Meteorologists are outraged after NOAA backed Trump’s false hurricane forecast
I can’t believe this is a one-day story, let alone a five-day story. Last week, President Donald Trump tweeted days-old information that Hurricane Dorian was going to smash into Alabama, contradicting forecasts from meteorologists.
The president even presented a map of Dorian’s path that appeared to be altered with a Sharpie to show Dorian might graze Alabama. (It did not).
After an Alabama weather office of the National Weather Service (NWS) tried to reassure residents that there would be “no impact” from Dorian, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency overseeing the NWS, issued a statement backing up the president's claim.
For many meteorologists, the NOAA statement was a clear political move designed to appease the president's false claim, and threw the local weather service office under a bus.
One expert told us, “You don't want a hurricane to become a Democrat or Republican object.”
BACK TO REALITY: Where Dorian did touch down — it made landfall as a Category 1 storm in North Carolina — it left a great deal of damage. Here are some photos of Dorian’s destruction.
Three stories about the Democratic candidate race that you should read
First: Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign suddenly has a purpose. After months without a clear narrative, O’Rourke has broken through the Democratic primary’s crowded field with raw expressions of anger. He has a message: What’s happening now in America is fucked up, and he has seen up close how much that hurts, and how to fix it.
Second: Kamala Harris’s new plan to end mass incarceration leans on her past as a prosecutor. Like Harris herself, the newly-released plan tugs between embracing her prosecutorial past as an asset and cutting against some of the tough-on-crime policies that defined her career.
Third: Pete Buttigieg wants to make solving the climate problem a national project. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is pitching himself as someone who can bring all Americans together to fight the crisis with ideas that, while not as far-reaching as some other candidates’, could be more feasible.
SNAPSHOTS
ICE agents shot an immigrant trying to flee — and now the FBI is investigating. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot an undocumented immigrant as he was trying to flee during a traffic stop in Tennessee. The man has not been charged with a crime despite an agent claiming he was assaulted, calling into question the events that prompted the shooting. The FBI was asked to investigate whether the unidentified man assaulted the ICE agent.
The mess of Brexit, explained for non-British people. Catch up on the Brexit mess from last week before the Brexit mess of this week starts. We put together a very simple explainer for what exactly happened last week. Hint: it wasn’t good for shiny new prime minister Boris Johnson.
Gillian Anderson will play Margaret Thatcher in The Crown. Netflix announced that Anderson will play Britain’s first female prime minister in the fourth season of its hit series about Queen Elizabeth II. This seems to have gone over well with fans of the royal drama.
James Charles has accused Wet n Wild of ripping off his eyeshadow palette. The beauty YouTuber accused the makeup company of making an eyeshadow palette that appears to be very similar to the one he made with Morphe. He added that while he doesn't claim to “own” colors, “when you copy the exact shades & layout from my palette without even trying to hide it...? 🤡🤡”
Corned Beef and handbags: How US consumers are unwittingly contributing to deforestation in the Amazon
You might think you’re a distant observer of the fires burning in the Amazon rainforest. But that might not necessarily be true.
American consumers, often unwittingly, are contributing to alarming deforestation in the world’s largest tropical forest.
How does this happen? One obvious way: you might find the words “made in Brazil” on cans of corned beef in your grocery store. But less obvious: A handbag on sale may have been made in Italy, but with the hide of a cow that grazed on land in the Amazon.
Cattle ranching is the leading driver of deforestation in Brazil, and accounts for 80% of the Amazon destruction. Ranchers have expanded their operations, clear-cutting and burning more of the forest to make room for pasture.
Scientists believe many of the blazes have been set by farmers and ranchers trying to clear land, while Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro made unsubstantiated claims about the cause of the fires.
A fourth grader was bullied for his DIY college shirt, then the university made his logo official school gear
I promise this story has a happy ending. After students at a Florida elementary school were invited to dress to represent their favorite university or college, one student showed up with a homemade University of Tennessee (UT) shirt — an orange shirt with a hand-drawn logo on a piece of paper.
Laura Snyder, a fourth-grade teacher, shared on Facebook that the student came in crying after being bullied over the DIY shirt. Snyder said she was going to buy her student an official UT shirt.
After Snyder’s post went viral, several UT departments donated shirts and products, making the bullied student so happy, which is wildly lovely — but it gets better.
The university turned the student's hand-drawn design into an official T-shirt, and plans to donate a portion of the proceeds to an anti-bullying foundation — and the campus store said that the overwhelming demand for the shirts caused their servers to temporarily crash.