AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

Laura moves toward landfall in southwestern Louisiana

DELCAMBRE, La. (AP) — Laura roared toward landfall in southwestern Louisiana near the Texas border as a menacing Category 4 hurricane late Wednesday, raising fears of a 20-foot storm surge that forecasters said would be “unsurvivable” and capable of engulfing entire communities. Ocean water topped by white-capped waves rose ominously as the monster neared.

Authorities implored coastal residents of Texas and Louisiana to evacuate, but not everyone did before winds began buffeting trees back and forth in an area that was devastated by Rita in 2005.

The storm grew nearly 87% in power in just 24 hours to a size the National Hurricane Center called “extremely dangerous.” Drawing energy from the warm Gulf of Mexico, the system was on track to arrive early Thursday during high tide as the most powerful hurricane to strike the U.S. so far this year.

“It looks like it’s in full beast mode, which is not what you want to see if you’re in its way,” University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said.

Hurricane-force winds extending 60 miles (95 kilometres) from the storm’s centre neared the coast, forecasters said, and bands of heavy rain fell 30 miles (48 kilometres) from the beach in Lake Charles.

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The Latest: Louisiana governor closes part of Interstate 10

The Latest on Hurricane Laura (all times local):

BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said the state is closing Interstate 10 from around the Atchafalaya Bridge outside of Lafayette all the way into part of Texas, because several stretches within that area are expected to flood.

In a radio interview Wednesday night, Edwards talked of the “apocalyptic” language that meteorologists have used for the storm. “The language I’ve heard from the National Weather Service I’ve never heard before … They’re sending the strongest possible message about how serious this storm is,” he said.

He talked specifically about concerns in Cameron Parish, which could receive wind gusts up to 180 mph (290 kph) and storm surge up to 20 feet (6 metres.)

“When people built back after Rita, they routinely built back to 15 feet,” Edwards said. He noted those structures would be overwhelmed.

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GOP convention defends police as racial tension rises anew

BALTIMORE (AP) — Republicans aggressively defended law enforcement on the third night of their convention, as the nation faced renewed tensions following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man in Wisconsin, that sparked protests in a state that could decide the fall election.

Vice-President Mike Pence, the evening’s featured speaker, seized on the national reckoning over racial injustice to argue that Democratic leaders are allowing lawlessness to prevail in cities from coast to coast. He and others described cities wracked by violence, though protests in most locations have been largely peaceful.

“The American people know we don’t have to choose between supporting law enforcement and standing with African American neighbours to improve the quality of life in our cities and towns,” he said. He also assailed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for saying there is an “implicit bias” against minorities and “systemic racism” in the U.S.

“The hard truth is … you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” Pence said. “Let me be clear: The violence must stop – whether in Minneapolis, Portland, or Kenosha,” he added. “Too many heroes have died defending our freedom to see Americans strike each other down.”

“The American people know we don’t have to choose between supporting law enforcement and standing with our African American neighbours to improve the quality of their lives, education, jobs and safety.”

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GOP Convention takeaways: Pence pounces while crises swirl

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans proceeded with the third night of their national convention, but many Americans — particularly those in the path of Hurricane Laura — were focused on more immediate concerns.

Here are some key takeaways:

PENCE TAKES ON ATTACK ROLE

The attack role often assigned to vice-presidential candidates is an ill-fitting suit for the typically genial Vice-President Mike Pence, but on Wednesday he took it on, with relish.

He also laid bare the case that he and President Donald Trump will press in the fall campaign, with an emphasis on backing law enforcement, while saying little about Black Americans killed or maimed by police shootings. “We’re not going to defund the police,” Pence said.

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AP FACT CHECK: Pence presses a distorted case on economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice-President Mike Pence and fellow Republicans pressed a distorted case Wednesday that President Donald Trump took over a moribund economy from Barack Obama and supercharged it. That’s not what happened.

Speakers at the Republican National Convention also hailed Trump for protecting the health insurance of people with preexisting illness, flipping reality on its head as his administration tries to overturn the law that guarantees those protections.

A look at how some of the the rhetoric from the convention’s first night compares with the facts:

ECONOMY

PENCE: “Four years ago we inherited … an economy struggling to break out of the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. … In our first three years we built the greatest economy in the world.”

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17-year-old arrested after 2 killed during unrest in Kenosha

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A white, 17-year-old police admirer was arrested Wednesday after two people were shot to death during a third straight night of protests in Kenosha over the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake.

Kyle Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, about 15 miles (24.14 kilometres) from Kenosha, was taken into custody in Illinois on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide in the attack Tuesday that was largely captured on cellphone video. The shooting left a third person wounded.

“I just killed somebody,” the gunman, carrying a semi-automatic rifle, could be heard saying at one point during the rampage that erupted just before midnight in the city of 100,000 people midway between Milwaukee and Chicago.

In the wake of the killings, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers authorized the deployment of 500 members of the National Guard to Kenosha, doubling the number of troops. The governor’s office said he is working with other states to bring in additional National Guard members and law officers. Authorities also announced a 7 p.m. curfew, an hour earlier than the night before. Even so, protesters were out Wednesday night after the curfew.

“A senseless tragedy like this cannot happen again,” the governor, a Democrat, said in a statement. “I again ask those who choose to exercise their First Amendment rights please do so peacefully and safely, as so many did last night. I also ask the individuals who are not there to exercise those rights to please stay home and let local first responders, law enforcement and members of the Wisconsin National Guard do their jobs.”

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Defence official: Arson suspected as cause of Navy ship fire

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Arson is suspected as the cause of a July 12 fire that left extensive damage to the USS Bonhomme Richard docked off San Diego, and a U.S. Navy sailor was being questioned as a potential suspect, a senior defence official said Wednesday.

The sailor was being questioned as part of the investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the official said, adding that defence department leaders were notified of the development. The official, with knowledge of the investigation, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public. The sailor was not detained.

The amphibious assault ship burned for more than four days and was the Navy’s worst U.S. warship fire outside of combat in recent memory.

The ship was left with extensive structural, electrical and mechanical damage and its future remains uncertain.

The development in the investigation was first reported by KGTV, the ABC affiliate in San Diego. The Navy declined to answer questions.

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New Zealand mosque shooter sentenced to life without parole

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) — The white supremacist who slaughtered 51 worshippers at two New Zealand mosques was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The judge imposed the maximum available sentence on 29-year-old Australian gunman Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the first time the sentence has been imposed in New Zealand.

Judge Cameron Mander said Tarrant’s crimes were so wicked that a life time in jail could not begin to atone for them. He said they had caused enormous loss and hurt and stemmed from a warped and malignant ideology.

“Your actions were inhuman,” Mander said. “You deliberately killed a 3-year-old infant as he clung to the leg of his father.”

The March 2019 attacks targeting people praying at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques shocked New Zealand and prompted new laws banning the deadliest types of semi-automatic weapons. They also prompted global changes to social media protocols after the gunman livestreamed his attack on Facebook.

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Boycott: NBA playoff games called off amid player protest

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Making their strongest statement yet in the fight against racial injustice, players from six NBA teams decided not to play post-season games on Wednesday in a boycott that quickly reverberated across other professional leagues.

Also called off: Some games in Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and the three WNBA contests, as players across four leagues decided the best way to use their platform and demand change was to literally step off the playing surface.

Players made the extraordinary decisions to protest the shooting by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sunday of Jacob Blake, a Black man, apparently in the back while three of his children looked on.

Kenosha is about 40 miles south of Milwaukee. That city’s NBA team, the Bucks, started the boycotts Wednesday by refusing to emerge from their locker room to play a playoff game against the Orlando Magic.

“There has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball,” said Bucks guard Sterling Brown, who joined teammate George Hill in reading a statement on the team’s behalf. Brown has a federal lawsuit pending against the city of Milwaukee alleging he was targeted because he was Black and that his civil rights were violated in January 2018 when officers used a stun gun on him after a parking violation.

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Computer pioneer Arnold Spielberg, Steven’s dad, dies at 103

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Arnold Spielberg, father of filmmaker Steven Spielberg and an innovating engineer whose work helped make the personal computer possible, has died at 103.

Spielberg died of natural causes while surrounded by his family in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to a statement from his four children.

Spielberg and Charles Propster designed the GE-225 mainframe computer in the late 1950s while working for General Electric. The machine allowed computer scientists at Dartmouth College to develop the programming language BASIC, which would be essential to the rise of personal computers in the 1970s and ‘80s.

“Dad explained how his computer was expected to perform, but the language of computer science in those days was like Greek to me,” Steven Spielberg told the General Electric publication GE Reports. “It all seemed very exciting, but it was very much out of my reach.”

Later on he understood.

The Associated Press

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