things stand:

  • Hurricane Laura left extensive destruction, power outages and a chemical fire on western Louisiana’s Gulf coast after making landfall as a record storm earlier Thursday. It is headed inland on a northerly course. Casualty figures had not been released.
  • Police in Kenosha, the Wisconsin city rocked by protests and deadly violence since the shooting of Jacob Blake, have named the officer who fired multiple bullets into Blake’s back as Rusten Sheskey.
  • It appeared the NBA would continue the playoff season after a protest over Blake’s killing that stopped play. Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner dismissed the protest as an indulgence in the “luxury” to not work on the part of players.
  • Donald Trump was preparing to accept the Republican nomination for president in a speech at the White House. He planned to say that he has spent four years picking up after Joe Biden, according to speech excerpts.
  • Biden told an interviewer that Trump is “rooting” for violence to break out in American cities.

In his MSNBC interview, Biden has also responded to an attack on his faith delivered by former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz at the Republican national convention last night. Holtz said Biden was “Catholic in name only.”

Biden said:

Donald Trump poses with former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr in front of a choir during of commencement ceremonies at the school in Lynchburg, Va. in May 2017.
Donald Trump poses with former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr in front of a choir during commencement ceremonies at the school in Lynchburg, Va. in May 2017. Photograph: Steve Helber/AP

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misattributed the source of the attack on Biden’s faith to Trump. This was an easy mistake to make because earlier this month Trump said that Biden had personally “hurt the Bible. Hurt god”. “He’s against god,” the president added.

Updated

Biden: Trump is 'rooting' for violence

In an interview on MSNBC, Joe Biden accuses Donald Trump of encouraging violence in American cities as a reelection strategy.

Click here to read our previous reporting about Trump’s made-for-TV-fascism as a political strategy.

“He just keeps pouring fuel on the fire,” Biden says of Trump. “This is his America now.”

Smoke rises from a burning chemical plant after the passing of Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles, Louisiana on August 27, 2020.
Smoke rises from a burning chemical plant after the passing of Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles, Louisiana on August 27, 2020. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

Footage of the chemical fire near Lake Charles. Click through for details. The report says in part: “A large, billowing plume of smoke from the fire was visible just south of Interstate 10 in Westlake.

The Bio Lab Inc. complex just north of I-10 is the source of the fire, a state Department of Environmental Quality spokesman said.”

Trump speech excerpts

Politico has obtained some excerpts from Trump’s anticipated remarks tonight. Trump plans to argue that he has spent four years trying to reverse “the damage Joe Biden inflicted.”

That line does not square with public feelings about the country’s trajectory. A mere 13% of Americans now tell Gallup they’re satisfied with the direction the country is headed versus 84% who are not satisfied.

Trump plans to say:

“At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies, or two agendas,” Trump is expected to say. “We have spent the last four years reversing the damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years. At the Democrat convention, you barely heard a word about their agenda. But that’s not because they don’t have one. It’s because their agenda is the most extreme set of proposals ever put forward by a major party nominee.”

The president is also expected to add some uplifting lines, including: ”The Republican Party goes forward united, determined, and ready to welcome millions of Democrats, independents, and anyone who believes in the Greatness of America and the righteous heart of the American people.”

“This towering American spirit has prevailed over every challenge, and lifted us to the summit of human endeavor.”

Trump will appear in a “town hall” event broadcast live on ABC News next month, the NY Times reports. The event will reportedly feature undecided voters in Philadelphia. No word yet on venue.

“ABC News has offered to host a similar town hall with Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden,” Grynbaum writes.

Governor urges shelter-in-place as chemical plant fire rages in Louisiana

There is a chemical plant fire in Louisiana in the wake of the hurricane, the governor confirms. Residents are urged to shelter in place, per the Associated Press.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi says there should not be any presidential debates between Biden and Trump.

That steps rather heavily on the Biden campaign message that he is eager for at least three debates with Trump.

Some Democrats fear Biden will under-perform in a debate and lose support to Trump. Others say that all the Trump campaign talk about Biden having lost a step has established a very low performance bar which Biden will sail over. Others point to strong debates in Biden’s past – as when he was careful to treat Sarah Palin with respect and when he went to school on Paul Ryan – to argue that Biden will best Trump.

In any case it’s hard to imagine a campaign without debates, or to imagine how a political appeal to a national majority works if one candidate refuses to engage the other side.

‘We’ve all had enough’: Kenosha in anguish over Jacob Blake shooting

Antwainnetta Edwards is a new mom. Just weeks ago she had a baby girl and worked hard preparing herself to raise a child during a coronavirus pandemic and the related economic crisis.

Now, as she stood on the porch of her home in Kenosha, rocking her newborn back and forth, she reflected on the last four days and nights that have shaken the small Wisconsin city since, once again in America, a white police officer shot a Black man during an interaction that went out of control, severely wounding Jacob Blake on Sunday.

Family-owned stores in Edwards’s neighborhood have been destroyed as largely peaceful protests against police brutality and racism splintered into violence on the fringes on Monday night.

Antwainnetta Edwards in Kenosha, WI on August 26, 2020.
Antwainnetta Edwards in Kenosha, WI on August 26, 2020. Photograph: Jim Vondruska/The Guardian

Then the situation spiraled into chaos on Tuesday night as white, armed vigilantes and militia members appeared on the streets and some attacked protesters who were chanting Black Lives Matter, just a five-minute walk from her home.

Two people were shot dead, others injured in terrifying street scenes, where police in armored vehicles patrolled the streets but did not impose curfew on the militia types and in one instance caught on tape appeared to encourage them, before bullets flew. An assault rifle-toting 17-year-old from out of town, Kyle Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of murder.

“It’s scary. I just had a baby,” Edwards told the Guardian on Wednesday, indicating the little girl in her arms. “It’s a lot to deal with. First, our house could’ve been burned down and now we have to travel all the way to the next county just for food, while police and outsiders armored up to try controlling the streets.”

Read the full piece:

Donald Trump is scheduled to officially accept the Republican presidential nomination tonight in a speech at the White House. He will be introduced by his daughter Ivanka.

Also speaking tonight, per the Trump campaign:

Housing secretary Ben Carson
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell
Senator Tom Cotton
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy
Representative Jeff Van Drew
Ja’Ron Smith
Ann Dorn
Debbie Flood
Rudy Giuliani
Franklin Graham
Alice Johnson
Wade Mayfield
Carl and Marsha Mueller
Dana White

Here are post-hurricane photos from Lake Charles, Louisiana, about halfway between Houston and New Orleans. The town’s southern edge lies about 20 miles from the Gulf coast.

Latasha Myles and Howard Anderson stand in their living room where they were sitting when the roof blew off around 2:30am as Hurricane Laura passed through the area on August 27, 2020 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Latasha Myles and Howard Anderson stand in their living room where they were sitting when the roof blew off around 2:30am as Hurricane Laura passed through the area on August 27, 2020 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A passer-by Chuck Balsamo communicates with a driver of an overturned 18 wheeler truck in aftermath of Hurricane Laura in Vinton, Louisiana.
A passer-by Chuck Balsamo communicates with a driver of an overturned 18 wheeler truck in aftermath of Hurricane Laura in Vinton, Louisiana. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters
Capitol One Bank Tower is seen with its windows blown out in the downtown area after Hurricane Laura passed through on August 27, 2020 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Capitol One Bank Tower is seen with its windows blown out in the downtown area after Hurricane Laura passed through on August 27, 2020 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Mitch Pickering plays his guitar while walking through the downtown area after Hurricane Laura passed through on August 27, 2020 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Mitch Pickering plays his guitar while walking through the downtown area after Hurricane Laura passed through on August 27, 2020 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Hurricane Laura moves inland on a northerly path

Hurricane Laura, the most powerful hurricane to strike the US this year, was moving inland on a northerly path on Thursday morning, threatening an “unsurvivable storm surge” and tropical force weather as far as Tennessee.

The storm slammed into western Louisiana overnight with gusts of up to 150mph and will cause “catastrophic conditions” as it progresses, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

Concern was growing on for people in the path of the tempest in Louisiana who did not evacuate on Wednesday.

The northern eyewall of the storm moved over Cameron Parish, on the Louisiana coast, at 1am ET, before slamming into the city of Lake Charles.

A man rests in front of his house after the passing of Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles, Louisiana on August 27, 2020.
A man rests in front of his house after the passing of Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles, Louisiana on August 27, 2020. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

Authorities had ordered coastal residents to get out, but not everyone did in an area which was devastated by Hurricane Rita in 2005. More than 450,000 homes were without power in Texas and Louisiana on Thursday morning.

Laura was heading north towards Shreveport, Louisiana, early Thursday morning, rather than west across Texas as had been one of the leading predictions, meaning the city of Houston has probably dodged a bullet, although coastal Port Arthur is threatened by storm surge flooding.

The fierce wind battered a tall building in Lake Charles, blowing out windows as glass as debris flew to the ground. Hours after landfall, the wind and rain were still blowing hard.

Read the full piece:

Here’s a new 2-minute campaign spot for Joe Biden. It covers a lot of ground moving through Biden’s early bio to the tragedies that have struck his family to his work in the Obama administration. Ends on a hopeful note and controversially includes a (mercifully brief) clip of a younger Donald Trump attempting to dance (:24 if you must).

Comment: “Politics is weird right now, but Trump’s convention is another level of strange”

Two weeks ago, Mike Pence did something weird. Every day brings with it an opportunity to be freaked out by something new, so you have probably forgotten all about this by now, but what happened was the US vice president took to the podium at a Farmers and Ranchers for Trump rally in Iowa and started talking about meat in a loud, expressionless voice. “I’ve got some red meat for you,” he intoned. “WE’RE NOT GOING TO LET JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS CUT AMERICA’S MEAT,” he shouted, opening his mouth wide in that startling way of his, where the whole top of the face stays utterly immobile, eyes dead, and the lower jaw unhinges itself.

The third night of the Republican National Convention at Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, Maryland.
The third night of the Republican National Convention at Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, Maryland. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

It was a noticeably strange scene, and I’m sure people would have been taken aback even if safety concerns due to the pandemic hadn’t meant Pence was addressing a vastly reduced crowd. Pence’s cadences and rhythms, his habit of looking around in belligerent appeal while rocking himself backwards and forwards using the lectern as a support – these methods are suited to large, appreciative audiences whose cheers go at least some way to masking the outlandishness of what is being said. The way it usually goes with these things is Mike Pence or whoever says something unintentionally hilarious about cutting America’s meat, and the roars of the crowd make it clear that he is telling his audience what they want to hear.

These speeches are meant to have a long afterlife, full of soundbites intended to be endlessly replayed on news shows. You’re meant to watch these clips and add “red meat” to the list of things that are apparently a huge deal in the upcoming American election. Look at all those people clapping and screaming away, you’re meant to think. None of them seem even slightly alarmed by this. But without the sorely needed buffer of an audience, however, a very different picture presents itself.

Read the full piece:

Kushner dismisses NBA protest: 'they have the luxury of taking a night off'

Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner has belittled protests and boycotts by NBA players in the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting by suggesting that the protests amount to a retreat into luxury on the part of the players.

It seems inconceivable to Kushner that the cycle of homicidal violence perpetrated by police on people of color amounts to an emergency demanding action, boycotts, strikes and protests in the strongest possible terms.

Here’s Forbes on how tennis star Naomi Osaka is registering her protest:

Naomi Osaka, one of the world’s top tennis players and the female athlete with the highest single-year earnings of all time, by Forbes’ estimation, announced Wednesday evening she would sit out the semifinals of the Western & Southern Open tournament the following day to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake and other victims of police brutality.

Updated

Republican convention delivers whirlwind of lies great and small

As Hurricane Laura roared towards the southern US coast, the Republican national convention unleashed Hurricane Liar.

There were lies aplenty at the last convention in Cleveland four years ago but, in those innocent days, reporters were still reluctant to call a lie a lie. Donald Trump blew that up on his first day in office when he and his officials claimed his inauguration crowd was bigger than Barack Obama’s.

Now there is no getting away from the fact that Republicans are commandeering more than two hours a night of primetime television to lie and mislead so brazenly, frequently and shamelessly that there’s a chance the American public will simply be worn down into submission and untruth will be normalised.

United States Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence arrive for the third night of the Republican National Convention, at Ft. McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland.
United States Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence arrive for the third night of the Republican National Convention, at Ft. McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

As the New York Times columnist Frank Bruni noted, all conventions tell “extravagant fibs” but this one is “less a feat of pretty storytelling than an act of pure derangement”. Wednesday night was another opportunity to deny Trump’s record, deny the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and climate crisis, and deny reality itself.

Vice-President Mike Pence portrayed Trump as America’s saviour from Covid-19. “Before the first case of coronavirus spread within the United States, President Trump took the unprecedented step of suspending all travel from China,” he said, a false statement since there were several exceptions to the ban that still allowed tens of thousands to travel.

Read the full piece:

Down power lines stretch across a road in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020, in Sabine Pass, Texas.
Down power lines stretch across a road in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020, in Sabine Pass, Texas. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP
Flooding caused by Hurricane Laura on August 27, 2020 in Sabine Pass, Texas.
Flooding caused by Hurricane Laura on August 27, 2020 in Sabine Pass, Texas. Photograph: Eric Thayer/Getty Images
This NOAA/GOES satellite image shows Hurricane Laura over the US state of Louisiana, near the line of US state Texas at 11:50 UTC, on August 27, 2020.
This NOAA/GOES satellite image shows Hurricane Laura over the US state of Louisiana, near the line of US state Texas at 11:50 UTC, on August 27, 2020. Photograph: NOAA/GOES/AFP/Getty Images

Also on CNN, Texas governor Greg Abbott has confirmed that there are no reported deaths in his state so far either.

And that is it from me, Martin Belam, in London. I’m handing over to my colleague Tom McCarthy. Take care, stay safe and I’ll see you here tomorrow.

Louisiana’s Governor John Bel Edwards has been on CNN with two pieces of news – that there are no reported fatalities yet, and that the storm surge has not yet met the expected heights.

He also said that when the wind subsides further, the National Guard will begin assessing the damage from the air in helicopters.

The Weather Channel’s Greg Postel has also posted about the surge being lower than predicted.

Updated

On the Black Lives Matter front, there’s speculation that, with the players having gone on strike to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake, we may have seen the last of the NBA for this season with the Lakers and Clippers reportedly voting to quit the playoffs.

The NBA playoffs are taking place in a socially isolated “bubble” at Disney World Florida due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been growing anger among NBA players, 80% of whom are black, at the social injustice seen daily on the streets of America. Several players have said the season should not have restarted in the first place. ESPN reported that during a meeting on Wednesday night the NBA polled teams about the best path forward and the LA Clippers and LA Lakers both voted to end the season.

My colleague Tom Lutz in New York has more on this as it develops: NBA season up in air as Lakers and Clippers reportedly vote to quit playoffs

Hurricane Laura expected to weaken to a tropical storm later today - NHC

More seriously, here is the latest actual warning from the National Hurricane Center of the real-world progress of Hurricane Laura:

  • At 700 AM CDT (1200 UTC), the center of Hurricane Laura was located near latitude 31.2 North, longitude 93.3 West.
  • Laura is moving toward the north near 15 mph (24 km/h) and this motion should continue through the day. A northeastward to east-northeastward motion is expected tonight and Friday. On the forecast track, Laura will move northward across western and northern Louisiana through this afternoon.
  • The center of Laura is forecast to move over Arkansas tonight, the mid-Mississippi Valley on Friday, and the mid-Atlantic states on Saturday. Maximum sustained winds are near 100 mph (160 km/h) with higher gusts.
  • Rapid weakening is forecast, and Laura is expected to become a tropical storm later today. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 60 miles (95 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles (280 km).

These are now the warnings for peak storm surges:

  • Johnson Bayou to Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge including Calcasieu Lake...15-20 ft
  • Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge to Intracoastal City...10-15 ft
  • Intracoastal City to Morgan City including Vermilion Bay...8-12 ft
  • Sea Rim State Park to Johnson Bayou including Sabine Lake...4-8 ft
  • Morgan City to Mouth of the Mississippi River...4-7 ft
  • High Island to Sea Rim State Park...2-4 ft
  • Mouth of the Mississippi River to Ocean Springs including Lake Borgne...1-3 ft
  • Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas...1-3 ft

The NHC continue to warn that:

The deepest water will occur along the immediate coast near and to the right of the landfall location, where the surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves. Life-threatening storm surge with large and destructive waves will continue within the Storm Surge Warning area this morning. This surge could penetrate up to 40 miles inland from the immediate coastline, and flood waters will not fully recede for several days after the storm.

One slightly odd new development in storm-chasing is being reported by the Verge this morning – that Microsoft Flight Simulator players are deliberately flying into Hurricane Laura to experience the conditions.

Flight Simulator uses real-time weather data to map out conditions around the world to make this possible. Microsoft partnered with Swiss company Meteoblue to map the world’s weather patterns. Meteoblue splits the world into 250 million boxes, which each measure wind speed, temperature, pressure, and a lot more. While the weather data was originally only going to be limited to airports for virtual pilots, Flight Simulator is now replicating real world weather events with incredible accuracy.

It certainly seems safer to me than some of the video footage from real storm-chasers that has been posted on social media so far this morning.

Officials in multiple areas hit hard by the Hurricane Laura are unsure when rescuers will reach people affected by the storm, report the Associated Press.

Dick Gremillion, director for Calcasieu Parish Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said his office hasn’t been able to start assessing the damage yet because of high winds and the need for daylight.

But he cited the tide gauge further south in Cameron Parish, which appears to have been less than the predicted 20 feet of surge.

The Louisiana National Guard has 222 high-water vehicles and 65 boats staged across south Louisiana, for search and rescue efforts when it’s safe to do so.

FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor urged people to stay home if they were safe. “Stay in your home. Don’t go out sightseeing. You put yourself, your family at risk and you put first responders at risk. . stay home,” he said during an interview on CBS’ “This Morning.”

Power companies are reporting that nearly 470,000 homes and businesses were without electricity early Thursday in Louisiana and Texas.

New Orleans-based Entergy said shortly before the storm struck that the hardest-hit areas may experience outages for weeks. The company says it has crews coming from 20 states to help, including some from as far away as Wisconsin and Virginia.

Former John McCain and Mitt Romney staffers come out to back Biden against Trump

Away from the hurricane for a second and back to the national election, Donald Trump is due to speak at the RNC at 10:30pm ET from the south lawn of the White House. The speech will be followed by a five-minute fireworks display which will take place at the Washington Monument.

A couple of groups of Republicans have chosen today as the day they announce that they cannot support the president in the 2020 election.

A whole host of people who used to work for John McCain are one group. They say in an open letter:

We trust that as President, Joe Biden will lead an urgent, comprehensive national effort to contain the COVID pandemic. We trust he will call on Americans to remember our common interests and responsibilities, and not worsen the grievances that have polarized our politics. And we trust that he will defend American interests and values from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Given the incumbent president’s lack of competent leadership, his efforts to aggravate rather than bridge divisions among Americans, and his failure to uphold American values, we believe the election of former Vice President Biden is clearly in the national interest.

Also backing Joe Biden is a group of more than 30 Mitt Romney 2012 staffers. They write:

What unites us now is a deep conviction that four more years of a Trump presidency will morally bankrupt this country, irreparably damage our democracy, and permanently transform the Republican Party into a toxic personality cult. We can’t sit by and allow that to happen.

Romney himself is not said to be involved in the group.

As it gets increasingly light we are beginning to get video clips and still images of the damage left behind.

The Capital One Tower, the second-tallest building in Lake Charles, appears to have suffered extensive damage to the windows.

There’s footage here of what is said to be a partially collapsed Motel 6 in Lake Charles.

Please note that the Guardian has not independently verified these clips.

It’s not just the wind and rain and associated flooding that is a life-threatening risk with Hurricane Laura. As the largest storm to hit the Louisiana coast for 164 years, it will also bring with a storm surge that will cause severe flooding that can reach quite far inland.

National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham has been on CNN this morning, and in this clip you can see him explaining why it may take another 24 hours before the full extent of the storm surge reveals itself.

Updated

Louisiana Lt. Governor Bill Nungesse has been on Good Morning America with a very bleak assessment of the survival chances of people near the coast who did not evacuate. He said:

We know anyone that stayed that’s close to the coast, we’ve got to pray for them, because looking at the storm surge, there would be little chance of survival. We’ve heard that from 50 to 150 people may have stayed behind to ride this out. In Holly Beach, where they raised homes 15 feet after [2005’s Hurricane] Rita, and many thought that might be safe, that would not survive this tidal surge. We’re hopeful most people got out, but as soon as it’s safe for the first responders to get in there, we’re hopeful that we don’t find people that didn’t make it.

He was unable to say when first responders could move in, only that it needed to be lighter and for the wind to drop further.

National Hurricane Center says Laura has weakened to a Category 2 hurricane

The National Hurricane Center says Laura has weakened to a Category 2 hurricane as it moves deeper inland over Louisiana.

That’s no longer a major hurricane but it still has extremely dangerous maximum sustained winds of 110mph (175 kph), nearly five hours after striking the coast and pushing what forecasters called an unsurvivable storm surge miles inland.

Forecasters say it’s centered about 45 miles (70 kilometers) north-northwest of Lake Charles and moving north at 15 mph (24 kph).

Laura’s eye hit a stretch of Louisiana near the Texas state line early Thursday as a Category 4. It is the most powerful storm recorded to hit the state in 164 years.

Here’s a recent radar image of the storm on the move.

Pictures which claim to show the damage being left behind in the storm’s wake are beginning to be posted on social media.

Here’s a picture of one of the buildings that has been damaged in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

A building that was damaged overnight by Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles.
A building that was damaged overnight by Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles. Photograph: Stephen Jones/AP

A clip of the building during the height of the storm earlier had been widely shared on social media.

As mentioned earlier, one of the worrying aspects about Hurricane Laura is that it impacts Louisiana and other southern states while they are also in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic.

Axios, this morning though, have some slightly more optimistic Covid-19 numbers. They note that, according to their figures:

New coronavirus infections fell by almost 15% over the past week, continuing a steady downward trend. The US is averaging roughly 41,700 new confirmed cases per day, down from about 49,000 per day last week and 65,000 per day at the height of the summer outbreak.

Louisiana is one of 20 states where the pace of new infections fell, however, neighboring Mississippi is still seeing a steady 20% rise.

Read it here: Axios – Change in new COVID-19 cases in the past week

As Hurricane Laura has weakened slightly, the national weather service in Houston has been able to relax slightly some of the warnings that were in place, and has reduced the scope of the areas facing southeast Texas.

That’s also likely to free up some resources to help in Louisiana. The top government official in Harris County, Texas, Judge Lina Hidalgo, told MSNBC in a phone interview “Now that we are watching with horror how it is impacting our neighbors to the east, our approach turns to aid.”

Hidalgo told MSNBC that first responders from all over the country are in the county to assist with the storm, and they are now ready to provide any assistance needed in Louisiana.

Updated

Back to Hurricane Laura, here’s a map of the expected trajectory of the storm, with an indication of when we might expect areas to be affected.

Expected trajectory of Hurricane Laura
Expected trajectory of Hurricane Laura

While on the subject of racial justice, we have a great piece this morning where Oliver Laughland has spoken to Martin and Bernice King about their late father Martin Luther King Jr, discussing Black Lives Matter, their ongoing grief and the upcoming March on Washington:

Bernice’s elder brother, Martin Luther King III, was 10 at the time his father was killed. In June this year, he bowed his head in front of Floyd’s golden casket during a memorial service. He also reflects on the children left behind. “When you are grieving, you appreciate all the love that the world provides for you,” he says from his living room in Atlanta, in front of a large image of his mother, Coretta Scott King. “But, at some point, most people go back to their homes and you’re all alone, grieving by yourself. And you have to figure out how to navigate through the terrible pain.”

King’s children have become used to the rewriting of their father’s history. Since his death, he has been repositioned in the mainstream American imagination as a unifying figure.

“I think most people focus on ‘I have a dream’ and they don’t even focus on the entire speech,” says Martin. “You know, what got him killed was not talking about riding in the front of buses. He talked about a living wage … he talked about a radical redistribution of wealth, which definitely was frightening to those pursuing money.

“But the message has been sanitised by mainstream media, because if you keep him in that sanitised version then you never realise the part of him that talked about a revolution of values. The irony of it is here we are today and we still need a revolution of values.”

Bernice says: “Anyone who talks about being a transformed nonconformist; anyone who talks about it being your duty to disobey unjust laws; anybody who talks about a nation that continues to spend millions and millions more on military defence over programmes of social uplift [as one] approaching spiritual death: that’s extremely radical to me.”

It’s very moving. Read it here: ‘He was extremely radical’: MLK’s children on their father’s life and George Floyd’s death

Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake named

Away from the hurricane for a minute, there’s been a development in the story of the shooting of Jacob Blake at the weekend in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The police officer caught on video firing seven times into Blake’s back at almost point-blank range has been named as Rusten Sheskey.

A statement from the Wisconsin Department of Justice identifying Sheskey raised as many questions as it answered, as it said a knife was also recovered from the driver’s side floor of the car where Blake was apparently reaching when he was shot.

“During the incident, officers attempted to arrest Jacob S Blake, age 29. Law enforcement deployed a taser to attempt to stop Mr Blake, however the taser was not successful in stopping Mr Blake.”

“Mr Blake walked around his vehicle, opened the driver’s side door, and leaned forward. While holding onto Mr Blake’s shirt, officer Rusten Sheskey fired his service weapon seven times. Officer Sheskey fired the weapon into Mr Blake’s back.

“During the investigation following the initial incident, Mr Blake admitted that he had a knife in his possession. Division of criminal investigation agents recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of Mr Blake’s vehicle. A search of the vehicle located no additional weapons.”

Among issues that remain unclear is when Blake told officers he had a knife and why police reacted with such force amid what was essentially a domestic incident.

The naming of Sheskey came a few hours after police announced the arrest of a white teenager after two people were shot dead during the third night of protests in Kenosha. Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, Illinois, was taken into custody in Illinois on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide.

Read it here: Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake named as Rusten Sheskey

Earlier this year, in preparation for what was thought to be a bad coming hurricane season, our environment reporter Oliver Milman prepared this briefing for us, asking are hurricanes getting stronger – and is climate breakdown to blame?

On the question of whether hurricanes are getting worse, he wrote:

While the overall number of hurricanes has remained roughly the same in recent decades, there is evidence they are intensifying more quickly, resulting in a greater number of the most severe category four and five storms.

The proportion of tropical storms that rapidly strengthen into powerful hurricanes has tripled over the past 30 years, according to recent research. A swift increase in pace over a 24-hour period makes hurricanes less predictable, despite improving hurricane forecasting systems, and more likely to cause widespread damage.

And as for the cause?

There is growing evidence that the warming of the atmosphere and upper ocean, due to human activity such as burning fossil fuels, is making conditions ripe for fiercer, more destructive hurricanes.

“The past few years have been highly unusual, such as Irma staying strong for so long, or the hurricane in Mozambique that dumped so much rain,” says Kossin. “All of these things are linked to a warming atmosphere. If you warm things up, over time you will get stronger storms.”

Climate breakdown is tinkering with hurricanes in a variety of ways. More moisture in the air means more rain, while storms are intensifying more quickly but often stalling once they hit land, resulting in torrential downpours that cause horrendous flooding.

Rising sea levels are aiding storm surge whipped up by hurricanes – one study found that Hurricane Sandy in 2012 probably wouldn’t have inundated lower Manhattan if it occurred a century previously because the sea was a foot lower then. According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the maximum intensity of hurricanes will increase by about 5% this century.

Read it here: Are hurricanes getting stronger – and is climate breakdown to blame?

Here’s the latest map from the Weather Channel showing the extent of the areas in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas that are in Hurricane Laura’s path.

It is inevitable that how the federal and state governments respond to a natural disaster like Hurricane Laura will quite quickly become political. Already doing the rounds on social media is this piece from Rolling Stone from late last night which claims “Trump looted $44 Billion FEMA’s disaster relief fund in the middle of a record-setting hurricane season”. Tessa Stuart writes:

Laura could be one of the most destructive Gulf hurricanes on record. It’s particularly bad timing considering that, less than three weeks ago, instead of working with Congress to craft comprehensive legislation to address the ongoing crisis and deliver desperately-needed aid, President Trump looted FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund to the tune of $44 billion — authorizing the agency to pay for a $300 per week supplement to regular unemployment benefits.

I wonder if it would be clearer if we say: The $300 a week benefit supplement is similar to the $600 one that was included in the CARES Act passed at the start of the pandemic. An extension of that $600 benefit was included in second relief package that the House has already approved, but that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t hold a vote on. because the Senate won’t sign off on the House bill and Trump didn’t work with lawmakers to reach a compromise, the unemployment supplement isn’t coming from money appropriated by Congress. It’s coming from the government account meant to cover natural disasters like the one presently bearing down on Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

Expect more of this as the extent of the damage from Hurricane Laura becomes clearer.

Read it here: Rolling Stone – Trump looted $44 Billion FEMA’s disaster relief fund in the middle of a record-setting hurricane season

Just in cases residents weren’t taking evacuation orders seriously yesterday, the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office posted their list of areas facing mandatory evacuation on Facebook yesterday with the following warning:

Those choosing to stay and face this very dangerous storm must understand that rescue efforts cannot and will not begin until after storm and surge has passed and it is safe to do so. Please evacuate and if you choose to stay and we can’t get to you, write your name, address, social security number and next of kin and put it a ziplock bag in your pocket. Praying that it does not come to this! Expecting the worse but praying for the best. Be Safe and God Bless!!

Here’s the latest from the National Hurricane Center on what can be expected from Hurricane Laura:

  • Hurricane Laura has weakened to a Category 3 hurricane with top winds of 120 mph (195 kph) a few hours after making landfall.
  • It’s centered about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north-northwest of Lake Charles and moving north at 15 mph (24 kph). Hurricane-force winds and damaging wind gusts are spreading well inland into parts of eastern Texas and western Louisiana.
  • The NHC expect an unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves to cause catastrophic damage from Sea Rim State Park, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, including Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes.
  • Forecasters predict the highest surge, up to 20 feet, along a stretch of Louisiana coastline that includes Johnson Bayou and the towns of Holly Beach and Cameron.
  • Forecasters say this surge could penetrate up to 40 miles inland from the immediate coastline, and flood waters won’t fully recede for days.

Minnesota governor Tim Walz says National Guard to be deployed in Minneapolis over protests

Away from the hurricane just for a second, the governor of Minnesota declared a state of peacetime emergency on the city of Minneapolis after violent protests erupted on Wednesday night following the death of a Black homicide suspect who police say shot himself.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey imposed a curfew following what he described as mass looting of businesses, destruction of property and unrest. Authorities also said there was misinformation spread in relation to the death of the suspect, as rumors went round that he had been shot by police.

A police officer stands guard as protesters and rioters clash with police after a homicide suspect killed himself as police closed in on him in downtown Minneapolis
A police officer stands guard as protesters and rioters clash with police after a homicide suspect killed himself as police closed in on him in downtown Minneapolis Photograph: Craig Lassig/EPA

Minneapolis police posted a graphic surveillance video of the suicide on Twitter, saying that no weapons were fired by police.

The video shows a Black man shooting himself at the entrance of a building as a nearby group of people scatter and police approach the scene.

Minnesota governor Tim Walz said the National Guard would be deployed in the area. “Dangerous, unlawful behavior will not be tolerated. The Minnesota National Guard and State Patrol are headed to Minneapolis to help restore order,” Walz said in a statement.

Police spray a substance to clear the area where an officer was down on the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis.
Police spray a substance to clear the area where an officer was down on the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis. Photograph: Jeff Wheeler/AP

The Associated Press are also reporting that 600 to 700 people took part in Black Lives Matter protests in Oakland, over the weekend shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha. Police said “numerous fires (were) set, dozens of windows broken, (and) multiple businesses vandalized.” Protesters threw objects at officers but none were injured, the department said. Several people were arrested, the tweet said.

Calling them “violent protesters,” police say they vandalized and set a fire at the Alameda County Superior Court. Police said some within the crowd were chanting “burn it down” as they lit fireworks and set trash cans on fire.

The Washington Post has a little this morning on the history of the parish of Cameron, where Hurricane Laura made landfall this morning at 1am CDT.

Cameron is the second smallest parish in the state by population, in part because the southwest region has a long history of being decimated by hurricanes. A devastating storm hit the parish on June 27, 1957. The storm killed at least 500 people and many residents who went missing in the hurricane were never found.

Almost 50 years later, in 2005, Hurricane Rita struck. Nearly all of the homes in Cameron Parish were destroyed. A third of the local residents who lost their homes in that storm decided not to rebuild, leaving the parish much smaller even a full decade later. Just three years after Rita, Hurricane Ike walloped the region, flooding the coastline. Even more people decided not to return to the parish after that storm.

More than 10 years have passed since Hurricane Ike, and almost 7,000 people live in Cameron Parish now. Most residents heeded mandatory evacuation orders on Wednesday as Hurricane Laura approached, but local officials said at least 150 people remained.

On Wednesday, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said he had heard reports that the storm would leave the region severely flooded. “They’re thinking Cameron parish is going to look like an extension of the Gulf of Mexico for a couple of days” he said.

Hurricanes always bring with them a specific genre of telelvision news – the lone reporter doing a piece to camera while being battered by the weather.

Here’s the Weather Channel’s Stephanie Abrams explaining: “Have you ever wondered what it feels like? It feels like someone is taking a handful of pebbles and just throwing it at my face. That’s what it feels like.”

The Weather Channel was at pains to point out the extent to which it works to keep presenters and crew safe.

NHC downgrades Hurricane Laura to a Catgory 3 storm with 120mph

Hurricane Laura has been downgraded by the NHC to a Category 3 storm – which still carries with it 120mph (195kph) winds.

According to this table from meteorologist Philip Klotzbach, there’s only been one stronger storm to hit the Louisiana coast since 1856.

And here’s a clip of some of the edge of the storm unfolding in neighboring Texas.

Here’s the latests from the NHC, with a map showing the expected path of Hurricane Laura, and the extent to where there could be damage.

They anticipate widespread flash flooding along streams, urban areas and roadways in portions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.

One of the issues for an operation to prevent the loss of life during a hurricane is that it is often difficult for people to imagine the consequences of the storm.

Reuters report National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Schott at a news conference saying: “To think that there would be a wall of water over two stories high coming on shore is very difficult for most to conceive, but that is what is going to happen.”

Most of Louisiana’s Cameron Parish would be under water at some point, Schott added. About 620,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders in Louisiana and Texas. The storm surge could penetrate inland from between Freeport, Texas, and the mouth of the Mississippi River.

There’s the added complication of the storm arriving in the middle of the coronavirus crisis.

Reuters spoke to Port Arthur resident Eric Daw as he filled up his car at one of the few gas stations still open to make the evacuation trip.

He said he had wanted to evacuate earlier, but lacked money for gas, as he was waiting on a disability payment. Daw was headed to a shelter in San Antonio, a 4-1/2-hour drive.

“They say we are all supposed to socially distance now,” he said. “But how am I supposed to socially distance in a shelter?”

Here’s the most recent statement issued by the National Hurricane Center about Hurricane Laura. It was issued at 3am CDT.

The eyewall of Laura will continue to move inland across southwestern Louisiana during the next several hours. TAKE COVER NOW! Treat these imminent extreme winds as if a tornado was approaching and move immediately to the safe room in your shelter. Take action now to protect your life!

The safest place to be during a major landfalling hurricane is in a reinforced interior room away from windows. Get under a table or other piece of sturdy furniture. Use mattresses, blankets or pillows to cover your head and body. Remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions.

A National Ocean Service tide station at Calcasieu Pass, Louisiana observed a water level rise of 9.19 ft Mean Higher High Water at 100 CDT.

In Lake Charles, Louisiana, the airport reported a sustained wind of 98 mph (158 km/h) with a gust to 132 mph (212 km/h) and a University of Florida observing tower reported sustained winds of 95 mph (153 km/h) and a gust to 132 mph (2012 km/h) within the past couple of hours.

A Weatherflow site in Cameron, Louisiana reported sustained wind of 92 mph (148 km/h) and a gust to 117 mph (188 km/h) in the southern eyewall of Laura after the eye has passed overhead.

More than 100,000 homes and businesses without power in Texas and Louisiana - report

Hurricane Laura was classed as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane when it made landfall.

The National Hurricane Center reports that when the storm made landfall at 1am CDT it had maximum sustained winds of 150mph (240 kph), making it the most powerful hurricane to strike the US so far this year.

It landed near Cameron, a 400-person community about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of the Texas border and forecasters warned the strong winds could rip apart buildings, level trees and toss vehicles like toys.

Forecasters also issued a string of tornado warnings as the storm pushed on to land, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

More than 100,000 homes and businesses were reported to be without power in Texas and Louisiana.

We are beginning to see some social media video clips being posted of just how intense the storm has been as it makes landfall.

And we also beginning to get reports of people who had not evacuated, now seeking assistance. Associated Press have spoken to an official in a southwestern Louisiana parish, Tony Guillory, president of Calcasieu Parish’s police jury. He says he is hunkering down in a Lake Charles government building that is shaking from the storm as phones were ringing.

“People are calling the building but there ain’t no way to get to them,” he said over the phone.

Guillory said he hopes those stranded can be rescued later today, but blocked roads, downed power lines and flooding could complicate the process. Lake Charles is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Cameron, where the storm made landfall.

Hello, welcome to today’s live coverage of US politics, which is likely to be dominated by the build up to Donald Trump’s big night at the Republican national convention (RNC), the continued aftermath of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, and the landfall of Hurricane Laura.

I’m Martin Belam and I’ll be with you for the first couple of hours today, you can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com

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