Searches, sorrow in wake of Ida's destructive, deadly floods

ELIZABETH, N.J. (AP) — Police went door to door in search of more possible victims and drew up lists of the missing as the death toll rose to 49 on Friday in the catastrophic flooding set off across the Northeast by the remnants of Hurricane Ida.

The disaster underscored with heartbreaking clarity how vulnerable the U.S. is to the extreme weather that climate change is bringing. In its wake, officials weighed far-reaching new measures to save lives in future storms.

More than three days after the hurricane blew ashore in Louisiana, Ida’s rainy remains hit the Northeast with stunning fury on Wednesday and Thursday, submerging cars, swamping subway stations and basement apartments and drowning scores of people in five states.

Intense rain overwhelmed urban drainage systems never meant to handle so much water in such a short time — a record 3 inches (7.5 centimeters) in just an hour in New York. Seven rivers in the Northeast reached their highest levels on record, Dartmouth College researcher Evan Dethier said.

On Friday, communities labored to haul away ruined vehicles, pump out homes and highways, clear away muck and other debris and restore mass transit.

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Power to be restored to New Orleans by middle of next week

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Power should be restored to New Orleans by the middle of next week, utility officials said Friday, and sheriff's deputies warned people returning to communities outside the city to come equipped like survivalists because of the lack of basic services in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida.

The storm knocked out electricity to more than 1 million customers in Louisiana, but almost all lights in the city should be back on by Wednesday, according to Entergy, the company that provides power to New Orleans and much of southeast Louisiana in the storm’s path.

The lack of power has made a sultry stretch of summer hard to bear and added to woes in the aftermath of Ida. Louisiana authorities searched Friday for a man who shot another man to death after they both waited in a long line to fill up at a gas station in suburban New Orleans.

The utility issued a statement asking for patience and acknowledging the heat and misery in the storm's wake. More than 25,000 workers from 40 states are trying to fix 14,000 damaged poles, more than 2,200 broken transformers and more than 150 destroyed transmission structures.

“Please know that thousands of employees and contractors are currently in the field working day and night to restore power. We will continue working until every community is restored," said Rod West, a group president for utility operations.

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Biden walks storm-ravaged Louisiana: 'I know you're hurting'

LAPLACE, La. (AP) — Giant trees knocked sideways. Homes boarded up with plywood. Off-kilter street signs.

Less than a week after Hurricane Ida battered the Gulf Coast, President Joe Biden walked the streets of a hardhit Louisiana neighborhood on Friday and told local residents, “I know you're hurting, I know you're hurting.”

Biden pledged robust federal assistance to get people back on their feet and said the government already had distributed $100 million directly to individuals in the state in $500 checks to give them a first slice of critical help. Many people, he said, don't know what help is available because they can't get cellphone service.

Residents welcomed Biden's presence, one of them drawing a sign with his last name and a heart for the dot on the “i.” They laughed and posed for selfies.

More formally, Biden met with state and local officials in LaPlace, a community between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain that suffered major wind and water damage and was left with sheared-off roofs and flooded homes.

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Judge shields Texas clinics from anti-abortion group's suits

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A state judge has shielded, for now, Texas abortion clinics from lawsuits by an anti-abortion group under a new state abortion law in a narrow ruling handed down Friday.

The temporary restraining order Friday by state District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin in response to the Planned Parenthood request does not interfere with the provision. However, it shields clinics from whistleblower lawsuits by the nonprofit group Texas Right to Life, its legislative director and 100 unidentified individuals.

A hearing on a preliminary injunction request was set for Sept. 13.

The law, which took effect Wednesday, allows anyone anywhere to sue anyone connected to an abortion in which cardiac activity was detected in the embryo — as early as six weeks into a pregnancy before most women even realize they are pregnant.

In a petition filed late Thursday, Planned Parenthood said about 85% to 90% of people who obtain abortions in Texas are at least six weeks into pregnancy.

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'Loss of hope': Idaho hospitals crushed by COVID-19 surge

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The intensive care rooms at St. Luke's Boise Medical Center are full, each a blinking jungle of tubes, wires and mechanical breathing machines. The patients nestled inside are a lot alike: All unvaccinated, mostly middle-aged or younger, reliant on life support and locked in a silent struggle against COVID-19.

But watch for a moment, and glimpses of who they were before the coronavirus become clear.

Artfully inked tattoos cover the tanned forearm of a man in his 30s. An expectant mother's slightly swollen belly is briefly revealed as a nurse adjusts her position. The young woman is five months pregnant and hooked to a breathing machine.

Down the hall, another pregnant woman, just 24 and on a ventilator, is lying prone — on top of her developing fetus — to get more air into her ravaged lungs.

Idaho hit a grim COVID-19 trifecta this week, reaching record numbers of emergency room visits, hospitalizations and ICU patients. Medical experts say the deeply conservative state will likely see 30,000 new infections a week by mid-September.

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Booster shots hitch: Some may miss the Sept. 20 start

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's plans to start delivery of booster shots by Sept. 20 for most Americans who received the COVID-19 vaccines are facing new complications that could delay the availability of third doses for those who received the Moderna vaccine, administration officials said Friday.

Biden announced last month that his administration was planning for boosters to be available for all Americans who received the mRNA vaccines in an effort to provide more enduring protection against the coronavirus, pending approvals from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

Those agencies, though, are awaiting critical data before signing off on the third doses, with Moderna's vaccine increasingly seen as unlikely to make the Sept. 20 milestone.

According to one official, Moderna produced inadequate data for the FDA and CDC to recommend the third dose of its vaccine and FDA has requested additional data that is likely to delay those boosters into October. Pfizer, which is further along in the review process, in part because of data collected from the vaccine's use in Israel, is still expected to be approved for a third dose for all by Sept. 20. A key FDA panel is to review Pfizer’s data on boosters on Sept. 17.

Data for boosters on Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine won’t be available for months, since that shot wasn’t approved until February, officials said.

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Efforts grow to stamp out use of parasite drug for COVID-19

WASHINGTON (AP) — Health experts and medical groups are pushing to stamp out the growing use of a decades-old parasite drug to treat COVID-19, warning that it can cause harmful side effects and that there’s little evidence it helps.

With a fourth wave of infections, more Americans are turning to ivermectin, a cheap drug used to kill worms and other parasites in humans and animals.

Federal health officials have seen a surge in prescriptions this summer, accompanied by worrying increases in reported overdoses. The drug was even given to inmates at a jail in northwest Arkansas for COVID-19, despite federal warnings against that use. On Wednesday, podcaster Joe Rogan, who has been dismissive of the COVID-19 vaccine, announced he had tested positive for the virus and was taking the medication.

Ivermectin has been promoted by Republican lawmakers, conservative talk show hosts and some doctors, amplified via social media to millions of Americans who remain resistant to getting vaccinated. It has also been widely used in other countries, including India and Brazil.

This week, the top U.S. professional groups for doctors and pharmacists appealed for an “immediate end” to the drug’s use outside of research.

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Three men guided millions through horror of Sept. 11, 2001

NEW YORK (AP) — “Turn on your television.”

Those words were repeated in millions of homes on Sept. 11, 2001. Friends and relatives took to the telephone: Something awful was happening. You have to see.

Before social media and with online news in its infancy, the story of the day when terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people unfolded primarily on television. Even some people inside New York’s World Trade Center made the phone call. They felt a shudder, could smell smoke. Could someone watch the news and find out what was happening?

Most Americans were guided through the unimaginable by one of three men: Tom Brokaw of NBC News, Peter Jennings of ABC and Dan Rather of CBS.

“They were the closest thing that America had to national leaders on 9/11,” says Garrett Graff, author of “The Only Plane in the Sky,” an oral history of the attack. “They were the moral authority for the country on that first day, fulfilling a very historical role of basically counseling the country through this tragedy at a moment its political leadership was largely silent and largely absent from the conversation.”

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Judge released New Zealand extremist despite concerns

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A court report about a man in New Zealand who was inspired by the Islamic State group warned he had the motivation and means to commit violent acts in the community and posed a high risk.

The report described the man as harboring extreme attitudes, living an isolated lifestyle, and having a sense of entitlement.

However, a judge's job in July was to sentence the man for the relatively minor crimes he had committed at that time, not for potential future crimes. She decided to release him under the supervision of a mosque leader who promised to try and help.

The fears of authorities were borne out Friday when the man walked into an Auckland supermarket, grabbed a knife and stabbed six people, critically injuring three.

Because police continued to have deep concerns about the man, they had been watching him and following him around the clock. They were able to intervene and shoot him dead within 60 seconds of him beginning his attack.

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Osaka tosses racket, loses US Open match to Fernandez, 18

NEW YORK (AP) — Naomi Osaka smacked her racket against Arthur Ashe Stadium’s court. Moments later, she chucked her equipment, sending it bouncing and skidding halfway to the net. Then came a full-on spike near the baseline.

Osaka’s game was off. Her composure was gone. By the end, the crowd was booing her for turning her back to the court and taking too much time between points.

Soon enough, the No. 3-seeded Osaka’s title defense at the U.S. Open was over in the third round with a 5-7, 6-7 (2), 6-4 loss Friday night to Leylah Fernandez, an 18-year-old from Canada who is ranked 73rd and never had been this far in Grand Slam competition.

Still, Fernandez declared afterward: “Right before the match, I knew I was able to win.”

This day had that sort of vibe: Earlier in Ashe, another 18-year-old new to this territory surprisingly eliminated a No. 3 seed when Carlos Alcaraz of Spain edged French Open runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 0-6, 7-6 (5) to become the youngest man into the fourth round at Flushing Meadows since Michael Chang and Pete Sampras in 1989.

News from © The Associated Press, 2021