The Jim Bakker Show

Erdogan urges U.S. to review ‘political’ charges against Turkish ex-minister

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan urged the United States on Friday to review charges against a Turkish former minister for violating U.S.-Iran sanctions, saying Ankara had never agreed to comply with the embargo and the prosecution was politically motivated.

“There are very peculiar smells coming from this issue,” Erdogan said.

Former economy minister Zafer Caglayan and the ex-head of a state-owned Turkish bank were charged with conspiring to violate the sanctions by illegally moving hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on Tehran’s behalf.

The indictment, announced this week, marked the first time an ex-government member with close ties to Erdogan had been charged in an investigation that has strained ties between Washington and Ankara.

“For the moment, it is impossible to evaluate this within legal logic,” Erdogan told reporters at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport. “I see this step against our former economy minister as a step against the Turkish Republic.

“We didn’t decide to impose sanctions on Iran. We have bilateral ties with Iran, sensitive relations,” he said, adding he had told former U.S. President Barack Obama as much, when the sanctions were in force.

“We said to the relevant people, we said we would not take part in sanctions… These steps are purely political.”

Prosecutors in New York said on Wednesday they had charged Caglayan and former Halkbank general manager Suleyman Aslan and two others with “conspiring to use the U.S. financial system to conduct hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions on behalf of the government of Iran and other Iranian entities, which were barred by United States sanctions.”

The charges stem from the case against Reza Zarrab, a wealthy Turkish-Iranian gold trader who was arrested in the United States over sanctions evasion last year. He has pleaded not guilty.

Reuters was not able to reach Caglayan or Aslan for comment.

Relations between Washington and NATO ally Turkey, an important partner in tackling the Syrian conflict, were strained after a failed coup against Erdogan in July last year and the president’s subsequent crackdown on opposition.

“The United States needs to revise this decision (to charge Caglayan),” Erdogan said.

“I hope we’ll get a chance to discuss this issue in the United States. You may be a big nation, but being a just nation is something else. Being a just nation requires the legal system to work fairly.”

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

EU must be part of U.S. Middle East peace push, Ireland says

FILE PHOTO: Ireland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Simon Carbery Coveney attends informal meeting of European Union Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Tallinn, Estonia September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo

By Robin Emmott

TALLINN (Reuters) – Israelis and Palestinians will face more unrest over the next year without a revival of a long-fractured Middle East peace process that the European Union must be part of, Ireland’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Simon Coveney, who met Israeli and Palestinian leaders less than a month after taking up his post in June, is leading the charge to involve the EU in a fresh attempt at peace talks and overcome divisions that have weakened the bloc’s influence.

Speaking to EU foreign ministers at a meeting on Middle East policy in Tallinn on Thursday, Coveney said the bloc had a duty to make its voice heard in any new U.S. initiative as the Palestinians’ biggest aid donor and Israel’s top trade partner.

“My concern is that it will be a much more difficult political challenge in a year’s time or in two years’ time,” Coveney told Reuters.

“If you look at cycles of violence in Gaza, for example, without intervention and new initiatives in my view, we are heading there again,” he said, describing the Israel-Palestinian situation as an “open sore” that could erupt at any time.

Coveney said EU governments had to pull together and keep the focus on a two-state solution.

“Now is the time for the European Union … to become more vocal,” said Coveney, who met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in July.

Coveney has also met Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Middle East envoy, and said it was crucial that the EU sought to influence U.S. plans that are being drawn up by Greenblatt and Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

Coveney said the European Union had a right to be heard because EU governments and the European Commission spend 600 million euros ($724 million) a year on aid to the Palestinians and on projects with Israel.

“We cannot simply wait for the U.S. to take an initiative on their own, we should be supportive of them and helping them to shape it and design it in a way that is likely to have international community support,” he said, although he added he still did not know what the U.S. proposals would look like.

“In the absence of the U.S. being able to bring forward a new initiative, I think the EU will have to do that itself.”

Hurdles for the European Union include its range of positions, ranging from Germany’s strong support for Israel to Sweden’s 2014 decision to officially recognize the state of Palestine, something Ireland considered three years ago.

Coveney said the European Union is also perceived by some in Israel as being too pro-Palestinian, partly because of the EU’s long-held opposition to Israeli settlements.

But Coveney said the European Union could build trust with Israel by deepening ties in trade, science, scholarships for students and to pursue what he called “a positive agenda”.

The EU aims to hold a high-level meeting with Israel to broaden trade and other economic links later this year, although a date is still pending. It would be the first such meeting since 2012.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Alison Williams)

U.S. appeals court rejects Trump’s bid to bar most refugees

FILE PHOTO - An Iceland Air flight crew arrives on the day that U.S. President Donald Trump's limited travel ban, approved by the U.S. Supreme Court, goes into effect, at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Mica Rosenberg and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s effort to temporarily bar most refugees from entering the country, ruling that those who have relationships with a resettlement agency should be exempt from an executive order banning refugees.

A three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel also ruled that grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins of legal U.S. residents should be exempted from President Donald Trump’s order, which banned travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.

The ruling is the latest legal blow to the President’s sweeping executive order barring travelers from Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days, which the Republican president said was necessary for national security.

The Justices said that the government did not persuasively explain why the travel ban should be enforced against close relatives of people from the six countries or refugees with guarantees from resettlement agencies. The 3-0 ruling takes effect in five days.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that Trump’s ban could be implemented on a limited basis, but should not be applied to people with “bona fide” relationships to people or entities in the United States.

The government took a narrow view of that interpretation, which the state of Hawaii challenged in court. A lower court judge sided with Hawaii, and the 9th Circuit judges upheld that view.

“It is hard to see how a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, sibling-in-law, or cousin can be considered to have no bona fide relationship with their relative in the United States,” the court said.

The court also rejected the administration’s argument that the written assurances provided by resettlement agencies obligating them to provide services for specific refugees is not a bona fide relationship.

The agencies’ advance preparation and expenditure of resources for each refugee “supports the district court’s determination that a bona fide relationship with the refugee exists,” the decision said.

Trump’s first version of the executive order, signed in January, sparked protests and chaos at airports around the country and the world before it was blocked by courts. The administration replaced that version of the ban with a new order in March in response to the legal challenges.

A Department of Justice spokeswoman said: “The Supreme Court has stepped in to correct these lower courts before, and we will now return to the Supreme Court to vindicate the Executive Branch’s duty to protect the Nation.”

Hawaii’s Attorney General Douglas Chin said the ruling “keeps families together. It gives vetted refugees a second chance. The Trump administration keeps taking actions with no legal basis. We will keep fighting back.”

Refugee organizations cheered Thursday’s decision, saying it will give relief to people fleeing violence who were caught in limbo after the ban.

The broader question of whether the revised travel ban discriminates against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution will be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court in October.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley in Washington; editing by Sue Horton and Grant McCool)

U.S. to send 3,500 additional troops to Afghanistan

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Marines walk inside their base after they are back from training with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers in Helmand province, Afghanistan July 6, 2017. REUTERS/ Omar Sobhani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will send about 3,500 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, a figure broadly in line with expectations as the United States boosts support for the Afghan military.

The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, comes as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General Joseph Dunford hold closed door briefings with members of Congress about President Donald Trump’s regional strategy.

The Pentagon said it would not comment on additional troop numbers until Mattis makes an announcement.

If confirmed, it would bring the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 14,500.

After a months-long review of his Afghanistan policy, Trump committed the United States last week to an open-ended conflict in the country and promised a stepped-up campaign against Taliban insurgents.

Last week Mattis said he had signed orders to send additional troops to Afghanistan but did not specify the size of the force, saying he first needed to brief Congress.

U.S. officials have for months told Reuters that Trump had given Mattis the authority to send about 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

The U.S. presence in Afghanistan peaked at more than 100,000 troops in 2011, when Washington was under domestic political pressure to draw down the costly operation.

Some U.S. officials have told Reuters they questioned the benefit of sending more troops to Afghanistan because any politically palatable number would not be enough to turn the tide, much less create stability and security.

To date, more than 2,300 Americans have been killed and over 17,000 wounded in Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Bill Trott)

Hurricane Harvey boosts U.S. jobless claims to more than two-year high

FILE PHOTO: Leaflets lie on a table at a booth at a military veterans' job fair in Carson, California October 3, 2014. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits jumped to its highest level in more than two years last week amid a surge in applications in hurricane-ravaged Texas, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a firming jobs market.

The surge in claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday offered an early glimpse of Hurricane Harvey’s impact on the economy. The storm, which unleashed unprecedented flooding in Houston, disrupted oil, natural gas and petrochemical production and forced a temporary closure of refineries.

Economists say Harvey could put a dent in third-quarter gross domestic product, but expect lost output to be recouped in the October-December period.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits surged 62,000 to a seasonally adjusted 298,000 for the week ended Sept. 2, the highest level since April 2015, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The weekly increase was the largest since November 2012. A Labor Department official said last week’s data had been impacted by Hurricane Harvey.

Unadjusted claims for Texas surged 51,637 last week as some people found themselves temporarily unemployed. That accounted for 95.6 percent of the increase in unadjusted claims last week. Claims for Louisiana were also affected by Harvey, though they only increased 258.

In addition, claims for five states and a territory were estimated last week because of the Labor Day holiday on Monday.

JOBS MARKET STILL FIRMING

Economists had forecast claims rising to 241,000 in the latest week. The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, increased by 13,500 to 250,250 last week suggesting the labor market continued to strength.

If, however, the flood disruptions in Texas persist, that could hurt job growth in September. The government reported last week that the economy created 156,000 jobs in August, with the private services sector hiring the smallest number of workers in five months.

Economists largely dismissed the slowdown in job growth, blaming it on a seasonal quirk. Over the past several years, the initial August job count has tended to exhibit a weak bias, with revisions subsequently showing strength.

The dollar was trading lower against a basket of currencies. Prices for U.S. Treasuries rose.

In a second report on Thursday, the Labor Department said worker productivity increased at a 1.5 percent annualized rate in the second quarter, instead of the 0.9 percent pace it reported last month. That followed a 0.1 percent rate of increase in the first quarter.

The government last week revised up second-quarter gross domestic product growth to a 3.0 percent rate from a 2.6 percent pace. Despite the upward revision to productivity, the trend remains weak, suggesting it would be difficult to achieve robust economic growth.

President Donald Trump has vowed to boost annual growth to 3 percent through tax cuts, infrastructure spending and regulatory rollbacks. Compared to the second quarter of 2016, productivity increased at a 1.3 percent rate, instead of the previously reported 1.2 percent pace. That was the strongest performance in two years.

With productivity rising, unit labor costs, the price of labor per single unit of output, increased at only a 0.2 percent pace in the second quarter. Unit labor costs were previously reported to have risen at a 0.6 percent pace. They surged at a 4.8 percent rate in the January-March period.

Compared to the second quarter of 2016, unit labor costs fell at a 0.2 percent rate as previously reported.

Hours worked rose at a rate of 2.5 percent in the April-June period as previously reported. That was the quickest pace since the fourth quarter of 2015, and followed a 1.6 percent rate of increase in the first quarter.

As a result, output per worker surged at a 4.0 percent rate, the fastest since the third quarter of 2014, after rising at a1.8 percent pace at the start of the year.

Output was previously reported to have increased at a 3.4 percent pace in the second quarter.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

States file lawsuit challenging Trump decision on Dreamers

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announces the filing of a multistate lawsuit to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients at a news conference at John Jay College in New York City, U.S., September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Joe Penney

By Mica Rosenberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Fifteen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Wednesday challenging President Donald Trump’s decision to end protections and benefits for young people who were brought into the United States illegally as children.

The multistate lawsuit filed by a group of Democratic attorneys general on Wednesday to protect beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program argues their state economies will be hurt if residents lose their status.

The lawsuit seeks to block Trump’s decision and maintain DACA.

The lawsuit claims Trump’s decision was “motivated, at least in part, by a discriminatory motive” against Mexicans, who are the largest beneficiary of the program. It points to his statements from the 2016 presidential campaign.

The attorneys general also argue the government has not guaranteed DACA recipients that their application information will not be used “for purposes of immigration enforcement, including identifying, apprehending, detaining, or deporting non-citizens.”

New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman took the lead filing the case in the Eastern District of New York. He said that 42,000 New Yorkers participate in DACA, and the end of the program will be “devastating” for them and would cause “huge economic harm” to the state.

In commenting on the suit, the U.S. Department of Justice noted that DACA was implemented under an executive order by former President Barack Obama, not through congressional action.

“While the plaintiffs in today’s lawsuits may believe that an arbitrary circumvention of Congress is lawful, the Department of Justice looks forward to defending this Administration’s position,” spokesman Devin M. O’Malley said.

Trump’s decision on Tuesday to end the five-year-old program instituted by former President Barack Obama plunged almost 800,000 young people, known as “Dreamers,” into uncertainty. The move drew criticism from business and religious leaders, mayors, governors, Democratic lawmakers, unions and civil liberties advocates.

Trump, who delayed the end of the program until March 5, shifted responsibility to a Congress controlled by his fellow Republicans, saying it was now up to lawmakers to pass immigration legislation that could address the fate of those protected by DACA.

But the governor of Washington, whose state joined the lawsuit, criticized Trump for distancing himself from a final decision on the program.

Trump said Tuesday he still has “great heart” for the dreamers.

“The president has tried to shirk responsibility for this, but let’s be clear, it is his hand on the knife in these people’s backs,” said Washington Governor Jay Inslee at a press conference announcing the suit. “He can’t just put it on Congress. It is his responsibility to fix this.”

Other claims in the lawsuit are based on the Administrative Procedure Act, arguing the White House did not follow the correct process in changing the policy.

Legal experts have said that court challenges to Trump’s actions could face an uphill battle, since the president typically has wide authority when it comes to implementing immigration policy.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Doina Chiacu in Washington and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Meth, coke and oil: A drug boom in the Texas shale patch

FILE PHOTO: Aerial view of oil wells near Midland, Texas, U.S. on May 2, 2017. REUTERS/Ernest Scheyder/File Photo

By Liz Hampton

MIDLAND, Texas (Reuters) – When Joe Forsythe returned to the West Texas oilfields last year after a stint in a drug rehab facility, he figured he had beaten his addiction to methamphetamine.

The 32-year-old rig worker and equipment handler lasted about a year before relapsing.

“It’s easy to get back into that mentality,” said Forsythe, of Midland, Texas, who said he no longer uses drugs after several stints in rehab since 2015. “I’d work 24 hours … I was just plagued with fatigue and needed something to improve my work ethic.”

Forsythe’s experience and others like it reflect a painful flipside of the nation’s shale oil boom – a parallel increase in substance abuse, drug crime and related social ills.

While drug use is a problem among industrial workers nationwide, it raises particular concern in the oil patch as U.S. production surges to record levels in what is already one of the nation’s most dangerous sectors – with a fatality rate about three times the average for other industries, according to 2015 federal statistics.

Drug use is a significant factor in workplace injuries and crimes involving oilfield workers, according to drug counselors, hospital and police officials and court records in West Texas, the epicenter of the U.S. shale sector.

As the shale revolution has spawned waves of hiring here since 2010, law enforcement authorities have tracked a boom in drug trafficking and related crime. In Midland and Ector counties, home to many Permian Basin oil workers, state and local police in 2016 seized more than 95 pounds of methamphetamine – up from less than four pounds in 2010.

Meth and cocaine are stimulants of choice in the oil patch to get though long oilfield shifts, but alcohol and pain killers such as opioids are also widely abused – often to soften the crash after taking stimulants, drug addicts and counselors said.

Drug charges in the industry town of Midland more than doubled between 2012 and 2016, to 942 from 491, according to police data. In neighboring Odessa, total drug arrests doubled between 2010 and 2016, to 1291 from 756, according to Odessa Police Department data.

The increase in drug crime stretched through two boom periods in the West Texas oil patch, before and after a crude price crash that hit in 2014.

Oil companies typically drug test job applicants and often conduct additional random tests on employees. For truck drivers and those involved with hazardous materials, tests are also conducted under federal programs run by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Several oil firms with major operations in the Permian Basin declined to discuss how they handle drugs in the oil patch or did not respond to inquiries.

Schlumberger NV <SLB.N>, Halliburton Co <HAL.N> and Exxon Mobil Corp <XOM.N> declined to comment. Exxon referred Reuters to its alcohol and drug policy.

Pioneer Natural Resources Co. <PXD.N> and ConocoPhillips <COP.N> did not respond to requests for comment.

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group, declined to comment.

LONG HOURS – ON METH

Despite corporate and regulatory efforts to curb drug abuse, many oilfield workers regularly use stimulants on long shifts of grueling work for relatively high pay, said drug counselors, local law enforcement officials and oil field workers recovering from addictions.

More than a third of clients at Midland’s Springboard drug rehabilitation center are currently involved in the oil and gas industry, said Executive Director Steve Thomason.

Rising oil prices have brought more admissions for methamphetamine abuse, Thomason said.

“People say they can work on it for 24 hours straight,” he said.

Long shifts are common in the oil industry because expensive drilling equipment, often leased at high daily rates, runs through the night, and workers often have to commute to wells in remote locations. Most oil producers subcontract oilfield services to smaller companies that are not unionized.

Springboard’s admissions of methamphetamine users went up 20 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the last half of 2016, he said. The number of rigs operating in the Permian Basin increased more than 38 percent during the same period, according to data from energy services firm Baker Hughes <BHGE.N>.

Corporal Steve LeSueur, a spokesman for the Odessa police, said the influx of drugs in the oil patch is stretching police resources.

“The jail has been full,” he said. “A lot of crimes that are committed are drug-related – simple property crimes, forgeries to feed their drug habits.”

METH AND MURDER

Some offenses are more severe.

In 2016, Shawn Pinson, an employee of a well construction company, was convicted of murdering an acquaintance following a drug-related dispute.

The murder occurred around the same time he was arrested for possession of methamphetamine, police records show. The victim tested positive for meth at the time of the murder, according to an autopsy.

At his trial, witnesses close to Pinson testified he had become addicted to methamphetamine while working in the oilfield, according to a prosecutor and a defense attorney involved in the case.

Pinson did not respond to a letter seeking comment and his current attorney, Michele Greene, did not respond to a request for comment.

When oil jobs are plentiful, companies desperate for labor sometimes will disregard signs of substance abuse, said three recovering drug addicts who worked in the oilfield.

“These oilfield bosses – they party, too,” Forsythe said. “As long as you’re getting the job done and not making a scene, they won’t drug test you.”

One recovering addict, who declined to use his name because he still works in the industry, said he was often high during long-haul trips driving trucks transporting oil.

“I could do a little coke and speed and it would give me the extra stretch,” he said. “It ended up running me to the ground.”

For a graphic on illegal drugs shadow oil boom, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-OIL-DRUGS/0100507G0H5/index.html

(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Midland, Texas; Editing by Gary McWilliams and Brian Thevenot)

Hurricane Irma kills eight on Caribbean island of Saint Martin

By Scott Malone

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma killed eight people on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin and left Barbuda devastated on Thursday as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century took aim at Florida.

Television footage of the Franco-Dutch island of Saint Martin showed a damaged marina with boats tossed into piles, submerged streets and flooded homes. Power was knocked out on Saint Martin, Saint Barthelemy and in parts of the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

“It is an enormous disaster, 95 percent of the island is destroyed. I am in shock,” Daniel Gibbs, chairman of a local council on Saint Martin, told Radio Caribbean International.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said eight people were killed and the toll was likely to rise.

“We did not have the time yet to explore all the shores,” Collomb told Franceinfo radio, adding that 23 people were also injured. In all, at least 10 people were reported killed by Irma on four islands.

Irma caused “enormous damage” to the Dutch side of Saint Martin, called Sint Maarten, the Dutch Royal Navy said. The navy tweeted images gathered by helicopter of damaged houses, hotels and boats. The airport was unreachable, it said.

The hurricane was on track to reach Florida on Saturday or Sunday, becoming the second major hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland in as many weeks after Hurricane Harvey.

The eye of Irma was moving west-northwest off the northern coast of the Dominican Republic on Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

The island of Barbuda is a scene of “total carnage” and the tiny two-island nation will seek international assistance, said Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda.

Browne told the BBC about half of Barbuda’s population of some 1,800 were homeless while nine out of 10 buildings had suffered some damage and many were destroyed.

RAIN AND WIND

“We flew into Barbuda only to see total carnage. It was easily one of the most emotionally painful experiences that I have had,” Browne said in an interview on BBC Radio Four.

“Approximately 50 percent of them (residents of Barbuda) are literally homeless at this time. They are bunking together, we are trying to get … relief supplies to them first thing tomorrow morning,” he said, adding that it would take months or years to restore some level of normalcy to the island.

Browne said one person was killed on Barbuda. A surfer was also reported killed on Barbados.

Irma hit Puerto Rico early on Thursday, buffeting its capital San Juan with rain and wind that scattered tree limbs across roadways. At least half of Puerto Rico’s homes and businesses were without power, according to Twitter posts and a message posted by an island utility executive.

The NHC said it was the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean and one of the five most forceful storms to hit the Atlantic basin in 82 years.

Irma’s precise course remained uncertain but it was likely to be downgraded to a Category 4 storm by the time it makes landfall in Florida, the NHC said.

It has become a little less organized over the past few hours but the threat of direct hurricane impacts in Florida over the weekend and early next week were increasing, it said.

Hurricane watches were in effect for the northwestern Bahamas and much of Cuba.

Waves battle a stranded ship as Hurricane Irma slammed across islands in the northern Caribbean on Wednesday, in Fajardo, Puerto Rico September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin Baez

STORM PREPARATIONS

Two other hurricanes formed on Wednesday.

Katia in the Gulf of Mexico posed no threat to the United States, according to U.S. forecasters. Hurricane Jose was about 815 miles (1,310 km) east of the Caribbean’s Lesser Antilles islands, could eventually threaten the U.S. mainland.

The storm activity comes after Harvey claimed about 60 lives and caused property damage estimated as high as $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana.

Florida emergency management officials began evacuations in advance of Irma’s arrival, ordering tourists to leave the Florida Keys. Evacuation of residents from the Keys began Wednesday evening.

Ed Rappaport, the Miami-based NHC’s acting director, told WFOR-TV that Irma was a “once-in-a-generation storm.”

In Cuba, 90 miles (145 km) south of the Keys, authorities posted a hurricane alert for the island’s central and eastern regions, as residents in Havana, the capital, waited in lines to stock up on food, water and gasoline.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he and aides were monitoring Irma’s progress. The president owns the waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump approved emergency declarations from that state, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, mobilizing federal disaster relief efforts.

Florida Governor Rick Scott said Irma could be more devastating than Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm that struck the state in 1992 and still ranks as one of the costliest ever in the United States.

Residents in most coastal communities of densely populated Miami-Dade County were ordered to move to higher ground beginning at 9 a.m. ET (1300 GMT) on Thursday, Mayor Carlos Gimenez said.

(For a graphic on storms in the North Atlantic click http://tmsnrt.rs/2gcckz5)

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien, Estelle Shirbon in London and Matthias Blamont and Jean-Baptiste Vey in Paris, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

In Harvey’s aftermath, a flood of emotions as rebuilding begins

By Bryan Sims

HOUSTON (Reuters) – For Texas residents affected by Hurricane Harvey, life in the storm’s aftermath involves juggling insurance claims, home repairs and work. But coping with loss is stirring very different feelings.

Staff at the Sugar Land campus of the University of Houston began their first day at work on Tuesday sharing storm experiences and consoling those whose homes were damaged.

“It’s very healing for people,” Kathryn Tart, dean of the university’s College of Nursing, said. “It helps us move on to the really difficult next stage – rebuilding.”

In an area of West Houston where some 3,000 homes suffered severe flooding and where water releases from two reservoirs continue to swamp neighborhoods, anger surfaced.

“I look out my kitchen window and there is a river that will always be there,” said Bryant Banes, who is a lawyer. He filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government in federal court claiming damages to his and neighbors’ homes and businesses from the reservoir releases.

The decision to release waters to relieve pressure on the reservoirs amounted to an improper taking of property, the lawsuit claims. “People have lost their homes and it is their responsibility to compensate residents,” Banes said.

Flood-damaged contents from people’s homes line the street following the aftermath of tropical storm Harvey in Wharton, Texas, U.S., September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Harvey hit Corpus Christi in southern Texas on Aug. 25 but took the greatest toll on Houston and areas east of the city. The storm killed as many as 60 people, dumped more than 50 inches (127 cm) of rain and caused damages estimated as high as $180 billion, including to 312,000 homes along the coast.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday approved roughly $8 billion in initial emergency aid for Harvey relief and rebuilding. A Senate vote is expected later this week.

In Houston’s theater district, which sits along a drainage bayou, performances have been canceled indefinitely as assessments of repairs continue. Houston Grand Opera, Hobby Center for the Performing Arts and Alley Theatre reported flooding to some buildings and parking areas.

In east Texas, Hardin County residents were only able to return to homes on Tuesday. “Water is just now receding,” said Theresa Wigley, the county’s emergency management coordinator. “Recovery is going to be slow.”

The number of people reported missing in Houston, which climbed as high as 137 last week, was down to 18 on Wednesday as families reunited, said Beth Alberts, head of the Texas Center for the Missing.

“It is tragic and wonderful when we can match up people,” she said.

At the same time, more of the region’s energy industry was coming back online. Refiner Phillips 66 <PSX.N> said on Wednesday its Sweeny, Texas, refinery would return to full production by mid-month. Gasoline futures <RBC1>, which spiked last week, were off 2 percent on Wednesday.

Two other storms are threatening energy infrastructure in the Caribbean and Mexico. Hurricane Irma is taking aim at Puerto Rico and Florida, and Tropical Storm Katia is off the Mexican state of Veracruz and forecast to become a hurricane in a couple of days, the National Weather Service said on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Bryan Sims; Writing by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Leslie Adler)

U.S. appeals court says Texas can implement voter ID law

FILE PHOTO: A voter enters a polling station to cast his vote in the Texas Primary in Seguin, Texas, U.S. on March 4, 2008. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi/File Photo

By Dan Whitcomb

(Reuters) – The state of Texas won at least a temporary victory on Tuesday in its bid to implement a controversial voter identification law when a federal appeals court stayed a ruling by a U.S. district court judge that barred its enforcement.

A three-member panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans voted 2-1 to put the lower court judge’s ruling on hold while it considers the constitutionality of the law, which was passed this year by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature.

That bill was meant to fix elements of a 2011 voter ID measure that was considered one of the strictest in the United States and subject to years of court challenges during the Obama administration.

President Donald Trump, who campaigned on cutting voter fraud, has supported Texas’ bid to require that voters show a form of identification.

“The state has made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits (of the case)” Judges Jennifer Elrod and Jerry Smith wrote in a six-page ruling.

In a four-page dissenting opinion, Judge James Graves wrote that if the 5th Circuit was going to take up the case, it should have stayed the entire law from taking effect until a final ruling was issued.

Lauren Ehrsam, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a written statement “We are pleased that the Fifth Circuit has stayed the injunction and allowed Texas to proceed with its duly enacted voter identification laws.”

“Preserving the integrity of the ballot is vital to our democracy, and the Fifth Circuit’s order allows Texas to continue to fulfill that duty as this case moves forward,” Ehrsam said.

Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa could not be reached for comment on the ruling on Tuesday evening.

Hiojosa has previously likened the voter ID requirements to “Jim Crow-era tactics” designed to keep Republican lawmakers in power.Critics say the Texas law and similar statutes enacted in other states were tailored to make it harder for minorities and immigrants, including black and Hispanic voters who are less likely to have the authorized IDs and tend to favor Democrats, to cast ballots.

Backers say the laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud and are no more onerous than the requirements imposed by states for driving a motor vehicle.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

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