Hurricane Beryl grows to Category 5 strength as it razes southeast Caribbean islands
Hurricane Beryl strengthened to Category 5 status late Monday after it ripped doors, windows and roofs off homes across the southeastern Caribbean with devastating winds and storm surge fuelled by the Atlantic’s record warmth.
Beryl made landfall on the island of Carriacou in Grenada as the earliest Category 4 storm in the Atlantic, then late in the day the National Hurricane Center in Miami said its winds had increased to 260 kilometres per hour, making it a Category 5 storm.
Forecasters said fluctuations in strength were likely in the coming days as the storm pushed further into the Caribbean.
Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said one person had died and he could not yet say if there were other fatalities because authorities had not been able to assess the situation on the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique, where there were initial reports of major damage but communications were largely down.
Streets from St. Lucia island south to Grenada were strewn with shoes, trees, downed power lines and other debris. The storm snapped banana trees in half and killed cows that lay in green pastures as if they were sleeping, with homes made of tin and plywood tilting precariously nearby.
“Right now, I’m real heartbroken,” said Vichelle Clark King as she surveyed her damaged shop in the Barbadian capital of Bridgetown that was filled with sand and water.
Beryl was still swiping the southeast Caribbean late Monday afternoon even as it began moving into the Caribbean Sea on a track that would take it just south of Jamaica and toward Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula by late Thursday as a Category 1 storm.
Beryl was located about 925 kilometres east-southeast of Isla Beata in the Dominican Republic and was moving west-northwest at 33 km/h, with hurricane conditions possible on Jamaica Wednesday.
A hurricane warning was in effect for Jamaica, and a tropical storm warning for the entire southern coast of Hispaniola, an island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
“Beryl is expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane as its moves over the eastern Caribbean,” the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
The last strong hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean was Hurricane Ivan 20 years ago, which killed dozens of people in Grenada.
On Monday afternoon, officials received “reports of devastation” from Carriacou and surrounding islands, said Terence Walters, Grenada’s national disaster co-ordinator. Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said he would travel to Carriacou as soon as it’s safe, noting there’s been an “extensive” storm surge.
Grenada officials had to evacuate patients to a lower floor after hospital roof was damaged, he said.
“There is the likelihood of even greater damage,” he told reporters. “We have no choice but to continue to pray.”
In Barbados, Wilfred Abrahams, minister of home affairs and information, said drones — which are faster than crews fanning across the island — would assess damage once Beryl passes.
Historic hurricane
Beryl strengthened from a tropical depression to a major hurricane in just 42 hours — a feat accomplished only six other times in Atlantic hurricane history, and with Sept. 1 as the earliest date, according to hurricane expert Sam Lillo.
It also was the earliest Category 4 Atlantic hurricane on record, besting Hurricane Dennis, which became a Category 4 storm on July 8, 2005.
Beryl amassed its strength from record warm waters that are hotter now than they would be at the peak of hurricane season in September, said hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry.
Beryl also marked the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher.
On Sunday night, Beryl formed a new eye, or centre, something that usually weakens a storm slightly as it grows larger in area. Experts say it’s now back to strengthening.
Jaswinderpal Parmar of Fresno, Calif., who had travelled to Barbados for Saturday’s Twenty20 World Cup cricket final, said he and his family were now stuck there with scores of other fans, their flights cancelled on Sunday.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is projecting 17 to 25 named tropical storms and hurricanes this year, the most it has ever forecasted in its May outlook. CBC meteorologist Jay Scotland has more on the forecast and what it could mean for Atlantic Canada.
He said by phone that it’s the first time he has experienced a hurricane — he and his family have been praying, as well as taking calls from concerned friends and family as far away as India.
“We couldn’t sleep last night,” Parmar, 47, said.
Looking ahead
Even as Beryl bore down on the southeast Caribbean, government officials warned about a cluster of thunderstorms mimicking the hurricane’s path that have a 70 per cent chance of becoming a tropical depression.
“There’s always a concern when you have back-to-back storms,” Lowry said. “If two storms move over the same area or nearby, the first storm weakens the infrastructure, so the secondary system doesn’t need to be as strong to have serious impacts.”
Beryl is the second named storm in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto made landfall in northeast Mexico and killed four people.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the 2024 hurricane season is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
Published at Mon, 01 Jul 2024 10:35:40 +0000
‘There are no kings in America’: Biden slams Supreme Court decision on Trump immunity
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Donald Trump can’t be prosecuted for actions that were within his constitutional powers as president, in a landmark decision that drew intensely critical reaction from President Joe Biden.
The justices, in a 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, threw out a lower court’s decision that had rejected Trump’s claim of immunity from federal criminal charges involving his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Biden. The six conservative justices were in the majority, while its three liberal members dissented.
The decision recognizes for the first time any form of presidential immunity from prosecution.
Trump is the Republican candidate challenging Biden, a Democrat, in the Nov. 5 U.S. election. The Supreme Court’s slow handling of the case and its decision to return key questions about the scope of Trump’s immunity to the trial judge to resolve make it improbable he will be tried before the election on these charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
“We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power requires that a former president have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office,” Roberts wrote.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled Donald Trump can’t be prosecuted for actions within his constitutional powers as president, but can be for private acts. The landmark 6-3 ruling recognizes for the first time any form of presidential immunity from prosecution. Here’s what it means for Trump, the upcoming election and the lower courts that now have to determine how to apply the top court decision to the ex-president’s case.
Immunity for former presidents is “absolute” with respect to their “core constitutional powers,” Roberts wrote, and a former president has “at least a presumptive immunity” for “acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility,” meaning prosecutors face a high legal bar to overcome that presumption.
In remarks at the White House, Biden slammed the ruling, calling it “a dangerous precedent” because the power of the presidency will no longer be constrained by the law.
“This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America … no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” added Biden, speaking hours after one of his campaign officials said the ruling makes it easier for Trump “to pursue a path to dictatorship.”
The ruling could scuttle parts of the special counsel’s case as U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan mulls the breadth of Trump’s immunity.
Analysts discuss what happens now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided anything a president does in an official capacity is immune to prosecution.
In recognizing broad immunity for Trump, Roberts cited the need for a president to “execute the duties of his office fearlessly and fairly” without the threat of prosecution.]
“As for a president’s unofficial acts,” Roberts added, “there is no immunity.”
Trump hailed the ruling in a social media post, writing: “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!”
Donald Trump was quick to celebrate a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing presidential immunity for official acts while in office, a decision his opponents described as ‘unjustifiable’ and ‘dangerous.’
Trump, 78, is the first former U.S. president to be criminally prosecuted and the first ex-president convicted of a crime. Smith’s election subversion charges embody one of the four criminal cases Trump has faced.
The court analyzed four categories of conduct contained in the indictment. They are:
- His discussions with U.S. Justice Department officials following the election.
- His alleged pressure on then vice-president Mike Pence to block congressional certification of Biden’s win.
- His alleged role in assembling fake pro-Trump electors to be used in the certification process.
- His conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
The outcome gave Trump much of what he sought, but stopped short of allowing absolute immunity for all official acts, as his lawyers had advocated. Instead the court specified that actions within the president’s “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” enjoy such a shield, while those taken outside his exclusive powers are only “presumptively immune.”
U.S. President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump squared off in a debate in Atlanta that aired on CNN. Here are some of the major moments — including when Trump took advantage of a verbal fumble from Biden, as well as the current president accusing his predecessor of having ‘the morals of an alley cat’ regarding his ongoing criminal and civil legal issues.
The court found Trump was absolutely immune for conversations with Justice Department officials. Trump is also “presumptively immune” regarding his interactions with Pence, it decided, but returned that and the two other categories to lower courts to determine whether Trump has immunity.
The ruling marked the first time since the nation’s 18th-century founding that the Supreme Court has declared former presidents may be shielded from criminal charges in any instance. The court’s conservative majority includes three justices who were appointed by Trump during his time in office.
The court decided the case on the last day of its term.
Presidents now ‘above the law’: dissenting justice
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, delivered a sharply worded dissent, saying the ruling effectively creates a “law-free zone around the president.”
“When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” Sotomayor wrote.
“In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” Sotomayor added.
Trump’s trial had been scheduled to start on March 4 before the delays over the immunity issue. Now, no trial date is set. Trump made his immunity claim to the trial judge in October, meaning the issue has been litigated for about nine months.
Trump lawyers ask for delay in hush money sentencing
Trump’s lawyers on Monday asked the New York judge who presided over his hush money trial to set aside his conviction and delay his sentencing, scheduled for next week.
The letter to Judge Juan M. Merchan cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling earlier Monday and asked the judge to delay Trump’s sentencing while he weighs the high court’s decision and how it could influence the New York case, according to the letter obtained by The Associated Press.
The lawyers argue that the Supreme Court’s decision confirmed a position the defence raised earlier in the case that prosecutors should have been precluded from introducing some evidence they said constituted official presidential acts, according to the letter.
Published at Mon, 01 Jul 2024 14:48:46 +0000